Children’s citizenly participation in the National Revolution: the instrumentalization of children in Vichy France

Abstract

Children held a privileged place in Vichy France. They became the subjects and objects of a vigorous propaganda which recognized their ability to contribute to the National Revolution. This article discusses three ways in which children were instrumentalized by the regime, showing their reciprocal engagement with it, which is understood as ‘citizenly’ behaviour. First, drawn into the maréchaliste leadership cult, they were used to embed the values of the regime. Second, children’s compassion was co-opted in various campaigns which contributed to national(ist) solidarity. Third, they engaged with a gendered duty to national population growth, now and in the future. The article uses ‘public’ written sources (for example, letters and essays sent to Marshal Pétain and thus archived in public collections, not diaries or drawings for private eyes, in private hands) produced by children. Although it recognizes these as epistemologically unstable, such sources present opportunities for understanding elements of children’s agency, which is seen in conformity as well as dissent. By recognizing children as historical actors, we can identify them as ‘beings’ active in their own lives, and not just adults-in-waiting.

Keywords:

• Children
• France
• Vichy
• citizenship
• propaganda
• Pétain

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Barry Doyle, Shannon L. Fogg, Sophie Heywood, Laura King, David Lees and Wendy Michallat for comments on earlier versions. Any errors are my own.

Notes

1. Proud, Children and Propaganda, 4.

2. France was, of course, not the only place where children were instrumentalized during this period. Attention to children and young people was a key component of all of the totalitarian regimes of the twentieth century, some of which exhibited similarities with Vichy’s policies. See, among others: Kater, Hitler Youth; Stargardt, Witnesses of War; Pine, Education in Nazi Germany; Kucherenko, Little Soldiers; Kelly, Children’s World; Koon, Believe, Obey, Fight. Yet Vichy was not totalitarian, and was unable to impose total control on young people, because of the number of youth organizations in operation, their pre-war scale and structures, and, in many cases, their closely guarded independence; see n. 5. Such attention to children is not limited to totalitarian societies. See, for example: Tuttle, Daddy’s Gone to War or Kennedy, The Children’s War. Neither should the instrumentalization of children be seen as belonging to the twentieth century (see, for example, Marten, The Children’s Civil War), nor, indeed, as a purely historical phenomenon.

3. Nettelbeck, ‘A Forgotten Zone of Memory?’, 159.

4. Nettelbeck, ‘A Forgotten Zone of Memory?’, 163–4.

5. For example, among others: Halls, Youth of Vichy France; Giolitto, Histoire de la jeunesse sous Vichy; Lee, Pétain’s Jewish Children. For interwar France, for example, among others: Whitney, Mobilizing Youth and Downs, ‘Each and Every One of You Must Become a Chef’. It is important to note that the framing of youth through a range of organizations – particularly religious, but also political and regional or occupational – was nothing new in Vichy France and there has been a great deal of historical research into youth groups in interwar France as well as into the war – and beyond. An analysis of how children interpreted the messages they received from Vichy in light of prior involvement with youth groups or their present participation in newer organizations is beyond the scope of this article; it is not possible to tell from the sources used whether a child was a member of a particular youth group. Nonetheless, children – like adults – had multiple memberships of multiple groups at any one time, and were the recipients of multiple messages, some of which conflicted with each other, and some of which reinforced each other.

6. An exception is perhaps G. Ragache’s Les Enfants de la guerre, although this focuses more on aspects of childhood than children themselves. On Jewish children in Vichy France, see Chapter 5 of Fogg’s Politics of Everyday Life, particularly n. 4 on p. 154 for a list of works on the subject.

7. For example: Atkin, Church and Schools in Vichy France; Handourtzel, Vichy et l’Ecole; Condette, Les Écoles dans la guerre.

8. For example, Capuano, Vichy et la Famille; on pronatalism, Reggiani’s article ‘Procreating France’; on women’s lives, see, for example: Muel-Dreyfus, Vichy et l’éternel féminin or Pollard, Reign of Virtue.

9. See also Brown, Critical History of French Children’s Literature.

10. Sturdee, ‘The Effect of the Nazi Occupation on the Children of Caen’; Dodd, French Children under the Allied Bombs.

11. Childhood memoirs include the collection Carrier, Maréchal nous voilà; Le Melledo, Lorient à l’heure de l’évacuation; Roux, C’est la guerre les enfants.

12. Downs, ‘Au revoir les enfants’, 24.

13. The periods of the year which were chosen were: (a) around Christmas and New Year, when ‘surprises’ for Pétain were run; (b) around the rentrée when children went back to school in October; and (c) around Mother’s Day in the final week of May. When batches of children’s letters were evident among the wealth of letters written by members of the population to their leader, these were also examined. As the letters were on microfilm, it was a question of scrolling through and identifying (easily) children’s handwriting and drawings among the letters.

14. A key text for understanding this paradigm is James and Prout, Constructing and Reconstructing Childhood. For an overview useful to historians seeking to understand interdisciplinary approaches, see Kehily, An Introduction to Childhood Studies.

