ABSTRACT

The Vichy government of wartime France was a regime of contradictions. Early studies of wartime France were reluctant to challenge the assumption that foreign policy was a result of an implicit understanding between head of state Marshal Philippe Petain in France and Free French leader Charles de Gaulle in London. One important reason for the relative dearth of research into Vichy foreign policy is that it is academic custom in France to avoid undertaking detailed archive-based study of issues that have already been examined by senior historians. A grasp of the nature of the defeat and the character of the armistice is essential to understand Vichy foreign policy. France had surrendered much of its ability to follow an independent foreign policy and relinquished its status as a great power. The regime’s commitment to its ideological vision, which extended to a willingness to wage civil war to ensure its implementation, also shaped foreign policy choices.