Sport and physical culture in Occupied France: Authoritarianism, agency, and everyday life 9781526153296

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Sport and physical culture in Occupied France

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Edited by Máire Cross, David Hopkin and Jennifer Sessions This series is published in collaboration with the Society for the Study of French History (UK) and the French Colonial Historical Society. It aims to showcase innovative monographs and edited collections on the history of France, its colonies and imperial undertakings, and the francophone world more generally since c. 1750. Authors demonstrate how sources and interpretations are being opened to historical investigation in new and interesting ways, and how unfamiliar subjects have the capacity to tell us more about France and the French colonial empire, their relationships in the world, and their legacies in the present. The series is particularly receptive to studies that break down traditional boundaries and conventional disciplinary divisions. To buy or to find out more about the books currently available in this series, please go to: https://manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/series/ studies-in-modern-french-and-francophone-history/

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Sport and physical culture in Occupied France Authoritarianism, agency, and everyday life Keith Rathbone

Manchester University Press

Copyright © Keith Rathbone 2022 The right of Keith Rathbone to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

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Published by Manchester University Press Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PL www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN  978 1 5261 5328 9  hardback First published 2022 The publisher has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for any external or third-party internet websites referred to in this book, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

Front cover: Éducation Générale et Sports, January 1942. Bibliothèque Nationale de France. Typeset by New Best-set Typesetters Ltd

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Contents

List of figures page vi Acknowledgements viii Introduction 1 1 The interwar battle between amateurism and professionalism: the use of physical education and sports by the French left and right 31 2 Building the world they wanted: bureaucrats, teachers, and athletic fields in Vichy 77 3 Playground politics, childhood disobedience, and Vichy’s National Revolution 118 4 Why rugby and not football? Vichy antiprofessionalism and the sporting environment of wartime France 158 5 The resilience of communities: agency and autonomy in wartime sporting associations 198 6 French sporting associations and the creation of the myth of résistancialisme 247 Conclusion 291 Archival sources 302 Bibliography 316 Index 333

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Figures

0.1 Julian Durai intercepts a crossed ball, 17 May 1942 (La Coupe de France de football) Le Matin (Paris), 18 May 1942 4 0.2 Rise in number of football licences, 1930–1943 (B. Prêtet, ‘Sportifs et sports en France 1940–1945’ (Ph.D. Thesis, Université Paris Ouest Nanterre, 2014)) 5 0.3 Demarcation lines in Occupied France (Wikimedia Commons)18 2.1 Philippe Pétain (with cane) and Jean Borotra open a sporting field in Billezois (Institut National du Sport, de l’Expertise et de la Performance (INSEP) ‘Terrains scolaires d’éducation physique et sportive’ (July 1941)) 83 2.2 Type E1 sporting field – the smallest predesigned sporting facility blueprint produced by the Sports Ministry (Archives nationale de Pierrefitte, AN 17F14465 ‘Type E1’ (undated)) 102 3.1 Pedagogical handbook for primary schools featuring Hébertist exercises. (Institut d’histoire du temps présents, IHTP ARC 074-119 ‘Comment organiser dès maintenant l’Éducation physique et sportive à l’École primaire’.) 126 3.2 Doctors test young men’s lungs at the Racing Club de France (‘Allons … lentement … encore un

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Figures vii effort’ (Let’s go … slowly … still an effort) L’Auto (Paris), 5 February 1941) 3.3 Schoolchildren participate in the Oath of the Athlete. (Bibliothèque nationale de France, BNF 4-V-14352, ‘Le Serment de l’athlète dans toute la France’, Éducation générale et sports: revue officielle du Commissariat général à l’éducation générale et aux sports (17 May 1942).) 5.1 Growing membership at the Racing Club from 1882 until 1945. (Racing club de France, RCF Archives ‘Assemblée générale ordinaire du Racing club de France’ (1944).) 6.1 Martyred members of the Yidisher Arbeter Sport Klub (Mémorial de la Shoah, CDJC ML_A2_90 ‘Trente-sept résistants morts pendant l’occupation, anciens membres du club sportif YASK’ (undated))

135

138

232

262

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Acknowledgements

In the years between 1940 and 1944, the number of registered football players jumped from one hundred and sixty thousand to more than two hundred and forty thousand. The growth of soccer in spite of the difficulties of the Occupation struck me as strange, and I took the lived experience of these athletes, playing games in the midst of the Vichy period, as the subject of my research. It would have been impossible to complete this book without the help of numerous other people: colleagues, friends, archivists, and family members. All gave generously with their time and energy. Any mistakes or errors of fact or interpretation are my own and mine alone. My first debt goes out to my colleagues at Macquarie University, especially Kate Fullagar, Clare Monagle, Robert Reynolds, Jan Zwar, Nic Baker, Kelli-Lee Drake, and Bettie Ha; the College of Wooster, particularly Greg Shaya; and Northwestern University, especially Sarah Maza, but also Benjamin Frommer, Tessie Liu, John Glassman, John Bushnell, Deborah Cohen, Peter Hayes, Henri Lauzière, Ed Muir, Keith Woodhouse, Annerys Cano, Susan Delrahim, Susan Hall, Paula Blaskovits, and Elizabeth Murray. I also want to thank Alice Conklin, Alan Beyerchen, and James Bartholomew at the Ohio State University. Patrick Clastres, Paul Dietschy, and Claire Andrieu at Sciences Politique de Paris welcomed me to their seminars and offices for conversations. Henry Rousso, Marc Olivier Baruch, Nancy Green, and Claire Fontaine made time for me while I was in France. Jonathyne Briggs has been a close friend and careful reader of material. Other scholars, such as Julian Jackson, Shannon Fogg, Daniel Lee,

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Acknowledgements ix Sean Kennedy, Kevin Passmore, Elisa Camiscioli, Stephen Harp, Emily Marker, Terrence Peterson, Nick Underwood, Grégory Quin and Christopher Forth, among many others, have offered comments on work presented at conferences in the United States, France, and Canada. I also thank the community of sports historians in H-Sport, including Heather Dichter, and at Sciences Po, including Robert Fassolette, Jean-Marc Benammar, and Bernard Prêtet. Friends read chapters and I want to thank them for their considered comments. My thanks go out to Charlie Keenan, Alex LindgrenGibson, Rachel Taylor, Melissa Vise, Clare Makepeace, Michael ‘Marty’ Martoccio, Celeste McNamara, Meghan Roberts, William Cavert, Genevieve Carlton, Jason Johnson, Anne Koenig, Jamie Holeman, Julia Miglets, Jason Ralph, and many others. Friends Géraud Letang and Gautier Sergheraert helped to minimise my mistakes in French. Erik Gellman and Katie Turk helped me brainstorm titles and subject headings. I owe my thanks to the many archivists who helped me navigate a wide variety of public and private institutions in the Ile-de-France, the Nord-Pas-de-Calais, and the Midi-Pyrénees. I first note the superb archivists at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, the Archives Nationale, the Bibliothèque de Documentation Internationale Contemporaine, and the Archives of the Prefecture de Police. The cadre at the BNF and the AN especially helped me with dozens of consultations and dérogations. I want to thank especially Vincent Thauziès at the Diocese of Paris, the cadre at the Centre de Documentation Juive Contemporaine, and Anne-Marie Pathé at the Institut d’Histoire du Temps Présents. My sincerest thanks also go out to archivists in the provinces such as Frédérique Le Du at the Archive Nationale du Monde du Travail. I also praise the teams at departmental archives in the Seine-et-Marne, l’Aveyron, the Gers, the Tarn, the Haute-Garonne, and the Landes. Associational archives provided some of the richest resources. Numerous sporting organisations’ archivists helped me navigate their rarely consulted papers, never shying away or hiding material, in spite of the fact that my work touches on a troubling period. On more than one occasion, these archivists found documents that were heretofore undiscovered. Here I explicitly thank Circé Krouch and Claude Boli at the Musée Nationale de Sport, Nicolas Kssis from

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x Acknowledgements the Fédération Sportive et Gymnique du Travail in Pantin, Xavier Breuil at the archives of the Société Général, Xavier Thebault at the Fédération Française de Football Association, Alain Icard at the Stade Français, and Raymond Roussennac at Toulouse Olympique. I also want to thank the team at the Institut National du Sport et de l’Éducation Physique and at the Ligue Parisienne de Football Association. Manchester University Press provided an ideal home for this book, and I am very thankful for all the work done by the editors at the press and in the Studies in French and Francophone History series. My sincerest thank you to Alun Richards, who assisted me with the process through Covid and a series of health crises. His careful stewardship of the manuscript and publication process was essential. I also need to thank my family. My mother and father, step-mother and step-father, and grand-parents have contributed both emotionally and at times financially. Without their support this project would not have been possible. My siblings helped in the ways that they could do. Margot came along at the end and her presence encouraged me to finish. Finally and most especially, I want to thank my wife, Kathryn Freeman Rathbone, who joined me in this adventure, neither of us fully informed of how much of our lives it would dominate, moving us around the world, from the United States, to France, and finally to Australia. She acted not only as a friend, a shoulder, and a fellow adventurer, but also as a first and most careful reader, a soundboard, and a copy editor. I could not have done this project without her – nor would I have wanted to.

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Introduction

In 1941, the annual Coupe de France football tournament brought together more than seven hundred teams from across the country’s Occupied and non-Occupied zones. In cities, villages, and regional towns, teams faced steady elimination from the competition until 17 May 1942, when Red Star Paris and the Football Club Sète met in the interzone final for the right to be called French champion. Inside of the country’s most esteemed stadium, the Stade Olympique Yves-du-Manoir outside of Paris, the two sides battled, evenly matched, until the Red Star striker Roger Vandevelde found a loose ball in the penalty box and buried it with a swift half volley. The Parisian crowd, many fans of the local Red Star, erupted into a chorus of shouts and applause. Supporters surged towards the pitch and only metal railings, police, and wire held them back from the field. In a front-page photo and corresponding article entitled ‘Red Star beats Sète by 2 Goals to 0’, Le Matin said the game was ‘magnificent’. The players ‘attacked with impetuosity’ and gave ‘demonstrations of juggling … chipping’. The goals were ‘remarkable strikes’.1 In the weeks following, Actualités françaises distributed match highlights around the country as part of a news trailer shown in movie theatres next to clips of German forces in action in the Soviet Union, Philippe Pétain’s tour of the Unoccupied Zone, and SS officer Reinhard Heydrich’s visit to Paris.2 As a national football tournament, with so many matches played across the whole of the country, the 1941/42 Coupe de France belies the traditional image of Occupied France as a divided nation,

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traumatised by German violence, suffering from food shortages, and cold during the winter. Spectators cheering on young, healthy sportsmen only rarely appear in historians’ accounts, but the Vichy era (1940–1944) ushered in a golden age of physical culture, during which physical education and sports exploded in popularity and importance. Athletes participated in a range of organisations: local sporting clubs, professional teams, schools and universities, companies, police and army societies, summer camps, work sites, religious associations. On weekend mornings and late on Wednesdays and Thursdays, sportsmen and -women of all ages travelled across town, to neighbouring villages, or even hundreds of miles on rail and road. They donned tattered socks and shoes, worn swimsuits, or frayed jerseys. On fields, arenas, and in pools across France, they competed in the games they loved, often in front of significant crowds of supporters. This golden age of French physical culture offers an opportunity to re-evaluate our image of the German Occupation of France. Studies of everyday life in wartime France largely ignore the dramatic growth in the number of French people who participated in physical education and sporting life during the war. The current historiographic consensus on the Vichy era, which Robert Gildea has referred to as the ‘Poor France’ position, emphasises the devastation of France under the Germans; the complexities of the interactions between the occupier and occupied; the limited number of choices available to ordinary French people; and the nuances of resistance/collaboration, particularly with regards to cultural life.3 While these studies have fruitfully illuminated the constraints of life under the Occupation, by concentrating on the hardships they miss some of the opportunities people discovered during the emergence of the Vichy state. Physical cultural activities flourished during the Occupation because physical culture was at the heart of everyday life in wartime France. The Vichy Government placed it at the centre of their National Revolution, but rather than passively accept the Vichy state’s dictates, French athletes contested them, and reshaped their local and regional sporting life from the bottom up. These sportsmen and -women’s innovative wartime agency contributes to our understanding of power under authoritarian regimes and occupations. Ordinary people and their individual lives remained vital to the state’s capacity, and without their collaboration the Vichy state

Introduction 3

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could not put into effect their National Revolution. The power of individuals and organisations to reshape the authoritarian French state’s athletic ideology, despite the Government’s best efforts to control and surveil them, provides an opportunity to revise both our historical understandings of the Vichy era and of the work of power in authoritarian regimes in other places.

Sport from the top down or the bottom up? Between 1940 and 1944, physical education and sports remained the most vibrant socio-cultural activity available to ordinary people in Occupied France. Rather than a marginal activity, it was a widespread and popular pastime valuable to the people who participated in it both directly and as spectators. Despite the difficulty supporters faced travelling to Paris across the line of demarcation, match attendance at the 1942 Coupe de France final was the second highest ever. Forty-five thousand screaming fans packed shoulder to shoulder together in the stands. Important Vichy politicians attended, including the man who would soon become France’s de-facto Prime Minister and chief collaborationist, Pierre Laval. When French people all over the country woke the next day, the front page of their newspapers featured images of the match, juxtaposing football pictures with the war. Le Matin’s coverage included a photo of Red Star goalkeeper (and French international) Julien Darui jumping to pick off a crossed ball. Above the fold were articles about the survival of the French Empire, a feature on the fight in the Crimea, and a story about the Japanese Emperor posthumously honouring the heroism of Japanese sailors at Pearl Harbor.4 The very fact that the Fédération Française de Football Association was able to hold a national tournament in a country divided into different zones of occupation; the number of fans that gathered, many having travelled long distances; and the presence of news articles and films about the match next to war coverage all speak to the ongoing importance of sport as an Occupation-era social and cultural activity. The Coupe de France tournament’s national acclaim paralleled a spike in the popularity of football in France. The total number of players swelled from fewer than one hundred and sixty thousand

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Figure 0.1  Julian Durai intercepts a crossed ball, 17 May 1942

before the war to more than two hundred and eighty thousand professional and amateur players by 1944. The number of weekly football spectators similarly rose, with small local matches welcoming whole communities while important games in regional cities drew tens of thousands of spectators. Sport spectacles became one of the most significant public gathering places in Occupied France.5 The meteoric growth in the number of registered football players matched concurrent growths in almost every other physical cultural discipline. Basketball, handball, rugby, swimming, and tennis, among others, also had similar dazzling rises in popularity.6 In 1944, over 500,000 young French people participated in official sporting associations. These numbers were remarkable – particularly since so many young French people, especially young men, were unable to participate because they were prisoners of war in Germany (more than 1.8 million young men), working as forced labourers in Germany (approximately 600,000 men and women), or hiding with the French Resistance. The expansion of French physical culture from 1940–1944 made it a central element in ordinary people’s lives. The received

Introduction 5 Football licences 300,000

281,202

250,000 200,000

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150,000 100,000 50,000 0 1930

1939

1942 1943

Figure 0.2  Rise in number of football licences, 1930–1943

wisdom on the Vichy regime, focusing on wartime limitations, leaves little space for this large number of sportsmen and -women, for the place of sport in their lives, or for the importance of sport politically and socially. The expansion of wartime sport is in part explained by greater limits placed on social and cultural gatherings. In France during the Vichy period, some avenues for civic and social engagement closed, but many others opened anew and flourished. The Vichy regime prohibited some live music and public dancing. Boy scout troops, considered too militaristic, withered under German bans in the Occupied Zone. Pierre Bourdieu understood that when people choose between different cultural pursuits ‘the whole range of sporting activities and entertainments’ are offered ‘to social agents … as a supply intended to meet a social demand’.7 In other words, participation in cultural events must be considered as a whole and when displaced from one demand it is likely to rise in another. Despite certain constraints placed on social engagement, intense public demand continued for spaces for communal celebration, individual enjoyment, and spectacular entertainment. Indeed, social life thrived in Occupied France in many ways, but no single realm of social and cultural life expanded more than French sports. Sports provided an outlet for those demands because most physical culture and sporting organisations operated without

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any official repression. The expansion of sports was ultimately the result of hundreds of thousands of French men and women making a million individual athletic choices. Their engagement tells us something about the nature of communal organisation in Occupied France and also about the French state and ordinary French people’s values. In particular, it was significant that so many men and women prioritised the seemingly apolitical athletic life over entertainments more implicated in questions of collaboration and resistance. In the context of wartime, the ordinariness of physical education and sport was extraordinary. Participation required ‘a process of absorption and normalisation of often very abnormal events’, including playing in front of German soldiers, travelling to games in gazogene-powered buses, and raffling off food to sell tickets.8 The Vichy state’s obsession with national regeneration was another major driver for the growth of physical culture during the Occupation. Beginning in the nineteenth century, the French state promoted sports as a way to inculcate moral values, encourage physical health and wellness, and strengthen gender and sexual norms.9 In the wake of the Fall of France, Vichy officials blamed French men and boys for being insufficiently masculine and therefore being unprepared to defend the country. To encourage their physical and moral regeneration through physical culture, the Vichy state started a new sports bureaucracy, the Commissariat Général à l’Éducation Générale et aux Sports; developed a countrywide athletics programme in schools and youth organisations; and hired thousands of new physical education instructors. State efforts increased the social space available for sport in communes across the country as their programmes provided additional support for local groups through subventions for construction materials, transportation, food, and sporting goods. When Vichy officials reached out to local sporting organisations, they turned athletes into stakeholders who worked with and against them to define and redefine their athletic National Revolution. Nevertheless, this was not a simple story of resistance to state prerogatives. School officials, club presidents, athletes, parents, and physical education teachers competed to get access to the state’s largesse and worked with Vichy officials more often than they defied them. However, this was also not a story of determined support for Vichy policies, but rather of demands for, and offers of, support emerging organically from local concerns. Interested parties wrote letters to

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Introduction 7 the Sports Ministry and made requests through their trusted political leaders, including mayors, prefects, and regional officials. Vichy’s athletic interventions relied upon these directions emanating from the local level. The state funded projects large and small – hundreds across France. In 1944, municipal representatives from Poissy, a commune in the Yvelines, reached out to the Sports Ministry and asked for funding for a series of athletic facilities including calisthenic spaces, a pool, and a football pitch.10 The Sports Ministry responded favourably to the commune’s demands, except for the football field, which it considered to be too expensive and not efficient enough to be worth the expense. The way that the Vichy state worked hand in hand with Poissy to fund local development was representative of both its wider investment in the expansion of French sports and the diffuse nature of power during the Occupation era. Sports Ministry administrators eschewed a top-down dirigiste approach and instead developed national programmes designed to support the local agendas of sportsmen and -women. Communal stakeholders identified specific needs, produced detailed plans for redevelopment, and engaged with construction firms. Vichy officials supplied money for these goals in a relatively straightforward way, although they also attempted to shape these goals through proscriptive policies and positive reinforcement. They relied upon teachers, school principals, coaches, association presidents, stadium managers, and federation officials already in place in communes across the country to manage their National Revolution. The decentralised nature of physical culture, so locally produced, generated multiple Vichys and multiple National Revolutions as communal, regional, and national officials collaborated with and fought against each other to encourage the expansion of physical culture. The state’s reliance on local sports partners also allowed for spaces of freedom, mostly centred on communal organisations, to prosper within the still strong local democratic bodies inside of French communes.11 Given greater access to state resources, even within the context of an authoritarian regime, French communities mobilised physical education and sports in myriad ways. Across the country, communal officials hosted competitions that delimited the spaces for spectacles and celebrations, created age and sex cohorts, and shaped local identities. Religious groups, trade unions, companies,

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and political parties wielded sports to promote social solidarity, foster religious practices, defend international Communism and capitalist enterprises, and disguise covert political action. Individuals sought out physical education and sports for leisure and relaxation, to perform their masculinity and femininity, and to create apolitical spaces to socialise. The wartime’s thriving sporting world, largely obscured in the historiography, thus contains a powerful story of ordinary people’s civic engagement, survival, and even blossoming, despite the repressiveness of Vichy and the German Occupation.

Sport and Vichy historiography The dramatic growth of Vichy-era sport – indeed sport across the continent – challenges scholarly understandings of everyday life under German Occupation, suggesting new ways of thinking about how people survived, and even thrived, under authoritarian regimes across the continent. European sportsmen and -women across the continent faced similar – if not identical – dilemmas about wartime sports. Athletes discovered their activities severely disrupted by mobilisations of their members, the confiscation of their property, and the cancellation of their events. Sportsmen and -women struggled to compete in circumstances dictated by limited access to nutritious food, hygienic playing facilities, and durable sporting goods. Athletes, sporting associations, and national governments questioned whether it was moral to play during an Occupation even as they all sought to mobilise physical culture in new and more intensive ways for their own agendas. Sport even continued in concentration camps and death camps.12 Athletes across the continent continued to defend physical culture as apolitical, but they found it impossible to extricate their favourite sports from interwar and wartime politics. In Germany and Italy, the fascists reorganised athletic life on a grand scale. Both the Italian Fascists and the Nazis organised singular youth movements, called the Opera Nazionale Balilla and the Hitler Youth. They each banned competing youth movements, including those of the Catholic Church. At the same time, there was no single ‘fascist’ way to use physical culture. When it came to professional sports, the two fascist states responded very differently. Mussolini valued competitive international

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Introduction 9 and domestic teams rather than amateur purity and Fascist sports administrators legalised and built upon an already omnipresent but illegal professionalism in Italian football. Professional Italian footballers wearing black jerseys won the 1934 and 1938 World Cups.13 While Fascist Italy strengthened the professionalised structures of their interwar sporting federations, in Germany sporting clubs like Bayern Munich faced deprofessionalisation, Aryanisation, and subsequently Nazification during the same period. In the case of Bayern Munich, the club’s seeming resistance to fascism, including its famous salute of Jewish former club President Kurt Landauer in Switzerland in 1940, now very much under question since a 2016 Der Spiegel article, raised questions about the association’s wartime and postwar conduct.14 The situation was more complicated in Occupied Europe where German military administrations, various caretaker bureaucracies and collaborationist regimes, and an uncertain population of sportsmen and -women learned and relearned the new rules of competition. Danish sports continued during the war and it was one of the realms where Danish–German cooperation proved most fruitful. Danish sporting achievements seemed to prove – in some minds – the righteousness of Nazi racial theories.15 In the lowlands, custodian governments preserved the sporting structures of the interwar period, but ordinary sportsmen and -women sought to utilise wartime sports for their own agendas. Cyclists in Occupied Belgium founded the Vlaamsche Wieler Unie (VWU) and used it as a vehicle for regionalism. In the postwar era, athletes and organisers affiliated with the VWU discovered their reputations were tainted. The founder of the Tour de Flandres, Karel van Wijnedaele, was banned from organising future competitions until 1948.16 Even athletes in unoccupied combatant countries discovered sports increasingly politicised during the war. Under increasing government scrutiny from a British state concerned with working-class morale, English and Scottish football leagues faced significant restrictions including temporary bans, limits to crowd sizes, press blackouts, restricted competition calendars, and limited travel.17 What made the French case singular, however, was that no other location in Occupied Europe combined an intense and rich interwar sporting culture, featuring both amateur and professional sport; the relative passivity of German administration, particularly during

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the 1940–1942 period and especially when compared with Eastern Europe; and the significant capacity of an independent collaborationist state that aimed to use sports in novel ways to revitalise the country. In Occupied France, the Vichy state placed physical education at the centre of their National Revolution, and since local athletes were a necessary piece of this revolution, they had the power to transform the purpose of it and to use it to create spaces for belonging, individual expression, capitalist production, normalcy, and sites for mutual aid and assistance. These interventions proved incredibly compelling for hundreds of thousands of physically active young French men and women, helping to usher in a French sporting golden age in which a record number of people participated in and spectated athletic activity. The Vichy state’s intervention in physical education and sports thus illuminates how a government physical cultural programme meant to discipline French people instead enabled them to carve out spheres of agency and freedom despite the dual authoritarian regimes of the Vichy state and the German Occupation. However, despite its ubiquity, physical culture generally appears only in the background of most work on Occupied France. Investigations linger on the image of barbed wire in stadiums, where the French Government occasionally interned Jews. This image accurately captures the growth of governmental authoritarianism and repression but gives a false impression of the condition of most sporting facilities, which were not held off-limits but were instead increasingly important centres of social life in villages, towns, and cities across France. The influence of physical culture on wartime French society fits unevenly within the narrative frameworks that exist to explain what happened between 1940 and 1944, which largely elide the joy, exhilaration, and bearable disappointment of the sportspeople and spectators around and behind the wire. This tremendous and popular growth of physical education and sporting life during the Occupation thus cuts across the consensus among historians of wartime France characterising the period as the ‘dark years’.18 Instead my work suggests new possibilities for thinking about an innovative France by examining one of the Vichy regime’s most successful socio-cultural programmes and one of the most vibrant wartime activities. Robert Gildea has identified several waves of Vichy historiography: the first wave, sometimes called the ‘Good French’ argument, deals with the regime’s high politics and contends that the Vichy regime

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Introduction 11 acted as a shield that resisted the demands of the Nazis and protected the French people.19 Physical culture played almost no role in these histories.20 In his seminal work, Vichy France: Old Guard and New Order, 1940–1944, Robert Paxton methodically dismantled the ‘Good France’ paradigm by showing how the Vichy Government collaborated with the Germans to protect and increase their sovereignty and to accomplish their revolutionary social goals.21 The Paxtonian critique of the Vichy state produced a range of scholarship known as the ‘Bad France’ position, which remains the accepted historical interpretation of the French Government’s wartime conduct. Historians interested in the interventionist ‘Bad France’ position investigated the Vichy state’s heavy investment in physical education and sports to explain their attempts to reinvent French society. In 1991, the historian Jean-Louis Gay-Lescot produced the first major work dedicated to physical education during Vichy, entitled Sport et éducation sous Vichy (1940–1944). In this path-breaking work, Gay-Lescot worked within the Paxtonian framework to trace the growth of Vichy’s Sports Ministry, the Commissariat Général à l’Éducation Générale et aux Sports, outline its major goals, and showcase its successes and failures. He rediscovered the Vichy state’s interest in sport, but his focus on institutional development mostly ignores the role communities and associations played in shaping their own athletic institutions.22 Gay-Lescot’s work shares similarities with a 2002 report delivered to Marie-George Buffet, the Minister of Youth and Sport, entitled La Politique du sport et de l’éducation physique en France pendant l’Occupation.23 In this volume, a team of historians of the Vichy regime, led by Jean-Pierre Azéma, recovered the actions and motivations of the Vichy state, focusing particular attention on its two sports ministers, Jean Borotra and Joseph Pascot. Both Gay-Lescot and Azéma’s work echoes contemporaneous studies on Vichy youth; monographs by W.D. Halls, Pierre Giolitto, and Debbie Lackerstein also emphasise the ways that the regime, usually through the Commissariat général à la jeunesse, shaped French youth through extensive education and work programmes.24 These works focus on the French state, but since the 1990s a third wave of Vichy historiography has focused attention on how ordinary people lived through the Occupation. The diverse oeuvres of what Robert Gildea has dubbed the ‘Poor France’ position defy

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easy generalisation. Gildea cites the influence of Dominique Veillon’s work on French survival, which maintained that ‘for the majority of the population, daily life was reduced to the obsession with food and cold’.25 The Poor France position has clearly grown in breadth and sophistication, and scholars have developed a range of thematic interests: rich works illuminate the deleterious effects of the invasion and Occupation,26 the fraught interaction of the occupier and occupied,27 the radicalisation of French politics,28 the state’s efforts to remake society as part of the National Revolution,29 the limited choices available to ordinary people,30 and the shrinking social horizons for men and women.31 The growing interest in everyday life opened the door to scholars interested in French sports during the Occupation. Since 2010, a growing sense in France of the importance of sports studies, combined with the strength of Sciences and Techniques of Sports and Physical Activities departments in French universities, has caused the number of works dedicated to the subject to balloon.32 Some of the works deal with specific sportsmen or organisations.33 Others looked more specifically at schools, especially Vichy’s elite École d’Uriage, and only addressed physical culture in passing.34 A recent collection of essays edited by Pierre Arnaud, Thierry Terret, et al., entitled Sport et les français pendant l’occupation, addressed physical culture under Vichy and the German Occupation. These essays, taken together, constitute one of the richest examinations on the subject, but many of them remain principally descriptive rather than interpretive.35 Only one French scholar, Bernard Prêtet, has taken on the subject of sport and everyday life in Vichy in a recent monograph. His Sport et sportifs français sous Vichy investigates, at the ground level, the activities of sporting associations and athletes in France. Prêtet’s focus is welcome, but I take issue with the picture he paints of sports in Vichy. For example, Prêtet and I disagree about popular interest in sport. He argues that the recorded increase in participation obscured significant absenteeism, especially later in the war, among sportsmen and -women. Our analyses differ in many significant ways, centred on the issue of how we read sources, that produce differences of interpretation on the number of participants, the longevity of Vichy’s sporting influence, the relative power relationship between the Vichy centre and its regional and local outposts, the importance of the collaboration/resistance framework for

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Introduction 13 understanding the activities of the Vichy state, and the reactions of sporting associations and athletes.36 The question of wartime sports largely remains a lacuna outside of France: Anglo-American scholarship on the intersection between the Vichy state and popular culture centred on the higher arts such as music, film, and the radio.37 Only a few works in English speak to Vichy’s sport policies, including Joan Tumblety’s work on French physical culture and Robert Lewis’s Stadium Century: Sport, Spectatorship and Mass Society in Modern France.38 In Remaking the Male Body: Masculinity and the Uses of Physical Culture in Interwar and Vichy France, Tumblety investigates the construction of notions of physicality in France from the First World War to the Vichy regime. Her discursive methodology allows her to unpack a variety of printed sources including pamphlets published in Paris by politicians, doctors, and gymnastics coaches. Her work illuminates clearly and richly the importance of physical culture to French political culture as the nation prepared for a new conflict with the Germans, but focuses on discourses rather than practices, and she only touches briefly upon the Vichy regime in her final chapter. Lewis’s Stadium Century addresses the place of the stadium in modern France, emphasising its role as a site for discussions about national health, consumerism, and mass political movements, but his thematic approach stretches across the Vichy period and largely relegates it to the background. Although both rich works add significantly to our knowledge of French physical culture across the twentieth century, their interest lies outside of the Vichy period. They are not largely concerned with the way that Vichy officials mobilised sports or with how ordinary people responded to the regime, and do not engage in a deep way with the broader historiography of the Vichy regime. In other historical sub-fields, scholars interested in the interplay of the Second World War, sport, and politics produced some rich national accounts of wartime athletics. Some of the earliest case studies of wartime sport centred on matches between the occupier and the occupied, including the so-called Death Match between German soldiers and Ukrainian sportsmen. Too often, however, these histories relied on the framework of resistance and collaboration to explain why sport flourished or collapsed during the war. They ignored the important role of ordinary people acting outside of the resistance question. In addition, the transnational impacts of war

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Sport and physical culture in Occupied France

and occupation in sports are yet to be fully explored, and broader comparisons would likely prove fruitful. The Italian and French cases, for example, differ because the latter occurred in the context of defeat and occupation, but both relied upon significant state investment, engagement with local sports stakeholders, and the resilience of professional football. The French case thus suggests new ways of thinking about the interplay between agency and authoritarianism in a sporting context in authoritarian regimes in Occupied and Unoccupied Europe.

An innovative France? In Marianne in Chains, Robert Gildea argues that ‘the model of the “good French”, “bad French”, and “poor French” is very attractive, but too simple to make sense of the diverse and contradictory experiences of ordinary people’.39 His study of the Occupied Loire Valley demonstrates the ongoing and rich social interaction of a flourishing community. There French people still packed theatres, participated in local clubs, and visited friends and family. His analysis suggests that despite limited options, French people took advantage of the continuities of local institutions, different levels of knowledge between occupiers and occupied, and fluid value systems to find spaces to survive and even thrive during the Occupation. In other words, studying Occupied France from the point of view of ordinary people’s creativity offers new ways of thinking about everyday life, particularly about the limitations of the wartime and the possibilities for agency despite the oppressions of the Germans and the Vichy state. Gildea’s intuitions shaped the so-called Innovative France position, which emphasises the enormous power of ordinary people to contest the experience of Occupation through their creative approaches to engagement with the dual authoritarian systems of the Vichy state and the German Occupation. In abjuring the strictly political and honing in on the socio-cultural, my work mirrors Gildea’s because it takes the view that only the perspective of the local community ‘makes it possible to reassess the complex relations between French and Germans, between Vichy and French, and between the French themselves, not according to some higher code of “good” and “bad” actions’.40 A closer examination

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Introduction 15 of physical education and sports moves beyond collaboration and resistance, because most sports fit only awkwardly into that frame. Sportsmen and -women did not calculate their every move and feint according to the logics of the Occupation, but they were engaged participants who worked with and against national, regional, and local officials to produce through their activities a rich range of physical practices. French sport’s Vichy golden age occurred not simply because of the actions of the central state but more importantly because of the complementary and contradictory, but yet quotidian, activities of hundreds of thousands of ordinary French sportsmen and -women. It was a moment of genesis that built upon the discourses of the Third Republic, produced inventive activities, and set the stage for novel conceptions of sport in the Fourth Republic. Indeed, in many ways the postwar state built upon Vichy’s interventions to become even more interventionist in the realm of physical culture. Despite its importance, wartime physical culture remains relatively unknown among the public and scholars. This omission emerged in part because of the postwar résistancialiste efforts of athletes and sporting associations that recast their activities, downplaying their involvement with the state, and in a way also diminishing Vichy’s accomplishments. Nevertheless, a range of sources recorded the complex interplay between the Vichy state and ordinary French people. Wartime newspapers, especially L’Auto; the records of local sporting associations, such as the Racing Club de France and Toulouse Olympique; municipal and departmental archival records dealing with new construction and sponsorship of competitions and teams; and particularly the records of Vichy’s Sports Ministry conserved in the F44 series at the National Archives, demonstrated the rich and vibrant sporting culture that encompassed the whole of France, implicated a range of local stakeholders, including men and women, and involved many athletes playing a host of different games. They also illustrated significant differences of opinion between French athletes and the state: for example, the Fédération Française de Football Association disagreed sharply with the Sports Ministry about the importance of professionalism. These conflicts also happened locally. Sporting associations fought with local Government officials and the Sports Ministry to get construction funding and building permissions, and many local demands illustrate how a community’s sporting priorities might diverge from state administrators’.

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Sport and physical culture in Occupied France

At the same time, while records made the extent of sporting life obvious, they did not always allow for easy access into important issues such as the feelings generated by physical education and sports, whose emotional import remains relatively understudied and misunderstood. Very few records show clearly how people used sport to make the unbearable bearable during the so-called dark years. There were rare instances of athletic introspection: diaries, published interviews, and oral histories helped me to better understand why young men and women engaged in athletic activity during the Occupation. Too often sportsmen and -women remained quiet or did not write about sports because they considered their athletic life unimportant or too obvious to be worthy of discussion. Nevertheless, there are ways of reading against the grain to discover why people played sports during the Occupation. Government reports can reveal communal engagement and opposition to the National Revolution, especially in schools, as parents and students alike complained about the increased tempo of activities. Sporting associations published newspapers and newsletters that included commentary from their members. Oral histories collected after the war offered insights into athletes’ love of the French sporting world and appraisal of the state athletic initiatives. Through a close reading, sometimes against the grain, of this wide range of sources, my work documents how ordinary sportsmen and -women flocked to football fields, swimming pools, tennis courts, rivers, and playgrounds to use the state resources committed to physical education and sports for their own agendas. Sporting events became vibrant French social spaces and competitions preserved a sense of normalcy. Association presidents began massive construction projects. Team owners defended capitalist enterprises and their employees. Mayors and school principals protected republican institutions. The divergent positions of the French state and local stakeholders make us reconsider any ‘deterministic historical models’ that suggest ‘a top-down flow of influence which reduces the individual to little more than a leaf blowing in the winds of long term structural change’.41 In fact, French athletes learned new ways of coping in tough times. They remade their social world, founded hundreds of new sporting associations even as a large number collapsed; rewrote or reaffirmed new social networks, seeking out or rejecting state funding in order to pursue their own local agendas; and worked

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Introduction 17 together to make the best of their difficult situation, trading their dynamism, information, and resources. They succeeded in building working communities despite real limitations to their freedoms and reserves. Catholic associations rejected state overtures that might have required their sportswomen to wear tighter clothing; a cyclist might make do with worn tyres borrowed from a friend; a town might cheaply convert a pond into a swimming pool following advice from a newspaper. French wartime creativity showed the complex workings of power and agency during the Vichy regime and the German Occupation. The central state needed ordinary men and women to buy into their National Revolution and participate, without which their grand schemes would have failed. In order to make their plans more palatable, they worked within the sporting framework of the Third Republic and as a consequence empowered a wide range of sportsmen and -women across the country. In other words, wartime agency was so diffuse that almost everyone, even groups traditionally assumed to be almost powerless, could take part in it and thus alternatively challenge, remake, and serve the state’s objectives. Schoolchildren refused their boring state-mandated lessons, while sportsmen used their amateur status to appeal to the Government for the right to cross zones of demarcation. Even Jewish sporting organisations discovered they had their role to play, even if that role was not limitless, constrained by both the Vichy state and the Germans, and even if that role became more difficult as the Occupation worsened and the French started rounding up Jews to deport them to the East.42 The ability of sportsmen and -women of all stripes to contest and occasionally completely subvert the political aims of the state produced multiple Vichy regimes and multiple National Revolutions. If the state’s approach to sport relied upon communal engagement, a deep examination of sports in one place – even in Paris – would have been unlikely to shed insights into the whole country.43 Since wartime sports occurred across France, an examination of French athleticism also offers the chance for me to expand Gildea’s analytical approach and methodology to a multi-site project across the hexagon. A broader analysis also required visiting multiple repositories since no one archival institution promised to offer insights into sports on the ground level. Wartime records related to sports are often held

Sport and physical culture in Occupied France

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Figure 0.3  Demarcation lines in Occupied France

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Introduction 19 in different collections: the Archives nationale F44 series contains the Sports Ministry’s records, but local associations kept their own files and clubs closed or disposed of their papers rather than conserve them. In my own recovery of wartime France’s physical culture, I conducted research in almost thirty institutions across the Occupied Zone (Paris), the Non-Occupied Zone (in the Midi-Pyrenées, centred around Toulouse), and the Prohibited Zone (in the Nord-Pas-de-Calais centred around Lille).44 These institutions include large national archives, such as the Archives nationales de France and the Archives nationales du monde du travail; departmental archives; national libraries; and also encompassed a wide range of sporting associations, federations, leagues, and private papers. Surprisingly, however, there were not significant differences in the different zones of occupation; instead, there were regional differences that stemmed largely from the interwar period: support for professionalism was strongest in the North and Northeast, where workers, sporting associations, and big business owners worked together to resist Vichy’s anti-professional politics. The Southwest dealt more with the death of Rugby League than any other zone.45 However, similarities were more common than disparities and these commonalities reflected the resilience of local pre-war sporting cultures. In fact, the Sports Ministry’s approaches to the redevelopment of French sport were always extremely local. The thing that mattered most for physical education and sports expansion was effective local leadership from athletes, communal politicians, and sporting association officials, who advocated for and managed local developments. Despite local differences, the archival resources related to the state, association, and individual activities also showed significant longer durée trends that transcended the wartime. Despite all their claims to the contrary, many of Vichy’s biopolitical policies originated in the Popular Front; both the French left and right promoted similar uses for sport as a way to masculinise men, feminise women, promote national defence, bolster the birth rate, and increase agricultural and industrial production. Each opposed an emergent commercial sports culture centred in the North and East that privileged the so-called grand clubs and advocated for professionalism. The defeat of the Vichy regime, and the increasing rejection of their sporting politics during the wartime, most visible in the left-wing Fédération Sportive

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Sport and physical culture in Occupied France

et Gymnique du Travail endorsement of professional sports, likely hastened the success of commercialised sports in France.

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Different sporting arenas? These varied sources show two competing phenomena: the French state’s desire to use sports to inculcate the values of the National Revolution and the resilience of innovative French athletes in the face of the Vichy regime and the German Occupation, who developed strategies to appropriate state resources and use sporting institutions to make the most of their own occupation. My first two chapters consider the influence of the state on physical cultural practices. In the first chapter, I examine physical education and sports discourses in the 1930s to show how the Vichy regime borrowed from their ostensible opponents in the Popular Front. During the administration of Léo Lagrange, the Under-Secretary of Sport and Leisure, the French Government legislated in favour of amateur, participatory athletics. Professional sports were disfavoured. Debates between amateurism and professionalism created regional and social fault lines that were more salient than any other in the realm of physical education and sports. The political left and right shared antipathies towards professional sports.46 Advocates of amateurism included conservative aristocrats and the leadership of the Communist and Socialist parties in Paris; while apologists for professionalism more commonly came from the professional classes and working classes in the provinces. The convergence of the French left and right on the question of sports suggests that the Vichy state’s reactionary battle against decadence in physical culture did not start in 1940, but was actually a piece of a long durée consensus that appealed to both sides of the political spectrum in the first half of the twentieth century. It also demands that scholars revise the received wisdom on interwar sports, which embraces the idea that fascist states and democratic states approached sports differently, and the literature on French political culture, which stresses the divergence of the political extremes.47 In the second chapter, I build on the theme of left/right convergence by demonstrating how Vichy politicians relied upon the policies and programmes started during the republican era. Instead of conceiving

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Introduction 21 of a completely radical new physical education programme, known as the jeunesse unique, Jean Borotra, Vichy’s first Minister of Sports, doubled down on the athletic policies of the Popular Front. In 1940, he built a sports bureaucracy out of the remnants of the Third Republic’s. He also mirrored Léo Lagrange’s methods, turning to local stakeholders to encourage federal–local partnerships that enabled the construction of new athletic facilities and the hiring of more physical education instructors. The state’s growing bureaucracy allowed for an increasingly interventionist approach to sport, but Vichy’s ambitious efforts frequently ended in failure rather than triumph. Vichy’s reliance on the sports framework of the Third Republic also preserved spaces of liberty that many sportsmen and -women used to transform the state’s investment in sports towards their own ends. My investigation of physical education and sports during the Vichy period thus illuminates continuities in belief from the Popular Front to Vichy and situates the Vichy regime within the historiography of republican France.48 Physical education and sports also provide a lens through which to examine the preservation, the growth, and the transformation of civil and associational society in a state under Occupation. The next three chapters look at the ways in which different sporting organisations – schools, large/professional associations and federations, and local sporting associations – managed the expectations of the Vichy regime and used the resources of the state for their own purposes. The third chapter centres on Vichy’s physical educational practices in schools in order to better understand how the state encouraged physical and moral regeneration through physical culture; how the state’s agents monitored the development of those ideals; and how young people undermined the state through individual and collective disobedience. Physical education teachers used French gymnastics exercises to encourage athletic progress as measured in categories such as increased stamina, dexterity, strength, perseverance, mental toughness, and team spirit. However, students preferred team sports to other types of physical activity such as running, weight training, and exercising. I show how educators faced significant difficulties in encouraging their pupils to participate in the correct exercises and accept the link between physical education and moral education. Instead, students sought their own athletic fulfilment, played sports disfavoured by the state, fought with bureaucrats and teachers, and

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Sport and physical culture in Occupied France

ultimately undermined the physical educational goals of the National Revolution. The fourth chapter looks at the responses of French sports journals, the French Football Federation, and the top clubs in Paris, to the deprofessionalisation efforts of the Vichy state. Vichy regime officials shunned professional sports, and in 1943 a heavy-handed policy replaced professional clubs with Government-controlled regional teams. The Government’s anti-professional efforts, especially the move in 1943–1944 to a completely federalised professional football, engendered considerable and ultimately successful resistance from French football stakeholders, including local fans. Opposition to Vichy’s federalisation programme assumed a regional character as clubs in the Nord-Pas-de-Calais proved exceptionally resistant. The state’s anti-professional policies also eroded the quality of French players and caused a failure of the French national football team on the international stage. The conflict between sporting federations and the Vichy state shows the tensions inherent in Vichy’s paternalistic, technocratic programme which flew in the face of regional and local agendas. The failure of the Vichy regime to win over these organisations highlights the weakness of the authoritarian state and the strength and flexibility of local institutions in the face of intense pressure. In the fifth chapter, I ask how small, local multisports clubs survived the war despite the hardships of food shortages, insufficient transportation, and a lack of proper materials. Throughout this chapter, I argue that sporting associations – including elite social clubs, company sides, socialist organisations, and Jewish societies – remained relevant by developing new connections with their communities specifically by making use of resources distributed for physical education and sports by the Vichy regime. Each club interacted with the state in different ways, seeking to take advantage of their association’s relationship with state power to improve the life of their members. The ways in which sporting associations dealt with the Vichy state explain how and in what circumstances public associations could challenge the state and the German Occupation and illustrate the power of local institutions to make bearable the unbearable during wartime. Finally, in the sixth chapter, I situate sports clubs within the discourse on wartime resistance. After the war, many French sporting

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Introduction 23 organisations claimed that their activities prepared young men (and occasionally women) for the French Resistance. On the contrary, I argue that resistance within athletic associations was rare because public associations with open memberships made poor nexuses for clandestine armies. The majority of sporting associations were not ‘clubs of the Resistance’ as they claimed after the war, although some were. I unpack why and how some clubs became sites of active or passive resistance, while others became sites of collaboration, and why all clubs later sought to be recognised as sites of resistance. In this way, this chapter contributes to the already rich literature on resistance and provides insight into how resistance organisations formed and how post-hoc resistance reputations were created. The golden age of sports in Occupied France – examined through the theories of French sportsmen and -women, their practices, and their emotions from the top down and the bottom up – offers an opportunity to re-evaluate scholarly understandings of everyday life during the German Occupation of France. Between 1940 and 1944, the Vichy state promoted a revolutionary physical culture programme as part of a masculinist National Revolution. Empowered by the rapid defeat of the French Army, Government officials saw physical education and sports as a necessity and an opportunity to rejuvenate the nation. They built new stadiums and trained new instructors, but they could not do so without preserving many of the athletic institutions created during the Popular Front. Their reliance on the pre-war sports framework developed by the republican state preserved local democratic institutions and allowed for ordinary people to redefine the purpose of the National Revolution. Although Vichy officials mobilised sport to support their own political goals, individuals and organisations resisted their efforts and transformed the state’s programmes towards their own ends. Athletes rarely acquiesced to the state’s ambitions. Instead, they vigorously debated among themselves and put forward their own agendas. Sporting associations were more than places to play games. Amid the brutality of the Occupation, physical culture gave many people a place to organise to achieve communal objectives, especially the distribution of limited resources such as construction materials, food, or sporting goods. Physical activities provided a sense of hope, freedom, or normalcy. They acted as a pressure release valve for the tension. Many French people played sports because they sought

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Sport and physical culture in Occupied France

an apolitical space in which to socialise with other people. Despite their best efforts to control and survey the growth of sports, the Vichy state thus inadvertently opened the way for greater local agency and individual freedom. Athletics in France grew most rapidly in importance and size during the interwar period because of both the efforts of the French state and the opposition of communal organisations that transformed National Revolution. As Julian Jackson argued in France: The Dark Years, the ‘more that is known about totalitarian societies, the more it is clear how unsuccessful they were in transforming civil society, even when people did not resist in any organised or political way’.49 Vichy sports policies proved the brittleness of the state’s power. Their policies fractured at many points and at the smallest challenge. By contrast, civil society and the individuals who composed it proved to be so much stronger than the authoritarianism of Vichy and the jackboot of the German Army. Ordinary French people pushed against the limitations of the Occupation and found myriad opportunities for expression in the golden age of French sports. In schools, villages, and cities, among almost every sector of French society, physical education and sports became even more vital because of their agency. Vichy France was a classic instance of a Government that actively stimulated physical education and sports to better promote their National Revolution, but their lack of success in shaping the contours of that revolution demonstrated the power of physical cultural organisations to use state programmes for their own local and particular agendas.

Notes 1 ‘Le Red Star bat Sète par 2 buts à 0’ (Red Star beats Sète by 2 Goals to 0) Le Matin, 18 May 1942. 2 INAthèque AFE86004276 ‘Journal Les Actualités Mondiales: émission du 22 mai 1942’. 3 R. Gildea, Marianne in Chains: Daily Life in the Heart of France during the German Occupation (New York: Picador, 2002), p. 8. 4 ‘La France n’abandonnera aucun de ses droits souverains sur les Antilles’ (France will not give up any of its rights over the West Indies), ‘En Crimée, Kertsch est au pouvoir des Allemands’ (In Crimea, Kerch is under German control), and ‘L’âme héroïque des 9 japonais de Pearl

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Introduction 25 Harbour’ (The heroic souls of 9 Japanese at Pearl Harbor) Le Matin, 18 May 1942. 5 Drawing on ninety-seven interviews conducted decades after the war, Pretêt has argued that the number of licences issued presents an unduly optimistic picture of sporting participation and understates the hardships of life in the Vichy era. His interviews themselves present a more complicated picture, in which some clubs flourished, and others foundered. His analysis also fails to account for the political significance of descriptions of Vichy in the post-war period. B. Prêtet, ‘Sportifs et sports en France 1940–1945’ (Ph.D. Thesis, Université Paris Ouest Nanterre, 2014), p. 208. 6 Ibid., pp. 208–222. 7 Emphasis in original. P. Bourdieu, ‘Sport and social class’, Social Science Information 17 (1978), 819–840. 8 L. Dodd and D. Lees, Vichy France and Everyday Life: Confronting the Challenges of Wartime, 1939–1945 (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2018), p. 8. 9 For larger discussions of nineteenth-century gender politics, see especially, R. Nye, Masculinity and Male Codes of Honor in Modern France (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993) and R. Nye, Crime, Madness, and Politics in Modern France: The Medical Concept of Decline (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984). For scholarship specifically on Vichy and gender, see M. Pollard, Reign of Virtue: Mobilizing Gender in Vichy France (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998) and F. Muel-Dreyfus, Vichy and the Eternal Feminine: A Contribution to the Political Sociology of Gender (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2001). 10 AN 17F14462 ‘Letter from the CGEGS to M. G. Delamare Debouteville, the Vice-Président d’honneur des associations des sports généraux français de Poissy’ (1944). 11 See especially N. Wouters, Mayoral Collaboration under Nazi Occupation in Belgium, the Netherlands and France, 1938–46 (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016). 12 See especially, K. Simpson, Soccer under the Swastika: Stories of Survival and Resistance during the Holocaust (New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 2016); D. Gomet, ‘Between survival strategy and bloody violence: boxing in Nazi concentration and extermination camps (1940–1945)’, International Journal of the History of Sport 33:10 (2016), 1099–1115; D. Gomet, ‘From punishment to death: body practices for deported women in Nazi Camps’, International Journal of the History of Sport 30:9 (2013), 934–949; W. Lipoński, ‘On the necessity to initiate research on sport in World War II concentration camps and POW camps’, Studies

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in Physical Culture and Tourism 19:1 (2012), 5–9; and D. Gomet and T. Terret, ‘To be a Jew and champion in Vichy’s France: Alfred Nakache – from the swimming pool to the Nazi camps (1940–44)’, International Journal of the History of Sport 26:15 (2009), 2128–2200. 13 See especially, P. Dietschy, ‘Le football italien des guerres mussoliniennes à la guerre civile’, Guerres mondiales et conflits contemporains 268:4 (2017), 85–96; and P. Dietschy, ‘Le football: un sport totalitaire? Histoire parallèle des footballs allemand et italien dans l’entre-deux-guerres’, Hispania Nova 17 (2019), 426–449. 14 Most recently, M. Herzog, ‘FC Bayern Munich as a “victim” of National Socialism? Construction and critique of a “heroic myth”’, Sport in History 41:1 (2021), 131–152. 15 See, H. Bonde, Football with the Foe: Danish Sport under the Swastika (Odense: University of Southern Denmark, 2008), p. 14. 16 R. Renson and P. Delheye, ‘War games: sport during the German occupation of Belgium (1940–1944)’, Stadion 26:2 (2000), 245–267. 17 See, M. Taylor, ‘Sport and civilian morale in Second World War Britain’, Journal of Contemporary History 53:2 (April 2018), 315–338. 18 Although the term had first been used in a 1947 diary of the wartime, historian Jean-Pierre Azéma popularised the term années noires. J.-P. Azéma, De Munich à la libération: 1938–1944 (Paris: Seuil, 1979), inter alia. He later published work explicitly about the notion of the ‘Dark Years’. See J.-P. Azéma and F. Bédarida, La France des années noires (Paris: Seuil, 1993) and J.-P. Azéma, 1940: L’Année noir (Paris: Fayard, 2010). Azéma’s interpretation has been both adopted in French schools and critiqued by subsequent historians of the Vichy period. See, P. Burrin, France à l’heure allemande, 1940–1944 (Paris: Seuil, 1995) and J. Jackson, France: The Dark Years, 1940–1944 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001). 19 R. Aron, The Vichy Regime, trans. Humphrey Hare (London: Putnum Press, 1958); Gildea, Marianne in Chains, see especially, Introduction. 20 As an exception, see: H. Mavit, ‘Education physique et sports’, Revue d’histoire de la deuxième guerre mondiale 56 (1964), 89–104. 21 R. Paxton, Vichy France: Old Guard and New Order, 1940–1944 (New York: Columbia University Press, 2001), p. xi. 22 J.-L. Gay-Lescot, Sport et éducation sous Vichy (1940–1944) (Lyon: Presses universitaires de Lyon, 1991). 23 Azéma finalised the report in 2002, but it was not readily available until much later. J.-P. Azéma, et al., La Politique du sport et de l’éducation physique en France pendant l’Occupation (Paris: L’INSEP, 2018). 24 For more information about the creation of the Vichy Man, see D. Lackerstein, National Regeneration in Vichy France: Ideas and Policies,

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Introduction 27 1930–1944 (Farnham: Ashgate, 2012) and L. Yagil, L’Homme nouveau et la revolution nationale de Vichy, 1940–1944 (Villeneuve d’Ascq: Presses universitaires de Septentrion, 1997). For youth during Vichy, see especially W.D. Halls, The Youth of Vichy France (Oxford: Clarendon, 1981); A.-R. Michel, La J.E.C.: La Jeunesse étudiante chrétienne face au nazisme et à Vichy, 1938–1944 (Lille: Presses universitaires de Lille, 1988); P. Giolitto, Histoire de la jeunesse sous Vichy (Paris: Perrin, 1991); G. Ragache, Les Enfants de la guerre: vivre, survive, lire, et jouer en France, 1939–1949 (Paris: Éditions Perrin, 1997); S. Fishman, ‘Youth in Vichy France: the Juvenile Crime Wave and its Implications’ in S. Fishman, R. Zaretsky, et al. (eds), France at War: Vichy and the Historians (New York: Berg, 2000); and S. Fishman, The Battle for Children: World War II, Youth Crime, and Juvenile Justice in Twentieth-Century France (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002). 25 Gildea, Marianne in Chains, p. 8. 26 See, Wouters, Mayoral Collaboration under Nazi Occupation; J. Torre, ‘For Their Own Good’: Civilian Evacuations in Germany and France, 1939–1945 (New York: Berghan, 2010); D. Veillon and J.-M. Flonneau, Le Temps des restrictions en France, 1939–1949 (Paris: Institut d’histoire de temps présent/ Centre nationale de la recherche scientifique,, 1996); and D. Veillon, Vivre et survivre en France, 1939–1947 (Paris: Éditions Payot, 1995). 27 See especially, Burrin, France under the Germans and Jackson, France. 28 See, C. Millington, From Victory to Vichy: Veterans in Interwar France (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2012); S. Kennedy, Reconciling France against Democracy: The Croix de Feu and the Parti Social Français, 1927–1945 (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2007); B. Durand, J.-P. Le Crom, et al., Le Droit sous Vichy (Jena: Vittorio Klosterman, 2006). 29 See, E. Jennings, Vichy in the Tropics: Pétain’s National Revolution in Madagascar, Guadeloupe, and Indochina, 1940–1944 (Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, 2008). 30 S. Fogg, The Politics of Everyday Life in Vichy France: Foreigners, Undesirables, and Strangers (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009); A. Mitchell, Nazi Paris: The History of an Occupation, 1940–1944 (New York: Berghahn Books, 2008); R. Vinen, The Unfree French: Life under Occupation (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2006); and J. Sweets, Choices in Vichy France: The French under Nazi Occupation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986). 31 See, Jackson, France, pp. 270 and 281–282; Gildea, Marianne in Chains, pp. 409–410; R. Rosbottom, When Paris Went Dark: The City of Light

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under German Occupation, 1940–44 (New York: Little, Brown, & Co., 2014), pp. 60–196; and Burrin, France under the Germans, pp. 465–466. 32 Some scholars examine the whole of French sports history. See, R. Hubscher, J. Durry, et al.,, L’Histoire en mouvements: le sport dans la société française (XIXe–XXe siècle) (Paris: Armand Colin, 1992); and G. Hare, Football in France: A Cultural History (New York: Berg, 2003). Others have looked exclusively at specific kinds of sporting competition. The most important event-specific literature deals with the Tour de France. See, P. Boury, La France du Tour, le Tour de France: Un Espace sportif à géographie variable (Paris: Harmattan, 1997) and C. Thompson, The Tour de France: A Cultural History (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2006); J. Tumblety’s ‘The Soccer World Cup of 1938: Politics, Spectacles, and la Culture Physique in Interwar France’, French Historical Studies 31:1 (2008), 77–116 relies heavily on posters produced in part with the assistance of the Popular Front Government to uncover the ways in which masculinity was demonstrated through images on advertising for the 1938 World Cup. Others looked into specific sporting associations: M. Fontaine, Le Racing Club de Lens et les Gueules Noires: Essai d’histoire sociale (Paris: Les Indes savantes, 2010). Scholars have also asked fruitful questions about the development of capitalism in France. See, A. Wahl, Les Archives du football: sport et société en France (1880–1980) (Paris: Gallimard, 1989) and L. Krasnoff, The Making of Les Bleus: Sport in France 1958–2010 (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2012). Many historians took a special interest in the use of sports in the construction of identities, especially working-class and immigrant identities. For example, P. Arnaud and J. Camy, La Naissance du mouvements sportif associatif en France (Lyon: Presses universitaire de Lyon, 1986); P. Arnaud, Origins du sport ouvrier en Europe (Paris:Harmattan, 1994); S. Whitney, Mobilizing Youth: Communists and Catholics in Interwar France (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2009); L. Dubois, Soccer Empire: The World Cup and the Future of France (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2010). More recent work has enumerated the ways that French politicians used physical education to support the republican project following both the Franco-Prussian War and the First World War. See, P. Arnaud, Les Athlètes de la République: gymnastique, sport, et idéologie républicaine, 1870–1914 (Paris: Harmattan, 1997) and R. Chrastil, Organizing for War: France, 1870–1914 (Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 2010). 33 See, M. Lassus, L’Affaire Ladoumègue: le débat amateurismeprofessionalisme dans les années trente (Paris: Harmattan, 2000); J.-M. Delaplace, Georges Hébert: sculpteur de corps (Paris: Vuibert, 2005); and

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Introduction 29 D. Baud, Alfred Nakache, le nageur d’Auschwitz (Portet-sur-Garonne: Loubatières editions, 2009). 34 See, B. Comte, Une Utopie combattante: L’École des cadres d’Uriage, 1940–1942 (Paris: Fayard, 1991); J. Hellman, The Knight-Monks of Vichy France: Uriage, 1940–1945 (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1993); C. Pecout, Les Chantiers de la jeunesse et la revitalisation physique et morale de la jeunesse française (1940–1944) (Paris: Harmattan, 2007); O. Faron, Les Chantiers de jeunesse: avoir 20 ans sous Pétain (Paris: Grasset, 2011). 35 P. Arnaud, T. Terret, et al., Le Sport et les français pendant l’occupation, 1940–1944. Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 (Paris: Harmattan, 2003). 36 B. Prêtet, Sports et sportifs français sous Vichy (Paris: Nouveau Monde, 2016), although the author of this work first consulted the dissertation, Prêtet, ‘Sportifs et sports en France 1940–1945’. 37 See, J.-P. Bertin-Maghit, Le Cinèma français sous Vichy: Les Films français de 1940 à 1944 (Paris: Albatros, 1980); A. Bazin, French Cinema of the Occupation and the Resistance: The Birth of Critical Esthetic (New York: Ungar, 1981); E. Ehrlich, Cinema of a Paradox: French Filmmaking under the German Occupation (New York: Columbia University Press, 1987); C. Faure, Le Projet culturel de Vichy: folklore et révolution nationale, 1940–1944 (Lyon: Presses universitaires de Lyon, 1989); L. Dorléac, ‘Art, culture, et société: l’exemple des arts plastiques à Paris entre 1940 et 1944’ (Dissertation, Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Paris, 1990); D. Veillon, La Mode sous l’occupation (Paris: Payot, 1990); S. Added, Le Théâtre dans les années Vichy (Paris: Ramsay, 1992); J.-P. Rioux, La Vie culturelle sous Vichy (Paris: Éditions Complexe, 1990); A. Riding, And the Show Went On: Cultural Life in Nazi Occupied Paris (New York: Knopf, 2010); F. Spotts, The Shameful Peace: How French Artists and Intellectuals Survived the Nazi Occupation (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2008). 38 See, R. Lewis, The Stadium Century: Sport, Spectatorship and Mass Society in Modern France (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2016); J. Tumblety, ‘Rethinking the fascist aesthetic: mass gymnastics, political spectacle and the stadium in 1930s France’, European History Quarterly 4 (2013), 707–730; and J. Tumblety, Remaking the Male Body: Masculinity and the Uses of Physical Culture in Interwar and Vichy France (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012). 39 Gildea, Marianne in Chains, p. 403. 40 Ibid., pp. 12–13. 41 Dodd and Lees, Vichy France and Everyday Life, p. 8. 42 See especially, D. Lee, Pétain’s Jewish Children: French Jewish Youth and the Vichy Regime, 1940–1942 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014).

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43 The Parisian-centricity of French historiography is a consequence of the centralisation of archives within the capital. See, D.P. Jones, Paris in the Third Reich (London: Collins, 1981) and J.-P. Azéma and G. Perrault, Paris sous l’Occupation (Paris: Vendome, 1989). 44 Wikimedia Commons contributors, ‘File: France map Lambert-93 with regions and departments-occupation.svg’, Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:France_ map_Lambert-93_with_regions_and_departments-occupation. svg&oldid=303514000 (accessed 22 November 2019). 45 In France, the thirteen-man code has been called many things: Rugby à XIII, the jeu à treize, and frequently also Rugby League. The federation founded in 1934 was called the Ligue nationale de rugby à XIII, but for simplicity’s sake I refer almost exclusively to Rugby League. 46 See Tumblety, Remaking the Male Body and J. Wardhaugh, In Pursuit of the People: Political Culture in France, 1934–1939 (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009). 47 The earliest important title: F. Fabrizio, Sport e fascismo: la politica sportiva del regime, 1924–1936 (Florence: Guaraldi, 1976). See also, V. de Grazia, The Culture of Consent: Mass Organization of Leisure in Fascist Italy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981); V. de Grazia, How Fascism Ruled Women: Italy, 1922–1945 (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1992); P. Arnaud and J. Riordan, Sport and International Politics (New York: E&FN Spon, 1998); G. Gori, Italian Fascism and the Female Body: Sport, Submissive Women and Strong Mothers (New York: Routledge, 2004). 48 See, G. Noiriel, Les Origines républicaines de Vichy (Paris: Hachette, 1999). 49 Jackson, France, p. 244.

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1 The interwar battle between amateurism and professionalism: the use of physical education and sports by the French left and right

In 1941, the Vichy Sports Ministry, the Commissariat Général à l’Éducation Générale et aux Sports, honoured Léo Lagrange, the Popular Front’s legendary Sports Minister. The minutes of the Office du Sport Scolaire et Universitaire’s 31 July meeting described the celebration as a large event, featuring the best young athletes from across the country. At the beginning of the ceremony, Vichy dignitaries paid respect to ‘the memory of Léo Lagrange … dead on the field of honour’ and observed a minute of silence.1 The audience was a veritable who’s who of Vichy cabinet ministers, including the Sports Minister, Jean Borotra, and the Minister of Public Education, Jacques Chevalier. A Vichy state’s tribute to Lagrange confounds traditional interpretation of the period that prioritises left–right conflict, but Vichy’s appropriation of the socialist sportsman made sense in the context of interwar sporting life. In this chapter, I will unpack some of the contours and continuities of interwar French sport to explain why Vichy officials chose to celebrate one of their adversaries. Was this a time of great political party division in sports, as has been alleged in previous work on French sport? The first three sections deal with the politicisation of sport in the 1920s and 1930s. The first addresses the historiography of interwar European sport, arguing against the commonly cited democratic/fascist athlete binary. The second and third sections examine the convergence of athletic discourse and practices inside of interwar left-wing and right-wing athletic associations and federations.

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A close examination of the sporting discourses and practices of these left-wing and right-wing sporting federations shows commonalities. These two political extremes shared seemingly contradictory athletic ideals – apolitical and political sport – and drew upon them at various times to serve their own agendas. Left- and right-wing sportsmen and -women avowed an athletic apoliticism common across the French sports world, but they also sought to use athletics to improve French bodies and prepare them to better serve the state. In their organisational documents, their engagements with the state, and in the sports pages, athletes from the political extremes, like French athletes of all stripes, mobilised these notions of appropriate athleticism and articulated particular visions of athletic citizenship that echoed and also challenged the divisions and disagreements of interwar French republicanism and its opponents.2 The left-wing Fédération Sportive et Gymnique du Travail (FSGT) and the conservative Société de Préparation et d’Éducation Sportive (SPES) exemplified these complications. The two federations developed remarkably similar sets of physical education and sports politics, propaganda, and practices. Both also used athletics to appeal to new members, build a sense of community, prepare people for political action, and generate public legitimacy. Although they only represented a fraction of sports life in France, they reflected sport at its most explicitly political, tied officially to a party or international movement. While they started the interwar period starkly divided over their approach to physical fitness instruction and military training, by 1936 their athletic discourses and practices had converged in the shadow of Nazi Germany’s Hitlerjugend movement. After the emergence of the Popular Front, while the French right repeatedly disavowed the left’s athletic bona fides, they nonetheless shamelessly copied them and finally eulogised Lagrange in 1940. This figurative coming together of athletes across the political spectrum happened because of international events that exacerbated French anxieties about national vulnerability, but also due to changes happening in the French sporting world around commercialisation, professionalism, and spectatorship. In the final three sections, I show how proponents of amateurism debated those who favoured professionalism. This divide set those in Paris against the provinces, those with aristocratic notions of sport against industrialists and workers, and ordinary fans against sports grandees. The French

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political class, almost to a man, believed physical culture should serve the nation, and even French communists and proto-fascists shared ideas about how the Government should reorganise sporting life. Each emphasised mass participation, gendered organisation, and military preparation. Their congruent visions produced similar programmes in the ministries of political antagonists Léo Lagrange and Jean Borotra. This left/right convergence mirrored contemporary developments in other European countries, including in Weimar Germany and Czechoslovakia. Looking at the way sports cut across political boundaries in interwar and wartime France thus offers new ways of thinking about political culture in interwar Europe across the transwar, shows novel comparisons between democratic and fascist regimes, and illuminates the important role that local and regional sporting organisations played in challenging state programmes.

