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Article: Of Dior and De Gaulle
- Article from:
- The Washington Post
- Article date:
- August 7, 1994
- Author:
CopyrightThis material is published under license from the Washington Post. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Washington Post. (Hide copyright information)
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PARIS AFTER THE LIBERATION
1944-1949
By Anthony Beevor and Artemis Cooper
Doubleday. 468 pp. $27.50
IN A POLITICALLY stable country like the United States, a person
can live his or her entire adult life as a Republican or a Democrat.
But the dilemma for France during and after World War II was that
people were repeatedly asked to declare their allegiances in a
swiftly changing political landscape. Were they for Petain or de
Gaulle? Were they in the resistance or in the collaboration, or
someplace in between? Was "life as usual" an implicit form of
collaboration? After the war, were they Gaullists or Communists or
Socialists or Christian Democrats? If Communists, did they toe the
Soviet ...