The ‘posthumous kidnapp[ing]’ of Pétain.

In 1973 the dead Pétain was kidnapped. The plot was thought up by the exuberant Jean-Louis Tixier-Vignancour, a lawyer and politician whose rightist views were even more extreme than Isorni’s. His henchmen came across on the ferry with a van, had a good dinner at the Hôtel des Voyageurs and then drove to the grave. ‘As the coffin was raised, the men broke into a rendition of the Vichy hymn “Maréchal, nous voilà”. After a celebratory glass of champagne at the hotel, they took the 4 a.m. ferry back to the mainland.’ Then everything went wrong. They drove the coffin up and down the Champs-Élysées, in order to erase the memory of de Gaulle’s triumphal parade there at the Liberation, but meeting no enthusiasm, surrendered to the police. The coffin was back on the Île d’Yeu within three days.

Ascherson, Neal, ‘What Can Be Called Treason’, London Review of Books 46.24 (2024).

À propos.

Étiquettes.

France, Pétain, Vichy, Champs-Élysées, de Gaulle.

Mises à jour.

• J.P. Loo (08 juin 2025): New vignettes.