Democratic and fascist athletes? The Vichy state’s homage to Lagrange raises questions about interwar physical culture. Previous studies of interwar physical education and sports have productively investigated how fascist and non-fascist states mobilised physical culture, but in their concentration on difference, they have overlooked the much more prevalent similarities in discourse and practice. Athletes across Europe tended not to view themselves as avatars of political ideologies and most sport happened within domestic leagues rather than internationally. Moving away from the notions of ‘fascist athletes’, ‘socialist/communist athletes’, and ‘democratic athletes’ opens up new opportunities to think transnationally about how stakeholders across Europe conceived of physical activity in fundamentally similar ways to address a common set of problems. While many scholars have identified troves of ‘fascist athletes’, ‘socialist/communist athletes’, and ‘democratic athletes’, seemingly inflamed by contradictory ideas about athleticism, the French case has been made most eloquently by Geoff Read. In The Republic of Men, Read differentiates between interwar socialist and fascist athleticism. He writes: It might be tempting to conclude that the politicization of private life and the totalitarianization of masculinity was equivalent among the

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parliamentary parties and the fascists and Communists, it was not. While the Socialist Party, for example, did emphasize youthfulness as a positive masculine characteristic, and while it did, in a quasitotalitarian fashion, extend its reach into children’s lives, it did not for the most part seek to militarize its young boys or men in the same manner as the fascists or encourage them to take up violent revolution as did the Communists (at least at times.) Also, while the style might have been somewhat similar, the substance was different: the Socialists, Radicals, and others were not preparing their boys for a violent seizure of power.3

Read’s work shows how various political movements politicised sport, and highlights the similarities between the sporting left and right, but it does little to explain why the conservative Vichy regime eulogised Léo Lagrange. Read’s assessment follows the broader historiography of physical culture in interwar Europe, especially that of Fascist Italy, which is premised on the differences between so-called fascist, communist, and democratic sportspeople. Incisive monographs on Italy in the 1970s and 1980s launched scholarly interest in fascist sport by highlighting the intersections of athleticism, militarism, and fascism. They also emphasised the ways in which fascist states mobilised the image of athletes in order to masculinise men, feminise women, and strengthen the body politic in preparation for war.4 These works formed a larger literature on interwar athletics that privileged fascist sports as particularly militaristic. Other works focus on particular sporting competitions, especially the 1936 Berlin Olympics, an event which is extremely fruitful terrain for scholars interested in unpacking the ways in which Nazi Germany combated democratic states on athletics fields while promoting its own gendered notions of virtue, work, and duty.5 These previous studies have illuminated the biopolitical and militarist agendas of physical culture inside of European states, but in their reliance on ‘Fascist’, ‘Democratic’, and ‘Communist’ tropes they have masked the complexities of sporting practices, inside of sporting associations and federations. Instead of being battlefields for ideological combat, most international competitions showcased a surprising amount of athletic solidarity. Competitors got along. Nevertheless, the Berlin Olympics are infamous for their turbulent history, including the rise of an international boycott movement,

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the activities of anti-fascist opposition groups such as Comité International Pour le Respect et de l’Esprit Olympique, and the attempted stating of an alternative Barcelona People’s Olympiad.6 Yet even these important alternative possibilities only tell part of the story. Amid international foment against the Nazi Games, the Germans staged a largely successful and internationally acclaimed competition. Bonds formed between sportsmen from fascist and democratic countries such as the friendship between Lutz Long and Jessie Owens. The scholarly attention to the interwar sporting world’s apparent divisions overdetermines the conflicts of the 1930s. Indeed, fan violence before, during, and after games, against fascists or anti-fascists, rarely occurred. French fans’ treatment of the Italian national team at the 1938 World Cup in France was a notable exception. The Italian team in their all-black jerseys drew out the ire of the crowds, who hurled abuse. The Italians got their revenge by winning the World Cup.7 Throughout the interwar period, there were few direct confrontations between left- and right-wing sportsmen in France. As Robert Lewis’s Stadium Century shows, stadiums might have welcomed important political rallies, which frequently included sporting demonstrations, but these events were not representative of most athletic competitions.8 In Mobilizing Youth, Susan Whitney shows how Catholics and communists wrestled over similar spatial and social terrains, animated through physical education and sports culture, and enacted on the fields, and in pools, aerodromes, stadia.9 Sean Kennedy does find some instances of left/right competition in aviation clubs.10 However, politically oriented sporting organisations, such as the left-wing Fédération Sportive et Gymnique du Travail, were only a small part of French interwar sports, which included the much more common professional, local, bourgeois, working-class, Catholic, secular, Jewish, fascist, Marxist, and educational federations. Matches occurred mostly intra-federation; athletes in political sports federations only rarely competed directly against their antagonists on the football field, track, or swimming pool. Different French social classes also preferred different types of sport. Tennis and golf dominated in the rarefied world of aristocratic sporting associations. Football and basketball were more common in working-class and Catholic sporting clubs. The fractured nature of French sport ensured that most sporting activities occurred in largely apolitical spaces.

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If studies focused on different approaches to European interwar culture have limitations, there are benefits to looking at sporting commonalities across the political spectrum. If one starts with the premise of resemblance, it becomes clear that in the 1930s, as sportsmen in France fought over the purpose of physical education and sports, the political right, left, and centre generally agreed that physical education and sports should be mobilised to serve the state. French fascists, communists, and republicans looked towards mass amateur participation in national gymnastics as a means of addressing their concerns about French birth rates, men’s and women’s bodily health, and geopolitical strength. The Popular Front Government engaged in the first sustained state effort to give large-scale support to the development of physical education and sports. Popular Front Sports Minister Léo Lagrange sought to expand funding for physical education and sports, provide new opportunities for healthy youth leisure activities, and systematise and rationalise popular youth sports practices. Right-wing parties, including the Parti Populaire Français, modelled their own physical education and sports programmes deliberately after Lagrange’s efforts. Their copying of Lagrange in the interwar period helps to explain why French rightists eulogised the socialist after his death. This focus on interwar convergence also aligns with more recent interventions into interwar biopolitics in France that highlight moments of the coming together of the left and right.11 Moreover, the political left and right shared a common physical cultural antagonist: both opposed the rise of professional sports, a movement which challenged longstanding traditional sporting structures, rhetorically and practically, as new professional practices altered the way in which French people experienced sporting events. Paris’s bourgeois, working-class, and Catholic sporting associations saw their mission as social, but a rising movement of commercially oriented sporting associations, tied to companies in the North and Northeast, envisioned sports into a product to be consumed and hoped to make money through the ticket sales. The gradual swing towards professionalism in the interwar period thus represented an ascendant athletic movement, formed in the provinces and poised in opposition to the ideologies of mass participation and amateur sports. These pro-professionalisation forces, strongest in the regions, continued their efforts during the Vichy era despite that regime’s strong opposition to pro sports.

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These commonalities also offer new ways for thinking about sports transnationally. The observation that Europe’s democratic nations mobilised athleticism in ways remarkably like those used by the fascists is not a new one. In some cases, including in Germany, democratic regimes politicised athletics before their authoritarian counterparts.12 In France, successive Governments during the Third Republic generated a politics of physical education and sports. A set of common problems motivated political parties across Europe and the political spectrum, including issues such as denatality, physical infirmity, and military unpreparedness; a common set of concerns forced the political extremes to adopt similar physical education and sports strategies and rhetoric from a limited range of athletic practices.

Politicisation of physical culture in the interwar era The Third Republic’s interest in sport coincided with the birth of the Republic: physical culture exploded after the calamity of the Franco-Prussian War. Careful observers claimed that German soldiers’ physicality explained their victory. Strong, virile, and masculine, they easily defeated the weak and emasculated French.13 In this climate, physical improvement became a national obsession. The Third Republic enacted the so-called Georges Law in 1880 that ordered all public schools to provide physical education for boys.14 French elites founded thousands of sporting organisations across the metropole, such as the Racing Club de France and Stade Français, which were founded in Paris in 1882 and 1883. Doctors, educators, and politicians examined the links between medical, pedagogical, and social notions of racial regeneration and geopolitical strength.15 Social and civic groups looked to physical education to revitalise French masculinity and rehabilitate the nation. In the first decades of the Third Republic, French people organised more than forty-five thousand associational groups: athletic and musical societies were among the most popular, accounting for a third of all organisations.16 French historians have argued that above all others sporting societies ‘offered a model of daily social solidarity and active citizen participation, providing, moreover, a neutral terrain on which citizens of different social classes could meet and collaborate in the name of common cultural or leisure pursuit. As such, they

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permitted a democratic and participatory organisation of the commune at its grass roots.’ 17 They thus offer scholars unique opportunities to uncover social organisation and resilience even during the war and the Occupation. France’s sportsmen and -women created a range of clubs, including gymnastics societies, team sports associations, federations, scouting groups, naturist and naturalist groups, and wellness institutions. These divergent institutions produced a host of ideas about bodily ideals, but most French athletes learned through the press and in their clubs that individual bodies stood in for the physical, mental, and moral health of the nation.18 France’s foremost sports experts shared this view, including Pierre de Coubertin, founder of the modern Olympic movement; Jean François Paschal Grousset, a communard and former political prisoner in New Caledonia turned physical culturist; and Dr Philippe Tissié, a neuropsychiatrist and gymnastics advocate. Despite their divergent political persuasions, these men promoted physical education as essential for the nation. In 1919, Tissié voiced the link between hygienist thinking and gymnastics in L’Éducation physique et la race. ‘Physical education is a vital function of society. Daily battles against the environment, against pathogens, are as deadly as war. In physical education our mentality is combative. … Before you make a soldier, you have to make a man.’ 19 Tissié influenced French sportsmen who read his work in the sports pages and came to understand bodily health as a substitute for national strength and prestige. The circumstances that powered the growth of French sporting life at the beginning of the twentieth century, particularly worries about France’s physical vulnerability in relation to Germany, persisted after the French victory in the First World War. As Mary Louise Roberts has shown in her seminal Civilization without Sexes, in the interwar period gendered debates provided a language to ‘understand something as abstract as the fall of the franc or the decline of the middle class. … By debating issues of gender identity, the French came to terms with a postwar world that threatened to become unrecognizable to them.’ 20 In fact, in many respects the 1930s were the worst decade for French masculine self-confidence. The Great Depression, the nascent feminist movement, ongoing natalist panics, and the apparent resurgence of Nazi Germany unnerved French politicians. These concerns transcended political boundaries and

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represented a continuity of nineteenth-century worries about masculinity, degeneration, and national strength. Indeed, rather than being ameliorated in the aftermath of the First World War, people across the political spectrum, but especially conservatives, worried that French men suffered from decadent urbanism, out of control feminism, and individualistic capitalism. In the context of the political rivalries of the 1920s, however, different visions of the salutary possibilities of sports erupted from the French left and right, especially over the value of physical education as military preparation. The French right recruited explicitly from sports and military societies, and they encouraged their members to take up shooting classes.21 By contrast, influenced by international Marxism, French communists and socialists rejected the implicit nationalism of physical education and sports. As Susan Whitney observes, ‘Communists’ goal was to harness sport to their own revolutionary purposes. While the bourgeoisie had used sport to domesticate the proletariat, the Communists intended to make it an instrument of working-class liberation.’ 22 The same could be said for French socialists. In the 1920s, French socialist and communist athletes competed in different federations, the former as part of the Union des Sociétés Sportives et Gymnique du Travail, the latter with the Fédération Sportive du Travail (FST). Both actively engaged in community outreach through sports. Their organisers devised sporting activities aimed specifically at drawing in young, working-class men to sporting societies and engaging them in the communist struggle. The FST’s organisers benefited from their connections with the Soviet Union, successfully arranging tours for top-flight Soviet football teams to Paris in 1926 and in 1933. During each tour, a series of the top teams in Paris played football against a team visiting from the Soviet Union as communists filled the stadiums with people friendly to their cause.23 Despite their political differences – French communists and socialists battled each other throughout the 1920s – in the realm of sports, leaders across the French left rejected the implicit militarism of sporting life, which they saw as ‘chauvinistic propaganda which prepared [athletes’] minds for war’.24 Military drills in schools were particularly problematic because they led to a mobilised youth. An article published on 10 April 1935, in the left-wing journal Sport, critiqued the mandatory military preparation of working-class youth

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and claimed it did little other than turn children into cannon fodder.25 Another article criticised the common practice of teaching military skills inside of sporting associations and asked readers to only participate in working-class sporting federations because other federations played sport ‘in the service of the cannon sellers’.26 Socialists and communists also accused sporting organisations of using athletics to inculcate bourgeois mentalities. Physical education and sports, they argued in the pages of Sport, used coaches and captains to impose order and discipline, and taught young athletes to accept subjugation.27 French industrialists exploited the players in their company clubs. Left-wing sportsmen complained that so-called patronal clubs created popular support for capitalism and industrialists, and further exploited workers to generate profits. To combat the apparent rightward drift of the French sports world, in 1934 left-leaning athletes united at a congress in Paris. French sport, they noted, had devolved into a system for the ‘exploitation of individuals for profit’.28 Socialist and communist sportsmen, from rival federations, resolved to fight these problems together. Two athletic organisations became one: an overarching, working-class sports federation combining their two names called the Fédération Sportive et Gymnique du Travail. This fusion was part of a growing wave of European left-wing consolidation. In 1934, the Bulgarian communist and General Secretary of the World Committee against War and Fascism, Georgi Dimitrov, became head of the Comintern. He reversed that organisation’s previous class against class policy that saw communists struggling against their ostensible cousins in European socialist parties. In May 1934, the official newspaper of the Soviet Communist Party, Pravda, heralded the USSR’s support for socialist–communist alliances. In France, then, the merger of these two federations actually preceded the formal organisation of the People’s United Front against Fascism and War declared at the Comintern’s Seventh Congress, and it also presaged the organisation of Leon Blum’s Popular Front, which first stood for election in 1936.

Sporting left–right convergence On the other side of the political aisle, the sporting right emerged from the country’s traditional bases: Catholic sporting associations

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called patronages, aristocratic clubs, and the Army. These conservative sportsmen, rather than seeing the sport–state nexus as problematic, wanted to use physical culture to strengthen the country, safeguard morality, and invigorate the French race. Marshal Pétain noted the importance of athletics in a speech given at a lunch for the Revue des Deux Monde in 1934, where he called on teachers to institute a programme of physical education that ‘is capable of assuring in our youth the benefit of a virile national doctrine, exalting collective effort, national interest, and the glories and the destiny of the country’.29 Pétain was only one of many conservative Frenchmen interested in the connection between physical culture and militarism. Advocates for athletic militarism found homes in a variety of overlapping and competing conservative institutions, creating a sense of a unified sporting culture devoted to the reinvigoration of French masculinity. Army officers were early adopters of physical training, starting their own sporting organisations in the middle of the nineteenth century. The École de Joinville, for example, was founded in 1852 with the promise to form young bodies for the Army.30 Catholic sportsmen organised the Fédération Gymnastique et Sportive des Patronages in 1898. Patronages prepared young French men and women for service to God and the nation under the doctrine of mens sana in corpore sano. Aristocrats established associations such as the Racing Club de France and Stade Français. These clubs valorised military training, fencing, shooting, and horseback riding, and included military drill as part of their weekly activities.31 In most of France, conservative and leftist sporting networks acted like oil and water – teams from one social spectrum never played one from the other. The Racing Club de France, Paris’s most esteemed sporting association, accepted officers and religious officials such as George de Saint-Clair – an aristocrat, a religious man, and an officer who fought ‘brilliantly’ in the 1870 campaign against the Prussians – but no ordinary soldiers or working men.32 A map of Stade Français members, produced by Bernard Prêtet, illustrated how Parisian sport was divided by class and space. In 1924, the upper-class Stade claimed over 1,500 members: most hailed from the 16th (23 per cent) and the 17th (14 per cent) arrondissement. The 8th, 15th, 7th, 6th, and 9th all claimed more than 100 members and 5 per cent of the total membership. The more densely populated but working-class 19th, 20th, 11th, and 10th quarters boasted barely

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100 members combined.33 In mapping Stade’s membership, Prêtet revealed two rival and competing sporting worlds, one conservative and right wing and the other working class and of the left. Sociological examinations of Stade’s principal rivals, including the Racing Club de France, would likely show similar membership distributions. The segregation of the left and the right into different sporting organisations led to conflicts over limited space. Shortages of usable athletic fields were severe in Paris with its numerous working-class, bourgeois, and religious clubs. In response to the scarcity of proper facilities, the left-wing newspaper Sport demanded that public stadiums be opened to all and that the entrance fees for public pools be lowered. To make their complaints, Sport’s communists ironically mobilised the same troubling statistics as their conservative counterparts to declaim France’s weakness compared with its international opponents: the country had less than one metre of sporting fields per capita and fewer than 10 per cent of all stadiums were public. These deficiencies meant that working-class teams got priced out of the market for athletic space. They called for a system where ‘sport [was] in the service of the working class’ and they promised action. ‘The FST [communists] and the USSGT [socialists] will prevent the clerical, patronal, military, and fascist sporting federations from monopolizing the stadiums paid for by us.’ 34 The clear divergence of the French left and right in sporting terms made the rapidity of their discursive and praxis consolidation after 1936 surprising. If they agreed about their need for space to play, in the beginning of the 1930s right-wing and left-wing associations not only disagreed about who had rights to stadiums but also fundamentally differed over what kind of man they wanted to create, a national man or a communist man, as well as the role of militarism and athleticism. However, a glance only at their rhetoric or a look too closely at their politics at the beginning of the interwar period overlooks the dramatic developments of the mid-1930s, during which the French left gradually moved towards an acceptance of militarist and nationalist conceptions of physical culture, causing a convergence of physical cultural ideas and practice. German and Italian efforts showcased the power of mass participatory athletics. Fascist rallies, most notably at Nuremburg, illustrated new and powerful ways to mobilise young men and women. Democratic regimes sought to emulate them.35 The French left and right feared a newly resurgent

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Germany – for different reasons – and from their shared apprehension emerged common policies and practices of physical regeneration. After 1936, both French political extremes encouraged widespread participation in state-sponsored sports programmes to defend the nation from Germany. The electoral success of French communists and socialists in 1936 brought them into Government, and once in power geopolitical realities, such as the German reoccupation of the Rhineland, forced left-leaning sportsmen in the Government to develop a more nuanced position on the state’s uses of physical culture. The aforementioned Léo Lagrange worried about the large number of young men, sometimes as much as 50 per cent, declared unfit for military service.36 Young French men’s poor health exacerbated geopolitical threats, including the dangers of German rearmament and Italian military adventurism. As the left’s opposition to military preparation dissipated, socialists and communists endorsed the use of physical education and sports by the state as a way to strengthen the French race and oppose fascism.37 To this end the Popular Front became France’s first Government to prioritise expansion of physical culture and sports. As the Minister of Sports and Leisure, Lagrange exemplified his Ministry’s vitality. Right-wing journalists satirised him as the minister of ‘laziness’ and ‘sleepy Sundays’, but he was anything but slothful and his Sundays were usually quite lively.38 ‘Broad-shouldered, broken-nosed, young, loud, cheerful, determined’, he already had quite a list of accomplishments: star athlete in his youth, member of the Éclaireurs de France (French Scouts), affiliate of the French Socialist Party, lawyer who worked in Paris and Lille, journalist for the socialist newspaper Populaire, and man with many important friends, including the politician Léon Blum and authors André Malraux and Jean Prévost.39 In the interwar period, he helped with the less fortunate, focusing on those suffering from tuberculosis and lung disease. Elected to Parliament from the Nord-Pas-de-Calais in 1932, he focused his legislative efforts on better living and health through leisure, particularly through physical education and sports. Lagrange’s impeccable credentials as a politician and as an athlete made him a perfect fit for the Popular Front’s new Sous-Secrétrariat d’État aux Sports et à l’Organisation des Loisirs. His portfolio was massive: he oversaw physical education in schools, the management

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of sporting associations, the construction of new athletic facilities, the extension of France’s network of summer camps for children and youth hostels. He supervised French children in gym classes, as well as hundreds of thousands of sportsmen and -women who competed in associations. His wide reach prefigured the overarching power of Vichy’s Youth and Sports Ministries. Historians celebrated Lagrange for his influence on the Popular Front’s most memorable achievements. His Sports Ministry helped French people enjoy activities such as swimming at the beach, bike riding through the countryside, and long walks under the stars for the first time. He negotiated discounted rail tickets for workers taking their first seaside vacations. As one observer remarked, ‘For the first time in centuries, French youth is beginning to improve its physique, take to the open road. Girls are not afraid of getting sun burnt, carrying rucksacks … on weekend hikes that are all the rage everywhere in France.’ 40 However, scholarly concentration on Lagrange’s rhetoric over-prioritised the pleasures of physical education and sports and elided his Ministry’s biopolitical agenda. In his language of joy and dignity, he mirrored the German Strength through Joy (Kraft durch Freude) programme. Lagrange foresaw the coming struggle and wanted to use the physical culture to protect France. He stressed that the joy of sports improved the French race because it inspired mass athleticism. ‘All the totalitarian countries know this truth’, he said, ‘there is no modern army without an athletic race.’ 41 He conceived of his principal project – the work he called the closest to his heart – as the reform of physical education and sports because he believed that in France athletes suffered from numerous significant difficulties and that physical cultural reforms could do more to reinvigorate the French race and protect the country than any other programme. Lagrange’s strong influence changed the approach of the left-wing parties towards military preparation in physical education and sports, and thus produced a convergence of ideologies among the French political left and right, in the physical-medical, educational, and physical education and sports communities. He shared the belief that the French economy suffered from poorly physically prepared workers. Lagrange, too, worried about the 17 per cent of French workers who took sustained absences from work due to sickness, who cost the municipalities thousands of francs in medical costs,

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and who weakened the industrial capacity of the country.42 In military terms, both the left and the right worried about the number of young French men considered inapt for military service.43 In a pamphlet published in 1938 and shipped to schools across France, Lagrange echoed conservative critiques about modern life. He decried the rote factory work that ‘tended to eliminate proper physical effort in favour of automatic movements, the increasing passivity of daily life, the augmentation of leisure hours, unemployed or poorly employed, to which … if there is not an active push back, will provoke a overall degeneration of the human being’.44 By the end of the 1930s it was increasingly difficult to differentiate between the physical cultural rhetoric of French left-wing politicians and their right-wing counterparts. Lagrange not only changed the left’s rhetoric, but he also pushed for major reforms to improve France’s physical conditioning and health. In France, but particularly in the Parisian region, sports construction had stalled; no new facilities had been built since the Paris Olympics in 1924. In the provinces, industrial magnates and municipalities worked together to build massive stadiums that reflected the priorities of the newly professionalised football clubs that hoped to commoditise sports. Racing Club de Lens and the Compagnie des Mines de Lens built the Stade Felix-Bollaert in Lens in 1933, which held forty thousand spectators. Lagrange rejected the influence of professionalism and promised that no more funding would go to stadiums: ‘the most important thing is not to have twenty two players in front of 40,000 or 100,000 spectators, but to incline the youth of the country to go regularly to the stadium, to the field, to the pool’.45 Instead, he diverted money for new stadiums to smaller and more useful playing fields across France. Large subsidies, including up to 50 per cent of the total cost of construction, spurred some communities to erect new facilities, but the economic downturn associated with the Great Depression meant that few places were able to afford it. The Popular Front’s most lasting contribution to the practices of physical education was the brevet sportif populaire (BSP), a sporting diploma that became part of the baccalaureate and encouraged mass participation in physical culture. To successfully complete the brevet, students demonstrated their athletic ability in a series of physical challenges drawn from classical athletics, including a sprint,

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a long-distance run, the high jump, the long jump, and shot put throw.46 The brevet encouraged athletic generalism with the overall goal of ‘to simply provoke in the masses of the young a movement towards physical education and sports’.47 To better motivate students, Lagrange challenged them on the radio and in the press. The BSP, he warned, would require serious preparation. Officials all over France considered it a success when, in its first year, 1937/38, the brevet tested five hundred thousand students and issued four hundred thousand certificates.48 Although they never gave him credit during his lifetime, indeed only eulogising him after his death, many right-wing politicians, conservative sporting federations, and eventually the Vichy state, self-consciously copied Léo Lagrange’s politics. Some conservatives even entered the Popular Front’s sports bureaucracies, including Jacques Flouret, the long-time head of the Office du Sport Scolaire et Universitaire, and the military officials Georges Lamirand and Georges Hébert, who trained Army cadets in physical education. Most astoundingly, even the extremely conservative Jean Ybarnégaray, a member of the proto-fascist Parti Social Français, became a member of the Popular Front’s Comité Nationale des Sports.49 By the end of the Popular Front era, the rhetoric and the practices of conservative sporting federations largely mirrored the left’s popular sports and leisure programmes. In July 1938, the Colonel François de La Rocque echoed Lagrange arguing that ‘the physical improvement of a race is the only thing capable of giving it a place in the top rank of great nations’.50 That summer, to better improve the French race and to attract new young members, the Parti Social Français formed a physical education and sports federation called the Société de préparation et d’éducation sportive (SPES).51 The SPES was one of France’s most influential right-wing athletic federations, mobilising over sixty-thousand French men and women, and more reflective of the French right than any other sporting group.52 Although SPES members were among the most vocal opponents of the Popular Front, there were significant commonalities between these political opponents’ sporting discourses and practices. Gaetan Maire, a conservative Catholic sportsman deeply concerned with the physical weakness of France and strongly influenced by eugenicists, organised the SPES’s athletic activities.53 Grappling with worries about the health and military preparedness of young French men,

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the SPES’s organisers explicitly modelled their physical education and sports practices after the activities promoted by the Popular Front. They founded a series of regional conferences to train teachers to identify and improve the physical deficits in the bodies of their students.54 To invigorate those bodies, the federation advised their coaches to valorise the same kinds of exercises as Lagrange, including gymnastics, track and field, and swimming. In SPES summer camps, students practised daily gymnastics exercises, based on the hébertist model, which they called décrassage, that were popularised by the Popular Front and present in almost all French schools. The federation also instituted a kind of brevet that was identical to the very popular brevet sportif populaire, even requiring the exact same kinds of exercises: long-distance and short-distance running, climbing, and long and high jumping.55 Indeed, the goals of the Popular Front and the SPES were almost identical. Maire, too, intended his programmes to rehabilitate male bodies and to put France ‘in the first rank of grand modern nations’.56 The SPES programme of military preparation promised not only to create strong and healthy soldiers, but also representatives of the nation, and Maire imagined a future where French people ‘represented by an ardent youth, pure and healthy, will not have to undergo such humiliating failures of the recent years’ but instead would ‘finally take the place of the conqueror’.57 In other words, these male bodies did not so much represent a fascist new man, as some scholars might have assumed, but instead represented an idealised national man ready to defend the country.58 If the French left and right produced similar athletic programmes, it was because they both feared degeneracy, physical deficiency, and moral weakness, particularly in the context of German geopolitical resurgence. Popular Front officials, especially the energetic and charismatic Léo Lagrange, developed a programme to combat those problems that included the construction of new sporting facilities and the encouragement of mass participation. Conservatives, active in organisations such as the Société de Préparation et d’Éducation Sportive, plagiarised Lagrange’s programmes even as they critiqued him. The realm of physical education and sports was in practice a place where leftist and rightists agreed on the problems facing France, and among the biggest problems to both was sports professionalism.

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The rise of professionalism Semi-professionalism had long prevailed in French cycling, wrestling, horse racing, and boxing and these pastimes attracted large audiences. These spectator sports were regulated under a special law and paid a tax called the droit des pauvres, which raised funds to support the poor.59 In the interwar period, both crowd size and prize payments grew significantly, especially in cycling, which was internationalising, but the close association of these sports with gambling gave professionalism an unseemly reputation.60 At the same time, the widespread practice of paying players under the table, in cash or for no-show work, called shamateurism (amateurisme marron), plagued other team sports including football, rugby, and athletics. These sports were organised as associations and were ostensibly prohibited from engaging in commercial activity. During the interwar period, French sport changed in two ways. First World War veterans brought sports such as football and rugby back from the trenches. The number of sporting clubs increased dramatically, leading to the democratisation of French sport. Along with the growing popularity of sports among ordinary people, beginning in the 1920s, athletes, club presidents, journalists, and some officials inside of the Fédération Française de Football Association (FFFA) started to work to commercialise leading clubs, promote mass spectatorship, and legalise the payment of players. The interwar period thus represented one of the most vibrant and disruptive periods in French sports as debates over professionalism transcended political party lines and split the French sporting world in different ways. The Paris–province divide played an important role in these changes. In a close vote, just after midnight on 17 January 1932, the leading body of French football, largely on the back of voters from outside of the capital, agreed to sanction the payment of players.61 The same morning L’Auto published an article on the vote. In an expression of relief, the editors started the piece: ‘Ouf! The Conseil National [of the French Football Federation] finally voted’ professionalism into existence.62 As compositors did not have enough time to get it into the morning editions, the newspapers could not publish the full text of the statute until the next day. Thereafter, however, professional sport exploded in popularity, with the highest concentration of professional teams in the Nord-Pas-de-Calais. Similarly, in the Southwest, French

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Rugby League formed as a professional alternative to Rugby Union in 1934. In its inaugural season, 10 of the registered 29 teams were professional. The following year there were 171 rugby à treize clubs and 14 were professional.63 At the same time, the French Rugby Union Federation (the Fédération Française de Rugby) shrank from 784 clubs in 1930, to 588 in 1936, and 471 in 1939. The growing number of professional sides belies the fact that the emergence of French sport’s professionalisation was not a simple process, but instead the result of a decades-long debate inside of federations and associations, and among athletes, journalists, doctors, and politicians who were able to see the effects in other countries of paying players. In the 1920s and 1930s, professionalisation scandals filled the newspapers, including L’Affaire Ladoumègue, in which the Fédération Française d’Athlétisme banned the world recordholding Jules Ladoumègue from competition in the 1932 Olympics because he accepted money for winning races.64 In the Athlètique, leaders of France’s Athletic Federation debated readmitting him. They realised that, for better or worse, ‘the whole world took an interest in the Ladoumègue Affair’. People were fascinated because Ladoumègue ‘destroyed an ideal’. A Monsieur M.-E. Bouge complained that even ‘two years later’ he was still ‘surprised’ by Ladoumègue’s violation of the rules. On the other hand, a Monsieur H. Prestavione suggested that the agitation created by the affair was weaker in the provinces.65 The sober conservatives who guided French sporting life occupied esteemed positions in Paris from which they demanded physical culture serve a social purpose beyond profit for sporting franchises. Frantz Reichel exemplified this way of thinking. Reichel was a former French champion in track and field, an English-style boxer, and an avid supporter of Rugby Union, the most popular genre of rugby, played with fifteen players per team. Reichel was a member of the Racing Club de France, the long-time President of the Sporting Club Universitaire de France, and the founder of the Fédération Française de Boxe. He was a journalist, the creator of the Association Internatonal de la Presse Sportive, and a member of the 1924 Paris Olympics organising committee. A sense of noblesse-oblige prompted Reichel to popularise sports with the goal of bettering the lives of all French people and preparing French men in case of war.66 In 1925 at a meeting of the Fédération Française d’Athlétisme Reichel

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argued against a general amnesty for shamateurs because in their ‘individual failures’ they undermined the collective order. ‘To act otherwise’, he said, ‘is to diminish the authority of the rules and to permit weakness.’ 67 Order and authority: he strongly believed that sporting elites, possessing the right mentalities, should govern French sport. He lived his principles, resigning from his position on the Football Federation in 1922 after a French team met an English side composed of a mix of professionals and amateurs.68 In many ways, however, French sport’s democratisation came from the other side, who were responding to a growing number of athletes from outside of the capital. Professionalism’s proponents came from across the political spectrum, but especially from workingclass and lower-middle-class athletes, industrialists, provincial municipal officials, sporting federations administrators, and journalists. Many athletes supported professionalism out of necessity. Club life demanded a serious commitment of time and resources. Athletes paid for equipment, including shoes, uniforms, and sometime balls, out of their own pockets. A ball cost between fifty and seventy francs. Shoes cost more than a hundred francs. These expenses were considerable for a worker who might make that much in a whole day of labour.69 Players also picked up their own travel expenses such as train tickets, food, and lodging. If they were injured on the field, they might miss work, but their club expected them to cover their recuperation costs. The high cost of participation dissuaded working people from participating in official competitions, and in response some leagues started to allow reimbursement of player expenses while others interpreted repayments as a player renumeration. To mitigate players’ costs, on 20 October 1923 the Fédération Française de Football Association passed a new rule which allowed clubs to reimburse players for real financial losses attributable to their participation. In an 84 to 24 vote, the federation adopted the modified amateur standard; an action that President Jules Rimet said marked a great day ‘not only for football but for all of French sport’. His words proved prophetic. This rule change undoubtedly made it easier for working-class sportsmen to play throughout the 1920s, but it also created avenues for clubs to clandestinely professionalise. Who could tell whether expenses were reasonable or real? Once this door to professionalisation had opened, fierce competition for top players

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kept it that way. In the first year, only a few players applied, but demand grew every subsequent year.70 Football’s professionalisation thus started from a seemingly reasonable demand that quickly grew until it undermined the efforts of the old guard to preserve the amateur system. The reimbursement system, however, never really solved the issue of illicit payments. Less than a decade later, a coalition of provincial business interests, municipal administrators, and the officials in the Football Federation demanded a way to normalise the payment of players. The so-called patronal associations provided a rich place for the growth of professional football because they combined a large enterprise’s financial resources with a working-class base of support. Associations affiliated with mining companies in the NordPas-de-Calais adopted professionalism early and soon professional football was common in the region. When the Racing Club de Lens was founded in 1905, football was already well entrenched locally. The club’s leadership came from the Compagnie des Mines de Lens, who ran the mines outside of the town. By the mid-1920s, the Racing Club de Lens was one of the most important regional athletic organisations. It was in French football’s second division, it had just finished a new forty thousand-seat stadium called the Stade Felix-Bollaert, named after the head of the company, and then, in the 1930s, the club normalised their longstanding practice of shamateurism, becoming professional. The club’s newspaper drew upon notions of athletic patriotism to defend their choice. They called it an ‘oeuvre social’. Working-class children in the Nord needed encouragement to participate in physical culture and club members clucked that ‘since professionalism was instituted in football, there have been so many children, school children, and young people who have come to play’.71 Other supporters of professionalism, typically those in the sports press, promoted it on the basis that professionalism would improve the French national football team and thus raise the prestige of the country internationally. This view was particularly prominent among football’s elite connoisseurs. Federation administrators like Georges Barreau, the French national team coach, argued that professionalism improved French football by producing champions who could play at an international level.72 Members of the sporting press, such as Gabriel Hanot and Emmanuel Gambardella, also supported

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professionalism. ‘Would professionalism benefit France?’ Hanot ask readers rhetorically; ‘to know the answer one only needs to look at England, Austria, Czechoslovakia and Hungary’.73 These teams were among the most successful of the time – tiny Hungary, with a population only one-third of France’s size, punched well above its weight, going to the finals of the World Cup in 1938 in Paris on the back of the first wave of the Magic Magyars. If pressure bubbled up from associations as well as emerging among a small cadre of reform-minded elites in the Federation, the FFFA’s Conseil national sought a final piece of evidence before supporting any changes to their rules. In December 1929, FFFA President Jules Rimet and General Secretary Henri Delaunay granted a special dispensation to several teams in the Northeast to organise a professional league. They viewed it as a feasibility experiment. Professionalism would clearly cost money – would it bankrupt teams? Better to run their tests in the provinces, which in the end proved decisively that professionalism could be profitable and make teams better on the field. After a successful single season, on 17 January 1932 the National Council of the FFFA voted narrowly in favour of professionalisation.74 The federation’s vote replaced the reimbursement system with salaries for players, but the teams remained nominally amateur and had to request permission from the federation to hire a certain number of pro players. This limited professionalisation represented a minor change to sports practices in the interwar period but left much of the control with the federation. Despite the obvious risks of professionalisation, and in the face of considerable opposition, teams around the country started to request permission to pay their players. Olympique Lillois showcases how the process of professionalisation brought together a sporting association, industrialists, and a municipality who approached the question of professionalism carefully. Founded in 1902 by communal notables, especially industrialists, the Lillois had long been football royalty in the North, winning a national tournament in 1914 on the feet of illegally paid players. The association also had an influential supporter and club President – the brewing magnate Henri Jooris, an owner of the Grand Brasserie, a popular brand in the beer-swilling Nord-Pas-de-Calais who was an early proponent of professionalisation.75 In spite of the presence of illegal players inside of their club since the 1910s, a favourably disposed club President,

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and a ready-made corporate sponsor in the Grand Brasserie, the association professionalised warily. Jooris understood professionalism, at least illegal professionalism, was a part of the game, but he feared the possibility of disruption that open professionalism might cause. Would his club remain at the top of French football under a new pro system? But when their cross-town rivals, FC Fives, voted to professionalise, the Lillois felt compelled to do the same in response. Jooris’s fears proved misplaced. The club had already acclimated to a certain amount of success and they promptly won the first championship of the professional era. That victory brought considerable public legitimacy to the idea of professionalism among adherents of the club and in Lille. The allure of professionalism was clear: industrialists, municipalities, and clubs valued the money and prestige that flowed from a successful professional team, but those benefits were products of professionalism’s real advantage. It was popular because it was a better product. Spectators saw immediately that professional teams were superior to amateur teams. Amateur teams acted like preparatory schools for professionalism. As one journalist explained, ‘one can easily imagine the amateurs learning to copy the way to play from their masters: the professionals’.76 Professional teams fielded better players. ‘Certain enthusiasts sometimes fail to reach the level of professional. Those who do [reach that level] do not get mouldy in their teams, you can be certain, because professional leaders locate them and ship them off. … That is why amateurs, with certain exceptions, cannot play with professionals.’ 77 To be sure, the elusive victory of an amateur club over a professional team always provoked shock and admiration. A decade later, Vichy officials trumpeted the victories of amateur sides. Of course, in some instances elites and workers joined forces to struggle against professionalism. The Association Sportive de SainteBarbe d’Oignies (ASSBO), for example, remained amateur throughout the entire period.78 The board of directors of the company club included the top officers of the mines in Ostricourt and mine employees. The club’s conservative and working-class board members defended the club’s amateur status, even as all the other clubs around them in the North adopted professionalism. The decision to remain amateur signalled their traditional, local, French, and conservative leanings despite their acknowledgement that professionalisation

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would have benefited them competitively.79 Firmly rooted in their local mining community, the ASSBO never grew larger than a hundred and fifty company managers and employees.80 Although they attracted fewer fans than their neighbouring Nordiste professional clubs, the association nevertheless developed a particularly rich communal culture, including four football teams, two basketball teams, and a section for tennis.81 The ASSBO’s close connections allowed them to maintain their activities during the war and Occupation. As the French sporting world professionalised, many old-school sporting associations held the line against it until it cost them competitively or financially. The Racing Club de France and Stade Français both remained amateur. Stade Français was ‘opposed to any idea of professionalism’ and as a consequence had a series of very bad seasons in the 1930s. Club leaders finally broke down and hired a new coach from Yugoslavia who was going to bring the best methods of professionalism to the club without resorting to pay cheques. ‘We bet that everything will be fine next season and the ardent supporters of the navy blue and red will have, as often as in the past, the opportunity to launch their famous cheer: Alleeeeez stade’.82 In 1933, renegade members of the Racing Club de France broke away and founded a separate but seemingly affiliated professional football association called the Racing Club de Paris. The membership of Racing could, when it suited them, cheer for their affiliated professional club while avowing strict amateurism within the Racing Club itself.83 The Club Athlétique de la Société Générale (CASG), a conservative association founded in 1903 by employees of the bank, also staunchly opposed professionalism but sometimes paid their own players under the table. In 1932, the association made a considered decision to remain amateur.84 In their monthly review, editors took on the morality of professionalism and asked rhetorically: ‘How can they, these chiefs, reconcile the pure sports traditions, traditions of loyalty and disinterest, with the exigencies of professionalism that gnaw at all sides?’ 85 These editors understood that professionalism would demand compromises with their principles and threatened to give rise to base temptations. A whole series of articles followed the same year (and for years later) with titles that make clear their distaste with professionalism such as ‘Dans la tourmente’ (In the storm) and ‘Splendeurs et misères de professionnalisme’ (Splendours and miseries

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of professionalism). Despite their avowedly anti-professional stance, the bankers of the CASG reneged on their agreements with the Racing Club de France to rent off their facilities to professional associations like Red Star Paris.86 The Club Athlétique de la Société Générale’s hypocritical defence of the principles of amateurism led them to a cautious support for the policies of the Popular Front. Although much of the association emerged from the conservative banking world, the club shared the Popular Front’s disapproval of professionalism. In July 1936, the club’s monthly review carefully considered the sports policy of Léo Lagrange – whom they never referred to by name but only as ‘our present Under-Secretary of Sports’. Despite their clear hostility to Lagrange’s left-wing politics, they concluded that ‘the direction taken [by the Government] is good’.87 Their biggest disagreement came over how much money to spend. Lagrange wanted to disperse much more money to build training fields in every commune, while the conservatives at the CASG thought the same plans could be accomplished for less money. The article finished with a call for members to hope for the future.

Sports spectacle and changes in French sport As professionalism swept across France’s provinces – football in the North and Northeast and rugby in the Southwest – regional expansion produced strange effects. ‘By 1933’, David Goldblatt notes, ‘the topflight of French football was professional but its clubs and crowds remained small. Uniquely in Europe … the clubs of small and medium-sized towns backed by paternalistic family-owned firms acquired an economic and sporting edge over the middle-class associations of the big cities where the potentially largest crowds existed.’ 88 However, professionalism’s appeal started to work in the big cities too: Paris was long dominated by elites invested in amateurism, but in 1932 the first professional Parisian club was Red Star Olympique Paris. The Cercle Athlétique de Paris quickly followed suit. These associations quickly rose to be among the most popular in the capital, each displacing more traditional clubs from the newspapers, and signalling the success of professionalism in the heart of France.

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The interwar professionalism debate split the French sports world into two competing camps that transcended political lines and continued into the war and postwar era. Professionalism’s advocates faced considerable opposition from conservatives that ran the multisport federation which regulated most sporting activity: the Union des Sociétés Françaises de Sports Athlétiques (USFSA). The USFSA was dominated by aristocrats; club presidents in the most important associations, such as the leaders of the Racing Club de France and the Stade Français; and Parisian politicians. These conservative sports leaders were joined in their opposition to professionalism from the French left, including the Fédération Sportive et Gymnique du Travail who argued that professionalism represented another place for industrialists to exploit workers.89 Yet by the 1930s, the union’s stranglehold on French sports had eroded, replaced by more assertive mono-sport federations, such as the Fédération Française de Football Association. The FFFA continually faced opposition from holdouts, but this displacement of the USFSA from the centre of the French sports universe signalled a wide range of changes, including the ascension of new power brokers less tied to France’s established aristocratic institutions, the democratisation of French sport after the First World War, and the emergence of sport as a commodity. The forces that changed the French sports world emerged from outside of the capital, where professionalism appealed to workers, industrialists, provincial bureaucrats, mayors, and journalists. These advocates claimed that legal professionalism would undermine the immoral shamateur system, help working-class athletes compete, and improve the quality of French football on the international stage by attracting the best players and investing in their training.90 As professionalism expanded, especially in football, sporting associations and municipalities made big profits and promoted local prestige despite the worldwide economic depression. They attracted more fans with seemingly more spectacular play. As professionalism attracted the best players, rave reviews in some of the press, and greater numbers of spectators, power shifted away from traditional stakeholders and in many ways never returned to them. These two sides reflected very different ways of engaging in physical culture. Historians of French sport, including Pierre Arnaud, have used Maurice Agulhon’s notion of sociability to illustrate the ways

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in which nineteenth-century sporting associations acted as another site of bourgeois (and later working-class) class formation, political action, and cultural flourishing. Athletes competed as part of a local community. Players and spectators for matches attended as a ‘demonstration of associational friendship rather than a pastime for everyone to enjoy’.91 Participation reflected an individual’s place in their social, professional, political, and/or ethnic world. The 1933 annuaire of the Racing Club de France illustrates the wide purview of associations with their origins in the nineteenth century, which combined the functions of a sport association with those of a social club.92 The Club Athlétique de la Société Générale, the bourgeois club affiliated with the eponymous bank, operated in a similar way. They promised members camaraderie, cohesion, and understanding. ‘The club is a little country’, they claimed, ‘which has its colours and that strives to make its members better in sporting events and better disciplined and educated from a moral point of view.’ 93 This oldfashioned approach to sports never disappeared entirely during the interwar period or the war, and, in fact, the resilience of a range of different kinds of sporting communities helped make local associations important sites for mutual aid and socialisation during the Occupation. At the same time, the new associations that arose in the interwar period interacted in very different ways with their supporters. While clubs continued to battle for communal prestige, teams centred around professional athletes, particularly the so-called grand clubs, no longer exclusively targeted local audiences. Football matches and long-distance bicycle races were now aimed at broader markets. Sporting events like Paris–Roubaix, the Tour de France, and the Coupe de France developed regional and even national followings. These cycling and football competitions thrived on professionalism, but anti-professionals like Reichel believed that paying players provided a bad example, producing spectators rather than participants. As Lewis explains: The term [‘spectacle’], used to refer to an event that had theatrical qualities or was somehow commercial in nature, carried with it the connotations of the artificial and the theatrical. Sport-spectacle, in this sense, was a sporting event featuring paid performers who competed in front of a paying crowd. … By implication, it was an activity open to the masses, like cycling or boxing, and was automatically suspect because those spectators themselves were not becoming sportsmen.94

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The popularity of these spectacles, however, presented a conundrum for even staunch conservatives like Frantz Reichel and Pierre de Coubertin, who came to value spectatorship as a way to inculcate athletic values into an increasingly sporty French public.95 The commercialisation of sports required clubs to communicate with their supporters in new ways. Associations and fans started supporters’ groups – sometimes they worked together and sometimes they worked independently of each other. The richness and tensions of overlapping spectator-support groups can be seen in associational publications, which started to adopt the language of ‘supporters’, a category which included athletes and the people that enjoyed watching them.96 In 1934, the Sporting-Club de Nimes published the first issue of the Organe mensuel de l’Association de supporteurs du Sporting-Club de Nimes (Monthly Organ of the Association of the Supporters of the Sporting-club de Nimes). The very name indicated the group’s connection to and distance from the club: many of the members were likely members of the club, but the supporters’ group was ultimately organised by fans whose agenda might differ from the organisation they nominally supported. The articles focused on the community of supporters, indeed usually Nimois, but not exclusively and also not necessarily sportsmen. They described their club as being ‘founded on October 30, 1922 [with] the goal of helping by all of our means the old Club Nimois, encouraging its players, and if needs be defending them in all circumstances’. Members of the supporters’ club travelled to matches together – including to rival stadiums in Marseille, Montpellier, and Sète. They met together after games to recount ‘in a very friendly atmosphere’ with ‘cheerfulness’ and much ‘general hilarity’ the progress of their team.97 They also organised numerous events to solidify their connections with other supporters, including a lottery, with prizes like wine, aperitifs, poultry, and game that made ‘winners swoon with joy’; drinking excursions to the Café de France; and the sale of club song books for one franc.98 These institutions and events helped to build a lasting, if different, sporting community based less on a close-knit, clubby friendship and more on mutual appreciation. Nonetheless, these groups too would be important during the Occupation, when supporters’ groups held lotteries that distributed food to help provide hungry families and prisoners ofwar.

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These Nimes fans’ experiences were not unique – a similar process occurred all across the country as sporting associations assembled a whole culture of fandom that included the sale of tickets, the distribution of club newspapers, the organisation of special events, the marketing of club merchandise, the opening of association-specific bars, and the construction of private stadiums. The revenue-generating potential of supporter-spectators sparked changes in sporting associations that had previously only made money through subscriptions. These factors worked together to produce commercialised franchises devoted to questions of winning and losing, revenue and costs, and creating an enjoyable viewing experience. They also brought about transformations in clubs’ home offices. The federations included more businessmen; women made increasing gains, even founding their own sporting federation; and clubs conceived of new ways of expanding their revenue.99 French company clubs especially took advantage of the rising number of spectators and in doing so entrenched sport-spectator culture across the continent. In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, savvy industrialists organised sporting associations around their companies and used them to advertise their products and placate their workers. Liverpool (brewing) in Great Britain, Beyer Leverkusen (pharmaceuticals) in Germany, and the Football Club Sochaux (automobiles) and the Association Sportive Saint-Etienne (grocery chains) in France were all products of this era.100 The need to create positive spokespeople for corporate brands pressured company team managers to field ever more competitive sides, a process that led inevitably to shamateurism and/or professionalism. French sports administrators, cognisant of the growing appeal of sports as a product, transformed sporting spaces to capture revenue through ticket sales. The growing demand for tickets encouraged clubs to build bigger stadiums, a project that typically brought together municipal and sports officials. Many municipalities were happy to open the cheque book. In Nimes, the city dispensed between 250,000 and 300,000 francs to amortise the cost of a new stadium. In Sète, the commune paid between 30,000 and 35,000 francs per year to rent a stadium for the Football Club sètois.101 These new stadiums, such as the Stade de Colombes (Paris: renovated for the 1924 Olympics and 1938 World Cup), the Stade Bollaert (Lens: built in 1933), and the Stade Vélodrome (Marseille:

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built in 1937), welcomed thousands of spectators. The size of a stadium could easily exceed local capacity. The number of seats at the Stade Bollaert, built for the Racing Club de Lens in 1933, for example, far exceeded how many people lived in the city. Since the stadium was effectively larger than the town, the club depended on support from the surrounding region of Picardy. Rather than being part of a small, tight-knit sporting society, stadiums belonged to larger city-wide, regional, national, and even international networks. Massive stadiums serving regions were not a French phenomenon, but part of a worldwide increase in the number of high-capacity arenas which included new constructions in towns large and small, such as Berlin, Los Angeles, and even Columbus, Ohio’s sixty-seven thousand-seat Ohio Stadium. Of course, the rising costs of sports spectacles proved dangerous when clubs and municipalities overspent. The journal Match estimated that a high-level, competitive professional team cost hundreds of thousands of francs per month. Teams traded top players for hundreds of thousands of francs.102 The vast majority of clubs were insufficiently funded to be able to support professionalisation on those terms. The leadership of the Racing Club de Lens, for example, thought that by professionalising their team, they would bring increased prestige and revenue to the town. The association, however, soon discovered that it was mired in debt and they were forced to demand a subsidy (subvention) from the city of Lens.103 Almost every major football town, including Nice and Marseille, bailed out troubled clubs, sometimes to the total of millions of francs per year.104 The Great Depression multiplied the financial difficulties of professional associations as fans had less money to spend on tickets and memberships. The associations still owed money for stadiums built in the 1920s, and cities no longer had enough resources to support professional teams. French stadiums not only represented real costs for clubs and cities, but they also provided a physical space for the varied publics of interwar France to enact their tumultuous democracy. Sporting events held real cross-class appeal. They were one of the few affordable leisure activities for working people and they frequently supplanted other popular entertainments, for men especially and for some women. Seats were allocated by price, with the best seats reserved for those able to pay the most. At a smaller professional

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club like Le Club Sportif Longovicien, tickets cost between three and five francs.105 The tickets were only marginally more expensive at larger clubs.106 The prices of these events can be contrasted with the costs for popular films and shows. A movie ticket in Paris only cost a few francs and many people of all social classes went to the cinema regularly. The low cost of entry meant that many Saturday football matches were raucous affairs. Surrounded by their fellow fanatics, spectators enjoyed sports vicariously and viscerally. They could imagine themselves as taking part in the action from afar, but they still wanted to be as close to the action as possible, to smell the scent of the grass and hear the slap of the players’ leather shoes on the ball. Videos from the era show fans hanging over the edges of the fences, dangling onto the field.107 The allure of sporting events offered transgressive possibilities. A shared appreciation of a team transformed strangers, even people of different classes, into comrades who used informal language (i.e. the tutoyer) with each other. The enjoyment of the fans was connected to the events on the field in a visceral way. Racing Club de Lens described such an atmosphere at their matches: ‘there is a powerful bond between spectators and players. The spectators feel that their cries and clamours are an expression of a faith which makes them part of the struggle. They get agitated, their hearts beat, their elbows get lost in the sides of the neighbours, they vibrate.’ 108 The sentiments aroused in the stands complicated the relationship between clubs and their supporters. Associations attempted to shape their fans into more moral sportsmen and -women even as their efforts ran up against the agency of spectators.109 For example, if the pricing of seats and the inclusion of police in stadia provided a way for clubs to preserve social hierarchies within an otherwise transgressive environment, many fans refused to be beholden to rules that constrained. In Lens, for example, club officials complained about fans that bought cheap seats and then snuck down for a better view.110 Faced with fans that could be both a positive force and a threat, club leaders attempted to thread the needle. The supporters of the Sporting-club de Nimes claimed that ‘1,500 is the number of our adherents. It is not in doubt that such a number demonstrates peremptorily that we constitute a force.’ 111 They hoped that force would be a good one, even influencing the referee, but

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their association also asked their fans not to harass opposing fans and referees because it was unsportsmanlike.112 All clubs understood that the best way to keep their supporters happy was to field a successful and visibly appealing team. In the search for more skilled players, many French sides sought out professionals abroad and immigrants started to play an outsize role in the most successful French teams. Marc Barreaud, in Dictionnaire des footballeurs étrangers, draws a distinction between foreign-born players and non-French players who were raised in France. He found that foreign-born players constituted a significant minority of players in top-level French football. Between the start of professional football in France in 1932 and the Second World War, almost five hundred and forty foreign players played for French teams. This number did not include players born in French colonies, such as Larbi Ben Barek and Raoul Diagne, who also constituted a visible minority in French football. Barreaud shows that the average number of foreign-born footballers in the league exceeded more than one hundred annually, with approximately fifty new immigrant players entering the league per year. Some teams commonly employed around seven immigrants at any given time. In other words: at a minimum, around one-tenth of the competitors in the professional leagues were non-naturalised immigrants.113 The pursuit of foreign talent made France Europe’s top destination for professional footballers throughout the 1930s. For the richest French clubs, much of the world, but especially the European continent, acted as one market. The depression made it a buyer’s market. French associations, both large and small but particularly the so-called grand clubs, buoyed by the support of their municipal and departmental administrations, used their financial resources to go on spending sprees. The money those French teams offered attracted players in countries where professional football remained prohibited or where living conditions lagged behind those in France. A report entitled ‘Les systèmes de recrutement’, from the bimonthly publication of Racing Club de Calais called Le Racing, outlined the role that identifying, developing, and eventually recruiting foreign talent played in French sporting associations. The editors noted that ‘the rich [clubs] sent for the stars. The others recruited by correspondence through Viennese, Praguian, or Parisian intermediaries. The last, wiser now, will hurry to the places of the recruiting agents.’ 114



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These commercial agents in Eastern Europe, taking advantage of the political and economic dislocations, became virtual pipelines of players, such that in the 1930s Austria alone, where football remained amateur only, saw more than one hundred top players leave for France.115

Opposition to professionalism The movement of hundreds of foreign players into clubs transformed them but what no one could predict was how an association’s social character might change after it professionalised. The Union Sportive Bassin de Longwy, a small association in a town of fewer than fourteen thousand people, wanted to pay players to bring prestige to their small mining town. In 1936, the club hired a small group of professionals. For the longoviciens, professionalism altered the social composition of their sporting association and its success on the field. When they were promoted to the first division of football, the club’s horizons expanded, and their leadership became more ambitious. They severed many of their previous links with cross-town rivals and instead sought matches with teams internationally.116 A similar story played out across the industrial North of France. The Racing Club de Lens also changed dramatically following their rise to the top division of French football. A club that once appealed mostly to local working men, following professionalisation it became increasingly connected to global football networks. Behind the hard work of international professionals such as Stephan Dembicki, Ignace Kowalczyk, Anton Marek, and Ladislas Schmidt, the team became one of the most successful of the interwar period. The club’s Polish and Yugoslavian character prompted the supporters of the club to call them ‘Les Polonais’. Within a few years, the club had taken on a distinct immigrant identity as foreign-born miners from around the Nord-Pas-de-Calais began supporting the Racing Club de Lens as an expression of Eastern European ethnic and working-class solidarity. The emergence of so many elite immigrant players was only one change caused by professionalisation and not all French sportsmen and -women were happy to see so many foreign names in the sports pages. On 21 September 1937, an article appeared in the conservative sports newspaper Sporting entitled ‘Prospections’. It applauded the

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limit of foreign players placed on French professional clubs and argued that foreign players were an especially pernicious part of professional soccer that undermined the ability of the French nation to produce players of quality. Looking at the players on the French national team, it asked rhetorically, ‘Polvony, French since yesterday, Simonyi and Jordan, French tomorrow, do they really represent national soccer … Szabo, More, Brown, and the other Hummenburger did they attend school since their introduction to our teams, or did they stop the hatching of a new Domergue?’ 117 This response illustrated how French conservatives used their scepticism about professional sports to make claims about immigration and national identity. Their arguments resonated with readers because it was widely understood that sports professionalism could either bolster a nation’s athletic capacities or enfeeble them. The rise of commercialism, professionalism, and spectatorship enraged sportsmen on the left wing and right wing who viewed the proper role of physical education and sports to be the moralising and strengthening of the French nation. The Ligue Parisienne de Football-Association (LPFA), a conservative sports league representing several hundred clubs and fifty thousand members in the capital, and the FSGT, the left-leaning sporting federation, both argued that money adulterated the game and produced self-interested individuals. Their views were widely shared: in popular sports presses, when professionals and amateurs met in competition, the former were known as the pros and the latter the pures (purs).118 Professionalism’s rise continued however because of its clear superiority as a product. Professional football fundamentally challenged the French sporting world’s existing structures: aristocratic associations lost prestige to professional grand clubs; working-class fans flocked to teams run by their bosses; and ordinary sportsmen started to think of winning as more important than any moral lessons that sport might teach. In response to these changes, the political left and right oriented themselves not in opposition to each other as political enemies but worked towards the same purpose, if not always together, against a rising upper middle class, ambitious local political class, and restive but non-political working class, particularly in the provinces. At stake was the issue of why athletes should compete – were they competing only for themselves or for something greater? Conservative and communist sporting organisations realised that

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sport’s professionalisation generated financial interests on the part of the players, turning athletes into labourers. An October 1935 article in Sport showed how French communists saw the professional player marketplace as exploitative.119 Players had almost no control. Although most skilled players in France received salaries, nobody would have called their pay cheques outsized. The 1932 statute limited players’ salaries to two thousand francs annually, an amount roughly double the yearly salary of a skilled labourer. However, many of the best players made more illicitly, up to twelve thousand francs.120 Apart from their salaries, the life of a professional athlete remained restricted. In professional football, for instance, athletes spent dozens of hours a week at practice. They had no control over their contracts. They could be traded at any time. They could not become free agents and had to get permission from their former club to move to a new club. It was broadly understood that athletes’ limited mobility made them vulnerable to club presidents who exploited the Football Federation’s rules to lock down stars and to jettison poor performers. Many professional athletes, especially cyclists, called themselves forçats – a French word associated with forced labourers or convict chain gangs – since they laboured excessively for low wages to the benefit of their bosses.121 While at times the left and right alike evoked images of professionalism’s pernicious impacts on players and clubs, both were more concerned with the effects professionalisation might have on France. Both declaimed the way that professionalism might reduce the number of French men and boys competing in sports. As the Under-Secretary of State for Sports and Leisure during the Popular Front, Léo Lagrange encouraged amateur participation among athletes because he disliked the way that professional sports led towards the formation of a sporting elite. ‘The practice of sports in France’, he recognised, ‘is unfortunately dominated by the organisation of strict competitions of a small number of carefully selected and prepared athletes whose demonstrations are primarily presented to those interested in the performance of others.’ 122 He preferred physical education and sports programmes, most notably the brevet sportif populaire, which promoted a culture of mass amateur participation. When he published the regulations for the brevet, he made it clear that the goal was ‘to provoke in the masses of the youth a movement towards physical education and sporting initiative’.123 He particularly

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opposed mega-stadiums because their construction siphoned money away from more usable athletic installations. In 1937, he attacked professionalism again in front of the National Assembly, noting that ‘the stadiums are sources of important profits, but will have strongly destroyed the morality of sports’.124 To combat the problem of youth drowning, he planned to fund smaller communal pools rather than Olympic-sized pools. In the newspaper Match, conservative journalists echoed Lagrange, protesting that professionalism created elite to the detriment of ordinary sportsmen. They lamented that a thousand professional players monopolised the best training facilities while the rest of the sporting world languished.125 Everyone across the French political spectrum complained that professionalism taught the wrong lessons about competition. The conservative Parisian LPFA resisted calls to professionalism. Its members believed that professionalism challenged their control of the sports world and threatened to steal the best athletes and facilities. League officials alleged that professionalism encouraged shamateurism because it urged more players to lace up their boots with pecuniary goals in mind, rather than for the love of the game or to better prepare their bodies for the state.126 The left-wing FSGT shared the conservatives’ distaste for what professionalism did to fair play. In their paper, Sport, they declaimed the effect that professionalism had on small, working-class associations. ‘The big clubs’, they claimed, ‘developed in a struggle with the small clubs’ and they stole from the smaller clubs ‘subventions and fields … and their best players and athletes’.127 In their own ways – self-interested too in many respects – both of these federations understood that professionalisation meant players looking for individual success rather than communal effort.

Conclusion In the 1930s, sporting federations on the left and right adopted similar policies of physical regeneration as a response to geopolitical concerns about German strength and to the rise of professionalism in football. French sports professionalism shifted the landscape rapidly and dramatically as associations across the country made complicated and contingent choices about whether to pay their players. The

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decision to professionalise or not set the rising centre right, the middle, and often provincial bourgeois against the working-class FSGT and the aristocratic LPFA and SPES in Paris. The professionalisation of football in 1932 also helps to explain both the left/ right convergence and why Vichy’s sports ministers honoured Léo Lagrange. Vichy ministers took on Lagrange’s rhetoric and practices because they admired his contributions to French physical culture. Political exigencies demanded that they simultaneously claim that physical education and sports were woefully neglected by him when in fact the Popular Front provided the foundation upon which Vichy built the National Revolution. The rise of professionalism illustrated a much more important division than the dichotomy between fascist and anti-fascist sports that has proved to be so fruitful for many scholars. The tropes of fascist/democratic/communist athletes only worked within the context of the propaganda surrounding international competition: even the example of the Berlin Games barely fit into the rhetorical framework. The German Government did instrumentalise the Olympics for propaganda purposes and an international movement did incite athletes from democratic states to boycott them. In general, however, French politicians, journalists, and sportsmen reacted ambivalently to the Games. Diverse stakeholders both critiqued the problematic German racial laws and upheld the tradition of the Games. As for the athletes, they rarely fell into the tropes of ‘Fascist Athlete’ or ‘Democratic Athlete’. Historians’ desire to place sports within a left/right or fascist/ democratic framework obscures more salient convergences of left-wing and right-wing athleticism in the interwar period. In the case of physical education and sports, the political left and the right articulated a similar rhetoric because they were both responding to the same concerns of denatality, degeneration, and moral weakness which plagued French politicians in the interwar period. They wanted to use sports to reinvigorate and re-virilise France and prepare the country for a future war with Germany. Close readings of the press published by the conservative Ligue Parisienne de Football-Association and the left-leaning Fédération Sportive et Gymnique du Travail reveal that rather than a division between fascist and anti-fascist, the political extremes shared a conceit of physical culture. Both French politicians on the left, such as Léo Lagrange, and those on

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the right, such as the Colonel François de La Rocque, supported participatory amateurism and strongly disliked professionalism. In addition, the existence of political left/right convergence in France on the issue of physical education and sports mirrors other convergences such as the realm of agricultural policy. These left/ right overlaps suggest that scholars should reconsider their definitions of fascism. Some classic definitions of fascism embrace the idea that fascist states were obsessed with masculinisation and as a consequence they viewed physical education as necessary for ‘racial’ or national development.128 French physical culture in the 1930s and 1940s demonstrates that democratic governments adopted and mobilised similar rhetoric concerning sport and the body. Masculinity was not uniquely important to fascist governments. Athleticism, masculinity, and bodily health were issues with which all European governments framed the health of their body politic and each conceived of physical education and sports programmes to achieve national goals. Scholars of fascism and sports should either take more account of the transnational and comparative nature of physical education and sports, especially when placing physical education of the body so close to their understanding of fascism, or they should make a stronger argument for the unique linkages between fascism and athleticism in the period. Contrary to the received wisdom on interwar French politics, the ‘hollow decade’ was not a time of radical confrontation between communists, fascists, and democrats in all political realms. In some, such as in the case of physical education and sports, the French left and right shared trenchant criticisms of professionalism including concerns about the exploitation of athletes, the overwork and overspecialisation of pro bodies, and the proper role of sports as a tool of the state. Lagrange’s policies shared similarities with those of right-wing sporting associations, even if their other politics differed dramatically. In fact, left- and right-wing athletes worked together. Archconservatives, such as Jean Ybarnégaray, a member of the Parti Social Français, avidly took part in Lagrange’s project. And, despite their political, social, and even geographic differences, the FSGT and the LPFA echoed each other on the issue of professionalism. In 1940, although Vichy’s sports ministers preserved much of the Popular Front’s programme, Vichy’s official ideology of National Revolution took on the Popular Front as its rhetorical foil. From a far enough



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vantage point, however, Vichy’s criticisms of the Popular Front’s physical education and sports programmes seem more like partisan politics and less like a difference in practice. Jean Borotra, Vichy’s first Minister of Sports and the subject of the next chapter, turned the four years of Vichy, 1940 until 1944, into a sort of social experiment during which the sporting ideology of the Popular Front reached its acme.

Notes 1 AN 69AJ4 ‘Procès-verbal’ (3 May 1941). 2 P. Arnaud, Les Athlètes de la république: gymnastique, sport, et idéologie républicaine, 1870–1914 (Paris: Harmattan, 1997), passim. 3 G. Read, The Republic of Men: Gender and the Political Parties in Interwar France (Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 2014), pp. 88–89. 4 See, V. de Grazia, How Fascism Ruled Women: Italy, 1922–1945 (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1992); B. Spackman, Fascist Virilities: Rhetoric, Ideology, and Social Fantasy in Italy (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1996); G. Gori, Italian Fascism and the Female Body: Sport, Submissive Women and Strong Mothers (New York: Routledge, 2004); and S. Falasca-Zamponi, Fascist Spectacle: The Aesthetics of Power in Mussolini’s Italy (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1997). 5 See, R. Mandell, The Nazi Olympics (New York: Macmillan, 1971). Jesse Owens contributed in 1978: J. Owens and P. Neimark, Jesse: The Man who Outran Hitler (New York: Ballantine, 1983). Better-known works include: D.H. Large, Nazi Games: The Olympics of 1936 (New York: Norton, 2007); A. Kruger, The Nazi Olympics: Sports, Politics, and Appeasement in the 1930s (Urbana-Champagne, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2003); J. Schaap, Triumph: The Untold Story of Jesse Owens and Hitler’s Olympics (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2007); and C. Hilton, Hitler’s Olympics: The 1936 Olympic Games (Stroud: Sutton, 2006). 6 See especially, M. Kessler, ‘Only Nazi Games? Berlin 1936: the Olympic Games between sports and politics’, Socialism and Democracy 25:2 (2011), 125–143. 7 S. Morlane, ‘Le Jeu de rivalités franco-italiennes des années 1920 aux années 1960’, in Yvan Gastaut and Stéphane Morlane (eds), Le Football dans nos sociétés: Une Culture populaire, 1914–1998 (Paris: Éditions

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autrement, 2006), pp. 151–152. See also, J. Tumblety, ‘The Football World Cup of 1938: Politics, Spectacles, and la Culture Physique in Interwar France’, French Historical Studies 31:1 (2008), 77–116. 8 R. Lewis, The Stadium Century: Sport, Spectatorship and Mass Society in Modern France (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2016). 9 S. Whitney, Mobilizing Youth: Communists and Catholics in Interwar France (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2009). 10 See, S. Kennedy, ‘The Croix de Feu, the Parti Social Français, and the Politics of Aviation, 1931–1939’, French Historical Studies 23:2 (Spring 2000), 377–399. 11 See, J. Wardhaugh, In Pursuit of the People: Political Culture in France, 1934–1939 (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009); J. Tumblety, Remaking the Male Body: Masculinity and the Uses of Physical Culture in Interwar and Vichy France (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012); and a 2008 special volume of Historical Reflections/Réflexions historique entitled ‘Beyond Left and Right: New Perspectives on the Politics of the Third Republic’, 34:2 (2008), edited by William Irvine. 12 See especially, E. Jensen, Body by Weimar: Athletes, Gender, and German Modernity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010); Tumblety, Remaking the Male Body; R. Chrastil, Organizing for War: France, 1870–1914 (Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 2010); Arnaud, Les Athlètes de la épublique; and C. Nolte, The Sokol in the Czech Lands to 1914: Training for the Nation (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003). 13 Chrastil, Organizing for War, passim. 14 R. Lewis, The Stadium Century: Sport, Spectatorship and Mass Society in Modern France (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2016), p. 18. 15 See, R. Nye, Masculinity and Male Codes of Honor in Modern France (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993); and R. Nye, Crime, Madness, and Politics in Modern France (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984). 16 A. Baker, Amateur Musical Societies and Sports Clubs in Provincial France, 1848–1914: Harmony and Hostility (London: Palgrave, 2017). 17 L.L. Downs, Childhood in the Promised Land: Working Class Movements and the Colonies de vacances in France, 1880–1960 (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2002), p. 120. 18 See especially, C. Forth and E. Accampo, Confronting Modernity in Fin-de-Siècle France: Bodies, Minds, and Gender (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009); C. Forth, Masculinity in the Modern West: Gender, Civilization, and the Body (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008); and C. Forth and B. Taithe, French Masculinities: History, Politics, Culture (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007).

