The Politics of Everyday Life in Vichy France
Foreigners, Undesirables, and Strangers

This book examines how material distress shaped the interactions of native and refugee populations as well as perceptions of the Vichy government's legitimacy.

Shannon L. Fogg (Author)

9780521899444, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 3 November 2008

250 pages, 5 b/w illus. 4 maps
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.7 cm, 0.54 kg

'Fogg analyses the much-discussed topic of Vichy France and its treatment of outsiders through a new lens … Fogg persuasively utilizes a bottom-up view of social history by focussing on everyday interactions, primarily around food, housing, and other shortages, to provide a multifaceted portrait of social relationships in France from 1939 to 1944 … Fogg presents a motion picture of wartime dynamics rather than a snapshot …' The Journal of Interdisciplinary History

In this book, Fogg examines the effects of material distress on attitudes toward the Vichy government and on the treatment of outsiders in France during the Second World War. She contends that the period's severe material shortages and refugee situation fundamentally reshaped France's social structure. Material conditions also created alliances and divisions within the French population that undermined the Vichy regime's legitimacy. Fogg argues that shortages helped define the relationship between citizens and the state, created the very definition of who was an 'insider' and an 'outsider' in local communities, and shaped the manner in which native and refugee populations interacted. Fogg's research reveals that French residents proved to be more pragmatic than ideological in their daily dealings with outsiders, with some surprising effects: Natives welcomed 'quintessential' outsiders who provided an economic advantage to local communities, while French 'insiders' faced discrimination.

1. 'Life has never been so good': shortages, public opinion, and urban-rural interactions
2. 'Where we are from, that is for pigs': Alsatian refugees
3. 'They are undesirables': gypsies during World War II
4. 'At any price': housing, the black market, and Jewish daily life
5. 'The vast heart of mankind knows no boundaries': refuge in Jewish children's homes.

Subject Areas: Social & cultural history [HBTB], 20th century history: c 1900 to c 2000 [HBLW], European history [HBJD]