Word: petain
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...described as a hotbed of political intrigue, with Communists, leaders of the "old gang," Fascists of all stripes struggling to get control of the State. Ex-President Albert Lebrun had departed for Switzerland. The Hotel du Pare, headquarters of the Government, was packed with visitors, politicians, newsmen. Marshal Petain held court in a corner of the lounge, ate behind a screen in the hotel dining room. Dark little Vice Premier Pierre Laval dashed off communiqués, handed them out personally in the lobby. Early each morning an airplane took off from Vichy, headed northeast toward Wiesbaden, Germany, where...
Reconstruction. Meanwhile, in Vichy, Petain and his Cabinet methodically set about the task of rebuilding ravaged France. There were shortages of almost everything needed to keep life going: milk and butter, meat, sugar, soap, raw materials in general. Some foods were plentiful, but were withheld from hungry citizens by the breakdown of communications. Virtually all gasoline was in German hands; so were the northern coal mines, undamaged by the Nazi advance. Coffee and other imports were scarce...
...curves about the Mediterranean had no other choice. Its chief products are poultry and cheese, wine and tobacco, truffles, pâté de foie gras. The silk industry has its own cocoons in southern Cévennes. There are tall pine forests along the Atlantic coast. Most of Petain's decrees last week dealt with family life and rural homesteads. One law provided that small estates (worth less than 400,000 francs) may be exempt from an old law dividing them among the heirs, in order to keep rural lands intact for farming...
...create "a civic conscience that opens and prepares the way for ... strengthening the moral conscience. . . ." Praise from the Vatican newspaper was the next best thing to a blessing by the Pope, but it sounded strange other than as a good-will gesture toward what remains of France. Marshal Petain, 84, brought up in the Catholic faith, has never been renowned for his devotion. Once he said that he would rather be buried in the battlefield of Verdun than in the hallowed ground of a churchyard...
...London and Halifax, bemonocled French Journalist André Géraud ("Pertinax"), wanted by the Petain Government for spreading false information, slipped into Manhattan last week. Asked what he thought of England's chance of fighting off a German invasion. Anglophile Géraud replied hopefully: "That they can stop the Nazis is more than wishful thinking...