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19 P. Tissié, L’Éducation physique et la race (Paris: Flammarion, 1919), p. 3. 20 M.L. Roberts, Civilization without Sexes: Reconstructing Gender in Postwar France, 1917–1927 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994), p. 6. 21 C. Millington, A History of Fascism in France: From the First World War to the National Front (London: Bloomsbury, 2020), p. 18. 22 Whitney, Mobilizing Youth, pp. 66–71. 23 J. Riordan, ‘The development of football in Russia and the USSR: part II: football in the Soviet Period’, New Zealand Slavonic Journal 10 (1972), 119. 24 ‘Nous voulons une fédération unique’ (We want a single federation) Sport, 11 July 1934. 25 ‘L’Unité pour l’action’ (Unity for action) Sport, 10 April 1935. 26 ‘Une jeunesse fort? Oui, mais pour la guerre’ (A strong youth? Yes, but for war) Sport, 10 April 1935. 27 ‘Eviva il duce’ (Long live Mussolini) Sport, 6 June 1934. 28 ‘Nous voulons une fédération unique’ (We want a single federation) Sport, 11 July 1934. 29 P. Pétain, Paroles aux français: messages et écrits, 1934–1941 (Macon: Les Presses de Protat Frères, 1941), p. 8. 30 ANMT 2008 001 001 ‘Déclaration’ (undated). 31 Ibid. 32 RCF Archives ‘Racing Club de France: cinquante ans des sports’ (1932). 33 B. Prêtet, ‘Identité d’une société sportive: le Stade français des origines à 1939’ (Mémoire de maitrise, Paris Nanterre, 1996), p. 77. 34 ‘Les stades municipaux doivent être ouvert à tous’ (Municipal stadiums should be open to all) Sport, 24 October 1934. 35 See especially, Lewis, The Stadium Century and Robert Lewis, ‘“A civic tool of modern times”: politics, mass society, and the stadium in twentieth century France.’ French Historical Studies 34:1 (2011), 155–184. 36 Tumblety, Remaking the Male Body, pp. 68–74. For more on Lagrange, see E. Weber, The Hollow Years: France in the 1930s (New York: Horton, 1994), p. 160; Y. Lasnier, Léo Lagrange: l’artisan du temps libre: textes choisis (Paris: Mémoires du socialisme, 2007); a very left-wing account, E. Raude and G. Prouteau, Le Message de Léo Lagrange (Paris: La Compagnie du livre, 1950); J.-L. Chappat, Les Chemins de l’espoir, ou, combats de Léo Lagrange (Lille: Fédération Léo Lagrange, 1983); and P. Mauroy, Léo Lagrange (Paris: Denoël, 1997). 37 Raude and Prouteau, Le Message de Léo Lagrange, pp. 35–44 and 51–57.

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38 Lasnier, Léo Lagrange, p. 30. 39 Ibid., p. 30. 40 Weber, The Hollow Years, p. 160. 41 Raude and Prouteau, Le Message de Léo Lagrange, p. 60. 42 Ibid., pp. 48–49. 43 Tumblety, Remaking the Male Body, pp. 68–74. 44 BNF 16-V-1767 ‘Brevet sportif populaire’ (1938). 45 C. Bouneau and J.-P. Callède, Léo Lagrange: une perspective de renouvellement dans la construction des jeunes générations (Pessac: Maison des sciences de l’homme d’Aquitaine, 2012), p. 59. 46 BNF, 16-V-1767 ‘Brevet sportif populaire’ (1938). 47 Ibid. 48 Ibid. 49 S. Kalman, The Extreme Right in Interwar France: The Faisceau and the Croix de Feu (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2008), p. 174. 50 CHSP Archives LR-90 ‘L’avenir de la race’ (The future of the race) Petit journal, 15 July 1936. 51 The SPES was the athletic arm of the Croix de Feu/Parti social français, best known as the linchpin of the debate over French fascism. Historians who argue that France had no strong fascist movement claim that the Parti social français was an extreme conservative movement. See, R. Rémond, Les Droites en France (Paris: Aubier Montaigne, 1982), pp. 204–205 and P. Burrin, La Dérive fasciste: Doriot, Déat, Bergery, 1933–1945 (Paris: Seuil, 1986). Other scholars see the Parti social français as a proto-fascist or fascist party whose large size belies the idea that France was immune to fascism in the interwar period. See, K. Passmore, The Right in France from the Third Republic to Vichy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013); K. Passmore, From Liberalism to Fascism: The French Right in a French Province, 1928–1939 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997); and S. Kennedy, Reconciling France against Democracy: The Croix de Feu and the Parti Social Français, 1927–1945 (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2007). 52 See, C. Campbell, ‘Women and Gender in the Croix de Feu and the Parti social français: Creating a Nationalist Youth Culture, 1927–1939’, Proceedings of the Western Society of French History 36 (2008), 249–264 and C. Campbell, ‘Building a Movement, Dismantling the Republic: Women, Gender, and Political Extremism in the Croix de Feu/Parti social français, 1927–1940’, French Historical Studies 35:4 (Fall 2012), 691–726. 53 See, C. Campbell, ‘Our Body Doesn’t Have to Be Ugly: Physical Culture, Gender, and Racial Regeneration in the Croix de Feu/Parti social

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français’, in Samuel Kalman and Sean Kennedy (eds), The French Right between the Wars: Political and Intellectual Movements from Conservatism to Fascism (Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2014) and Kalman, The Extreme Right in Interwar France, pp. 163–179. 54 CHSP Archives LR-90 ‘Réunion de travail pour les moniteurs sportifs SPES’ (19 July 1938). 55 AN 451AP155 ‘Brevet’ (undated). 56 CHSP Archives LR-90 ‘L’Avenir de la race’ (The future of the race) Petit journal, 15 July 1936; see also AN 451AP151 ‘Exposé de M. Gaetan Maire’ (8 March 1939). 57 AN 451AP151 ‘Exposé de M. Gaetan Maire’ (8 March 1939). 58 Kalman, The Extreme Right in Interwar France, p. 178. 59 Lewis, The Stadium Century, p. 90. See also AN 313AP288 ‘Note de service’ (9 May 1927). 60 C. Thompson, The Tour de France: A Cultural History (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2006), p. 151. 61 ‘Le Conseil national de la F.F.F.A. a voté le statut du professionnalisme’ (The National Council of the FFFA voted on the professionalism statute) L’Auto (Paris), 17 January 1932. 62 Ibid. 63 R. Fassolette, ‘La Spoliation et l’eradication d’un sport sous Vichy: le rugby à XIII, victime oubliée de la Seconde Guerre mondiale’, in Luc Robène (ed.), Le Sport et la guerre (Rennes: Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2013), pp. 275–276. 64 See M. Lassus, L’Affaire Ladoumègue: le débat amateurismeprofessionnalisme dans les années trente (Paris: Harmattan, 2000). 65 ‘Bureau du conseil: séance plénière du 5 novembre’ (5 November plenary session of the council) Athlétique (Paris), 16 November 1934. 66 ‘Prime de transfert: immoralité’ (Transfer price: immorality) Sporting, 19 July 1938. 67 ‘Conseil’ (Council) L’Athlétisme: bulletin officiel de la Fédération française d’athlétisme (Paris), 11 July 1925. 68 ‘How they do it in France’ The Rugby League News (Sydney), 10 June 1922. 69 H. Cowan, ‘France: wage trends and wage policies’, in United States Bureau of Labor Statistics, Wage Trends and Wage Policies: Various Foreign Countries (Washington D.C.: US Government Printing Office, 1948), p. 11. 70 A. Wahl, Les Archives du football: sport et société en France (1880–1980) (Paris: Gallimard, 1989), pp. 246–247. 71 ‘Le Football professionnel: œuvre sociale’ (Professional football’s social work) Sang et Or, 5 September 1937.

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72 ‘Progrès … négatifs’ (Progress … negative) Sporting, 28 September 1937. 73 Wahl, Les Archives du football, p. 250. 74 Ibid., pp. 254–255; FFFA Archives ‘Procès-verbal’ (17 January 1931); ‘L’Amateurisme marron mal non guéri’ (The adverse effects of shamateurism) Football, 5 August 1936. 75 AML 4D7 ‘A propos de la Grande Brasserie, d’Henri Jooris et de Maurice Vanlaer’ (1990); C. Dorvillé, Grandes figures sportives du Nord-Pas-de-Calais (Lille: Septentrion, 2010), p. 79. 76 ‘Professionnels contre amateurs’ (Professionals against amateurs) Le Centre sportif, 8 November 1936. 77 Ibid. 78 ANMT 1994 057/001 ‘Letter to the Sous-Préfet from M. le Président of the ASSBO’ (15 April 1942). 79 Ibid. 80 ANMT 1994 057/001 ‘Liste des membres du comité de direction’ (18 March 1942). 81 Ibid. 82 ‘Le Stade se meuble’ (The stadium is getting furnished) La Sportive, 16 August 1933. 83 RCF Archives, Annuaire 1933, ‘Football’. 84 CASG Archives 1049 ‘Note pour Monsieur Ardant’ (4 February 1932). 85 CASG Archives 1023 Revue mensuelle, ‘Vers l’impasse’ (June 1932). 86 CASG Archives 81356 ‘Letter from J. Jannor the Vice President of the CASG to the Prefect of the Seine’ (31 July 1934) and ‘Letter from the Prefect of the Seine to J. Jannor’ (11 August 1934). 87 CASG Archives 1024, Achille Duchenne, ‘Chronique: Questions’, Revue mensuelle du CASG (July 1936). 88 D. Goldblatt, The Ball is Round: A Global History of Soccer (New York: Riverhead Books, 2008), p. 217. 89 ‘La vie des petits clubs de la FFFA’ (The life of small clubs of the FFFA) Sport (Paris), 11 July, 1934. 90 Wahl, Les Archives du football, pp. 244–260. 91 Lewis, The Stadium Century, p. 21. 92 RCF Archives, Annuaire 1933 (1933). 93 CASG Archives B1023 ‘L’ésprit de club renait’ Revue mensuelle de la Club athlétique de la société général (January 1933). 94 Lewis, The Stadium Century, pp. 20–21. 95 Ibid., pp. 21–22. 96 ‘Notre association’ Organe mensuel de l’Association de supporteurs du Sporting-club de Nimes (Nimes), 1 January 1934. 97 Ibid.

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98 Ibid. 99 For a discussion of women’s sport in the interwar period and in wartime, see K. Rathbone ‘“Save the long skirt”: women, sports, and fashion in Third Republic and Vichy France’, International Journal of the History of Sport 36:2–3 (2019), 294–319. 100 On business interests and sports in the United States see, S.A. Reiss, City Games: The Evolution of Urban Society and the Rise of Sports (Champagne, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1991), pp. 171–230. 101 ‘Cinq minutes avec le Figaro’ (Five minutes with Le Figaro) Sporting supporter: Organe mensuel de l’Association de supporters de sporting club de Nîmes, Feb. 1934. 102 Ben Bouali and Bastien from Olympique Marseille to Racing Club de Paris for 400,000fr.; Beaucourt from FC Lille to RC Lens for 150,000fr.; Fructuoso from FC Roubaix to the Club athlétique parisienne for 130,000fr.; Llense from FC Sète to Saint-Etienne for 120,000fr.; Heisserer from Strasbourg to Racing Club de Paris for 120,000fr.; and Dupuis from Red Star to RCP for 120,000fr. ‘La Foire aux joueurs de football’ (The fair for football players) Match, 25 August, 1938. 103 ‘Syndicalisme et football’ (Unionism and football) Sang et or, 13 February 1928. 104 ‘Quelque milliers de francs en caisse’ (Thousands of francs in the bank) L’Auto, 19 January 1938. 105 The ticket prices were five francs for tribunes (grandstand), four francs for gradins (bleachers), and three francs for pelouse (grass) at a time when the average worker made around several hundred francs per month. ‘Les prochaines adversaires de l’USBL’ (The next adversaries of the USBL) Le Centre sportif: organe d’information. Critique, technique, propagande, et encouragement aux sports. Revue hebdomadaire de tous les sports, 2 August 1936. 106 At the Racing Club de Lens the ticket prices were sixteen francs for the tribunes d’honneur, thirteen francs for the tribunes, nine francs for the premières, eight for the secondes, and six francs for the populaires. ‘Divers’ Sang et or, 25 December 1937. 107 INAtheque, ‘Finale de la Coupe de France de football’ (1943), www.ina.fr/video/AFE86001944/finale-de-la-coupe-de-france-defootball-video.html (accessed 14 December 2014). 108 ‘La foule aux stade’ (The crowd at the stadium) Sang et or, 13 November 1938. 109 Lewis, The Stadium Century, pp. 127–160. 110 Untitled front-page article. Sang et or, 19 September 1937. 111 ‘Sporting-supporter’ (The sporting supporter) Sporting supporter Nîmes, 1 January 1934.

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112 Ibid. ‘Sportifs! Ne criez pas sur les stades’ (Sportsmen! Don’t yell in the stadium) Sporting supporter Nîmes, May 1934. 113 M. Barreaud, Dictionnaire des footballeurs étrangers du championnat professionnel français (1932–1997) (Paris: Harmattan, 1998), pp. 18–56. 114 ‘Les systèmes de recrutement’ (Systems of recruitment) Le Racing: programme et bulletin officiel du Racing Club de Calais, 11 November 1934. 115 Barreaud, Dictionnaire des footballeurs étrangers, p. 56. 116 ‘Les prochaines adversaires de l’USBL’ (The next adversaries of the USBL) Le Centre sportif: organe d’information. Critique, technique, propagande, et encouragement aux sports. Revue hebdomadaire de tous les sports, 2 August 1936. 117 ‘Prospections’ (Prospects) Sporting, 21 September 1937. 118 BNF 4-V-10301, Almanach de tous les sports, p. 6. 119 ‘Enquêtes sur les joies et les peines du footballeur de métier’ Sport, 30 October 1935. 120 A. Wahl and P. Lanfranchi, Les Footballeurs professionnels (Paris: Hachette, 1995), pp. 65–66. 121 Thompson, The Tour de France, pp. 194–196. 122 ‘Rapport du 9 mars 1937 de Léo Lagrange sous-secrétaire d’État, au président de la République’, in Lasnier, Léo Lagrange, p. 98. 123 BNF 16-V-1767 ‘Brevet sportif populaire’ (1936). 124 Lasnier, Léo Lagrange, pp. 104–105. 125 ‘La Foire aux joueurs de football’ (The fair for football players) Match, 25 August 1938. 126 Ligue Parisienne de Football-Association Archives ‘Où est-elle votre moralité?’ (Where is our morality?) Paris Football, 9 March 1934. 127 ‘La Vie de petits clubs de la FFFA’ (The life of small clubs in the FFFA) Sport, 11 July 1934. 128 See, P. Vertinsky, ‘Movement Practices and Fascist Infections: From Dance under the Swastika to Movement Education in the British Primary School’, in Patricia Vertinsky and Jennifer Hargreaves (eds), Physical Culture, Power, and the Body (New York: Routledge, 2007), passim; I. McDonald, ‘Political Somatics: Fascism, Physical Culture, and the Sporting Body’, in Vertinsky and Hargreaves (eds), Physical Culture, passim; and S. Payne, A History of Fascism, 1914–1945 (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1995), p. 7.

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2 Building the world they wanted: bureaucrats, teachers, and athletic fields in Vichy

A report from 27 August 1940 on the condition of youth sports in France started with the simple assertion that ‘until now… the education of a young boy was assured by the family and the school’. The French Army’s rapid defeat in the spring of 1940, however, suggested to Vichy’s officials that families and schools had failed catastrophically in their duty to prepare their youth morally and physically for the country’s defence. Changes were necessary. Vichy administrators realised that ‘a radical enough transformation’ of families and schools might take a long time; to speed the process along the state needed to assert a stronger hand.1 The National Revolution was premised on a radical transformation in the relationship between the state and its subjects, and Vichy’s subsequent educational reforms were central to this undertaking. They were particularly interested in modernising physical education, which they saw as fundamental to creating a new type of French citizen. To deliver these changes, Vichy administrators forged a capable sports administration out of the pieces left by the Third Republic and worked with and within local communities to train teachers and build new athletic installations. Their decisive actions, designed to systematically bring all the French sports world under state control, also opened greater spaces of freedom for French athletes. The forceful language of the Vichy laws on physical culture has shaped the way later historians viewed wartime French athletics. In Sport et éducation sous Vichy, Jean-Louis Gay-Lescot argues that the Vichy period represented a dramatic break in the politics of physical

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culture in France. During the Occupation, sports were controlled by a centralising Government, best characterised as a tentacular bureaucracy, through invasive laws such as the Sports Charter.2 A controversial report requested by Marie-Georges Buffet, the Youth and Sports Minister of France between 1997 and 2002, mirrored Gay-Lescot’s conclusions.3 In fact, contrary to previous analyses of Vichy’s physical cultural reform, the activities of Vichy’s Sports Ministry were neither novel nor did the central state overpower local stakeholders. Top-down reforms envisioned in Vichy relied on the changes to the physical cultural programmes started by the Popular Front. Their ambitious programmes only succeeded when the central state worked pragmatically with natural communities at a local level.4 The Vichy regime’s collaborations with local organisations required it to make space for notables, even former republican officials, who consequently redefined the nature of the National Revolution. The Vichy Government’s aggressive changes appeared to be a complete break with France’s historically limited investment in physical education, an interpretation that wartime administrators encouraged. A closer examination of physical education and sports policies between 1940 and 1944, however, makes clear that the Government’s reaction to the defeat can only be properly characterised as a doubling down, or an intensifying, of the physical cultural politics of the Third Republic, and especially the philosophy promoted by the Popular Front.5 Robert Lewis drew a similar conclusion in The Stadium Century, when he argued that ‘in its attempts to use the stade, Vichy thus directly copied (whether intentionally or not) the Popular Front’s vision of stadia as a means of bolstering participation in athletics and sports, even as it avowedly broke with the Third Republic’.6 The Vichy state built upon the legacy of the Popular Front and it faced many of the same difficulties. Neither lasted long enough to see all of their plans to fruition. Vichy might have faced even more significant problems; Lewis argues that Vichy’s sports reformers ultimately failed due to ‘institutional resistance, budgetary problems, and physical damage to stadia incurred during the German invasion’.7 In particular, he notes the failure of the Vichy state to complete their most grandiose plans, including a number of stadiums, quoting a passage from a 1942 Tous les sports that ‘grimly noted’ that ‘one could not count on a “magic wand of the Sports Fairy” to produce

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even the most rudimentary stadia’.8 Despite significant investment, many of the Vichy Government’s most ambitious plans never came to fruition (although some were completed after the war) and they also failed to allocate all of the money the Government earmarked for physical culture and sporting life. Despite these challenges, Vichy administrators did successfully build a new sports bureaucracy, train thousands of new physical education coaches and teachers, and build hundreds of new athletic facilities. They achieved their greatest successes when they worked with and within the sporting infrastructure of the Third Republic. From August 1940, Vichy officials drew explicitly on the policies and personnel of Léo Lagrange’s Sports Ministry, the Secrétariat d’État aux Sports et à l’Organisation des Loisirs, when they empowered a new Sports Ministry called the Commissariat Général à l’Éducation Générale et aux Sports (CGEGS). The general contours of their plans for the reform of physical education echoed Lagrange’s three principal concerns: the organisation of a physical education and sports bureaucracy, the training of physical education teachers for Government and private institutions, and the development of France’s athletic infrastructure. The Vichy sports bureaucracy succeeded in these aims in many ways despite the difficulties they faced: officials built a whole new sports bureaucracy, instituted significant reforms in physical education teacher training, and constructed hundreds of new facilities that changed France’s sporting landscape. They were able to be so successful, however, because, as Julian Jackson notes, the Vichy regime generally ‘eschewed totalitarianism and allowed a considerable measure of pluralism’, and in the case of physical culture thus profited from the efforts of sportsmen and -women across the political spectrum.9 Vichy’s new policies resembled those of the Popular Front because the French left and right shared concerns about the nation’s physical development, and both the Third Republic and the Vichy Government responded analogously to those concerns, reaching out to pre-existing organisations to assist in the National Revolution. Officials during both the Popular Front and the Vichy state believed that only a strong bureaucracy could wrestle with France’s fragmentary sports landscape and get all its pieces to work together towards a common goal. Children needed teachers who understood the importance of physical culture to national defence and economic stability. The country also needed

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places for physical education teachers to work. These endeavours required the coordination of resources on a massive scale, the work of a powerful administration that mobilised thousands of employees and dispensed millions of francs annually. The foundation of the CGEGS, on 7 September 1940, demonstrated the ways in which Vichy officials brought massive resources to problem-solve in a top-down manner, attempting to resolve the shortage of teachers and facilities with a bureaucratic approach that encompassed the whole of the country. At the same time, the success or failure of Vichy’s programmes depended heavily on negotiations with and within the pre-existing framework of local officials inside of schools, municipalities, and sporting associations. Vichy’s ambitious programme acknowledged local conditions such as the state of local sporting facilities, the strength of local physical education and sports educational cadres, and the willingness of athletes to submit themselves to Vichy’s varied programmes of organisation and surveillance. Vichy administrators, even when they promulgated top-down orders, also compromised with locals, bending or breaking the law when necessary. Impetus for individual projects generally came from the bottom up as local stakeholders offered sites and monies to assist in founding new teacher-training schools and in constructing new athletic installations. Engagement with local sports notables meant that Vichy’s reforms depended heavily on their ostensible ideological opponents, including officials trained by the Popular Front, republican schoolteachers, and even presidents of working-class sporting associations. Vichy Sports Ministry reformers’ reliance on natural communities was not only, as Jackson and other authors have suggested, ‘entirely in line with [Vichy’s] ideological preconception’ of handing ‘power back to the “real communities”’.10 It also, and perhaps more importantly, reinforced local agency and enabled people close to the ground to reimagine Vichy’s programmes, politics, and practices. The state’s reliance on natural communities spawned what Henry Rousso later called ‘spaces of liberty’, gaps between the state’s expectations and local ambitions that allowed administrators, children, sportspeople, and spectators to reimagine Vichy sporting life and thus the National Revolution.11 Negotiations with local stakeholders produced conflict because Vichy’s overarching vision for a revolutionary physical cultural programme frequently clashed with the localities’ desire to manage

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their own affairs. High-ranking officials in Vichy preferred smaller athletic facilities that maximised athletic participation. Mayors and association presidents, on the other hand, interested in communal prestige, sought to continue the massive stadium boom, so necessary to professional football in particular, which characterised French sports construction in the 1920s and 1930s.12 When Vichy officials and local officials disagreed, the central Government normally got their way because they controlled the purse strings, but not always. Indeed, Vichy’s reliance on local physical education and sports organisations aligns well with recent research which suggests that the National Revolution, in practice, was less centralised and more diverse than previously believed.13 Denis Peschanski argues against the idea that the National Revolution was a single government policy. ‘The National Revolution was more than simply the framework of a governmental programme whose results were quite limited’, he says. ‘The National Revolution, rather than being the brainchild of a specific group – the Ultras – during Vichy’s early days, must be conceived of as a synthesis of several currents of thought and… a process’.14 In physical culture, the Vichy state, through its increasingly influential Sports Ministry, triangulated between local, regional, and national desires. In consequence, the National Revolution in athletics is better understood as a product of plural Vichys, with multiple centres of power, located close to the ground rather than imposed from above.

A new physical education and sports bureaucracy When he became head of the Secretariat d’État aux sports et à l’organisation des loisirs in 1936, Léo Lagrange led a tiny bureaucratic apparatus. The Popular Front spent vast sums on leisure activities, including the training of teachers and the construction of new sports facilities, but the small size of Lagrange’s administrative team testified to its limits. His office was on the third floor of a building a few paces from the Arc de Triomphe, but he had an annual budget of only fifty million francs. His team was less a ministry of professionals than a collection of committed friends, including his wife Madeleine; Étienne Becart, an old friend and football player from the NordPas-de-Calais; Édouard Dolléans, a historian of the working class;

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Gaston Roux, an army captain; and the journalists Robert Fuzier, Raymond Marie, Arnold Bontemps, and Charlotte Brun.15 The Vichy Government placed physical education and sports at the centre of its project of National Revolution, spending lavishly on them to ensure the Revolution’s success. In September 1940, Marshal Pétain reformed the Sports Ministry to supervise the revitalisation of physical education and sports.16 It played an outsize role in the national revitalisation thanks to its independently minded administrators, broad scope of authority, and an influential corps of functionaries.17 Its first Commissioner-General, Jean Borotra, had an immense drive that matched his organisation’s enormous scope.18 Born in Biarritz, France, to an upper-middle-class family, on 13 August 1898, Borotra earned his reputation on the tennis courts. He was the ‘Bounding Basque’, a member of the four-man tennis sensation that included René Lacoste, Henri Cochet, and Jacques Brugnon. This team of playboys won the Davis Cup every year between 1927 and 1932. Borotra may have been the most beloved and eccentric of them all. In a foppish beret, he served and volleyed with élan. He infuriated his opponents, flirted shamelessly with women in the crowd, and conceded points petulantly. When his opponents were favoured, he sandbagged, losing games on purpose, conserving his strength, only to reassert himself and win in dramatic fashion. Off the court, Borotra was a conservative, a member of François de la Rocque’s Parti Social Français, and a well-connected petrol-pump salesman. Despite his right-wing politics, it was his reputation as an athlete that preceded him, and there were few more well-known and popular bureaucrats during the Vichy regime. Under Borotra’s leadership, the Sports Ministry expanded its influence into all physical education and sports in France.19 On 31 October 1940, Pétain provided the Sports Ministry with ‘jurisdiction over all that concerns the physical education and the sporting life’.20 The Ministry set up five separate directories, each with distinct duties: the first bureau dealt with administration of physical culture, the second with teacher training, the third with developing activities and programmes, the fourth with the recruitment of administrators, and the fifth with medical regulations. Its wide purview meant that Sports Ministry officials interacted directly with thousands of state, quasi-state, and private sporting organisations.21 It monitored sports in French schools.22 It oversaw all of the federations, including the

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Figure 2.1  Philippe Pétain (with cane) and Jean Borotra open a sporting field in Billezois

Fédération Française de Football Association, which represented more than a quarter of a million people spread across every department.23 It operated inside new Vichy-specific youth groups such as the Chantiers de la jeunesse and the Compagnons de France. It ran its own schools, like the prestigious École normale d’éducation physique et aux sports. These organisations were among the most resilient social and cultural institutions in Occupied France. While political parties and unions faced significant hurdles to their traditional activities, physical education and sports survived and even flourished with the active support of the Vichy Government. As sporting life grew, so did the power and influence of the Sports Ministry. At the same time, even as France’s dramatic defeat made drastic changes more palatable, many of the reforms brought into place had already been imagined during the Third Republic by Léo Lagrange and Jean Zay, the Minister of National Education and Fine Arts from 1936 until 1939. Both had called for the domination of physical education and sports by the state. In a speech given to the Chamber

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of Deputies in 1937, Lagrange demanded that the Government ensure the ‘collaboration of all organisations interested in sporting life and the physical activity of our youth’.24 Zay, too, wanted the work of sporting federations and associations to be better integrated into the state’s programme of education. In 1939, in a letter to the Rector of the Academie of Paris, Zay suggested that ‘it is within the interests of the cadre générale that the activities of sporting clubs become integrated with the Association générale d’étudiants’.25 In 1939, an educational official affiliated with the Édourd Daladier Government called for state organisation of physical education and sports. ‘[In France]’, he wrote, ‘it is still a chaos of tendencies’.26 Only respect for republican norms, such as the right to freely associate, stood in the way of Popular Front ministers promulgating measures as strong as the Vichy Sports Charter. The defeat of 1940 simply gave the Vichy regime the political wherewithal to institute a law that French republicans already desired in 1936. (Vichy officials later eulogised Lagrange but oversaw the murder of Zay in June 1944 by right-wing paramilitaries.) Despite the authoritarian possibilities of the Sports Ministry’s power, Jean Borotra remained committed to the division of French physical culture along religious and social lines.27 Germany’s Hitler Youth impressed many French sportsmen and politicians who argued in favour of a jeunesse unique in 1940. Henri Pugibet intimated that France should copy the example of Germany.28 The journalist Maurice Gorjux believed a unitary youth movement necessary. ‘Diversity [of movements] is a luxury’, he argued, ‘that in today’s circumstances, the youth of France cannot permit. If you want a real National Revolution of the people, you must unite.’ 29 The most important advocate of a singular party and youth movement in France was Marcel Déat, the infamous socialist-turned-fascist, wartime collaborationist, and later Vichy Labour Minister in Laval’s 1944 Government. Throughout the summer of 1940, Déat developed a proposal for a single youth movement which he presented to Pétain on 27 July 1940. He believed that Pétain would ‘entrust [the work to a single] party’ because it was ‘the only way for everyone to work together fruitfully’.30 Borotra pursued a more moderate, more French, and ultimately more republican position that accepted the independence of sporting associations and schools, but also demanded that each follow the

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new Sports Charter. In a radio commentary broadcast on 8 April 1941 on the Charte, Borotra accepted the conflicts and the contradictions that arose when a wide-ranging bureaucracy tried to manage a complex, ever-changing system of physical education and sports fragmented into independent associations, governmental institutions, and schools. He emphasised that although he relied on ‘the principle of authority’, his Ministry also strove to prevent the ‘bureaucratisation of sports’.31 Instead, he asked that sporting federations, local clubs, and educational institutions accept without complaints ‘the mission which they were conferred … [as] foyers for education and the development of moral qualities’.32 The Sports Charter fundamentally reconceptualised the relationship between sporting federations, sporting associations, and the French state. It ceded to the Government new powers to intervene in sporting federations’ and associations’ day-to-day operations. The state assigned presidents of sporting federations and regulated the organisation of sporting codes. It could also force mergers between two athletic organisations. The power to fuse associations resulted in numerous poor marriages between rival sporting clubs in small towns across France, especially between Catholic and working-class teams. In Meilhan, a small commune in the department of Landes, officials ordered two sporting societies to join, one run by a socialist schoolteacher and the other by a conservative priest. The conflict between the Union Sportive Meilhanaise and the Amicale Meilhanaise began during the Third Republic and the continuation of their enmity during the Vichy regime eventually disrupted many other avenues of local communal life and undermined other crucial Government programmes.33 The state intervened, uniting the two clubs despite protests from all parties. Local Catholics were particularly upset because their sporting association offered athletic activities to attract youth to the Church and its teachings. The presence of socialists threatened to undermine that mission. Freedom of association was no longer sacrosanct and had been replaced in practice by the needs of the National Revolution. Associations transformed into quasi-governmental centres for youth education where boys and girls developed physical and moral qualities such as strength, balance, courage, tenacity, and loyalty. Local stakeholders became unpaid agents of the state, constituting ‘one of the elements of the National Revolution’.34

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Since they reimagined the federations and the associations as their partners in the National Revolution, Vichy administrators felt responsible for their proper management. Nevertheless, sporting organisations did not always acquiesce to the state’s oversight. Ministry officials fought a series of bureaucratic battles with French sporting federations, particularly the Fédération Française de Football Association. A 19 April 1941 article entitled ‘Encore une mesure négative’ (‘Another negative step’) outlined the complaints levelled by the federation. ‘For 20 years’, the article began, ‘since the formation of the federations, sport in France has grown …. little by little, a patient labour brought by sports leaders – each in his specialty’.35 The Ministry’s reforms threatened to undermine their progress. In particular, the Ministry’s decision to reorient French sports regionally rather than along department lines threatened traditional rivalries that brought excitement and revenue. ‘Why can it all be destroyed’, federation officials lamented, ‘destroyed by the stroke of a pen?’ 36 The article predicted that ‘entire football leagues will be dissolved, notably the League of the North-East in Reims. Reims will be attached to Paris, 160km away.’ 37 These conflicts also surfaced because many sports stakeholders believed that the heads of all the major federations, appointed by the Sports Ministry, were friends of Borotra and ‘almost all old tennis players’.38 What did well-connected old tennis players really know about football? Despite his broad legal authority to enact a sweeping sporting revolution, Borotra loathed making arbitrary changes to the structure of French sporting life. Most management of sporting life happened at the regional or the local level where teachers, coaches, and functionaries, directly affiliated with various educational or sporting associations, interacted and negotiated directly with the state. Borotra wanted to revolutionise the intensity of French sport, but not to rip up what was there and start again. This meant that the vast infrastructure he envisioned was focused on working with and making small changes to local institutions, rather than constructing a completely new edifice. In many ways, then, as a corollary, the bureaucratic and institutional expansions that Borotra’s Sports Ministry staged did not translate into the ability to introduce lasting changes to physical culture on a local level. Instead his dreams required the active support of local athletes and their associations.

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To manage so many institutions, the Sports Ministry needed to employ motivated administrators working close to the ground. Its cadre included members of the old Government as well as new officials drawn mostly from former military and Catholic athletes. It also co-opted officials from other French bureaucracies. GayLescot has captured the sense of optimism and excitement, saying: ‘Functionaries abandoned their old posts after a simple phone call. … Vichy, in August 1940, authorised all their hopes, encouraged all their ambitions. For many functionaries, the creation of a new administration … opened a new horizon.’ 39 Borotra dreamed of ten thousand personnel across France, an administrator of physical culture in every French Academie, twenty technical commissaires, ten regional inspectors, and nine thousand new physical education teachers.40 Hiring thousands of new administrators was no easy task. Auguste Bassal exemplified the ideal candidate. When he applied in 1942, he had ten years of scouting experience, two years in the French military, and a pair of certificates from his lycée: a brevet sportif populaire and a brevet de preparation militaire.41 Despite these enviable qualifications, however, he had little practical experience in leading sporting associations and no classroom experience. New functionaries’ greenness became a point of contention for many athletes. Many new bureaucrats were young men or officers on disability and, as one critic noted, the functionaries’ sports backgrounds were frequently ‘incomplete’. Few, if any, of the new inspectors were chosen from among the leaders of sporting associations. Here the Vichy regime missed an opportunity to employ people with a great deal of experience.42 The continuity of thought between the sports programmes of the Popular Front and the Vichy regime was matched by a continuity of personnel, in keeping with Sports Ministry officials’ privileging of pragmatism over ideological purity. Although Jean Zay was in prison and Léo Lagrange had died on 9 June 1940, in combat with the Germans, many sportsmen prominent in the Popular Front continued to serve in governmental and quasi-governmental roles. Jacques Flouret, the former French international basketball star, for example, continued to administer the Union du Sport Scolaire et Universitaire (USSU). During the Vichy regime, in fact, he saw his power and influence grow as his federation came to dominate interscholastic

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competition in both secular and Catholic institutions. The continued importance of officials affiliated with the Third Republic caused friction among die-hard conservatives who challenged the presence of republicans such as Flouret. An anti-Semitic article submitted to the Sports Ministry by Jean Labrit whined that Popular Front officials such as ‘Rosier [the chef du cabinet of Jean Zay’s cabinet], Abraham [directeur du cabinet of Jean Zay and a Jew], Flouret, [and] Boisset … remain today at the head of the same organisation whose achievements were athletic and political failure’.43 Labrit suggested that Paul de Rocca Serra, a noted conservative, be brought in to replace them. De Rocca Serra’s conservative bona fides were unquestionable. He was the current Under-Secretary of the Ministry of War, the former Director of the Office of University Sport from 1930 until 1938, the Co-director of the International Office of University Sport, organiser of the World University Games in 1928, and a former tank commander awarded a Croix de Guerre and a Medaille Militaire. In 1938, Jean Zay had removed Paul de Rocca Serra from his position as Director of the Office of University Sport. De Rocca Serra refused any further Government positions before 1940 because he was too conservative to accept a role in a committee of a conscience so different from his own. During the Vichy regime, Joseph Pascot brought de Rocca Serra back into the USSU but under the leadership of the republican Flouret. The enlarged Sports Ministry went on to become one of the French state’s most important and influential bureaucracies of the wartime. In two years, the Sports Ministry grew exponentially such that, by the end of 1941, it already numbered more than two thousand functionaries sworn ‘to physically and morally orient the youth of France’.44 To respond to long-term concerns about French physical and moral weakness, Sports Ministry administrators started a programme of bureaucratisation that both built new institutions and relied upon the foundations put in place by the Popular Front. Borotra created a new physical cultural administration that trod a fine line between creating a completely revolutionary unitary youth movement (jeunesse unique) and maintaining the republican tradition of athletic communitarianism. They proclaimed the novelty of their programme but adopted discourses that were also prevalent among reformers during the Third Republic. They prioritised hiring conservatives but in practice retained many republican personnel. The Sports

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Charter severely circumscribed the freedoms of association treasured by republicans, but Vichy officials did not use their new power to centralise all athletic activity. The diverse Christian, secular, syndicalist, socialist, nationalist, and even Jewish clubs that existed during the Third Republic endured and even thrived during the Vichy regime, thanks to the reinvestment of the French state in physical education and sporting life. This continued diversity in physical culture showed the pragmatism of Vichy’s National Revolution, which allowed for the continuation of republican institutions inside an authoritarian regime. One of the clearest examples of Vichy’s paradoxical pragmatic reform occurred in educational institutions, where the need for new teachers meant Vichy officials both hired true believers and kept on erstwhile political enemies.

Training men to make men: Vichy’s teacher training Following the passage of the Jules Ferry Laws in 1882, the French state assumed responsibility for primary education and promised that each child would master the basics of reading and writing, the social and natural sciences, history and civics, and the fine and industrial arts, as well as physical education and personal hygiene.45 The Ferry Laws entrusted teachers with the duty not only to instruct their students on academic topics, but also to prepare them for working life and to impress upon them their obligations as citizens. Teachers acted as propagandists of republican values such as secularism and egalitarianism, enacted through republican rituals such as the singing of La Marseillaise. Following France’s catastrophic defeat, many right-wing politicians rushed to blame the republican educational system for its failure to adequately prepare students for their role as citizens and soldiers. Republican schools, Pétain observed, focused too much attention on intellectual education and, therefore, under-developed its physical and moral aspects. Other right-wing officials went even further and accused students of being ‘guided by the spirit of fraud’ and possessed of ‘sadly vulgar language, febrile bodies and morals’.46 The French educational system’s reform needed to start from the bottom, and Vichy administrators strove to overhaul France’s hundred and eighty thousand-strong teaching corps. In particular,

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they wanted to transform the position of physical education in the curriculum, which would require a dramatic expansion in the number of qualified physical education teachers. Before 1939, France had fewer than eight hundred educators with qualifications in physical education and sports.47 Sports Ministry officials planned to hire nine thousand new physical education teachers, a preposterous goal in the short term.48 They needed, as they admitted, ‘a good dozen years of continuous effort’ before there would be enough qualified teachers.49 To offset the immediate shortage, Vichy administrators relied on a mix of local innovations; the retention of qualified athletes, even professionals and socialists; the revamping of existing teacher-training schools, such as the school at Joinville; and the foundation of regional teacher-training schools. Borotra never accomplished his lofty goal of training an entirely new physical education teaching corps, but many postwar physical education instructors and coaches got their start in the Vichy era. A close look at Vichy’s educational reforms, therefore, illuminates the workings and the limits of the state’s paternalist ambitions. In his quest to find more physical education teachers, Borotra tried to hire as many qualified instructors as possible from the existing pool of possible candidates in higher education and in sporting associations. Many new gym teachers came to the Ministry through Catholic patronage networks: especially through the French military, and particularly from officers influenced by General Hubert Lyautey; the École Polytechnique, where Borotra had attended school; and through conservative sporting organisations. Jean-François Brisson exemplified this kind of instructor. He was well educated in France’s best schools, a former champion in the 110-metre hurdles, and an accomplished reserve officer in the French Army. More importantly for Brisson, his application received favourable attention from a regional Government official, M. Cherier, who wrote directly to Georges Lamirand, the head of the Chantier de la Jeunesse, on his behalf. Cherier wrote that Brisson ‘finds himself in the Armistice Army’ where ‘he leads a life of total idleness’ in the barracks. ‘He desires to be assigned to a youth camp’, Cherier continues, ‘to utilise his sporting qualities and secondarily to coach’. If this hiring were impossible, Jean-François asked for his admission into the École d’Instruction Physique. Cherier put Brisson’s demand in front of Lamirand because of Brisson’s pedigree: Brisson’s father was the

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Director of Le Figaro, which ‘put at [the Government’s] disposal all the services they offer’.50 Right-wing Catholic patronage networks could not fulfil the Sports Ministry’s demand for qualified gym teachers; consequently, Vichy administrators turned to state-run teacher-training schools from the Third Republic, such as the École Normale d’Éducation Physique. Founded in the Bois de Vincennes by Napoleon III in 1852 to train Army officers in the latest techniques of physical fitness, the school quickly gained influence as a centre for military-style gymnastics. Officials in the Third Republic shifted the focus of the school away from military training to a more general school for physical education and sports. By the Second World War, the military character of the school had completely attenuated, and the school served as France’s elite physical education teacher and coach training school. The school’s mandate grew during Vichy such that in 1941 it expanded to include an Institut National d’Éducation Générale, which focused on the theory of physical education and sports, and a Collège national de moniteurs et d’athlètes, which trained coaches and athletes who represented France internationally.51 Elite academies in Paris could only train so many teachers, and officials realised they needed a new teacher-training system to provide hundreds of new coaches. A novel system provided two distinct benefits. First, new physical education teachers and coaches could be carefully selected and trained by administrators to embody the regime’s ideological goals. Secondly, the Sports Ministry could redesign the curriculum from the top down, giving it a large degree of control over practices. Vichy opened a range of regional schools called Centre Régionale d’Éducation Générale et aux Sports. One opened in Reims in 1941. On 22 September 1943, it celebrated its second anniversary and Colonel Pascot, the second head of the Sports Ministry, attended the celebration. During the ceremony, ‘130 students gave a demonstration … female teachers and … male teachers worked together with well conducted waves [and] gestures explaining the fruit of their work’.52 These regional training academies educated many new teachers. Reims welcomed more than three thousand potential educators in two years.53 Training for coaches could be much briefer than the training for classroom instructors – practicalities seemed more important than extensive pedagogical instruction. In January 1941, a new school

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started in the Bois de Boulogne called the École de Cadres de Bagatelle. At the behest of the Sports Ministry, the École de Cadres de Bagatelle trained teachers and coaches for schools. Its first class lasted one month and certified forty coaches.54 Only one year later, by 1942, the school at Bagatelle had developed a more rigorous curriculum, lasting three months, and trained between ninety and a hundred and twenty teachers at a time. The sexes alternated so that men took January to March and women April to June, the same pattern repeating in the second half of the year. In 1942, Bagatelle administrators bragged that several hundred students had received their certificates and that over twenty-seven thousand days of instruction had taken place. In theory these regional teacher-training schools prepared their pupils to work at public institutions, but in practice, once these coaches were licensed, they could offer their services to a wide variety of youth associations. One coach licensed at Bagatelle taught physical culture, combat sports, basketball, swimming, volleyball, and camping at a proto-fascist campsite organised by the French Franciste association.55 To satisfy their demand for physical education instructors, Sports Ministry officials also relied on local communes to organise their own teacher-training schools. The final products of these regional and local schools formed the backbone of the teaching corps. A proposal prepared shortly before the war shows how local communities shaped teacher training and therefore the ideological programme of the Vichy state. Shortly after the Armistice, the relatively new and rural communities of Elizabethville and Aubergenville, located in the department of the Seine and Oise outside of Paris, put forth a plan for the development of a teacher-training school. These communes presented a good case. Georges Dreano, a Professor of Physical Education, proposed the combined communes of Elizabethville and Aubergenville as an ideal site for a physical education teacher-training school, an École Normale d’Éducation Physique. He listed some of the advantages of the towns: they already had a huge number of physical education and sports facilities, including ‘an enormous amount of space … woods … an 18 hole golf course, sports fields, a field for exercises, a beach, an Olympic-sized swimming pool … three tennis courts, a football field … [and] a park for children’.56 He understood that all those facilities made the proposal feasible because commune officials could organise the school without

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new construction. He finished his proposal by respectfully asking for Borotra to ‘decide what you find the most useful’ for the communes to do.57 The Elizabethville/Aubergenville plan showed that while Vichy’s reformers characterised the effort to train teachers as a component of the National Revolution, an enterprise born at the heart of the new Government, in practice impetus for a significant number of new teacher-training schools emanated locally from communities who put themselves forward as sites for facilities. Teachers shaped the public’s view of the National Revolution because, as in the Third Republic, Vichy’s officials relied on physical education teachers to model proper behaviour and act as a guide for students’ physical and moral development. Vichy’s ideal physical education teacher was male, politically conservative, well educated, married with children, and came from the middle or upper classes. Significant military experience, including numerous medals, was common among men old enough to have served in the First World War, but younger prospective teachers had only their experience as conscripts. Almost all the new teachers had experience as athletes, usually within conservative or Catholic sporting associations, and few of the prospective teachers played sports professionally. In none of the hundreds of teacher applications submitted to the Sports Ministry, for example, did applicants admit to spending time on anything more important than a community football team. Only a few even listed France’s most popular spectator sports, including football and rugby, as their favourite activities. Some applications came from men affiliated with the Popular Front’s Sous-Secrétaire d’État aux Sports et à l’Organisation des Loisirs. Camille B. was a typical applicant. Born in Pagny-sur-Moselle in 1889, he served in the French Army with the class of 1909, rose to the rank of captain, and was employed as an engineer. In his spare time, Camille played at aristocratic sports such as tennis, automobile touring, shooting and skiing, although he also played less refined sports such as football and basketball.58 Pierre C., who came from Longvilliers, seems typical of the younger generation of applicants. Pierre had a degree from the École Supérieure de Commerce à Lille and served with his military class in 1934. The sports he preferred were more popular, including football, basketball, and athletics, and he remained affiliated with his local sporting association, the Société Athlétique du Lycée de St-Omer.59 The commonalities between

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Camille and Pierre, indeed between most of the applicants, suggested a shared social and economic background. Although Camille’s taste tended towards the more patrician, Pierre’s status as a businessman and as a student in the law faculty in Lille illustrates his middle-class and conservative background. The Sports Ministry also sought out teachers in less likely places. Although they promoted amateurism as a matter of state policy, athletic administrators recognised the propaganda potential of professional athletes. In 1942, Joseph Pascot, Vichy’s second Sports Minister, redefined professional football players as studentinstructors (élèves-moniteurs) and forced some of them to teach classes.60 Training sessions were held during the off-season and only a few days a week for three weeks. The press from various popular journals – especially L’Auto, Football, and Tous les Sports – sent reporters who lauded ‘the beautiful and good work … underway’.61 On Wednesday 15 July, André Simonyi, Etienne Mattier, and Helenio Herrera joined Pascot and Henri Jevain, the President of the Fédération Français de Football Association, in a training session held at an elite teacher-training school in Paris. The stars took budding young teachers running, gave them lectures on football techniques and tactics, and taught them practical ball skills. The presence of high-ranking Government officials and professional football players gave the demonstrations an aura of educational value, but the main goal of the session was inexpensive propaganda for the Vichy regime and the National Revolution. At low cost Vichy officials got to link their names with some of France’s most popular people, while simultaneously symbolically redefining the footballers through their service to the state as teachers rather than as professional sportsmen. Most communities, however, neither received new physical education teachers nor enjoyed the benefits of star élèves-moniteurs. They managed with the educators who were already available before the war. The shortage of trained physical education teachers meant that Vichy officials did not go out of their way to remove teachers for their political affiliations. On the contrary, when sports administrators investigated left-wing instructors, they rarely dismissed them. In the department of Landes, a socialist teacher and sporting association President named Joseph Terrel kept his job despite being the subject of an official investigation. The state’s investigator

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discovered that Terrel led students in singing the Internationale before a football match, did not serve in war due to a disability, and was a member of the radical socialists, but none of these things warranted Terrel’s expulsion. Moreover, the Vichy investigator defended him from other accusations lobbed by a rival conservative Catholic sports official.62 In fact, some Sports Ministry officials seemed quite reluctant to dismiss physical education teachers, even when their actions undermined the goals of other important Government ministries. At the Jules Ferry and Racine high schools, the Commissariat Général aux Questions Juives, Vichy’s organisation responsible for dealing with ‘the Jewish Question’, received information that Jewish and ‘Aryan’ students practised gymnastics and played sports together. The Commissariat sent an inspector named Lazard to Paris in February 1943 to make a report, more than a year after the start of widespread arrests and deportations of Jews. When he visited the Lycée Racine, the physical education and sports teacher admitted that he had Jewish and Aryan students exercising together but refused to separate them without express orders from the Sports Ministry. As he was an official from another Ministry, Lazard had no authority to order him to do anything, so he left rejected. He did not even get to speak to teachers at the Lycée Jules Ferry as a school official barred him from entry, telling him that ‘you are not authorised to enter into high schools and middle schools and give instructions concerning physical education and sports. There is a special ministry charged with regulating this matter and qualified to take all measures deemed useful.’ 63 Lazard left feeling reprimanded, but the educators were correct, the schools did not fall under the explicit purview of the Commissariat Général aux Questions Juives. When Lazard tried to communicate with the Sports Ministry, he found them to be intractable and the back and forth of letters took a long time. He concluded, writing to his superiors, with a sense of inevitability, that ‘In the Lycée Racine and Jules Ferry, the Jewish students are taking gymnastics classes in the company of Aryan students. It is the same for other high schools, notably the Lycée Condorcet’.64 Just by participating in sports with their Jewish classmates, the students at Racine, Jules Ferry, and Cordorcet, perhaps unknowingly, undermined a part of the Vichy regime’s most pernicious ideological agenda. For the Jewish students in those classes, not having to sit

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in the corner during physical education must have been a welcome continuity with life in the Third Republic. For the teachers, their opposition to the demands of the anti-Jewish laws demonstrated the continued importance of the republican ideologies of egalitarianism and fraternity in French schools. The presence of multiple Vichy bureaucracies with influence over French schools offered teachers the opportunity to use bureaucratic wrangling to carve out spaces of safety or opposition, ultimately producing an uneven application of Vichy’s agenda of racial segregation. The preservation of the physical education teachers of the Third Republic and the organisation of new teacher-training schools enabled the Vichy Government to significantly increase the number of teachers available. Much of the energy for teacher training came from local and regional officials who sought out opportunities to contribute to the National Revolution. By 9 August 1941 CGEGS officials could crow that they had trained 541 new national sports coaches, 40 professors of physical education and sports from the École Nationale d’Éducation Physique, and 4,500 new physical education teachers from the regional schools.65 Not all of these new teachers won positions in schools; some were excluded for ideological reasons. As Vichy officials trained more and more teachers, they tried to ensure that teachers remained committed to their ideological programme. Nevertheless, schoolteachers, particularly those who started their jobs in the 1930s, continued to resist state programmes that they believed to be contrary to their primary mission as educators. The clearest example appeared when the Commissariat Général aux Questions Juives pushed for laws to exclude Jews from participating in athletic competitions with Aryans in schools. Initially the Sports Ministry, especially Jean Borotra, opposed efforts to alienate Jewish athletes but little could be done to blunt the anti-Jewish agenda of some members of the Vichy state. By 1943, Jewish and Aryan children were explicitly prohibited from participating on the same fields and courts.66 Responsibility fell to teachers to comply with the state’s policies, but some teachers simply ignored the state’s orders. Physical education and sports teachers especially hid themselves behind the bureaucracy of the state schools. The bureaucratic complication of the Instruction publique allowed them, in a few rare instances, to preserve the notions of fair play and mass participation and protect the rights of their Jewish students and athletes.



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If you build it: the construction of sporting installations during wartime France The paucity of acceptable sporting facilities was another significant impediment to the development of physical education in France. Concerns about the low density of acceptable athletic fields in France first arose during the Third Republic, but only Vichy’s Sports Ministry mobilised the financial resources necessary to undertake a countrywide effort to improve French sporting infrastructure. Without the right spaces, young men and women had nowhere to engage in physical activities or corrective exercises. French sports officials knew that substandard facilities threatened the health and wellbeing of boys and girls, and undermined the French economy and military. The Vichy regime wanted all French communities to have access to athletic facilities – a gym, pool, field, and track: communities needed to be a part of the National Revolution, but they could not erect them without local help. The interplay between the central and local state illustrated the continued relevance of policies put into place by the Popular Front as well as highlighting the way the national Government relied on local stakeholders. French concerns about the country’s relative scarcity of healthy spaces, both parks and athletic facilities, emerged in the interwar period in conjunction with deep worries about the perceived weakness of French youth in comparison with other European youth. In response to these concerns, Léo Lagrange sent athletic commissions to Germany, Italy, Finland, and around the world to better understand how different sporting cultures developed successful youth programmes. One of the major differences between France and its peer athletic competitors in Europe was the disparity in the number and range of readily accessible sports facilities, particularly in or around big cities and in rural communes. In the whole of France there were only 40 covered pools, compared with 250 in Germany. In 1939, German athletes enjoyed 5 square metres per person of athletic fields; their French counterparts possessed only 1.4 square metres.67 By contrast, French municipalities without adequate facilities for ordinary people erected stadiums designed to showcase sports as a spectacle rather than to encourage athletic participation.68 The defeat of the French Army in 1940 intensified the call for new athletic space and the newly appointed Vichy sports minister

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dealt anxiously with the problem. On 20 December 1940, French officials, including the Secretaries of the Interior, Marcel Peyrouton, and Education, Jacques Chevalier, signalled to the prefects the new importance of installations for physical education and sports. A circular was distributed to all the relevant sections of the Sports Ministry, the Youth Ministry, and regional and local prefectural departments. They strongly urged the construction of ‘fields for physical education, sports, and games, and basins for swimming’ in every village and town and condoned the ‘use of all the authority’ of the prefects to achieve these goals.69 Vichy administrators inside of the Sports Ministry understood that they stood little chance of effectively coordinating the construction of necessary sporting facilities without the support and guidance of local communities. Nobody in France knew how many sporting fields, gymnasiums, and pools existed. Nor did they know about the sites’ physical condition. Facilities suffered direct damage from bombs, shells, and small-arms fire. Large open fields and stadiums were occupied, first by the French Army and later by German soldiers, whose tent spikes, boots, and tank treads tore the delicate turf on fields to shreds. To learn more about the kinds of facilities France possessed, the Sports Ministry ordered the prefects of every department to prepare a list of physical education and sport facilities and detailed notes on their physical condition.70 The results were dire. Many communities still lacked even one sporting facility. In Paris, a city of around five million, the number of athletic facilities accessible was pitiful.71 A report on grass playing surface, a track, a basketball court, and a football field in the 16th arrondissement demonstrated the poor condition of athletic facilities. Since its opening, the field had been ‘rarely used’ for sports and as such was in good condition in 1939, when it became a parking lot for trucks from the nearby Renault factory. When the Germans arrived in Paris, they ‘used [the fields] in the same manner’ and at the time of the report nine decrepit German trucks littered the grounds. The Government held it incumbent on the Academie de Paris to make inquiries to determine the ‘possibility of using the field and, if it is possible, to get the … occupying authorities’ to remove their vehicles.72 Efforts to build new facilities required the cooperation of national-, regional-, and local-level entities. The Sports Ministry created the

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Direction d’Équipement Sportif with national offices in Paris and Vichy to manage these interactions. Georges Glasser, a well-connected industrialist, a polytechnicien, and champion mixed-doubles tennis player, headed the organisation. His goal was to construct ‘athletic fields [in] every commune in France’, a task that necessitated both local initiative by departmental and municipal governments to put forward projects and the financial and logistical support of the central Government.73 Demands for subsidies for the repair or construction of sports facilities originated locally. Schools, sporting associations, and municipal governments identified needs for a new facility and forwarded these demands to state officials. Local government officials sought advice from their counterparts in the Équipement Sportif. Reasonable requests were passed along to the national offices in Paris or Vichy, depending on whether the locality was in the Occupied or the Unoccupied Zone. At the national level, the office of the Équipement Sportif conferred with officials in the Sports Ministry, the Comité Nationale des Sports, and the extremely powerful Commission Interministérielle, which combined high-ranking officials from various cabinet departments. National and local entities shared the funding of new sports fields, tracks, and pools. Thanks to a law put in place by Third Republic politicians on 27 October 1939, Vichy’s Sports Ministry could contribute annually more than thirty million francs. The legislation limited the ‘amount of the advance attributed for each operation’ which could not ‘exceed 50 per cent of the estimate’.74 The rest of the money had to be raised from the department, or commune. Federations, sporting associations, and educational institutions often kicked in their own funds generated through special subscriptions and donations. Municipal and regional officials, such as mayors and prefects, played the most important role in the process because they liaised with local physical education and sports leaders and passed on their demands to the Sports Ministry. These officials acted as advocates to officials in the Équipement Sportif, the Sports Ministry, and other administrators. The mayors of the communes of the Seine, for example, worked with sporting associations and the Academie de Paris to ask for funding for ‘the conception and the execution of the sporting establishments planned by the communes’, in this case a series of new parks and athletic facilities intended to ring Paris.75

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The mayors produced a study of the proposal and wrote frequently to the Sports Ministry to update them about the state of the work and to assure them of the departments’ commitment to funding these building projects. These reports estimated the cost, described the precise means for financing the project, and the amount of funds demanded, and promised to start work less than three months after the notification of the funding.76 Savvy community leaders also sought out other revenue streams set aside for the development of athletic facilities. A law passed on 13 November 1940 allocated 1,900,000 francs annually for the reconstruction of sporting installations damaged during the war.77 In these limited cases, the Sports Ministry agreed to lift the limitation that required 50 per cent of the funding to come from the association.78 In Paris, the Racing Club de France used the law after the club suffered from bomb damage on 3 March 1942, when an Anglo-American raid that targeted the automotive parts factories in the Boulogne-Billancourt dropped its bombs early. Twenty-one bombs landed on the club, destroying the guard shack, the buffet restaurant, the locker rooms, and pock marking the tennis courts and football field. Fortunately for the club they were able to repair their facilities with money from the Government.79 The development of new facilities did not happen equally across France’s departments.80 Vichy officials demonstrated a preference for funding projects in the Unoccupied Zone, but a more important factor seems to have been the willingness of the local departments to work with Vichy officials. Some sparsely populated and rural departments, typically lacking in facilities, received funding for the construction of several installations, including the Aveyron (18 projects), Doubs (18), Eure (43), and the Tarn-Garonne (47). Densely populated and mostly urban departments also received funding for new facilities: the Indre-et-Loire (26), Nord-Pas-de-Calais (25), Seine-Inferieur (20), and Sèvres (23). No numbers exist for the department of the Seine but there were a few new projects launched in and around Paris between 1940 and 1942, including the grand Parc de Pétain near La Courneuve. In 1942, records from the neighbouring department of the Seine-et-Marne show that fourteen communes together received 944,177.00 francs for the development of new athletic installations.81 Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Seine-etOise, a densely populated department bordering Paris, had the highest

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number of projects (113).82 By far the most successful prefect was Emile Ducommon, who in the Pyrénées (Basses), home department of Jean Borotra, organised the highest number and concentration per capita of projects – a grand total of 77 – despite his department being divided between Occupied and Unoccupied Zones. While the impetus for new projects came from local governments, the blueprints for these facilities usually came from the Sports Ministry. Providing blueprints free of charge to communities made local leaders’ jobs easier, but it also represented the French state’s effort to maintain centralised control of the development of physical education and to rationalise the process of sporting facility design. Jean Borotra and CGEGS officials outlined clear visions for these sporting blueprints, laying out exact dimensions. ‘It is preferable to have 5,000 square metres for a class of 25 to 40 students’, Borotra said. ‘If they are more numerous, it is better to have a larger space, a space of 15,000 square metres will be sufficient for a class of 40 to 70 students … including the courts for volleyball, basketball, and even eventually for football.’ 83 The Sports Ministry distributed more than a dozen blueprint types conceived of as communal master plans. The smallest – type E1 – had a total surface area of 900 to 1,200 square metres and allowed for a capacity of 40 children, with facilities for calisthenics, track, and field.84 It seems likely that the vast majority of French communes opted to build either type E1 or the second smallest, type E2, since many French men and women, even in 1944, lived in rural communities of only a few thousand people. Larger towns and cities needed more elaborate sporting installations and the Équipement sportif also served them. The largest blueprint – type PAF4 400 – called for a stadium complete with a full 400-metre track, two pits for long and high jumping, secluded areas for javelin, shot put, and discus, and even a tunnel through which athletes could enter under the stands. The Sports Ministry conceived of their relationship with local officials as a partnership where the central Government simultaneously responded to the needs of and guided departments and communes. The Équipement Sportif also worked with France’s popular sports newspapers to further distribute information about stadium construction.85 The most widely read sports daily, L’Auto, concentrated on spectator sports, but the back page of each issue reprinted changes

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Figure 2.2  Type E1 sporting field – the smallest predesigned sporting facility blueprint produced by the Sports Ministry

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made by any branch of the Sports Ministry, including the Équipement Sportif. The Sports Ministry’s newspaper, Tous les sports, had a recurring section devoted to construction rules and regulations. Tous les sports’ editors even helped communities whose demands for subsidies were received unfavourably by giving them concrete advice for building their own sporting facilities on the cheap. On 26 July 1941, the editors published two articles, complete with preliminary designs, about the construction of ad-hoc athletic fields and swimming pools which emphasised the ways in which communities could take advantage of local conditions to create new sporting facilities. An article entitled ‘For the creation of playing fields and pools’ explained how to select proper spaces for various sporting installations.86 Communities that wanted an athletic field should take advantage of ‘natural prairies’ or ‘grassy spaces’.87 The same issue also urged communes to ‘make a swimming pool’, and described building a swimming facility inside of a stream or slow-moving river.88 The Sports Ministry and communes approached the question of what facilities to build from very different perspectives. Community leaders concentrated on a few projects at a time; national Sports Ministry officials imagined ambitious new urban master plans. Relying on the best knowledge of the intersection of architecture and public health, the Équipement Sportif dreamed of a complete renovation of the Parisian landscape, with a green ring of sporting facilities around Paris that would reinvent Parisians’ relationship with green space, athletic facilities, and fresh air, and as a consequence reinvigorate the youth of France. The traditional Parisian sports sites were the Bois de Boulogne and the Bois de Vincennes, both founded as part of aristocratic enclaves in earlier centuries. Both were used for the 1900 and the 1924 Paris Olympic Games. Most major Parisian sporting associations called one or the other home. Both Racing Club de France and the Stade français installed themselves in club houses adjoining the posh Bois de Boulogne, at the Croix de Catelan and the Stade Jean-Bouin, respectively. Vichy officials recognised that, despite the presence of these two parks, schools and new sporting associations needed additional space for their activities. An exceptionally large map produced by the Équipement sportif and now housed at the Archives Nationales foresaw an impressive green belt encircling Paris with gardens, parks, gyms, stadiums, and pools alongside the old walls.89

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The map’s light green spaces represented the existing parks: in the centre were the Jardins des Tuileries, on the far left/west the Bois de Boulogne, and on the far right/east the Bois de Vincennes. Almost non-existent blue splotches were the athletic facilities that existed in 1940. The most significant of those athletic facilities were in the Southwest, such as the stadiums of Roland-Garros, Jean-Bouin, and the massive Parc des Princes. The vastly more prevalent dark green and red marks on the map represented proposed new parks and physical education projects with which Vichy officials dreamt of studding the future Parisian landscape. These green and red splotches signified billions of francs worth of construction, dozens of new stadiums, pools, and gymnasiums, meant to serve several sporting associations and schools including the École Nationale d’Éducation Physique et aux Sports. The most important of these new parks, to be built just to the north of the city, was to be named Parc de Pétain, now the Park Georges-Valbon. With the help of the mayor of Courneuve, the Ministry planed for the Parc de Pétain to include five hundred hectares of land for the education of more than ‘several football players and bicyclists’.90 The Équipement sportif eventually funded eighty new installations: forty within Paris proper and forty within the Seine department. By the end of 1941, construction was underway on forty-eight projects, three were completed, and eight nearly so. The press reported that thirty-seven additional projects were slated to be finished in 1942.91 Despite the Sports Ministry’s best efforts, innumerable problems plagued the development of new facilities across France. Construction problems reflected differences between local, regional, and national priorities, as well as the shortage of materials brought about by the German requisition of French goods. On the most basic level, all construction during the Occupation faced difficulties caused by nationwide shortages. In 1942, the Club Athlétique de la Société Générale, an influential upper-middle-class Parisian sporting association associated with the bank Société Générale, started and finished a rehabilitation of the club’s central tennis court in their stadium. As with any other construction in France, the creation of the new central court required the permission of various French and German ministries. Communication and planning took time – sometimes the delay between letters was only a few days, but it occasionally stretched to months. For example, the paperwork the club filed with the

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Prefect took weeks to be approved – the first letters were dated 20 July 1942 and the final authorisation to begin construction arrived on 3 September 1942.92 Material concerns also delayed the construction at the club. The new central court featured two thousand seats and necessitated the use of thousands of pounds of concrete, steel, and other resources nominally reserved for war operations. German war demands, specifically those associated with the Todt organisation tasked with building the enormous Atlantic Wall, commanded a significant proportion of French building materials. Consequently, it took a long time for the companies contracted by the association, such as Tennis-Louvres, to acquire the necessary materials and specialised workers. The series of letters available at the association’s archive demonstrate back and forth between the association and a variety of companies that preceded the construction effort. In a letter dated 12 September 1942, the builders complained of their difficulties in obtaining materials to begin and then to continue construction, with work delayed waiting for deliveries of cement.93 Similar exchanges continued between the Club Athlétique and various companies into December 1942, when the largest part of the construction finally started. The ambitions of local associations frequently clashed with the Sports Ministry’s preference for small and usable constructions for communes. Relatively few cities received funding for massive installations, but these included: the redevelopment of the Plages de Prado in Marseille; aquatic centres in Lyon and Paris; the development or redevelopment of parks in Bordeaux, Vigneux, Choisy-le-Roi, Montreuil-Bagnolet, Nanterre, and La Courneuve; the construction of a Lyon-Bron-Vénissieux zone sportive in the Parc Parilly; and stadiums in Villerbanne, Nice, Cannes, Toulouse, Rennes, Poitiers, and Lille.94 Emboldened by Vichy’s efforts at stimulating construction, however, many small and rural communities proposed building new football stadiums. Vichy bureaucrats rejected these communities’ demands because football stadiums cost more than other sorts of athletic facilities. They were even opposed to building simple football pitches because they demanded more space per athlete. The smallest football fields were more than 4,200 square metres and only accommodated 22 athletes at a time. A basketball court was a tenth of the size, but still allowed ten athletes to participate. A terrain d’hébertisme, which was a similarly sized simple grass playing surface

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with wood contraptions for calisthenics and gymnastics exercises, welcomed hundreds of young men or women simultaneously. Vichy officials’ distaste for football fields was also visible in the plans made for children’s camps. Joseph de La Porte du Theil, leader of all the Chantiers de la Jeunesse, advised camp officials that football fields needed to follow other types of construction. ‘Each group must, as soon as possible, make ready a space for hébertisme with all the necessary installations. Coming in second: football, rugby, basketball.’ 95 Even within this second tier of facilities, football fields were discouraged. In the Colonies de Vacances, subsidised summer camps for French youths, officials advised against building football fields. As Louis Sansaulieu noted, ‘Football is an adult distraction and it requires a considerable outlay for a relatively restricted number of players.… Basketball is preferable because it is much less expensive to install and permits, at one time, at least twenty children. One can procure the baskets, the only necessary material, and the ball, for a total of 500 to 1000fr.’ 96 These officials’ orders made sense: they wanted to educate as many children as possible and football fields were not ideal in that regard. Football fields were more expensive, larger, and served fewer athletes at a time. Officials resisted building them unless they were met with unavoidable demands from their communities. The fight between the Sports Ministry and local officials over football field construction reflected a tension between national and local wishes. Vichy officials deprioritised football fields because they did not see football as a necessary part of physical education, and it was not uncommon for the Sports Ministry to refuse outright to build football fields. In the spring of 1944, the Association des Sports Généraux de Poissy, in the commune of Poissy thirty minutes northwest of Paris, requested funding to improve their sports complex. The association, which served the schoolchildren and factory workers of the region, was recognised by the Sports Ministry for attempting to make ‘possible the practice of physical education in good conditions’.97 Association members, who specialised in football, swimming, and track and field, wanted funding for a football stadium and a new pool. The local government of the Seine and Oise and the Sports Ministry instead earmarked funds for other types of athletic activity, including ‘playing surfaces for physical education, new tracks, long jump and high jump pits, volleyball, basketball, and

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tennis courts’.98 The note from the Prefect went even further and banned the association from using their own funds to construct a football field or a pool because those facilities were already available at a state-run stadium nearby. In the end the Sports Ministry stopped short of prohibiting football field construction in Poissy outright, but because they refused to fund it, the project collapsed.99 Another town exemplified how the Vichy Sports Ministry envisioned local redevelopment of athletic facilities. In 1940, the village of Saint-Mandé was a small, suburban, rump commune carved out of the Bois de Vincennes and mainly associated with mechanical industry. Bordering Paris’s 12th arrondissement, the town had only recently been connected to central Paris by the Metro lines one and eight. The population of the town hovered at around twenty thousand; however, during the Vichy regime, it received national attention when the Sports Ministry selected it as an example for the rest of the country to emulate and published a pamphlet entitled ‘An Experience, An Example’ that lauded the commune’s reforms.100 The pamphlet’s authors pointed out just how normal the commune was: ‘Saint-Mandé … a commune like many others, with its mayor, its church, its school; a commune where not long ago schoolchildren did not know physical education except as a vague caricature’.101 It became an example after a particularly successful redevelopment of its local athletic spaces. The construction in Saint-Mandé had its origins in the Popular Front. Motivated by Léo Lagrange’s offer of government funding, the village’s mayor, the school principal, and the communal General Secretary formed a commission to study construction of new sporting facilities. The mayor and the Prefect then funded the construction of new football fields, long jump pits, basketball courts, and volleyball courts. The construction cost 350,000 francs. It was paid for in large part through a partnership between the national and the local state. Following the completion of these facilities, Jean Borotra, the head of the Sports Ministry, called the town an ‘example to which to aspire’. Declarations of support followed from the Prefect of the Seine, Charles Magny, and the mayor of the village, Monsieur Mege.102 Immediately sent out all across France, the pamphlet could soon be found on the desks of other prefects, mayors, principals, and club presidents. The Sports Ministry’s effort to build a field, a track, and a pool in every commune started strongly, but finished in ignominy. An

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article published in Tous les sports on 10 January 1942 noted that more than ‘6,300 communities had expressed their desire for a sporting field’.103 On 1 January 1942, there were at least 475 projects in construction across metropolitan France.104 The number was likely even higher because several departments including the Seine, Cher, Gironde, and the Saône-et-Loire either did not respond to requests to submit detailed information on any new building of athletic facilities or only turned in partial statistics. The ramping up of the state’s programme was especially visible in the Haute Garonne, where between 1940 and 1942 construction started on thirty-seven new athletic installations. In the year 1943 alone, sixty-two new constructions started in the same region.105 By the end of 1943, the construction of new sports facilities in France had reached its peak. Despite their successes, the Sports Ministry’s construction boom proceeded unevenly across the country. Some communes, notably those in the departments of the Seine, the Basses and Haute Pyrénées, the Loire and the Indre, demanded, started, and completed a large number of new development projects. These projects helped those departments at a time when unemployment, especially among young adult men, was high. Other departments only slowly received any attention. By the end of 1941 many departments, including Landes, the Corrèze, the Puy-de-Dôme, and most of the Nord region, still had no projects under construction.106 Efforts were also hampered by slow construction. By 1943, many departments had not finished a single new sporting space, including the departments of the Meuse, the Ardennes, and the Vosges.107 Perhaps still reeling from the depredations and destruction of two Occupations, these vulnerable departments were unable to raise enough revenue to meet the 50 per cent joint funding required by the Sports Ministry for projects. They were also more likely to suffer from German requisitioning, especially since these regions lay close to both the Atlantic Wall in the North and the Siegfried Line to the East. Rural areas were less likely to receive funding or attention. Despite Vichy’s rhetoric of renewal through reconnection to the outdoors, most spending on physical education and sports happened in big cities like Paris, Lyon, and Marseille.108 A graphic representation of the construction, produced by the Sports Ministry, shows vividly the successes and the failures as peaks and valleys.109 Some communities benefited

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immensely from Vichy’s largesse while others suffered from the realities of the Occupation. For three years, the growing interest of French people in physical education and sports dovetailed with the Vichy Government’s increased commitment of money, energy, and resources to the construction of physical cultural installations. By the end of 1943, local demands had outpaced the state’s ability to fund new projects, especially because the Germans were requisitioning ever larger amounts of French building materials and workers. The money dispersed by the Sports Ministry declined even as the value of the franc plummeted more than 25 per cent. Thus, while in 1942 the Ministry spent more than 80 million francs on new building construction and handed out subventions for building in excess of 65 million to local communities, by 1943 those large numbers had decreased to 80.5 million and 42 million respectively.110 The Sports Ministry did not produce statistics for 1944 because of the collapse of the Vichy Government, so it is hard to say for certain, but it seems likely that the vast majority of the new constructions were not completed before the Liberation. The overall supply of concrete, wood, and steel dipped in 1944 as the Germans seized more French construction materials through their Organisation Todt than ever before to finish their fortifications along the Atlantic Wall. Many of the planned new facilities in Paris never came to fruition. Only 64 of the proposed 273 projects in the Seine region commenced in 1943, and of those only 18 were finished. In other departments with large numbers of new projects, few construction projects ended in 1943 and there is reason to believe those projects started were never finished. It is probable that the department of the Gironde, which had 63 projects under construction and only 5 nearing completion, was unable to finish all their construction before the summer of 1944.111 When Allied forces arrived in French towns, they discovered unfinished complexes disfiguring the landscape. Incomplete fields, stadiums, and gymnasiums once again suffered damage from military occupation. The incoming provisional Government and the Resistance press attacked the Vichy regime for the unfinished athletic facilities. ‘There was a characteristic case of negligence in sports construction’, the Liberation newspaper Almanach de sprint alleged. ‘In Villeurbanne … on an important street, well served by public transit, there is an

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abandoned stadium. … The credits were allocated by the [Sports Ministry] … but [Pascot] did nothing about it. … Everything went by the wayside.’ 112 When the Free French forces eventually got around to detailing the inventory of France’s athletic capital, they reported on the devastation wrought by Vichy’s ambitious overreach and commented that Vichy had brought about the ruination of France’s physical education and sports facilities. For both the French republican Government and the postwar sporting press, the decaying partial constructions symbolised the failure of Vichy. A fairer characterisation, however, might recognise that events of the war overtook Vichy’s building efforts.

