ABOUT TIME ON A CLEAR TROUBLE

Robert Paxton has this great merit: to analyze clearly a troubled era in many ways: the complexity of events and the care that the post-war historians have to hide, to evade, consciously or not. The truth was not yet politically acceptable.
Thirty years after an explosive issue, the book of PAXTON strikes us truths we did not know.
Vichy has not undergone the German demands. It preceded them. Vichy has claimed for months in collaboration with contempt concerned and very suspicious of his French interlocutors.
The entourage of Marshal was not done - at least until 1943 - as fools or henchmen. Included are great servants of the State, politicians of the Third Republic bleached in harness. Included are high-class technicians, state councilors, advisers to the Court of Auditors. The polytechnic employed by the regime are many, the most important and the most compromising positions. The route of John Bichelonne whose grades in X were the highest, speaks for itself.
The purpose of PAXTON is dispassionate. He approaches the subject as a historian, evidence and records supporting elements. The file is complete and rigorous method.
The conclusions are questionable. They are alarming especially when we know that many of these collaborators of the Vichy regime resumed service in the Fourth Republic.
The style is clear. The book is read in one sitting.