Talk:Government of Vichy France

Inspired by move discussion at Philippe Pétain

Additional discussion about this article may be found at Talk:Philippe Pétain. Mathglot (talk) 01:54, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

going to do a first-pass copy edit for now

I have not looked at the French. If this is a translation of that article, that would explain the lede, which leaves out the critical information that these were Nazi collaborators. In France every knows that of course. For now leaving the See also as a flag, the lede needs work but this first pass is for issues of language and idiom only. Caveat: I am North American and sometimes something sounds wrong to me when it is merely british; not too often though as my father was British. But at somepoint done the road somoene may want to review for consistency in use of British English or not. Since the topic is European history, perhaps the standard should be Briths spellings. Elinruby (talk) 19:33, 4 June 2020 (UTC)Ä

• Actually doing some linking and a bit of writing. But I have questions: Under the 1st Laval administration what is all this avout ministers getting dismissed because they are former parliamentarians/Elinruby (talk) 22:37, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

@Elinruby:, yes, it's like that because it started out a translation from the French article, which had plenty of weaknesses, including a lead which didn't adequately summarize the body, a lack of sourcing, and an organizational structure that could be better. Thanks for all the improvements, and feel free to rewrite the lead or anything else. Mathglot (talk) 19:31, 5 June 2020 (UTC)

@Mathglot: not sure what to do about that right now. This came up in Brazilian articles, also. To Americans at least the idea of reqriting the Constitution is a bit foreign. It's just someothing that somebody should fix as we get deeper into the material. For purposes of the lede maybe say "power to amend the constitution", and go into it furhter in the body. It's an issue I am flagging for later. I am just surfing related topics right now, can't sit down for an extended session right now. Elinruby (talk) 20:25, 5 June 2020 (UTC)

@Elinruby:, sounds good. "Surfing related topics" is about to get easier: I pretty much finished Template:French Resistance (at least the first pass at it), and I'm about to link it in, to relevant articles. (Feel free to add it wherever it seems beneficial.) This will give better visibility to lots of currently obscure articles, which however are all related through Free France, and the Resistance, and hopefully get more eyeballs on those articles. Feel free to add stuff to the template, as we:ll. In particular, I'm trying to figure out who deserves to be considered "Leaders" of the Resistance, in the "Leaders" section, so feel free to beef that up. I considered adding a "Members" section, but there are way too many people in Category:French Resistance members. Maybe a new section in the template for "Notable members" who were particularly important? Searching in google books for "important members of the French Resistance" led me to all sorts of names of people I never heard of, including lots of women; Marie-Madeleine Fourcade was one, for example. I don't know how to judge which ones were "important", though. Maybe I'll mention this at the Template Talk page. Mathglot (talk) 21:12, 5 June 2020 (UTC)

Make sure you get de Gaulle and Jen Moulin. Communist party also important Elinruby (talk) 21:18, 5 June 2020 (UTC)

Yep. Moving this part of the discussion to Template talk:French Resistance#Leaders and members. Mathglot (talk) 22:49, 5 June 2020 (UTC)

Government vs Adminstration vs Regime

A couple of thoughts:

• It was long the position of the French that the Vichy regime did not actually represent the legitimate government of France in this period, and that this was in fact the Free French Forces under De Gaulle. This needs to be expanded under "legitimacy". Regime has connotations of illegitimacy. I am content to use the term Vichy regime,since I don't think any government that sends its citizens to camps in Poland is legitimate, but perhaps some thought should be given to this, as to neutrality. Incidentally, I think it should have an accet aigu, but some of the other people in these articles seem not to agree, not that it matters at this this organizational stage.
• Another word being used is "government", as in the fifth Laval government. This word is used afaik in parliamentary democracies in situations where a party that has a majority but not a plurality negotiates with other parties to form a cabinet and platform that will withstand a vote of no confidence. I know I just went through an article about the balance of power in France with a fine-toothed comb. but that article is about a subsequent constitution. In any event, pending discussion, here is what I am doing: Vichy is a regime, different cabinets are different administrations, and the government is whatever the legitimate authority was in the country at the time. That way, if I do that consistently, and of someone has an issue with that later, we can resolve it with a find-replace if need be.
• Also, though, if an administration is a cabinet, we pretty much do have to define it, which means listing its members, but it seems like this does get in the way of the policy history, so at some point maybe we should consider lists or organizational charts just to unclutter the texr. Elinruby (talk) 20:26, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

@Elinruby: yeah, agreed about the connotations about regime/government, especially when referring to the ruling body of a country. But it's tricky for a couple of reasons: 1) the differences between parliamentary and other systems, and 2) the perhaps cultural differences in how different countries name different periods of rule, in particular, with respect to ordinals.

With respect to parliamentary and other systems, "Government" has a secondary meaning, more familiar in the U.K. and other parliamentary systems than in the U.S., and seen commonly in expressions like, "form a government". The U.S. doesn't have this same sense of "forming a government", which in a parliamentary system usually involves some horse-trading and coalition building. The closest US equivalent is probably a President choosing their cabinet, but this analogy is not very good, because a Prime Minister, once chosen as part of a governing coalition, also chooses a cabinet; so the U.S. system doesn't really use the word "government" in this way. The closest is probably "administration", but that doesn't lend itself very well to this concept, either, partly because it in a presidential system, it is used as a synonym for "term" of the chief executive, regardless how much shakeup might have occurred in the cabinet during their term of office.

