Richard J. Golsan argues the demise of French democracy in 1940 holds important lessons for Americans grappling with the realities of life under Donald Trump.
For the historian of modern France and Vichy and World War II in particular, the situation in the United States today calls to mind a number of disturbing comparisons with France during the so-called “Dark Years” of 1940 to 1944.
At first glance, this statement seems outlandish, not to say outrageous. For starters, the United States has not experienced a staggering military defeat and the occupation of part of its country by a foreign power, as did France in summer 1940. Nor has the United States been forced to accept a humiliating peace with its conqueror, including the concession of assets and the impoverishment of its people.
The United States has also not (yet?) witnessed the suicide of its democracy, which did occur in France in July 1940, when the National Assembly voted itself out of existence, giving pleins pouvoirs, “full powers”, to the new Head of the Etat Français, the “French State”, Marshal Philippe Pétain.
A gifted self-promoter
Donald Trump is also no Philippe Pétain. Pétain was France’s greatest military hero of World War I, the “Victor of Verdun” who put down mutinies by his troops and brought about one of France’s most memorable, if pyrrhic victories. During the interwar years, Pétain honed his image and served a variety of cabinet and diplomatic posts. He was elected to the Académie Française and produced a memoir ghost-written by the young Charles de Gaulle.
Donald Trump by contrast is no military hero (he got out of the draft due to “bone spurs” in his feet), nor did he serve in any political or government positions before shocking the world with his election as US President in 2016. He is a gifted self-promoter, a self-styled shrewd businessman who made a fortune in real estate (at least reputedly) with money he inherited from his father.
A New York celebrity, he was fawned over by many in the media and made a spectacle of himself that many considered tasteless if not downright cringe-worthy. I remember in the 1980s, during the finals of the US Open tennis tournament, Trump flew overhead in his helicopter while the match was already underway, forcing a momentary delay in the match and prompting expressions of exasperation form the commentators. Trump became a TV personality, had his own show and made multiple guest appearances on other shows.
Certainly, by the 1990s, whether one loved him or hated him, Trump was a household name. A huckster of the first order, he launched failed casinos in Atlantic City, a now defunct “for profit” university, “Trump University”, and has hawked everything from steaks, to ties, to bibles, to watches, not to mention all the MAGA gear his supporters rush to buy. Since he assumed office in January of this year, he has reputedly made two billion dollars in the crypto currency he championed and that the Biden administration tried to curtail.
Thriving on adulation
All of this is of course widely known and underscores the striking differences between Trump and Pétain. That said, there are comparisons to be made. Like the octogenarian Pétain before him, the septuagenarian Trump is a vainglorious old man who thrives on adulation and claims credit for everything positive that happens in the world (most recently, the ceasefire in Gaza), while blaming everybody and anybody else for whatever goes wrong. Trump memorably described himself during his first term as a “very stable genius”.
While more refined in his egotistical pronouncements, Pétain also adored adulation. When he claimed power in summer 1940, Pétain famously stated that he was “giving France the gift of my person”. In Julian Jackson’s excellent book about Pétain’s postwar trial for treason, Jackson writes that when the old Marshal took the stand in his defence, he blamed everybody but himself for the catastrophe that had befallen France.
Finally, and perhaps most significantly, both men conceive(d) of themselves as quintessential representatives and indeed embodiments of their respective nations. On Trump’s posts on Truth Social, one can find an image of his face with the stars and stripes superimposed on it. In households in France throughout the Vichy period could be found portraits of the old Marshal. Vichy propaganda posters often contained the slogan, “Are you more French than he is?”
Internal enemies
In the end, of course, comparisons like these between Donald Trump and the head of the Vichy state are rather mundane. I’d like to conclude here with more ominous comparisons, not so much between the two political leaders but rather the content and implications of their actions and the mindsets that defined the French people during the war years and the American people today.
A first shared trait is a fear of the “internal enemy” among us, and the urgent necessity of isolating and removing that enemy as a kind of “contamination”. Very early in his reign as head of the French State, Pétain promulgated the first of his “anti-Jewish statutes” that aimed to drastically limit Jews in French public life, essentially forcing many into a state of destitution.