Conclusion The ambitious scope of Vichy physical education and sports reforms could only be achieved at high financial cost. Vichy Sports Ministry officials dispensed between 1.5 billion and 1.9 billion francs annually from 1940 until 1944.113 A widely distributed government circular railed against the costliness of their efforts: the [CGEGS] intends a very extensive programme of services. … M. Borotra … doubling exactly those functionaries already existing in the public instructions; next to the Rector, for example, a functionary of physical education of the same grade and so on from the top to the bottom of the ladder. … The creation of this new corps raises difficulties from the point of view of finances. … All of these applications raise an irreducible opposition in the Finance Ministry.114

Officials also spent lavishly on new athletic facilities. In 1943, the CGEGS spent 480 million francs on the development of athletic installations in France; in 1944, only a partial year, the total spent on development of installations had barely shrunk at around 342 million francs.115 A significant amount of money flowed down to sporting associations in the form of subventions for construction. The organisation also spent 10 million francs annually on propaganda. These vast sums were evidence of the Sports Ministry’s importance to Vichy officials who believed that to re-establish France’s place in Europe, they needed to reinvest in youth physical education. France suffered significant deficits in the number of teachers specialising in

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physical education and sports and in the density of athletic installations. To solve these problems, the Vichy state enacted an ambitious programme to organise and develop the sporting culture of the nation through teacher training and infrastructure construction. These programmes resulted in several notable successes. Schools such as the École Normale d’Éducation Physique taught thousands of new teachers who worked across France in schools and sporting associations. The money devoted to sporting installation construction allowed communities to design and build hundreds of new sports facilities around France. The accomplishments of its teacher-training and facilities construction policies demonstrated Vichy’s ability to balance the needs of its ambitious programme with a rational understanding of its capabilities. On the other hand, Sports Ministry administrators faced significant resistance, both material and philosophical, as the war continued. By 1942, the penury of the Occupation and the growing demands for labour from the Germans made it difficult for Vichy to continue to provide as much support for physical education programmes. Although Vichy’s officials claimed that their policies were revolutionary, the physical cultural National Revolution borrowed extensively from the Popular Front even as they attacked its legacy. Officials mobilised the intellectual and physical resources already put into place by the Third Republic, in particular the Popular Front, to effectuate changes more quickly and efficiently. Popular Front Minister Léo Lagrange had established a bureaucratic framework for understanding physical education and sports, but he did not have the resources or authority to confront the rising influence of professional sports, and particularly professional football. The Popular Front could also not even consider undermining forty years of independence in associational life. The defeat produced a situation where Vichy could envision doing more than any previous regime, even though they still limited themselves to some extent. When Vichy administrators came to power in the uncertain autumn of 1940, they adopted the mission and means, and, as we shall see, the curriculum and the language, of the Secrétariat d’État aux Sports et à l’Organisation des Loisirs. The training of thousands of new teachers and the construction of hundreds of athletic installations were as much a realisation of the dreams of Jean Zay and Léo Lagrange as Jean Borotra and Joseph Pascot. Even the new sporting

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facilities of Vichy’s exemplary commune, Saint-Mandé, resulted from the reforms started in the 1930s. In building upon, rather than dismantling, the athletic agendas of the Popular Front, the Vichy regime produced continuities from the 1930s through to the 1950s. A study published in conjunction with an exhibit on Vichy sport at the Centre de Documentation Juive Contemporaine in 2011 showed that fewer than 4 per cent of officials and teachers affiliated with the Sports Ministry left their profession following the war.116 When they came to power during the Liberation, Gaullist education officials too cut corners to achieve the larger goals of maximal athletic education and participation despite their seemingly quite different ideological commitments. More importantly, Vichy’s reliance on the remnants of the republic created opportunities for organisations and individuals to reframe the National Revolution. Teachers used their position to counteract some of the uglier racial laws. Communities used the funding provided by the Équipement Sportif to build desired football stadiums instead of the prescribed terrains de hébertisme. These critiques of the National Revolution set the stage for larger acts of resistance later. In the following chapters, we will see how different sports stakeholders, including teachers, students, sporting federations, grand clubs, local associations, and resistance organisations accepted, rejected, challenged, accommodated, reframed, and reimagined the regime’s efforts at athletic development.

Notes 1 AN 44F2 ‘Rapport de la direction de la jeunesse et du Commissariat générale des sports’ (27 August 1940). 2 J.-L. Gay-Lescot, Sport et éducation sous Vichy (1940–1944) (Lyon: Presses universitaires de Lyon, 1991). See also, J.-L. Gay-Lescot, ‘Le Mouvement sportif et l’éducation physique scolaire en régime autoritaire: l’état français de Vichy (1940–1944)’, Sport histoire: Revue internationale des sports et des jeux 21 (1988), 23–54. 3 J.-P. Azéma, et al., La Politique du sport et de l’éducation physique en France pendant l’Occupation (Paris: L’INSEP, 2018). 4 For Vichy’s reliance on natural communities, see J.-P. Le Crom, ‘Helping the most needy: the role of the Secours National’, in L. Dodd and D. Lees (eds), Vichy France and Everyday Life: Confronting the Challenges

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of Wartime, 1939–1945 (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2018), pp. 102–104. 5 F. Terfous, ‘Sport et éducation physique sous le Front populaire et sous Vichy: approche comparative selon le genre’, STAPS 90:4 (2010), 49–58; L. Munoz, ‘Marie-Thérèse Eyquem (1913–1978) entre conformisme et innovations’, in P. Arnaud, T. Terret, et al. (eds), Le sport et les français pendant l’occupation, 1940–1944 (Paris, Harmattan, 2003), pp. 65–72. 6 R. Lewis, The Stadium Century: Sport, Spectatorship and Mass Society in Modern France (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2016), pp. 65–67. 7 Ibid., pp. 65–67. 8 Ibid., pp. 65–67. 9 J. Jackson, France: The Dark Years, 1940–1944 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), pp. 244–245. 10 Ibid., pp. 244–245. 11 H. Rousso, ‘L’Impact du régime sur la société: ses dimensions et limites’, in J.-P. Azéma and F. Bédarida (eds), Le Regime de Vichy et les Français (Paris: Fayard, 1992), pp. 588–589. 12 See, R. Lewis, ‘Crowd control: transforming stadium spectatorship in interwar France’, Proceedings of the Western Society for French History 35 (2007), 219–232 and R. Lewis, ‘“A civic tool of modern times”: politics, mass society, and the stadium in twentieth century France’, French Historical Studies 34:1 (2011), 155–184. 13 D. Peschanski, ‘Vichy singular and plural’, in S. Fishman, R. Zaretksy, et al. (eds), France at War: Vichy and the Historians (New York: Berg, 2000), pp. 108–109. 14 Ibid., pp. 108–109. 15 P. Mauroy, Léo Lagrange (Paris: Denoël, 1997), p. 72. 16 AN 44F2 ‘Projet de décret’ (31 October 1940). 17 Gay-Lescot, Sport et éducation sous Vichy, p. 22. AN 44F32 ‘Sports – list of laws’ (undated, but after 15 March 1944). 18 For more information on Borotra, see D. Amson, Borotra: de Wimbledon à Vichy (Paris: Tallandier, 1999); J.Smyth, Jean Borotra, the Bounding Basque: His Life of Work and Play (London: Stanley Paul, 1974); and A. Bernard, Jean Borotra (Paris: Berger-Levrault, 1955). 19 AN 17F14461 ‘Sketch of the CGEGS’ (undated). 20 AN 44F2 ‘Projet de décret’ (31 October 1940). 21 AN 17F14461 ‘Schema of the CGEGS’ (undated). 22 Gay-Lescot, Sport et éducation sous Vichy, p. 13. 23 AN 44F120 ‘Document pour les jeunes – La FFF par Henri Delaunay’ (undated).

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24 Y. Lasnier, Léo Lagrange: l’artisan du temps libre: textes choisis (Paris: Mémoires du socialisme, 2007), p. 105. 25 AN 69AJ2 ‘Le Ministère de l’Éducation nationale à M. le Rector de l’Academie de Paris’ (27 May 1939). 26 Gay-Lescot, Sport et éducation sous Vichy, p. 25. 27 For a longer discussion on the debate between a jeunesse unique and an ecumenical physical cultural geography, see D. Lee, Pétain’s Jewish Children: French Jewish Youth and the Vichy Regime, 1940–1942 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), pp. 48–53. 28 AN 44F2 ‘Letter from Henri Pugibet to unknown’ (7 December 1940). 29 AN 44F37 Maurice Gorjux, ‘Où va la jeunesse francaise? Unité par la diversité’ (undated). 30 Ibid. 31 AN 72AJ1860 ‘Commentaire de Jean Borotra sur la Charte des sports’ (8 April 1941). 32 Foyers in the original. Ibid. 33 ADL 81W1 series. See also, K. Rathbone, ‘Athletes for France or athletes for the Church: conflict between sports officials and Catholic sportsmen during the Vichy Regime (1940–1944)’, French History 33:1 (March 2019), 88–109. 34 BDIC, Q pièce 5083 ‘Charte des sports’ (1941). 35 AN 72AJ1860 ‘Encore un mesure négative’ (19 April 1941). 36 Ibid. 37 Ibid. 38 Ibid. 39 Gay-Lescot, Sport et éducation sous Vichy, p. 29. 40 AN 17F14461 ‘Note de service’ (12 December 1940) and AN 72AJ1860 ‘Neuf mille monitors constituent les cadres’ (undated). 41 AN 44F14 ‘Note pour le commissariat régional au travail des jeunes de Languedoc’ (23 March 1942). 42 AN 72AJ1860 ‘Encore une mesure négative’ (19 April 1941). 43 AN 44F2 Jean Labrit, ‘La Vie universitaire – Le Sport universitaire’ (undated). 44 ‘Un An de travail: Première résultats’ (A year of work: first results) Tous les sports, 7 August 1941. 45 For more on physical education and sports and republicanism, see R. Chrastil, Organizing for War: France, 1870–1914 (Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 2010) and P. Arnaud, Les Athlètes de la République: gymnastique, sport et idéologie républicaine, 1870–1914 (Paris: Harmattan, 1997). 46 J.-M. Barreau, Vichy contre l’école de la République (Paris: Flammarion, 2001), p. 28.

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47 Gay-Lescot, Sport et éducation sous Vichy, p. 17. 48 AN 72AJ1860 ‘Neuf mille monitors constituent les cadres de l’organisation sportive français’ (undated). 49 Ibid. 50 AN 44F2 ‘Letter from M. Cherier (Délègue régional) to M. Georges Lamirand’ (27 November 1940). 51 AN 44F40 ‘École nationale d’Éducation physique et aux sports du temps de la 17e semaine du 21 au 26 Février 1944’ (undated). 52 Ibid. ‘Le Nord-Est: Le Centre régional d’Éducation physique et aux sports de l’Académie de Paris à Reims à fête son deuxième anniversaire’ (22 September 1943). 53 ‘Le Nord-Est: Le Centre régional d’Éducation physique et aux sports de l’Académie de Paris à Reims à fête son deuxième anniversaire’ (22 September 1943). 54 AN 44F32 ‘Fonctionnement de l’école de cadres spécialisée de moniteurs d’éducation physique de Bagatelle’ (undated). 55 AN 44F58 ‘Jeunesse Franciste Circulaire #137’ (10 September 1942). 56 AN 17F14462 ‘Pour aider à la réalisation du programme nationale des terrains’ (undated). 57 Ibid. 58 AN 44F2 ‘Camille B’ (undated). 59 AN 44F2 ‘Pierre C’ (undated). 60 AN 44F120 ‘Document pour les jeunes’. All professional- and international-level athletes were co-opted into Vichy’s educational agenda in this manner. Olympic athletes also became ‘Moniteurolympiques’ and performed a similar propaganda/teacher function. AN 44F43 ‘Titre du monitor-olympique’ (undated). 61 ‘Demain les monitors diffuseront’ (Tomorrow the coaches head out) Football, 23 July 1942. 62 ADL 81W1 ‘Letter from Paul Cousigne, special police officer from the Sûreté Nationale, to the police commissioner in Mont de Marsan, Landes, France’ (16 August 1941). 63 CDJC IV-B-SA 224 ‘Enquête’ (20 April 1943). 64 Ibid. 65 ‘Un An de travail: première résultats’ (A year of work: first results) Tous les sports, 9 August 1941. 66 CDJC, ‘Lettre du Commissariat général aux question juives au commissaire général aux sports, l’informant que la pratique sportive n’est pas interdite aux jeunes Juifs de l’Union générale des israélites dans la mesure où ils ne sont pas en contact avec des non-Juifs’ (13 September 1941–3 October 1941). 67 Gay-Lescot, Sport et éducation sous Vichy, p. 13.

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68 Lewis, ‘“A civic tool of modern times”’, p. 160. 69 ‘Dans chaque bourg un terrain de sport’ (A sports field in each city) Tous les sports, 2 August 1941. 70 AN 44F33 ‘Déclaration des locaux et terrains de sports, bassins de natation, et piscines’ (10 July 1941). 71 AN 17F14464 ‘Note pour la direction générale à l’attention de M. Gasnier’ (undated). 72 AN 17F14464 ‘Note pour la Direction de l’Éducation générale’ (undated). 73 AN 17F14465 ‘Schéma du circuit administratif d’un dossier d’aménagement définitif’ (undated). 74 AN 44F33 ‘Loi N.274 du Février 1942 relative au régime des avances au comité nationale des sports, aux fédérations et aux associations sportives’ (February 1942). 75 Ibid. AN44F33 ‘Note pour M. le Secrétaire Général’ (15 July 1942). 76 AN 17F14462 ‘Circulaire relative aux travaux d’équipement sportif’ (20 January 1941). 77 AN 17F14463 ‘Letter from Le Commissaire à la reconstruction immobilier to Monsieur le Ministre secrétaire d’État à l’économie nationale à aux finances, Secrétariat générale pour les finances publiques’ (17 March 1941). 78 AN 1714463 ‘Projet de loi’ (28 February 1941). 79 RCF Archives ‘Assemble générale de la Racing club de France’ (1944). 80 ADSM 1W31 ‘Letter from the Commisaire générale à l’Éducation générale et aux sports to the Prefect de Seine-et-Marne’ (21 January 1942). 81 Ibid. 82 AN 72AJ1860 ‘Agence France: Nouvelles sportive’ (26 March 1941). 83 BNF 4-V Pièce-10201 Instituteurs de France … Vous Répondrez a leur appel: Commissariat Général de l’Éducation générale et aux sports ‘Dans chaque commune des installations appropriées’ (1941). 84 AN 17F14465 ‘Type E1’ (undated). 85 AN 17F14462 ‘Note’ (14 August 1940). 86 ‘Pour la création de terrains de jeux et de bassins’ (For the creation of playing fields and pools) Tous les sports, 26 July 1941. 87 Ibid. 88 Ibid. ‘Comment réaliser une baignade’ (How to make a swimming area) Tous les sports, 26 July 1941. 89 AN 17F14465 ‘Map’ (undated). 90 AN 72AJ1826 J. Chautard, ‘Le Parc Pétain sera le Bois de Boulogne de la région nord de Paris’ (undated). 91 ‘Trois terrains des sports termines, huit seront à la fin de l’année’ (Three sporting fields are finished, eight will be [finished] at the end of the year) L’Auto, 20 September 1941.

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92 CASG Archives 1049. ‘Letter from CASG to the prefect’ (20 July 1942) ‘Letter from CASG to the prefect’ (16 September 1942). 93 Ibid. ‘Letter from M. Bernard to the CASG in Paris’ (12 September 1942). 94 AN 17F14462 ‘Projets du caractère national ou régional actuellement en cours d’études’ (7 June 1943). 95 AN 44F3 ‘Directives du Commissaire General Concernant l’Instruction’ (6 March 1941). 96 AN 44F32 ‘Carnets de l’économie: l’aménagement des colonies de vacances’ (July 1939). 97 AN 17F14462 ‘Letter from the CGEGS to M.G. Delamare Debouteville, the Vice-Président d’honneur des associations des sports généraux français de Poissy’ (1944). 98 AN 17F14462 ‘Note pour Monsieur le Commissaire générale’ (1 April 1944). 99 Ibid. 100 AN MFILM 16-LK7–47750 ‘Une Expérience, un exemple’ (undated). 101 Ibid. 102 Ibid. 103 ‘L’Édifice sportive s’élève’ (The sports ediface rises) Tous les sports, 10 January 1942. 104 AN 17F14465 ‘État d’avancement de travaux d’Équipement sportif au 1er janvier 1942’. 105 AN 17F14465 ‘Tableau d’avancement des travaux d’équipement sportif’ (1943). 106 AN 17F14465 ‘Map of Vichy’s physical education and sports projects’ (1941). 107 Ibid. ‘Tableau d’Avancement des travaux d’Équipement sportif’ (1943). 108 AN 17F14465 ‘Graphique d’avancement des travaux’ (July 1943). 109 Ibid. 110 AN 44F109 ‘Note’ (1943). 111 Ibid. 112 ‘Pour les plus grands biens du sport’ (For sport’s greatest good) Almanach de sprint, 19 November 1944. 113 Gay-Lescot, Sport et éducation sous Vichy, p. 30. 114 AN 44F2 ‘Circulaire’ (undated). 115 AN 44F109 ‘Comptabilité’ (1943); 44F110 ‘Comptabilité’ (1944). 116 European Sport under Nazism: From the Olympic Games of Berlin to the London Olympics, 1936–1948 (Condé-sur-Noireau: Corlet, 2011).

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3 Playground politics, childhood disobedience, and Vichy’s National Revolution

On 7 December 1940, the sportsman Henri Pugibet complained to the Secretary of Youth about young French men. When he looked across the Rhine, he envied how young German boys, ‘with such joy and enthusiasm, accomplish their work, whatever it is, because they know that they work for their country’.1 By contrast, ‘the dirty spirit of the middle class French’, he moaned, made people into ‘children … who think of nothing’.2 Boys watched too many movies. They ate cake three times a week. He hoped France’s shocking 1940 defeat would act as a catalyst for a rejuvenation of physical culture and create a brilliant new generation that ‘longed for revenge’.3 Between 1940 and 1944, educational reformers, including Pugibet, focused their attention on France’s youth because they believed that only the physical rejuvenation of boys’ and girls’ bodies promised to reverse the nation’s international decline.4 They protested that French youth might have been every bit the intellectual equals of their neighbours, but their falling birth rates, terrible athletic performances, and rapid defeat on the battlefield proved that they were physically and morally inferior. As Nicholas Atkins recognised, ‘in 1940 it was fashionable … to criticize state education … for its bookishness … it was alleged, the programmes of both primary and secondary schools had become too vast and encyclopaedic … they had failed to provide an “education” in a wider sense of the term’.5 A quick glance around France in 1940 appeared to support these views; perhaps young people were improperly educated, trained, and motivated. While French youth could recite classic poetry, they

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also suffered higher rates of unemployment, heightened levels of physical impairment and sickness, and engaged in more acts of juvenile delinquency than the German soldiers marching down Paris’s wide boulevards at the time.6 To rejuvenate French youth physically, mentally, and morally, Vichy officials in the Sports Ministry, the Commissariat Général à l’Éducation Générale et aux Sports, revised the state’s general education curriculum. Their new curriculum unified intellectual, physical, and moral education with the aim of forming ‘Vichy Men’ and ‘Vichy Women’, who would reassert French greatness.7 Although their programme sounded similar to plans in Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany, the Vichy regime borrowed heavily from Third Republic practices. The state’s gymnastics curricula, a central piece of the interwar éducation générale, represented an outgrowth of school physical education in the 1930s and responded to widespread interwar debates about French fitness in the context of rising concerns about German aggression. Questions about hygiene, physical health, and military preparedness, which were crucial to governments during the Third Republic, remained at the forefront of the Vichy administrators’ minds. Écoles primaires, collèges, lycées, and youth institutions such as the Chantiers de la Jeunesse were the principal sites where French youth engaged in physical cultural activities. Most young French boys and girls were introduced to physical education and sport in schools where the redevelopment of young French people was a gendered project aiming to masculinise or feminise their charges.8 In her work, Reign of Virtue, Miranda Pollard examines Vichy’s education policy to ‘understand better the National Revolution’s agenda for French society, specifically how and why it sought to form and train its future citizens differently from its Republican predecessors’.9 Her analysis focuses on the ways in which Vichy privileged male youth and a masculinist vision of renewal; however, Pollard dramatically underestimates how much Vichy’s National Revolution borrowed, both in conception and in practice, from the Third Republic, and in particular the Popular Front. Vichy’s concerns over the health, strength, and virility of young males were also at the forefront of the Third Republic’s concerns. As in the Third Republic, during the Vichy regime teachers taught gymnastics to the sexes separately because they wanted young men

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and women to develop different physical, mental, and emotional traits. Physical education and sports could produce masculine traits in young boys, such as strength, intelligence, speed, obedience, team spiritedness, and service to the country. Girls needed similar attributes, along with grace, charm, and maternal instincts. Physical education and sports education remained especially important for the development of these virtues, and it was through physical culture that boys were to learn how to rehabilitate the French state with their bodies, either as soldiers or as labourers, in the context of a new, Germandominated Europe. By contrast, physical education exercises such as gymnastics and rhythmic dancing prepared girls to live healthy lives in healthy bodies, support their husbands, and mother a whole new generation of Vichy youth. At the same time, if Vichy education reformers borrowed heavily from the Third Republic, they also attempted to oversee their work in a range of novel ways. Vichy’s éducation générale programme relied on increasingly strict policing, observation, measurement, and control.10 Government circular memorandums commanded teachers to use common lesson plans, including naturalistic games, gymnastics exercises, team sports, outdoor education, and dancing. Teachers formally categorised their pupils as fort, moyen, or faible, and students received different training depending on their physical condition, gender, and stage of life. Administrators intended this overarching system, which accounted for the individual while also supplying a regimented national curriculum, to work together holistically to improve the physical, intellectual, and moral character of all students. In other words, Vichy’s physical educational programme both borrowed from and extended the essentially Foucauldian enterprise of the previous republican system, which had aimed to mould young people into ideal state servants.11 The historical evidence produced in these enterprises, including memorandums, reports, and lesson plans, naturally privileged the understanding of state functionaries; consequently, the ways in which individuals and organisations inside schools understood, contested, and transformed the meaning of the éducation générale remain obscured. The state’s programme appears in the myriad curricular guides distributed to schools, public memorandums issued from the Ministry of Sport and the Ministry of Education, and in reports produced by school administrators, but

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generally the voices and agency of ordinary people only become visible by reading against the grain of these same sources. Few people involved in the system on the ground, especially students, made their views on school athletics clear, although there are a few notable diaries.12 The quotidian quality of physical education – even unremarkable in the context of the war and Occupation – further limited the number and value of sources available. Despite the thinness of evidence produced by ordinary people within Vichy educational institutions, the sources that are available serve to illustrate the complexity of young people’s physical cultural lives during Vichy. It may have been easier for Vichy’s physical educational officials to implement the athletic reforms begun during the Popular Front, a movement seen in other youth ventures, including the transformation of the juvenile justice system.13 On the other hand, a close reading of the available evidence indicates that the Vichy physical education and sports practices in schools, universities, and youth camps often ran contrary to the expressed desires of parents, teachers, and students. To achieve their individual ambitions, needs, and wants, French people challenged Vichy’s programmes. Instead of accommodating themselves to the state’s curriculum, teachers abandoned assigned lesson plans, parents complained about over-exercise, and students misbehaved. Both boys and girls contested the gendered identities that were being foisted upon them. In their disobedience, many young athletes found spaces of agency and freedom where they could rewrite their lessons to suit their personal desires. Vichy’s attempt to control and frame almost every aspect of public life, including physical education, inevitably turned many French people into rule breakers, producing what Roderick Kedward called a ‘culture of the outlaw’. Outlaw culture embodied ‘the conviction that established law has exceeded its rights and has itself become illegal, so that real authority, real justice and legitimacy, now lie with those who have technically become outlaws’.14 The everyday disregard for the state’s physical education pedagogy, exhibited by children, parents, and teachers, exceeded normal misbehaviour. Their quotidian disobedience, innocuous on the surface, undermined a major area of Vichy social planning, contributing significantly to the failure of this aspect of the National Revolution, and highlighting the limits of Vichy’s authoritarianism.

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Practice makes perfect: from naturalistic play to the natural method In Vichy Boyhood: An Inside View of the Pétain Regime, Pascal Jardin reminisces about the war games he played with friends. The boys broke into two large ‘troops’, retreated to their ‘headquarters’, and armed themselves with makeshift ‘guns’. Prized weapons fired stones of various sizes, and one of Pascal’s neighbours, Titi, the son of the village carpenter, had a deviously inventive mind. He devised impressive weapons, including an improvised ‘machine gun’ that launched a dozen stones at a time. The armed sides engaged in pitched ‘battles’, which often included ‘attacks’, ‘bombardments’, and ‘assaults’.15 These games and the language used to describe them, aped real violence and mirrored combat narratives from the wartime press. The stones were dangerous and some of the weapons, made from discarded tyre rubber and elastic, shot rocks at high velocity to a range as far as thirty metres. During one attack, for example, the other ‘gang’ pinned down Jardin and Titi with a barrage of rocks. A stone split Titi’s eye. He was lucky not to be blinded. Rocks rained down on Jardin’s helmet, bruised his ear, and crushed the nail of his thumb, which turned black. A tiny bush, thrown by another boy, became lodged in the visor of his helmet. Still covered in blood, Titi rushed to his aid, pulled out the shrub so that Jardin could see, and returned fire with his ‘machine gun’, to disperse the other ‘troop’ and save ‘his men’.16 The violent conduct and the warlike language of Jardin’s games demonstrate how neighbourhood play helped French boys perform their masculinity in relatively safe settings despite the difficulty and humiliation of the Occupation. These games were miniature laboratories in which children re-envisioned French maleness, and Jardin himself remembered those war games as providing him with ‘a rough draft’ of the man he was to become.17 Such neighbourhood play happened in alleys, open fields, and sitting rooms around the country and this genre of impromptu make-believe game probably constituted the most common form of wartime physical activity. It made up an important part of the day-to-day life of ordinary French boys and girls during the Occupation. Popular games included mock-combat operations, hospital, hide-and-seek, and games centred on food fantasies.

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Vichy officials viewed these unstructured activities ambivalently. On one hand, they encouraged boys and girls to be physically active, but that same freedom and spontaneity made it hard for the state to mobilise, categorise, observe, and police them. The regime still tried to control play through their distribution of propagandistic toys and children’s press, but much of children’s home play was ‘much less malleable than Vichy had thought or hoped’.18 Sports Ministry officials wanted to harness the energy of free play for themselves, and they soon realised that to achieve their goals they would need enough structure to inculcate specific values. Neighbourhood games were far too unfocused, whereas the regime’s physical education and sports curriculum offered reformers the chance to systematically prepare children for adulthood by making them strong and moral people. Between 1940 and 1944, in an effort to transform play into a state tool, Vichy administrators instituted a mandatory and extensively regulated physical education regimen across France’s educational institutions, designed specifically to further the physical and moral development of French students. They markedly increased the number of hours per week in which students were engaged in structured physical education or sport. To deal with the problems of teaching a far-flung and diverse student body, the Sports Ministry and the Youth Ministry conceived the idea of a uniform set of physical education and sports practices, calibrated to French education at all levels, sporting associations, and the Chantiers de la Jeunesse. The move towards a comprehensive physical cultural programme corresponded with the Vichy Government’s stated position on total reform, which imagined changing society from the ground up through the creation of a new ‘Vichy Man’.19 In order to create their new man, Vichy administrators outlined explicit and reciprocal responsibilities and duties that would exist between the Government and the youth of France. Albert Rivaud, Vichy’s first Minister of Education, articulated those obligations in the first article of the ‘Loi sur l’organisation de la jeunesse française’, which stated that: ‘French youth must be prepared for their task in reconstructing the country’.20 In order to do so, boys and girls had to participate actively in the National Revolution. They needed to ‘exalt the national spirit, the attachment of France, to the Empire and to French tradition’.21 Vichy officials hoped that widespread participation in athletics would promote balanced and strong bodies, minds, and moral characters. A 1941 school physical education guide, entitled ‘Les

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Activités d’éducation générale’, gave ‘the necessary orientation to the educators who were to be charged to lead the activities of the general education curriculum’.22 It encouraged ‘an individual to acquire’ physical traits valued by the regime, such as ‘strength, resistance, speed [and] dexterity’.23 French officials, however, also understood that physical culture produced not only healthy bodies but also, and more importantly, healthy minds. Physical exertion gave students ‘willpower, perseverance, mastery of oneself, taste for effort [and] discipline’, because one had to be mentally tough not to give up after several hours a week of tiring physical conditioning.24 Here Sports Ministry officials borrowed from the Catholic doctrine of mens sana in corpore sano, which held that healthy bodies sustained healthy minds. This Catholic understanding of physical culture permeated France such that popular advice columns in sports newspapers freely mixed bromides on physical activity, health, and moral dictates. A pamphlet produced by the Sports Ministry, which was directed broadly at all sportsmen and -women, entitled ‘25 Commandments for the Young Athlete’, liberally mixed health and workout advice, such as ‘A real athlete sleeps with the windows open … and avoids alcohol’, with moral advice, such as ‘Be loyal, always play fair. Try to respect your adversaries. Never forget you play for the team, not for yourself. Be strong to better serve. Put strength in the service of an ideal and to help the weaker.’ 25 French reformers thought that with new powerful bodies, capable minds, and good character, young men and women would reassert France’s place in Nazi-dominated Europe. All levels of French education during the Vichy regime required young people to do gymnastics, track and field exercises, and outdoor education. Raymond Roussennac, who was seven years old in the autumn of 1940, remembered that in his école, gym teachers taught mostly gymnastics and track and field.26 Gymnastics appealed to French physical culturalists because the exercises replicated natural movements, were measurable, modern and scientific, and were already in widespread use in schools and the Army. Vichy officials could also call upon a distinctly French form of gymnastics, which was designed specifically to improve French bodies. In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, many nations in continental Europe developed nationally specific gymnastics methods; for example, the

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Swedish Gymnastic Method and Turnvater Gymnastics in Germany. Georges Hébert, a naval officer and physical education teacher, invented a French gymnastics style called the méthode naturelle, which was based in part on the natural gestures the body made habitually. Popularity of his natural method spread across the country following the publication of his guidebooks in 1907, 1910, and 1912. In the interwar period, his gymnastics method was a common if not always compulsory practice in French schools.27 Vichy officials preferred the so-called hébertist method because it enabled them to precisely manage the kind of physical education that students received; during wartime it became the de-facto national plan. Circulars distributed to the schools ensured that physical education teachers understood how to teach hébertist gymnastics.28 They included extensive descriptions and images illustrating the correct natural method movements.29 Students across the country engaged in the same types of exercises. Typical sessions included walking, running, jumping, quadrupedal movement, climbing, balancing, lifting, defending, and swimming. Students followed the teacher and executed the gymnastics movements at a moderate pace for between forty minutes and an hour with minimal stopping. Officials supplemented hébertist gymnastics exercises with outdoor education, which combined physical activity with the health benefits of fresh air, clean water, and sunshine. Every Wednesday across France, teachers would guide their pupils out into the countryside on vigorous walks. Local landmarks or geological features provided a touchstone for a historical lecture. A variety of flora and fauna presented the students with the sight of nature at work. Rural schools offered better opportunities for their students to get outside, but students in cities also rode on buses out to parks in the countryside. In Paris, the students took the Metro to the Bois de Boulogne and the Bois de Vincennes.30 Even poor weather did not dissuade their avid teachers. ‘The sky is cloud covered and rain threatens, but that doesn’t matter. Under the instruction of their usual teachers, the students of Saint-Mandé [went] out in good order to the field where they got good muscles and lungs.’ 31 Besides gymnastics, Vichy officials ordered schools to teach track and field exercises, because they also provided a ‘base of sporting education’ in schools.32 French interest in track and field events arose in the context of the Olympic Games revival in 1894. French

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Figure 3.1  Pedagogical handbook for primary schools featuring hébertist exercises

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supporters of the modern Olympics movement, such as Pierre de Coubertin, idealised the classical physiques of Greek and Roman statuary and sought to emulate the ancients’ methods and competitions. Vichy officials agreed with Coubertin about the importance of track and field drills, and they also hoped the body of the Vichy Man would share attributes with his ancient ideal. In another pamphlet distributed to schools, they argued that the ancient competitions ‘restored to an individual his natural qualities and shaped the human being into an ideal type’.33 Beginning at a young age, but increasing in vigour once the youth reached the age of twelve, French schoolchildren spent hours during the Vichy regime running races and throwing discuses, shotputs, and javelins. By contrast, despite their obvious popularity among school-aged boys, team sports such as football and rugby played only a small role in the state’s curriculums. The definitive guide for physical education teachers during the wartime, Les activités d’éducation générale, contained few prescriptive sentences on team sports: Initiation to team sports, starting with a general preparation in physical education, begins through the exercises and through simple team games. It leads, until twelve years old, to the practical study of sports themselves (football, rugby, field hockey), but on smaller fields, the materials themselves adapted to smaller children. … At the age of twelve, the games can start to be practised on fields and with material conforming to the rules of the federations.34

The limitation of team sports to students over the age of twelve meant that a smaller percentage of the student body, namely students in their final years of collèges and lycées, enjoyed France’s most popular sporting activities in schools. Vichy officials limited the importance of team sports in their general education curriculum because sports were unpredictable. Winning and losing sent conflicting messages about effort. Team sports also attracted large followings outside the control of schools, among local sporting associations and large professional clubs, which undermined the state’s dialogue about amateurism, competition, and effort. The limited training that gymnastics instructors received in football and rugby reflected these sports’ secondary status in the general education curriculum. The schedules of teacher-training schools reveal that teacher-trainees spent little time practising team sports strategies

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and techniques. In 1941, the curriculum for the École Nationale d’Éducation Physique et aux Sports only required teachers to study football for twenty-eight hours over the course of a semester.35 They learned more about dancing, rhythmic movement, and wrestling. In the 1943–1944 school year, the number of lessons on football decreased to three sessions a semester. On 21 February 1944, for example, teachers spent one hour learning football techniques; they spent more time on Roman physical education, folkloric dance, swimming, and gymnastics.36 Consequently, when these new teachers arrived in schools, they were unqualified to teach football to their students. Teenagers interested in playing team sports could participate through the Union du Sport Scolaire et Universitaire (USSU), a state-sponsored scholastic organisation that governed, organised, and monitored the popular team sports. Once again, the Vichy sports programmes built upon the Third Republic’s work: the USSU was formed from the Popular Front-era Office du Sport Scolaire et Universitaire. Operating out of secondary schools and universities, the goal of the USSU was the ‘organisation and development of the practice of sports outside of the hours of scholarship’.37 Tens of thousands of students in French schools affiliated with it, organised school teams, and competed in an interscholastic athletic competition. The most widely practised sport was football. Large numbers of students also enjoyed basketball. The raw numbers of athletes voluntarily engaged in after-school sports suggest that football, rugby, and basketball were considerably more popular than hébertisme, which attracted a negligible number of after-school participants. The popularity of these team sports helped the USSU federation to grow significantly during the Vichy era, from around a thousand affiliated schools before the Second World War to more than two thousand in the summer of 1942. There were more than 740 boys’ basketball teams, 723 football teams, and dozens of handball, hockey, and volleyball teams. Competitions favoured by the Vichy regime, such as track and field, were less common.38 The number of students who wanted to play team sports was probably even higher because games like football, rugby, and netball were limited to young men, as physical activity during the Vichy regime, including the state’s mandatory gymnastics, track and field, and outdoor education, reinforced a rigid physical boundary between

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masculinity and femininity. As Miranda Pollard argues in Reign of Virtue, ‘within Vichy, sport meant moralizing and masculinist reform, aimed at underlining and strengthening sexual difference by forming men’.39 Although the requirements for boys and girls seemed similar at first glance, the tenor under which they competed meant that the lessons boys and girls learned tended to be quite different. Joffre Dumazedier, a teacher at Uriage and famed French sociologist of leisure, remarked on the higher tempo of masculine education. ‘Climbing, marching, jumping, living like beasts’, he said, helped boys ‘become men’.40 During outdoor education, teachers often let young boys wander, which ideally taught them to be leaders, unafraid to set off across the countryside unsupervised. The expectations set for female students were on a different level: girls participated in a larger number of athletic events than ever before, and also at a higher tempo, but the state preferred girls to engage in activities that would assist them in their future roles as wives and mothers. Advertising material produced by the Sports Ministry pushed rhythmic dancing, choral singing, and marching. It prohibited physical competitions such as football. An educational pamphlet for girls’ physical education emphasised women’s physical and moral subordination to men. As Auguste Champetier de Ribes’s A.B.C. de éducation féminine promised, ‘bashful girls would get over the embarrassment of their weak bodies’ once they agreed that they ‘know nothing’, but they would find happiness once they agreed to follow the teacher in their assigned exercises.41 It continued: ‘the weaker the body, the more it commands; the stronger the body, the more it listens’.42 These reduced requirements did not mean that female athletics was less critical to Vichy’s plans for national regeneration. Officials understood women’s physical education to be complementary to female bodies, to their roles as spouses, and to their duties to the state. In an article, ‘La femme et le sport’, Marie-Thérèse Eyquem, the highest-ranking woman in the Sports Ministry, explained the goal of female sports as being to: sharpen the physical joy of living, give to the body, with its elegance of form, the ease of manner that is grace and flexibility, and later, with the coming of age, preserve it; to give equilibrium to the feminine physique. It both completes the individual destiny of women and makes it possible for them to play their role in the destiny of the

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country, which is to say … only they are able to perpetuate and improve the race.43

Deliberate and graceful movements transformed French girls, perfected their bodies, made them better partners, and prepared them to serve the state as mothers. At the same time, the divergence between physical education for boys and girls only further exacerbated as students grew up. Adolescent boys in high school enjoyed an increasingly varied range of games and sports, but many female students also sought out ways in which they could demonstrate their physicality outside of Vichy’s system of rules. Female participation in basketball, a sport that featured limited physical contact, grew more rapidly than other forms of sports. Women continued to push their bodies to the limit in other sports such as track and swimming. Mayanne Jouvenel, a specialist in 400-metre freestyle swimming, set a French record in 1942 with a time of 5 minutes 44 seconds, and Monica Berlioux set new records in the 100-metre backstroke.44 Women may have participated in sporting life well beyond the limitations set by the state. Some all-female sporting associations and girls’ schools, even those apparently under the surveillance of Sports Ministry officials, received deliveries of football and rugby balls during the Vichy era.45 It remains unclear as to why these schools purchased such expensive sports materials unless the girls were actively participating in these sports, and thus it appears possible that some women played sports officially deemed unsuitable for them. The sexual division of physical culture in schools contributed to the larger Vichy policy of the construction of masculine and feminine ideals, but some young girls rejected the strictures of the ‘feminine’ bubble assigned to them.

Made to measure: Vichy oversight of physical culture in schools If it was the intention of Vichy officials for their general education curriculum to rejuvenate French boys and girls in specific ways, they needed to run a scientific, uniform, and precise athletic programme across France. Their lack of trust in the population’s wholehearted participation meant that they subjected students, teachers, principals, and local sports officials to significant observation, measurement,

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and surveillance. Sports Ministry administrators dreamed of placing their officials in every school, and the officials they did send worked diligently to ensure the maximum possible adherence to the state’s general education curriculum; however, the state lacked numbers of properly trained athletes. To overcome their deficiency, Vichy administrators passed down strict orders mandating the number of hours of physical education, providing mock lesson plans, and requiring high school graduates to pass the brevet sportif national (BSN). They imagined their efforts would produce physical consistencies across the country from Provence to the Nord-Pas-de-Calais, but their efforts were futile in the eyes of parents, teachers, and, most importantly, students, who rejected their inflexible policies. The Sports Ministry ensured common physical educational practices were enforced through the publication and distribution of circular memos. The foundational memo on physical education was sent out to schools in August 1940, shortly after the French capitulation. The ‘Plan for the Organisation of Physical Education and Sports in Education’ described a massive reinvestment into physical education in schools under the aegis of a watchful Sports Ministry. It explained that a ‘scholarly reform’ was necessary to effect a better ‘physical and moral education of the youth’. Sports gave people character: national character, including courage, energy, strength, vitality, and willpower. The purpose of this reform, then, was ‘to make French people’, to give to them ‘vigorous bodies and strong souls’, and to transform them ‘from citizens into elites’.46 The memo’s authors were not only concerned with grand policy, but also concentrated on the day-to-day workings of the schools and laid out explicit instructions for a more intensive focus on physical education.47 The order called for specific changes in the way athletic programmes were locally organised, including outlining the kinds of activities that teachers must teach. It also laid out three new sports diplomas (brevets) for students to study at elementary, secondary, and university level. Memos directed the number of hours of physical education in schools and required the Sports Ministry to hire new sports inspectors and physical education teachers. They also obliged schools to plan for the eventual construction of new athletic facilities, including sports fields, gymnasiums, and swimming pools. By addressing almost every aspect of sports in schools, the ‘Plan for the organisation of physical education and sports in education’

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memo reflected the Sports Ministry at its most technocratic and set the stage for the intensification of physical education in schools during the Vichy period. In August 1940, the Ministry printed and distributed a memo which went out along France’s shattered roads and rails to all relevant parties, including Government administrators, superintendents, principals, and teachers, thus profiting from the network of educational officials already in place across the country. The memo seemingly provided educators with a foundation on which they could rebuild their schools’ physical education curriculum with the objective of completely revitalising their fractured nation. The order also enmeshed teachers and local school officials in a regulatory framework that dictated clear and actionable guidelines they were expected to follow. French students felt the consequences of the memo almost immediately, as the number of weekly hours in gymnasiums, on training fields, and in swimming pools suddenly increased dramatically. During the Third Republic, students had typically spent less than two hours in physical education classes per week. Under the new rules, boys and girls aged six to sixteen spent two hours a day and eleven hours per week in physical education classes. The Ministry strongly suggested the schools divide up the time evenly: two hours on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday, with Wednesday afternoon set aside for outdoor education.48 The rapid increase in the number of hours created two problems for educational officials. First, few schools had enough qualified teachers to cover the many classes, and, secondly, many parents complained about the new emphasis on physical education which prioritised sports to the detriment of other types of education and threatened the health of already malnourished students. César Faubrax, a French author famous for his syndicalist and pacifist accounts of the First World War, noted with some degree of irony that his daughter’s class ‘did nothing but gymnastics and sewing’. He whined about afternoons ‘devoted to the outdoors – a walk in the woods!’ rather than intellectual education.49 Vichy officials responded with a bizarre mix of alacrity and ambivalence to these concerns. At the national level, officials vacillated. They changed the number of hours devoted to physical education several times between 1940 and 1942, reducing and increasing them following pressure from parents and principals, to finally settle on seven hours

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per week.50 At the local level, school principals simply refused to comply with directives when they had too few instructors or little interest from local parents. The opposition of parents, teachers, and principals constituted a major challenge to the Sports Ministry’s vision for a National Revolution. More successfully, on 25 March 1941, the Sports Ministry revived the Popular Front-era sports diploma. The Vichy brevet copied the structure of the Popular Front’s sports certificate. To earn their BSN, boys and girls had to run sprints and long distances, perform high jump and long jump, lift weights, and climb.51 The appropriate speed, distance, and weight of these exercises depended on the age and gender of the student. A sixteen-year-old boy was required to run 100 metres in 14.6 seconds, while a girl of the same age only had to run 60 metres in 10 seconds. In addition to being a requirement for some baccalaureates, passing the Vichy brevet became a prerequisite for other extracurricular athletic activities.52 As a consequence, more students attempted and passed their brevet per year during the war than in the interwar period, making it a crucial piece of Vichy’s effort to encourage and measure students’ athletic development. The wartime Sports Ministry’s administration of the BSN was one of its major achievements, bringing together huge numbers of personnel, and students each year. Preparations for the examination took months, involving officials from schools, the Sports Ministry, the local Government, and the occupying authorities. Proper facilities had to be selected to host the events. Each commune chose dates. Sports administrators were dispersed to each testing site. Proctors were trained. Despite these obstacles, the number of BSN candidates increased markedly. In the Academie of Lille alone, around 35,000 boys and 15,000 girls took the BSN during the war.53 Of the boys, 16,351 passed their BSN at their schools and 18,476 at their sporting association. Of the two, the school candidates proved to be better prepared: only 3,632 were failed compared with 5,595 of the association candidates. A similar pattern emerged with female candidates: 1,878 girls came from athletic associations and 13,191 from the schools; 361 association candidates failed compared with 1,438 for the school candidates.54 While the BSN demonstrated the lengths to which Vichy officials would go to measure and control their pupils at the end of their physical education, the regime’s response

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to children who were too weak to partake in exercise demonstrated Vichy’s most ambitious attempts to assess and improve student physical capabilities at all ages. All students received grades of either strong, middling, or weak based on their physical capabilities, size, and weight. Underdeveloped children were assigned additional ‘corrective’ gymnastics exercises and given vitamins meant to counteract malnutrition.55 These additional exercises might, with hindsight, seem to be counterproductive and likely to produce additional weakness or injuries, but Vichy administrators were not careless with the health and wellbeing of their pupils. They believed that the cure for physical weakness was more effort rather than less, and they went to great lengths to ensure that their programmes contributed to the health of their students and, by corollary, the health of the French people. They installed doctors and nurses in as many schools and sporting associations as possible and required students to undergo thorough medical examinations every year before any physical activity. One of the clubs where medical oversight was most seriously applied was the Racing Club de France, ‘where all the young athletes are subjected many times a year to a medical visit with a benevolent doctor attached to the club’. A 5 February 1941 issue of L’Auto included photos of doctors testing children’s lung capacity at the Racing Club de France with a spirometer.56 In Saint-Mandé, a Parisian suburb, Vichy officials assigned children mandatory medical visits and emphasised the ‘close collaboration between the director and the teachers of physical education’ in order to ‘control and guide [the youth’s] physical development’.57 In Toulouse, the number of students who visited doctors skyrocketed from less than 1,500 throughout the 1930s to more than 2,700 in February 1941 alone.58 Healthy students earned the right to carry a carte sportive, without which they were prohibited from participating in a wider variety of more popular athletic activities in- and outside of schools.59 Ironically, the state’s medicalisation of the bodies of their charges frequently failed to note the rising rates of athletic failure that accompanied the growing intensity of exercise. Wartime privations turned physical cultural activities into dangers that could result in diminished health for many young people. French doctors at the time argued vigorously about the costs of so much exercise on young bodies, which they called the problem of surmenage. A pamphlet

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Figure 3.2  Doctors test young men’s lungs at the Racing Club de France

published by the Sports Ministry, entitled ‘Éducation physique et sous-alimentation’, argued that, contrary to the arguments of some ‘adversaries of physical education and sports’, youth participation did not undermine physical health. Looking closely at the weight of young boys and girls from several schools around France, the authors of the pamphlet found there to be ‘beneficial effects of exercise and movement towards more regular and uniform growth’.60 Doctors unaffiliated with the Sports Ministry disagreed and vociferously countered with clear evidence that illustrated the disastrous effect of malnutrition and over-exercise on children’s weight and height.61 A study of student health in Paris and Marseille conducted in 1944 and 1945 showed that a significant percentage of children, particularly those in working-class neighbourhoods, were suffering from malnutrition. These young people, on average, ate between 1,500 and 1,700 calories daily. Vitamins distributed in schools helped slightly, but many still suffered from vitamin A and C deficiencies. Children who suffered from dietary deficiencies still participated in daily exercises, and even extra-compensatory exercises, and as a consequence they suffered long-term developmental and physical

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impediments.62 As early as December 1940, when many French people still had plenty of food, a parent complained that their child in a youth camp (Chantier de la Jeunesse) in the Herault was only getting ‘600 g of bread, 150 g of meat, 500 g of vegetables’ a day, and no coffee, snacks, or desserts. He was malnourished.63 Despite these food shortages, young men in the camps engaged in several hours of energetic gymnastics exercises daily. However, camp administrators did not deny the letter’s allegations and released the writer’s son from the camp early so he could be attended by his family doctor.

Student obedience and Vichy’s éducation générale While their parents may have been good at reaching out to Government officials, students were more effective supporters and opponents of Vichy’s educational objectives. Students’ widespread opposition to the state’s physical cultural programme encompassed a range of activities, but most of it was a product of differences in how Vichy officials, physical education teachers, coaches, and students thought about physical competition. Vichy officials thought athletic competition helped to promote physical and moral development. If students played sports disinterestedly – in other words, without seeking out their personal interests – they would learn the value of selflessness and hard work and prepare themselves for service to the state. Sports Ministry officials explained their views to physical education teachers in the Bulletin périodique officiel des Chantiers de la Jeunesse. Athletic competition awakened the interest of the youth; however, coaches had to be careful ‘to use that interest in an educational sense without letting it deviate towards excess’.64 The Sports Ministry’s ideal healthy activities thus encouraged young men and women to develop strong and vital bodies, as well as learn discipline, communal solidarity, and national unity. Officials applauded athletic endeavours where there were no winners or losers. Young people could ride a horse or a bicycle, run beside a lake, or take a short swim in a pond or a river. Football or basketball teams could play friendly matches instead of official ones. Competition became so minor in the minds of the Sports Ministry that they argued ‘the first condition of success for a scholarly sport association

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is to be lively’ rather than to be triumphant. An athletic life was made of ‘outdoor activities … and competitions, both official and unofficial. A well-run association is one which balances wisely these two distinct and opposed parts of sport.’ 65 Vichy officials embodied their view of healthy competition in popular displays of athleticism that engaged with the wider community, informed parents and students of Vichy’s physical education and sports plans, built public legitimacy for those programmes and for the regime, and promoted public unity.66 The most important annual Vichy sports spectacle was the so-called Oath of the Athlete, which took place in June and commemorated the end of the academic and athletic year. The Oath acted as a secular rite in which young students promised to use their bodies to better serve the state and their community. The first Fête du serment de l’athlète occurred on 29 June 1941 and welcomed some of the most accomplished student athletes from across France. Gathered in a stadium and surrounded by thousands of witnesses, these sportsmen and -women turned together towards the stands and raised their arms in an Olympic salute. They pledged ‘to practise sport with disinterest, discipline, and loyalty, to become better and to better serve my country’.67 The Oath combined the spectacle of a professional sporting event with the solemnity of a religious ceremony, in order to bind young French boys and girls into the project of the National Revolution.68 Schoolchildren across the country participated in similar rituals organised by Sports Ministry officials on the communal level. The mobilisation of their healthy bodies at festivals demonstrated that France possessed a vigorous and powerful youth around which the local, regional, and eventually national community could unite. Sports Ministry officials organised sporting festivals in each locality, where celebrations started with a demonstration of boys’ and girls’ track and field events, followed by an example of locally popular team sports, and culminating in a demonstration of gymnastics. Winning and losing were de-emphasised, replaced by an insistence on mutual excellence and effort. The Olympian Géo André led a typical festival on 30 October 1941. Six French boys practised hébertist exercises, which included navigating around the stadium, a cycling track, the guard rails, the bleachers, and an upper gallery. The press noted that, despite the difficulty of the route, all the boys managed the course with ease.69

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Figure 3.3  Schoolchildren participate in the Oath of the Athlete, 17 May 1942

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These public celebrations frequently enjoyed the visible support of top Vichy officials, who believed that standing side by side with young athletes demonstrated their regime’s vitality. On 7 September 1941, French papers reported on a spectacle held in Vichy which was attended by athletes affiliated with the Sports Ministry, the Fédération Française d’Athlétisme, and the Collège Nationale d’Antibes. Decorators bedecked the tribunes in golden stars, tricolour francisques, and French flags. Numerous officials attended the ceremony, including Jérôme Carcopino, Secretary of Youth; Georges Lamirand, General Commissioner of Youth; General Picquendar, representative of General Huntzinger, Secretary of Defence; and General Laure, Under-Secretary of State; as well as many members of the diplomatic corps, such as Mister de Souza Dantas, the Brazilian Ambassador. The 152nd and 92nd Infantry Regiments provided the music. At 3.00 p.m. Marshall Pétain entered the stadium, flanked by Jean Borotra, the head of the Sports Ministry, and the two politicians saluted the assembled athletes and welcomed the audience.70 The press raved about how Pétain’s presence ‘honoured the exhibition’; however, the showmanship of the event was clearly intended to give legitimacy to the Government. The use of soldiers’ bands, the decor, the assembled politicians, and the healthy bodies of the athletes bolstered French support for the National Revolution and increased the popularity of its principal architects. These state athletic festivals commemorated communal solidarity and national unity rather than winners and losers because winning and losing complicated the regime’s goals of encouraging maximum athletic participation. The desire to win could drive some students to compete, but it could also discourage less capable students. To promote maximum participation in athletic activities, physical education teachers in the Chantiers de la Jeunesse encouraged competition for its own sake. They ordered students to form as many teams as possible, based only on interest rather than talent. It was less important for a team to ‘beat the others’. The focus was on the effective ‘practise of the sport’ and the ‘development [of their] physique’.71 Administrators even broke up talented basketball teams to allow more people to play and to create parity. ‘It is not a question of having a marvellous team in each camp. It is necessary that the maximum number of youth play. The goal is clear, physical education for everyone … chiefs should prefer to let the good players disperse themselves in different groups.’ 72

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Officials in the Chantiers also went out of their way to support losing teams. When teams lost catastrophically, Vichy officials found reasons to celebrate them. In the Chantier in Murat, camp officials lauded the performance of a football team which, despite losing by seven goals, still ‘received, because of their brio, numerous ovations from the sporting public’.73 In the eyes of the camp administrators, despite the team’s embarrassing loss, they still achieved their aims because they acquitted themselves well as individuals and as a team. Evidence from elite leadership schools shows that some of the most committed students understood Vichy’s physical cultural agenda and used the physical culture to live Vichy’s values of cooperation, service, and teamwork. At the famed school in Uriage, rigorous physical exercise not only improved student health, but also provided a sense of community through mutual suffering. Uriage was founded in September 1940 by Pierre Dunoyer de Segonzac, in a spa town in the department of Isère.74 High-ranking officials saw the school as a place to train future French leaders. Pétain toured the school as early as the winter of 1940 and Admiral Darlan visited as head of Government in 1941. In the cool mountains, the mutual suffering of rough gymnastic drills forged the muscles, minds, and friendships that Vichy officials hoped would lead France out of its geopolitical doldrums. Under the tutelage of hard-nosed instructor Roger Vuillemin, students devoted hours each morning to Georges Hébert’s natural method. Vuillemin used the French gymnastics routines to make his pupils ‘suffer’ and change them ‘into men’.75 He called his training ‘slagging’. Each morning’s training included a run through the countryside. Under his direction, the young men leapt over streams, clambered up steep mountain inclines, ran around castles, and descended through mountain valleys. When he felt playful, he made the course more difficult by closing farm gates behind him, forcing his students to scale fences to catch up with him. Far from being despised, Vuillemin’s tortuous morning décrassage was popular with students and even the staff because people at Uriage understood and identified with Vichy’s physical cultural agenda. Bénigno Carcéres remembered that ‘the whole world’ showed up for the morning sessions, particularly the more athletic students who found them invigorating.76 For these elites, exercise served as a metaphor for France’s struggle to reinvigorate and unify the nation.

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One student, named de Chaleon, recalled that the morning runs, although formidable, created a sense of community. A staff member, Jacques Lochard, likened the morning sessions to a symbol of the work the country needed to do. Each morning, Vuillemin searched for obstacles to overcome.77 As these elite students strengthened their bodies for the future, they self-consciously adopted the agenda of the regime. Non-participation or poor participation brought public ridicule. Vuillemin and other educators at Uriage habitually bullied overly intellectual students who fell behind. ‘What petit bourgeois habits have you’, he asked one young man, which ‘keep you from unbuttoning your shirt?’ 78 Communal misery might have inspired the students at Uriage, but at the Centre de Charaintru, in the Parisian suburb of Savigny-surOrge, students created a sense of community through their mutual joy of physical activity. Founded in 1940 by Pastor Jean Jousselin, the Protestant Scouts representative to the Vichy Government, the Centre’s goal was to train future leaders for France, although they specialised in preparing instructors for other teaching schools too, such as the nearby Château de Sillery. As in other elite schools, the students at Charaintru took part in hébertist drills each morning, including long-distance runs through the country, but physical culture at Charaintru was less rigorous than at Uriage. A journal produced by an instructor at the camp describes how the morning exercises aimed to produce an equality of fatigue among the students, although instructors varied the exercises to avoid weariness. Slower or weaker students were not ridiculed nor made to overcome extra barriers.79 Richly decorated pamphlets produced by hand by the students at Charaintru demonstrated how their enjoyment of an active life helped to forge them into a natural community prepared to serve the state as teachers in local schools. As part of their educational programme, teachers grouped students into small teams. Each group selected a head and chose a name. Names reflected uplifting themes, such as ‘the team of remaining joy’, ‘the team of hope’, ‘skylight’, and ‘always higher’.80 The booklets, designed by the students and complete with calligraphy and hand-painted images, demonstrated how the students adopted Vichy’s sporting values: one group named themselves ‘Élan’ and chose a figure of a diving male to represent themselves. Another team called themselves ‘Pares!’ and depicted a sailor at the helm of a boat.81

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Across a range of elite schools, engaged students enacted Vichy’s goals for a locally driven but centrally controlled National Revolution in physical education. At Charaintru, each team’s leader represented the formation of an organic hierarchy, their images highlighting the ways in which physical culture helped to reshape their appropriate masculinity; the names each selected showcased how physical culture and joy interacted to promote moral values; and the school integrated their students into the Sports Ministry’s broader programme by preparing physical educational professionals for classrooms across the Paris region.

Juvenile behaviour: children’s opposition to Vichy’s general education curriculum Despite the state’s efforts to promote their vision of a revolutionary physical cultural movement – a framework accepted by some elite students – most French children possessed more conventional views on athletics, centred around winning and losing, social prestige, and personal aspirations. These divergent attitudes towards physical education and sports meant that Vichy officials had a difficult time enforcing their views inside standard educational institutions. In the USSU, officials complained that ‘there is a tendency to link too strongly the idea of sporting associations with competition’.82 Prefects’ reports, school and associational bulletins, newspapers, and, most importantly, the memoirs and diaries of ordinary French people hint that children played games for a range of reasons, as they do today, but only rarely for the state’s rationales. Young boys and girls participated to make sense of their environment. Adolescents used physical culture to establish their identities, seek out companionship, or have fun. In playing for their own justifications, they transformed pools and stadiums into spaces of freedom in the context of an Occupation. Rejection of Vichy’s athletic imperatives was not gendered: French girls also rejected the state’s discourses, which strove to feminise them through segregated activities, such as dance and rhythmic movement. It should have been unsurprising to Vichy officials that winning meant everything to many student-athletes, coaches, and parents. Triumph on the field has always been one of the major attractions

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of sports. However, the ordinary athlete’s love of success, as measured in points or seconds above all else, did not augur well for the long-term legitimacy of a moral programme based on the social obligation of service to the state. Alongside other forms of juvenile rule breaking, the need to win encouraged people to cheat, which abounded during the Vichy period and undermined the pedagogical component of the éducation générale. To get an edge, students found ways to circumvent the state’s anti-competitive regulations, particularly those related to identity, through lies, omissions, thefts, and bribes. In other words, teams employed ringers or other players who were not qualified according to Vichy’s rules. When these imposters were discovered without the proper documents in interscholastic competitions, they made excuses rather than accepting their punishment. To get around the rules, they cajoled friendly referees. They played under altered, old, or expired paperwork.83 Many competed under false or assumed names.84 They may also have pressured or paid out bribes to officials. The clandestine nature of rule breaking made it hard for Vichy officials to measure. It appeared in the historical record when officials discovered cheaters and punished them, but administrators’ reports suggested that the practice of being careless with paperwork was more widespread than their investigations could uncover. One report warned of the growing problem: ‘a large number of associations have failed to provide their members with carte sportive. Most of the other [associations] are bound to request some for their members who are holders of federal licences. … The federations seem to be generally uninterested in the question [of licences] and have made no effort to require their affiliated associations to follow the rules.’ 85 Tous les sports, the weekly newspaper produced by the Sports Ministry, made it clear that students avoiding state regulations was very common among both adult sportsmen and student-athletes. The unmasking of students caught cheating in USSU matches was a common feature of their reporting, both as a matter of public interest and as a way to dissuade cheaters.86 To the same ends, Vichy officials handed out harsh punishments for rule breaking, especially for competing under a false name; however, these penalties did not seem to dissuade sportsmen who saw significant competitive advantages in doing so.