The other difference, is, I believe, simply a matter of convention of how writers in different cultures/languages refer to the same thing. Compare, for example, how en-wiki handles De Gaulle, compared to how French or other Wikipedias do it. The English and French articles on De Gaulle; in particular, the Infoboxes, are different, but also the body text. The French fr:De Gaulle article has the bolded term Gouvernment five times in the Infobox to identify different governments/administrations, and three of them are numbered with Roman numerals, marked "De Gaulle I", "De Gaulle II", and "De Gaulle III", all with links to numbered articles (e.g., "De Gaulle I" links to fr:Gouvernement Charles de Gaulle (1), and so on). All three articles use ordinals in running text to refer to them (for example: in the lead sentence: "Le premier gouvernement Charles de Gaulle fait partie des gouvernements provisoires de la République française.) (Note that the boldface title omits the preposition "de", as it's not *describing* it, it's *naming* it; i.e., the government's name is "premier gouvernement Charles de Gaulle", and that government could be described, albeit tautologically, as the "premier gouvernement de Charles de Gaulle".) The en-wiki article Charles de Gaulle does not number the governments this way; neither in the Infobox, nor in the article body. The terms first government, first administration, first term do not occur at all anywhere in the article; neither do third *; but, curiously perhaps, #Second term is the title of a section header in the article. Clearly, in that article at least, English doesn't use the ordinal numbering system as much as French does. French also has separate articles for the three governments (1, 2, and 3).

En-wiki doesn't have separate articles corresponding to fr:Gouvernement Charles de Gaulle (1), whereas de-wiki and es-wiki do, and fwiw, they handle the identifier differently, German using the word Cabinet (de:Kabinett de Gaulle I), and Italian using the word Government (it:Governo de Gaulle I) but retaining the numbering system. I wonder how an Rfc would go on en-wiki, to find the name of the equivalent English article titles for the three articles; I'm guessing, "First De Gaulle administration", "Second...", and so on; or maybe, "term"? By comparison, we have Presidency of Bill Clinton and Presidency of George W. Bush in en-wiki, and don't have separate articles on the two terms, for whatever reason; cultural, I guess.

Sorry I took so long to respond; I've been pretty busy at the Draft, now article, Clandestine press of the French Resistance (and related nav template and articles, like La Voix du Nord), but I'm pretty much finished with it, although it could use copy-editing and expansion. Mathglot (talk) 19:51, 29 June 2020 (UTC)

Oh, just noticed that you already referred to the form a government expression in the section #Lists of cabinet members below. Just catching up here, finally... Mathglot (talk) 19:55, 29 June 2020 (UTC)

I've been looking at some data, and as I speculated below in #Plural title, there appears to be a bit of a split between how BE and AE approach this, with BE not using administration at all (no surprise there), but also not using cabinets (a bit of a surprise, to me anyway), and putting all their eggs in the government basket: (ngrams Darlan or Flandin x govt, admin, or cab. in BE) Dropping administration and cabinet, and adding Laval and Petain, we get this: (ngrams Darlan, Flandin, Laval, Petain x government in BE). (This last one is interesting, because you can see where unicode, or at least typesetting conventions switched over in the UK from no accent, to e-acute in "Pétain", in around 2001.) Even AE doesn't use administration, and prefers government to cabinet: Darlan or Flandin, + admin, govt., or cab. in AE). Dropping admin and adding Laval & Petain, we get this: ngrams Laval, Flandin, Darlan, Petain in AE. Adding Elinruby, Chipmunkdavis. Mathglot (talk) 04:51, 27 July 2020 (UTC)

Petain section

This has been placed, chronologically, where Pétain took absolute power, but the linked french article is for his 24-day administration under the Third Republic. It does go there and does need some sort of a section I suppose if we follow the current structure, but we also need a longer section about his overall incluence over the next several administrations. I suppose can also briefly mention/link to his trial, so article structure doesn't become too list-like.

Basically, he was a strongman, what the South Americans call a caudillo, but he did also have a number of cabinets. and waning influence as time went on. Elinruby (talk) 20:46, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

Lists of cabinet members

I think we should offload these from the article eventually. Still translating them in for the moment Elinruby (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 7:39, June 7, 2020

@Elinruby: Perhaps, though ironically this article was first suggested as a place to unload them from another article, namely from Talk:Philippe Pétain#Spin off ministry sections to new List article, although that discussion morphed into creation of this one, still not a list article, so perhaps, as you say, they could still be spun off later. Looking at your last bullet above at #Government vs Adminstration vs Regime perhaps this makes sense. Mathglot (talk) 18:35, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

@Mathglot: There is a lot of history there that isn't specifically about Pétain. I am open to whatever edits, but I have been trying to summarize a whole bunch of other articles. For now I will just keep going. This is more work than I expected, but the topic suits the times. Ironic that it seems the Nazis were actually defeated in Africa. But yeah, current status is not even preliminary first draft. I will chip away and see where it goes. Translation note: The French has individual articles for each administration/cabinet/whatever,* but I believe this is used in the meaning of "form a government." But since there was in fact some question at the time whether it was in fact the legitimate government of France, this seems like an issue to me. Which we can decide later. Elinruby (talk) 21:23, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

