Past Present Future

S13E237 - Politics on Trial: France on Trial Part 2 – Vichy vs the Jews

Published: November 12, 2025

Duration: 51:50

Today’s episode is the second part of David’s conversation with historian Julian Jackson about the case of Marshal Pétain and the crimes of the Vichy regime. Did Pétain really play a ‘double game’ in which he tried to deceive the Nazis? How then to explain the vicious antisemitism of the Vichy regime? Why did the fate of France’s Jews not get more attention at Pétain’s trial? And how does the case of Pétain and the question of Vichy still resonate in French politics today? 

Julian Jackson’s France on Trial: The Case of M...