Quotes about Vichy

Leon Blum

When Hitler and Goebbels talk of organizing Europe, when the French 'collaborators' echo their words, we know what they mean and what they want. In present realities their European Order is nothing but the utilization of all European resources, the extraction and extortion of all we have, for the benefit of the Axis, and their so-called organization of Europe is no more than the future total enslavement of Europe by the Nazi regime

Pierre Laval

If the Germans are beaten, General de Gaulle will return. He will be supported by 80 or 90 per cent of the French people and I shall be hanged.

Laval was not quite correct. He was shot as a traitor when de Gaulle returned. See {587231} and {587230}.

Pierre Laval

Clearly, for France in her present position, intelligent activity consists of practicing a policy of entente with Germany in order to survive

He was shot as a traitor when de Gaulle returned. See {587231} and {587230}.

Pierre Laval

I want to tell you that I think this war is a great mistake. If we had come to terms with Mussolini, as I wanted to do, we might have held Germany. That is no longer possible. We have given most of Europe to Hitler. Let us try to hold on to what we have got left. I am a peasant from the Auvergne. I want to keep my farm, and I want to keep France. Nothing else matters now.

Leval was an appeaser and a collaborator with the Nazi’s. He led the government in name but the Germans really controlled the country. His actions killed tens of thousands of French men and women by turning them over to the Germans. After the Germans were defeated in WWII, Leval was shot as a traitor by the Free French forces. See {587231}, {587228} and {587230}.

William Daniel Leahy

The figure of Pierre Laval hung like an evil shadow over Vichy.

Leahy also served as the U. S. Ambassador to the Vichy French Government. This was the German puppet government where traitors like Laval operated a government that was French in name only. After the war Laval was executed as a traitor. Vichy was the area of France where the Fascist French set up their government. See {587230} and {587229}.

George Orwell

Laval is a French millionaire who has been known for many years to be a direct agent of the Nazi Government. He played a leading part in the intrigues which led to the downfall of France

Pierre Laval

Workers of France, it is for the freedom of the prisoners that you will go to work in Germany! It is for our country that you will go in large numbers! It is in order that France may find her place in the new Europe that you will respond to my appeal.

Many of the workers never returned.

Dominique Moisi

The United States’ tendency to use Europe’s past against Europe’s present, as if a Munich or a Vichy were just around the corner, is vexing.

Vichy Quotes