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Loading... The French Resistance (edition 2016)by Olivier Wieviorka (Author), Jane Marie Todd (Translator)
Work InformationThe French Resistance by Olivier Wieviorka
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Olivier Wieviorka’s history of the French Resistance debunks lingering myths and offers fresh insight into social, political, and military aspects of its operation. He reveals not one but many interlocking homegrown groups often at odds over goals, methods, and leadership. Yet, despite a lack of unity, these fighters braved Nazism without blinking. No library descriptions found. |
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)940.53History and Geography Europe Europe 1918- World War IILC ClassificationRatingAverage: No ratings.Is this you?Become a LibraryThing Author. |
Few French people responded to de Gaulle’s plea, principally because it was difficult not to accept Pétain’s logic that Nazi Germany had won. Indeed, most saw de Gaulle as irrelevant, preferring to embrace Pétain as the saviour figure whose authoritarian antisemitic regime, based in the central spa town of Vichy, enjoyed mass support in autumn 1940.
However, after the Second World War, de Gaulle’s speech of 18 June 1940 became enshrined in French history as the starting point of the French Resistance, which led directly to the Liberation four years later. This founding narrative allowed French people to forget the humiliation of Nazi Occupation and rebuild national self-esteem.
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Martin Evans is Professor of Modern European History at Sussex University