European unity and the discourse of collaboration, France and francophone Belgium, 1938-1945

grantor: University of TorontoThe discourse of pro-Axis collaboration in France and francophone Belgium between 1938 and 1945 centered around the conception of European unity. The collaborators, as well their European visions were quite varied, but could be grouped into three general categories of Europeanist, nationalist, and fascist collaborators, reflecting ideological tendencies inherited from the interwar period. Europeanist collaborators like Marcel Deat, Jean Luchaire, and Raymond De Becker were usually former European federalists who hoped Hitler would create a supranational European order embodying many of their prewar socialist ideals. Nationalist collaborators like Marshal Petain, Alexandre Galopin, and Robert Poulet viewed collaboration with Germany in terms of the national interest in a manner that minimized European sentiments, regarding the New Order as an alliance of sovereign fatherlands. Fascist collaborators like Jacques Doriot and Leon Degrelle conceived of European unity in terms of solidarity among fascist and Nazi states, each one of which embraced its own variant of what Jose Streel described as the fascist Revolution of the Twentieth Century. The discourse of collaboration altered along with the course of the war itself. The harshness of German rule and the growing hopes that France and Belgium would soon be liberated by the Allies doomed any hope of the collaborators' winning mass support, and Hitler himself had no intention of turning the New Order into a genuine European partnership. Depending more and more on German support, many, but not all, Europeanist and fascist collaborators by 1944 embraced an SS- inspired Euronazism, which envisioned a Germanized Europe organized on a purely racial basis. With the exception of the Milice francaise, those nationalist and even fascist collaborators who preferred a less Nazified vision of European solidarity became politically marginalized. The experience of collaboration was to exert a long-term impact upon the discourse of the postwar extreme right which continued to perpetuate many of the concepts of European unity entertained by the wartime collaborators.Ph.D