These laws were, in fact, decrees of head of state Marshal Philippe Pétain, since Parliament was no longer in office as of 11 July 1940.
The first Jewish status law (Le Statut des Juifs) dated 3 October 1940 excluded Jews from the army, press, commercial and industrial activities, and the civil service.
The second status law was passed in July 1941 and required the registration of Jewish businesses and excluded Jews from any profession, commercial or industrial.
Vichy freely adopted aryanization so that by mid-1941, half of the Jewish population had no income, were forbidden from having radios, changing residence, and were restricted in the hours they could go out in public.
[4] The Vichy government voluntarily adopted, without coercion from the German forces, laws that excluded Jews and their children from certain roles in society.
Until the invasion of the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941 the hunt for communists was not a high priority on the Nazi agenda, because of the signing of the Nazi-Soviet Pact on 23 August 1939.