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These rule breakers came from a wide variety of regions, played numerous different sports, and competed at all levels, but cheating was particularly rampant in upper-level school sports teams, which had more incentive than high school teams to use fraudulent players. During the war, the Bordeaux Étudiants Club (BEC), one of the most famous interwar university clubs, broke the rules on amateurism to remain competitive. In 1943, too many of their standard players were missing: whether in prisoner-of-war camps, forced labour in Germany, or displaced outside the Occupied Zone. To improve their level of play, they decided that, rather than seek out new qualified players, the coach would invite professionals to join their colours and play under false identities. In one instance, a player named Galland, who had previously played professionally for Racing Club de Paris, played for the BEC under the clever name Couchet with a borrowed identity and ration card. Unfortunately for the BECistes, Galland was well known and their ruse was discovered. They were severely sanctioned by the Sports Ministry.87 The use of non-student professional players in amateur matches not only violated the rules of the USSU, which also moved to sanction the team, but also undermined the Vichy regime’s preferred culture of amateurism, honesty, and fair play. Local sports officials, however, did not agree on the primacy of those values. They prioritised winning and the local prestige that came from having a successful club side. Rather than accept their punishment, the President of the BEC, a community leader named Dr Bahuet, offered excuses as to why he permitted professionals to compete on the university’s team. In a series of letters written back and forth between Bahuet and Jacques Flouret, the head of the USSU, Bahuet veered from indignation to apoplexy and confusion. He explained the situation variously as an honest mistake by the coach, a mistaken identity by the referee, and a misunderstanding of the rules. He even charged the accusers with having biases against his club. He wrote almost twenty letters to Flouret, who in turn became increasingly upset. Despite their close friendship – they wrote their letters to each other using very familiar language, including the tutoyer – Flouret eventually threatened to revoke funding for a proposed gymnasium which was set to begin construction in Bordeaux. Flouret wrote to Bahuet to say that ‘You will find in this fraud, a sad example of the condition which prevails in your team … you will understand why I had to … refuse

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[the funding]’.88 The threat of revocation of state funding forced Bahuet’s hand; he finally conceded, fired the coach of the football team, and permanently banned the players accused of breaking the rules. The existence of widespread cheating was only one indication that students fundamentally disagreed with or did not understand Vichy’s new general education programme. Other evidence points to the profundity of students’ ignorance. Between January and May 1942, sociologist Jacques Dourdin interviewed more than a hundred boys between the ages of twelve and fourteen, and nine hundred boys aged between fifteen and twenty-five, in the Paris region. Although hired by the Sports Ministry, he enjoyed a great deal of latitude to analyse the state of physical education in France. His simplistic methodology generated survey results with numerous limitations. He asked simple yes or no questions, where a more complex ranked response system would have added depth to the responses. Nevertheless, students’ answers revealed that a significant proportion of young French boys did not understand the ideological nature or purpose of the state’s physical cultural programmes. They did not understand that they were being mobilised in new and more intense ways. More than 25 per cent of all boys surveyed reported that they were unaware of youth movements outside of schools, including the French Boy Scouts, and more than 50 per cent remained ignorant of new youth institutions, such as the Chantiers de la Jeunesse.89 Dourdin’s surveys also tell us something about young people’s opinions on physical cultural practices. Among the same students surveyed, 99 per cent said they enjoyed physical education and sports. But did students like them equally? Ninety-nine per cent of twelve- to fourteen-year-olds participated in physical education, probably mandatory exercises at school, while only 70 per cent played sports; however, a close reading between the lines suggests that they preferred the latter. Most students said they practised physical education with their teacher (77 per cent) or with a coach (30 per cent), while most team sports took place with their friends (69 per cent), alone or with parents (9 per cent). Here one wishes Dourdin’s surveys had gone further, but it is not hard to imagine that playing with friends was more enjoyable than playing with teachers. In fact, children reported that physical education drills appealed to them because it helped them develop (29 per cent) and

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become healthy (24 per cent); whereas sports also brought amusement or distraction (49 per cent) and aided in relaxation (6 per cent).90 Dourdin’s surveys strongly suggested that students appreciated physical education and sports for different reasons and that they preferred sports because they encouraged friendships, amusement, and distraction. Vichy officials certainly believed team sports distracted students away from their assigned physical education activities. One inspector wrote, In our gymnasiums [in Paris] it is not rare to see a group of young men … hands in their pockets, berets or hats cocked to one side. These are the teachers. They hold the lecture while their students … are attacking a ball, in a game that they call football or basketball but which has, in effect, several resemblances with the two.91

Upon questioning those teachers, the inspector discovered that they believed ‘playing sports’, even sports that only resembled games like football or basketball, helped children become champions and that they despised ‘the physical culture that is the base of sport’.92 This inspector’s report was representative of a larger phenomenon of teachers ignoring their assigned gymnastics curriculum. Raymond Roussennac remembered playing rugby often in school in Toulouse. His gym teacher introduced him to the game.93 These teachers’ lackadaisical approach to physical education was a rejection of the strictures of éducation générale. Using their gym-time in the way they wanted, these teachers and students sabotaged the Sports Ministry’s plans. Unfortunately, very few primary school students wrote about physical education in schools, but many high school students more explicitly rejected the mandatory gymnastics exercises at the base of the éducation générale curriculum. Micheline Bood, a young Catholic high school student in Paris, disliked gymnastics. She complained about her grades in gym, but she admitted that she did not always act correctly. She also felt incompetent because she could not properly carry out the movements expected of her.94 Aline Dupuy, a young normalienne from Toulouse, also found gym a difficult chore. She did not think she was very good at it. She especially hated climbing the rope, which left her legs burning.95 Both avoided their school’s mandatory physical education as much as possible, but neither hated physical activity. Bood loved to swim. Both girls

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loved to ride bicycles through the countryside. They resented the strictures of Vichy’s physical cultural programme and preferred to engage in physical education on their own terms. Vichy officials in the Sports and Youth Ministries wanted students to have a physically active life, provided they could appropriate discipline and structure it, but physical cultural life outside of school environments could also lure students away from the regime’s goals. Inside the Chantiers de la Jeunesse, Vichy officials worried that team sports, especially football, undermined the camp’s moral agenda. All thirty-nine camps included team sports in their official curriculum, and each had a football field. Campers made frequent requests for football equipment.96 In spite of football’s official status in the camps, the inspectors tasked with overseeing the Chantiers lamented that the young men were more interested in playing football than engaging in their daily hébertist exercises. The student-published newspaper in the camp at Murat noted that ‘the 40th group, at the start of the winter, devotes themselves almost exclusively to football to the detriment of other kinds of athletic activity’.97 The problem in Murat became so profound that in his correspondence with the camp leaders, General Lamirand, the head of the Chantiers, felt compelled to remind them that ‘sports are only the complement to gymnastics’.98 On the other hand, team sports were attractive to young people specifically because they served as a means of escape from the social and cultural confines of Vichy’s National Revolution. At Camp 27 in Foix, young conscripts spent their free time on the weekends playing football in town. Away from their overseers, the young men mingled with their contemporaries on village playing fields. Football became a way to have fun and it gave campers ample opportunity to show off their newly muscled bodies to the local girls. Officials expressed concerns that the so-called parties de football happened outside of their jurisdiction. Administrators admired their pupils’ athleticism, but feared that when their charges went into town to play football, they unlearned the lessons about effort and were ‘corrupted’.99 In other words, team sports were a doubled-edged sword for the Sports Ministry. The popularity of team sports enabled Vichy officials to mobilise these games to serve the needs of the state; at the same time, the preference of students for football, rugby, and basketball distracted them from their required activities. Officials linked

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participation in all sporting activities to success in physical education programmes. Students who wanted to participate in officially sanctioned sporting events, including football matches, cycling competitions, and even fencing, within the USSU or their local sporting association, had first to pass their BSN.100 Vichy administrators also took it upon themselves to link participation in sporting events with their surveillance and control of students and their health. Before children could take part in sports activities outside the classroom, they had to visit a doctor and receive their carte sportive, a certificate that guaranteed their physical health.101 However, these certificates, cards, and player registrations were precisely the kinds of documents so often ignored and forged by athletes looking to circumvent the state’s onerous sporting regulations. The failure of French boys and girls to warm to the éducation générale curriculum, and particularly the use of false identity documents by athletes, provoked general concern among prefects across France, appearing in official accounts alongside more serious rulebreaking offences. In 1940, the initial reports of prefects highlighted the successes. ‘Physical education and sports’, the Prefect of the Nord noted, were ‘excellent and animated’, with 85 communes visited by the supervisors (surveillants), 25 shovel-ready construction projects, and 3,246 students who had passed their BSN.102 By 1942, however, the false start of Vichy’s physical education and sports programmes had become apparent. The same Prefect in Lille noticed a rising municipal resistance to further construction.103 In some departments, such as the Territoire de Belfort, football remained the only significant sporting activity. Gymnastics had been almost completely abandoned.104 Many departments, including the Loiret, Ille-et-Vilaine, and the Eure-et-Loire, reported students skipping activities because of a lack of proper sports footwear and clothing.105 Teachers and school administrators, discombobulated by the multiplication of administrations and surveillance, resented the éducation générale’s emphasis on physical education and sports. Most troubling of all, rising occurrences of rule breaking in sports by many youths forced Prefects to begin suggesting that ‘it is urgent to take effective sanctions … otherwise a very important and very active fraction of the youth will learn habits of indiscipline and blackmail which are absolutely incompatible with the directives which inform our reforming enterprise’.106

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The Prefect’s reports, Dourdin’s surveys, administrators’ statements, and students’ testimonies illustrate that large numbers of young men and women did not understand and refused to fully cooperate with Vichy’s mandatory physical education agenda. Yet part of the story is missing. While we know why high-ranking Government officials wanted students to participate in sports – physical activity would transform the morass of young men and women into state servants ready to fight, work, or mother for France – we know very little about how students understood their experiences. Why did they participate in such large numbers? What did they get out of or want to get out of their activities? Unfortunately, very few young people wrote explicitly about their desires. Only by reading between the lines of existing archival sources is it possible to discover that many or even most students did not like or understand the purpose of their daily and repetitive hébertist exercises. They preferred team sports such as football or rugby. In committing their time to these games, young French students pursued their own agendas and maximised their pleasures at a time when the Vichy state wanted to constrain and monitor them. Inside primary schools, students and teachers connived with their students to avoid official activities that they probably also found boring. At high schools, different understandings of the purpose of competition, especially as expressed through cheating scandals, perverted the moral agenda of the state’s programme and contributed to Rod Kedward’s ‘culture of the outlaw’.107 In their rejection of the sporting National Revolution’s means and message, students made it harder for Vichy’s administrators to achieve their goal of creating a new ideal of ‘Vichy Man’ and ‘Vichy Woman’.

Conclusion Physical culture played a fundamental role in how Vichy administrators imagined national regeneration between 1940 and 1944. In state schools, the Chantiers de la Jeunesse and other scholastic institutions, Vichy officials attempted to reinvigorate the youth of the nation using physical education. They required students to participate in hébertist exercises, track and field competitions, and outdoor education to strengthen their bodies. Through these athletic

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activities, the regime tried to teach mental fortitude and encourage good character and proper masculinity for boys and femininity for girls. They rigidly calibrated, carefully measured, and extensively supervised student exercises to develop the physical, mental, and moral wellbeing of even the weakest students. Their success was best measured by the acceptance of gymnastics exercises in elite schools and the growing number of ordinary students who received their brevet sportif nationale. Despite the best efforts of the Sports Ministry, most French students, parents, and even teachers neither understood nor welcomed Vichy’s physical cultural programmes. Young men and women often did not identify with the goals of the regime; instead, they participated in athleticism on their own terms. Qualities valued by Vichy politicians, such as courage, team spirit, and a taste for effort gave way to students’ concerns about individual competitiveness, final scores, and winning and losing. The rejection of the state’s physical cultural programme by students, parents, and teachers proved to be one of the most consistent threats to the success of the Vichy regime’s efforts to create new ‘Vichy Men’ and ‘Vichy Women’, one of the major goals of the National Revolution. The totalising programmes necessary for the creation of a ‘Vichy Man’ did not align well with the presence of strong-willed young boys who had their own agendas, who sought the space to act in total freedom, and who contravened the systems of surveillance put in place by the Vichy state.108 The same was true of young girls who refused to climb the rope in gym, took up basketball, broke records in track and field, or organised the purchase of footballs for their women’s teacher-training school. For a wide range of French students, parents, and some teachers, ‘spaces of freedom’ meant more than social or political independence, it also meant the opportunity to play the games they wanted to play. As illustrated in the case of Micheline Bood, instead of revelling in her mandatory gymnastics, she preferred to swim in public pools. She felt free in the water where she met with her friends, flirted with German soldiers, and enacted her budding adulthood. Pools offered her both spatial freedom – a place away from the scrutiny of the Government’s sports programme – and a visceral sense of bodily independence. For Bood, nothing at the pool was more fun than the high dive. When she jumped off the diving platform she enjoyed the abandonment that accompanied the dive. A less than

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popular girl who did not regard herself as being very attractive, high diving made boys take notice of her. On more than one occasion, she believed her use of the high dive defended her high school’s honour in front of the Germans.109 She also loved to dive for the sensation of falling through the air: ‘diving’, she said, ‘is marvellous’. She even fondly remembered the times when she was less than graceful: ‘I even did an angel dive and forgot to tuck my arms. I received a famous thwack.’ 110 Bood’s rejection of school exercises in favour of swimming was illustrative of the experiences of many children whose widespread rejection of Vichy’s physical education and sports programme formed a significant strand of what Roderick Kedward called a ‘culture of the outlaw’ that predominated during the Occupation and undermined the legitimacy of the regime. The state’s coercive physical cultural policies – its attempt to control and frame almost every aspect of athletic life – inevitably turned most ordinary French sportsmen and -women into rule breakers. At the start of the Vichy regime, Vichy’s sports programme was well received, but by 1942, with Joseph Pascot in charge of the Sports Ministry, the organisation had become compromised and the public began to avoid participating in Government-sponsored physical education programmes. The concurrent legitimisation of casual rule breaking, and the rejection of the Sports Ministry’s authority, signalled a significant rejection of Vichy. In the final years of the war, even at leadership schools such as the École des Cadres d’Uriage, many students eventually took to rule breaking and eventually joined the Resistance. Indeed, some historians have investigated the formation of Resistance organisations within the Chantiers de la Jeunesse and concluded that once Vichy authority broke down in the camps in 1942 they began to act as sites for the organisation of resistance activities.111 At the same time, although youthful disobedience did undermine the Government’s physical cultural programme, it was also different from political résistance. The definition of resistance needs to be limited to active, armed resistance, or the publication and distribution of resistance literature; however, more recent studies have broadened the notion of political resistance to include other activities, such as evading service with the Service du Travail Obligatoire and engaging in black marketing.112 Students’ disobedience – as alarming as it

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seemed at the time to teachers, administrators, and prefects, and as crucial as it was to undermining a fundamental government plan – could nevertheless hardly be considered politically motivated, even if its consequences were interpreted that way. Students who preferred to play football during their mandatory physical education class were not thinking about the pedagogical goals of the state or the practical aims of teachers’ day-to-day curriculums. When their disobedience is taken in context with other children who were political resistors, such as Guy Moquet, who died as a martyr, the vast gulf separating the two activities becomes clear.

Notes 1 AN 44F2 ‘Letter from Henri Pugibet to the Secrétariat général de jeunesse’ (7 December 1940). 2 Ibid. 3 Ibid. 4 For more information on youth during Vichy France, see P. Giolitto, Histoire de la jeunesse sous Vichy (Paris: Perrin, 1991); G. Ragache, Les Enfants de la guerre: vivre, survivre, lire, et jouer en France, 1939–1949 (Paris: Éditions Perrin, 1997); and S. Fishman, The Battle for Children: World War II, Youth Crime, and Juvenile Justice in Twentieth-Century France (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002). More recently, C. Mahé, ‘Children and play in Occupied France’, in L. Dodd and D. Lees (eds), Vichy France and Everyday Life: Confronting the Challenges of Wartime, 1939–1945 (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2018) and M. Devigne, ‘Coping in the classroom: adapting schools to wartime’, in Dodd and Lees (eds), Vichy France and Everyday Life. 5 N. Atkin, Church and Schools in Vichy France, 1940–1944 (New York: Garland Publishing, 1991), p. 83. 6 See S. Fishman, ‘Youth in Vichy France: the juvenile crime wave and its implications’, in S. Fishman, R. Zaretsky, et al. (eds), France at War: Vichy and the Historians (New York: Berg, 2000). 7 J.-L. Gay-Lescot, Sport et éducation sous Vichy (1940–1944) (Lyon: Presses universitaires de Lyon, 1991). 8 For more on women and gender policy during Vichy, see R. Austin, ‘Propaganda and public opinion in Vichy France: the Department of the Hérault, 1940–1944’, European Studies Review 13 (1983), 455–482; F. Muel-Dreyfus, Vichy and the Eternal Feminine: A Contribution to a Political Sociology of Gender (Durham, NC: Duke University Press,

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Politics, disobedience, and Vichy’s National Revolution 153 2001); M. Pollard, Reign of Virtue: Mobilizing Gender in Vichy France (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998). 9 Pollard, Reign of Virtue, p. 72. 10 D. Lackerstein, National Regeneration in Vichy France: Ideas and Policies, 1930–1944 (Farnham: Ashgate, 2012), passim. 11 L.L.Downs, Childhood in the Promised Land: Working-Class Movements and the Colonies de vacances in France, 1880–1960 (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2002), p. 37. 12 See especially, A. Dupuy, Journal d’une lycéenne sous l’Occupation: Toulouse, 1943–1945 (Toulouse: Pas d’oiseau, 2013) and M. Bood, Les Années doubles: journal d’une lycéenne sous l’Occupation (Paris: Éditions Robert Laffont, 1974). 13 See especially, Fishman, The Battle for Children. 14 R. Kedward, ‘The Maquis and the culture of the outlaw’, in R. Kedward and R. Austin, Vichy France and the Resistance: Culture and Ideology (London: Croom Helm, 1985), p. 244. 15 Pascal Jardin, the son of Jean Jardin, an influential advisor to Pierre Laval, became a writer and screen writer from the 1950s to the 1970s. P. Jardin, Vichy Boyhood: An Inside View of the Pétain Regime, trans. J. Stewart (London: Faber and Faber, 1975), pp. 50–51. 16 Ibid., pp. 50–51. 17 Ibid., pp. 50–51. 18 Mahé, ‘Children and play in Occupied France’, p. 29. 19 Lackerstein, National Regeneration in Vichy France, passim. 20 AN 44F2 ‘Loi sur l’organisation de la jeunesse français’ (December 1940). 21 Ibid. 22 IHTP ARC 074–119 ‘Les Activités d’éducation générale’ (1 June 1941). 23 Ibid. 24 Ibid. and AN 44F38 ‘Letter from M. Lontrade Professeur à l’Institute régional d’Éducation physique de l’Université de Clermont-Ferrand to M. le Commissaire général’ (21 September 1942). 25 AN 44F37 ‘Projets de texte pour un tract exposition de Grenoble: les 25 commandements du jeune sportifs’ (undated). 26 Interview with Raymond Roussennac conducted in Toulouse, Friday 21 February 2014. AN 44F3 ‘Projet de Règlement des Chantiers de la jeunesse’. 27 See Georges Hébert, L’Éducation physique raisonnée (Paris: Vuibert & Nony, 1907); Georges Hébert, Le Guide pratique d’éducation physique (Paris: Vuibert & Nony, 1909); Georges Hébert, L’Éducation physique ou l’entraînement complet par la méthode naturelle (Paris: Vuibert, 1912).

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28 IHTP ARC 074–119 ‘Comment organiser dès maintenant l’Éducation physique et sportive à l’École primaire’ (March 1942). 29 Ibid. 30 AN 17F14461 ‘Note from the Association sportive du Secrétariat d’État à l’Éducation nationale et à la jeunesse’ (1 December 1941). 31 BNF MFILM 16-LK7–47750 ‘Une Expérience, un exemple’ (1941). 32 IHTP ARC 074–119 ‘Discipline d’action’ (1941). 33 Ibid. 34 IHTP ARC 074–119 ‘Les Activités d’Éducation générale’ (1 June 1941). 35 A 44F40 ‘École nationale d’Éducation physique et aux sports: section masculine 1er année’ (1941). 36 Ibid. 37 AN 69AJ1 ‘Règlement généraux’ (1943). 38 AN 69AJ4 ‘Circulaire’ (Summer 1942). 39 Pollard, Reign of Virtue, p. 87. 40 Dumazedier also looked at Coubertinist physical culture which characterised gymnastics exercises as being too rough. ‘Powerful movements are necessary for a man to become what he is capable of being – beautiful, altruistic, and efficient gestures. He must cultivate them. Sporting training is necessary. It is necessary to learn with his body to face other groups, to cooperate, to beat them according to the rules.’ P. Bitoun, Les Hommes d’Uriage (Paris: Éditions la découverte, 1988), p. 67. 41 BNF MFICHE 8-V55960 A. Champetier de Ribes, A.B.C. d’éducation féminine (Paris: CGEGS, 1942). 42 Ibid. 43 AN 44F113 ‘La femme et le sport’ (April 1943). 44 Paris de la vie sportive: 1940–1944 photographies (Paris: Musée nationale du sport, 1994), pp. 20, 70. 45 AN 44F6 ‘Ordre à expédier du magasin de Lyon pour l’École cadres féminins à Pau’ (May 1941). 46 AN 44F2 ‘Projet d’Organisation de l’Éducation physique et sportive dans l’Enseignements’ (December 1940). 47 Ibid. 48 Ibid. 49 César Fauxbras, Le Théâtre de l’Occupation: journal, 1939–1944 (Paris: Éditions Allia, 2012), p. 78. 50 BDIC Feuille d’information ‘Nouveaux horaires d’éducation générale et directives d’application pour la rentrée d’Octobre 1942’ (17 September 1942). 51 AN 17F14462 ‘Notes on the Brevet sportif national’. For a comparative look at the brevet sportif populaire and the BSN, see Paris de la vie sportive.

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Politics, disobedience, and Vichy’s National Revolution 155 52 Athletes who were injured in competition or practice could, as a matter of course, be excused from participating in the BSN without penalty. To receive the dispensation, a student needed to make a personal case to the Sports Ministry. AN 44F37 ‘Letter from the CGS to M. le Président de la Fédération française de cyclisme’ (17 April 1944). 53 AN 17F14464 ‘Note de préfet du Nord’ (4 November 1941). 54 Ibid. 55 For more on schools as sites for nutrition, see Devigne, ‘Coping in the classroom’, pp. 40–44. 56 ‘Allons … lentement … encore un effort’ (Let’s go … slowly … still an effort) L’Auto (Paris), 5 February 1941. 57 BNF MFILM 16-LK7–47750 ‘Une Expérience, un exemple’ (1941). 58 AMT JO1932–1941 ‘Inspection médicale des écoles’, Bulletin Municipale de la Ville de Toulouse (February 1941). 59 AN 17F14462 ‘Sanctions d’obligation faite aux Sportifs pratiquant de posséder la Carte sportive’ (March 1944). 60 AN 17F14465, Philippe Encausse, ‘Éducation physique et sousalimentation’ (Paris: Henri Dangles, 1944). 61 See P. Sanders, Histoire de Marché noir 1940–1946 (Paris: Perrin, 2001); P. Atkins, ‘Rationing and politics: the French Academy of Medicine and food shortages during the German Occupation and the Vichy Regime’, in I. Zweineiger-Bargielowska, R. Duffett, et al. (eds), Food and War in Twentieth Century Europe (Farnham: Ashgate, 2011). 62 BDIC Q pièce 4490 ‘Les enfants. Comment ils ont supporté ce rationnement et ses conséquences?’ (1945). 63 AN 44F2 ‘Letter from M. Baugnies the Administrateur-Délègue de la Cie Fermière to the Secrétaire-Générale de la Jeunesse’ (2 December 1940). 64 AN 39AJ56 ‘Bulletin périodique officiel des Chantiers de la Jeunesse’ (2 July 1942). 65 AN 69AJ1 ‘L’Association sportive d’Établissement d’enseignement ou de faculté’ (1943). 66 For more information about public celebrations and physical culture during Vichy, see R. Dalisson, Les Fêtes du Maréchal: propagande festive et imaginaire dans la France de Vichy (Paris: Éditions Tallandier, 2008), pp. 276–286. 67 CASG Archives 1049 ‘Bulletin Mensuel d’Éducation générale et sports’ (August 1943). 68 BNF 4-V-14352 ‘Le Serment de l’athlète dans toute la France’, Éducation générale et sports: revue officielle du Commissariat général à l’éducation générale et aux sports (17 May 1942). 69 AN 39AJ55 ‘Bulletin Périodique officiel des Chantiers de la jeunesse’ (30 October 1941).

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70 AN 72AJ1826 ‘Le Marechal Pétain préside a Vichy une grande manifestation d’athlétisme’ (7 September 1941). 71 Ibid. 72 AN 39AJ56 ‘Bulletin périodique officiel des Chantiers de la jeunesse’ (2 July 1942). 73 AN 44F3 ‘De la haut’ (Murat) (1 December 1940). 74 For more information on Uriage, see J. Hellman, The Knight-Monks of Vichy France: Uriage, 1940–1945 (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1993); B. Comte, Une Utopie combattante: l’École des cadres d’Uriage, 1940–1942 (Paris: Fayard, 1991); and Bitoun, Les Hommes d’Uriage. 75 Bitoun, Les hommes d’Uriage, p. 67. 76 Ibid., p. 66. 77 Ibid., p. 66. 78 Ibid., p. 66. 79 IHTP ARC 020 ‘Journal’ (undated). 80 The team names in November 1940 included ‘équipe que la joie demeure’, ‘équipe espoir’, ‘équipe toujours plus haut’, and ‘éclaircie’. IHTP ARC 020. 81 IHTP ARC 020 ‘Booklet’ (undated). 82 AN 69AJ1 ‘L’Association sportive d’Établissement d’enseignement ou de faculté’ (1943). 83 AN 69AJ6 ‘Affaire Varille’ (March 1942). 84 AN 69AJ7 ‘Letter from BAHUET to the Comité de Guyenne’ (24 August 1943). 85 AN 14F14462 ‘Sanctions de l’obligation faite aux sportifs pratiquant de posséder la Carte sportive’ (March 1944). 86 ‘L’Obligation de la carte’ (The obligation of the card) Tous les sports, 1 April 1944. 87 AN 69AJ7 ‘Letter from Flouret to Bahuet’ (12 October 1943). 88 AN 69AJ7 ‘Letter from Flouret to Bahuet’ (3 November 1943). 89 INSEP, Jacques Dourdin, ‘Étude de l’état d’esprit de la population parisienne à l’égard de la pratique de l’éducation physique et des sports’ (January–May 1942); AN 44F36 ‘Surveys’. 90 Ibid. 91 AN 44F37 ‘Extrait du Journal Paris-Midi du 14/10/43’. 92 Ibid. 93 Interview with Raymond Roussennac conducted in Toulouse, Friday 21 February 2014. 94 Bood, Les Années doubles, pp. 47, 81. 95 Dupuy, Journal d’une lycéenne sous l’Occupation, pp. 62–63. 96 AN 44F3 ‘Situation générale des Chantiers de la jeunesse’ (1 December 1940).

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97 AN 44F3 ‘De la haut’ (Murat) (1 December 1940). 98 AN 44F3 ‘Directives du Commissaire générale concernant l’instruction’ (6 March 1941). 99 AN 44F3 ‘Report Camp 27 à Benac’ (undated). 100 AN 17F14462 ‘Notes on Brevet sportif nationale’ (14 August 1940). 101 AN 17F14462 ‘Charte des sports’ (undated). 102 AN 17F14464 ‘Extrait des rapports des préfets’ (December 1941). 103 AN 17F14464 ‘Extrait des rapports des préfets’ (12 March 1942). 104 AN 17F14464 ‘Extrait des rapports des préfets’ (14 February 1942). 105 Ibid. 106 AN 17F14464 ‘Extrait des rapports des préfets’ (12 March 1942). 107 Kedward, ‘The Maquis and the culture of the outlaw’, p. 244. 108 The idea of a space of freedom borrows, in part, from Henry Rousso’s notion of a space of liberty: a place where people legally marginalised by Vichy laws could contest their social position. For more on spaces of liberty, see H. Rousso, Vichy: l’événement, la mémoire, l’histoire (Paris: Gallimard, 2001). 109 Bood, Les Années doubles, p. 144. 110 Ibid., p. 143. 111 See, A. Souyris-Rolland, ‘Les Chantiers de la jeunesse’, in F.-G. Dreyfus (ed.), Le Patriotisme des français sous l’Occupation (Paris: Éditions de Paris, 2000) and O. Faron, Les Chantiers de la jeunesse: avoir 20 ans sous Pétain (Paris: Grasset, 2011). Christophe Pecout contests the importance of Gaullisme in the Chantiers in C. Pecout, Les Chantiers de la jeunesse et la revitalisation physique et morale de la jeunesse française (1940–1944) (Paris: Harmattan, 2007). 112 For an example of a book which places the victimisation of labour deportees within the framework of resistance, see J.-P. Harbulot, Le Service du travail obligatoire: La Région de Nancy face aux exigences allemandes (Nancy: Presses universitaires de Nancy, 2003).

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4 Why rugby and not football? Vichy anti-professionalism and the sporting environment of wartime France

On 19 December 1941, the Vichy regime banned Rugby League.1 Although it was an open secret that Vichy officials loathed what they called the jeu à treize, the new law shocked athletes at the working-class rugby club Toulouse Olympique. In their new stadium in the Barrière de Paris neighbourhood, the toulousains debated the best way to respond to the decree that authorised the state to seize their assets. Unwilling to lose everything they had built up over a decade, Olympique’s leaders reluctantly transformed their association into a Rugby Union club, joined the Fédération Française de Rugby, and stopped paying their players. During the Vichy era, the Rugby League Federation became a victim of a Government despoliation, in which the Ministry of Sports redistributed their goods and property. By the winter of 1942, French Rugby League no longer existed. Its dramatic prohibition accords with Vichy historiography, which emphasises an arbitrary Government acting precipitously to enforce their will on a recalcitrant population.2 This was the view of Vichy’s Ministry of Sports, expounded most eloquently in the report commissioned by Marie-George Buffet in 2002, La Politique du sport et de l’éducation physique en France pendant l’Occupation, aligned with analyses of the whole regime which characterised it as essentially repressive.3 At the same time, while the state’s treatment of Jewish businesses or the communist-affiliated labour unions undoubtedly revealed the murderous extent of its capriciousness, in the case of physical education and sports, the Vichy regime did not act as

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harshly or as rashly.4 Certainly, authoritarian sensibilities emerged in the Ministry of Sports under the authority of Jean Borotra, who ran the Ministry from 1940 to May 1942, and even expanded under the leadership of his successor, Joseph Pascot. Both men were connected to the despoliation of Rugby League, arguably the state’s most tyrannical interaction with any French sporting organisation. Nevertheless, Rugby League’s prohibition only tells a small part of the story as it differed so markedly from the deprofessionalisation efforts in other realms and even other sports, especially the politically powerful and popular Fédération Française de Football (FFFA), which remained professionalised despite Sports Minister Jean Borotra’s opposition to paying players. In football, boxing, and cycling, the Sports Ministry pursued a policy of creeping deprofessionalisation, designed to limit professionalism gradually while preserving the existing structure of French sporting life. The subsequent Pascot administration, although more repressive in many ways, particularly in its treatment of Jewish athletes, accommodated itself to professionalism rather than continuing the regime’s earlier attacks on the popular practice. As in the case of Vichy’s educational institutions, Sports Ministry officials only accomplished their goals through close collaboration with athletes, sports organisers, and fans on the local level. The despoliation of the rugby à treize federation was possible because Rugby League was relatively unpopular and the Vichy Government had a willing partner in the Fédération Française de Rugby.5 The perseverance of other professional sports illustrated how the balance of power between the state and the sporting organisation influenced the success of deprofessionalisation. The Vichy regime triangulated between their totalising, technocratic programme based on participatory amateurism, but national federations, local clubs, athletes, and fans forced the Government to respond to their desires. At the same time, the state’s inability to deprofessionalise popular sports like football did not indicate their incapacity. When their deprofessionalisation activities stalled, Sports Ministry officials were innovative in the way they worked with other stakeholders. The Sports Ministry even legitimised professional football by starting a federal league with sixteen teams in 1943 to capitalise on the popularity of football without abandoning their goal of complete amateurism (amateurisme intégrale).

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Throughout the Vichy period, the Sports Ministry’s nuanced approaches to deprofessionalisation demonstrated state flexibility and also illuminated the ability of local associations, federations, athletes, the press, and fans to accommodate, manipulate, and even alter Government policy. Throughout this chapter, I will unpack the logic of deprofessionalisation that emerged out of the Popular Front; examine the rules and regulations that guided the process; and illustrate how the Vichy state’s response to professionalism depended significantly on the needs and desires of athletic stakeholders. Sports Ministry regulations worked against professionalism, but the state also had to respond to the needs of popular athletes and clubs. In the case of the massive despoliation of Rugby League, the Government acted in collaboration with other sporting organisations, such as the Fédération Française de Rugby, to justify their actions, but those same officials were not willing to expose other important athletic federations, including the powerful Football Federation, to such severe pressure, and so they slowly fought against professionalism, sometimes even quietly approving of it. Although many French athletes opposed professionalism in the 1930s, a significant minority vehemently supported it. The press and the public gradually shifted towards a grudging respect for professionalism, especially as the amateur policies of the Vichy state seemed to cause a series of disastrous outcomes in international competitions in 1942. Sports Ministry officials responded to these humiliating debacles by accepting a limited professional football league, called the Pascot Plan, after Vichy’s second Sports Minister. The public, the federation, and the press all strongly opposed this system, which fundamentally changed the structure of French football. Prestigious clubs across the country fought against it because it undermined their autonomy and created regional super teams. When the Vichy state collapsed, the federal system also ended, and the FFFA returned to the pre-war professional system. In many respects, then, the Vichy regime’s ineffective deprofessionalisation shifted public opinion away from mass participation towards mass spectatorship; consequently, the legitimisation of the modern professional sports spectacle in France is one of the legacies of the Vichy era. Small local sporting associations also learned to take advantage of the inconsistencies in laws and practices to pursue their own agendas. The Racing Club de Lens and the Association Sportive de

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Sainte-Barbe d’Oignies dealt with the state’s opposition to professionalism in completely different but ultimately productive ways. The latter staunchly avowed amateurism to petition the state for benefits, while the former remained doggedly professional and gained significant competitive advantages. The divergent approaches of these clubs exemplified how power and agency worked in local sporting organisations as they acted with and against the regime’s ideologically driven administrators.

The politics of professionalism during Vichy In October 1940, journalist Jacques Goddet wrote in L’Auto about new Sports Minister Jean Borotra and his vision for sports in France. The Minister ‘wanted to believe in the return of morality [and] in the recovery of conscience’. Only participatory amateurism revitalised the bodies, minds, and spirits of young men and women, teaching them the right lessons about competition, including the taste for effort, and preparing them to serve their family, employer, and the nation. Amateurism would ‘no longer be an image of a doctrine’, as it had been during the Third Republic, ‘but a system, a means of action, an example destined to purify the human race’.6 To safeguard the restorative purpose of sport, he planned to ban all professional competitions. The subsequent despoliation of the professional Rugby League federation illustrated this anti-materialist dream at the centre of Borotra’s programme, linked in tenuous ways to the broader plan for national regeneration. When the regime put it into practice it reflected the authoritarian edge of Vichy sports politics.7 Jean Borotra’s antipathy to professional sports echoed a long tradition of opposition to paying athletes that began in nineteenthcentury aristocratic associations and continued through the Sports Ministry of the Popular Front. As Joan Tumblety notes in Remaking the Male Body, the Vichy state ‘built on the assumptions that underpinned the world of interwar physical culture’, which included interwar opposition to paying athletes, as well as the reality of entrenched professionalism in many of France’s most important sporting federations, especially the FFFA.8 The professionalisation of French football in 1932 and Rugby League in 1934 brought the issue of paying players to the fore, and

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throughout the 1930s advocates of amateurism and professionalism engaged in a decade-long rhetorical battle in the press. The intensity of their conflict only grew following the French defeat, since many conservative critics lumped professionalism alongside other factors that explained the weakness of France’s young men. At the centre of the debate was whether professionalism produced elite athletes that became examples for young French people to follow, or whether it undermined the values of participatory amateurism and created a nation of passive spectators. Vichy officials had the authority to immediately end legal professionalism everywhere. The Sports Charter (Charte des Sports), signed into law on 20 December 1940, gave the Vichy state, through its agents in the Sports Ministry, wide authority to regulate sporting activities, in both sporting associations and sporting federations. The Charte explicitly described the Commissariat Général à l’Éducation Générale et aux Sports as a powerful state bureaucracy, responsible through its subsidiary, the Comité National des Sports, for the coordination, control, and development of ‘all activity organised under the sporting federations’.9 The Comité directed all of the sporting federations in France, and under their rules all sporting organisations were required by law to affiliate with the appropriate national federation. Football teams joined the FFFA; tennis clubs signed on with the Lawn Tennis Federation. The Comité also appointed half of the members to each federation’s board of directors, a power they exercised regularly throughout the war. The Charte des Sports provided a more authoritarian structure to French sport than had existed during the Third Republic, but like so many things during the Vichy regime, appearances were deceiving. The press quickly reported on the new Charte as an accommodation with the 1901 law of associations rather than a suppression of the previous order. As Marcel Oger wrote in L’Auto, the Charte ‘would not suppress the law of 1901 but add to it’.10 At the same time, the new law immediately suggested the mergers of many organisations: the kayak, canoe, and crew federations would become a single group under the control of the Fédération des Sociétés d’Aviron. They even considered combining the basketball and handball federations. The press helped to spread information about the new law, as well as keeping the public abreast of further details about the new regulations. Reports emanated from the metropole,

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reverberating as far as France’s colonies, including protectorates such as Morocco where sporting associations reported discussing the charter in their annual meetings.11 At the same time, there was considerable reason to suspect that the Vichy regime’s authoritarian character did not always result in immediate changes: it is unclear whether the Sports Ministry wanted to or even could verify whether each sporting organisation across the country was following its dictates. The regime’s decentralised control of construction and even the organisation of teacher-training schools illustrated how the state envisioned working with the established French sporting world. Indeed, despite the forceful language of the Charte, many clubs, such as Club Athlétique de Radiotechnique, did not even align their own governing documents to the Vichy Charter until 1944.12 While the Sports Charter gave Jean Borotra wide authority, providing the legal basis for Vichy administrators to enact the so-called fatal decree that banned Rugby League, the susceptibility of a professional federation or association to closure was in part determined by its popularity, and the likelihood that any disruptions would lead to a decline in athletic activity. The prohibition of Rugby League was a goal of the Sports Ministry, but it only happened with the support of other sports stakeholders, including the Fédération Française de Rugby, which offered to step in to assure continued participation of most rugby clubs and players. Rugby Unionists were happy to see the Government shutter their rival federation and lead their erstwhile prodigal clubs back home. There were two rugby codes in 1930s France: Rugby League and Rugby Union. Their gameplay similarities – the greatest divergence being the number of players and the use of phases or downs in Rugby League – belied a wide social division between the two sports. Each represented not only divergent views about how to play rugby, but also different interpretations of who should play and for what purpose. As in the United Kingdom, French Rugby Union attracted the aristocratic and emphasised the amateur, along with anglophile sports culture. Rugby League, by contrast, spread among the provincial urban working classes and quickly adopted professionalism. In the Southwest of France, the two federations competed for the attentions of young men. Rugby Union was more popular, as it was around the world at that time, but in the years before the Second

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World War scandals drove star players and dozens of associations to join Rugby League. French Rugby Union became dominated by slow play on the ground and frequent scrums. Hard-fought contests encouraged French players to develop a particularly violent style of play known as the rugby de meutre.13 Several player deaths followed and in response the International Rugby Board kicked the French out of the prestigious Five Nations Tournament. Rugby Union splintered into rival factions as well-heeled clubs such as Biarritz, Bordeaux, and Stade Français formed a competitor federation called the Union Française de Rugby Amateur committed to preserving rugby as an amateur and elite pastime. French Rugby Union’s division inspired English and French sports administrators who wanted to introduce Rugby League to a new audience. In 1933, French businessmen brought an Australia–England friendly to Paris. On New Year’s Eve, the Anglo Rugby League players showcased a ‘spectacular antithesis’ to the staid ground game common to Rugby Union.14 The next year, Jean Galia, former international and cinema owner, founded the Ligue Française de Rugby à XIII (French Rugby League). The new federation attracted a large number of players, especially working-class ruggers, from around the country who wanted to escape from the dull rugby de meurte of the aristocratic code. This exodus of players and fans created an unambiguous picture of an ascendant rugby à treize. By 1939, the number of treizistes clubs had exploded to around 225 new associations, while Rugby Union membership totals had collapsed from 831 to only 471 clubs.15 The Vichy regime’s decision to ban Rugby League ended its expansion and instead solidified the pre-eminent position of Rugby Union in France. The shared backgrounds of leading figures in the Sports Ministry and French Rugby Union Federation persuaded some historians that the state and Rugby Union collaborated to destroy the rival sporting code.16 Key Vichy officials did cut their teeth on Rugby Union, some playing rugby for the French national team, and many enjoyed close friendships with Unionists, most notably former international rugby star and future Sports Minister Joseph Pascot, who ran the Comité National des Sports.17 These overlapping connections between Sports Ministry and Rugby Union officials made Rugby League especially vulnerable. On 18 September 1940, Paul Voivenel, an important Rugby Union organiser, filed a

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report to Borotra demanding that the Government ban the jeu à treize. Rugby League was ‘heretical’ and ‘impure’. Paying players brought pollution and dissidence.18 On 17 October 1940, Pascot acted as the head of the Comité and represented Borotra at a meeting in Toulouse. He brought together officials from Rugby Union (Albert Ginesty and Paul Voivenel) and the Rugby League federation (Marcel Laborde) to discuss the merger of the two federations. With the cards stacked against him, Laborde acquiesced to the fusion of the two codes. On the face of it, the Vichy state certainly did use their power to tip the scales in the conflict of the two codes, but the Vichy regime’s actions were motivated as much by their strong ideological opposition to professionalism as by their desire to rationalise the French sports world by maximising the number of competitors and competitions.19 In fact, the Rugby League ban happened in the context of widespread preservation and reorganisation of weakened French institutions contrasted with more restrained policies enacted against other sports, especially professional football, cycling, and boxing. The Vichy state, dealing with the dislocation caused by the war and Occupation, picked sporting winners and losers, such as when they organised the entirety of France’s left-wing sporting organisations under the aegis of their erstwhile rivals in the Fédération Sportive et Gymnique du Travail. On the other hand, a professional football ban would create too much disruption to sports, and under Borotra’s orders, the Sports Ministry postponed the deprofessionalisation of football until no earlier than 1942.20 Nevertheless, between autumn 1940 and May 1942, he instigated a policy of creeping deprofessionalisation with the aim of slowly reducing the importance of paying players without an outright ban of the practice. Each year the Sports Ministry published a list of professional statutes (Statut de Professionnel) with new limitations on paying players. In 1941 the number of legal professionals fell and all teams ostensibly fielded amateur players in every game. In the 1942/43 season teams were limited to seven professionals.21 The number of teams permitted to pay players also diminished from forty-two teams in the 1939/40 season to twenty-two in the 1940/41 season.22 Football and Rugby League were not the only professional sports to be affected by the new anti-professional policies of the Vichy state. The Fédération Française de Lawn-Tennis suffered under a

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period of crisis as international competition ended almost completely.23 Professional cycling, an activity better known for its payment of prize money than salaries, faced difficulties as the Vichy state curtailed major competitions, including the Tour de France, which ended in 1940 and did not resume until 1946, despite some attempts to revive it during the war.24 Football, tennis, boxing, and cycling professionalism persisted despite official opposition to professionalism. The crucial difference was that those federations wholeheartedly supported professionalism and the state had no competing federation with which to collaborate against them. The state had to work with the football, tennis, boxing, and cycling federations to keep their activities ongoing, so as to achieve their aim of mass participation; in doing so, they accepted a limited professionalism as part of the bargain. Football and cycling clubs also had enough public support to make it more difficult for the state to ban paying players, while Rugby League’s support was more limited and regional, confined to the Southwest of France. Events following the Toulouse meeting corroborate the Vichy state’s flexible approach to sports professionalism. Ordinary Rugby League clubs worried that their fields and equipment could be seized, their coffers emptied, and their membership delivered to their rivals in Fédération Française de Rugby. Under the second article of the Charte des Sports, the Vichy Sports Ministry could take treizistes property and hand it over to the Comité Nationale des Sports for redistribution.25 The decree’s punitive nature shocked League supporters, such as the journalist Jean Mitjaville, who called the prohibition ‘vile, low, traitorous … and cruel’, but during the Vichy regime they had no legal recourse.26 In the end, however, the Vichy state worked largely with associations to ensure their continuity, even as they despoiled the Rugby League’s head offices. The federations lost their property; however, most sporting organisations, especially those large enough to include multiple sports, such as Toulouse Olympique, transitioned from Rugby League into Rugby Union teams. Rugby League remained banned until the Liberation, but people continued to play the game popularly in schools in the Southwest.27 In other words, contrary to some historians’ interpretations, the Rugby League ban was not a case of revenge by a cabal of Rugby Union and Vichy officials, but instead came in the context of considerable discussion and flexibility about the effects of deprofessionalisation

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on French sports. In August 1940, the Sports Ministry formed a committee to examine the question of professional sports. The committee had three questions: 1) how to ‘ban, limit, or control’ professionalism in sports; 2) how to ‘safeguard’ the recruitment of training of elite athletes for international competition without professionalism; and 3) how to create a uniform definition of amateurism across all sports.28 The committee included French sports luminaries, some of whom nominally supported professionalism, including Jules Rimet, the head of the FFFA.29 After several months of debate, the committee returned with a report whose conclusions appeared in all the major French sports papers. The committee affirmed their ‘faith in amateurism’ because it ‘had an educational and social role … to achieve balance between [people’s] physical, moral, and intellectual capacities’. By contrast, professionalism spurred them towards ‘an ephemeral career, perhaps brilliant, but sooner or later deceiving’. Young French athletes needed to see sports as ‘a noble and passionate means to perfection’. ‘When sports ceases to be amateur, it becomes a goal’, they argued, ‘the triumph of physical talents … enslaves everything to muscles and it moves in a direction that is not ours’.30 Despite their preference for amateurism, the committee’s responses illustrated the difficulty of extending a single policy over the whole of France and across many sports. ‘Amateurism is a state of mind [un état d’ame]’, they wrote, that relied upon the honour of athletes and that needed to be affirmed in solemn rituals. Their definition of amateurism recognised it as someone ‘who practices sport or participates in competitions for the love of sport, without receiving for their participation a payment or compensation, and without drawing or seeking to derive a livelihood’.31 The committee offered several recommendations for the future of sports in France. Since it was essential that sports provoke ‘total joy in the effort made’, rather than be the result of ‘material concerns’, they proposed the prohibition of professional sports in France, with a three-year delay for popular sports, including football, boxing, cycling, and Basque pelota. To solemnise the practice of amateur sports, they suggested the organisation of annual public oaths of amateurism for sportsmen and -women. These ceremonies became the infamous Oath of the Athlete (serment de l’athlète). They also proposed the institution of a national jury d’honneur, to judge cases of illicit professionalism.

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Although they drew their definition almost entirely from a 1929 Comité National des Sports definition, the Sports Ministry’s committee on professionalism waved away without significant commentary the idea that only paying players could produce elite athletes able to represent the nation internationally. They were also eerily silent about the boundaries of amateurism that troubled their interwar contemporaries. What would the Vichy state do about athletes who competed for their employer’s team, who received athletic goods supplied by their clubs, or received reimbursement for their expenses or time away from work? They would have been familiar with these marginal cases because they were the exact avenues by which French football became professionalised during the late 1920s and early 1930s. As Rimet, the President d’honneur of the FFFA, was one of the committee members, the committee’s silence on these complex issues spoke to the difficulty of defining amateurism, accounting for all the ways that players received compensation, and negotiating with the range of French sporting organisations. The committee’s unwillingness to eradicate professionalism immediately did not necessarily reflect the state’s impotence as much as it showed how Sports Ministry officials were prepared to work with and within the sporting landscape of the interwar period. When Jean Borotra came to power in late summer 1940, he understood that the presence of so many ordinary French people crowded into the tribunes indicated both the popularity and strength of professionalism and the broad allure of spectator sports, but he had complicated views on spectatorship and a profound dislike for the idea of professionalism. He saw spectatorship as a double-edged sword: he appreciated the appearance of fans at his events, because the large crowds of cheering supporters gave legitimacy to his Ministry and the regime.32 At a track and field competition on 7 September 1941, when dozens of participants swore the Oath of the Athlete, he joined other Vichy officials who trumpeted the attendance of thousands of spectators to the event because they knew those spectators represented public backing for the Sports Ministry’s programmes.33 At the same time, spectators could also be a threat to the orderliness of the event. Vichy officials were especially concerned that professional sports contributed to public disruptions, including violence in the stands.34 Jean Borotra and his Ministry also faced an uphill battle fighting against the supporters of professionalism, who were already quite

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numerous in 1940. A certain number of French men and women enjoyed professionalism for competitive reasons. Despite the state’s heady rhetoric supporting amateurs, in match after match the professionals beat the pures (‘pures’), and often by humiliating totals, making the difference between the two obvious even to the uninitiated. Emmanuel Aznar scored nine goals alone, still a record in the French league, in an October 1942 match between the professionals from Olympique Marseille and the amateurs of Avignon Foot 84 which ended 20–2. Still, the amateurs’ quixotic quest entranced journalists. The press loved the rare cases when amateurs beat professionals. For example, in June 1941 L’Auto crowed about the triumph of the Veledrome Municipale, the so-called amateurs at ’Cipale, who beat the professionals at their own game in the Championnat de Paris in 1941.35 Of course, many journalists felt a natural support for the ‘underdog’ (les opprimes), but their support for the amateurs went beyond such a simple explanation and can only be understood as an expression of support for the ideals of amateurism. At the same time, these expressions of solidarity by the sporting presses only meant so much and they could not change what people saw with their own eyes. The greatest obstacle to the state’s promotion of participatory amateurism to the public was the obvious difference in quality between professional and amateur players. The rhetorical defence of amateurism in the public sphere did not necessarily translate into the spread of amateur principles among the public, and indeed the politicisation of amateurism undoubtedly contributed to its unpopularity after the war. Amateurism became linked to the state because Sports Ministry officials made sure their anti-professional opinions appeared in most major sports papers. state-supported newspapers, such as Sport: la vie en plein air, Tous les sports, and Stade, regularly published articles against professionalism. In August 1941, Tous les sports reported on a year of progress in French sports under Vichy, noting that ‘the double problem of professionalism and shamateurism is being solved in complete agreement with the federations’.36 Positive reporting on amateur athletes provided a foil to the impure professionals. On 15 October 1943, Sport: la vie en plein air applauded amateur footballers’ successes over the previous year, including victories over Marseille, Brive, St Etienne, and a few ties too.37 These complimentary pieces worked on readers’ emotions

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and became powerful arguments for the Government’s amateur sports agenda. When combined with the popular manifestations of the Oath of the Athlete, the regulatory framework of the Charte des sports, and consolidation of professional sports federations, the Vichy regime cleverly produced a rich public imagery of amateurism and professionalism. Paying players led to a weak and overspecialised elite. Amateurism produced a veritable army of physically fit young men and women ready to serve the state. These interconnected activities were the product of the new regime, which hoped that despite their pitiable circumstances, at least in stadiums, French people could take pride in seeing a large and representative cohort of strong and healthy young people.

Professionalism and international football Popular sports journalists echoed the state’s anxieties about professionalism, continuing their ambivalent editorial support of professionalism from the Third Republic. As an editor in the conservative L’Auto explained: a real amateur prepared his gym bag, paid for his own ticket on the train, ‘took a large bowl of health’, and then returned home in the evening ‘full of memories and thoughts that beautify their life’. They were poets and raconteurs for whom sports was a pastime and a complement to their primary duties of family, community, and country.38 In an article titled the ‘Vraie défense de l’amateurisme’, Jacques Goddet defended amateurism because it promoted collectivist action.39 In another piece, ‘Amateurisme ou formule libre’, Achille Duchenne critiqued paying players because it undermined youth participation and the health of sporting associations.40 This view of amateurism continued to appear in the popular press well into the middle of 1942, after which the state’s efforts to enforce amateurism on an increasingly recalcitrant FFFA undermined the Government’s larger goal of re-establishing France’s position among the great nations of Europe. The popularity of professional football was a constant problem for Sports Ministry officials, who never developed a useful way of mobilising professionalism to serve the National Revolution. A France actualités film reel of the 1943 Coupe de France final captured the ongoing approval of professional football despite three years of

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state support for amateurism.41 In front of a sold-out crowd of more than forty thousand spectators at the Stade de Colombes in Paris, the pros of Olympique Marseille dealt with the pros of the Girondins de Bordeaux, scoring four times in ninety minutes.42 The clip features the sights and sounds of the stadium experience: stands packed with fans ready for a show, a pre-game speech from Vichy’s Sports Minister, Jep Pascot, who wishes the athletes good luck. As Aznar scores Marseille’s first goal, a man in a pressed white shirt and tie can be seen laughing, grabbing his friend by the shoulder, and smiling incredulously. A group of children reach their arms and legs past the barbed wire fence that separates them from the field. A row of uniformed police officers watch the game closely under helmets. After the final goal, the crowd stand up, clap enthusiastically, whistle, and shout congratulations. Crowd totals of the Coupe de France finals dwarfed any public sporting celebration hosted by the Vichy regime. The ability of professional matches to draw tens of thousands of fans confounded Vichy officials, who were frustrated that the sporting public appreciated competition very differently from them. They disparaged professional competition because it produced elites and passive spectators, but the public loved the high-calibre play of professionals. Sports pages trafficked in articles about top athletes. Celebrities sold papers. L’Auto frequently featured articles on Alfred Aston, Raoul Diagne, Rudolphe Hiden, Auguste Jordan, and Désiré Koranyi. An article on 19 January 1941 focused on Louis Finot, the last of a dying type: a multisport athlete, a professional footballer and a former track star. At the start of 1941, he raced against three hundred other contestants in a winter cross-country match.43 Even state-supported publications, such as the magazine Sport: la vie en plein air, covered star athletes. Their editors applauded Emmanuel Aznar, George Dard, and Jacques Delachet for their work, and lauded Jean Bastien for his ‘exceptional vitality’, ‘dynamism’, and ‘mobility’ on and off the ball.44 In international sports, the interests of the Vichy state and the public that loved professionalism intersected. Ordinary sports fans viewed the professional athletes as representing the state and nation during the wartime. A win for the French national team, in any sport, was a triumph, but the football team attracted the most passionate followers. Yet international sport essentially stopped

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during the war. The inability to travel across Europe, the conscription of most world-class athletes, and the near-impossibility of hosting international competition forced Vichy to focus more heavily on sports within the metropole, but French sports fans also had opportunities to watch elite French athletes compete against foreign opponents, in sports as varied as football, basketball, and handball in some rare cases. Two international football matches were among the most well-covered sporting events of the Occupation and their symbolic value outweighed all the others. The French team’s dismal performance in those matches drove the sporting public to reconsider any support it might have held for the state’s amateur policies. A concerted pushback against Vichy’s deprofessionalisation policies arose because the sporting press and ordinary French fans saw amateurism as an impediment to the success of the French national team. If a win on the field was a symbol of a nation’s strength, defeats on the football fields were akin to defeats in battle.45 As early as 1941, articles defending the practice of professionalism appeared in the French press. Maurice Pefferkorn, a celebrated sports journalist, approached the issue of professionalism lightly. He backed the practice of creeping deprofessionalism, while still arguing that professional players were necessary to represent France internationally. Creeping deprofessionalism made the pro teams more competitive, which in turn meant that individual players worked harder. ‘Little by little’, he wrote, ‘our professional teams are eliminating the insufficiently sized and those of weak constitution’.46 The players who remained were better. If French football wanted to succeed internationally, he continued, ‘it needed to find a way to train an elite. That is why we have the professional league.’ 47 Pefferkorn’s predictions proved prescient. The failure of the French team in two top-flight international football matches in 1942 struck a significant blow against the state’s campaign for deprofessionalisation. If international football matches represented an opportunity for France to symbolically reclaim their rightful position in Europe, the drama of the Occupation redoubled the importance of these matches. The Vichy state recognised the explosive potential of sporting competitions between French and German athletes. A pick-up football game in the early autumn of 1940 resulted in a physical altercation between German and French athletes and the arrest of several Frenchmen. The incident became a point of contention at Montoire,

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where Pierre Laval successfully negotiated with Hitler for the release of the French football players.48 In response, Borotra banned football competition between the French and the Germans. Nonetheless, many French people did want to play an actual football match against the Germans and a potential visit by the German national team to Paris in October 1942 brought speculation about a France– Germany match, pitting the occupier against the occupied.49 In the meantime, the FFFA organised a calendar of friendly matches with non-combatant countries in continental Europe. These matches should have been a boon to the Vichy Government, but the French team’s awful performance instead embarrassed the Government and undermined it. The first match, against the Swiss on 8 March 1942, was ripe with geopolitical overtones. Only a few months earlier, the precocious Swiss team had defeated the Germans.50 French sports fans, ashamed by their country’s almost complete impotence in the face of German political power, hoped for a victory over the Swiss because such a victory, in their minds, would feel like a victory over their occupier. Unfortunately for the French, the blues lost in front of a heavily pro-France crowd in Marseille.51 The French team never threatened to win, and newspapers lambasted them as ‘incapable of scoring’.52 Their weakness came as a surprise because the French front line included excellent scorers such as André Simonyi and Maurice Dupuis. Rather than alleviating the humiliation of the Occupation, the national team’s loss exacerbated it. A second match on 15 March 1942 proved to be an even larger debacle, which eventually prompted the football federation to cancel future international competitions. Against the Spanish, the French gave up four goals and scored none. Reporters linked the weakness of the French team to the question of amateurism. Jacques Goddet continued to believe that if they had struggled under amateur conditions the French team would have been stronger.53 Most observers, however, saw that the French team lacked ‘speed’, ‘efficiency with the ball’, and the ‘necessary technique’.54 Public debate moved past the issue of purity and instead honed in on whether the French state needed ‘to reconsider professionalism’ as a way to improve their side.55 The French national team’s on-the-field defeats produced too many echoes with the nation’s current situation and French periodicals lamented that the team humiliated the nation.56 The state-supported newspaper Sport: la vie en plein air recognised that the French

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national team had regressed and they wondered melodramatically if France had to abandon their international matches.57 Reeling from their embarrassing losses, the head of the French national team, Gaston Barreau, abandoned France’s upcoming matches against Portugal, Spain, and Switzerland.58 In conceding defeat a year ahead of time, Barreau essentially acknowledged that wartime France had become ‘staid and numbed by mediocrity’.59 The failure of the French national team thus undermined the state’s intended message. Instead of depicting a strong and virile nation, defeat on the field made the country look inexcusably weak. The complete abandonment of international competition caused French newspapers and ordinary people to question the efficacy of the state’s sporting policies. Sports journalists who had previously advocated amateurism now published articles re-evaluating their previous positions. These articles emerged not only out of smaller, local presses but also from L’Auto, the most important wartime sports daily, which published several articles in support of professionalism. In an article entitled ‘Beaucoup de compétitions de masse’, L’Auto’s editor averred that ‘professional football is necessary’ because only professional players could be talented enough to represent France internationally.60 Sport: la vie en plein air also now published articles that questioned Vichy’s anti-professional policies, on the basis that they diluted the nation’s talent. It was a tacit admission from the state that it seemed necessary to ‘ignore the morals of the game’ to be in a position ‘to win’.61

The Pascot Plan Another international incident also contributed to the conservation of professional football in France, although in a form few would have envisioned a year earlier. In early 1942, the Germans pressured the French to force Jean Borotra out of the Sports Ministry because of his overt Germanophobia. While the Germans largely ignored sporting life in France, unless they wanted to seize a club’s property, Borotra’s intransigence was inexcusable. He refused to pretend to like the Germans, especially Ambassador Otto Abetz, with whom he had at least one verbal confrontation. He also complained openly about the humiliation of the German Occupation and banned French

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athletes from competing against their German counterparts. Unbeknown to the Nazis, but not to the French, Borotra also personally asked Pétain’s permission to go to England and join the Free French after the Fall of France in 1940.62 Colonel Joseph ‘Jep’ Pascot, former head of the Comité National des Sports, replaced Borotra as the head of the Sports Ministry, and over the transition, in the summer of 1942, it looked like professionalism could remain a feature of French sporting life. Pascot seemed open to permitting professionalism and he met with officials at the FFFA to discuss the possibility of the re-implementation of full professionalism. L’Auto announced the meeting in an article entitled ‘Vers une étude du football pro’, which detailed top-level discussions between the Sports Ministry and the federation.63 In the end, Pascot’s Ministry was even more ambivalent than Borotra’s. Unlike his predecessor, who seemed motivated by real principles, Pascot was an enigmatic former rugbyman who surrounded himself with a mix of Vichy insiders and inept bureaucrats. In 1942, he decided against paying players, but the following year French newspapers, including Football, copied, word for word, the text of the new Pascot Plan, which simultaneously suggested the state pay athletes directly and also called professionalism a ‘shameful malady’.64 He even repeated Borotra’s mantra that only amateurism served the national interest because it gave French youth ‘the taste of effort: not effort for gain, but effort for its own sake’, as he gave his imprimatur to a formalisation of state-led professionalism.65 To better respond to the failures of the French national football team, the Sports Ministry adopted a policy of federalisation designed to provide the advantages of professionalism and align with Vichy’s stated amateur values. The novel Pascot Plan federalised the French football league, including two major changes;66 first, the state paid the players’ salaries, thus transforming professionals into state functionaries; then, in addition, the Sports Ministry created and controlled the sixteen professional teams authorised to pay players. It established these super teams by merging top-level sporting associations, forcibly blending two or even three societies, and keeping their best players.67 Occasionally these fusions were uncomfortable; bringing together cross-town rivals Red Star Football Club and the Club Athlétique de Paris, and the Racing Club de Paris; but they reflected geographic concerns rather than competitive ones.

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The federal system represented the Vichy state’s best attempt to come to terms with the necessity of professional football players, but it also generated concerted opposition from the federation and associations, which complicated the state’s intrusion into what they considered their internal affairs. The FFFA had already shown a willingness to stand up to the Vichy state. In 1941, the Sports Ministry pressured it to restructure several regional leagues to account for the line of demarcation, but the federation complained that such a move would undo all the networks, especially the rivalries, of the local sports.68 In response to Jean Borotra’s anti-professional statements, the federation formed a commission that reaffirmed its commitment to paying players.69 The regime’s use of football as a political tool and the critique of professionalism deeply offended some football leaders, including Jules Rimet.70 In protest he resigned his position and moved into exile in Switzerland in 1942.71 After he left, Sports Ministry officials ridiculed him and told reporters that he probably ‘regretted resigning in protest of the state’s sports policies’.72 In fact, Rimet’s resignation made the Sports Ministry’s situation easier because the new head of the federation, Henri Delaunay, proved more pliable to the state’s demands. Delaunay signalled support for the federalisation of the top league of the FFFA in the summer of 1943, but privately the wider leadership of the federation seemed lukewarm to the idea of federalisation. The notes of their internal meetings reflected difficulties with the adjustment. The federation’s minutes (procès-verbaux) typically took up three or four pages, but the ‘Implementation of the programme to reorganise French football’ on 28 June 1943 took up more than eight tightly packed pages.73 Committee members discussed logistics: the location of the federal clubs (équipes fédérales), the financial responsibility for the new league, and the status of foreign-born professionals. The merits of the federalisation plan were left undiscussed in their reports, and perhaps the federation’s leaders felt unable to comment freely since Pascot had already announced his plan to the press and it had been widely debated throughout the month of June 1943.74 To ensure the successful implementation of the Pascot Plan, the federation’s leadership reached out to their regional and local affiliates to nominate players, teams, and stadiums to secure their new venture.75 On the regional and local levels, however, the federation revolted. Players provided some of the earliest opposition. When the orders

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came down in summer 1943, many players refused to join their new federal teams. Jacques de Ryswick detailed the players’ revolt and raised questions about how the French Football Federation imposed penalties on recalcitrant players. The article lists a wide range of footballers, including some former stars, such as Ignace Tax, Jean Lauer, and Jean Snella, who opted to play for their local clubs instead of federal teams. The absolute number of such players is unknown, but the Government seemingly had no way of compelling recalcitrant players to change their minds. Only the federation had a way to punish the obstinate, giving out sixmonth bans to three stubborn footballers. Former prisoner of war M. Thomas, Roger Carré, and Antoine Myskowski all refused to join their federal teams. Instead they opted to play for their local sides ASF Perroux, RC Roubaix, and RC Franc-Comtois. De Ryswick wondered why the federation applied the penalties to these players but not to other players like Henri Arnaudeau and Jean Swiatek. ‘Myskowski had not signed his contract’, de Ryswick noted, pointing out the irony of the federation’s punishments, which locked players into undesirable arrangements. The whole situation might have been avoided, he suggested, if the federation had asked players if they wanted to join federal teams, rather than trying to force them to play. Strong opposition also came from clubs in the Nord-Pas-de-Calais, which formed a sort of regional resistance to the federal system emanating out of Vichy. Prefects in the region recognised the resilience of local football culture in the face of Government changes to sport.76 Clubs in Amiens, Lens, Fives, Lille, and Excelsior-Roubaix-Tourcoing complained to both the football federation and then to the Sports Ministry.77 They decided to protest together against the decisions of the Government, made immediate contact with lawyers in order to consider their legal options, lobbied their respective municipalities, formed a committee to take their problems to the Sports Ministry and the federation, and remained united together and with any other sporting association opposed to the new laws.78 These teams claimed that the forced unifications hurt the health of the league. It ‘removed with the stroke of a pen. It dispossesses. It strikes football, for which they have sacrificed time and money for thirty or forty years, a fatal blow’.79 These complaints also alleged that the new regulations violated the Association loi de 1901.

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These Nordiste organisations discovered allies inside the federation that worked behind the scenes to preserve the bones of the old French football structure. In a letter written to Henri Delaunay, football official Jean Guignot explained that he ‘had a clandestine project very much incompatible with the new Pascot system’.80 Guignot met with a committee of notables, including Bayrou, Gamblin, and Henno, at the headquarters of the Comité Nationale des Sports and organised a shadow league that would emerge fully formed either at the end of the Pascot Plan or at the end of the war. In his communiqués with Delaunay, Guignot violated the spirit of the law and he feared an order from Pascot that would ‘eject him from the federation’.81 He might have hoped that he could last out the war. By the end of 1943, many French people recognised the weakening of the regime. Vichy’s days were numbered as the Allies made headway across Italy and in Eastern Europe. Major sports stakeholders suspected that it would only be a matter of time before a new French Republic reinstated professionalism. As the Nordiste revolt grew throughout the second half of 1943, the national press took up the stories of the northern football teams, magnifying the influence of these regional challenges far beyond the Nord-Pas-de-Calais. During the summer of 1943, the sporting press, particularly its flagship paper L’Auto, debated the new Pascot Plan. In an article on 16 June, the editors discussed some of the anticipated problems of the new law, including deciding on the new professional cadre.82 The next day, however, the paper reported on the open revolt of the Nordiste clubs. ‘The project of the [Sports Ministry] is welcomed here with scepticism. … They will, they have told us, take all necessary measures to organise a resistance [to it.]’ 83 Front-page articles entitled ‘Les Clubs nordistes solidaires, ne s’inclinent pas’ and ‘Les Clubs nordistes autorisés persistent dans leur protestation’ followed days later.84 The Government might have hoped that the furore would quieten down once the league started, but the beginning of federal play only brought up new questions about whether their system created better players. More than a few intelligent observers thought that the quality of French football might have even diminished because of the reorganisation of the federation.85 The inability of Joseph Pascot’s Sports Ministry to win over the press was not the only indication that the Government was

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ill equipped to deal with popular opposition. Associations might have appeared powerless, but they had significant leverage in any conflict with the state. Pascot needed to win the hearts and minds of athletes and the public, and therefore his Ministry was limited in the ways they could act. They could not simply respond arbitrarily, as they did in the case of the Rugby League federation, because they needed the support of the stakeholders in the national and regional bodies of the FFFA. Pascot realised that he also needed local sports fans to be receptive to these changes. Unfortunately for Pascot and others at the Sports Ministry, the clubs’ supporters did not transfer their loyalties to the new teams. The federal teams reflected neither their social identities nor their communal ones. The fans that associations now counted upon to fill the stands stopped showing up in such large numbers. In Brest, the local sports paper applauded a crowd of seven thousand five hundred people who attended a match between the Rennes-Bretagne and Rouen-Normandie teams. This attendance figure, which included around a thousand fans that received free tickets, accounted for only half of the stands at the Stade Francis-Le Blé. The total figure was down significantly from the year before when double that number of people came to the same arena to support their local club, the Stade brestois.86 These lower crowd figures illustrated that the federalised teams were not appealing to, and thus not reaching, their audience: fans preferred to consume sporting events that were meaningful to them. They wanted both talented players and a team that reflected their local, social identities. Neither the Fédération Française de Football nor the Vichy state seemed particularly concerned with the fate of individual professionals. Jean Bastien was one of the best players of the 1930s and 1940s. During the interwar years he made hundreds of appearances for two of France’s top clubs, Racing Club de Paris and Olympique Marseille. He also played several times for the French national team. On the field he was a star, scoring dozens of goals, but at the beginning of the 1943/44 season the Vichy Government limited the number of professionals per team to eight and his club annulled his contract, along with those of many other top players. He still played for Marseille that year, surviving on proceeds from a local bar. The club might have paid him under the table. The Occupation era did not mark the end of his career, but it certainly stole some of his

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best years.87 After the fall of Vichy in 1944, Marseille rehired him as a professional until 1950. Concern for the fate of professional players like Bastien came from an unlikely source: the Resistance press of the Fédération Sportive et Gymnique du Travail. In Sport libre, the Resistance press founded by Auguste Delaune, communists and socialists wrote articles in support of professionalism. This shift represented a sharp break from their pre-war stance, best articulated by Léo Lagrange, against professionalism. Sport libre called Vichy’s professional statutes a ‘challenge to French athletes’.88 An article entitled ‘Amateurisme! Que des crimes l’on comment en ton nom’ lamented the treatment of professional associations and their players. ‘How could they do this to one of the oldest French clubs, and a pillar of the north?’ the article wondered rhetorically. ‘The L’Olympique iris club lillois, a veritable condemnation to death. … An attack, by ricochet, on Monsieur Kretzschmar, one of the most significant sportsmen in the north.’ 89 The Fédération Sportive et Gymnique du Travail’s grudging support for professionalism, an opinion the communist and socialist federation adopted during the Occupation and in the postwar era, one likely taken up by many of their working-class membership, demonstrated how Vichy’s politicisation of amateurism and professionalism discredited the former and legitimised the latter.

Agency in sporting associations: two multisport associations in the Nord-Pas-de-Calais The Vichy state’s battle against professionalism offered opportunities for local sporting associations across the country to triangulate their approaches to amateurism in line with the ideals of the National Revolution. Some clubs stayed close to Vichy’s principles to gain special privileges. Other clubs effectively ignored the desires of the French state and relied on their local popularity, eschewing Government aid and continuing to field popular and profitable top-level professional teams. The ways that associations negotiated with the Sports Ministry, leaned on their communities, and developed innovative strategies that expanded the strictures of the law illustrate the innovative nature of French organisations despite the authoritarianism of the Vichy state and the German Occupation.