• and uses the word "gouvernement"

things to check

• The name of the General who gave Petain his marching orders from Berlin may be Albert Neubronn von Eisenburg, based on one of the references, but It seems for actually be a fairly common name, and if so there is no German article for him anyway let alone an English one. It would make sense though since the spelling in the French article, if not a typo, looks more Dutch or Flemish than German.
• "chantiers de jeunesse? - best I can guess is youth camps. Requires digging in fr.wiki or in sources.
• "transmission" - translated this literally but danged if I know what it is unless it's broadcasting
• "Ravitaillement" -- resupply? Logistics? Literal translation is refueling. I went with resupply
• table for 6th Laval administration does not yet reflect reshuffles, had enough of this for now. Elinruby (talk) 03:04, 9 June 2020 (UTC)
• Paul Marion: french article on 6th Laval administration has him under reshuffles joining the 6th Laval administration on 6 january 1944, whereas the list of original cabinet members says he left the cabinet on that day. Based on his bio I believe the list of original cabinet members is correct, but this should be investigated and preferably cited. Elinruby (talk) 23:55, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

@Elinruby:, some thoughts on these:

• chantiers de jeunesse – youth workshops (my fave); youth activity groups; (more here) Mathglot (talk) 09:35, 4 July 2020 (UTC)
• transmission – yes, "Minister of Transmission"; for example, in Branch (1944).
• ravitaillement – resupply isn't wrong if it were just a word in running text, but as a "Commissioner of so-and-so", but still looking for a reliable English source to see if it already has an accepted translation; meanwhile I'd say "procurement" or "provisioning" Mathglot (talk) 09:35, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

WRT Paul Marion : his obituary tells us that

• on February 1941 he is secretary general adjunct to the vice presidency of the council for information under admiral Darlan (secrétaire général adjoint à la vice-présidence du conseil pour l'information)
• in August 1941 he becomes secretary general in charge of propaganda (secrétaire général, chargé également de la propagande)
• in April 1942, he is made state secretary for information (secrétaire d'État à l'information) by the Germans
• in January 1944 he is state secretary by the head of government (secrétaire d'État près le chef du gouvernement)
• he is at Belfort at the end of August 1944 with the remnants of the government

Regards, Comte0 (talk) 20:05, 27 July 2020 (UTC)

References

Translate and copy attribution

Wikipedia's licensing requirements require attribution when copying or translating text from other Wikipedia articles. Please use an edit summary with every edit that includes copied or translated text, of the type indicated at WP:TFOLWP; at a minimum:

• Content in this edit was translated from the French article [[fr:NAME-OF-FRENCH-ARTICLE]]; see that article's history for attribution.

When attribution wasn't added in the edit summary of the same edit, it can be added later, as explained at Repairing insufficient attribution, using a Dummy edit.

Suggested edit summary for attribution repair (adapted from WP:TFOLWP and WP:RIA):

• Minimum:

The earlier edit of HH:MM, MONTH, DD, YYYY was translated from the French article [[fr:NAME-OF-FRENCH-ARTICLE]]; see that article's history for attribution

• Better:

The earlier edit in revision 123456789 of HH:MM, MONTH, DD, YYYY was [[WP:CWW|translated]] from the French article [[fr:NAME-OF-FRENCH-ARTICLE]]; see that article's history for attribution

• Best:

[[WP:RIA|Note:]] The earlier edit in revision [[Special:Diff/123456789|123456789]] of hh:mm, MONTH, dd, YYYY [[WP:TFOLWP|translated]] or [[WP:CWW|copied]] content from the French article [[fr:NAME-OF-FRENCH-ARTICLE#Name-of-section]] rev. [[:fr:Special:Permalink/987654321|987654321]]; see that article's history for attribution.

Thanks. Mathglot (talk) 00:58, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

RIA worksheet

Some attribution statements have been omitted from the article; list and worksheet below.

