When we think of Vichy, menthol pastilles, checkered fabrics, the spa… and the Second World War often come to mind. Still used in history books, the expression “Vichy regime” refers to one of the darkest periods in French history, when the country was occupied by Nazi Germany after the military defeat and the signing of the armistice of June 1940.
If the term has established itself in everyday language, it has been contested for years by the main concerned. The town of Vichy requests that the name of the commune be gradually replaced in school textbooks by the expression “French State”. A request which was again rejected, Wednesday July 1, by Édouard Geffray, the Minister of National Education.
It was Mayor LR of the Bourbonnais town who made this request. Frédéric Aguilera was offended at the start of the week by a subject in the history-geography certificate inviting students to “present the characteristics of the Vichy regime”. In an open letter to the minister, the councilor called for a change in programs and examination subjects. “This regime had a name: the French State. It was not an administrative detail. It was a political choice,” he insisted.
“The Vichyssois can’t take it anymore! »
A complaint that went unanswered. Like the previous ones. In 2019, the elected official had already questioned Emmanuel Macron after the president had mentioned the “dark hours of Vichy” in a tweet. Frédéric Aguilera then reacted by declaring: “The Vichyssois can’t take it anymore! I invite you to come discover our city and understand the consequences of this shortcut. »
Mr. @EmmanuelMacron, once again you are fueling an amalgam that sullies the image of @VilleDeVichy. The Vichyssois can’t take it anymore! I invite you to come discover our city and understand the consequences of this shortcut. #Vichy2000ansdHistoire (Thanks for RT) pic.twitter.com/YaQ07jlPVV
— AGUILERA Frédéric (@Aguilera_Fred) August 17, 2019
I manage my choices I authorize
Before him, Claude Malhuret, right-wing mayor under various labels between 1989 and 2017, spoke several times in the media to reaffirm this position. In an interview with La Montagne in 2017, he explained: “If we have to talk about the Pétain regime, it is up to France to do it, to the State, not to the Vichyssois who have absolutely nothing to do with it. It was not the Paris town hall which decided to evoke the Vel’ d’Hiv, but the French state. »
In addition to public positions, legislative proposals have also been tabled to this effect. The deputy of the Radical Left Party, Gérard Charasse, notably asked to “delete, in public communications invoking the period of the French State, references to the city of Vichy” in 1999. Four years later, in 2003, he reiterated his request with a bill aimed at “substituting (…) the name “dictatorship of Pétain”” for references to Vichy.
More recently, in 2023, LR and MoDem deputies reacted to a bill on the restitution of cultural property looted during the war and in which the expression “Vichy regime” appeared. In an amendment, the parliamentarians called for replacing it with “government of the French state born from the vote of July 10, 1940”.
A strategic choice, not political
For the successive mayors of Vichy, these debates are based on the same idea: the expression “Vichy regime” would be misleading because it associates the city with a political choice that it never made. In 1940, Pétain’s government moved to Vichy not for ideological reasons, but for practical reasons. The town in fact had numerous hotels that could accommodate ministries and it benefited from a central position and a good rail network. Furthermore, Pierre Laval, right-hand man of Marshal Pétain, owned a residence nearby, in Châteldon.
But the choice could have been elsewhere. Before settling in Vichy, the government had taken several steps. He first settled in Tours for a few days, then in Bordeaux for about two weeks. Before establishing its headquarters in Allier, Clermont-Ferrand had also been considered. The town, inhabited mainly by a working population and whose local newspaper, La Montagne, had positioned itself against the armistice, was ultimately not accepted.
The political debate around terminology being far from over, Vichy also sought to distance itself from this image by other means. Even though the city was the capital of the French state from 1940 to 1944, the period of the Second World War occupies a limited place there. For example, no museum specifically dedicated to this period has been opened there.
Since the 1990s, the city has also engaged in a strategy aimed at highlighting its thermal activity. This orientation was reinforced in 2021 by its inclusion on the UNESCO world heritage list under the title of “Great water towns of Europe”. A distinction which allows Vichy to promote another past of the city, more touristy, less tormented.
