Pursuit of Nazi Collaborators - Pursuit in Specific Countries - France

France

After the liberation, France was briefly swept by a wave of executions of suspected collaborators. Women who were suspected of having romantic liaisons with Germans or, more often, of being German prostitutes, were publicly humiliated by having their heads shaved. Those who had engaged in the black market were also stigmatized as "war profiteers" (profiteurs de guerre). However, the Provisional Government of the French Republic (GPRF, 1944–46) quickly reestablished order and brought collaborators before the courts. Many of the convicted were granted amnesty under the Fourth Republic (1946–1954), while some civil servants, such as Maurice Papon, succeeded in holding important positions even under Charles de Gaulle and the Fifth Republic (1958 and afterward).

Three periods are identified by historians: The first phase (the épuration sauvage) consisted of popular convictions, summary executions, and the shaving of women's heads. Estimates by police prefects made in 1948 and 1952 were that as many as six thousand executions occurred before the liberation of France, and four thousand thereafter. The second phase, legal epuration or épuration légale, began on 26 and 27 June 1944 with Charles de Gaulle's ordinances on the judgment of collaborators by the commissions d'épuration; the commissions sentenced approximately 120,000 persons. Charles Maurras, the leader of the royalist Action française, was, for example, sentenced to life imprisonment on 25 January 1945. The third phase was more lenient towards collaborators; the trials of Philippe Pétain and the writer, Louis-Ferdinand Céline are examples of actions taken during this phase.

Between 1944 and 1951, official courts in France sentenced 6,763 people to death (3,910 in absentia) for treason and other offenses, but only 791 executions were actually carried out. More common was "national degradation," a loss of face and civil rights, which was meted out to 49,723 people.

Philippe Pétain, the former head of Vichy France, was charged with treason in July 1945. He was convicted and sentenced to death by firing squad, but Charles de Gaulle commuted the sentence to life imprisonment. Most convicts were given amnesty a few years later. In the police, collaborators soon resumed official responsibilities. For example, Maurice Papon, who was judged in the 1990s for his role in the Vichy collaborationist government, gave orders for the Paris massacre of 1961 as the head of the Parisian police.

The French members of the Waffen-SS Charlemagne Division who survived the war were regarded as traitors. Some of the more prominent officers were executed, while the rank-and-file were given prison terms; some of them were given the option of doing time in Indochina (1946–54) with the Foreign Legion instead of prison.

Many war criminals were judged only in the 1980s, including Paul Touvier, Klaus Barbie, Maurice Papon and his deputy Jean Leguay. The last two were both convicted for their roles in the July 1942 Rafle du Vel' d'Hiv, or Vel' d'Hiv Roundup). Famous Nazi hunters Serge and Beate Klarsfeld spent decades trying to bring them to justice.. A fair number of collaborationists joined the OAS terrorist movement during the Algerian War (1954–62). Jacques de Bernonville escaped to Quebec, then Brazil. Jacques Ploncard d'Assac became counselor of Salazar in Portugal.

Extrajudicial summary executions were harshly criticized after the war. Circles close to Pétainism advanced the figures of 100,000 such executions, denouncing it as "Red Terror", "anarchy" or "blind vengeance." In 1960, journalist Robert Aron estimated the number of summary executions of 40,000, surprising deGaulle. 10,000 is the figure today admitted by mainstream historians. Approximately 9,000 of these 10,000 refer to summary executions, in the whole of the country, including during battle. In absolute numbers, there were fewer legal executions in France than in neighboring, and much smaller, Belgium, and fewer internments than in Norway or Netherlands.