worksheet for RIA

Please check the box (use {{checked box}}) when attribution has been added. revision 960961604 of 21:38, June 5, 2020‎ c Tunisian campaign Mathglot (talk) 18:04, 2 July 2020 (UTC) revision 960963974 of 21:56, June 5, 2020‎ t from Laval article, not Darlan article; was a bitch to find it. Mathglot (talk) 23:14, 2 July 2020 (UTC) revision 960967395 of 22:21, June 5, 2020 c from French Fourth Republic; Mathglot (talk) 23:26, 2 July 2020 (UTC)‎ revision 960973799 of 23:15, June 5, 2020 c from French Somaliland in World War II; ouch; that was hard to find... Mathglot (talk) 01:32, 3 July 2020 (UTC) revision 960976880 of 23:45, June 5, 2020‎ t from fr:Commission gouvernementale de Sigmaringen; Mathglot (talk) 03:13, 3 July 2020 (UTC) revision 960982984 of 00:28, June 6, 2020 t from fr:Collaboration policière sous le régime de Vichy; Mathglot (talk) 04:46, 3 July 2020 (UTC) revision 960996300 of 02:26, June 6, 2020‎ c from Attack on Mers-el-Kébir; Mathglot (talk) 02:59, 4 July 2020 (UTC) revision 961008219 of 04:12, June 6, 2020‎ c from Vichy France; Mathglot (talk) 08:50, 4 July 2020 (UTC) revision 961008661 of 04:17, June 6, 2020 c from Vichy France; Mathglot (talk) 09:07, 4 July 2020 (UTC) revision 961009689 of 04:29, June 6, 2020 c from Foreign relations of Vichy France#USSR; Mathglot (talk) 09:16, 4 July 2020 (UTC) revision 961010240 of 04:35, June 6, 2020 c from Foreign relations of Vichy France#United States revision 961014177 of 05:06, June 6, 2020 c from French Constitutional Law of 1940 Mathglot (talk) 09:48, 19 July 2020 (UTC) revision 961157058 of 22:37, June 6, 2020 t from fr:Gouvernement Pierre-Étienne Flandin (2) Mathglot (talk) 10:08, 19 July 2020 (UTC) revision 961160236 of 23:03, June 6, 2020 c from Occupied France Mathglot (talk) 10:15, 19 July 2020 (UTC) revision 961199422 of 04:31, June 7, 2020‎ t from fr:Gouvernement Philippe Pétain Mathglot (talk) 10:26, 19 July 2020 (UTC) revision 961519920 of 23:29, June 8, 2020  – RIA; Mathglot (talk) 22:56, June 30, 2020 revision 961524929 of 00:12, June 9, 2020  – RIA; Mathglot (talk) 22:56, June 30, 2020 revision 961525375 of 00:15, June 9, 2020  – RIA; Mathglot (talk) 22:56, June 30, 2020 revision 961526561 of 00:25, June 9, 2020  – RIA; Mathglot (talk) 22:56, June 30, 2020 revision 961541802 of 02:40, June 9, 2020‎ revision 961719933 of 01:24, June 10, 2020‎ revision 961736184 of 03:53, June 10, 2020 revision 961747303 of 05:40, June 10, 2020‎ revision 961757407 of 07:31, June 10, 2020‎ revision 961762914 of 08:21, June 10, 2020‎

Attribution for earlier edits can be added later; see WP:RIA for details. Mathglot (talk) 01:07, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

French text in fifth Laval administration

@Mathglot: I just wanted to make sure you were happy with the attribution of this, as I had forgotten I left French in here and I am translating it now. Elinruby (talk) 22:47, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

@Elinruby: Which one, can you give me a permalink or diff? Attribution is associated with an individual edit; can you add a {{Diff}} template, or use [[Special:Diff/<revision-nbr>]] for the edit you are talking about, or the timestamp from the History page (e..g, "hh:mm Month, dd yyyy")? I don't see attribution in the edit summary of any of the edits in the History. Mathglot (talk) 23:28, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

There's some French text about the Relèves. It probably is from fr Wikipedia. My bad tho, I am not sure where and it's probably TMI about the administrative stuff anyway. So I am just going to delete and write something about these events from scratch, if you have no objection. I am pretty sure this is my own incomplete edit, btw. This is true and important but now I don't know where the references are for it. I'll add it to the list of the legitimacy section, to make sure it gets covered. This is the one the international court said was void ab initio, because of its "moral content" -- the government simply does not have the authority to do this. So it's important, but needs references, and there will be plenty for this Elinruby (talk) 23:43, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

@Elinruby:, Are we mixing up "referencing" (adding citations/footnotes) and "attribution" here, which are two different things? Above, where you said, "happy with the attribution of this", are you asking about "referencing", i.e., whether the eight footnotes in section #First Laval administration (1940) are sufficient, or are are you asking whether the edits were attributed properly in the History (i.e., credited to the original Wikipedia article), which is a completely different question? Mathglot (talk) 23:53, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

No, but I am talking about both of them 1) I'm talking about whatever you were doing when you had a hard time finding the text from french Somaliland 2) then I said never mind, I am going to delete and rewrite because I do not remember where the French came from and I seem to have uncommented it. This is a problem because the footnotes are like: [1] so it is easiest to rewrite Elinruby (talk) 00:01, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

When I had a hard time finding the text from French Somaliland, I was fixing missing attribution, and I had a hard time finding which article it came from—I didn't even know if it was translated from a French article, or copied from an English article—but I eventually found it. In particular, I was looking at revision 960973799 of 23:15, June 5, 2020 in the History, which lacked attribution, and I saw that the stuff you added to section "#Other" in that edit ("...colony was briefly in limbo until a governor loyal to the Vichy government was installed...", etc.) matched exactly text from the lead of the English article French Somaliland in World War II, so I added the required attribution in this edit, following the guideline at WP:RIA. So, if you're happy with that section, you don't have to redo it. Mathglot (talk) 00:23, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

By the way, copying or translating stuff out of the lead section of other articles can be a mixed blessing: on the one hand, by definition it's a summary, so it's often brief and to the point, and that's often just what is wanted in the article you're writing. On the other hand, the lead often has no references, precisely because it is a summary, and the material it is summarizing is already supposed to have references in the body of the article. So, it's okay for the lead not to have references in *that* article, but if you copy or translate material out of the lead, the fact that it wasn't referenced there, doesn't mean it's okay not to have references at the target article. So either don't copy/translate from the lead, or if you do, spend some time at the source article to find the detail body section that underlies the lead, and use the references from the body, to source the portions of the lead that you are copying/translating. Mathglot (talk) 00:54, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

@Elinruby: I found it: it's from fr:Pierre_Laval#Envoi de travailleurs forcés en Allemagne. Mathglot (talk) 11:06, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

Great thank you Elinruby (talk) 16:49, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

