In France, praise for Nazi collaborator Petain prompts legal action, condemnation

A senior French official said on Saturday that legal action would be taken over comments made praising Philippe Petain, Vichy France’s wartime head of state who collaborated with the Nazis and was convicted of treason after World War II.

The row is the latest controversy over the legacy of Petain, a World War I hero disgraced for his collaboration with the Nazis. With his regime’s help, some 75,000 Jews were deported to Nazi concentration camps.

Xavier Delarue, the government prefect of Meuse department in eastern France, said he would take action over remarks made following a mass for Petain organized by an association dedicated to restoring his reputation.

French Interior Minister Laurent Nunez and France’s umbrella Jewish communal group also condemned the comments.

Yonathan Arfi, president of CRIF, which represents Jewish institutions in France, called the tribute an insult to the memory of the Jews deported during Petain’s time in power, “whom the zealous collaborators of the Vichy regime handed over to the Nazis.”

“Celebrating a mass for Petain is to glorify collaboration and rehabilitate a traitor to the nation,” he added.

The Association to Defend the Memory of Marshal Petain (ADMP) organized a mass on Saturday at Saint-Jean-Baptiste church in Verdun, where Petain won a famous World War I battle in 1916.

Around 20 association members attended. Outside, about 100 people, watched by police, gathered to protest the ceremony.

After the mass, ADMP president Jacques Boncompain told journalists that Petain had been “the first resistant of France.”

Boncompain also said Petain’s post-war conviction for treason by a High Court of Justice had not been fair.

Protestors booed one member of the pro-Petain group as he sang a song in praise of Petain, “Marshal, Here We Are.”

Une messe en hommage au maréchal Pétain s'est tenue à l'église Saint-Jean-Baptiste de Verdun ce samedi 15 novembre. Le préfet de la Meuse, Xavier Delarue, va porter plainte contre des propos «clairement révisionnistes» tenus en marge de cet hommage. pic.twitter.com/LMlmNLkfeo

— Le Figaro (@Le_Figaro) November 15, 2025

The prefect, announcing the legal action, said the comments had been “clearly revisionist.”

Nunez, in a post on X, said, “The remarks made today on the sidelines of a mass in ‘tribute’ to Philippe Petain in Verdun go against our collective memory.”

The minister condemned any attempt to rehabilitate someone linked to World War II Nazi collaboration and oppression.

Revisionism, under French criminal law, is the act of negating or minimizing crimes such as genocide, war crimes or crimes against humanity.

Anyone convicted faces up to a year in jail and a fine of up to 45,000 euros ($52,000).

The Petain tribute came soon after France’s Armistice Day on November 11, the day World War I ended, when the nation remembers those who fought and died in the conflict.

Verdun’s mayor, Samuel Hazard, had tried to ban the pro-Petain ceremony, but was overruled by a court on Friday.

“I’m deeply hurt, because I think of all the victims of Nazi barbarism and… Marshal Petain’s ideology,” he said after Saturday’s ceremony.

Petain’s admirers stress the role he played in World War I. He is widely seen as the architect of France’s victory over German forces at Verdun, the longest battle of the war.

But he only avoided execution — after being convicted and sentenced to death at the end of World War II for leading France’s collaborationist Vichy government — because of his advanced age.

Petain died in 1951, six years into his life sentence in exile on the Atlantic island of Yeu.