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Two multisport clubs in the Nord-Pas-de-Calais – the Racing Club de Lens (RCL) and the Association Sportive de Saint-Barbe d’Oignies (ASSBO) – developed divergent strategies to maintain their organisational vitality during wartime. Their different approaches to working with and against Vichy showed the vast range of possibilities open to wartime sporting associations. The two clubs split over the issue of football professionalism. The RCL promoted professional sports and, despite Government pressure, built a viable franchise by mobilising the significant industrial resources of its local community and mining industry. The more conservative ASSBO, named after the patron saint of miners Saint-Barbe, by contrast, remained staunchly amateur and used their amateurism to obtain special treatment from local officials. Each exemplified the ways in which local sporting associations manipulated the Vichy Government and their communities, adopting different coping strategies to preserve the vitality of club life, and ultimately achieve their wartime aims. Both the Racing Club de Lens and the Association Sportive de Saint-Barbe d’Oignies were formed in the intense sporting atmosphere of the Nord-Pas-de-Calais, a mining region of northern France that was rife with football clubs, thanks in part to its proximity to the United Kingdom with its vibrant working-class culture. The leaders of the Compagnie des Mines de Lens founded the Racing Club de Lens in 1906. Members and fans came from the football fanatic, working-class and mining culture of the Nord-Pas-de-Calais. By the mid-1920s, RCL had become one of the most important regional clubs, entering the French second division. They built a new forty thousand-seat stadium called the Stade Bollaert in 1933.90 The Association Sportive de Saint-Barbe d’Oignies, founded in 1921, shared similar origins in the working classes of the NordPas-de-Calais.91 The more modest Mines d’Ostricourt provided the funding for the club and its board of directors included the top officers of the mine: Honorary President M. Morel (Director General), President M. Lechevin (Chief of Commercial Services), and VicePresident M. Soufflet (Chief Operating Officer).92 The club’s base of support came from its working-class fans, several of whom were also included on the board of directors of the association, such as M. Eugene Delacourt and M. Jean Cayen, whose respective addresses, at Cité de la Gare Libercourt and Cité des Ateliers à Libercourt, suggest they were not high ranking within the company.93

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These associations shared similar social make-ups, including their working-class membership and mining company management, but they adopted different growth strategies in the 1930s, decisions which later guided the associations’ relationships with the Vichy regime. The ASSBO was proud and vocal about its amateurism. Club leaders acknowledged that professionalisation could have benefited the association competitively, but their leaders also believed the organisation should remain more closely tied to its working-class community within the mines of Oignies. ASSBO deliberately remained modest, never developing into a large commercial enterprise. Its membership never grew larger than one hundred and fifty. It never constructed a large stadium. The association preserved a traditional and local outlook. By contrast, the Racing Club de Lens very quickly became organised around a professional team, and in doing so the club began to appeal to larger local, regional, and international networks. The club’s President defended professionalisation as ‘a social work’ that served the local community by bringing so many ‘school children, and young people … to the sport of football’.94 Their club’s professionalisation was so successful that their top team entered into the first division due to the hard work of international heroes such as Stefan Dembicki, Ignace Kowalczyk, Anton Marek, and Ladislas Schmidt. Fans of the RCL called the team ‘les Polonais’ because of the Polish and Yugoslavian background of their professionals. Life in the association also developed a distinctly immigrant identity as the numerous foreign-born miners from around the Nord-Pas-deCalais started supporting Racing Club de Lens as an expression of ethnic and working-class solidarity. The differences between these two clubs’ approaches to club growth during the interwar era affected how they dealt with the Vichy state. All sporting associations faced financial difficulties during the war, especially during the dislocations of 1940 and 1941, but despite those difficulties the RCL continued to pay their top players. Their decision to remain professional meant that the club was at odds with high-level Vichy administrators. However, Vichy’s incomplete deprofessionalisation efforts ironically benefited the Lensois, who generated important competitive advantages against their rivals. For the 1942/43 season, the Sports Ministry limited the number of professional teams in France to thirty-two and the

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number of professional players per team to seven.95 The majority of professional teams now lost their professional status and could no longer pay their best players. On the contrary, the Lensois retained their professional status throughout the Occupation. The results for the club were clear. In 1942/43, the RCL topped the tables in the Occupied Zone. In the context of material shortage, the Racing Club de Lens and the Association Sportive de Saint-Barbe d’Oignies used different methods to get access to resources, and here clubs that averred amateurism had options which professional clubs lacked. Both clubs’ mining company sponsors provided material aid, including money, food, and other supplies. These resources came from Vichy, which wanted to ensure that their workers remained productive, in the face of mining strikes and slowdowns that began in 1941, and from the Germans who were purchasing the coal for use in war industries. The two sought to amplify the support provided by the mining enterprises. Racing Club de Lens, as a professional club, did not receive many direct benefits from the Sports Ministry. It is unclear whether they sought additional subventions from the Vichy state, but in lieu of state funding and in light of the onthe-field success of the club, the Compagnie des Mines de Lens agreed to spend seven hundred thousand francs annually on cultural activities, with more than two hundred thousand francs earmarked specifically for the athletic association. In addition to those figures, the Racing Club also sustained a public following from Lens and the region, which generated revenues through memberships and ticket sales. By contrast, the ASSBO received less money from its corporate sponsor. Its more limited popular support meant that the club could not rely on ticket sales. To supplement their meagre revenues and preserve the vitality of their club, leaders sought out Government support in the form of subventions, sporting equipment, and other direct benefits. In 1941, almost directly following the passage of the relevant laws, the club applied for and received funding to help repair their salle de gymnase, which had suffered damage during the invasion in 1940. The association repeatedly requested money and assistance, continuing to receive subsidised equipment, including new shoes, shorts, and balls, until the end of the war. They even received twenty-five subsidised jerseys on 5 June 1944 and fifteen

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pairs of shorts on 6 August 1944, twenty days before the Liberation of Paris.96 Each association’s leaders learned to magnify their local, regional, commercial, and competitive strengths to better preserve their club’s activities. The leadership of the Racing Club de Lens faced pressure from the Sports Ministry to deprofessionalise, but they skilfully manipulated rules foisted upon them by the Vichy regime to field an increasingly competitive professional team. They took advantage of one of Vichy’s most detested laws: on 4 September 1942, the Vichy state created the Service de Travail Obligatoire (STO), which allowed the Government to enlist French workers for forced labour in Germany. To avoid the provisions of the STO, the leadership of the RCL worked with the sponsor, the Compagnie des Mines de Lens, to hire their players for light mine work. The reclassification of their players as mine employees meant that they did not count against the Sports Ministry’s limit of seven professional players per club and, more importantly, these players also gained special protected status that made them exempt from forced labour. The club’s manipulation of the state’s rules attracted players from all over France anxious to avoid the STO.97 RCL’s player recruitment system inspired other teams to adopt similar strategies and resulted in an almost region-wide subversion of two key Vichy goals, in ways that Sports Ministry officials never anticipated. The RCL’s leadership also called upon its connections with the Germans to improve the club’s competitiveness. In autumn 1940, most professional players from the North returned across the Line of Demarcation, a process which required the help of the Sports Ministry, which requested German permission (laissez-passer) for their players to cross. The Racing Club de Lens was especially successful at working with the German military administration to achieve the repatriation of their key players, who helped keep the club competitive in 1941 and 1942. Maxime Bucher, the new head of the Compagnie des Mines de Lens, even personally interceded with the Sports Ministry and German officials to encourage them to return Racing Club players from prisoner-of-war camps in Germany. While many other players languished in prison, the RCL saw the return of their top striker, Stefan Dembicki.98 The release of Dembicki was especially surprising because he was a Polish-German émigré born in Dortmund, whose parents brought him to France

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in the interwar period. In 1942, the Germans released him from captivity, and he rejoined the RCL, where he set a French football record, scoring forty-three goals in thirty games. By contrast, the Association Sportive de Saint-Barbe d’Oignies used its status as an amateur club, rather than its prowess on the field, to increase its profile. ASSBO’s amateurism endeared them to the Sports Ministry, which consistently sided with them against the interests of the FFFA. The club’s leaders wanted their team to compete in the so-called Division d’Excellence and the war provided them with an unprecedented opportunity. The invasion of France caused many clubs from the Nord-Pas-de-Calais to collapse and the Football Federation was forced to restructure the regional divisions to include the top professional teams, such as Roubaix and Lille, as well as some larger and more competitive amateur sporting associations. The Association Sportive de Saint-Barbe d’Oignies could not earn their place in the Division d’Excellence on the field, but club leaders believed they could work with the Sports Ministry to pressure the Football Federation to admit them to the top division in regional football. When the schedule appeared in the paper in July 1941, ASSBO’s leaders were shocked to find that the federation had rejected their request. Club President Émile Morel reached out to the President of the Ligue Nord de Football Association, Désiré Verhaeghe, for a special admittance. He argued that his club was ‘well placed’ to compete in the league and had a strong team.99 Their new stadium and locker room facilities were attractive. More importantly, ASSBO needed to be included because of their ideal sporting image, special educational role, and moral mission.100 Verhaeghe rejected the request because the club owed the federation money, performed poorly in the 1939/40 season, skipped the 1940/41 season, and did not have any notable professional players.101 The Association Sportive de Saint-Barbe d’Oignies’ leaders forwarded Verhaeghe’s rejection letters on to the Sports Ministry’s regional delegate, who responded to the Ligue Nord indicating his willingness to tip the scales in favour of the amateur club. In this letter, the regional delegate J. Sergeant agreed with Émile Morel and accused Verhaeghe of corrupting sports. He could not understand why the Ligue Nord excluded ASSBO from the Division d’Excellence in favour of a club of professionals and ex-professionals. In a tightly written paragraph, he reminded Verhaeghe that while he was loath

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to interfere in the activities of the Ligue Nord, he was concerned about the federation’s poor attitude ‘vis-à-vis the Sports Ministry’.102 ASSBO and the Sports Ministry succeeded in securing a place for d’Oignies in the top division. In 1943, the Sports Ministry bullied the Football Federation to increase the size of the Nord-Pas-de-Calais Division d’Excellence by six teams and to admit ASSBO. The club remained in the Division d’Excellence for the rest of the war. The Association Sportive de Saint-Barbe d’Oignies also obtained ancillary benefits that made participation in their association easier and more enjoyable for members. The most visible of these benefits was the club’s unrestricted use of automobiles. All French individuals and businesses that had a car had to register it, request permission to use it from both the French and Germans, and somehow find the petrol to run it. Despite all these difficulties, on 10 July 1943 ASSBO made a request for the unlimited Sunday use of cars owned by the company for the purpose of ‘facilitating the matches of the football, basketball, and other teams of the association, otherwise impossible by rail’.103 Only three days later, on 13 July 1943, the Departmental Director of the Sports Ministry, in this case the aptly named M.C. Wagon, replied affirmatively to the club, letting them know that he had personally ‘sent your demand [for permission to use a company truck for team business] with a favourable recommendation to [all the relevant agencies]’.104 Soon the club received a blanket permission to use their Mines d’Ostricourt cars for their match travel – pending permission from the Germans. In the 1943/44 season, the club made twelve requests to the Kreiskommandatur, who received them all favourably.105 On Sundays, players for the Association Sportive de Saint-Barbe d’Oignies rode to their matches in automobiles and it is easy to imagine how freeing the experience of riding through the countryside in a car must have felt. This sensation would not have been possible without both the ownership of a car through the company, and the special relationship the club had with the Government. This dispensation ensured their team never missed a game, and thus accrued no forfeits, an unpleasantly common occurrence for less well-established sporting associations. The cases of Racing Club de Lens and the Association sportive de Saint-Barbe d’Oignies also demonstrate how flexible the Government’s concept of fair play was at the time. Both teams appealed to the public and the state in the language of fair play, but if fair

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play meant a respect for the rules and the aspiration of equal treatment of all competitors, neither lived up to their lofty values. The Lensois openly transgressed Vichy’s laws governing professionalism. They paid potential star players as mine employees, which followed the letter of the laws governing professionalism, but not the spirit of the laws. They protected their top players from forced labour in Germany, but not for competitive reasons. In a commercial sense, they were very successful during the war, routinely attracting fans and selling tickets in large numbers. In a broader sense, the Compagnie des Mines de Lens provided a safe space for community organising and associational life and therefore helped solidify and protect a unique working-class Polish and Yugoslavian identity within France during the Occupation. On the other hand, the Association Sportive de Saint-Barbe d’Oignies was also happy to work the referee, in this case the Sports Ministry, to win a promotion that they could not earn on the field. When the club leaders wanted to advance into the Division d’Excellence, rather than invest in a competitive and probably professional team, they lobbied the Sports Ministry for a special dispensation. They argued that they had an educational mission for the young people in their community and made the point that their avowed amateurism made them an example for other teams to follow. Regional delegates for the Sports Ministry agreed and used their influence to win the association a place in their desired division. The ASSBO’s ideological purity also earned them other tangible benefits, including money for sporting equipment and the unrestricted use of automobiles for club purposes. The cases of the Racing Club de Lens and Association Sportive de Saint-Barbe d’Oignies show how associations played with the designation of professional and amateur to serve their own agendas. It was a series of choices that each club made, as much as a status put upon them by the Sports Ministry. Some associations closely aligned themselves with the political objectives of Vichy anti-professionalism to successfully make specific demands of the state. In the case of the Association Sportive de Saint-Barbe d’Oignies, its clear and public support for amateurism enabled the club to rise to higher levels of competition, ironically subverting in some ways the very notion of competitive fairness. On the other hand, well-established associations, such as the Racing Club de

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Lens, flouted the rules against professionalism, paying players both legally and illegally, to achieve on-the-field success and profit during the wartime.

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Conclusion Professional football returned after the Liberation. The Gaullists who came to power avidly supported professionals and professionalism to reinvigorate national honour even as combat continued. The first postwar football division, the League of the Liberation, started two weeks before fighting stopped in the south of France. Several cities in the North with teams, notably St Nazaire, were not liberated until the following year. New non-collaborationist sporting periodicals appeared that favoured professionalism to restore French grandeur. The popular sports daily, Sportif, in the Clermont-Ferrand, wrote ‘European football is professional. International matches will, in the future … be of grand importance. … We do not want to be ridiculed. Thus, an elite of French professional footballers is necessary. There is only one means to constitute those elite: strong, organised, and serious clubs.’ 106 French communists’ defence of professionalism in sports also appeared to be genuine and long-lasting. After the war, the Fédération Sportive et Gymnique du Travail continued its support for professionalism. The communists’ change of heart meant that one of the final opponents to paying players had switched sides – professionalism in France would never again be a serious political question. On the other hand, the despoiled Rugby League found little relief during the Fourth Republic. During the postwar era, the Rugby League federation faced a new set of challenges brought about by a new Sports Ministry that closely resembled the old one. Toulouse Olympique returned to Rugby League in the late autumn of 1944 after the provisional French Government legalised the jeu à treize. However, the Gaullist Government refused to allow two sports with the same name, and they baulked entirely at the question of restitution of seized property. In 1945, the new Comité Nationale des Sports promulgated a rule that recognised the right of the treizistes to compete, but forced them to do so under the name of jeu à treize, a sporting neologism that the treizistes thought sounded ridiculous.107

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Wartime and postwar support for professionalism, most visible in the Fédération Sportive et Gymnique du Travail’s changing views on paying players, emerged as a reaction to the Vichy Government’s politicisation of participatory amateurism. Officials in the Sports Ministry rejected professionalism because the National Revolution required the construction of a mass of strong, disinterested bodies. To encourage amateurism and mass participation, the Vichy regime undermined professional sports, most dramatically banning the Rugby League federation outright. Both Jean Borotra and Joseph Pascot faced more difficulty ending professional football because they lacked the support of key stakeholders. Without the federation or major club support, the Government fumbled the public debate about the legitimacy of professionalism. The French national team’s defeats did more to undermine the case for amateurism as a state policy than any other events during wartime. In response to losses to Switzerland and Spain, and the embarrassing cessation of international competition, the state developed the Pascot Plan, a system designed to have the benefits of professionalism without the costs. This experiment failed because it was never accepted by the federations and associations affected by the changes. In their very public contestations of rules, sporting organisations and fans challenged the power of the Vichy regime. During the war, all kinds of sporting organisations, including the press, the FFFA, and even local associations, learned to triangulate against the policies of Vichy to achieve their own agendas. Racing Club de Lens and the Association Sportive de Saint-Barbe d’Oignies’s cases demonstrated how clubs’ pre-war structures influenced their interactions with the state. The RCL defended professionalism despite its political unpopularity. Their success illustrated how clubs could operate successfully outside Vichy’s system of economic support when they managed their competitive and communal resources well. On the other side, local Sports Ministry officials worked with the Association Sportive de Saint-Barbe d’Oignies to ensure the visible success of participatory amateurism. Neither the RCL’s nor ASSBO’s actions suggested any high-mindedness. Despite the rhetoric of fair play that underscored much of the discussion about amateurism and professionalism, most sporting associations only cared about their local agendas. Associations cared very little about the Government’s larger biopolitical plan, even if they understood it enough

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to mobilise it to serve their own aims. The ASSBO wanted to accede to the highest levels of French football, while the Racing Club de Lens wanted to remain popular and profitable. Each used their respective amateur and professional statuses to maximise their competitive advantages, on and off the field.

Notes 1 TO Archives ‘Décret du 19 décembre 1941 portant dissolution de l’association dite Ligue française de rugby à treize’ (19 December 1941). 2 The divergence between Vichy activities and the opinions of the population can be seen in Pierre Laborie, L’Opinion française sous Vichy (Paris: Seuil, 1990), among many others. 3 J.-P. Azéma, et al., La Politique du sport et de l’éducation physique en France pendant l’Occupation (Paris: L’INSEP, 2018). 4 For more information on Jewish despoliation see, S. Fogg, Stealing Home: Looting, Restitution, and Reconstructing Jewish Lives, 1942–1947 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017); M. Marrus and R. Paxton, Vichy France and the Jews (New York: Basic Books Inc., 1981); S. Zuccotti, The Holocaust, the French, and the Jews (New York: Basic Books, 1993); A. Kaspi, Les Juifs pendant l’Occupation (Paris: Seuil, 1991). 5 Many scholars have explored Rugby League’s despoliation. See, M. McMahon, ‘Unlucky 13: amateurism as a weapon of war in Vichy France’, Sporting Traditions 38:1 (2021), 117–133; K. Rathbone, ‘Another look at the death of Rugby League in Vichy France’, Sport in History (forthcoming 2022); K. Rathbone, ‘Reassessing Paul Voivenel’s Mon beau rugby’, in Roxanna Curto and Rebecca Wines (eds), Pour le Sport: Physical Culture in French and Francophone Literature (London: Bloomsbury, 2021); Azéma et al., La Politique du sport; T. Collins, Oval World: A Global History of Rugby (London: Bloomsbury, 2015); P. Dine, French Rugby Football: A Cultural History (Oxford: Berg, 2001); M. Rylance, The Forbidden Game: The Untold Story of French Rugby League (Brighouse: League Publications Ltd, 1999). No historian has engaged with the issue more than Robert Fassolette, see especially Robert Fassolette, ‘La Spoliation et l’éradication d’un sport sous Vichy: le rugby à XIII, victime oubliée de la seconde guerre mondiale’, in L. Robène (ed.), Le Sport et la guerre (Rennes: Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2013), pp. 269–278; R. Fassolette, ‘L’Ovale en divergence: la dichotomie XV–XIII, les frères jumeaux du rugby’, STAPS 78:4

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(2007), pp. 27–48; R. Fassolette, ‘Rugby League football in France 1934–1954: the decisive years and their long-term consequences’, Sport in History 27:3 (2007), pp. 380–398; R. Fassolette, ‘Histoire politique du conflit des deux rugby en France: de l’entre-deux-guerres à la guerre froid: origines, conséquences, et perspectives analysées au moyen des logiques internes respectives’ (Master’s Thesis, Institute nationale du sport, de l’expertise, et de la performance, 1996). 6 J. Goddet, ‘D’un jour à l’autre: temps nouveaux’ (From one day to another: new times) L’Auto, 4 October 1940. 7 For more information on the longue durée history of conservative anti-materialism, see J.L. Loubet del Bayle, Les Non-conformistes des années 30 (Paris: Seuil, 1969). 8 J. Tumblety, Remaking the Male Body: Masculinity and the Uses of Physical Culture in Interwar and Vichy France (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), p. 208. 9 BDIC, Q pièce 5083 ‘Charte des sports’ (1941). 10 M. Oger, ‘La Charte de sports serait imminente’ (The Sports Charter is near) L’Auto (Paris), 12 December 1940. 11 ‘La Vie dans les clubs’ (Life in the clubs) Le Petit Marocain (Casablanca), 9 April 1941. 12 BNF F-27043 Recueil des actes administratifs de la Préfecture de la Seine et de la Préfecture de police (Paris: Préfecture de police, 1944), p. 131. 13 Collins, Oval World, p. 246. 14 J. Goddet, ‘Le Rugby à treize a présenté un jeu rapide, clair, mais monotone’ (Rugby League presents a fast and clear game, but monotonous) L’Auto (Paris), 1 January 1934. 15 TO Archives ‘L’exclusion du rugby XIII de Vichy à nos jours’ (22 October 1997). 16 Robert Fassolette, Philip Dine, Jean Larronde, and Mike Rylance have written extensively on ovalie games. For more information see Dine, French Rugby Football; J. Larronde, Le Rugby à treize, le plus français du monde (Limoux: Cano & Franck, 1996); and for rugby à treize during Vichy, see Rylance, The Forbidden Game. 17 Fassolette, ‘La Spoliation et l’eradication d’un sport sous Vichy’. 18 The whole letter from Voivenel to Borotra was republished in Voivenel’s Mon Beau rugby in 1942. P. Voivenel, Mon Beau rugby (Toulouse: Éditions de l’Herakles, 1942), pp. 220–233. 19 See Rathbone, ‘Another Look at the Death of Rugby League in Vichy France’; Rathbone, ‘Reassessing Paul Voivenel’s Mon beau rugby’. 20 ‘A propos de Borotra’ (On the subject of Borotra) L’Auto, 4 October 1940.

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21 A. Wahl, Les Archives de football: sport et société en France (1880–1980) (Paris: Gallimard, 1989), p. 264. 22 ‘Le CGEGS communiqué’ (The CGEGS says) L’Auto, 23 November 1940. 23 AN 17/F/13347 ‘La crise du tennis français et sa cause’ (28 February 1942). 24 C. Thompson, The Tour de France: A Cultural History (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2006), pp. 77–81. 25 J. Carcopino, ‘Décret du 19 décembre 1941’ Journal officiel de l’État français (Vichy, France), 27 December 1941. 26 TO Archives, Amicale des anciens du Toulouse Olympique, Toulouse Olympique: 73 ans de rugby. 27 Rylance, The Forbidden Game, p. 140. 28 ‘Le sport professionnel supprimé’ (Professional sports supressed) L’Auto, 4 October 1940. 29 For more information on Rimet, see J.-Y. Guillan, La Coupe de monde de football: l’œuvre de Jules Rimet (Paris: Amphora, 1998); L. Lasne, Jules Rimet: la foi dans le football (Paris: Le Tiers livre, 2008); and the autobiographical R. Leblond, Le Journal de Jules Rimet (Paris: Éditions first, 2014). 30 ‘Le sport professionnel supprimé’ (Professional sports supressed) L’Auto, 4 October 1940. 31 Ibid. 32 See especially, R. Dalisson, Les Fêtes du Maréchal: propagande festive et imaginaire nationale dans la France de Vichy (Paris: Éditions Tallandier, 2008); See also, J.-P. Rioux, La Vie culturelle sous Vichy (Paris: Éditions Complexe, 1990). 33 AN 72AJ1826 ‘Le Marechal Pétain préside à Vichy une grande manifestation d’athlétisme’ (7 September 1941). 34 BNF 4-V-14352 Bulletin mensuel du commissariat général aux sports ‘Loins de nous ramener…’ (October 1943). 35 ‘À Cipale l’amateurs bat les pros’ (At municipal the amateurs beat the pros) L’Auto, 30 June 1941. 36 ‘Un An de travail premier résultats’ (A year of work: first results) Tous les sports (Paris), 9 August 1941. 37 ‘L’Artois battu …’ (The Artois beaten…) Sport: la vie en plein air (Vichy), 15 October 1943. 38 ‘Le Véritable professionnel et l’amateur intégral’ (The real professional and the complete amateur) L’Auto, 5 November 1942. 39 J. Goddet, ‘La Vraie défense de l’amateurisme’ (The true defence of amateurism) L’Auto, 17 March 1942. 40 A. Duchenne, ‘Amateurisme ou formule libre’ (Amateurism or the unrestricted system) Football, 24 December 1942.

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41 INAtheque, ‘Football. Coupe de France. Finale: Bordeaux–Olympique de Marseille’ (28 May 1943), www.ina.fr/video/AFE86001944/finalede-la-coupe-de-france-de-football-video.html (accessed 30 September 2021). 42 The final match of the tournament was a lopsided replay. 43 ‘Le footballeur Finot – un ex-coureur – a des chances mais il fera bien de se méfier de ses camarades’ (The footballer Finot – ex-runner – has chances but he would do well to mind his colleagues) L’Auto, 19 January 1941. 44 ‘Deux finalistes de coupe de monde du football’ (Two finalists in the football world cup) Sport: la vie en plein air, 2April 1943; ‘Bastien l’omniprésent’ (Bastien the omipresent) Sport: la vie en plein air, 22 April 1944. 45 Eric Hobsbawm notes that ‘athletes are primary expressions of their imagined communities’, in E. Hobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism since 1780 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), p. 143. John Hoberman concurs and states that athletes can become ‘proxy warriors in a larger ideological conflict’, in J. Hoberman, Sport and Political Ideology (Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 1984), p. 262. 46 ‘Une Elite de clubs et une sélection d’individus sont seules capables d’assurer au football une indispensable virilité’ (An elite of clubs and a selection of individuals is the only way to assure the indispensable virility of football) L’Auto, 3 January 1941. 47 Ibid. 48 C. Glass, Americans in Paris: Life and Death under Nazi Occupation (New York: Penguin, 2010), p. 152. 49 ‘L’Équipe Allemagne à Paris’ (The German team in Paris) Football, 8 October 1942. 50 ‘L’évolution du football suisse: pas de suppression du professionnalisme mais réglementation de la formule libre’ (The evolution of Swiss football: no suppression of professionalism, but a regulation of an unrestricted system) L’Auto, 18 July 1941; ‘Match Switzerland– Germany’, www.11v11.com/matches/switzerland-v-germany20-april-1941–225105/ (accessed 8 June 2014). 51 ‘Match France–Switzerland’, www.11v11.com/matches/france-vswitzerland-08-march-1942–225160/ (accessed 8 June 2015). 52 ‘Pour vaincre, en football, il faut marquer des buts’ (To win, in football, you have to score goals) L’Auto, 19 March 1942. 53 J. Goddet, ‘La Vraie défense de l’amateurisme’ (A true defence of amateurism) L’Auto, 17 March 1942. 54 ‘Le football français face à la Suisse et à l’Espagne’ (French football against Switzerland and Spain) Football, 20 March 1942.

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55 Ibid., ‘Va-t-on revenir au professionnalisme’ (Are we going to go back to professionalism?) Football, 20 March 1942. 56 A series of articles in L’Auto, for example, included ‘La football français glisse vers la médiocrité’ (French football is sliding towards mediocrity), 22 October 1942; ‘Le football français n’est ni assez offensif ni assez viril’ (French football is not offensive enough or virile enough), 4 November 1942; and ‘Pourquoi craindre les matches internationaux de football?’ (Why fear international football matches?), 18 December 1942. 57 ‘L’équipe de France doit-elle abandonner les matches internationaux?’ (Should the French team abandon international matches?) Sport: la vie en plein air, 25 December 1942. 58 ‘Pourquoi craindre les matches internationaux de football?’ (Why fear international football matches) L’Auto, 18 December 1942. 59 ‘Surtout pas ça!’ (Certainly not!) Football, 17 December 1942. 60 ‘Beaucoup de compétitions de masse … pensée motrice du programme de travail du Colonel Pascot’ (Lots of mass competitions … the driving thought of Colonel Pascot’s work) L’Auto, 9 June 1942. 61 ‘L’équipe de France doit-elle abandonner les matches internationaux?’ (Should the French team abandon international matches?) Sport: la vie en plein air, 25 December 1942. 62 Borotra may have also refused a direct order from Otto Abetz to Aryanise French sports. Interviewed in 1983, he recalled telling Abetz that he was ‘responsible … for all the French youth, without distinction of race, belief, or ideology. I must organize Christians, Muslims, and atheists, whether they are of the left or the right, on the same sports fields. I have the duty to never meddle in politics.’ D. Amson, Borotra: de Wimbledon à Vichy (Paris: Tallandier, 1999), p. 204. 63 In the re-implementation of pro football there would have been three different levels of professionalism (blue, white, and green) with different payment structures. The Commisariat Général à l’Éducation Générale et aux Sports planned to carefully monitor and regulate the different levels. ‘Vers une étude du football pro’ (Towards a study of professional football) L’Auto, 3 March 1942. 64 ‘Le programme d’action de Jep Pascot’ (The Pascot Action Plan) Football, 14 May 1942. 65 BNF MFICHE 8-R PIECE-23086 ‘Politique et doctrine sportive’ (1942). 66 ‘Une délégation des clubs “ex-autorisés” de football a été reçue, hier matin, à la Présidence du conseil’ (A delegation from ex-professional football clubs was received, this morning, at the Présidence du conseil) L’Auto (Paris), 25 June 1943.

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67 ‘Les trente-deux clubs ne sont plus autorisés’ (Thirty-two clubs are no longer authorised [to use professional players]) L’Auto, 16 June 1943. 68 AN 72AJ1860 ‘Encore un mesure négative’ (19 April 1941). 69 ‘Vers une étude du football pro’ (Towards a study of professional football) L’Auto, 3 March 1942. 70 For more information on Rimet, see J.-Y. Guillan, La Coupe de monde de football: l’œuvre de Jules Rimet (Paris: Amphora, 1998); L. Lasne, Jules Rimet: la foi dans le football (Paris: Le Tiers livre, 2008); and the autobiographical R. Leblond, Le Journal de Jules Rimet (Paris: Éditions first, 2014). 71 AN 17/F/14463 ‘Communiqué de la presse’ (1942). 72 ‘À Chacun ses vérités’ (To each his truths) Sport: la vie en plein air, 18 December 1942. 73 FFFA Archives ‘Procès-verbal’ (22 June 1943). 74 ‘Le Plan Pascot suscite de nouvelles réactions’ (The Pascot Plan arouses new reactions) L’Auto, 19 June 1943. 75 FFFA Archives ‘Procès-verbal’ (28 June 1943). 76 E. Dejonghe, ‘Les Départements du Nord et du Pas-de-Calais’, in J.-P. Azéma and F. Bédarida, La France des années noires (Paris: Seuil, 2000), p. 505. 77 FFFA Archives ‘Procès-verbal’ (28 June 1943). 78 ‘Les Clubs nordistes solidaires, ne s’inclinent pas’ (The northern clubs, unified, do not bow) L’Auto, 18 June 1943. 79 ‘ La Nord “organise la résistance”’ (The Nord organises the resistance) L’Auto, 17 June 1943. 80 FFFA Archives, ‘Letter’ (13 September 1943). Letter first quoted in Wahl, Les Archives du football. 81 Ibid. 82 ‘Petits problèmes à résoudre et questions insidieuses’ (Small problems to solve and insidious questions) L’Auto, 16 June 1943. 83 ‘La Nord “organise la résistance”’ (The Nord organises the resistance) L’Auto, 17 June 1943. 84 ‘Les Clubs nordistes solidaires, ne s’inclinent pas’ (The northern clubs, unified, do not bow) L’Auto, 18 June 1943; ‘Les Clubs nordistes autorisés persistent dans leur protestation’ (The northern professional clubs persist in their protests) L’Auto, 21 June 1943. 85 ‘La Qualité du football français 1943–44 n’est pas supérieure à celle du football 1942–43’ (The quality of French football in 1943–44 is not superior to that of 1942–43) L’Auto, 26 November 1943. 86 ‘La Leçon du match’ (Match lessons) Bulletin de l’association sportive brestoise, January 1944.

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87 ‘Bastien l’omniprésent’ (Bastien omnipresent) Sport: la vie en plein air, 21 April 1944. 88 ANMT 2009 015 079 ‘Un Défi aux sportifs de France’ (A challenge to French sportsmen) Sport libre, March 1944. 89 ANMT 2009 015 079 ‘Amateurisme! Que de crimes l’on comment en ton nom!!!’ (Amateurism! How many crimes are committed in your name?) Sport libre, April 1944. 90 For more information on the RCL, see M. Fontaine, Le Racing Club de Lens et les Gueules noires (Paris: Les Indes savantes, 2010). 91 ANMT 1994 057/001 ‘Letter to the Sous-Prefet from M. le Président of the ASSBO’ (April 1942). 92 Ibid. 93 Ibid. 94 ‘Le Football professionnel: œuvre sociale’ (Professional football’s social work) Sang et Or, 5 September 1937. 95 ‘Jeunes footballeurs, saisez-vous l’occasion qui vous offerte de vous imposer?’ (Young footballers, are you taking the opportunity offered to you to make a good impression?) L’Auto, 20 June 1942. 96 ANMT 1994 057/009 ‘Bordereau d’envoi le Directeur départemental de la CGEGS to M. le Président de l’Association sportive Sainte-Barbe d’Oignies’. In fact, this whole folder is composed of three-way communications between the ASSBO, retailers of sporting goods, and the Commissariat Général à l’Éducation Générale et aux Sports. In theory, the ASSBO had to find sellers of materials and the CGEGS would help them pay for the goods, which were often quite expensive. A new football alone cost 150–220 francs. New shoes ran between 65 and 150 francs. Jerseys cost 32.50–95 francs. 97 Fontaine, Le Racing Club de Lens, p. 70; from the Centre Historique Mineur de Lewarde Archives, 1W39 ‘Note’ (5 March 1943). 98 Ibid. 99 ANMT 1994 057/023 ‘Letter from the ASSBO to the LNFA’ (8 July 1941). 100 ANMT 1994 057/023 ‘Letter from the ASSBO to the CGEGS’ (9 August 1941); ANMT 1994 057/023 ‘Letter from the ASSBO to the CGEGS’ (21 August 1941); ANMT 1994 057/023 ‘Letter from the ASSBO to the LNFA’ (24 July 1941). 101 This response is a reiteration of an earlier response that was not saved. ANMT 1994 057/023 ‘Letter from the LNFA to the ASSBO’ (11 September 1941). 102 ANMT 1994 057/023 ‘Letter from the CGEGS to the LNFA’ (19 August 1941).

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103 ANMT 1994 057/021 ‘Letter from le Président de l’Association sportive Sainte-Barbe d’Oignies to M. le Inspecteur à Éducation générale et aux sports Directeur départementale’ (10 July 1943). 104 ANMT 1994 057/021 ‘Letter from Le Directeur Départemental de la Commissariat générale de l’Éducation générale et aux sports to le Président de l’Association sportive Sainte-Barbe d’Oignies’ (13 July 1943). 105 See, for example, ANMT 1994 057/013 ‘Letters from the ASSBO to the Kreiskommendantur’ (25 April 1944). 106 ‘Notre opinion sur le sport professionnel’ (Our opinion on professional sport) Sportif, 23 November 1944. 107 Journal officiel Décret du 11 avril 1949, portant création de la Fédération française de jeu à XIII (22 April 1949).

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5 The resilience of communities: agency and autonomy in wartime sporting associations

In February 1944, the members of the Racing Club de France, one of Paris’s oldest and most prestigious sporting associations, gathered in the Bois de Boulogne for their annual meeting. It was a fraught moment. Members raised questions about the cost of their annual pool fees, but they also challenged the choices that their leadership made during the war. Why had the association agreed to welcome German officers into their facilities? How should they respond to a possible future when the Allies returned? There were no easy answers, but despite their difficult circumstances, the members closed the meeting with a celebration of Racing’s ‘sixtieth year of existence’. Their old club lived ‘thanks to traditions that we strive to maintain’ and despite the ‘tragic events that we have experienced’.1 The Racing Club de France was one of Paris’s most esteemed associations, a civic and social institution with a long history. Alexis de Tocqueville envisioned civic associations as a way for ordinary people to deal with the vagaries of capitalist production and the bureaucratisation of the state in the eighteenth century, and by the passage of the 1901 loi des associations France already possessed thousands of political, social, and cultural organisations across the hexagon.2 Sporting associations were connected with political parties, industrial concerns, ethnic groups, religious authorities, schools, and the military; their range of affiliations naturally blurred the boundaries between apolitical athletic gatherings and politically charged events, making associations potent spaces for communal engagement.3



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As Philippe Burrin recognised in France under the Germans, during the war, just like individual French people, local associations faced difficult choices about how to sustain themselves: Associations, as well as individuals had to determine what attitude to adopt. All organizations possess a will to survive, want their presence and action to continue and hope to grow stronger and expand. Were they to give up those aims on account of the occupation? In the case of associations, the safeguarding of position and interests and, even more, the satisfaction of ambitions were hard to reconcile.4

In the Vichy era, French sporting associations faced significant limitations to their aspirations by the state and the Germans. Some state activities threatened the survival of individual clubs. The Vichy Government merged dozens of associations and several independent federations. They banned Rugby League. The German occupiers outlawed paramilitary sporting organisations. Nevertheless, athletic associations largely benefited from the Vichy state’s increased interest in physical culture and mostly escaped German prohibitions, thus remaining one of the most important civic centres for communal organisation. To survive new state interventions, many sporting clubs learned to accommodate themselves to the demands of the Vichy regime and the German Occupation. Compliance with Vichy and German officers gave associations access to greater resources that they could use to allay the difficulties of wartime, but it also put their leaders into risky proximity with the same officials. Burrin defined this process of accommodation as an acceptance of domination based upon recognition of regular shared interests and stable common networks.5 Implicit and ever-shifting codes of proper behaviour ‘bent’ groups towards ‘a policy for survival: in other words accommodation’.6 Burrin’s notion of accommodation is based upon the limited agency of the individual French people and social groups. It places most of the power in the hands of the occupier. ‘For the vast majority’, he states, ‘there seemed no alternative but to submit, bow before the triumphant force and adjust one’s behaviour accordingly’.7 At the same time, the notion of accommodation can be productively refocused to account for the agency of ordinary French people, who made the best of their situations and took advantage of

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them for their own ends. The leaders of small sporting associations were innovative in their approaches to sustaining their sporting organisations. They developed strategies to survive the Occupation, transforming their clubs into places that made bearable the unbearable by becoming sites of belonging, normalcy, and mutual aid and assistance. Throughout the war, hundreds of thousands of young French men and women affiliated with sporting clubs across the metropole, with particularly strong growth in team sports such as football, basketball, handball, and volleyball. Swimming and track and field, the so-called sports de base, also enjoyed marked increases in the number of participants.8 These numbers represented an increase in the total of registered athletes from previous highs during the Popular Front. The expansion of sporting life during Vichy happened not only because of increased Government investment, but because these clubs allowed men and women to gather beyond the watchful eye of the Vichy Government and the German occupier. Through a close examination of life within French sporting associations, we can better understand the contexts of ordinary people’s participation. The first part of the chapter centres on the role that associations played in French society and the diverse challenges faced by small associations during the war. The second part investigates the ways in which associations turned Vichy’s attentions into positive benefits to be enjoyed by their membership and the limitations to those activities. In the final section, I examine the role the Germans played in shaping everyday life inside communal associations through a case study of the Racing Club de France. A close look at the metropole’s most prestigious athletic association demonstrates that even in the face of cohabitation with German soldiers, associations faced the challenges of wartime communally, used clever schemes to keep power, and turned a dire situation to their benefit. To explain how athletes made the best of difficult situations, this chapter examines how sporting clubs transcended accommodation and instead created innovative solutions to the dark years. Association Presidents reached modus vivendi with the Vichy state, shared locker rooms with the Germans, and subverted state ideologies for the gain of the club. This type of creative response to oppression was referred to as system-D (système-D), an abbreviation for se débrouille (to

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manage).9 Scholars have used the notion of system-D to explain how French organisations, most notably wartime industries, as well as ordinary French people, made do or even profited because of the authoritarian system put into place by the Vichy state and the Germans. Of course, French creativity produced many comedic effects as they used their greater local knowledge against the Germans. A delicious example appears repeatedly in Donald and Petie Kladstrup’s Wine and War, which shows how French wine distributors passed off low-grade sparkling wines as Taittinger Champagne.10 My own work expands upon the notion of system-D to illustrate how French actors manipulated the actions of the state and of the Germans to preserve and even extend associational life during the Occupation. At the same time, not all associations possessed the same ability to influence the behaviours of the Vichy Government or the German occupier. A club’s ability to take advantage of the state’s programmes for its own purposes derived from its social and cultural character. Clubs that thrived during the Occupation typically already possessed many advantages. They were the elite of the French sports establishment and they could much more effectively twist the energies of the state towards their own purposes. Many smaller and less wellestablished organisations quickly learned to tilt towards the state’s ideology to their own benefit. Total social outsiders, such as explicitly communist and Jewish associations, faced more difficult challenges and many never survived the war. My study of local sporting associations thus builds upon the logic of insiders and outsiders, explored by Shannon Fogg in her book, The Politics of Daily Life in Vichy France, which examines the different ways in which ethnic insiders and outsiders, in this case Jews, foreigners, and Roma, made claims against the state and their larger communities.11 Sporting associations acted as another area in Occupied France where the continuity of social and cultural life between the pre-war and the war mattered a great deal. The pre-existing social structure of sporting life was magnified during the war. Richer organisations got richer, feasting on the money, the material goods, and the attention that the state devoted to physical culture. Politically acceptable organisations benefited from the increased spending and resources. Poor and marginalised associations learned to do the best they could, bent towards the regime, or disappeared.

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Wartime challenges to sporting associations The Law on Associations of 1901 regulated the formation of French associations and allowed for a flourishing of sanctioned groups across the metropole.12 Sporting associations were among the most common. Rather than simply being places to compete, sporting organisations were chiefly social spaces that provided myriad benefits to their members. They gave French men and women a place in which to work towards common aims, and spaces where they could socialise with friends. Aristocrats, bourgeois, and working-class French people affiliated with sporting organisations, whose overlapping memberships communicated and reified social statuses. The right membership could get you a job; connections were valuable. A candidate for a job with the Secrétariat Général de Jeunesse in 1941, named Jean-Louis G., carefully wrote out all his associational affiliations on his application to highlight his correct background. His sports memberships included the Stade Universitaire Lorraine, a university club, and the Club Sportif de Charmes in the Vosges, which served as a social shorthand signalling his level of education and his upper-middle-class background. He also participated in other civic groups, such as driving and motorcycle clubs; professional associations, in this case as a hotelier and bar owner; and musical groups, where he played the French horn.13 Sporting associations were one of the most important and ubiquitous types of civic associations in interwar France because football, swimming, rugby, cycling, and foot races appealed across class, gender, and geographic boundaries; but more than sport, associations provided ordinary French men and women with a place where they could organise themselves communally. Paul Voivenel, the former President of the French Rugby Union Federation, explained that sporting associations included practices and matches, but they also encompassed communal meals, rules meetings, and parties. An athlete who participated in a sporting club became a part of a community that brought together like-minded families, neighbours, and friends. In his autobiographical book, Mon Beau rugby, Voivenel describes his sporting club, Stade Toulousain, as a representation of the bourgeois, urban, and communal ‘ideal that embraced the heart’ of all ‘the young men’ in the club.14 He joined Stade because he was looking for a ‘fraternity of tendencies … an incessant multiplication

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of intimates’.15 He discovered an easy and day-to-day camaraderie and relished the sociability among members who worked together without ‘the idea of pre-eminence or jealousy’, but he also did not mind if comity came from friendly teasing.16 He looked forward to the day when he could look back at his life in the club like one would look at a ring on a finger – as a memory of ‘a tempestuous youth’, spent with friends and now even sweeter in grey-haired nostalgia.17 Club life for Voivenel was a marriage between a man and his community. Following the First World War, French soldiers who learned about belonging through their experiences in the military brought back athletic practices from the trenches and formed sporting associations across the metropole. By the beginning of the Second World War, the profusion of sporting associations meant that they were some of the most democratic spaces in French public life and they included a wide range of French people. In Popular Front Paris, thousands of sports clubs of various types engaged in a wide variety of athletic pursuits. There were professional teams such as Red Star Paris; local associations like the Union Sportive Creteil; high-society associations such as the Racing Club de France or Stade Français; clubs organised around businesses, including the Club Athlétique de la Société Générale; ethnic clubs such as the Maccabi Paris or the Union de la Jeunesse Arménienne; religiously affiliated patronages such as the Association de Patronage Sainte Mélanie; a women-only organisation, Fémina Sport; and a whole range of working-class associations affiliated with the Fédération Sportive et Gymnique du Travail concentrated along the city’s red belt. The proliferation of sporting associations along social, gender, religious, and professional lines also occurred in the smallest provincial cities, towns, and villages of France. In the mountainous department of the Gers, there were more than fifty sporting associations, over half of which were in the town of Auch. A provincial capital of around twenty thousand people, the city’s sporting associations ran the gamut, including: the Association Athétique Auscitaine, the Football-Vélo Club Auscitaine, Le Coquelicot Gascon, the Tennis Club Auscitaine, the Union Vélocipédique Auscitaine, the Amicale Bouliste Auscitaine, the Association Sportive Auscitaine, and the Sporting Club Auscitaine.18 Although sporting organisations frequently feuded about events on and off the field, especially Catholic patronages and socialist

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associations, their interactions were largely amicable and profitable until the start of the Second World War upended the rich sporting landscape of France. Difficulties emerged during the so-called Phony War. The 1939 mobilisation separated athletes from their associations. Alienated from their localities, soldiers in the French Army transferred their allegiances to new ad-hoc military teams formed according to a military logic and mirroring the social structure of military life. Officers and enlisted men competed separately. Regimental teams played against other regiments for bragging rights. Intrepid officers recruited former professional players to bolster their sides. Étienne Mattler and Roger Courtois, former professionals from Football Club de Sochaux, joined their regimental team.19 These activities preserved good order and kept soldiers entertained. The press reported on military sports to boost nationalistic sentiments among civilians and soldiers. France’s largest sports daily, L’Auto, even changed its name to L’Auto-Soldat and embedded reporters to cover the activities of military sporting organisations.20 These impromptu military-athletic associations, which flourished in the hyper-masculine communities of the barracks, undermined the traditional local structures of communal sports: the growth in military sports meant a corresponding diminution of local sporting associations. The demographic and fiscal crises occasioned by the mobilisation threatened the short-term stability of French associations. Away from home and their clubs, many soldiers stopped paying their home dues, and because membership fees were the biggest source of revenue for clubs, the call-up led to the rapid depletion of many associations’ finances. At the Racing Club de France, the club made between 6 and 9 million francs in annual income, mostly from subscriptions. Following the general mobilisation, the number of paying members dropped precipitously. In 1939/40 and 1940/41, subscriptions accounted for only 427,000 and 1.7 million francs, respectively.21 The massive income depreciation threatened their solvency and the club faced a difficult quandary: how could they balance their books? They hoped to find new members, but doing so could be difficult with millions of French men indisposed in prisoner of war (POW) camps, forced labour in Germany, or hiding with the Resistance. Three years passed before the club’s membership completely rebounded. In 1943, the association made 6.9 million francs – 6.2 million of which came from subscriptions. In 1944,

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following a small increase in subscription cost, the club made 8.2 million francs.22 The slow reinvigoration of the Racing Club’s coffers showed how resilient the club’s finances could be despite the limitations of the Occupation – but the Racing Club was probably France’s most robust association and its relative wealth and connectedness gave it many options for how to survive. In the end, the association opted for an innovative, if risky, strategy to attract new members, helping to make the Occupation less onerous but also bringing new issues for the leadership. The French state not only mobilised association members, but they demanded access to their properties too. Between 1939 and 1940, in response to the needs of the French Army, many French sporting associations were transformed into ad-hoc military encampments. Football and rugby pitches were ideal – large, flat expanses of grass suitable for tent cities and motor depots. Gyms and tennis courts provided indoor spaces for enlistment offices, medical facilities, armouries, and command posts. Without a dedicated space to meet and compete, clubs soon lapsed into inactivity. Even Racing Club de France dealt with Army requisitions. Following the declaration of war, the Army took over the Racing Club’s largest terrain, the Stade Olympique, as a POW camp. Their stadium at Colombes was used multiple times. In 1939, it was turned into a camp de regroupement for a few months, and in the midst of the 1940 debacle, the Army requisitioned the stadium again as a reorganisation camp for retreating soldiers.23 For the Racing Club, these pitch invasions represented literal invasions and club newsletters took to using militarist language when they talked about the government ‘requisitioning’ and ‘liberating’ their facilities.24 The President of Racing Club de France, Pierre Gillou, wrote that after ‘thousands of difficulties, we were able to access two fields, but no locker rooms … our teams had to find provisional shelter in the cafes adjoining to the stadium whose rooms were transformed into locker rooms each Thursday and Sunday afternoon’.25 The conditions on the fields were also quite difficult. Athletes competed under clouds of foul odours and black smoke generated from soldiers and machinery. Even when facilities were returned to their owners, they were not immediately accessible and often left in poor condition. Reporting on the ‘liberation’ of Colombes, Gillou stated that ‘we had to undertake important work so that we could again use our locker

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rooms, which without a doubt, were in a sad state after successive occupations’.26 The mobilisation of many of France’s young men and the requisition of sporting fields undermined the ability of sporting associations to meaningfully function and, as a result, between 1939 and 1940 many closed their doors. The Fédération Française de Football Association reported a drop in the number of memberships from a high of more than one hundred and seventy-five thousand in 1939 to less than a hundred thousand in 1940.27 Similar diminutions in membership occurred in other sports.28 The number of clubs also shrank, but the collapse of sporting life was only temporary. By 1941 the number of associations engaged with the Football Association had risen to new heights and eventually reached its wartime acme in 1944. The disappearance of so many clubs undoubtedly contributed to a fracturing of communal links in the crucial period of the autumn and winter of 1940. At the same time, these temporary communal fragmentations did not result in a state of lasting Arendtian social isolation. In fact, while the Republic’s widespread mobilisation weakened sporting associations, the Vichy period’s investment in sport signalled their reinvigoration. The Vichy state devoted considerable resources to athletic life, but club life revived and even thrived because clubs redistributed the state’s largesse to their members, and also because they represented one of the few places where ordinary people could assemble without restrictions and feel temporarily normal during the Occupation.

Athletic clubs as sites of sociability The staggering challenges faced by sporting associations, especially the requisitions of property, stuck in the minds of association Presidents, and had those situations continued they would have lent support to the argument that social horizons shrank during the Vichy regime and the Occupation. The pervasive use of the metaphor ‘the dark years’, which emphasised the limitations imposed by a moralistic Vichy regime and an abusive German Occupation Government, helped historians to frame quotidian social and cultural life as circumscribed.29 While it was true that the Germans prohibited many kinds of associational life because of fears of insurgency and

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that the Vichy state banned public dancing, neither placed significant limitations on sporting life.30 As a consequence, sporting organisations became vibrant sites for natural communities and, as Jean-Pierre Le Crom argues, ‘Vichy’s way of dealing with … scarcity was to rely on “natural” communities, such as families, businesses, and charitable organizations’.31 Sporting associations had always been useful civic and social centres, but within the context of an Occupation, they became essential places for communal engagement and among the few places where ordinary people could experience normalcy. Flushed with Government money and swelling with new social importance, sporting associations entered a kind of golden age, having more people affiliated with them between 1940 and 1944 than during the Popular Front, a period celebrated for its openness.32 The rising number of registered athletes and the meteoric growth in the number of clubs provided the clearest examples of the expanded role that sporting associations played in social and civic life in Occupied France. The largest increases in the numbers of players came from football (188,664 in 1939 to 251,202 in 1943); track and field (27,755 in 1939 to 46,420 in 1939); and basketball (23,206 in 1939 to 60,150 in 1944).33 Rugby, tennis, boxing, volleyball, and handball also grew in popularity. Only rowing, cycling, weightlifting, and fencing lost adherents, the latter likely because of its military connotations. The growth in the number of players matched a surge in the number of teams – 2,000 new football clubs, 1,800 basketball clubs, and 200 rugby and tennis clubs.34 This expansion of sporting life included every region of France, every social class, and both men and women. The dramatic expansion of the size and number of sporting associations does not fully illuminate their role as social networks within the context of a more limited social world. Each sporting association remained an essential space for communal organisation, survival, and sanity; a place to get access to money or a job, a place to engage in political activity, and a place to find normalcy. At the same time, close investigations of club life remain difficult to achieve because of the lack of evidence. Very few athletes wrote explicitly about their experience as sportsmen and -women, although diarists sometimes commented on their sporting activities. Photographers captured glimpses of French men and women at play, but these photographs were hardly uncompromised, either requiring

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significant unpacking or complicated by their staged nature.35 Most French clubs left no records. The vast majority of wartime athletic associations subsequently closed, merged with other organisations, or disposed of whatever material might have existed, either in a proactive effort to hide their club’s wartime history or out of a misplaced view that their stories were an unimportant part of the war record. Exceptions, such as the Racing Club de France and Stade Français, were a genre of elite association, in many ways more like a social club than the average football club. Nevertheless, traces remain in the club newsletters, records of annual meetings, and the letters left in French archives. Wartime newspapers offered some insights, but their reportage was circumscribed by the writers’ heavy focus on factual accounts of recent competitions, government censorship, and limits to the amount of paper available. Reporters covered the line-ups and the scores, but left readers quite far away from the smell of the grass and sounds of the crowd. Interviews with players were rare. These sources have not been concentrated in one place, but instead are distributed around the country as microfiches in national libraries, dusty cardboard boxes in the basements of associations, and in the corners of municipal archives. Secondary sources are also problematic. The best-known and most widely available accounts of sporting associations during the war are generally adulatory club histories produced by supporters.36 They recover the heroes who became resisters but elide the club’s day-to-day life.37 Neither hagiographic Resistance accounts nor the metaphor of the circus accurately convey the full range of life in small associations, which were neither simply a way of avoiding the political nor wholly a site for political engagement. With such a wide range of marginal sources, the history of Vichy sporting associations requires triangulating between different kinds of materials, including club newsletters, association minutes, local newspapers, oral interviews, and diaries. However, since most of the authors of those sources regarded everyday life as not worth explaining or understood, unimportant or uninteresting, to fully recover how ordinary sportsmen and -women participated in the clubs and why, you need to read between the lines to account for their omissions and contradictions. Even the most rigorous reading cannot possibly provide a full accounting of why all the hundreds

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of thousands of French people, indeed more than ever before, participated in physical cultural activities during the war. However, the sources do offer some probable explanations, including the desire to return to normality, the need for sociability, the excitement of matches and travel, the stress relief associated with exercise, the promise of good health, and the availability of food and other material resources in clubs. Once the hostilities ended in the summer of 1940, most athletic associations in France acted quickly to restart both their sporting and social calendars. Clubs emphasised the return to normalcy to draw back as many of their members as possible. In 1941, Stade Français leadership restarted their associational newsletter. In their first Occupation issue, they emphasised that life at the club continued: ‘Since 1883 [the year of its foundation], our old Stade has not suffered a catastrophe comparable to that which upset France in June 1940. … However, for many weeks, our club has offered many admirable signs of vitality, flourishing, and flowering.’ 38 From France’s abandoned and Occupied capital, the association’s leaders, joined by their many members young and old, without waiting, regrouped and recovered. A year later, the authors recounted the club’s rejuvenation: in August 1940, the association reoccupied their fields, the major teams resumed their activities (basketball, football, rugby, and athletics), the association’s bureau provisoire met weekly on Wednesdays, and the prize committee handed out annual awards.39 To the Stade’s devoted leaders, their club’s resilience came down to its special personality. ‘Our Stade is not a sporting club exactly like all the others: … in us lives the flame of an idea’ they wrote, but while the Stadistes considered themselves unique, the rapid resumption of sporting life was a common feature of French club life. By 1941, most sporting associations had resumed their normal activities. A year later, the same newsletter offered similar sustenance to their members, who might otherwise have felt marginalised during the ongoing Occupation. While German soldiers fought in the Soviet Union, British commandos destroyed the port at Saint Nazaire, the Japanese Army occupied Burma and the Dutch East Indies, Franklin Delano Roosevelt committed to the internment of Japanese-Americans, and French cheminots guided the first train away from Drancy towards Auschwitz, the Stadistes’ newsletter asked its readers ‘not to despair … like all French people, we have to suffer a lot’ before

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their lives became joyful again. Although the shortage of paper made publication of their journal difficult, their inability to publish their newspaper was a metaphor for the broader restrictions on club life. . ‘My comrades … your performances, your labours, your successes, your enthusiasms will not be inscribed in the Stade’s record books [but] they are not forgotten. A day will arrive when it will be possible to resume our activities without restrictions. Make sure that these activities are abundant and triumphant.’ 40 Despite their growing pessimism, the next few pages illustrated a club with an extremely active athletic and social calendar. The cross-country team were the Parisian champions; the football team, however, were ‘mediocre’. Important events were upcoming. Members could look forward to a rugby match against Biarritz Olympique (with reduced ticket prices). The women’s section was clearly more active than before the war. The search for normality among athletes and fans was a central part of the experience of wartime sport. The continued vibrancy of everyday sporting and non-sporting activities helped people to release the stress of wartime and revealed retrospectively the perhaps unsurprising fact that many people had fun during the Occupation. Among acquaintances, an easy-going atmosphere pervaded. Micheline Bood remembers visiting the pool with her friends, where they took turns diving. She was the only one willing to jump from the highest platform, but mostly to impress the people – her girlfriends, other French teenagers, and German soldiers – down poolside.41 At Toulouse Olympique, people also gathered to have a good time. Raymond Roussennac remembered he joined the club to play games and to socialise with his friends.42 Stade français’s newsletters showcased other times when club members got together to celebrate marriages, the birth of children, and even to hold remembrances.43 For most club members, these activities provided a space for decompression, and the ongoing presence of friends and neighbours made clubs into a continuation of organic communities. On practice fields and in the stands, men rubbed shoulders, their physical closeness a symbol of their mutual affinities and interests. The associational life of the club continued long after the final whistle. Games ended with group trips to local bars which abutted the fields, often owned by former players.44 Particularly well-heeled clubs even planned group trips to visit rival associations. Travelling between clubs was so common

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that L’Auto found it necessary to announce Government regulations that only permitted travel for the quarter finals of the Coupe de France tournament.45 Sports allure even kept unlikely associations together: Alter Goldman and Robert Aronaud described life in their club, the Yidisher Arbeter Sport Klub, as a manifestation of the working-class Jewish community in eastern Paris.46 The club was only one of many Jewish sporting associations where life continued during the Occupation; Jewish sporting life continued across Europe in the most dire circumstances, even within the concentration camps.47 The Club Populaire et Sportif du Xe Arrondissement – a Parisian club with approximately 60 per cent Jewish membership – re-formed shortly after the defeat. Georges Ghertman described their reconstitution as a reaction against ‘the diktats’ of the era. Rather than fold to French and German repression, their association continued to provide ‘young people, students, and high schools the power to meet and practise sport’.48 In France, Jewish athletic groups, including those inside charity, scouting, and sporting organisations, continued to operate, sometimes clandestinely, for a long time. Photographs show Jewish children in gymnastics clubs, orphanages, and refugee camps participating in hébertist sessions in 1943. At the Chateau de Chabannes orphanage, Jewish children participated in athletic activities on the day before their ‘round-up’ in August 1942.49 As Daniel Lee has shown in Pétain’s Jewish Children, the longevity and even remarkable expansion of Jewish sporting life occurred because of Jewish sportsmen and -women’s desire to associate and compete, as well as the surprising efforts made by various Vichy ministries to mobilise Jewish athletes for the National Revolution.50 At the same time, Jewish athletes might have valued their sporting spaces more than other athletes since they were among the few wholly French environments that were nominally free from German intrusion, and where they could gather largely free from persecution. In a time of receding social spaces and prohibitions against large public gatherings, sporting associations remained a place where ordinary French people socialised free from restrictions. The lack of social constraints provided a sense of normality important to many French people, but it was not enough. To attract back their members, clubs needed to restart their athletic and non-athletic activities. The Racing Club de France resumed its athletic schedule

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in 1941 when the club fielded teams in football, field hockey, rugby, basketball, volleyball, tennis, track and field, médecine-ball, swimming, badminton, and billiards. These pursuits included young and old members. In football they had a professional team, several adult amateur squads (reserves, seconds, and thirds), a junior (ages 15–18), two cadets (ages 13–14), and six minimes (ages 11–12) groups.51 These teams provided spaces for French people to gather and helped to raise people’s spirits. Victories brought life to the association. In 1943, the Racing Club de France had ample reason to celebrate: in track and field alone, the association won a French championship in the long jump, the high jump, and the 110-metre hurdles.52 Although the Racing Club competed in more sports than the average association and enjoyed more success, they did not represent an outlier, but rather the most successful iteration of a sports organisation. At the same time, the new normality also provided novel opportunities for many athletes who had been sidelined during the Third Republic. The Vichy sporting world has been described by scholars as a homosocial one, and the regime certainly focused their attention on young men and boys, but sportswomen also discovered new opportunities during the wartime. As Vichy invested new monies into women’s sport, the number of female athletes grew, particularly in sports such as basketball. As Miranda Pollard observed: ‘a growing number of women were actually participating in sport. In Paris in 1941, 26,544 young women took the brevet sportif national. In the Orne in 1943, 141 girls received the brevet.’ 53 The increasing number of competitors was joined by a higher level of competition, in turn reflected in positive newspaper coverage. In January 1944, L’Ouest-Éclair sent a journalist to the quarter-finals of the women’s basketball championship. The favourites – the parisiennes of Fémina Sport, founded in 1912 by gymnastics instructors at the Lycée Buffon – showed their excellence. ‘The joueuses of Fémina sport’, they reported, ‘demonstrated throughout the game superior tactical sense, having controlled the ball and practising a game of short, fast passes that confused their adversaries’.54 In May 1943, the youth magazine Compagnons called the two women’s teams, the Linettes of Saint-Maure and Fémina Sport de Nice, their stars (vedettes) of the week.55 The continued vitality of all women’s sporting associations, such as Fémina Sport, and of women’s sections



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within larger multisport organisations, reflects their ongoing importance as places for female socialisation.

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Social capital and state capitalisation in sport In 1898, Catholic sportsmen organised the Fédération Gymnastique et Sportive des Patronages de France (FGSPF) to unite all Catholic sporting life under one banner. By the interwar period, the FGSPF was one of France’s largest sporting federations, responsible for tens of thousands of sporting men and women and the coordination of thousands of weekly events. Their activities contributed to Catholic athletes’ physical, mental, and, most importantly, moral education. Although the Vichy regime was ostensibly closely aligned with the Church, the preservation of Catholic sporting practices and spaces during the Vichy state remained one of the patronages greatest challenges as the Government increasingly sought to manage associational life. The state’s willingness to increase athletic funding put pressure on associations and federations which needed to mobilise their capital to achieve their institutional interests while balancing this against the desires of the state and the needs of their members. In 1943, women’s increased participation in sports and the clothing those women wore prompted a fight between the Vichy regime and the Catholic episcopate.56 The Church preferred women affiliated in the patronages to wear tuniques – a combination of a long, baggy skirt and loose blouse that covered the shoulders, upper arm, and thigh to the knee. Vichy officials were more concerned with the way tuniques limited female athletes’ range of motion and instead prescribed shorts. The rationing bureau, the Service de ravitaillement, helped to coordinate the production and distribution of women’s sporting goods. In December 1940, the Secretary of the Youth Ministry purchased fifteen thousand pairs of shorts for women. The Minister ordered more than twenty thousand additional pairs of shorts a while later.57 These orders only increased during the war, shorts in preference over tuniques, despite the demands of Catholic patronages and shortages of material. By 1943, the Paris Diocese had had enough of the state’s single-mindedness about female athletes’ clothing and they issued a memo critiquing shorts as indecent and encouraging patronages to defy Vichy’s preference

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for women’s shorts. They complained that ‘Girls will wear, then, the masculine costume outside of the gym [i.e. shorts] … to circulate in the city, in the countryside, in shorts, the whole summer in shorts … which is not favoured’.58 ‘If shorts were to become the policy of the Catholic sporting community’, one diocesan official asked, ‘is it even useful … to have a Catholic federation?’ 59 Of course, many Catholic sportswomen preferred shorts. Parishes in Dijon and Nancy approved of shorts because of ‘fabric shortages’ and ‘the difficulty of completing certain exercises’.60 In the context of the Occupation, these arguments about skirt lengths and the appropriateness of tuniques demonstrated the overlapping levels of access, agency, and power that characterised the Vichy state’s interactions with sporting organisations. In fact, they may have produced a sense of normalcy for both men and women – indeed, arguments between the state, sporting organisations, and their members were quite common during the Third Republic – and the very normality of those state–society engagements was undoubtedly a large part of sport’s wartime appeal. At the same time, they also highlighted an equally important factor in a club’s ability to produce that normalcy, namely the material resources offered by the Government to sporting organisations. Normality did not come cheap but was bolstered by increased Government spending on sports and physical education. Increasingly, sporting associations and the Vichy state worked together to provide communal aid and assistance to associations damaged in bombing raids. Clubs stood a good chance of accessing some of the new monies earmarked for physical culture. Millions of francs every year found their way into the coffers of sporting federations and associations and from there into projects that benefited members. The number of subventions filled during the wartime was enormous. Seemingly every sporting association requested money at one point or another for a variety of reasons, including facility construction or development, the purchase of new materials including uniforms and shoes, and the cost of insurance.61 Federations also received huge block grants from the Government which they passed on to associations. In spite of the fact that it was a left-leaning organisation, the Fédération Sportive des Associations des Postes, Télégraphes et Téléphones, a union organisation, received 117,500 francs in 1940; 375,000 francs in 1941; 460,000 francs in 1942; 591,870 francs

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in 1943, and 550,000 francs in the partial year of 1944.62 The conservative Club Athlétique de la Société Générale requested money to cover their general operations each year during the 1930s and 1940s.63 Other requests were specific, such as when an association in Toulouse asked for subventions to support the specific construction of an athletics field.64 On the other hand, not all associations had equal access to the financial resources of the state. A request’s success or failure depended in part on an association’s implicit characteristics. Jewish athletic organisations received subsidies, but never in amounts similar to non-Jewish associations, and they only lasted until 1942.65 While the industriousness of a club’s leadership also played a major role, Vichy’s sports funding rules meant that requests had to come from departmental prefects and here political determination also mattered. The disparities of requests suggest that some prefects either valued physical culture more than others or did a better job of putting together claims. A similar system worked in associations. Club presidents needed to submit requests for additional funding to local officials. Some clubs seem to have made very few demands, while others made annual ones. The disparity in state funding thus reflected in part the Vichy regime’s tendency to create insider and outsider associations, but also testifies to the agency of sporting associations as they approached the state with demands for support. The varied approaches that associations took to requests for state aid suggest that their leaders understood that they may or may not have access to social capital.66 As Pierre Bourdieu notes, social capital is ‘the aggregate of the actual or potential resources which are linked to the possession of a durable network of more or less institutionalized relationships of mutual acquaintance and recognition or, in other words, membership in a group’.67 Sporting associations looked to their connections with the Vichy state, the German occupier, and local notables in order to get resources. Some clubs, such as the Racing Club de France, had very deep connections with centres of power in Paris and even further abroad, while other clubs lacked even close connections with local officials. The savviest clubs understood that their membership also possessed social capital and they accessed it to achieve common goals and provide their members with resources in times of need.68

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In other words, as with Paul Voivenel’s Stade Toulousain before the First World War, a club’s network offered social and civic avenues for action. Jacques Marchand’s wartime experiences as a basketballer in the west of Paris illuminate the ways in which clubs not only provided spaces for freedom, but also for mutual aid and assistance. Jacques Marchand was born west of Paris in Le Vesinet in an uppermiddle-class family. From a young age, he competed avidly, playing football, cycling, and especially playing basketball for Union Sportive Vesinet. The interwar period was a formative time for French basketball. As Marchand explained, ‘Basketball clubs were popping up all over France [between the wars] because it was very adaptable to many social milieu. … The presence of basketball teams allowed for social mixing that otherwise would not occur … particularly between Catholics and Communists.’ 69 He benefited from this era of sporting fruitfulness. In the 1930s, as a high school student, he began his career as a journalist, writing articles in his local paper, the Journal de Saint-Germain, on the extremely successful French US Metro team. He later became an important sports journalist and administrator. He was the editor-in-chief of L’Equipe, the organiser of the magazine L’Equipe basket handball, and an official in the Fédération français de basket. The war was a ‘folle periode’, Marchard reported, but his basketball team provided him with an ongoing community of ‘absolute faith’.70 When the war started, he was too young to participate in the fighting; he finished high school in 1940, and he stayed in Paris during the exodus and the German Occupation of the city. He found the capital bereft of basketball officials and so the teenage Marchand took on the organisation of his basketball club. His parents supported his continued participation in the club, while he liked to play because he thought it was fun and wanted to live a sporting life. At US Vesinet, he discovered a group of young men at the club who felt the same way. Since basketball teams were so small, it allowed for a close-knit relationship among the players, and he had ‘some good friends [des bons amis] there’.71 Moreover, while Union Sportive Vesinet was hardly the richest club in greater Paris, it possessed resources that members could call upon in their time of need. US Vesinet was a very local multisport association founded by Catholics, small businessmen, and workers. Most of the club came from the patronage system, and their camaraderie was

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animated by their common background (‘un sen du patronage’). In this communal spirit, club members happily worked together towards their mutual wellbeing. Frequently and without ceremony (‘à la bonne franquette’), they pooled money for members who had no work, redistributed food to the hungry, and passed on used clothing. They even organised a costume ball to help raise funds for their members held as POWs in Germany.72 Their acts of material assistance probably made other, more transgressive acts easier. In 1941, US Vesinet basketball players hid a Jewish teammate of the club from the Germans and Vichy, ‘passing him from house to house’. Marchand explained their decision as ‘l’ésprit de l’équipe’.73 Unfortunately, Jacques was unable to make use of the same resources when he was forcibly enlisted in the Service de Travail Obligatoire and sent to Germany. He only spent a few months working on a canal before ‘giving himself leave’ and absconding back to France. He passed the rest of the war hiding in a Maison des Jeunes in Orléans, where he taught physical education and sports.74 In the case of US Vesinet’s basketballers, their sports affiliation gave them a social community and provided them with social resources that they could call upon in their day-to-day lives. Across France, club leaders understood that the sociability provided by clubs generated material assistance for their wider communities. Life outside the club was troublesome enough for ordinary people. Many athletes found it impossible to pay their membership dues in a depressed job market. The Racing Club de France was one of many clubs that found a way to cover their loss of revenue by charging higher membership fees for paying members.75 A few clubs also covered their members’ insurance.76 The changes these clubs made showed that they remained committed to members of the community even when their personal circumstances changed. Men without jobs could go to their sporting association and find employment opportunities, especially if their association was linked to a business enterprise. To protect members of his company’s sporting association, the owner of the Compagnie des Mines de Lens hired dozens of members and supporters of the Racing Club de Lens for light mine work. This mine labour not only paid well at a time of high unemployment, but it also made these men exempt from forced labour in Germany, the dreaded Service de Travail Obligatoire, which displaced several hundred thousand young Frenchmen between 1942

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and 1945.77 For middle- and upper-class athletes, membership in a sporting association acted as an applicant’s calling card and a reference for his or her competencies; associations also served as de-facto business spaces.78 Sporting associations also helped people who did not have enough to eat at home. One of the greatest challenges for most people during the Occupation was food shortages. Many clubs distributed snacks on the sidelines and in the stands, but they also became a form of last resort for people suffering from malnutrition and hunger. Young children went to sporting clubs to get access to more and better food and vitamins, a practice which helped many people in the interwar years but fulfilled a vital social need during the war.79 Some clubs even handed out or raffled off food in the stands during matches. At the Stade Rennais, in Rennes, club officials started printing raffle tickets on the back of match-day programmes. The winning tickets took home a whole rabbit or a chicken.80 The goodwill of sporting associations was not limited to their immediate and visible community. Clubs also worried deeply about their unseen members who were captive in Germany. At the end of 1940, clubs began to collect information about members being held as POWs. The Stade Français identified twenty-two members held in camps and their locations. A letter suggested a meeting to come up with ways to support their soldiers. Most sporting associations eventually hosted competitions to raise funds for prisoners in captivity in Germany. On 15 June 1941, Stade Français hosted the Grand Prix d’Athlètisme at their facility and charged a two-franc entry fee, with the funds being used to send care packages to their members held captive in Germany.81 When considered as a whole, the suspension of payments and provision of insurance for destitute players, the food aid for athletes and fans, and the collection of money for POWs demonstrated how the relationship between a player/fan, their club, and their community stretched far beyond a mere financial transaction for services. In these associations, mutual aid and assistance were communal obligations.

