The Vichy Past in France Today: Corruptions of Memory by Richard J. Goslan (review)

Seventy years after World War II, the Vichy past or the so-called Dark Years still resonate in multiple ways and contexts in France, as the author shows. He offers insights into how the memory of the collaborationist regime is often remembered in problematic ways and is sometimes instrumentalized politically, distorting this memory and making it corrosive in historical terms. He offers five propositions as to the current nature of Vichy's memory in twenty-first century France. The most thought-provoking of these is what the author identifies as a subtle kind of revisionism, not the blatant one emanating from extreme-right politicians and thinkers, but from mainstream voices, which he examines within France's current ideological prejudices. He also shows how the duty to remember Vichy's victims has expanded to include victims of other mass crimes, such as colonialism or the Algerian war. In doing so, he demonstrates that Vichy has become a metaphor for social, cultural, or ethical evil, which in his opinion does not help to clarify the past. A few other highlights of this book include problems the author identifies with the trials of French World War II war criminals and Le Pen's first-round victory in the 2002 presidential elections. Because World War II continues to haunt, fascinate, horrify, and inform French society, the topic of this book is compelling and fascinating. However, one might regret that this book is mainly addressed to specialists who are well acquainted with the works of the thinkers of all creeds whose writings and positions are examined by the author. While some of them are famous, like Michel Houellebecq and Éric Zemmour, others are fairly obscure, like Alain Badiou, whose little-known The Meaning of Sarkozy commands a thirteen-page analysis. It is a bit of a recurring trend in the book, especially in its second half, that World War II elements brought forth by the author do not necessarily connect well with Vichy, or even the French context of that time. One chapter is devoted to a literary analysis of Jonathan Littell's Les bienveillantes (2006), the fictionalized memoir of a Nazi officer, with few ties to the French context, who is involved in the Final Solution on the Russian front and in extermination camps. Even if the novel enjoyed great success in France, the connection to Vichy's memory is tenuous. More strangely, the author also devotes a seven-page analysis to the American author Edgar Rice Burroughs, because he is featured in Les bienveillantes, whereas Burroughs has no connection to the Vichy regime and its memory in France. The steep price tag of this book may be a deterrent to many potential readers.