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Vichy’s
first comprehensive anti-Jewish statute (Statut des Juifs),
passed on October 3, 1940, defined a Jew as a person with three
grandparents “of the Jewish race,” or with two Jewish
grandparents if the spouse was also Jewish. In the latter provision,
and in its explicit reference to race, the Vichy definition was both
harsher and more inclusive than that stipulated by the Germans in
the occupied zone of France and elsewhere. The law went on to
provide the basis for drastically reducing the role of Jews in
French society. It excluded Jews from top positions in the French
civil service, the corps of officers and noncommissioned officers in
the army, and professions that helped shape public
opinion—teaching, the press, radio, cinema, and theater. Jews
could hold menial public-service positions, provided they had served
in the armed forces between 1914 and 1918, or had distinguished
themselves in the campaign of 1939–1940. The statute also stated
that a quota system would be devised to limit the presence of Jews
in the liberal professions (law, medicine, etc.). Formulated purely
on French initiative, the law was hastily prepared in the Justice
Ministry of Raphael Alibert, a militant antisemite, a friend of the
monarchist and fascist-leaning Action Française movement, and
the formulator of the Vichy motto “Travail, Famille, Patrie”
(“Work, Family, Fatherland”).
Vichy’s
efforts to apply this statute effectively and toughen some of its
provisions led to a second Statut des Juifs, on June 2, 1941.
It emerged from Xavier Vallat’s Commissariat General aux
Questions Juives (Commissariat for Jewish Affairs; CGQJ), and
was carefully drafted in a series of cabinet meetings and
consultations with Justice Minister Joseph Barthelemy. After
tightening the definition of Jewishness and tinkering with the
provisions for the purging of Jews from public posts, the law opened
the way for a massive removal of Jews from the liberal professions,
commerce, and industry. Only a handful of well-established French
Jews could benefit from the exemptions provided by the statute. Even
Jewish prisoners of war, if returned from captivity, faced the
rigors of the anti-Jewish law.
Keenly
attentive to detail, Vallat was determined to close every loophole
through which Jews might escape the jurisdiction of the anti-Jewish
program. Never fully satisfied with the handiwork of the CGQJ, the
coordinator of the antisemitic legislation elaborated a new Statut
des Juifs over the fall and winter of 1941. Although this law
never saw the light of day, its successive drafts point to a
continuing effort to tighten the definition and ease the task of
legal definition—as, for example, in the case of the children of
foreigners whose grandparents’ racial makeup could not be
determined. Mean-spirited and beset with contradictions on the
matter of race and religion, the statutory core of the Vichy
regime’s policy toward the Jews reflected its legalistic approach
toward, and animus against, all Jews, whether or not they were
French citizens.
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