The Vichy state threat The Vichy state encouraged clubs to use their resources to support the Government’s agenda, and between 1941 and 1944 the Sports

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Ministry ordered clubs to seek additional funding from their membership for various local projects, especially for the support of POWs. Associations organised matches, and the state collected a portion of the revenue generated through ticket sales, funnelling that money into rebuilding cities that had been damaged by bombs.82 These events were significant public events and the failure to organise them sometimes provided a justification for the state’s intrusion into club business.83 The greatest threat to a marginal club’s stability during the war was state intervention, and even Vichy’s ostensible allies were wary of its interference. In Meilhan, a small town in the southwest of France, local officials in the Sports Ministry forcibly merged a socialist club with a local Catholic association to keep local sports viable. Between 1939 and 1940, the Socialist Union Sportive Meilhanaise went from having hundreds of members to less than a dozen active participants.84 Its collapse made sporting life in the rural commune untenable, and in response local Sports Ministry administrators sought to unite the club with its rival, the Catholic association Amicale Meilhanaise. The curé Mauresmo, leader of the Catholic association, opposed any fusion between the two groups.85 Church leaders organised the patronage clubs in the first half of the twentieth century specifically to preserve public Catholic spaces in the face of an increasingly secular republic. Vichy ministers’ reports gave ample evidence of local Catholic sports officials’ categorical opposition to intermingling with non-Catholics.86 Government officials noted, ‘the patronages organised for the most part by the ecclesiastical authorities … refuse to accept, in a definitive manner, any suggestion of fusion’.87 Local officials worked for a year with the mayor of the city and the heads of the two associations. The socialists preferred to merge the two associations into one secular organisation. The Catholics agreed to accept the members of their rival as individuals but schemed to refuse one or two of the more radical socialists, including the teacher. When the situation seemed intractable, the regime stepped up its threats and forced the unification of the clubs despite the opposition of the Church.88 The Sports Charter that gave the state authority to reshape the French sporting landscape was wide enough in scope that ministers could have completely reinvented the structure of French physical culture.89 Sports Ministry officials wanted to rationalise athletic life. Wartime exigencies, including the death and maiming of hundreds

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of thousands of men, the imprisonment of over 1.5 million POWs, the dislocation provoked by the Line of Demarcation, and the drafting of forced labour, limited the number of young men available for club activities. To keep sporting organisations viable, Charter Article 5 allowed the state to forcibly unite associations and federations to encourage the maximal participation of young people, especially in the rural communes most vulnerable to both depopulation and division. This mandatory fusion of sporting organisations violated the basic premise of French associational life, which relied on freely formed groups mirroring particular social categories, such as social classes, political affiliations, and religious backgrounds. Many associations, but especially working-class, communist and Jewish clubs, worried that the Charter might be used to interrupt their operations or create a single multisport federation. They had reason for concern: until the mid-1920s French sport was dominated by an overarching sporting federation: the Union des Sociétés Françaises de Sports Athlétiques (USFSA). Moreover, the Vichy state did consolidate the Union Générale Sportive de l’Enseignement Libre and the Union du Sport Scolaire et Universitaire, ban the Rugby League, and merge a whole range of clubs, including those in Meilhan. Vichy officials also banned a range of associations and federations, including all so-called ‘fédérations d’application’, Fédération Française de Sports Athlétiques, and the Union Française des Oeuvres Laïques d’Éducation Physique.90 These state interventions confound any strictly ideological reading. Borotra’s Sports Ministry did not attack sporting organisations for political reasons. In fact, the state’s use of the law demonstrates clearly that the Vichy regime never envisaged the creation of a single youth movement, but instead favoured the corporatist structure of the interwar period, a structure which empowered local organisations on the grounds of pursuing local agendas. The Charter ostensibly prohibited sporting organisations from engaging in explicit political organisation.91 Athletes saw the law as directed against communist organisations that could become nests for labour organisers and the Resistance.92 Indeed, game day at the Racing Club de Lens was one of the only times when a large mass of miners could safely and legally congregate, especially after the mining strikes of spring 1941. Matches at the Stade Bollaert attracted tens of thousands of miners. Matches occasionally turned into labour actions. In the autumn of 1943, a match between Racing Club de

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Lens and Bordeaux became an excuse for an impromptu strike. Augustin Viseux remembers leading a column of workers to the game, shouting ‘Strike to go see Lens-Bordeaux … everyone to the football match’.93 The continued vitality of working-class associational life in the clubhouse and stands of the Stade Bollaert protected strikers from the authorities, but Resistance activities, a much greater concern to some Prefects, proved rarer. In the Indre-et-Loire, Robert Gildea noted that the Prefects worried that the ‘Églantine Football Club of Saint-Pierre-des-Corps and the Nantes branch of Amis de la Nature … were communist fronts’.94 In a few cases, these paranoid officials were correct. In Loudéac, for example, a football team provided a rich recruitment ground for a communist Resistance organisation.95 Despite the state’s concerns, and the very real presence of left-wing agitators in some sporting associations, the Vichy state changed few of the day-to-day practices of pre-war socialist sporting organisations, and very little political opposition to Vichy’s athletic programmes emanated from the working-class sports. The regime trapped the leaders of the Fédération Sportive et Gymnique du Travail (FSGT) into mandated collaboration. The Vichy Government affected a kind of control, but the state system also permitted the association to continue operating without significant interference. The federation organised committees in every administrative region.96 Local associations resumed their activities, and their sporting calendar included all their usual events, such as football matches and cross-country runs, although their membership numbers fell. The local FSGT associations echoed Vichy’s physical education priorities. In the Île-de-France, the municipal FSGT planning committee informed its members that they needed to read a series of articles about the doctrine nationale written by a fellow member for the state-run newspaper Tous les sports. Afterwards the communist and socialist sportsmen filled out a questionnaire designed to simplify the implementation of the national method in the local FSGT-affiliated associations, a process which progressed smoothly throughout the following year.97 Officials inside of the Sports Ministry, especially on the local level, were also surprisingly tolerant of Jewish sporting associations. The Vichy state’s relationship to Jewish youth organisations was complicated by the fact that the state operated nationally, regionally,

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and locally. Many high-ranking administrators in the French Government, notably Xavier Vallet, Louis Darquier de Pellepoix, and Pierre Pucheu, detested the Jews and wanted them forced out of public life. On a case-by-case basis, the functionaries in the Sports Ministry at least initially tolerated Jewish participation in sporting life.98 Jean Borotra, as head of the Sports Ministry, received regular denunciations of Jewish athletes and he defended their presence in sports and stated that clubs made their own decisions regarding membership.99 The Sports Ministry’s support for Jewish athleticism extended to other genres of sporting activity, such as when the Commissariat Général aux Questions Juives moved to prohibit mixed Aryan–Jewish athletic activities in schools; the Sports Ministry demurred and delayed the implementation of that decision until the Germans forced the separation of Aryan and Jewish athletes in the Occupied Zone in September 1942.100 Despite the Sports Ministry’s equanimity, officials from other French ministries and the German occupation authority deported athletes and also used athletic facilities as part of the Holocaust. Both the French and the Germans seized the property of Jewish sportsmen and -women and sporting associations.101 Following a request from the Commissariat Général aux Questions Juives, the French state despoiled Jeff Dickson International Sports and its facility, the Vélodrome d’Hiver, in February 1942.102 This same sporting facility proved useful as an impromptu internment camp for Jews and regime enemies before their deportation to larger facilities outside Paris or to the east. The French interned around 8,000 Jewish men, women, and children in the infamous ‘Vel d’Hiv’ for five days from 16 July 1942 until 21 July. Inside the arena, the internees had no access to restrooms, only one tap for water, and insufficient food. But the horrific velodrome was only one exemplar of a larger trend. Other sporting sites served similar functions.103 The gymnase patinoire at 30–32 rue Édouard Pailleron, for example, was used by the French and German police on 14 May 1941 to hold 3,710 Jews before the Germans sent them on to an internment camp in Pithiviers.104 Authorities deported the Jewish prisoners held at Pithiviers routinely to Auschwitz-Birkenau, including the novelist Irène Némirovsky. On the other hand, the state’s seemingly closest allies in right-wing sporting associations, such as those organised under the auspices

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of the Société de Préparation et d’Éducation Sportive (SPES), also suffered due to the Sports Ministry’s rationalising impulses. In a closed-door meeting, Government administrators informed the society that their organisational structure violated the Law of Associations of 1901. Associations affiliated with the organisation ‘were not autonomous and are affiliated with a political party and therefore do not correspond to the terms of the law of 1901 and the Charte des sports’.105 In order to rectify the situation, Sports Ministry officials ordered the right-wing organisation to reorganise themselves as unaffiliated associations. SPES associations could choose to remain unofficially connected, but the Sports Ministry could not permit the SPES to act like a federation. The SPES’s administrators fought with the Sports Ministry to preserve their position as a union of conservative sporting associations across France. To protect themselves, they leveraged their connections inside the government. A ranking SPES member reached out to a friend in the Sports Ministry, Monsieur Foulon, and asked him to stop the attacks on the group.106 They met with him in a very cordial meeting in Paris, but their efforts failed. Through their agent Foulon, the Sports Ministry resisted all persuasion and the SPES leadership sent concerned letters. Was their organisation ‘in front of the wall’?107 In July 1941 their affiliated clubs were refused entry to state-managed pools and fields. Local SPES organisers, aware of the problem, felt paralysed and reached out to the national organisation for relief because the situation was untenable.108 Under constant pressure from the Sports Ministry, the SPES dismantled their federal structure and reconfigured themselves as a group of tenuously affiliated sporting associations. The collapse of the right-leaning federation represented a major capitulation to Vichy officials, who wanted the conservative associations to compete alongside clubs from other segments of society. The Parisian branch of the organisation retained the name and became the Société de Préparation et d’Éducation Sportive, while the secondlargest association in the group, in the Puy-de-Dôme, became the Société de Préparation et d’Éducation Sportive de France. Each of the now local associations, formerly affiliated under the rightleaning federation umbrella, built connections with other sanctioned organisations, such as the Fédération Française de Football. Vichy’s defeat of the SPES represented a maximal use of force akin to the

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despoliation of the Rugby XIII federation, and its dismemberment severely limited the abilities of right-wing sporting associations to segregate themselves off from their political adversaries in other clubs; a fate surprisingly not shared by their opponents in the left-wing FSGT. The Vichy state’s varied responses to communist, Jewish, left-wing and right-wing sporting associations revealed the priorities and uneven application of the law on the part of the Sports Ministry. Officials sought to maximise athletic participation through the consolidation of associations and federations. They faced opposition inside these organisations from sportsmen and -women who opposed any Government intervention into club and federation life. Some left-wing federations, such as the FSGT, remained viable throughout the war and even gained ground on other left-wing sporting organisations, despite their uncomfortable position vis-à-vis the Vichy state. Some right-wing groups, such as the conservative SPES, collapsed. These politically ambivalent manoeuvres by the Sports Ministry illustrated the flexibility with which some branches of the Government acted, but also highlights how the regime relied on the existing structure of French sports.

Racing Club de France and the German cohabitation A club’s ability to persevere despite the hardships of the war depended on their access to resources and their relationship with the Vichy state and the German occupier. Power differentials mattered, but French sportsmen and -women were clever in their approaches to the dual authoritarian systems of the Vichy regime and the Germans. In some ways, relationships with the occupier were more manageable. The German Military Administration in France was formidable. The Armistice Agreement gave it occupier’s rights. The Germans could act arbitrarily in the name of security, a force they used to take over facilities across the country.109 The occupier thus always wielded a trump card in their relations with French athletic associations, which feared another period of dispossession akin to that suffered during the mobilisation in 1939–1940. On the other hand, German officers did not need to seize all of France’s athletic spaces, nor were they interested in running sporting associations, challenging

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the character of French sporting life, or instituting a German-style single youth movement. In their relations with French sporting associations, the Germans’ primary concerns were security and space. The Armistice forbade the existence of French sporting organisations with a military character. Shooting sports were banned. French marksmen had to turn over their weapons to the police.110 The occupiers also required open spaces – schools, parks, and fields – where they could station their soldiers and equipment. When the Germans wanted access to a French sports facility, they seized it without recompense, claiming significant property across France. In Paris dans la collaboration, Cécile Desprairies painstakingly outlines the extent of German takings, going street by street, arrondissement by arrondissement through the archives of the Architect of Paris, responsible for publishing German requisitions during the Occupation. Among hundreds of entries for private residences, hotels, and factories are several dozen athletic facilities, including the Stade Pershing, a twenty-five thousandseat multisport stadium, which was occupied on 8 September 1940 and held until the end of the Occupation.111 When the Germans occupied an athletic facility, the owners lost the ability to collect rents and affiliated clubs lost their user rights indefinitely. Given the shortage of acceptable sporting facilities, the requisitioning of a football field, tennis courts, or even a whole stadium was a disaster. Between 1940 and 1944, the Germans stationed soldiers for long stretches at the Stade Charlety, the Stade Port d’Ivry, and the Stade Lattes.112 Clubs that used these properties routinely, such as the Sporting Club Universitaire de France, scrambled to find new places where they could compete. In Paris, the Germans concentrated their demands in the nicest neighbourhoods of the west, which were also home to the highest concentrations of excellent athletic facilities. In the 16th arrondissement the Germans requisitioned several stadiums, displacing the Ligue Parisienne d’Athlétisme; dozens of tennis courts, including Roland-Garros; and several public pools, such as the stylish art deco Piscine Molitor.113 However, in certain circumstances the German military wanted access to sporting facilities for athletic purposes. When the occupier wanted somewhere to play, they usually sought out collaborators to manage those facilities. In some cases, German officers and soldiers sought out the opportunity to cohabit with clubs, even as paying

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club members. For the richest clubs with the best property, Germans typically aimed to share spaces: here deals could be made between sportsmen. Sporting organisations that dealt explicitly with the Germans typically found themselves to also be accommodating, and many clubs, including the Racing Club de France and Stade Français, learned to live with the Germans, and even to use their presence to expand their association’s influence. In 2008, Parisians expressed shock at the Musée de la Bibliothèque Historique de la Ville de Paris’s ‘Les Parisiens sous l’Occupation’ show, an exhibition that showcased the wartime colour photos of André Zucca. His vibrant photographs stirred up questions about whether Paris really suffered under the Occupation and the extent of French–German socialisation. The later disclosure that Zucca worked for the Nazi newspaper Signal only exacerbated the public affair, but his photographs of French men and women and Germans playing together in Paris’s parks and streets largely mirror the circumstances of many French sporting associations.114 Limited space and a desire for adequate leisure facilities among the German and French sportsmen and -women required associations and occupiers to work together. The Germans generally strove to avoid confrontations. They reserved the right to use the Stade de Pierre Coubertin for several hours a week, with the rest of the time allocated to different French clubs.115 In other cases, the cohabitation worked in an ad-hoc manner, such as when mostly young people swam together with German-enlisted men in community pools.116 At the Racing Club de France and Stade français, upper-class French sportsmen and -women routinely mingled at the pool or on the tennis courts with German officers.117 Space sharing followed strict social and racial hierarchies. German officers socialised with the upper middle class; enlisted men mixed with the working class. Sporting associations thus represented one important site among a range of public spaces, where the German occupier and the French people could meet and socialise together on relatively equal social terrain. In the process of negotiating a cohabitation agreement with a French sporting association, the Germans relinquished some of their power. In complex discussions over time, use, and upkeep of facilities, French interlocutors had notable advantages. The French retained the ownership of the association, which they governed democratically, which meant that the Germans had to be sensitive to the desires of

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the membership. Management occurred within French law because German officers did not want to take on the day-to-day oversight of a facility. French officials also had a better grasp of a club’s business functions. They already had connections with networks of local sports officials, builders, cleaners, and athletics goods purveyors. These advantages enabled club Presidents, such as Pierre Gillou of the Racing Club de France, to successfully avoid the seizure of his club by the Germans, while allowing him to capitalise on his association with them to increase his club’s physical holdings across the city. The Racing Club de France successfully navigated a cohabitation with the Germans from late autumn 1940 until the Liberation in autumn 1944. Its relationship with the Deutsch Tennis Klub illustrates both how and why upper-middle-class sporting organisations collaborated during wartime, despite threats to their autonomy and the danger of postwar reputational risks. Very few records remain detailing the club’s cohabitation. Although in the years before the war the Racing Club published a monthly review, Racing Club de France: revue mensuelle des sports, that publication ceased in 1939. During the war, the club only infrequently produced newsletters, ostensibly because of the limited resources available. In 1943, the club published a booklet, ‘1939–1943: quatre années de sport bleu ciel et blanc’.118 In December 1944, following the Liberation, they issued a Christmas newsletter. These records are remarkable for their lack of explicit discussion on the difficulties of the invasion and cohabitation. Only two pages in the 1943 newsletter talk about the current political environment of the club and its potential future. Club President Gillou reminds readers of the club’s esteemed history and emphasises that ‘despite the innumerable difficulties that paralyse the activities of our country, the Racing Club has not only subsisted but improved. And not a modest advance but a soaring one [une montée en fleche].’ 119 He then includes tortured language, worth quoting in French. ‘Since we pursued la politique de terrain de sport, which has been ours depuis toujours, and without which in our opinion there is no salvation for French sport, we have continued to fit out, construct, and build up (the club)’.120 However, he seems to realise it is impossible to avoid the subject, so goes on to give thanks to three Germans for their perfect ‘sportsmanship’ in helping the club to ‘avoid the total requisition’ of their athletic facilities.121

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The Christmas 1944 newsletter, published after the Liberation, also makes little mention of the Germans in the club.122 The first few pages reflect on the club’s members killed in action, rewarded for heroism, or held in captivity in Germany. Gillou’s comments deal with the ‘development of Racing and the evolution of sport in France’. Racing had a special role to play – it provided a moral example for other French sportsmen and -women. They had an obligation – ‘thanks to the prestige of the Racing Club’ – to work with one heart to realise the national interest. ‘After the victory’, either of France or of the club in an athletic competition, ‘Racings colours will float high and clear next to our national flag in the beautiful sky of Paris’.123 However, despite the club’s apparent patriotic about-face, Gillou still mobilised language that was similar to that of many pre-war conservative sportsmen and bureaucrats of the Vichy state. ‘Victory has only been worth it, in our eyes, if it was obtained fairly’.124 Moreover, just as in the 1943 edition, most of the newsletter’s sixty pages are devoted to cut-and-dried retellings of the highs and lows of the club’s teams. Their swimmers won numerous awards, including medals in the men’s 100-metre free style at the Ile-de-France Criterium, the men’s 100-metre relay, and water polo. Charles Bouvet was the champion of the Ile-de-France decathlon. Both the 1943 and 1944 newsletters emphasised the club’s ongoing evolution, with sharp graphics detailing the club’s construction of tennis courts.125 The monthly minutes of the club’s board also detail the German invasion and cohabitation administratively, but give little insight into daily club life. The club board could not meet, dispersed in July 1940 because of the invasion and the exodus. The next committee meeting occurred on 10 August, the same day that Philippe Pétain inaugurated the revolution nationale. The committee, still lacking a quorum with only four members present, President Pierre Gillou not in attendance, and with no discussion of the reasons for the cohabitation, outlined the agreement they reached with the Germans. The club’s facilities would operate ‘as in the past’. The Germans would have ‘access to the facilities under the same conditions as the members of the club’. The cost to the Germans would be 10 francs per day to play tennis, and 6 francs per day to access the pool. A 150-franc subscription covered a whole year of tennis. The Germans requested Jews and foreigners be banned – the French

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requested an official order from the Kommandanteur – which they received in writing.126 The minutes do not give any further information about how the board reached its decision, the pressure, if any, put on the board by the occupier, or how the club’s membership, particularly Jews or foreigners, responded to these new changes. Most of the interesting information about the club’s cohabitation comes from the 1944 and 1945 club annual reports, which were not widely distributed among the members but were kept for administrative reasons. Each one purports to be an accurate summation of the club’s annual deliberations, including suggested changes to the club and its organisational documents, voting results, and speeches by ordinary club members. The first was produced during the Occupation. It contains shrouded critiques of the Occupation and the club’s leadership.127 One can imagine how difficult it would have been for members to speak openly against the German invasion of the Racing Club. The 1945 report, printed after the Liberation, is replete with patriotic gestures, exculpatory language, and prominent memorials to club members killed as part of the French Forces of the Exterior or in the Resistance.128 All the club’s records agree that at the beginning of the Occupation, the Racing Club de France was one of the oldest and most prestigious multisport associations in France. Founded in the basement of the Gare St Lazare on 20 April 1882 by high school students from the nearby Lycée Condorcet, in three years the club outgrew its first home and sought and received permission from the City of Paris to be installed near the most fashionable neighbourhoods in the middle of the Parc aux Biches in the Bois de Boulogne. Their first construction project, named the Croix Catelan, included a track and a small members-only chalet. By the start of the Second World War, the Racing Club de France had around five thousand members and included professional football, rugby, swimming, basketball, hockey, and tennis teams. It was also one of Paris’s most esteemed sporting associations, welcoming a veritable who’s who of French athletes and politicians. Founder of the modern Olympic movement, Pierre de Coubertin, and Jules Rimet, the founder of FIFA, were members. Vichy’s first Minister of Sports, Jean Borotra, was a supporter, as was René Lacoste, the tennis player and famous textile entrepreneur. The well-heeled association’s backers included other famous French names, such as Aron, Dupont, Merlin, and Ney. It had two members

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in the French Parliament: Jean-Jacques Dumoret, Deputy (Loire-etCher) and Vice-President of the Aeronautic Commission, and Henri Paté the Parisian parliamentarian, Vice-President of the chamber, and Under-Secretary of Physical Education.129 On numerous occasions, the association hosted political events, including regular visits from the President of the Republic.130 Since the association was in the Occupied Zone, its facilities fell under the direct control of the Germans. The 1945 annual report of the general assembly of the Racing Club describes how the occupying authorities, in line with their general policy on providing the best amenities for their officers, viewed the club as an attractive prospect. According to Pierre Gillou, when the Germans arrived in Paris, they were ‘seduced by our facilities in the Bois de Boulogne’, which included spacious gardens, a sumptuous club house, and many elegant clay tennis courts.131 Anticipating that the Germans intended to requisition the club’s facilities, the leadership of the club reached out proactively and offered a cohabitation agreement. Following a series of ‘laborious and meticulous negotiations’ by the Annual Committee, the club was able ‘to avoid the requisition of the club, but serious sacrifices were imposed’.132 These claims appeared in the 1945 annual report and may have been self-exculpatory; however, given the Germans’ rapacious treatment of other sporting facilities, the committee’s concerns were likely well founded. With an agreement in place, the Germans established their own parallel association within the Racing Club, called the Deutsch Tennis Klub Paris, and they seized partial control of ten tennis courts, and men’s and women’s locker rooms.133 The relationship between the Germans and the Racing Club de France was not one of equals, but the club’s French leadership maintained significant agency. On several occasions minor insults to German authority, including robberies of German officers’ private items, resulted in threats to requisition the club entirely.134 The Germans later demanded access to the pool, additional tennis courts on the Rue Saussure, and entry to the members-only club. Each new order culminated in fraught, high-level discussions that ended with the acquiescence of the French, who feared the confiscation of their facilities. At the same time, rather than accommodating an ever-diminishing role, the association’s leaders learned to leverage their cohabitation into financial successes and to a significant increase

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in the quality of the club, its teams on the field, its training facilities, and its luxury properties. Association President Pierre Gillou’s successful and controversial management of the cohabitation illustrates how sporting associations took advantage of an extremely difficult situation and twisted it to their own advantage. Gillou assured the other members that the war had not destroyed the club; instead, the Racing Club ‘not only subsisted but also expanded’. Throughout the 1930s, the association held steady at around 5,000 members, with a high of 5,980 duespaying members in 1939. Four years of the Occupation witnessed dramatic growth. The organisation totalled 8,714 members in 1942 and 9,727 in 1943.135 By 1942, the club had overcome the financial difficulties of the general mobilisation and was now generating large profits, thanks in part to fees paid by the Germans. In 1943, the club recorded 11,222,623.50 francs in profit and 10,369,828.05 francs in expenses, much of which went to buying new facilities, covering existing mortgages, paying for professional teams, and improving facilities at the Croix Catelan. In 1944 the club’s profits grew even more markedly to 15,017,340.60 francs in income and 8,778,275.20 francs in expenses.136 The Racing Club de France used their newfound financial stability to build or rent facilities for their members’ use. They successfully petitioned the city to sell them public land in the Bois de Boulogne, enlarging their concessions by 16,000 square metres. Near Colombes, the club purchased 35,000 square metres of adjoining land, which prevented the installation of an industrial park that club members feared would become a target for Allied bombing.137 In these spaces they built a hockey field, ten tennis courts, two basketball courts, three volleyball courts, and a 400-metre track.138 The club also purchased 40,000 square metres around the Porte Dauphine. In 1942, the club successfully took possession of one of Paris’s sporting jewels, the famed Roland-Garros tennis courts, from their rivals Stade Français. Racing Club’s close connections with both the Vichy Government and the Germans helped it to acquire its new holdings across the city. These new land purchases could not have happened without the implicit approval of the Germans and the Vichy state, which approved all new construction projects. Gillou advertised the club’s achievements. His 1943 pamphlet illustrated club growth by highlighting the increased access to tennis courts.

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Figure 5.1  Growing membership at the Racing Club from 1882 until 1945

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In 1930, the association only possessed 23 tennis courts; in 1940 the club owned 28; and by 1943, members had access to 40 courts.139 When the club could no longer build facilities fast enough to keep pace with their increased demand, they used their financial resources to rent the best facilities from across the city. To provide training space for their football and rugby teams, the association paid 350,000 francs annually for access to the Stade de la Muette.140 It is probable that these temporary rentals were only possible because of the payments made to the Racing Club by the Germans and by the weakness of other associations within Paris. Racing Club’s financial clout also created opportunities for competitive success. In 1942, the Racing Club de France reassumed the management of the Racing Club de Paris: a rival sporting association that had broken away from the Racing Club de France to form a top-flight professional football team.141 Reunification erased the debt of the Racing Club de Paris and improved the prestige of the Racing Club de France. Most members supported the reunification of the two associations because the union brought back coveted access to the Parisians’ covered tennis courts, but the leadership of Racing Club de France saw reunification as a way to improve their fortunes on the football field too. President Gillou dreamed about a football team that was ‘authorised to employ professionals’, a team that could win the Coupe de France tournament for the sky blue and white.142 In his 1944 ‘Rapport moral’, he defended the reunification of the two clubs by urging members to ‘remember the success achieved by our first team’, which he promised would soon bring the club their first Coupe de France title.143 Here he proved prescient. Racing Club won the Coupe Charles Simon in 1945. Racing’s rapid growth pleased many of the members of the association who agreed with Gillou’s bold plans to expand the club. He did not seem interested in stopping, however, even as the war increasingly turned against the Germans, and the club’s reputation eventually suffered from their cohabitation. In the spring of 1944, he sought permission for a new ‘grand club-house’ near the Bois de Boulogne in the 16th arrondissement.144 The club house design emulated the high style of Paris’s most exclusive private clubs. His ardent supporters claimed that the property would raise the esteem of the association in the capital, but now opponents emerged who declaimed all the changes to the association.

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To opponents of Gillou, the club house was a distraction from the club’s central aims: it would be an expensive commercial enterprise without immediate connections to sporting activity.145 The war ended before the club could acquire the necessary land and the project was indefinitely shelved. A sizeable minority of the association’s membership, led by some of the older members, expressed ambivalent opinions about the wartime direction of the club. These fractures in the club remain difficult to completely unpack because they are hidden inside the annual reports – suggested rather than stated outright, especially in the 1944 report, produced during the Occupation. Nevertheless, it was clear that in 1944 members understood that the war brought opportunities and risks. Cohabitation with the Germans allowed the leadership to expand the club in remarkable ways. It also brought reputational damage and shame. Clubhouse debates revolved around whether the club behaved appropriately during the Occupation. Arguments over the club’s transformation were inextricable from concerns over its relationship with the Germans. The 1944 annual meeting conducted on 19 February was the first opportunity club members had had to voice their formal opposition to the leadership in three years. Rising disquiet among some of the association’s membership demonstrated how opinions about appropriate relationships between occupiers and the occupied fluctuated, especially in the final year of the Occupation. The association’s leadership faced a strong current of discontent in 1944, which threatened to undermine the club. In his ‘Rapport moral’, Pierre Gillou grumbled about ‘an opposition born among some of the old members … marked by a hostile character and distemper uncommon to the normal cordial rapport that always existed between members of the Committee and [the membership] of the association’.146 He was incensed at his opponents, who organised a petition to critique the leadership’s decisions. In response, the Annual Committee organised a campaign to register and address complaints. Conditions that year deteriorated. Members threatened club leaders. The club’s atmosphere became polluted. Gillou claimed that ‘certain members refuse to give into the rules … [the club] has become a place for public meetings – the pool, the restaurant, in the locker rooms, and soon on the fields, one exchanges pleasantries and objections put forward against the [Committee]’.147 Feeling that the

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situation had devolved towards an anarchy that imperilled the club, he promised to denounce members to administrative and judicial authorities. In the context of the Occupation, this threat was at best ambiguous, at worst, life threatening. Would the French police investigate whisperings in a locker room? (They did in other cases.) Were the Germans interested in the Racing Club’s collegiality? It was unclear who Gillou was threatening to call, but perhaps the unclear nature of the menace was intentional, since his supporters wrote the 1944 report and could have left out anything that was too compromising. His comments seem to have been forgotten and were not addressed in the post-Liberation 1945 Annual Committee report. The Racing Club members who spoke out against Gillou framed their opposition to his decisions carefully as objections to the way the leadership changed the club. They raised three types of complaints: to the commercialisation of the club, to the changing of club customs, and to the admission of new members into the club. The most articulate opponent of the changes was Monsieur Heilbuth, who spoke on behalf of the opponents of Gillou. He made a strong case against the transformation of the club from an aristocratic country club atmosphere into a business-centred and quasi-capitalist organisation. He jabbed at the leadership of Racing Club de France, accusing Gillou of acting precipitously and largely without sanction to develop the club into a commercial enterprise that was grabbing up an increasing share of the Parisian sporting market: We do not accept that our club degenerates progressively into a casino linked to commercial enterprises that derive substantial profits and we regret to see, under the cover of financial stabilisation measures [the club] literarily invaded and transformed into an enterprise for the construction of tennis courts and a consortium for the rental of chairs and sunbathing equipment.148

Messieurs Fabre and Genin also spoke at length against the commercialisation of the association, the arbitrary authority of the club leadership, and the invasion of the club by new members. Their speeches were met by jeers, boos, and laughter from the crowd.149 Despite Heilbuth’s passionate critique, most members defended President Gillou. Speaker after speaker scorned Heilbuth and his followers. One Monsieur Sauvy ridiculed the opposition. ‘What do you need to create a grand club?’ he asked rhetorically. He concluded

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that the only thing that Racing was missing was a loyal opposition. Another called the opposition mediocre. The Annual Committee did not need to change, but their opponents did.150 When asked whether or not to lower the membership fees for several key subscription types, the club membership took the advice of President Gillou and voted for a subvention only for members with large families. They rejected the call to open the club’s books. The leadership claimed it would prevent disruption. A vote to unseat Gillou failed miserably. Very few people mustered the courage to openly oppose him. Buried within the subtext of Heilbuth’s comments about the club is a not-so-subtle critique of the presence of the Germans in the Racing Club. Debates over the commercialisation of the Racing Club took place in the presence of the German cohabitation, but none of the speakers mentioned the Germans directly. In some ways, the fact that Heilbuth did not discuss the elephant in the room is unsurprising. Open critique of the Germans could be dangerous, especially in 1944. He nevertheless complained about the club being ‘literally invaded’ and forced to accept ‘financial stabilisation measures’.151 He pointed out that the club’s commercialisation had led to a vicious cycle – the cost of the annual subscription grew faster than club profits as members’ fees were directed towards the purchase and development of property around Paris. In order to keep the whole club solvent, thousands of new members were accepted – unstated here that many of them were German – so that by 1944 the club had 9,000 members and 1,200 people on the waiting list.152 His use of terms such as ‘invasion’ must have been deliberate. Everyone would have recognised this as relating to the German invasion of France and the subsequent Armistice. In Heilbuth’s formulation, then, the Racing Club was Occupied France, turned into a casino and a business, with the aim of feeding the sybaritic needs of an occupying army. Each of Heilbuth’s critiques was a thinly veiled critique of Racing Club’s leadership and their German cohabitators. He compared the association to a casino, lampooned the club’s designs on a grand club house, and loathed the construction of so many new tennis courts. In mentioning the construction of the tennis courts explicitly, Heilbuth alluded to the activities of the Deutsch Tennis Klub, whose need and desire for new facilities helped to drive the association’s expansion.153 The link to casinos was more obscure, but it also

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probably referred to the German officers’ penchant for spending time gambling during the Occupation. The Germans and their elite French colleagues were the major consumers of lavish and yet also seedy entertainments such as casino gambling and cabaret shows. It is possible that Heilbuth also considered the cohabitation a kind of wager, which in 1944 now appeared to be a losing venture. Heilbuth’s criticism worked on many levels because club members seemed to understand that between 1940 and 1944 the German officers in the Deutsch Tennis Klub had played a decisive role in the changes undertaken by the leadership. The Germans wanted access to more tennis courts, so the association purchased the Roland-Garros stadium and rented access to other coveted covered tennis courts. The release and purchase of public land in the Bois de Boulogne may only have been possible because of the presence of influential German officers who considered their own officers’ interests in athletic spaces to be more important than the industrial capacity of a new automobile factory. The leadership’s accommodation to German desires did not mean that the occupiers controlled the club; instead, Germans’ aspirations for sports spaces coincided with Pierre Gillou’s desire to improve life at the club. The Germans’ presence seemed to make the club’s development projects possible, but as the war continued, the cohabitation began to trouble some of the members. It is impossible to know whether any Germans were present at the 1944 annual meeting, but if they were it shows M. Heilbuth’s comments in a new light. His criticism of the club’s decision to accommodate the Deutsch Tennis Klub, shrouded as it was under claims of tradition and financial burden, was comprehensible to his listeners. When he spoke of the club being literally invaded and turned into a consortium for the construction of tennis courts, he spoke bravely, but seemingly safely enough, as his name did not appear in the 1945 rapport’s list of members arrested or martyred by the Germans.

Conclusion At the start of 1940, many sporting clubs in France appeared close to insolvency, rocked by declining subscriptions and the confiscation and disrepair of their property. Over the next four years, in the context

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of a massive state reinvestment in sports, a golden age of physical culture enabled sport and sporting associations to rebound. New sporting associations appeared across the metropole, but a numerical accounting of the growth of sporting life does not capture the full importance of this expansion. Wartime associations manoeuvred innovatively, made hard choices, and negotiated between the demands of the Vichy regime and the German Occupation. These associations not only served as places to play sports, but also as places for community, sociability, normality, mutual aid, and assistance. The vitality of sporting associations, which brought together hundreds of thousands of French people every week, challenges previous understandings of the Vichy regime that characterise the era as dark. It was a time full of anxiety and stress, but organisations and individuals had ways of manipulating events to their advantage. An association’s success rested in large part on its capacity to provide a space for communal sociability. Clubs served as places where large numbers of people could associate freely, but they also provided food, jobs, clothing, and support for POWs. By turning inwards towards their community and through local democratic practices, French people were able to free themselves from some of the war’s hardships. At the same time, opportunities for mutual aid and assistance did not extend to all athletes and all clubs equally. The ability of a sporting organisation to generate support from the Vichy state or the Germans had much to do with the resilience of its social network and the social position of its adherents. Sporting associations provided one way for large numbers of people to gain access to state resources and to gather, despite German prohibitions. The political character of an organisation only partially determined its success. The conservative Société de Préparation et d’Éducation Sportive learned that Vichy officials were quite willing to undermine right-wing sporting associations that stood in the way of the rationalisation of sports. Jewish and communist associations suffered exceptional and severe repressions that made mutual aid and assistance impossible. The case of Racing Club de France shows how influential clubs survived and even thrived during the Occupation. The club’s leaders, particularly association President Pierre Gillou, agonised over the club’s cohabitation with the Deutsch Tennis Klub. However, Gillou also mobilised Racing Club’s new connections to achieve his goal

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of a larger and more influential association. By playing upon the Germans’ desire for more tennis facilities, he enabled his plan for radical expansion – a transformation that turned the association into one of the most dynamic actors in wartime Paris sporting life, even as it fundamentally changed its character. The rejuvenated club constructed dozens of new facilities and competed at a high level in the Coupe de France football tournament. After the Liberation, Gillou’s decisions became a political liability. The advantages the club enjoyed thanks to their relationship with the occupiers now threatened their very existence.

Notes 1 RCF Archives ‘Assemblée générale ordinaire du Racing Club de France’ (1944). 2 From A. de Tocqueville, Democracy in America (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000), pp. 489–492. See also C. Andrieu, G. Le Béguec, and D. Tartakowsky, Associations et champ politique: la loi de 1901 à l’épreuve de siècle (Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne, 2001). 3 A. Baker, Amateur Musical Societies and Sports Clubs in Provincial France, 1848–1914: Harmony and Hostility (London: Palgrave, 2017). 4 P. Burrin, France under the Germans: Collaboration and Compromise (New York: New Press, 1996), p. 210. 5 Ibid., p. 460. 6 Ibid., p. 210. 7 Ibid., p. 1. 8 B. Prêtet, ‘Sportifs et sports en France, 1940–1945’ (Ph.D. Thesis, Université Paris Ouest Nanterre, 2014), pp. 210–215. 9 The term first became popularised in English-language literature by George Orwell in Down and Out in Paris and London (1933), where he describes low-level cooks as using their wits and their tenaciousness to get difficult jobs done regardless of the circumstances. The term became re-popularised by Anthony Bourdain in Nasty Bits (2006), who likened system-D to French MacGuyvering. 10 D. and P. Kladstrup, Wine and War: The French, the Nazis, and the Battle for France’s Greatest Treasure (New York: Broadway Books, 2002), passim. 11 See S. Fogg, The Politics of Everyday Life in Vichy France: Foreigners, Undesirables, and Strangers (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009).

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12 ‘Loi de 1er juillet 1901’, Legifrance: le service public de la diffusion du droit, www.legifrance.gouv.fr/affichTexte.do?cidTexte=LEGITEX T000006069570&dateTexte=vig (accessed 21 January 2015). 13 AN 44F2 ‘Jean-Louis G application d’emploi’ (1941). 14 P. Voivenel, Mon Beau rugby (Toulouse: Éditions de l’Herakles, 1942), p. 39. 15 Ibid., p. 44. 16 Ibid., p. 45. 17 Ibid., p. 45. 18 ADG 1W442 ‘List of sporting associations’ (undated). 19 ‘Un régiment de footballeurs’ (A regiment of footballers) L’Auto, 1 October 1939. 20 Ibid. ‘Voici L’Auto-soldat’ (Here is L’Auto-soldat) L’Auto, 16 September 1939. 21 RCF Archives, ‘Assemblée générale ordinaire du Racing club de France’ (1944). 22 Ibid. 23 Ibid. 24 Ibid. 25 Ibid. 26 Ibid. 27 Prêtet, ‘Sportifs et sports en France’, p. 212. 28 Ibid. 29 R. Gildea, Marianne in Chains: Daily Life in the Heart of France during the German Occupation (New York: Picador, 2002), p. 137. 30 AML 5H1 36 ‘Fermeture des cafés, estaminets, et lieux publics les samedis et dimanches’ (17 August 1940). 31 J.-P. Le Crom, ‘Helping the most needy: the role of the Secours National’, in L. Dodd and D. Lees (eds), Vichy France and Everyday Life: Confronting the Challenges of Wartime, 1939–1945 (London: Bloomsbury, 2018), p. 104. 32 See, J. Jackson, The Popular Front in France: Defending Democracy, 1934–1938 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988). 33 Prêtet, ‘Sportifs et sports en France’, pp. 210–215. 34 Ibid. 35 Fabrice Virgili, Danièle Voldman, and Mary Louise Roberts explored the range of possibilities for Vichy photography in French Politics, Culture and Society in 2009. See, F. Virgili and D. Voldman, ‘Les Parisians sous l’Occupation, une exposition controversée’, French Politics, Culture and Society 27:1 (2009), 91–101; and M.L. Roberts, ‘Wartime Flânerie: the Zucca controversy’, French Politics, Culture and Society 27:1 (2009), 102–110.

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Agency and autonomy in wartime sporting associations 241 36 M. Fontaine, Le Racing Club de Lens et les Gueules Noires: Essai d’histoire sociale (Paris: Les Indes savantes, 2010). 37 G. Hanoteau, Le Red Star: mémoire d’un club légendaire (Paris: Éditions Seghers, 1983); A. Pécheral, La Grande histoire de l’OM: des origines à nos jours (Bordeaux: Éditions Prolongations, 2007). 38 SF Archives, ‘Le Stade et l’idée’, Stade français (March 1941). 39 SF Archives, ‘Le Stade se tait’, Stade français (March 1942). 40 Ibid. 41 M. Bood, Les Années doubles: journal d’une lycéenne sous l’Occupation (Paris: Éditions Robert Laffont, 1974), p. 144. 42 Interview with Raymond Roussennac conducted in Toulouse, 21 February 2014. 43 SF Archives, ‘Echos’, Stade français (March 1942). 44 SF Archives, Comité directeur, ‘Notre bar’ (1938). 45 ‘Pour les seizièmes de finale de la Coupe les plus longs voyages sont réserves aux équipes des clubs’ (For the round of sixteen of the Coupe de France, the longest trips are reserved for club teams) L’Auto, 7 January 1944. 46 Daniel Lee, interview with Robert Aronaud. Thank you to Daniel Lee for his notes on an interview he conducted with Robert Aronaud (Simcheh Aronovich) in Paris on 7 December 2007. Alter Goldman’s interview is from the newspaper, ‘Interview with Alter Goldman’ Les Temps Modernes, December 1976. 47 On sport in concentration camps, see especially K. Simpson, Soccer under the Swastika: Stories of Survival and Resistance during the Holocaust (New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 2016); D. Gomet, ‘Between survival strategy and bloody violence: boxing in Nazi concentration and extermination camps (1940–1945)’, International Journal of the History of Sport 33:10 (2016), 1099–1115; D. Gomet, ‘From punishment to death: body practices for deported women in Nazi Camps’, International Journal of the History of Sport 30:9 (2013), 934–949; W. Lipoński, ‘On the necessity to initiate research on sport in World War II concentration camps and POW camps’, Studies in Physical Culture and Tourism 19:1 (2012), 5–9; and D. Gomet and T. Terret, ‘To be a Jew and champion in Vichy’s France: Alfred Nakache – From the swimming pool to the Nazi camps (1940–44)’, International Journal of the History of Sport 26:15 (2009), 2128–2200. 48 P. Dubechot, H. Ségal et al., C.P.S. X, club populaire et sportif: au cœur de l’histoire du 10e arrondissement de Paris (Saint Denis: Éditions du CPS X, 2002), p. 35. 49 European Sport under Nazism: From the Olympic Games of Berlin to the London Olympics, 1936–1948 (Condé-sur-Noireau: Corlet, 2011), p. 78.

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50 D. Lee, Pétain’s Jewish children: French Jewish Youth and the Vichy Regime, 1940–1942 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), passim. 51 RCF Archives 1939–1943 Quatre années de sport bleu ciel et blanc (1943). 52 Ibid. 53 M. Pollard, Reign of Virtue: Mobilizing Gender in Vichy France (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998), p. 87. 54 ‘À Caen, Fémina-Sportis [sic.] bat la Société de gymnastique de Caen’ (In Caen, Fémina-Sports beats the Société de gymnastique de Caen) L’Ouest-Éclair (Rennes), 31 January 1944. 55 ‘Les vedettes de la semaine’ (The stars of the week) Compagnons (Lyon), 8 May 1943. 56 See K. Rathbone, ‘Athletes for France or athletes for the Church: conflict between sports officials and Catholic sportsmen during the Vichy regime (1940–1944)’ French History 33:1 (March 2019), 88–109. 57 AN 44F5 ‘Lettre de la Secretaire générale de la jeunesse à P. Maruel à Berthet’ (December 1940). 58 Archives Diocesan de Paris, 81K1-17-1, Note sur la costume approprie à l’éducation physique’ (23 December 1943). 59 Ibid. 60 Archives Diocesan de Paris, 81K1–17–1 ‘Note sur l’éducation physique féminine’ (undated). 61 French archives are filled with subvention requests from the Sports Ministry. For example, see AML 3R2 53 and 3R2 54. Both boxes deal with subsidies from the 1930s and 1940s. 62 ANMT 2009 015 149 ‘Relevé des subventions reçue par la FSGT de 1940 à 1944’ (undated). 63 CASG Archives 1046 ‘Subvention’ (various). 64 ADT 529W20 ‘Letter from the Prefect of the Haute-Garonne to the mayor of Toulouse’ (18 June 1942). 65 See, Lee, Pétain’s Jewish Children, passim. 66 Sports sociologists have examined the issue of social capital from various perspectives: functionalist, Bourdieuian, or network based. For more on the debate about social capital, see especially, R. Putnam, Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993); P. Bourdieu, ‘The forms of capital’, in J.G. Richards (ed.), Handbook of Theory and Research for the Sociology of Education (New York: Greenwood Press, 1986), pp. 241–258. 67 Bourdieu, ‘The forms of capital’, p. 249. 68 T. Delaney and T. Madigan, Sports: Why People Love Them (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 2009), pp. 159–161.

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Agency and autonomy in wartime sporting associations 243 69 Interview with Jacques Marchand, conducted in Chatou, Yvelines on 8 March 2015. 70 Ibid. 71 Ibid. 72 Ibid. 73 Ibid. 74 Ibid. 75 RCF Archives ‘Assemblée générale ordinaire du Racing Club de France’ (1944). 76 Ibid. (1945). 77 Fontaine, Le Racing Club de Lens, p. 70; from the Centre Historique Mineur de Lewarde Archives 1W39 ‘Note’ (5 March 1943). 78 AN 44F2 ‘Jean-Louis G application d’emploi’. 79 CASG Archives 1047 ‘Alimentation générale’ (1936). 80 ‘Football et tombola’ (Football and tombola) Sport en plein air, 27 November 1942. 81 SF Archives ‘Bienvenue’, Stade français (June 1941). 82 ADL 81W1 ‘Letter from the Mayor of Meilhan to the sub-prefect of Landes (at Dax)’ (4 August 1941). 83 ADL 81W1 ‘Letter from the Mayor of Meilhan to the sub-prefect of Landes (in Dax)’ (30 July 1941). 84 ADL 81W1, ‘Letter from Paul Cousigne, special police officer from the Sûreté Nationale, to the Police Commissioner in Mont de Marsan, Landes, France’ (16 August 1941). 85 The priest’s concerns may have been well founded. The Union was traditionally the larger club and the membership of the Union may have only been temporarily and disproportionately affected by the war. ADL 81W1 ‘Letter from Alexis Degues to the sub-prefect of Landes (at Dax)’ (15 July 1941). 86 There are countless examples of patronage clubs complaining about the intrusion of non-Catholics into their sporting activities. Archives of the Diocese of Paris 6C ‘Letter from the Curé of Saint-Honoré d’Eylau to Monsieur B. Coré’ (16 July 1942). 87 The Prefect continues: ‘This situation constitutes a very dangerous situation. In effect, the intransigence of the religious societies has the immediate result of provoking … an anticlerical spirit.’ AN 17F14464 ‘Letter from the Préfet’. Originally cited in J.-L. Gay-Lescot, ‘Le Mouvement sportif et l’éducation physique scolaire en régime autoritaire: l’état français de Vichy (1940–1944)’, Sport histoire: Revue internationale des sports et des jeux 21 (1988), 42. 88 See, Rathbone ‘Athletes for France or athletes for the Church’, passim. 89 BDIC Q pièce 5083 ‘Charte des sports’ (1941).

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90 ‘Les fédérations de PM peuvent être dissoutes’ (The PM federations can be dissolved) L’Auto, 10 December 1940. 91 In the 1930s, stadiums and sporting associations frequently acted as sites for political action and the explicit political content of some sporting associations remained. See, R. Lewis, ‘“A civic tool for modern times”: politics, mass society, and the stadium in twentieth century France’, French Historical Studies 34:1 (2011), 155–184. 92 BDIC Q pièce 5083 ‘Charte des sports’ (1941). 93 Fontaine, Le Racing Club de Lens, p. 95. 94 Gildea, Marianne in Chains, p. 121. From Archives départemental de l’Indre et Loire, 10W48 ‘Notes of the special delegation of Saint-Pierre-des-Corps’ (September 1940); Gildea cites the Archives départemental de la Loire Atlantique, 270W491 ‘Central commissioner of Nantes to the Prefect of the Indre et Loire’ (23 February 1942); and Archives départemental de la Loire Atlantique, 270W491 ‘Central commissioner of Nantes to the Prefect of the Indre et Loire’ (1 August 1942). 95 Thank you to Oliver Wieviorka for permission to consult his personal interviews of French resistors conserved in the Archives nationales at Fontainbleau. AN: Site de Fontainbleau ‘Entretien avec Louis Chevé’ (conducted by Olivier Wieviorka on 10 October 1986, in Binic, France). 96 ANMT 2009 015 080 ‘Liste des comités régionaux de l’USGT’ (1943). 97 ANMT 2009 015 080 ‘Circulaire # 4’ (17 June 1943). 98 See especially, Lee, Pétain’s Jewish Children, passim. 99 The Commissariat Général à l’Éducation Générale et aux Sports did prohibit Jews from taking leadership positions in sports, but not without a minor dust-up with the Commissariat général aux question juives. CDJC CCXXXVIII-37_003‘Lettres entre Jehan Kuntz, secrétaire général de la Fédération française de lawn-tennis et le commissaire général à l’Education générale et aux sports, traitant de l’admission des Juifs dans les clubs’ (7 April 1941 and 9 June 1941). 100 CDJC ‘Lettre du Commissariat général aux question juives au commissaire général aux sports, l’informant que la pratique sportive n’est pas interdite aux jeunes Juifs de l’Union générale des israélites dans la mesure où ils ne sont pas en contact avec des non-Juifs’ (13 September 1941 and 3 October 1941). 101 CDJC XXVIII-74 ‘Letter from the CGQJ to the CGEGS’ (1942). 102 CDJC XIc-683 ‘Correspondance concernant l’aryanisation économique de la société juive Jeff Dickson International Sports’ (February–March 1942). 103 See, M. Rajsfus, La Rafle du Vel d’Hiv (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 2002); C. Lévy and P. Tillard, La Grande rafle du Vel d’Hiv,

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16 juillet 1942 (Paris: Tallandier, 2010); A. Vincenot, Vel d’Hiv: 16 juillet 1942 (Paris: Archipel, 2012). 104 C. Desprairies, Paris dans la collaboration (Paris: Éditions du seuil, 2009), pp. 623–624. 105 AN 451AP154 ‘Letter’ (4 July 1941). 106 AN 451AP152 ‘Note SPES’ (29 May 1941). 107 Ibid. 108 AN 451AP154 ‘Letter’ (4 July 1941). 109 The third article specifically gave the Germans the rights of the occupier; http://mjp.univ-perp.fr/france/1940armistice.htm (accessed 8 October 2021). 110 ADG 1W444 ‘Letter from the Prefect to shooting societies’ (n. 432) (25 April 1942). 111 Desprairies, Paris dans la collaboration, passim. 112 Ibid., pp. 370 and 390–393. 113 Ibid., pp. 525–539. 114 French and German relations in Occupied Paris were quite commonplace, see L’Occupation intime directed by Isabelle Clarke. 2011. Paris: CC&C and TF1, 2011. DVD. 115 Desprairies, Paris dans la collaboration, p. 525. 116 Bood, Les Années doubles, pp. 96–98. 117 SF Archives, ‘Note from the Luftwaffe’ (undated). 118 RCF Archives ‘Racing Club de France 1939–1943: quatre années de sport bleu ciel et blanc’ (1943). 119 Ibid. 120 Ibid. 121 Ibid. 122 Ibid., ‘Assemblée générale ordinaire du Racing Club de France’ (1944). 123 Ibid. 124 Ibid. 125 Ibid., ‘Racing Club de France 1939–1943: quatre années de sport bleu ciel et blanc’ (1943). 126 Ibid., ‘Procés-verbal’ (10 August 1940). 127 Ibid., ‘Assemblée générale ordinaire du Racing Club de France’ (1944). 128 Ibid., ‘Assemblée générale ordinaire du Racing Club de France’ (1945). 129 Ibid., ‘Cinquante années de sport sous les couleurs bleu ciel et blanc’ (1933). 130 Ibid. 131 Ibid., ‘Assemblée générale ordinaire du Racing Club de France’ (1945). 132 Ibid. 133 Ibid. 134 Ibid.

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135 Ibid. 136 Ibid., ‘Assemblée générale ordinaire du Racing Club de France’ (1944). 137 Ibid., ‘Racing Club de France 1939–1943: quatre années de sport bleu ciel et blanc’ (1943). 138 Ibid., ‘Assemblée générale ordinaire du Racing Club de France’ (1944). 139 Ibid. 140 Ibid. 141 In the 1930s, the Racing Club de Paris bought the rights to several top-flight French football stars, including Raoul Diagne. The spendthrift attitude of the Parisians resulted in a veritable mountain of debt. Ibid. 142 Ibid. 143 The independent Racing Club de Paris had already won the Coupe Charles Simon in 1936, 1939, and 1940. Ibid. 144 Ibid. 145 Ibid. 146 Ibid. 147 Ibid. 148 Ibid. 149 Ibid. 150 Ibid. 151 Ibid. 152 Ibid. 153 Ibid.

6

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French sporting associations and the creation of the myth of résistancialisme

On 19 November 1944, the Almanach de sprint’s editors published an article entitled ‘Les Sportifs de la résistance’ in which they argued that ‘sportsmen were among the most active militants in resistance movements’. Large number of athlete-resisters made sense, they claimed, because ‘the spirit of resistance corresponded exactly with the sporting spirit’. Athletes shared a ‘refusal to deprive and demean oneself. The will to exceed oneself. The taste for effort.’ 1 To emphasise the pivotal role that athletes played in the French resistance movement, the Almanach highlighted successful resistance inside sporting associations. They transformed French stadiums, pools, and club houses into locations for clandestine meetings. Secret information and operational plans changed hands in the security of the locker room.2 Of course, in 1944 the full extent of the French Resistance was unknown and the Almanach’s editors provided little evidence to back up their declarations. Sporting associations did have intimate atmospheres and the close rapport between coaches and teammates occasionally yielded potent resistance organisations. In the winter of 1943, coach Louis Chevé transformed his football club into a resistance organisation.3 His Bretagne town, Loudéac, roiled with an anti-German sentiment.4 The Front national, a communist-linked resistance group, had a strong local presence with several wellarmed cells, but the Germans had disrupted their operations.5 They needed volunteers. Chevé’s career made him an ideal recruiter and in November 1943, Front national officers approached him and

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urged him to bring his ‘young friends’ to the movement. For six months, he carefully enlisted his players until most of his football team worked clandestinely with the Resistance. In the spring of 1944, they assisted parachutist operations, provided shelter and direction for Jedburgh teams, and helped derail a train during the D-Day landings.6 Chevé’s group was the exception. Despite the Almanach’s assumed connection between athletes and the Resistance – a position much repeated by sportsmen, coaches, and journalists during the Liberation – very few athletes joined active opposition to the German occupiers. Members of French sporting associations joined the Resistance in ordinary numbers. Extraordinarily few teams joined the Resistance en masse. Nevertheless, following the Liberation of France, French sportsmen trumpeted their central role in the deliverance of the country. The Fédération Française de Football Association renamed their annual football tournament the Coupe de la Libération. The Racing Club de France welcomed French military units to bivouac on their grounds. Their ticket sales went to the purchase of arms and equipment for the reformed French Army. Clubs, federations, and cities circulated newsletters and magazines that honoured their athletes who fought the Germans. In the context of the purges occurring across France, these athletes and sporting organisations proclaimed their resistance credentials and in doing so rehabilitated their reputations. Their efforts were part of a wider public phenomenon of French men and women exaggerating their wartime activities. These misrepresentations built upon each other, as well as on the statements of the Gaullist interim Government, until a widespread public myth emerged that suggested that virtually all French people were sympathetic to or active participants in the Resistance. Through the fabrication of their resistance bona fides, French athletes, sporting associations, federations, and sports administrators helped to produce what Henry Rousso has called the culture of résistancialisme.7 In this chapter, I examine wartime French sport through the lens of résistancialisme, which was the belief that resistance was ubiquitous and unanimous, in order to better understand how sporting associations came to reframe their largely apolitical wartime behaviour in the context of national Liberation. I discover two related phenomena. In the first half of the chapter, I examine the vast gulf between the

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discourse of athletic resistance, which drew upon widely held notions of the links between athleticism, militarism, and patriotism to suggest widespread opposition to the Germans and the Vichy state. In fact, overall athletes were not more likely to participate in resistance than any other French person. This chasm emerged in part because of the widespread use of athleticism in Vichy, Resistance, and postwar Gaullist propaganda. Their shared athletic resistance discourse relied upon two competing views of sport: that sports should be apolitical, a view shared by most sporting organisations during the Occupation that shaped their pursuit of normality, and that sports should produce patriotic Frenchmen (and women). By the end of the war, the former idea had lost some of its strength, in part because the policies of the latter years of the Vichy state gave no space for completely abstaining from politics – politics reached everywhere. If politics was everywhere, however, that makes the widespread sporting apoliticism even more notable, and indeed sporting associations seemed like a logical site for resistance, because they remained one of the few sites where the public could organise during the wartime. Where else could dozens of athletic young men gather in plain sight without arousing the authorities’ suspicions? In special cases, members of an athletic organisation joined the Resistance as a group, but the decision to do so must have been a fatalistic one. Club leaders were well known to public authorities. Newspapers documented members’ identities. They had little chance of remaining undercover for long. The rare sporting associations that resisted as a group did so only in very limited circumstances, only once they had already faced significant state repression, or just before the arrival of Allied forces. The public nature of most sporting associations meant that they were probably one of the least fertile terrains for clandestine operations. In the second part of this chapter, I examine the reasons that this résistancialisme myth was constructed, and how various organisations worked to present themselves and their members as resisters, or at least patriots. To recast their reputations in a new political environment, where prominent sportsmen and organisations faced severe punishment for wartime ambivalence, local sporting associations rehabilitated themselves by manufacturing a reputation for resistance, sometimes out of whole cloth. Clubs formed purge committees as a form of public flagellation. They kicked out

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any members contaminated by contact with the Germans. Their newspapers, letters, and books glorified members associated with the armed opposition to the Germans. Whenever possible they vied for official state recognition in the form of awards and medals. Despite their relative passivity during the wartime, athletes and sporting associations became an integral part of the construction of the official memory of résistancialisme. At the same time, even as athletes and sporting organisations became increasingly adept at mobilising the discourse of resistance, not everyone could reframe themselves successfully, and a few faced allegations of collaboration. Jean Borotra and Joseph Pascot, Vichy’s two sports ministers, stood trial and defended themselves with varying degrees of success. Gaullist ministers charged L’Auto, the most prestigious sports journal, with printing pro-Nazi propaganda. Its editors sought to rehabilitate their reputation through the publication of a pamphlet that detailed how the Germans forced them to work within the censorship regime. Their defence failed and the Government shuttered the paper. The trials of leading Vichy sportsmen and L’Auto show how sporting institutions worked with the language of resistance to argue for their postwar survival. The Racing Club de France largely escaped their cohabitation unharmed, but even today they elide this history from their official club memory. This postwar discomfort with sporting apoliticism under Vichy has obscured the joy of sport and society experienced by many sportsmen and fans, as well as elided the day-to-day negotiations, compromises, and realignments of the Vichy Sports Ministry and coaches, physical education teachers, and sporting club administrators. It has preserved a false image both of an all-powerful Vichy state and a nearly united French resistance.

