The Genesis of Vichy's Jewish Statute of October 1940

Of all the measures adopted by the Vichy regime, the law of October 3, 1940, defining the status of Jews, is undoubtedly the best known. Yet, there are few scholarly works on the genesis of this law. This article reconsiders the commonly accepted thesis of an "autonomous" Vichy and a first "purely French" Jewish statute, emphasizing instead a Franco-German interdependence. The author argues that the statutewas the product of an interaction between certain themes of French antisemitism and the exigencies of thewartime context.