Ok I will translate that in rl quick, probably too long but it's an important issue and we can edit down Elinruby (talk) 20:20, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

Pre-release

@Elinruby: You've done an amazing amount of stuff while I was bogged down in Template-land for a while; thanks! Although not done (when is any Wikipedia article ever done?) nevertheless, I think it's not that far from being a releasable article. We should make a list of stuff that absolutely has to be done, before we can move it to Mainspace, and then further developments and improvements can be done there, hopefully with additional eyeballs on it, once it has the benefit of being in Mainspace. (Btw, you knew that Wikimedia turns off spiders for Drafts, so Google won't see them, right? but as soon as this hits Mainspace, it will be visible to all search engines.) Feel free to make a bullet list, or just list stuff, or however you want. Mathglot (talk) 11:11, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

For those coming here from this discussion at Talk:Philippe Pétain, where the seedling for this Draft emanated, I just wanted to give you a brief update on where we are with this Draft. We (that is, mostly User:Elinruby doing the lion's share, with me in a supporting role) have been slowly fleshing out the article sections. There's still a lot of "draft cruft" (especially top and bottom) but the article is up to 62kb and 51 references now, so hardly a stub anymore. Although far from perfect, I'd say we're on the home stretch, getting it ready for release. There are any number of areas that could be improved, but that's true of articles, too. (One problem you'll spot immediately, is the stylistic variation among sections: from prose, to list, to tables. This is a consequence of having sourced material from various different articles. Although a problem, I don't consider this alone an issue that has to be resolved before launch.)

At this point, I just wanted to invite you to have a look, and encourage your feedback here on the Talk page, especially regarding what content-related stuff you think is important to do before launch. Or even better, just jump into the Draft, and have at it. Probably in a week or so (longer, if anyone requests it), we'll start stripping out the cruft to ready it for Mainspace life as an article. Looking forward to your feedback and contributions, and thanks again! Mathglot (talk) 01:21, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

Oh, one other thing, while you're here: if you like working on drafts and getting them in shape, here's another one on a related topic which still needs more work: Draft:Liberation of France. Would love your feedback or help there as well. Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 01:32, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

I am currently translating in material from pertinent web pages. Depending on the material and how fast I am going, the first-draft result may be rather stilted and French. Feel free to improve the English, but I will if you don’t. I am on the part about the STO, which is important in my opinion because it is where the ordinary French began to balk. Let’s see, I think tables are more understandable than lists, especially in administrations were they had a cabinet shuffle every week or two. I considered truncating the tables, thinking who cares who was Youth Minister, but then I remembered the Hitler Junge. I volunteer for this bit of wikignoming if nobody else wants to do it. I envisage spinning the tables off into sub-articles for the various administrations. I have heard that this was supposed to be this articles, but that is wiki life. There was actually quite a bit that happened that had little to do with Pétain, for example the STO. I also have a deep interest in exactly how a model republic voted itself out of existence, and this part isn’t covered very well yet. That is what I think you might need to know about this article. Elinruby (talk) 04:15, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

@Elinruby: Tables are fine by me, whatever makes sense. But I think that could happen after launch, also. What things do you think are must-have before launch? See Task list below; just add what's needed (especially pre-launch stuff) so we can check everything off. Mathglot (talk) 22:07, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

Yeah spinning off tables doesn't have to be pre-release. The above is just a brain dump of the to-do that I can think of. I showed the article to Shakescene and their feedback was that it was long, and did we really need the lists of Ministers? Maybe we can sort the list into pre and post launch? Can you nest checklists? Elinruby (talk) 00:57, 21 July 2020 (UTC) 00:09, 21 July 2020 (UTC)

Tasks

Stuff that needs doing, before launch (or after):

Checklist of tasks to be done before launch – please tick the box when done

Please change to "{{checked box}}" (or {{ckbox}}) when done with a task drop {{Draft}} template and boilerplate at the top. Mathglot (talk) expand sections containing gray bullet items of how to develop the section as needed; drop the list Mathglot (talk) after revisit {{Further}} links per section; see if need to be redone as "{{Main}}", dropped, or kept as is Mathglot (talk) add Infobox; maybe {{Infobox Former country}}, as in Vichy France Mathglot (talk) rewrite/expand the WP:LEAD to take into account the current state of the body. check for any remaining hidden text and remove it Mathglot (talk) merge #Bibliography section into "Works cited" section, converting to {{cite}} templates Mathglot (talk) 23:13, 20 July 2020 (UTC) (pre- or post-) go through See also and drop any items already linked in the body. (pre- or post-) consolidate duplicate references using named references (post-launch) add in-links from articles listed in {{Further}} liks; "See also" may have good candidates. (post-launch) add redirects per section, e.g., "Government of Pierre Laval", etc., and interwiki-link them. Mathglot (talk)

I'm sure there's more; feel free to add items. Mathglot (talk) 23:13, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

• (pre-launch) Numbers in text at section correspond to references in fr:Pierre Laval; I am fixing this. They are in academic format. Once they are cited, I will bring over the corresponding items in the bibliography.

• (post-launch) Question, apart from the above, do we want bibliographies from French articles? Which ones if so? I can do this but so can most people who speak French at all.

