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Article: Fascism a la Francaise.(pre-Vichy France)(Books, Arts & Manners)(Column)
- Article from:
- National Review
- Article date:
- December 8, 1997
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1997 National Review, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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IT WAS a splendid myth. France, defeated on the battlefield but unbowed in spirit, fought on magnificently in the Resistance against the Nazi beast and played a major role in its own Liberation. As one man, the French fought the German conqueror bitterly, bleeding him white, until France's Second Armored Division invaded Normandy and restored the country to freedom. Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite. Hoist the tricolore. Let freedom ring.
Year by year pieces of this fiction have fallen away. But it is only now, with most of the active participants gone from the scene, that France is finally coming to terms with its wartime history.
During his last days on earth, ...