[1] Historiographical debates are still passionate and oppose different views on the nature and legitimacy of Vichy's collaborationism with Germany in the implementation of the Holocaust.
Firstly, the Gaullist period aimed at national reconciliation and unity under the figure of Charles de Gaulle, who conceived himself above political parties and divisions.
Critics contend that his itinerary was shared by others although few had such public roles and demonstrates France's collective amnesia, but others point out that the perception of the war and of the state collaboration has evolved during those years.
[5] It is certain that the Vichy government and many of its top administration collaborated in the implementation of the Holocaust, but the exact level of such co-operation is still debated.
The regional newspaper Nice Matin revealed on 28 February 2007 that in more than 1,000 condominium properties on the Côte d'Azur, rules dating to Vichy were still "in force" or at least existed on paper.
note]The president of the Conseil Représentatif des Institutions juives de France-Côte d'Azur, a Jewish association group, issued a strong condemnation labelling it "the utmost horror" when one of the inhabitants of such a condominium qualified that as an "anachronism" with "no consequences".
[7] Jewish inhabitants were able and willing to live in the buildings, and to explain that, the Nice Matin reporter surmised that some tenants may have not read the condominium contracts in detail, and others have deemed the rules obsolete.
[10] The main proponent of this view was Charles de Gaulle himself, who insisted, as did other historians afterwards, on the unclear conditions of the June 1940 vote granting full powers to Pétain, which was refused by the minority of Vichy 80.
Two additional popular beliefs went along with this, that of the "sword and shield", as well as the idea that to whatever extent there were harsh measures implemented by Vichy, it was because it was under the boot of the Germans and not by choice.
[19][full citation needed] During the war, the theory of the "sword and shield" (Thèse du bouclier et de l'épée [fr]) was raised as a defense of Vichy, whereby Pétain was seen as the "shield" protecting France and the French people within the country, while de Gaulle was seen as the "sword", engaging in combat from abroad.
By this theory, Pétain was merely containing the German enemy to prevent an even worse outcome for France, while awaiting liberation through military action from without led by de Gaulle.
[20][full citation needed] A lot of French people believed at the time of the occupation that this tacit agreement existed, according to Aron.
[21][full citation needed] Today, the few remaining Vichy supporters continue to maintain the official argument advanced by Pétain and Laval: state collaboration was supposed to protect the French civilian population from the Occupation's hardships.
[22] Munholland reports a widespread consensus among historians regarding the authoritarian character of the Vichy regime and its broadly stated desire to regenerate a "decadent" state and society that had become corrupted by an ambient lassitude, secularism, and hedonism under the Third Republic by returning to earlier and purer values and imposing a greater discipline and dynamism upon the industrial order.
After naming the alleged causes of the defeat ("democracy, parliamentarism, cosmopolitanism, the left wing, foreigners, Jews,..."), Vichy had put in place by 3 October 1940 the first anti-Jewish legislation.
Thus, by July 1940, Vichy eagerly negotiated with the German authorities in an attempt to gain a place for France in the Third Reich's "New Order", but "Hitler never forgot the 1918 defeat.
The new policy was officially formulated during the January 1942 Wannsee Conference and had been implemented in all occupied countries in Europe by spring 1942.
In the early months of 1943, the terror [Adam] Munz and [Alfred] Feldman described in German-occupied France was still experienced by foreign Jews like themselves.
Despite Vichy officials' past disapproval and Eichmann's own prior discouragement of such a step, permission for the deportation of the French Jews at Drancy, except for those in mixed marriages, was granted from Berlin on 25 January.