• (post-launch) In the French article on Lamorlaye (deleted draft?) or maybe Chantilly-Lys (translated?) there was a mention of a home for girls who were pregnant by German soldiers. We should find that reference. Chantilly may have references to visitors. I can probably skim these faster than anyone that doesn't know the material

• The reference is here, but I fail to see the relationship with the Pétain government, since it was a nazi operation. Regards, Comte0 (talk) 19:09, 21 July 2020 (UTC)

There is something I want to look at there, thank you for the link. As you say. This article will probably need a lot of condensing anyway, and this probably belongs elsewhere to begin with. Even if it applies, this would be low priority. These aren't sorted by urgency, just the order in which I thought of them.Elinruby (talk) 03:39, 22 July 2020 (UTC)

• (pre-launch and post-launch) All those Forts of x articles that were MTed are applicable to the French military situation at given points, as French preparation, German strongholds, Resistance targets. One of them definitely talks about Allied soldiers meeting up with the maquis and living off the land until it was time to do something. And we get to revisit the meaning of pièce in a mushroom farm ;)

All the of that doesn't need to be worked out pre-launch, but there is material there if we need it, anf:

• • (pre-launch) there is currently very little about Brittany as I recall, and it really should have at least a paragraph in the military history.
  • (pre-launch) someone should assess whether the current mentions of the Maginot line are enough. Maybe should also mention Pétain's involvement

• (mostly post) Also I am really really sure that History of the French Foreign Legion and/or some of the pages about individual units talks extensively about operations in Algeria. Maybe some of that history of Algeria stuff too. There is some detail in the article now but
  • (pre-launch) it doesn't cover the end of Operation Torch

• (post-launch) Operation Bluebird and some other Operation still at WP:PNT? -- never mind, wrong war Elinruby (talk) 21:32, 23 July 2020 (UTC)

• After each data or text import at least one pass for copy edit.

• Not currently covered: 80 legislators

• • (post-launch) We should do a fast pass of linked articles about French legal system and government. Many translated by me and I know I probably made mistakes in the early ones.

• (pre-launch) Pincher with British troops from Egypt

• (pre-launch) assess if importance explained somewhere of British sinking French ships due to not trusting Vichy. Legitimacy issue

  ER, Surely this is explained in Attack on Mers-el-Kebir? Mathglot (talk) 07:46, 23 July 2020 (UTC)

sorry, I was mumbling. Yes. It is, maybe with a little too much military for the government page, but we need something really distilled about it though, because it triggered the end of the Third Republic the very next day, which I don't think I have made clear yet Elinruby (talk) 21:32, 23 July 2020 (UTC)

• (post-launch) Article 49, was there one in Third Republic ? not resigning because nobody to resign to, probably goes with void ab initio. important issue but what is there now ok for casual user

• Thank you on cite style, yes please let us use the cite template

• (post-launch) Armée d'Afrique

Elinruby (talk) 00:02, 21 July 2020 (UTC)

• (pre- or post) Look into possible use of {{Infobox government cabinet}}. Mathglot (talk) 07:46, 23 July 2020 (UTC)

Elinruby, did you confuse which Draft you're commenting on? This is for Draft:Government of Vichy France, not Draft:Liberation of France. All the stuff on Armée d'Afrique, sinking French ships, British troops from Egypt, Operation Bluebird, Operation Torch, French Foreign Legion, Maginot line, STO, home for girls: none of that is relevant to this article, but might make a good addition to Vichy France or Draft:Liberation of France. This article should stick to the topic of Vichy governments, namely: Petain III, Petain/Vichy, Laval, Flandin, Darlan, Laval again, transition to IV. If it's not about one of those governments, it probably doesn't belong here. Mathglot (talk) 11:01, 23 July 2020 (UTC)

•  – update the Philippe Pétain article "Ministry" sections, turning them into Parent article-style summaries with {{Main}} links here. Mathglot (talk) 06:11, 1 September 2020 (UTC)

Nuremberg

The page number at the bottom of the page is 692. The link is [1] Elinruby (talk) 10:07, 22 July 2020 (UTC)

Confused, thought I fixed it. Comes up as first search result is here. Confusion possibly mine, going to bed Elinruby (talk) 10:36, 22 July 2020 (UTC)

New page patrol challenged notability

Don’t get me started. They moved it to draft space and told me to submit it to see if it’s important ;]

yes, it needs references still, grr.

I changed the link at the Further template under the header for Pétain’s Third Republic administration to go to the Draft space. See what you think of this as an architecture, a list of Ministers like this for each administration under Pétain. I have another one like this in my sandbox, for Flandry I believe. ~~<< Elinruby (talk) 22:18, 22 July 2020 (UTC)

Elinruby, moved what to draft space? What article are you talking about? NPP challenged what? where? Mathglot (talk) 07:48, 23 July 2020 (UTC)

Oh, you mean Draft:List of Third Republic ministers of the Pétain administration? I actually like it better separate, the way you did it, if it passes Notability. But every single individual on that page passes WP:NPOLITICIAN notability standard, as they are each minsiters at a nation-wide level, so it's interesting that someone at NPP might consdier the collective topic consisting of all of them, might not be notable? But, I can't imagine that a sitting cabinet of a sovereign state *wouldn't* be notable. And we don't have to go through NPP if we establish notability ourselves, we can just move it to Main space. Mathglot (talk) 07:55, 23 July 2020 (UTC)

