A Political Trial: Judging The Third Republic and The Popular Front
The defendants at the Riom Trial were:
- Léon Blum, leader of the SFIO socialist party and twice Prime Minister between 1936 and 1938 under the Popular Front. As a Jew, Blum was an object of particular hatred to the Vichy regime and the Nazis, and he was widely seen as the principal defendant.
- Édouard Daladier, Prime Minister from 1938 to early 1940, former Radical-Socialist. He fled France aboard the Massilia in June 1940, a month before the vote of extraordinary powers to Pétain (refused only by "the Vichy 80"); was arrested on his arrival (in Vichy-governed Morocco) on 8 August.
- Paul Reynaud, Prime Minister in 1940 (and vice-president of the Alliance démocratique center-right party)
- Georges Mandel, former Interior Minister, also Jewish. With Daladier aboard the Massilia, he was likewise arrested.
- Maurice Gamelin, former commander of the French Army
- Guy La Chambre, former Minister for the French Air Force
- Robert Jacomet, former Controller-General of the Army Administration
More than 400 witnesses were called, many of them soldiers who were supposed to testify that the Army was not adequately equipped to resist the German invasion of May 1940. It was alleged that Blum's legislation, enacted after the 1936 Matignon Accords, which had introduced the 40-hour working week and paid leave for workers and had nationalised some businesses, had undermined France's industrial and defence capacities. The Popular Front government was also held to have been weak in suppressing "subversive elements and revolutionists."
Because of the international context, including the June 1941 invasion of the USSR, and deterioration of popular support for Vichy, Marshal Philippe Pétain decided to speed up the process. He thus announced to the radio, before the opening of the trial, that he would himself condemn the guilty parties after having heard the advice of the Conseil de justice politique (Political Justice Council) which he had set up. Pétain was entitled to such an act after the Constitutional decree-act of 27 January 1941. The newly created Conseil de justice politique handed on its conclusions on October 16, 1941. Pétain then decided to withdraw the charges against Reynaud and Mandel, without explanation (both were kept in prison and handed over to the Germans, and Mandel was later murdered by French fascists), while the five other defendants were detained. After Marshal Pétain's condemnation of the political responsibles, the Riom Trial was supposed to judge the men as citizens. The President of the Court, Pierre Caous declared at the outset that the trial was not a political one, but it was widely seen as a political show trial, both in France and internationally.
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