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Controversy over Mitterrand’s Vichyite Past

  • Korean Review of French History
  • Abbr : KRFH
  • 2015, (33), pp.259~286
  • Publisher : KOREAN SOCIETY FOR FRENCH HISTORY
  • Research Area : Humanities > History

Yong-Woo Lee 1

1동덕여자대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

Although former French president François Mitterrand’s Vichyite past was not newly revealed by the publication of Pierre Péan’s Une jeunesse française, the book provoked unprecedented tremendous reactions. Such public reactions were due to the rigorous approach of the book, to Mitterrand’s close cooperation on Péan’s work, to its publication at the end of Mitterrand’s presidential term, and to the circumstances in which hot issues of the Holocaust and the related trials of crimes against humanity were brought up. Quite a lot of French felt indignation at Mitterrand’s continuing relationship with René Bousquet, a former Vichy police chief, rather than his Vichyite past itself, because they considered the relationship showed that he did not break with his past. On the contrary, others insisted that his past only proved the existence of Vichyite Resistance. In addition, his transformed career from a Petainist to a resistant reflected the general evolution of the French public opinion.

Citation status

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