Notability isn't the only thing required for a stand-alone article; the other is some references, and this doesn't have any. One, good, solid reference listing all (or most) of the ministers on that page is enough to move it to main space. There's gotta be a page at Legifrance or the Journal Officiel or somewhere that has it. Mathglot (talk) 07:57, 23 July 2020 (UTC)

See the Talk page there, for more comments. Mathglot (talk) 09:31, 23 July 2020 (UTC)

I see only madrassas in your sandbox, nothing French/WW II. Mathglot (talk) 10:51, 23 July 2020 (UTC)

this was a complaint. I have no intention of submitting it for approval lol. The reference thing will be remedied. But NPP consistently flags for notability anything they find obscure. It's really annoying. Elinruby (talk) 15:23, 23 July 2020 (UTC)

Plural title

@Elinruby: This should probably be Draft:Governments of Vichy France, with an -s. If there's no objection, I'll rename it. Mathglot (talk) 10:06, 26 July 2020 (UTC)

Agree Elinruby (talk) 10:11, 26 July 2020 (UTC)

Similar articles use the singular, such as Government of France, Government of Nazi Germany. CMD (talk) 10:21, 26 July 2020 (UTC)

But in this case there were several Elinruby (talk) 10:39, 26 July 2020 (UTC)

Government as a topic is singular, and sections here such as Foreign Relations and Legitimacy are about the singular overall topic rather than any of the specific cabinets. CMD (talk) 10:46, 26 July 2020 (UTC)

@Chipmunkdavis: yes, as a topic on its own, it is singular, but this topic is about four of them, hence, "governments", in particular, the ones belonging to the Vichy regime: Laval, Flandin, Darlan, Laval again. In my opinion, the two sections you named don't belong here, and may fit better in an article about the Vichy regime, rather than its governments. Mathglot (talk) 11:26, 26 July 2020 (UTC)

That isn't the topic of this draft as it is written (or how the term is treated on similar articles). The introduction notes the topic as the regime throughout the Second World War. There is one "transition" section into the Government, and one "transition" section about dissolution, rather than one between each cabinet. If you're suggesting a change in the topic, that would require a significant reshaping of the draft. CMD (talk) 12:51, 26 July 2020 (UTC)

@Chipmunkdavis:, I see a couple of possible issues here; either a split, or a rename using the word cabinet instead of government, which may be more amenable to the plural, in part due to the different ways that the word government is used in American vs British English, which in turn is defined by their differing governmental systems.

Regarding a split, perhaps each of the four governments should be spun off into its own article, with a brief parent summary left here, with {{Main}} links to each of those. At 24kb readable, size alone wouldn't justify it, but separately notable topics would, and I think the individual cabinets is clearly a notable topic. That doesn't mean we have to split, but it seems like it might help. Fr-wiki has four government articles, one each for Laval, Flandin, Darlan, and Laval again. Maybe we should do it that way as well.

To your observation about transitional sections: it seemed helpful to the reader to have sections here defining the transitions in and out to provide context for people who have no idea who a Darlan or a Flandin are, just like many historical articles do. In my mind, that doesn't change what the central topic is, namely, the governments, plural.

I wonder if there is a BE/AE issue affecting the discussion here, or rather, parliamentary vs U.S.-presidential system difference? Would it make a difference in your mind, if the word cabinets were used? Because in this context, to me they are totally synonymous; i.e., this article could equally be called, "Cabinets of Vichy France" with no change in topic. Whereas the term cabinet is close enough in meaning in both systems, the term government is not. American usage of the word "government" tends to be different than in countries with parliamentary systems, and a similar article about an American topic, if it existed, would undoubtedly say "Cabinets of the U.S." or "Wartime U.S. cabinets" or some such, if that was a supportable topic, and not "Wartime U.S. governments"; they would use the singular if the term government was chosen, and that would, in fact, imply a different topic, with the emphasis on singular government as a whole, rather than on the collection of wartime cabinets that made it up. But it's a shaky analogy, because the U.S. federal system and parliamentary systems are different enough that governments just doesn't mean the same thing in each case. Elinruby previously raised this terminology issue above, at #Government vs Adminstration vs Regime.

Putting it another way, the title Cabinet of Vichy France would certainly be wrong here, because there were four of them in Vichy, not just one. However, Cabinets of Vichy France would be just fine; that, in fact, is what this article is about, to borrow a phrase from WP:Article title policy. The original choice with the word "government" was probably as much of a typo or carelessness of Draft-level naming as anything. French articles often use the plural gouvernements (like here; the topic "Government of France" is not the same topic as "Governments of France"). The topic of this article is a collection, the " Governments of Vichy France", but maybe that rankles to American ears. If we proposed a rename to Cabinets of Vichy France instead, does your objection still hold? Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 21:06, 26 July 2020 (UTC)

did some mumbling earlier (above) about régime vs administration vs government. The French does indeed use gouvernement in the sense of an administration, or cabinet, and I am under the impression from translating various articles about French law and government that although it is a civil law not a common law system the process has similarities to what happens in parliamentary systems when nobody has a plurality; a cabinet and promises of support must be assembled. In this article I have used "administration" for this meaning. If this is somehow wrong, doing it one way consistently makes it easier to do a find and replace. On the other hand, the legitimacy of Vichy as the government of France was disputed within days, so there is an important point here. I think the word "régime" connotes illegitimacy in English, but for the above reasons have no qualms using the word about Vichy. Just a brain dump of what my thought process has been while translating. Elinruby (talk) 22:46, 26 July 2020 (UTC)