15. Jordanova, ‘Children in History’, 5.

16. Useful sources for exploring children’s letter-writing include Hall, Robinson and Crawford, ‘Young Children’s Explorations of Letter Writing’; Salo, ‘Dear Mrs. President: Children’s Letters to the President of Finland as Documents of Life’; and Stanley ‘The Epistolarium: on Theorizing Letters and Correspondences’.

17. Greenhalgh, ‘“Till we Hear the Last all Clear”,’ 169.

18. Alexander, ‘Agency and Emotion Work’.

19. Maynes, ‘Age as a Category of Historical Analysis’, 120, 116.

20. Alexander, ‘Agency and Emotion Work’, 122.

21. Schmidt, ‘Children and the State’, 174, 186.

22. Noakes and Grayzel, ‘Defending the Home(land)’, 57.

23. Brubaker, Citizenship and Nationhood, 35; Delanty, ‘Models of Citizenship’, 286.

24. Waters, Social Movements in France, 46.

25. Jans, ‘Children as Citizens’, 3, 38–40, drawing on Delanty, Citizenship in a Global Age.

26. For a discussion of the problems of searching for children’s agency in the past, see Alexander, ‘Agency and Emotion Work’.

27. Jackson, France, 280.

28. Spencer, ‘What is Charisma?’, 347, in Kallis, ‘Fascism, “Charisma” and “charismatization”’, 26.

29. Kelly, ‘Riding the Magic Carpet’, 203.

30. A(rchives) N(ationales), Paris. F41 293. Anon, booklet ‘Aux enfants de France’, undated, 21.

31. AN, F41 293. Service des Concours (Vichy), draft circular to members of the teaching profession (undated, probably December 1940).

32. Ibid.

33. AN, 2AG 498. Henri d’Amfreville, ‘Quand les enfants de France dessinent pour le Maréchal’, Vrai, 15 October, 1941: 6.

34. AN, F41 293. Pétain’s ‘Speech to Schoolchildren’, 13 October 1941.

35. AN, F41 293. General Secretariat for Information (Youth Section), text for teachers to read to all schoolchildren in lieu of a poster (undated, probably December 1941).

36. AN, F41 293. Minister of National Education and Youth to Chief Education Officers and School Inspectors, 15 September 1941.

37. Ibid.

38. Anon, ‘Le maréchal Pétain à l'auberge de la jeunesse’, Le Temps, 30 January 1942.

39. Halls, Youth of Vichy France, 14–15.

40. AN, F41 269. Pierrette B., ‘Le portrait du Maréchal Pétain’, 2 December 1940.

41. AN, F41 269. Marie-Louise G., ‘Le portrait du Maréchal Pétain’, 2 December 1940.

42. AN, 2AG 165. Micheline S. (via her grandfather), letter to Pétain, 3 January 1942.

43. See the long series of letters relating to the sending of gifts to children in AN, 2AG 145, for example.

44. AN, 2AG 329. Claire B. to Pétain, 28 November 28, 1942.

45. AN, 2AG 165. Serge G., letter to Pétain, 8 September 1941.

46. AN, 2AG 165. Jacqueline D., letter to Pétain, 11 September 1941.

47. AN, 2AG 165. Gerard J., letter to Pétain (undated, probably September 1941).

48. AN, 2AG 265. Jacques G., letter to Pétain, 12 December 1941.

49. AN, 2AG 265. Claude D., letter to Pétain, 12 December 1941.

50. AN, 2AG 265. Jean O., letter to Pétain (undated, probably December 1941).

51. AN, 2AG 265. André B., letter to Pétain, 1 December 1941.

52. AN, AJ 16 7149. Headmistress of Lycée de Jeunes Filles, Sèvres, to Chief Education Officer, Paris region, 31 January 1942.

53. While many children during this period only completed their obligatory primary education, remaining at the same school until the age of 14, others were sent to lycées in the sixième or ‘sixth’ class aged about 11, and continued until they passed their baccalauréat when they were about 18 years old. In the current French system sixième is the first year of the collège cycle of secondary education with pupils only starting the three-year lycée cycle around the age of 15.

54. AN, AJ16 7149. Headmaster of Lycée Carnot to Chief Education Officer, Paris region, 4 December 1942; Headmaster of Lycée Louis-le-Grand to Chief Education Officer, Paris region, 19 March 1942; Headmistress of Lycée Lamartine to Chief Education Officer, Paris region, 29 October 1941.

55. See Le Crom, Au Secours Maréchal.

56. AN, F41 269. General Secretariat for Youth (Propaganda Service), ‘Bulletin de Presse’, no. 2 (undated, probably autumn 1940), 23.

57. Ibid.

58. AN, F17 293. General Secretariat for Information (Youth Section) to all Headteachers, 8 December 1941.

59. AN, F17 13395. ‘Message des enfants du Havre au Maréchal Pétain’, December 1941 (received on 18 December 1941).

60. AN, F41 269. Ministry of Propaganda (Youth Section), ‘Campagne de propagande sur les moins de 15 ans à l’occasion de Noël 1942’, 11 September 1942.

