Throughout the museums of the Normandy region, those dedicated to the Second World War all share a curiously unspoken piece of French history. As can be expected of museums at the site of and dedicated to the Normandy landings, much of the museums’ interiors were devoted to the stories of the landings and of the events nearest to them, such as the Arromanches museum being about the artificial harbor that still partially remains today. Alongside this were segments depicting the role of the French Resistance in gathering intelligence, undermining the occupation, and in some cases taking back territory from Germany. Yet what continuously appears only briefly is the Vichy Government, the collaborationist regime which governed southern France from the armistice in mid-1940 until the German occupation of the region in late 1942.
This exception is notable because there was a considerable amount to study within the Vichy regime, such as the definition of collaboration and how national heroes can be morphed into reviled traitors. Marshal Philip Petain, the Chief of State for the Vichy French, was a legendary hero from the previous war and yet was the very man to coin the phrase “collaboration” for his cooperation with the occupying Germans. Ordinary French bureaucrats and policemen kept the government functioning even as it took on a fascist tint. And yet at the same time Marshal Petain swore up and down he was only trying to protect the nation from the ravages of war, and the rank and file of government were forced to grapple with the fact that the Vichy Government was the direct continuity of their Republic. These contradictions deserve study and discussion and, while it is understandable why a nation might wish to hide its shame, ultimately commitment to historical study demands we not leave them in the shade.
I heavily agree with your observation. Even though the Vichy Regime was a crucial aspect of the French wartime experience, it was barely acknowledged or talked about. If France wants to avoid a potential repetition of the passive acceptance of Vichy by the majority of the French population, or warn against collaboration with authoritarianism in general, it would benefit to talk more about collaboration. The effect of the resistance was definitely played up to a certain extent by the museums, but I don’t feel that what the resistance actually did was misrepresented.