The Mock Trial in France
It is often the case that when Marshal Petain assumes the patriarchal role of monitor to his people, requiring them to make atonement for their sins, the measures which he proceeds to take for the good of their souls are exactly in accord with the demands of the Germans. Thus it is in the case of the former leaders who are to be indicted by the Supreme Court of Riom on charges of responsbility for France's defeat, some of whom he has already sent to confinement in a fortress. The Marshal, confronted with many German demands, appears to be standing firm in his refusal to dismiss Weygand from his African command ; but he finds it easy to make concessions in punishing men who have been objectionable to the Germans and are scarcely less objectionable to him. Among the accused are the politicians M. Paul Reynaud, M. Daladier, and M. Leon Blum, and the former Generalissimo of the Allied Forces, General Gamelin. If all the mistakes that France has made in recent years were to be brought up against her recent rulers, any such charge would equally be a charge against the whole nation which put them in power. If it is right to make General Gamelin responsible for the unpreparedness and disposition of the troops, then can General Weygand be acquitted, and must not even Marshal Petain himself take his share of the blame? Such questions should be decided at the bar of history, not in a court of law. In imprisoning the accused and sending them to the Riom Court the Vichy Government seeks at one and the same time to please the Nazis and take vengeance on political opponents. It might appear that in this trial French democracy is put in the dock. For such a case a Fascist Court is scarcely a competent tribunal.
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