61. Ibid.

62. Ibid.

63. AN, F17 13395. Ministry of National Education, General Secretariat of Public Instruction to all Prefects and Headteachers, 21 November 1942.

64. Halls, Youth of Vichy France, 14.

65. AN, AJ16 7122. Director-general of the Secours national (Paris Region) to all Headteachers, 18 April 1941.

66. AN, 2AG 154. Ville d’Aubervilliers (Délégation spéciale d’Aubervilliers), invitation to the Gala de la Jeunesse Française, 1 May 1941.

67. AN, AJ16 7122. Director-general of the Secours national (Paris Region) to all Headteachers, 18 April 1941.

68. AN, 2AG 165. Marie-José E., letter to Pétain, 5 August 1941.

69. AN, 2AG 165. Signed collectively, letter to Pétain, 30 July 1941.

70. AN, 2AG 165. Janine C., letter to Pétain, 30 July 1941.

71. AN, 2AG 165. Guy C., letter to Pétain, 3 June 1942.

72. AN, 2AG 165. Signed collectively by schoolgirls at the Institut Sévigné, letter to Pétain, 5 July 1941.

73. AN, 2AG 165. Suzanne G, letter to Pétain (undated, probably July, 1941).

74. AN, 2AG 165. Raymond T., letter to Pétain, 9 September 1941.

75. AN, 2AG 165. Signed collectively by the girls in the neuvième class at the Institut Sevigné, letter to Pétain (undated, probably July, 1941).

76. AN, 2AG 154. Bulletin du Secours national (unoccupied zone), 15 April 1941.

77. AN, F17 13371. Anon, ‘En sauvant les enfants nous sauvons l’avenir’, Clairon, 3 July 1943.

78. Ibid.

79. Archives Municipales de Boulogne-Billancourt (AMBB), 6H 18. R. Ozouf (Inspector of Primary Education for the Seine), ‘Note destiné aux instituteurs ou institutrices de la Seine chargés du contrôle des enfants évacués’, 4 May 1943.

80. Ibid.

81. Speech of 17 June, 1940, in Jean-Claude Barbas, ed. and Philippe Pétain, Discours aux Français 17 juin 1940–20 aout 1944 (Paris, 1989), 57.

82. Pollard, Reign of Virtue, 74, 42.

83. Halls, Youth of Vichy France, 47.

84. Capuano, Vichy et la famille, 12.

85. AN, 2AG 498. General Commissariat for the Family, note ‘La campagne de propagande en faveur de la famille’ (undated, probably 1941).

86. Muel-Dreyfus, Vichy et l’éternel féminin, 127.

87. AN, 19760145 145. Leaflet ‘Ils sont trois petits Français’ (undated, probably 1941).

88. The idea of children being characterized as ‘becomings’ rather than ‘beings’ comes from Prout, Future of Childhood; see also Bacon and Frankel, ‘Rethinking Children’s Citizenship’, 38.

89. AN, 2AG 497. Anon, L’Instituteur et son rôle dans la restauration de la famille française, par un instituteur, Secrétariat d’Etat à la Santé et à la Famille, Commissariat Générale à la Famille, undated (probably 1941), 27.

90. On gendered education in the Vichy era, see Pollard, Reign of Virtue, 71–97.

91. AN, 2AG 497. L’Instituteur et son rôle, 36.

92. Ibid.

93. AN, 2AG 329. Georgette K., letter to Pétain, 3 January 1942.

94. AN, 2AG 329. Lucette G., letter to Pétain, 3 January 1942.

95. AN, 2AG 329. Marie-Louise G., letter to Pétain, 3 January 1942.

96. Pollard, Reign of Virtue, 45.

97. AN, AJ16 7122. Minister of Public Instruction to all Headteachers of Primary Schools, 12 May, 1941.

98. Ibid.

99. Bernini, ‘Mothers and Children in Post-War Europe’, 244.

100. AN, AJ16 7122. Michel B., letter to his mother, undated (probably May 1941).

101. AN, AJ16 7122. Georges A., letter to his mother, 21 May, 1941.

102. AN, AJ16 7122. Roger V., letter to his mother, 21 May 1941.

103. AN, AJ16 7122. Georges A., letter to his mother, 21 May, 1941.

104. See Fogg, Politics of Everyday Life.

105. AN, AJ16 7122. Marie-Madeleine P., letter to her mother, 16 May 1941.

106. AN, AJ16 7122. Roger L., letter to his mother, 21 May 1941.

107. Steedman, Dust, 117.

108. Noakes and Grayzel, ‘Defending the Home(land)’, 57.

109. There is a body of scholarship around the history of child rights, however. See e.g. Fass, ‘A Historical Context for the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child’, or Marshall, ‘The Construction of Children as an Object of International Relations’.

110. Lister, ‘Why Citizenship?’, 697.

111. James, ‘To Be(come) or Not to Be(come)’, 169.