Later, with the advent of the Nazi “Final Solution”, the regime willingly participated in rounding up and deporting Jews to the East. It remains a stain on the French national conscience that in July 1942, French police rounded up some 13,000 Jews in Paris. Most were eventually deported to their deaths. In Bordeaux, a subprefect named Maurice Papon organised similar deportations on a smaller scale. In 1997-8, Papon stood trial for his actions during the war on charges of crimes against humanity.
Throughout the United States today, ICE agents are rounding up illegal immigrants and deporting them. Trump has previously used words like “rapists” and “vermin” to describe immigrants and his political opponents. The Trump administration is strong arming Latin American countries to take illegal immigrants and deporting many to Guantanamo, Cuba, well known to most Americans since prisoners of the “War on Terror” following 9/11 were sent there.
In New York, Trump’s Justice Department is halting the prosecution of Mayor Eric Adams on corruption charges in what many view as a quid pro quo for his support in the deportations of immigrants, although Trump’s Justice Department denies this.
Trump and Putin
Donald Trump’s return to power has sent shockwaves through the nation, and even some of his supporters are unsettled by the radical “overhaul” taking place. Recently, a spokesperson in Kansas noted that farmers there who voted overwhelmingly for Trump were unhappy about his destruction of USAID, since many of their farm crops were sold to USAID to be shipped to needy countries abroad.
Most economists warn that the imposition of tariffs will only exacerbate the economic crisis facing farmers and cause other problems. As Trump and Elon Musk take control of the budget, which constitutionally at least is in the purview of Congress, Republican leaders there are offering no pushback. Unlike France’s National Assembly in July 1940, they have not voted full powers to Trump, but at the moment at least, their silence amounts to the same thing.
And then there is foreign policy. Pétain had no choice but to accommodate Hitler. But his encouragement of “collaboration” with the Germans remains a bitter pill for most French to swallow. Trump and his administration, on the other hand, are under no obligation to “shake hands” with any adversary, nor are they obliged to turn against former allies, as Vichy did with Great Britain. And yet, both of these things have happened in the last few weeks.
J.D. Vance’s trip to Munich – a site of extraordinary historical resonance – to chide America’s allies was the first salvo. In the New York Times, Bret Stevens described the visit as “Vance’s Munich Disgrace”. Then US representatives met Russian leaders in Riyadh with the goal of ending the war in Ukraine and reestablishing ties with the Kremlin. All this was prefaced by Trump’s concessions to Putin, namely that conquered territories in Ukraine were likely to remain Russian and Ukraine would never be allowed to join NATO.
Putin is a man Trump admires and once said he believed more than he did his own intelligence services. Trump has also picked a fight with Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and now calls him an unelected “dictator”, unceremoniously throwing a former ally under the bus. At home in the US and abroad these sudden reversals have left many reeling.
The attentistes
Republican Senators, most of whom backed American support for Ukraine and opposed Russia’s naked aggression, remain “mum”, as the New York Times reported on 20 February. All of this is justified by what Trump’s minions describe as the necessity of being clear-sighted about the current situation, of being “realistic”. Readers of Sartre might recall that capitulation to the foreign invader by French collaborators was justified on the grounds that they were being “historically realistic”.
Studies of the French population after the shock of defeat and the advent of Vichy suggest that most French were neither hardcore collaborators nor resisters. Rather, they were attentistes, they were “wait-and-seers”, mostly out of uncertainty and anxiety.
One of the more disturbing realities is not so much that Republicans are enthusiastic about Trump’s demolition of norms and the status quo, but rather that Democrats are remaining silent. Many if not most Republican legislators are less popular in their own districts than Trump and dare not take him on. Admittedly this begs the question of why they would want to stay “in power” in Washington when they don’t have any power in Trump’s world.
So where are the Democrats? Since Kamala Harris’s defeat, they are virtually “mum” as well. They are attentistes. Recently, the Minority Leader in the House of Representatives, Hakeem Jeffries, stated that the Democrats need to act like great hitters in baseball: they need to choose carefully the balls that they swing at to make sure to get a hit. To all appearances, it is high time to take some swings!
Note: This article gives the views of the author, not the position of EUROPP – European Politics and Policy or the London School of Economics. Featured image credit: Joshua Sukoff / Shutterstock.com