As an example, the first government formed under the Vichy rëgime was Laval's 5th government by the fr.wiki count, but his first four were formed in accordance with the constitution of the Third Republic. Elinruby (talk) 23:27, 26 July 2020 (UTC)

I don't have a specific preference for government vs administration vs regime, but there are two separate uses for the word Government here. There is the Government as a system (let's say Regime as a synonym), and there is the specific individual Governments (or Cabinets) which is what you are referring to. With these definitions, my understanding is that you are contending that the topic of this article is about the specific Cabinets. The issue with this is is that that is not the article topic of the current draft, which is written to be about the Regime. The lead discusses it as a singular formed in Vichy and ended in 1945. The Background and Dissolution sections treat the topic in a similar fashion. The sections after the Dissolution section cover the entire five years without distinguishing between the Cabinets. Even the Vichy Governments section opens with a subsection on Pétain and the French State, which covers the entire period.

To define the article topic as being specifically about the Cabinets would require the draft as it stands to be greatly overhauled. As written, it covers the system (Regime), and discusses the individual governments (Cabinets) within that larger framework.

On notability I would agree that each individual government (Cabinet) meets notability requirements in its own right, but as you note the individual content for each would currently be quite short. It's certainly an area for expansion later, but i don't think it directly affects the question of this article's topic. CMD (talk) 02:12, 27 July 2020 (UTC)

With respect to "Laval's 5th" (not Beethoven's), this is enough of a different topic, that it should be dealt with in a different section. See below. Mathglot (talk) 04:17, 27 July 2020 (UTC)

Government (cabinet) numbering system

How should we name the cabinets in this article? Should we number them, either the way the French do, or some other way, or just identify them by the name with no number, or add the year(s)?

Besides the issue with the choice of word (government, administration, or cabinet), we need to figure out if and how to number them. As Elinruby pointed out above, the French articles have a numbering system, or rather two sets of numbering systems, to identify a cabinet. The first system counts the cabinets (not necessarily contiguous) headed by an individual, and the second system counts the cabinets, in sequence, belonging to a particular Republic or regime. Thus, the cabinet headed by Laval in 1942 and 1943, is described this way at fr:Gouvernement Pierre Laval (6):

The sixth Pierre Laval government is the fourth and last government of the Vichy Regime.

I haven't done a ton of searching in English sources about this, but it's not my impression so far, that most English sources count or name the cabinets numerically like this, other than in informal description, i.e., they might say it's Laval's second cabinet of Vichy.

The options I see, for how to do this, are:

• Laval, Flandin, Darlan, Laval 2 (or, 2nd Laval, Laval II, etc.)
• Laval 1940, Flandin 1940–1941, Darlan 1941–1942, Laval 1942–1944
• Laval (5) - Vichy (1), Flandin (2) - Vichy (2), Darlan - Vichy (3), Laval (6) - Vichy (4)

I'll try to acquire some data about usage as well. Mathglot (talk) 04:17, 27 July 2020 (UTC)

Further confusing the situation: if I didn't know about these French cabinet-numbering schemes, then upon learning that Laval was head of government twice during Vichy, I'd simply call the one in 1940, his "first Vichy government" (or, "the first Laval government of Vichy") and the 1942 one, his "second Vichy government" (or, the "second Laval government of Vichy"). So that leaves us with three ways of describing the 1942 cabinet: 1. Laval's second Vichy government; 2. the fourth government of Vichy; or, 3. the sixth government of Pierre Laval. Do any of these make sense for English Wikipedia? What do the English sources say? Mathglot (talk) 21:58, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

A quick google search suggests that they do not number. The corresponding search in French has them called the first government and the last government.

I believe you can adopt the French wikipédia numbering. Regards, Comte0 (talk) 12:19, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

War propaganda

The following text is from German military administration in occupied France. A sentence or two summarizing this is probably a good idea. Maybe under Administration.

Military propaganda for European countries under occupation was headquartered in Potsdam. There was one Propaganda battalion in each occupied country, headquartered in the main town or capital. This was further subdivided at the regional level. Headquarters for France was at the Hotel Majestic in Paris, with propaganda sections (Staffel) in Bordeaux, Dijon, and other towns.

Elinruby (talk) 21:06, 28 July 2020 (UTC)

I think you meant, German military administration in occupied France during World War II. There's an empty ref above, which I'll try to capture if the name matches a ref from that article. Mathglot (talk) 21:47, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

References

STO

Coming to the conclusion based on reading that the downfall of Vichy really was STO. There would still have been a government in exile, but would they have had the manpower without the Resistance? And the Resistance gleefully recruited from réfactaires. Going to start editing for organization now, just putting this out there in case anyone wants to change my mind. Elinruby (talk) 22:22, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

There was also communists, starting from invasion of USSR in June 1941. Regards, Comte0 (talk) 13:34, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

Infobox has the original html text

Infobox has the original html text

"Preceded by

French Third Republic

"German military administration in occupied France during World War II|1940: German military administration" " Amr1660 (talk) 14:58, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

Categories

This article is currently in Category:May 1941 events, but there does not seem to be any obvious reason for it to be included in that category unless I am missing something. Dunarc (talk) 22:55, 1 September 2024 (UTC)