Word: petain
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...admired and worked for Marshal Philippe Petain, head of the Vichy government set up by the Germans to function during the Occupation. In November 1941 he was awarded the Francisque, the highest honor accorded by the Vichy regime. He maintained a loyal friendship with Rene Bosquet, the Vichy police chief who -- until his assassination last year -- fought a long legal battle to escape trial for his role in rounding up Jews during the Occupation. According to the book, Mitterrand had Bosquet to dinner as late...
...United Movement of the Resistance. An aide of Charles de Gaulle's Opposition-in-exile had questioned Mitterrand's newfound Resistance fervor, given his previous dedication to Vichy. "France's drama," Frenay wrote back, "is that its honest and impartial men believed, during a certain time, in Marshal Petain and placed their trust in him. They, without a doubt, made a mistake, but it was an innocent mistake that we cannot hold as a crime against them...
...Mitterrand have been debunked. "He is not anti-Semitic," the author has been telling interviewers. "I never found a single word, a single line that allowed me to think otherwise." Says Alain Duhamel, a political analyst and journalist, of the new book: "It shows Mitterrand was a nationalist, pro- Petain, but not a collaborator. I think you can also see, in his cooperation with the author, Mitterrand's desire to put his biographical house in order." In looking back, the old warrior shows unmistakable signs of looking forward to posterity as well. As he told Pean: "In such turbulent times...
Asked about Hyde's about-face, a spokesman for the Illinois State Rifle Association said, "It is safe to say anyone who voted for the ban is someone we'll be looking to replace." Hyde says he has already been handed a picture of Hitler, compared to Marshall Petain and accused of betraying his oath. The experience has made him wonder whether "people can honestly change their minds and still be fellow citizens and deserve space on this planet." The N.R.A. will let him know...
...over the Western Allies in the spring of 1940. The Dutch army was crushed within a week, and Queen Wilhelmina fled to London, leaving the immense wealth of the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia) in the charge of a few colonial bureaucrats. France collapsed in a month, and Marshal Petain's feeble puppet regime, based in the French resort of Vichy, had other worries than French Indochina (Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia). Britain, threatened by a Nazi invasion, could devote little more than some Churchillian rhetoric to the defense of Singapore, Malaya, Hong Kong and Burma...