[1] The son of a tailor from southwest France, Pucheu was born in Beaumont-sur-Oise and won a scholarship to the École Normale Supérieure in Paris, where he was a contemporary of both Robert Brasillach and Jean-Paul Sartre.

[9] He was also responsible for setting up the SPAC anti-communist police force, the anti-Masonic Service for Secret Societies, and the Amicales de France, which served as the propaganda arm of Vichy.

[2] As part of a loose intellectual movement known as the jeunes cyclists, Pucheu quickly came to terms with Germany as the leader of Europe but hoped that economic renewal would ensure France would be one of the leading secondary powers in this new order.

[13] The French army and administration in North Africa under Giraud had reentered the war against the Axis without renouncing Pétain or the Vichy National Revolution; expecting to be called up to duty as a reserve military officer, Pucheu went to Casablanca, Morocco in May 1943.

Despite a request for clemency by General Giraud, de Gaulle refused to intervene, although personally regretting the political necessity of Pucheu's execution, and expressing admiration for the way in which he had conducted himself during the trial.

[15] Pucheu was the first person tried under the French Committee of National Liberation's September 1943 edict charging all Vichy ministers with treason;[14] it is said that de Gaulle had ensured that he faced the death penalty in order to undermine any further collaboration in France.