X-Nico

4 unusual facts about Philippe Petain


Alfred-Henri-Marie Baudrillart

Baudrillart initially supported the Vichy government of Marshal Philippe Pétain, along with Cardinal Suhard, and in August 1941 - as a fervent anti-communist - even supported the creation of a Legion of French Volunteers Against Bolshevism; however in early 1942 he openly protested in public against the anti-Semitic measures of the Vichy government in shops and theatres; he also decried the Hitler regime as unhuman (in private conversation).

Esther Delisle

In 1998, Esther Delisle published, Myths, Memories and Lies, an account of how some members of Quebec's elite, nationalist and federalist, supported Nazi collaborator Marshall Philippe Pétain and his Vichy government in Nazi-occupied France during World War II and helped bring French war criminals to safety in Quebec after the war ended.

Renault Suprastella

This was a cabriolet-bodied limousine with coachwork by Franay, delivered to the government in 1943 after it was decided that Marshal Pétain needed a new state car.

Spring Offensive

The French commander-in-chief, General Pétain, sent reinforcements to the sector too slowly in the opinion of the British commander-in-chief, Field Marshal Haig, and the British government.


Aventure Malgache

Finally when the Vichy government falls, we see that the Vichy official is nothing but a turncoat; in his office he rapidly replaces a portrait of Marshal Philippe Pétain with a portrait of Queen Victoria, and he changes his bottle of Vichy water for bottles of Scotch and soda water.

Camille Blaisot

Blaisot did not vote in the parliamentary sessions at Vichy which granted extraordinary powers to Marshal Philippe Pétain and created the Vichy Regime.

Hengshan Road

Named after Philippe Pétain, Marshall of France, the boulevarde was constructed in 1922 to link the heart of the French Concession with Zikawei, now Xujiahui, the centre of Catholicism in Shanghai.

Hubert Pierlot

A few hours after Belgium capitulated on 27 May, he and Paul-Henri Spaak met with the leaders of France - Paul Reynaud, Maxime Weygand, and Philippe Pétain.

Karl von Einem

Successfully repulsing the French Champagne-Marne offensive from February–March and September–November 1915 respectively, Einem would take part in all three Battles of the Aisne and would hold Gen. Anthoine's 4th Army (under Gen. Philippe Petain's Center Army Group) during the Second Battle of the Aisne as part of the Nivelle Offensive from April 16-May 15, 1917.

Montoire-sur-le-Loir

Montoire-sur-le-Loir is known as the location where, on 24 October 1940, the famous handshake between Adolf Hitler and Maréchal Pétain took place signifying the start of organised French collaboration with the Nazi regime.

Non-conformists of the 1930s

) In November 1941, René Vincent, in charge of Vichy censorship services, created the journal Idées (1941–44) which gathered the Non-Conformists who supported Marshal Philippe Pétain's regime.


see also

French state

Vichy France, 'French state' was the official name of the regime first directed by Philippe Pétain, explicitly opposed to the French Republic