Did sporting associations join the Resistance? In June 1946, Bernard Busson completed Héros du sport, héros de France as a tribute to French athletes who died in the First and Second World Wars. In Héros, Busson listed hundreds of esteemed athletes Mort pour la France.8 Each dead athlete received a page-long elegy, situating them in the French resistance pantheon. These accounts informed readers that, for instance, Emilien Devic, a former Racing

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Club de France member and professional French football player, had been executed by the Germans for his participation in the armed Resistance in Normandy.9 Similarly, Busson detailed that Louis Agnel, a top French skier, had competed in the National Skiing Championship in 1942 before flying planes for the Allies from Morocco, dying in a mid-air collision in 1943.10 In linking the resisters of the Second World War with the combatants of the First World War, Héros du sport symbolically associated military service, sports, and resistance in one of France’s most glorious moments and one of its darkest. Busson’s book joined others produced by interested authors, the federations, and sporting associations after the war. One reason this narrative of resistance took hold so strongly was because it employed an athletic resistance that was already entrenched in French minds. Vichy ministers, resistance propagandists, and postwar reformers all linked sport and moral virtues such as bravery, a taste for hard work, and patriotic spirit to forge a connection between sporting success and martial prowess. Jacques Mairesse, a football player who played for the French national team in the 1934 World Cup, was more than an athlete. When he laced up his boots, he became a ‘tribune’, ‘an apostle’ for proper athleticism.11 He was a workhorse who slept on a camping bed in the corner of the locker room to be the first on the field for practice. Despite his talent, he never played professionally because, for Mairesse, ‘football was an ideal … and not a means to an end’.12 His purity of spirit extended to the front line where, in 1940, a larger force of concealed Germans surrounded his unit. He fought ‘until the final whistle’ on the playing field, refusing to give up. Rather than surrender, ‘he fell in front of the enemy’s rampart, his fist threatening, an insult in his mouth, like one of Homer’s heroes’.13 This myth of the connection between athletic participation and resistance flourished even though sporting resistance was quite mild in comparison to other professional groups.14 While Busson’s pen and others invoked the memories of Mairesse, Devic, and Agnel to promote an idea of athletic resistance, these men’s defiance did not indicate a pattern of behaviour among French sportsmen. France may have been a society of resistance, encompassing almost all social and political strata, but only a small minority of French people actually became resisters.15 Many athletes probably sympathised with the Resistance, but most never joined official resistance organisations. Although in many clubs, people whispered

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about revolting against the Germans, those words were largely bluster. Very few athletes or sporting associations actively took part in any kind of armed activities against the Germans or the Vichy state. Raymond Roussennac remembers hearing talk of resistance at Toulouse Olympique, even saying it was an open secret that many members of his club used meetings as an excuse to talk about resistance activities, but in spite of the indignities the club suffered at the hands of the Vichy regime, the members never rose up en masse.16 In fact, no significant percentage of athletes participated in the Resistance either as active or passive resistors. The small number of athletes that took part in the Resistance aligns well with historians’ arguments for the percentage of the French population that resisted. Robert Paxton argued that no more than 2 per cent of the French population, around four hundred thousand people, joined in the active Resistance, though a much larger percentage must have passively supported it.17 The idea that physical culture prepared athletes for resistance did not begin with Busson; French physical culture emerged after the nation’s defeat in 1870, had militarist underpinnings in the First World War and interwar period, and was mobilised by the Vichy state in part to rejuvenate the nation’s martial virtues. The linkage between resistance and sport was so profound that it also emerged in a range of Résistance newspapers, including at least three specifically devoted to physical culture: a brief tract L’Action sportive that ran to only two issues, the longer-lived Sport libre, and the tourismminded Plein air libre. In 1943, Auguste Delaune, the General Secretary of the Fédération Sportive et Gymnique du Travail (FSGT), the largest working-class sports federation, founded the sports newspaper Sport libre.18 In his time as editor, before the Gestapo captured and murdered him, the paper’s tone was explicitly political and antagonistic to Vichy’s Sports Ministry. The very first issue of Sport libre announced in its header that ‘Sportsmen have proven that they are also at the forefront of the fight for liberation’.19 Its front-page article, ‘L’Adhesion du “Sport Libre” au Front patriotique de la jeunesse’ (Sport Libre’s support of the Patriotic Youth Front), details the press’s commitment to sport as a means of liberation. Vichy had failed French sport, they said, because it left stadium projects unfinished, delivered up necessary supplies to the Germans instead of to sporting goods manufacturers, and subsumed French

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sporting independence into Hitler’s pursuit of a New Europe. French sports were suffering because of Vichy’s collaboration with the Germans, and, equally, fighting against Vichy control of sports was part of a broader struggle for liberation. ‘We struggle for the liberation of sports’, they argued, ‘because we fight for German defeat’.20 At the same time, in their themes and tone, sport resistance presses mirrored many of the concerns of their Vichy counterparts, which was unsurprising given the convergence of physical culture’s discourse and practices in the interwar period. Plein air libre’s only issue focused on the problem of new obstacles to camping and the rise in tuberculosis. Editors complained about new Vichy-era policies that made outdoor life hard and ultimately resulted in an unhealthier French public. They protested the number of men held in prisonerof-war camps, shortages of nutritious foodstuffs, scarcities of critical bicycle and camping goods, and laws against camping outdoors in the Seine-et-Marne. ‘Despite these numberless impediments, the desire for an outdoor life inspires more and more young people and each Sunday a crowd of young campers, hostellers, and cyclo-tourists leave with a backpack’.21 Here Plein air libre echoed Vichy’s own propaganda, in their similarly named La vie en plein air, which also looked closely at camping, backpacking, and hostelling as a way to improve the health of young French children. Both sides might have urged their readers to ‘revolt against … the nefarious politics that weaken and debase you’, even if they divided sharply about which French ‘state’ those bodies should serve.22 Their shared sports discourse allowed resistance organisations to repeatedly mobilise the language of athletic patriotism and fair play to critique the Vichy state. In doing so they played upon two widely shared and, at times, contradictory ideas of the ideal connection between sports and political activity. The first was that athletic activity should produce healthy bodies that would serve the state. The second was that athletic activity should be apolitical. In the sports resistance press, editors produced thoughtful commentaries about what an athletic patriot might do and how the state might promote fair play, even as they peppered their essays with jibes at officials in Vichy’s Sports Ministry. For example, Sport libre editors called the Sports Minister, Joseph Pascot, ‘Kommandant Pascot’. L’Action sportive’s first issue came out on 4 November 1942; a few weeks after the Battle of El Alamein and only days before

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the Allied Invasion of French North Africa. Playing on notions of appropriate patriotism, the editors railed against the French national football team’s loss to Switzerland, urged athletes not to pay for their carte sportive because it was a secret tax designed to help the German war effort, and suggested that people organise in their clubs, circulate the tract, and reproduce it as a resistance activity.23 Writers at Sport libre even marshalled the concept of fair play to criticise Vichy’s politicisation of sports. The harassment of renowned athletes by the German and Vichy regime, a mirror of the German state’s treatment of their own athletes before the Berlin Games in 1936, was an effective propaganda piece that illustrated the violence of the Vichy state and the German Occupation. In ‘L’Affaire Nakache rebondit’, the editors criticised Vichy for their poor treatment of famed French (and Jewish) swimmer and world champion in the 200-metres butterfly Alfred Nakache. They argued that the prohibition on Jews competing with Aryans violated the ethics of fair play.24 . Editors reaffirmed their commitment to the equal treatment of athletic associations, regardless of their political orientation, in April 1944. In ‘Quels sont les buts de sport libre?’, Sport libre’s journalists argued against Vichy’s poor treatment of working-class sporting associations. They noted that although France had more than ‘20,000 associations’, the Vichy state only officially recognised and supported 9,960. Vichy’s poor treatment of working-class football associations contrasted with the Government’s treatment of other organisations, such as the Avia Club, which received generous state subsidies.25 When in January 1944 the German police deported Alfred Nakache to Auschwitz, Sport libre called it a national shame. Sport libre’s articles moved Nakache’s fellow Toulousaine and Lyonnais swimmers, who boycotted national competitions in protest.26 Of course, sport played an important role in resistance networks and movements not only as a discursive device for articulating opposition but also as a practical tool. Resistance officials conceived of physical education programmes as a way to keep their adherents healthy and strong. In the French Pyrenees, until his arrest and deportation, Alfred Nakache trained resisters who wanted to cross over the mountains into Spain. Even Vichy’s athletic programmes contributed to resisters’ preparedness. When the Government shuttered the Uriage school in 1942, many of its former students and teachers

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Sporting associations and the myth of résistancialisme 255

turned to resistance activities in the mountains of the Isere.27 The Vichy state also viewed their Chantiers de la Jeunesse as a potential site for resistance and put the camps under surveillance.28 They were right to be worried because a large number of men who later affiliated with the armed Resistance first trained in them. Resisters, too, knew that physical culture, useful for toughening up the body, could also be a potent rhetorical symbol.29 Along the same lines, collaborationist groups, who operated legally and took advantage of the Vichy regime’s massive investment in physical education to further their political agenda, used sports to build their member rolls and strengthen their bodies to serve the state.30 The Vichyite Légion Nationale Populaire, for example, acquired gymnasiums, often from despoiled Jewish owners, and hired gym teachers who organised training days.31 The Jeunesse Francistes mandated physical education for their youths, including physical cultural exercises, gymnastics exercises, combat sports, swimming, volleyball, and camping.32 Even the French police, a grey area for historians of collaboration, participated avidly in physical education.33 A 1942 report written by Herbert Bouchet described the physical education of Paris police officers. Two hundred new coaches trained the more than twenty thousand police officers. ‘Physical education, here, is queen. … We require the new policeman to be a complete athlete.’ 34 Resistance organisations, due to their clandestine nature, could not open official training camps to improve the bodies of their militants, but in the hills of southern France, football bolstered the morale of weary maquisards (French Resistance guerrillas) and German soldiers alike. Joseph Nodari, a former resister from the area around Cahors, remembered that his resistance cell decompressed with football. They went to illegal dances in local villages. They listened to banned music on gramophones. They played cards. But when they had the time and the space, they also played sports.35 On one occasion, a large group of German soldiers appeared during a football match between the groups France and Jean Bart. As they approached the field, the maquisards froze in fear, but instead of confronting them, the German soldiers sat down on the sideline, picked teams to support, and cheered for them.36 In other words, despite many athletes’ avowed apoliticism, athletics played a role inside of collaborationist and resistance organisations.

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Nevertheless, only in a few rare cases did clubs enlist in the Resistance en masse and thus really become quasi-resistance organisations. In 1940, Raoul Cohen Addad, Emile Atlan, and Jean Cozlan organised a sporting association with the specific goal of giving clandestine support to the Allies, and in 1942 they helped with the Torch Landings in French Algeria.37 The humiliation of the Army during the German invasion of France deeply and personally aggrieved Addad, Atlan, and Cozlan, but circumstances made it impossible for them to reach the Allied lines and sign up with the Free French. Instead of going to London, they decided to organise a resistance cell in North Africa. A sporting association would provide an ideal pretext for many men to gather in one place without arousing the suspicions of the Vichy state. The Salle Géo Gras was ostensibly organised to promote the general health and wellbeing of the youth of Algiers – which is what they told municipal police – but from the very beginning the real motive for their new organisation was ‘to prepare and train combat elements’ for the Resistance.38 The founders disguised their intentions behind the most inoffensive personage imaginable. The eponymous Géo Gras had an unimpeachable reputation as a conservative, firefighter, teacher, and a conscientious possessor of the French Legion of Honour. His social standing provided political cover for the club.39 Addad, Atlan, and Cozlan used the freedom of association offered by sports to coordinate outings to the Algerian countryside, where they trained men in secret, taught them to fire guns, and strengthened their bodies for combat. Within a few months, the members developed the strong bonds of camaraderie necessary for internal resistance. None of the members denounced the association despite the risks of discovery and the potential financial benefits for pointing the finger. Ignorant of the club’s true purpose, Vichy officials in the Sports Ministry applauded the Salle Géo Gras for its athletic successes, especially in combat sports such as boxing. Officials remained completely unaware of the growing threat the club posed until it was too late. Informed ahead of time by the Allies, armed with homemade guns and bombs, around three hundred members of the association seized control of the key circulation points in Algiers, paralysed police and military forces, and arrested key political figures, including General Juin and Admiral Darlan, the military leaders in French North Africa.40

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The resistance successes of the Salle Géo Gras might have provided a model for other French associations, if they had been publicised in the metropole, but Addad, Atlan, and Cozlan’s club proved to be an exception. Although many French athletes joined the Resistance as individuals, only in a few extraordinary circumstances did large numbers of a sporting association rise as a group and become a nexus of armed resistance to the Germans and to the Vichy regime. In fact, sporting organisations were poor incubators for insurgencies. They were too vulnerable to penetration. French police officers or German soldiers could easily acquire the list of members. The Sports Ministry and the municipal police station often kept lists of the associations’ leadership. They also occasionally kept lists of players, which were hardly secret since the local sports press published them in their weekly editions. Many sporting associations also deliberately encouraged their members to avoid politics while at the club because many athletes believed sporting life should be apolitical. Resistance organisations also usually prohibited their members from only recruiting their close associates because it made their networks easy to discover and disrupt.41 Addad, Atlan, Cozlan, and Chevé’s resistance activities, although they both involved their sporting associations, were too isolated and thus make systematic comparisons difficult. The Salle Géo Gras, founded in large part by Jews, grew in part from the defeat of the French Army that injured their founders’ honour. The leaders were also motivated by the Vichy regime’s abrogation of the Cremieux Decree that gave North African Jews French citizenship. Resistance at the Salle Géo Gras, however, only happened in the limited circumstances of a one-off event that corresponded to the arrival of Allied forces. By contrast, the armed struggle in Loudéac, which occurred later in the war, continued as part of the turbulent guerre franco-française, which polarised France in 1944. Chevé composed his resistance network of young boys who sought out adventure and freedom from forced labour for the Germans. International communism inspired many of his resisters. Their diverse motives, the unique circumstances, the divergent geographies and topographies, and the different methods of the Salle Géo Gras and Chevé’s football team in Loudéac produced very distinct resistance experiences. They show that for resistance organisations to take hold in sporting organisations, the circumstances in play had to be very specific,

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because resistance inside of established organisations was very dangerous. They also suggest that the majority of sporting associations would have been very poor sites for resistance because successful sites for athletic resistance typically emerged in places that were geographically isolated, and imminently liberated, and they included participants who were mobilised because of their political or racial backgrounds. The historiography of the French Resistance offers few concrete explanations for why specific civic and social organisations joined the Resistance en masse. Resistance historiographies typically recover a range of possible motivations. In Rod Kedward’s magisterial account of resistance in the Southwest of France, Resistance in Vichy France: A Study of Ideas and Motivation in the Southern Zone, he identifies both personal and political reasons for people to join the Maquis. In Margaret Collins Weitz’s Sisters in the Resistance: How Women Fought to Free France, women both joined the Resistance on their own and were drawn into it by circumstances outside of their control.42 What seems clear is that resistance required social networks because people joined the Resistance with people that they trusted, but close connections alone do not explain opposition to the Germans and the Vichy state. Resisters enlisted because they suffered individual traumas, or because they felt compelled by potent geopolitical narratives. Resistance rarely sprung up overnight but emerged over time with the gradual accumulation of large and small grievances. Only one genre of association – Jewish organisations – routinely combined all these elements and consequently their members entered the Resistance in large numbers. Jews could not help but be drawn into the war because the German Occupation of France, the Vichy state, and the Holocaust visited special traumas onto them. Vichy and German laws turned them into de-facto criminals. It was impossible for them to experience sport as an apolitical pastime, or simple pleasure, because the Vichy state made their very existence political. In these circumstances, a very large number of Jewish athletes joined the Resistance together – a trend reflected in the experiences of other Jewish organisations that saw their membership enter in the Resistance en masse.43 A close examination of two French-Jewish sporting associations, between 1940 and 1944, demonstrates how young Jewish athletes turned into resisters. The Yidisher Arbeter Sport Klub (YASK) and

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the Club Populaire et Sportif du Xe Arrondissement (CPSX) both suffered during the wartime, but their rich social networks enabled their members to transform the clubs into potent sites for resistance. Both associations coalesced out of the tight-knit, migrant, and working-class Eastern European Jewish communities in the 19th and 20th arrondissements of Paris. Alongside synagogues, working men’s societies, and unions, sporting associations delineated the social hierarchies within the narrow confines of Jewish Paris. Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe, working in the skilled garment trade, founded the YASK in January 1929. One of the early members was Robert Aronaud, an immigrant Jew from Poland, who came to France in 1926 to work as a furrier. He joined at his brother’s insistence. By the mid-1930s, the club claimed several hundred members between the ages of twenty and twenty-five, mostly married, garment workers, and members of the skilled working class. The YASK thus acted as a component piece of an already mature Jewish community within Paris.44 By contrast, the CPSX started in 1935 as a vigorously Marxist sporting association composed of radical Jewish immigrants fleeing from Eastern Europe, but also including a large number of gentiles. Their members were younger, more likely to be single, and lower skilled than their counterparts in the YASK. Despite their differences, the two clubs shared certain commonalities that made them particularly vulnerable during the German Occupation of Paris and especially likely to form clandestine organisations. Both associations emerged in a relatively small and disfavoured sector of eastern Paris, in a warren of mixed-use streets, part of an ethnic enclave full of Jewish migrants, political radicals, and textile factories. Each association was distinctly and identifiably Jewish: Yidisher Arbeter Sport Klub was an explicitly Jewish association with a Yiddish name. At least 99 per cent of the members were culturally Jewish, if not practising. Almost 60 per cent of the members of the Club Populaire et Sportif du Xe Arrondissement had Jewish backgrounds.45 In this crowded interwar and wartime environment, these two organisations represented not only the desire of young Jewish men and women in these communities to unite to play sports, but were also rich communal sites for social and political engagement. Both the YASK and the CPSX affiliated with the working-class Fédération Sportive et Gymnique du Travail, the overarching left-wing sporting association that supported and promoted workers’ sports.

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In the summer of 1940, following the dislocations caused by the defeat and the exodus, sporting life revived in both associations. On 16 July 1940, the Vichy French Government repudiated the naturalisation of as many as five hundred thousand Jewish migrants from Eastern Europe. Yet, even the beginnings of Vichy’s anti-Jewish laws did not frustrate members’ efforts to compete together as a community. Despite state repression of Jewish sports, Georges Tompouski remembered that life in the CPSX returned to normal quickly that fateful September. ‘There was not a calculated mind or a spirit of adventure’, he recalled, ‘but simply the desire to reunite (and) to play sports in a healthy federation’.46 However, unlike in many other sporting associations, the Jewish leaders of the two clubs could not shield the normality of club life for very long. In the heart of the German-dominated Occupied Zone, without the tools available to many other clubs because of their working-class Jewish origins, life in the Yidisher Arbeter Sport Klub and the Club Populaire et Sportif du Xe Arrondissement became increasingly difficult. Anti-Semitic repression made it progressively more difficult for the two associations to remain largely apolitical and in response many YASKistes and CPSXistes joined in the Resistance, first in Paris and later in other places in France. As it became ever more dangerous to be Jewish and a resister in Paris, members in both clubs fled to the south or went into hiding, and both clubs collapsed. The strong bonds that held these two associations together during the first year of the Occupation enabled spontaneous resistance. Albert Zandkorn, one of the founders of the CPSX remembers that resistance began on his football team ‘in November 1940. … We started by receiving tracts which we distributed in the stairways, or the exits of movie theatres, or on the terraces of cafes.’ 47 Georges Ghertman, also a member of the CPSX, recognised the arrival of an ‘intense patriotic propaganda [that] developed among the youth of the club’, who denounced the Vichy regime as the ‘wreckers of the Nation’.48 A third CPSXiste ‘could not hide, could not accept the occupation – [resistance] was a moral imperative’.49 In fact, the CPSX’s teams became nuclei around which resistants revolved. The association’s table tennis team, re-founded in 1940 by Marcel Sadoul, joined the Resistance as a group. The club’s social life allowed resisters to operate more openly. Young members took part in impromptu street protests against the Germans. Political meetings

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happened during football practices. Trips to other stadiums became opportunities to pamphlet buses and trains.50 Communism influenced many members of the Yidisher Arbeter Sport Klub and the Club Populaire et Sportif du Xe Arrondissement. Georges Ghertman remembers CPSXistes listened to reports of the German invasion of the USSR and cheered aloud. They had fought alone for a year, he recollected, but now they ‘anticipated the arrival of the rest of the organised working class and underground communist movement’.51 Underground communist movements initially focused on assassinations, and a few members of the YASK took part in communist assassination teams. The most famous YASK resistor was Marcel Rayman. An immigrant Pole and a Jew, Rayman won swimming trophies in Paris for the YASK before becoming a specialist in the cold-blooded killing of German officers in the Bois de Boulogne. By late 1943 Rayman was one of the most wanted resistors in France and his face featured prominently on the infamous affiche rouge of the Manouchian group.52 Rayman’s resistance bubbled up first through his local connections before he joined a larger network; a process that mirrored the capture of smaller resistance movements by larger regional resistance networks as part of a centralisation of resistance organised in London (and Algiers) by the Free French. In the Yidisher Arbeter Sport Klub, the club’s turn towards resistance happened with the full knowledge and support of the leadership. Although the exact number of resisters remains unclear, at least 10 per cent of YASK members, including several notable members, became resisters with officially recognised groups such as the Franc-Tireur et Partisans – Main d’Œuvre Immigrée (FTP-MOI). In fact, members of the Yiddish club were so common in the Maquis of the Southwest that historian Jean-Yves Boursier mentions the club specifically in his overview of the 35th brigade of the FTP-MOI. He notes that ‘the first armed groups … the pre-figuration of the FTP, were indifferent to nationality. … These armed detachments combined young Polish Jews, often members of the YASK or the AYK [Arbeter Yugent Klub] … young Spaniards … and young Italians.’ 53 The YASK probably contributed more members proportionally than any other sporting organisation in France, with around forty YASKistes dying in the fight against the Germans and the Vichy state.

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Figure 6.1  Martyred members of the Yidisher Arbeter Sport Klub

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On 14 May 1941, French police arrested more than five thousand Polish Jews in Paris. The first rafle, a mass arrest of Jews for concentration and deportation, shocked the athletes of the Yidisher Arbeter Sport Klub and the Club Populaire et Sportif du Xe Arrondissement, but it was part of a broader plan to remove Jews from French life. Even those that remained were increasingly repressed by vicious French and German laws, and a Jewish sporting life became more and more difficult to maintain. Vichy’s anti-Jewish statutes forbade public associations from nominating Jews to serve as club officers.54 Although Jews made up nearly the entire membership of YASK, they could not serve in the leadership positions of their own association.55 Public criticism of Jewish sporting organisations appeared in the press, especially in far-right anti-Semitic papers such as Je suis partout and La gerbe. Competitors sent letters to the Sports Ministry condemning Jewish participation in sports. They denounced Jewish athletes.56 The German Army and the Vichy state seized Jewish property, including athletic installations and sporting equipment owned by Jewish businesses and associations, which made it impossible for Jews to compete on equal footing.57 In the summer of 1942, following the return of collaborationist Pierre Laval to power in April, Vichy officials in the Sports Ministry considered new prohibitions on Jewish participation in French sports. Should they allow Jews to compete alongside non-Jews or even at all? A letter from Louis Darquier de Pellepoix, Vichy’s General Commissioner on the Jewish Question, to Joseph Pascot, Vichy’s Minister of Sports, asked whether Jews were still being admitted into sporting associations, paying their membership fees, and participating in competitions with Aryans.58 De Pellepoix suggested that both the Germans and the Vichy Government would prefer that Pascot banned Jews entirely from participating in competitions with non-Jews. Pascot acquiesced to limitations on mixed competition but opposed banning all Jewish participation in sports. The press did not report on these discussions, but the Jewish members of the Yidisher Arbeter Sport Klub and the Club Populaire et Sportif du Xe Arrondissement understood their complete outsider status within Vichy France and moved towards the Resistance. Jewish athletes joined the Resistance in larger groups because their organisations and their communities faced existential challenges. Their clubs faced prohibition, while their livelihoods and even their

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lives were at stake. In 1942, the YASK suffered a devastating blow to their licit and illicit activities when the Vichy police turned their attentions onto the club Secretary, Bernard Grimbaum. Although club leaders warned Grimbaum to stay away from resistance activities, he joined a pamphlet crew. Police spotted him leaving an operation and followed him back to his house, where they arrested him. During the search of his home, the authorities seized the hidden membership records of the club. This secret paperwork enabled the police to turn their investigative attention onto the leaders and most active members. Both the specific police action against the club and the more general round-up of Jews and communists made Paris too dangerous for the YASKistes. The association’s leaders agreed to cease all club functions until after the war and fled for the southern zone. Some of the club’s members were arrested on 16 July1942, when French police detained and interned over thirteen thousand, mostly Eastern European, Jews in the Vélodrome d’Hiver, popularly known as the Vel’ d’Hiv. Prisoners survived with limited food and water. They had no access to bathrooms. A few doctors from the Red Cross and the Quakers provided care. After five days, the police deported all the internees to the Drancy concentration camp and later to death camps in Eastern Europe. The Vel d’Hiv round-up, so public and in a space so inextricably linked with French athleticism, represented a nadir for Jewish sporting life. The increased pace of round-ups and the retributive executions made competition impossible and forced many of the YASK and CPSX’s Jewish and communist athletes into hiding or away to the provinces. The most either association could do for their Jewish members was to help them hide or flee to the Unoccupied Zone. As members of the YASK and the CPSX fled Paris for their lives, communal connections continued to be salient to their resistance and survival. In the summer of 1942, hoping to avoid the Germans, Alter Goldman became a member of the FTP-MOI network (Franc-tireur) through one of his connections with the Yidisher association. In Lyon, he later met a former teammate who recruited him into the Resistance.59 In fact, in many ways the exodus of the Jewish members of the clubs from Paris to the Unoccupied Zone, where Goldman joined the Resistance, both enabled freer action and a more open life for the resisters but also undermined the crucial natural community through which associational resistance networks formed.

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The rise and fall of resistance movements within both the Club populaire et sportif du Xe arrondissement and the Yidisher Arbeter Sport Klub demonstrated how pre-existing social networks provided a nexus for resistance, but these networks were only necessary and not sufficient. Jewish associations were different from most sporting associations under Vichy; they could not help but be politicised by the war because of the German Occupation and the Vichy Government laws which made them into outsiders and criminalised their activities. At the same time, other conditions existed that made Jewish sporting associations especially likely to become sites for mass revolt against the Vichy state and the German Occupation. The deep connections between members of the two associations provided a sense of comradeship and trust that made resistance possible. The criminality of the Vichy state and German Occupation authorities, especially towards Jews, and the sense of a larger war against totalitarianism pushed the YASKistes and the CPSXistes in droves into resistance networks and movements. In these ways, Jewish sporting associations were quite different from most athletic organisations that largely pursued strategies of apolitical accommodation and only constructed resistance legacies after the Liberation.

Sporting associations and résistancialisme In the summer and autumn of 1944, the collapse of the Vichy regime created new political and social imperatives that impelled French athletes and sporting associations to prove or invent personal or institutional histories of resistance. These new histories stood in stark contrast to these organisations’ efforts to preserve normality during the war. Sportsmen and -women produced these resistance histories because during the Liberation the issue of wartime behaviour had life and death implications. Across France, local resistance organisations formed ad-hoc police and criminal courts. These provisional organisations delivered vigilante justice, killing approximately ten thousand people extra-judicially. The accused died, executed in front of their houses, hanged in local town squares, or burned alive in fire bombings.60 Crowds also shaved the heads of thousands of women suspected of consorting with the Nazis, and paraded them in public.61 Storeowners charged with war profiteering

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and black marketing were beaten, their businesses ransacked, and their livelihoods ruined. A second wave of retribution, this time a legal purge, followed the wild purges of the Liberation era, during which agents of the Provisional Gaullist State attempted to apply a set of consistent legal principles. Gaullist officials set up courts to adjudicate the cases against alleged collaborators: a High Court that dealt with Vichy’s highest ministers, a Court of Justice that heard cases against other collaborators, civic courts interested in cases of unpatriotic behaviour, and military tribunals concerned with collaboration by members of the French armed forces.62 Hundreds of thousands faced trial. Courts sentenced 6,778 people to death, most in absentia, sent 40,000 to prison, and punished 50,000 others with the permanent loss of civic rights.63 These Gaullist courts’ legal strictures, however, did not always put an end to the spontaneous violence of the purges nor did they guarantee the accused fair treatment. In May 1945, in the department of the Indre-et-Loire, a crowd of 300 former deportees and their families forced the police to hand over a collaborator whom they subsequently murdered.64 Postwar French purges reflected a dramatic shift in the country’s social and legal terrain – in their revolutionary violence, postwar officials reflected that the purges offered the opportunity to reverse France’s national decline through the extirpation of the ‘gangrenous elements’ that caused national weakening.65 During the Occupation of Paris, a complicated and contextual web of proper and improper activities guided everyday interactions between the German occupiers, the Vichy state, and ordinary French men and women. The contours of those arrangements were ambiguous and changed frequently. What was permissible one month might be impermissible another. Rules also shifted based on the social class, gender, and age of the participants, the time of day, and recent local and international events. In Paris, a man could have a drink with a German soldier at a bar or restaurant but not in his own home. In the countryside, French women and German men could exchange certain pleasantries but not all kinds of conversation were permissible, and only prostitutes – or women who risked being judged prostitutes – consorted with Germans at night. Power discrepancies between ordinary people, the Vichy state, and the German occupiers meant that most French men and women had to accommodate the demands of the Germans,

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but violating social strictures guiding proper conduct could also come with certain advantages. Businesspersons with close, personal relationships with German officers gained access to new clientele, a Vichy official might develop a productive working relationship with a German counterpart, or a French woman with a German lover could get needed money or foodstuffs. The Allied armies’ swift advance through France transformed the ambiguous social mores of the wartime into a set of stark blackand-white rules about post-facto proper behaviour. French people with too close an association with the Germans or the Vichy state suddenly became criminals subject to denunciation, public criticism, and violence. At the same time, the extra-legal and legal purges served important political and social functions. They helped identify French men and women who had behaved problematically during the wartime, especially those who had condemned members of the Resistance. Rough justice reunified the country. People who survived the legal and extra-judicial purges understood themselves to be part of the silent resistance. The purges thus violently expiated the collective social stigmas of collaboration and assuaged any lingering guilt about working and living in close quarters with the Nazis. Perhaps most importantly, the purges redefined the entire experience of the war away from the more complex experience of everyday life under Occupation into a simpler and more easily malleable narrative of resistance and collaboration. The violence of the spontaneous reprisals burning through France and the emergence of Gaullist-sponsored purge committees in many communes spurred sporting organisations to rehabilitate their reputations through the public promotion of their bona fide and dubious resistance connections. Accusations imperilled sporting associations. The Government could close clubs, seize their property, and imprison their members. Associations relied on two defences to accusations of collaboration. Many clubs claimed to be apolitical, a defence based in part on the French sporting traditions rooted in the work of Pierre de Coubertin and the Union des Sociétés Françaises de Sports Athlétiques (USFSA), and they also alleged they were playing a double game, secretly supporting the Resistance. Many clubs struggled to preserve apolitical normality in the face of the Vichy regime and the Occupation, but that fight could happen publicly. In 1946, Marcel Villette, a member of Stade français, reflected on

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the difficulties his club faced with the Germans. While his negotiations with German marine and infantry commanders at times were tempestuous, ‘in the majority of cases’ he succeeded in ‘avoiding serious inconveniences for [the club]’.66 On the other hand, the Vichy regime politicised sport across the country, and sporting associations, whether by choice or coercion, usually helped the Vichy state in their efforts. Clubs collaborated with the state’s general education curriculum, published Vichy propaganda, and followed its racial laws, so it was often not enough to rely on a claim of apoliticism. Instead, athletes and associations felt compelled to recycle their reputations, remaking themselves into French patriots. Public and visible acts, including newsletters, monuments, funds for the Army, and prizes in honour of members who participated in the Resistance inoculated an association against accusations of collaboration. In more extreme measures, clubs also scapegoated unpopular members who collaborated with the Vichy state or the Germans. These efforts illustrate how sportsmen and -women used the narrative framework of national resistance to refashion their sporting organisations’ wartime experiences in the postwar era. Thus, while actual armed or unarmed resistance was in fact quite rare among athletes as a group, sportsmen, sporting associations and the sporting press nonetheless reimagined their wartime experience as intimately connected to the Resistance and, in doing so, contributed a crucial piece to the construction of the resistancialist myth that emerged during the Liberation and grew to dominate postwar discourse. The largely apolitical activities of most athletes and sporting associations, long the attitude of French sporting life and one crucial to their wartime popularity, meant that they were unlikely to be denounced to purge committees, but some sports officials and organisations faced serious accusations of collaboration. Around the country, local sporting officials organised ad-hoc trials. Notable athletes and administrators with resistance credentials formed these committees and they targeted sports officials who had amplified Vichy’s ideologies, aided in the Service de Travail Obligatoire (STO) system (which sent young men and women into forced labour in Germany), denounced Jewish or French athletes, or collaborated with the Germans. In the Southwest, for example, the Comité Sportif Pyrénéen de Libération heard cases against regional Sports Ministry

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administrators. The committee saw dozens of cases, but especially important to local swimmers was the arrest and deportation of the French Olympian Alfred Nakache in the winter of 1944. The committee found nine local sportsmen guilty of collaborating in Nakache’s deportation. Their punishments included national degradation and bans from participation in all French sports lasting anywhere from six months to a lifetime.67 This trial was held before Nakache had returned from Auschwitz; his and his family’s survival was still uncertain. Despite the large number of athletes under scrutiny across the whole of France, only around 3 per cent of French sports officials in associations or the Government lost their jobs or received public punishment. Most of the highest-ranking officials, including Armand Massard, French delegate to the International Olympic Committee, and Gaston Barreau, the national football team coach, kept their public positions after the war.68 However, both Jean Borotra and Joseph Pascot, Vichy’s sports ministers, faced inquests in front of the High Court. They both defended themselves by arguing that they supported the Resistance clandestinely. In other words, they too worked within the double discourses of sport. They claimed to be apolitical and they also broke with the traditions of the past and claimed their wartime activities shielded French sporting life from the influence of the Vichy state and the German Occupation. Their so-called shield defence, so common among Liberation-era trials, helped to shape the rhetoric that other sportsmen and sporting organisations used to contest the charges against them.69 French police arrested Jean Borotra on 7 May 1945 in Germany and brought him back to France, where he lived under house arrest.70 At his trial, the prosecutor accused Borotra of collaboration with the Germans and service to the Vichy regime, but the former tennis star articulated an ultimately successful defence based on his clandestine support for the Resistance. Despite his role as the head of the Sports Ministry, he never served on Vichy’s powerful Council of Ministers and consequently he never made decisions about national defence. He also left the Government before the Ministry of Pierre Laval, which meant that he avoided working with the STO. Most importantly, Borotra expressed a public disdain for the German Occupation throughout the war. On more than one occasion, Otto Abetz, the Reich’s Ambassador to Occupied France, criticised Borotra

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for his overt revanchism and for his refusal to encourage the French youth to collaborate with their German counterparts.71 Borotra also pointed to his legitimate wartime resistance credentials. In 1942, after his dismissal from the Sports Ministry, he publicly made plans to cross over the Spanish frontier and join the French Forces in London, which resulted in his arrest and deportation by the Gestapo. When the French police arrested him in Germany in 1945 he had only just escaped from a prisoner-of-war camp, where a few days earlier he had helped to save the lives of a dozen French notables, including former Prime Minister Édouard Daladier, former Prime Minister Paul Reynaud, and Charles de Gaulle’s elder sister Marie-Agnès Caillau.72 In light of his obvious opposition to the Germans, rather than condemn him for his actions as Vichy’s Sports Minister, the court decided to free him and award him the legal distinction of deported resister (déporté résistant), the most esteemed possible legal recognition. As Guy Raïssac, the adjunct Secretary General of the High Court, wrote of Borotra’s trial: the decision to label him a resistor and deportee was unprecedented. It befitted a ‘unique character in the history of the High Court’.73 By contrast, Vichy’s second Sports Minister, Colonel Joseph Pascot, failed to convince the court of his innocence. Pascot’s lawyers described their client as a simple athlete, without political opinions, except anti-German sentiment, thrust into a leadership role. They admitted that he participated ‘in the Vichy government’ but insisted that he ‘had no access to the council of ministers or the cabinet’. He joined the Government, he claimed, because Pétain ordered him to do so and, as a former Army officer, he felt compelled to follow the dictates of the hero of the First World War. In making these claims he defended himself as fundamentally apolitical and drew upon the traditional virtues of national service. During the wartime, his lawyers suggested that he engaged in no political activity before the war – likely true – and that his speeches made no allusions to Franco-German collaboration. Instead, he always ‘manifested a ferocious hate towards the Germans, who he frequently avoided, and a great sympathy towards the Americans’.74 Even the High Court judges agreed that before the war Pascot seemed to be ‘an apolitical man … never part of any political party’, unlike Borotra, who was a member of the conservative Parti Social Français. At the same time, however, and much to Pascot’s dismay, following Vichy’s

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politicisation of sport, the judges likened his apolitical position to ignorance. He should have known to be a better patriot, and therefore the judges rejected the idea that apoliticism was a defence to his Ministry’s criminality.75 Of course, Pascot also evinced the so-called shield defence, the notion that French collaborators engaged in a kind of double game working with the Nazis to prevent greater French suffering, and this defence could have appealed to the judges. Pascot’s lawyers argued that he was a man driven by his duty to France, the French people, and his friends and confidants. Any collaboration he might have engaged in was ultimately justified, they claimed, because it enabled him to do greater acts of good for his country and compatriots. On the stand, Pascot defended himself by highlighting the rare times when his duty to his close associates led him to support resistance activities. He insisted that he supplied friends with false identity papers. He warned an acquaintance named Mazurier of an impending operation against the Maquis. He helped a Monsieur Puig, likely the famous swimmer and Spanish republican Manu Puig, out of detention in Nationalist Spain. He aided in the passage of General Duval to North Africa, where he joined the French Forces of the Exterior. He also claimed, in one instance, to have hidden a family of Jewish Alsatians, acquired for them false papers, and hired the children into the services of his Ministry. He also claimed to have protected Jules Moch, a well-known French politician, economist, and former Minister of Public Works. In 1942, Moch fled France and joined with De Gaulle. In 1944, he participated in the invasion of Normandy.76 However, Pascot’s testimony proved ineffective because the prosecutors possessed specific and very credible charges against him that made his claims to resistance seem out of balance with his alleged crimes. The purge committee accused him of a variety of misdeeds, including acts of collaboration, corruption of functionaries, and embezzlement for personal gain.77 The most damning charge related to his acts of collaboration in the regime of forced labour in Germany, the STO system. The judges knew that Pascot had helped to send Georges Scapini to Germany as the head of the French Diplomatic Service to French prisoners of war. This commission’s express goal was to deliver sporting supplies – shoes, uniforms, balls – to better support the STO mission and to encourage more French volunteers

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for the programme. The French press heavily covered the Scapini sports commission as a propaganda tool on behalf of the STO.78 A Commissioner in the Paris police, Monsieur Mathieu, testified that Pascot had personally organised the group, arranged their funding, and made sure there were ample sporting supplies, even though similar goods were in short supply in France.79 In addition, the judges brought forward letters, written in Pascot’s own hand, that showed him forcing employees of the Sports Ministry to enter into the STO system. In one case, a young official, a Monsieur Dornot, pleaded with Pascot to prevent his forced enlistment in the STO, but Pascot wrote back to Dornot that ‘the CGEGS is not a refuge’.80 Judges also alleged that Pascot entertained inappropriately close relationships with the German officers that verged on collaboration. They drew from the personal testimony of a few sportsmen and from several newspapers to build a case that Pascot consorted with the Germans and escorted them into France’s sacred sporting spaces. The judges showed that in one case, in Bar-le-Duc, a commune in the Meuse, Pascot brought a German delegation with him on an official state visit. In a photo, Germans sat with him in the tribune d’honneur as invited guests and he even urged the spectators to ‘thank the German delegation for their presence’.81 Pascot’s defence here was particularly weak: he denied vigorously that he had ever spoken at Bar-le-Duc and argued that the German officers there must have been the guests of the Prefect of the Meuse. The judges then revealed their photographic evidence that showed him shaking hands with different Wehrmacht General Staff Officers on the day in question.82 Even Pascot’s supposed support for Jews fell under scrutiny as the committee questioned him about the banishment of Jews from French sporting life. Between 1940 and 1942, Jean Borotra had resisted efforts by the Commissariat Général aux Questions Juives to enforce bans on Jewish participation in sports.83 By contrast, Pascot stood aside while the Commissariat aryanised French physical culture. Under his leadership, the Sports Ministry banned Jewish participation in sporting associations. Thousands of Jews were kicked off teams who dutifully followed the law. Pascot defended himself by naming Jews in his administration who remained despite the ban.84 He also noted that more than one hundred sporting associations were denounced for having Jewish members but he refused to dissolve

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them.85 The court found Pascot’s defences insufficient; apoliticism did not excuse his actions, nor did his ambiguous support for the French Resistance or French Jews. His support for the Resistance hardly made up for the harm he caused with his support for forced labour in Germany. His claims to powerlessness did not mesh with jurors’ consideration of his Occupation role. Finding him guilty, the judges sentenced him to five years’ banishment and a permanent loss of civic rights – a punishment that was annulled by the Gaullist Provisional Government. Jean Borotra and Joseph Pascot’s trials happened in conjunction with other wide-ranging conversations and investigations into the conduct of athletes and sporting associations across France. As the wild purge transformed into the methodical legal purge, French athletic associations recast themselves as pro-resistance. To reburnish their reputations, clubs wielded all the tools at their disposal – pamphlets, newspapers, public ceremonies, charity matches, and sympathetic purge committees. Ostensibly the Racing Club de France was one of the most vulnerable associations because its members shared facilities with the Germans. Club President Pierre Gillou understood that they faced an uphill battle to rehabilitate Racing’s tarnished reputation. He had been fighting back for months against a small group of members who complained vigorously and publicly about the German presence in the club’s facilities, because they understood that after the Liberation everyone would see the Racing Club de France as compromised by their association with the occupier.86 In fact, the club’s reputation was so poor that during the 1946 trial of infamous French serial killer Doctor Marcel Petiot the club came up as a metonym for collaboration. To impugn the credibility of Jean Yonnet, one of the witnesses against him, Petiot asked, ‘Do you not play tennis at the Racing Club?’ Everyone in the audience understood Petiot’s question to be an insinuation that Yonnet was a collaborator and therefore untrustworthy.87 After the Liberation, at their 1945 general association assembly, Pierre Gillou offered an explanation as a defence to the club’s close connection with the occupiers. He could not deny the presence of Germans: ‘there were at Racing German members or nationals from countries at war with France. … There were others who … were imposed by the Germans, there were also those members who in their comportment with the occupiers had veritable scandals, for

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example those who were affiliated with the Gestapo.’ 88 Nevertheless, he defended his and his club’s decision to welcome the occupier inside of their facilities with all the eloquence he could muster. Collaboration, he explained, was the only way to save the club. A total German expropriation of their facilities would have meant the dispersal of the members to other associations and the degradation of club facilities. ‘It suffices to evoke these images’, he remarked, ‘to realise that the German occupation would have brought such important degradation, such onerous reparations, that the [club] would have had to end for years all sporting activity’.89 In Gillou’s formulation, then, the leadership of the club acted as a shield to protect the club, an explanation that mirrored the defence used by Borotra and Pascot, with one crucial difference: the former sports ministers claimed to have protected individuals, but Gillou’s defence was of his club. ‘The attitude of our leaders with regard to the Germans has been criticised by some’, Gillou admitted, but in his next breath he justified his actions: ‘your leaders had the conscience to have – without transgressing their duty to France – saved the patrimony and maybe the life of the Racing Club’.90 To indemnify the association from accusations of collaboration, the leadership of the Racing Club de France formed what they referred to as a ‘necessary and indispensable’ purge committee empowered to root out members with inappropriately close connections with the Germans.91 The committee included three older members of the club and three club members affiliated with the interior Resistance. They reviewed each club member’s wartime record, but without money to fund investigations or the power to coerce testimony, the committee could only decide punishment based on rumour and innuendo. As in so many other clubs, the Racing Club’s purge committee returned a largely sympathetic report on their association’s wartime activities, and they were likely motivated more by the need to self-exonerate than by any desire to honestly purge members that collaborated with the Germans.92 They only excluded twenty-five members, in a club of more than nine thousand, many of whom joined the club during the period of cohabitation with the Germans, presumably with that knowledge. The committee also suspended one member indefinitely and suspended seventeen more until their appearance before a general committee.93 Only the most egregious and public offenders faced any punishment, while the vast majority escaped

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any serious scrutiny. The conservative club membership and the leadership of the association escaped censure, despite their widespread association with the Germans. Gillou, the very club President who invited the Germans, remained President. The experience of the Racing Club de France was typical of the postwar purges, especially those that happened in 1945 or 1946. Clubs not only attempted to inoculate themselves against accusations of collaboration, but also engaged in strategies to highlight their connections, however tenuous, to the Resistance. Following the Liberation, across the country, association newsletters featured club members who participated in the defence of France either in 1940 or as a member of the internal or external Resistance. The Club Athlétique de la Société Générale and the Stade Français produced pamphlets to celebrate members who died in 1940.94 A second round of memorialising articles followed in 1944 and 1945. These articles eulogised members of the club lost during the war and bathed the associations in the reflected glory of their members’ sacrifice. These pieces never failed to mention that the resisters had ‘died for France’ (‘mort pour la France’); the same phrase adorning the headstones of French soldiers buried in military cemeteries.95 Although the supposed link between athleticism and resistance led most sporting associations to focus their attention on their sportsmen and -women, in their efforts to establish their resistance credentials, clubs also memorialised their non-athletes. In the bulletin of the Stade Français, the association lauded ‘Agnes, as she is known at the Stade, and Edith, as she was called while in the resistance’.96 The newsletter informed readers that Agnes suffered arrest; torture including simulated drowning; deportation; starvation; and forced exposure. The gruesome article about Agnes’s resistance seems entirely out of place with the Stadistes’ relatively benign experience of the Occupation. Their club’s cohabitation with the Germans had protected them from official repression. Most sporting associations hoped that the press would notice their efforts and republish their stories, and thus the club’s heroic exploits would become part of the public memory of the Resistance. In the years after the war, journalists wrote articles on ‘clubs de la résistance’. On 16 November 1944, for example, Sportif published an article about Sport Ouvrier Clermontois entitled ‘Un Club de la Résistance’. The clermontois association had suffered greatly during

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the war. The Gestapo had arrested all the officers of the club. ‘The whole office [in the Resistance] and the same with the players. Not one in Germany, all in the Resistance’.97 The article continued to call the club a school for good and to remind readers that sports victories were sweet but ‘civics, moral education, and physical education are better’.98 Even the Racing Club de France, its reputation tarnished by its cohabitation, joined the rush to redefine themselves as a club of resistance. In the 1945 meeting of the Annual Committee, the association’s leadership publicised the names of members who fought with the French Forces of the Interior. The meeting started with a solemn intonation of the names of all the club members who fell on the field of honour for France: ‘Phillipe Moral-Deville, Pierre Guyot, André Thiebaud de Kerget, Jacques Duche, who participated valiantly in the operations of the French Forces of the Interior and, notably, the liberation of Paris’.99 The Racing Club’s leaders also emphasised the role that their association played in supporting the French Forces of the Exterior after the Liberation. President Gillou explained that the facilities at the Bois de Boulogne housed a squadron of Saphis (colonial soldiers). It was a pleasure ‘for all of our friends to rub shoulders every day with the valiant soldiers who have contributed since the shores of Lake Chad and to maintain the morale of those who would not despair’. The club also supported a battalion of soldiers from Alsace and sent food and supplies through the International Red Cross to French prisoners of war held in Germany.100 Well-known sporting institutions – athletes, associations, federations, and the press – suffered from extraordinary scrutiny. In the months following the Liberation of France, the nation’s leading sports newspaper, L’Auto, mounted an unsuccessful defence of their wartime activities. Few professions escaped the attention of the purge committees, but the French press and journalists faced considerable scrutiny from the provisional French Government and local purge committees. The war years were difficult for media companies: shortages of paper, transportation problems, and the interference of the French and German censors made publishing difficult. While many local and regional sports pages folded, L’Auto continued during the wartime, fell under partial German ownership, and became a mouthpiece for German propaganda. The French provisional Government banned

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the paper in September 1944: the ordonnance du 30 septembre 1944 banned almost all French press published during the war.101 The paper’s doors were locked, and purge committee officials accused its editors of supporting the Occupation by giving French money to Germans, publishing pro-German articles, and for acting as a Vichy agent in exchange for Government subventions.102 The demise of L’Auto during the Liberation prompted considerable commentary – indeed, controversy – from historians.103 Editor-in-chief Jacques Goddet worked for years to rehabilitate his reputation, separating himself from his more compromised brother Maurice, and even towards the end of his life writing a self-exculpatory autobiography.104 However, his self-exculpatory defence began in 1945 when editors working under his direction produced an eightysix-page document entitled ‘Rapport sur L’Auto: sa constitution, son activité, son rôle durant les cinq derniers années’ (Report on L’Auto: its constitution, its activities, and its role over the last five years). In this treatise, they defended their journal, arguing that they had to work with the Germans and the Vichy state in order to survive and thus preserve France’s greatest sporting paper.105 It was L’Auto, they argued, that ‘remained the newspaper for all of France’ because it was the only journal that appeared ‘through the whole Occupation … in the two zones’.106 Rather than a collaborationist paper, they argued that they served a public trust, maintaining the independence of French sport, while also playing a double game, clandestinely supporting resistance activities in the print room. As with so many other sporting organisations, Jacques Goddet relied on a claim of apoliticism because it aligned with people’s preconceptions about the proper role for sportsmen and sports journalists. L’Auto’s editors claimed that it was their sacred duty to inform the French people about sports, but in a non-political way, and in doing so they argued that they fought against the authoritarian impulses of the Sports Ministry and the restrictions of the Germans. The editors called the war years ‘a tough battle led against [Jean Borotra and Joseph Pascot]’ who bombarded L’Auto to encourage it to support the National Revolution. The paper survived, the editors claimed, with the support of the federations, the clubs, and the players who grouped around it. Furthermore, they supported their editor-in-chief, Jacques Goddet, who fought with the Sports Ministry to protect the sports specialists writing for

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the paper and to defend the idea of apolitical sports rather than for personal aggrandisement.107 Of course, the editors of L’Auto did publish articles sympathetic to Vichy’s ideological agenda. Goddet routinely wrote a column of his thoughts, called ‘D’un jour à l’autre’, and during the wartime he often extolled the virtues of Marshall Pétain and the National Revolution. In November 1940, Goddet’s column commended the ‘purifying bath’ that Pétain’s policies were giving the French nation.108 A year later, he asked his readers to appreciate the gift of his person that Pétain offered to the French nation and to take to heart the Vichy state’s motto of patrie, travail, et famille.109 In fact, despite their avowed independence, the newspaper also routinely published German and Vichy propaganda pieces. Under the direct orders of the German censor, along with all other publications in the Occupied Zone, L’Auto printed the so-called Savoir vite notices, brief notes that included important information about legal, police, and military affairs in the Occupied Zone. The paper also occasionally published articles at the direction of the Sports Ministry detailing changes to French law. The editors rejected the notion that these insertions undermined the neutrality of their reporting: the newspaper was ‘never open to German influence’ and they always struggled in ‘tough combat against [the Sports Ministry]’.110 Instead they explained to the courts how they successfully refused to publish worse announcements from problematic organisations such as the Parti Populaire Français, the Ligue Anti-Communiste, the Commissariat Général aux Questions Juives, and the Waffen SS, but remained powerless to fight the demands of the German censor and the Vichy Government.111 In other words, the newspapers’ exculpatory argument relied upon the notions of the shield defence and double game often mobilised by other athletes. The editors of L’Auto also claimed to have secretly worked with the Resistance against the German Occupation and the Vichy state. A certain number of their compositors, technicians, and writers worked with the clandestine press. Their workers produced the first ten issues of Liberation in the Occupied Zone, sixty-four pages of Defense de la France, and ten different runs of La France libre.112 They printed posters, pamphlets, and tracts for the Comité de la Libération. Journalists, agents, and deliverymen delivered crucial intelligence to Allied Forces. Georges Charaudeau, the former General Secretary of the Automobile-Club Basco-Béarnais

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and friend to Jacques Goddet, travelled between London, Paris, and the centre of France to organise parachutists.113 The ‘Rapport sur L’Auto’ also addressed the thornier question of economic collaboration, through an explanation of how the paper survived during the wartime when so many other French journals collapsed into financial ruin or closed their doors under pressure from the censorship regime. The editors vigorously contested the purge committee’s claim that the paper received subsidies from the Vichy state. The report argued that ‘Jacques Goddet [was] dedicated to conserving complete independence [and] never wanted to touch a centime of Vichy subvention or any other Government organisation’.114 They also contested, in minute detail, the accusation that they sold the Germans part of the paper; accepted German funds; or delivered funds to the Germans by exposing their financial records to the committee. They claimed that the newspaper operated at a loss throughout the Occupation and only survived through the Goddets’ extraordinary efforts to keep the paper afloat and out of German hands. Of course, many historians have read L’Auto’s statement extremely sceptically and have noted that Goddet, too, had close relationships with Germans. Jean-Luc Bœuf and Yves Léonard alleged that he even handed over the keys to the Vel’ d’Hiv before the infamous round-up of Jews in 1942.115 The voluminous account of L’Auto’s wartime affairs, especially the newspaper’s numerous links to the French Resistance, offered at the end of their ‘Rapport’, while not exonerating the paper, nonetheless illustrated again how French sporting organisations defended their wartime conduct. To undermine the accusation that they worked with the Germans and the Vichy state, the editors noted their limited space to manoeuvre and their efforts to protect the apoliticism and independence of French sport. To counter charges of collaboration, they constructed a counter-narrative of secret resistance, wherein they played a double game against the Nazis and the Vichy Government, although in order to build their story they relied upon the individual actions of the newspaper’s employees rather than the collective action of the firm. Despite their comprehensive defence, L’Auto’s editors failed to convince many of their wartime innocence. Their justifications, which mirrored those of many sporting associations and Borotra and Pascot, failed, and the newspaper remained banned. In 1946, the editors – including Goddet

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– opened a new newspaper, L’Équipe, but the Fourth republican Government prohibited Goddet’s name from appearing anywhere on the front page and stopped it from being printed on the same yellow paper as its predecessor. Athletes, sporting associations, and the sporting press were forced into a new socio-juridical climate after the Liberation, and in that environment they rebranded themselves from groups operating in a sporting sphere outside of political concerns into supporters of the Resistance. To avoid the purges, they articulated sophisticated defences of their wartime comportment that emphasised their commitment to the Resistance. If necessary, sporting associations kicked out members with toxic reputations, but they also generated positive narratives of service and support that situated themselves within the discourse of résistancialisme. Publications emanating both from inside the sporting associations and from the public press made sportsmen and -women a part of the official memory of the Resistance and helped to enshrine them in the public history of résistancialisme after the Liberation. For a few clubs, however, few efforts post-1944 could temper the odour of collaboration. In the case of the Racing Club de France, few people forgot that the club was affiliated with the Germans. The sports papers furiously publishing stories about athletic resistance, even those published in Paris, never mentioned the Racing Club in the context of resistance. Its efforts were, however, enough to shield the club and its officials from official retribution.

Conclusion For years following the Liberation, athletes and sporting associations referenced the Resistance, ostentatiously separating themselves from the regime, as a way to bolster their reputation. In fact, the French press, but particularly resistance newspapers, like Franc-Tireur, published articles about athletic resistance and resisters until the 1950s. Yet la plus ça change. Athletes and clubs claiming resistance credentials did not necessarily signal their resistance to Vichy’s larger goals. Shared anxieties across the French sports world meant that the Vichy state’s legacy continued into the postwar era and long afterwards.

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In August 1947, officials in the FSGT, France’s left-wing athletic federation, met to discuss the life of the federation after the war. They began their meeting with a recognition of the immense losses suffered by their federation, including martyrs such as Auguste Delaune. They renamed their annual training course the ‘Promotion Delaune’ in his honour, reminding their members that the Gestapo arrested and murdered Delaune in 1943.116 Even as the FSGT declaimed Vichy’s illegitimacy, they remained focused on the same issues. They listed the challenges faced by the French sporting world. They argued that to ‘revalorise the French race’, the French sports world needed to solve the problems of ‘sporting facilities’ and ‘the training of coaches and teachers’ (cadres d’éducateurs sportifs), explicitly echoing the rhetoric of the Vichy period.117 These collective worries provided a basis for transwar continuities of discourse and practices; indeed, Vichy’s defeat in 1944 only magnified the importance of these issues for postwar reformers. The provisional Gaullist Government, French newspapers, and team bulletins linked athleticism and resistance, but most athletes and sporting associations never engaged in wartime resistance. More commonly, resistance networks thought of physical culture as a useful tool. Groups such as the Group Jean Bart turned to physical education as a practical way to provide fitness and health benefits to their members. Resistance movements also looked to how sports provided a rhetoric to illustrate the German and Vichy wrongdoing. Only in very rare cases did sporting associations join the Resistance en masse. Jewish clubs such as the Yidisher Arbeter Sport Klub and the Club Populaire et Sportif du Xe Arrondissement were sui generis cases. Both organisations possessed rich existing social networks, but their members’ legal status as Jews meant that both organisations suffered disproportionally during the Occupation. Large percentages of their membership joined the Resistance in Paris, distributing pamphlets, painting anti-Government slogans, and even assassinating German officers. Their efforts were not long lived because sporting associations made for poor incubators of resistance. Both clubs’ resistance activities collapsed in late 1942 under pressure from the Germans and French police. In contrast to their wartime non-politicism, in the context of the postwar purge, sporting associations, afraid of the wild justice of the French purge committees, rebranded themselves as clubs of the

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Resistance. Their efforts to rehabilitate their reputations typically consisted of both negative efforts, such as scapegoating, and positive methods such as the production of propaganda texts. The national and local sporting press anointed many French clubs as ‘clubs de la résistance’ in their weekly broadsheets. A publication industry that specialised in books that listed athletic resistors grew up overnight. These efforts to rebrand physical culture emerged as part of the dual effort to rehabilitate French masculinity in the postwar period and to expiate symbolically any notion of widespread French collaboration. All sectors of the sporting public participated in the creation of the myth of French résistancialisme, including almost every sporting association. These mythologies persist into the present and help to obscure the Vichy era’s golden age of sports. While many clubs popular during the era have subsequently folded, have no meaningful official archives, or are too small to produce club histories, a few of France’s most established clubs remain vibrant public institutions. In their published accounts, these sporting associations elide their complex wartime experiences or overemphasise their resistance credentials. Daily life hardly figures in these accounts. In Le Red Star: mémoire d’un club légendaire, Guillaume Hanoteau describes the Red Star Football Club’s wartime as a heroic struggle against the repression of the Vichy state.118 Similarly, in La Grande histoire de l’OM: des origines à nos jours about Olympique Marseille, Alain Pécheral’s description of the wartime is simply as a series of matches and of resistance activities.119 Official accounts have also been shaped by these comfortable postwar narratives. There appears to be a general embarrassment with the continuation of apolitical or less than directly political life during Vichy. Associations can talk about their wartime results, but they give almost no space to the sporting experience outside of resistance. The official websites of Olympique Marseille and FC Girondins de Bordeaux – two of France’s premier football clubs that were also successful during the wartime – focus heavily on sporting highlights, but both clubs had extensive public presences during the war and their memberships suffered significant hardships as well as notable successes. Olympique Marseille’s histoire comes the closest to acknowledging the ongoing vitality of club life, exploring their top teams’ victories, describing the stadium full of twenty-six

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thousand fans, and highlighting the role of Joseph Pascot in shaping French football.120 By contrast, the Girondins’ website, a much more typical example, explains that ‘the club managed to make a name for themselves in French football thanks to their victory in the 1941 Coupe de France’, but their report does not mention the understandable joy of the players, club officials, and fans at winning their first national trophy.121 Perhaps it should be unsurprising, then, that even more explicitly social-sporting organisations also obscure their histories. The Racing Club de France’s page moves from 1924 to 1947, not mentioning the club’s wartime cohabitation at all.122 Stade Français does not mention the club’s history at all beyond its foundation in 1883.123 These organisations have contemporary concerns and their complicated wartime histories might thwart their desires to demonstrate their club’s illustrious past, promote their ongoing connections with French (and now European) elites, and recruit new esteemed members. Yet, these exaggerated histories persist, hiding the extraordinary realities of French sport’s resilience during the war and Occupation, and misshaping the way in which French sporting associations present their histories even today. Indeed, this flattening of sporting life during the war – acceptable to discuss only as resistance or not at all – is what I have worked hard to combat in this book. The restoration of the texture of wartime physical culture, so central to the National Revolution, changes our understanding of everyday life in Vichy and the function of the Vichy state.

Notes 1 ‘Les Sportifs de la résistance’ (The sportsmen of the Resistance) Almanach de sprint, 19 November 1944. 2 Ibid. 3 Archives Nationale Fontainebleau 6AV476-478 ‘Entretien avec Louis Chevé’. Conducted by Olivier Wieviorka on 10 October 1986, in Binic, France. 4 The Bretagne peninsula was a hub of resistance activity. For more information on the French resistance activity in Brittany, see F. Morvan, Miliciens contre maquisards: enquête sur un épisode de la Résistance en Bretagne (Rennes: Éditions Ouest-France, 2010) and C. Bougeard, Histoire de la résistance en Bretagne (Paris: Universels Gisserot, 1992).

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5 Archives Nationale Fontainebleau 6AV476-478 ‘Entretien avec Louis Chevé’. Conducted by Olivier Wieviorka on 10 October 1986, in Binic, France. 6 Ibid. 7 Henry Rousso coined the term ‘résistancialisme’. It was the ‘process that sought to minimize the importance of the Vichy regime and its impact on French society, including its most negative aspects;… the construction of an object of memory, the “Resistance,” whose significance transcends by far the sum of its active parts … and whose existence is embodied chiefly in certain sites and groups, such as the Gaullists and Communists, associated with fully elaborated ideologies; and … the identification of this “Resistance” with the nation as a whole, a characteristic feature of the Gaullist version of the myth.’ H. Rousso, The Vichy Syndrome: History and Memory in France since 1944 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1994), p. 10. 8 BNF MFICHE 16-LN8BIS-2 B. Busson, Héros du sport, héros de France (Paris: Édition d’Art Athos, 1947), passim. 9 Ibid., pp. 139–140. 10 Ibid., pp. 118–119. 11 Ibid., p. 157. 12 Ibid., p. 157. 13 Ibid., p. 157. 14 For example, see Maurice Choury’s history of railwaymen and the Resistance. M. Choury, Les Cheminots dans la Résistance: 1940–1945, la bataille du rail (Paris: Metvox Publications, 2017). 15 Julian Jackson argued that France was a society of resistance, stating that ‘By 1943, the Resistance was no longer an isolated elite standing outside of society, but a complex micro-society enmeshed in the wider society outside it’. J. Jackson, France: The Dark Years, 1940–1944 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), p. 507. 16 Interview with Raymond Roussennac conducted in Toulouse, Friday 21 February 2014. 17 R. Paxton, Vichy France: Old Guard and New Order, 1940–1944 (New York: Columbia University Press, 2001), p. 294. The French Government later only officially recognised around two hundred and twenty thousand people. Many women were deliberately left off the list of resisters. M.C. Weitz, Sisters in the Resistance: How Women Fought to Free France, 1940–1945 (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1995), p. 10. 18 For more information on the foundation of Sport libre, see Jacques Seray, La Presse et le sport sous l’Occupation (Toulouse: Éditions le Pas d’Oiseau, 2011), pp. 187–203.

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Sporting associations and the myth of résistancialisme 285 19 ‘Header’ Sport libre (Paris), October 1943. 20 Ibid. 21 ‘Contra la tuberculose, il nous faut une véritable politique de plein air’ (Against tuberculosis, we must have a true outdoor politics) Plein air libre (Paris), June 1944. 22 Ibid. 23 L’Action sportive (s. n.), November 1942. 24 ‘L’Affaire Nakache rebondit’ (The Nakache Affair rebounds) Sport libre, October 1943. 25 ‘Quels sont les buts de sport libre?’ (What are the goals of liberated sport?) Sport libre, April 1944. 26 ‘Nakache sur le chemin de la deportation’ (Nakache on the path to deportation) Sport libre, March 1944. 27 For more information on the school at Uriage and the Resistance, see J. Hellman, The Knight-Monks of Vichy France: Uriage, 1940–1945 (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1993). 28 AN 39AJ49 ‘Note de service’ (17 February 1944). 29 For the use of a politics of physical cultural spectacle, see R. Dalisson, Les Fêtes du Maréchal: propagande festive et imaginaire dans la France de Vichy (Paris: Éditions Tallandier, 2008). A similar line of thought is also taken up in D. Bolz, Les Arènes totalitaires: Hitler, Mussolini, et les jeux du stade (Paris: CNRS, 2008). 30 AN 44F4 ‘Letter from the head of the Commissariat générale à la jeunesse, M. Clemox, to the Secretary General of the Maintenance of Public Order’ (24 May 1944). 31 CDJC XId-34 ‘Letter from Captain Paul Sézille to Mister Surcouf, the chief of the battalion of the Légion nationale populaire’ (3 June 1941). 32 AN F 58 ‘Jeunesse Franciste circulaire #137’ (10 September 1942). 33 Although many French police officers, including René Bousquet, emerged from the Liberation relatively unscathed, the reputation of the police during the war has undergone significant revision since the 1980s. In 1991, French officials charged Bousquet, acquitted in 1949, with crimes against humanity for his role in the Vel’ d’Hiv round-up of Jews (rafle). Serge Klarsfeld and Robert Paxton illuminated the involvement of the French police with the German round-up of Jews and communists. See, S. Klarsfed, Vichy-Auschwitz: le Rôle de Vichy dans la solution finale de la question juive en France, 1942 (Paris: Fayard, 1981) and M. Marrus and R. Paxton, Vichy France and the Jews (New York: Basic Books, Inc., 1981). For a more recent examination from a French scholar, see, M. Rajsfus, La Police de Vichy: les forces d’ordre françaises au service de la Gestapo, 1940/1944

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(Paris: Le Cherche midi, 1995). Some French historians allege that the police, on the aggregate, contributed more to the Resistance than to collaboration. See, J.-M. Muller, Désobéir à Vichy: La Résistance civile de fonctionnaires de police (Nancy: Presses universitaires de Nancy, 1994). 34 AN 72AJ1825 ‘Police parisienne 1942: jeunes gens en uniforme’ (1942). 35 H.R. Kedward, In Search of the Maquis: Rural Resistance in Southern France, 1942–1944 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993), pp. 256–257. 36 Ibid. 37 IHTP ARC 131 11 ‘List of the members of the Salle Géo Gras’ (undated). 38 IHTP ARC 131 12 ‘La Salle Géo Gras: comment furent crées les troupes de choc de la Résistance?’(undated). 39 Ibid. 40 ‘The activists themselves were surprised at their success, as Sabaoun indicates: “That 377 men had been able during nearly one day to hold on to all the strategic points of a major city like Algiers might seem unbelievable.”’ The presence of eleven thousand Vichy soldiers and hundreds of Vichyite legionnaires makes their military accomplishment even more incredible. M. Laskier, North African Jewry in the Twentieth Century: The Jews of Morocco, Tunisia, and Algeria (New York: NYU Press, 1997), pp. 82–83. 41 ‘Recruitment [for the FTP-MOI]: the base unit of the organisation is the triangle. That means three officers resting in tight communication. Each officer recruits his sure friends. … To recruit an enemy agent is not only a great negligence that will be punished – it is also a fault against honour. These groups must not exceed three people. That is the triangle.’ AN 72AJ56 ‘Circulaire 11b’ (May–June 1944). 42 H.R. Kedward, Resistance in Vichy France: A Study of Ideas and Motivation in the Southern Zone, 1940–1942 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978) and Weitz, Sisters in the Resistance. 43 For the contribution of Jewish organisations to the French Resistance, see S. Courtois, D. Peschanski, et al., Le Sang de l’étranger: les immigrés de la MOI dans la Résistance (Paris: Fayard, 1989) and A. Wieviorka, Ils étaient juifs, résistants, communistes (Paris: Denoël, 1986). 44 Daniel Lee interview notes with Robert Aronaud. Thank you to Daniel Lee for his notes on an interview he conducted with Robert Aronaud (Simcheh Aronovich) in Paris on 7 December 2007. 45 P. Dubechot, H. Ségal, et al. C.P.S. X, club populaire et sportif: au cœur de l’histoire du 10e arrondissement de Paris (Paris: Éditions du CPS X, 2002), p. 56. 46 Ibid., p. 34.

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47 48 49 50 51 52

Ibid., p. 35. Ibid., p. 35. Ibid., p. 35. Ibid., p. 35. Ibid., pp. 39–40. ‘Affiche Rouge’, Musée de l’histoire de l’immigration, www.histoireimmigration.fr/musee/collections/l-affiche-rouge (accessed 15 August 2014). 53 J.-Y. Boursier, La Guerre des partisans dans le sud-ouest de la France, 1942–1944: La 35e Brigade FTP-MOI (Paris: Harmattan, 1992), p. 128. 54 CDJC XXVIIIa-240 ‘Correspondence between Louis Darquier de Pellepoix, head of the CGQJ, and the Union générale des israélites de France’ (6 October 1942–11 December 1942). 55 CDJC CXCIII-43_002 ‘Correspondence between Xavier Vallet and Jean Borotra’ (13 September 1941–3 October 1941). 56 CDJC CCCLXXI-36_001 ‘Letter from George Martine to M. Florence, President of the Comité d’Oranie d’athlétisme’ (1942). 57 CDJC XIc-683 ‘Correspondence concerning the economic Aryanisation of the Jewish society Jeff Dickson International Sports’ (7 Febuary 1942–3 March 1942). 58 CDJC XXXV-50 ‘Correspondence between M. Visschers, Louis Darquier de Pellepoix, head of the CGQJ, and Jospeh Pascot, head of the CGEGS’ (11 June 1942–12 June 1942). 59 ‘Interview with Alter Goldman’, Les Temps Modernes supplément, December 1976. 60 Jackson, France, p. 577. 61 For this particularly troubling period of the Liberation, see F. Virgili, La France ‘virile’: des femmes tondues à la Libération (Paris: Payot, 2000) and D. François, Femmes tondues: la diabolisation de la femme en 1944 (Le Courdray-Macouard: Cheminements, 2006). 62 Jackson, France, p. 577. 63 Only 773 death sentences were carried out, including the executions of Pierre Laval, Joseph Darnand, and Ferdinand de Brinon. Ibid. 64 R. Gildea, Marianne in Chains: Daily Life in the Heart of France during the German Occupation (New York: Picador, 2002), p. 332. 65 L. Capdevila, Les Bretons au lendemain de l’Occupation: imaginaire et comportement d’une sortie de guerre (1944–1945) (Rennes: Presses universitaire de Rennes, 1999), p. 222. 66 SF Archives, Marcel Villette, ‘Le Stade de la Faisanderie pendant l’Occupation’ (1946). 67 ADHG 2042 W 15 ‘Letter from the Comité sportif pyrénéen de libération to the prefect of the Haute-Garonne’ (31 October 1944).

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68 Mémorial de la Shoah, Exhibition ‘Le Sport européen à l’épreuve du Nazisme’ (9 November 2011–29 April 2012). Later re-quoted in European Sport Under Nazism: From the Olympic Games of Berlin to the London Olympics, 1936–1948 (Condé-sur-Noireau: Corlet, 2011), p. 83. 69 In Mission secrète à Londres Louis Rougier defends Pétain, claiming that the French leader sent him to London to negotiate a secret agreement with the Allies. L. Rougier, Mission secrète à Londres (Paris: Cheval ailé, 1946). Robert Aron later revives the shield argument in the seminal Histoire de Vichy in which he argues there were two Vichys: Pétain’s and Laval’s. Pétain’s Vichy was using the Armistice to pause until a more favourable moment to re-enter the war on the side of the Allies. R. Aron, Histoire de Vichy (1940–1944) (Paris: Fayard, 1954). 70 D. Amson, Borotra: de Wimbledon à Vichy (Paris: Tallandier, 1999), p. 238. 71 J. Smyth, Jean Borotra, the Bounding Basque: His Life of Work and Play (London: Stanley Paul, 1974), pp. 133–134. 72 S. Harding, The Last Battle: When US and German Soldiers Joined Forces in the Waning Hours of World War II in Europe (Boston: Da Capo Press, 2013). 73 Quoted in Amson, Borotra, p. 239. 74 IHTP ARC 076 ‘Pascot trial transcript’ (1946). 75 Ibid. 76 Ibid. 77 Ibid. 78 ‘L’Activité sportive des Français qui travaillent en Allemagne va être encouragée et coordonnée’ (The sporting activities of the French who work in Germany will be encouraged and coordinated) L’Auto, 8 January 1943. 79 Ibid. ‘Les équipements manquent toujours et les ballons de football sont rares’ (Equipment is still lacking and footballs are rare) L’Auto, 20 July 1944. 80 IHTP ARC 076 ‘Pascot trial transcript’ (1946). 81 Ibid. 82 Ibid. 83 CDJC CCXXXVIII-37_003 ‘Lettres du 07/04/1941 au 09/06/1941 entre Jehan Kuntz, secrétaire général de la Fédération française de lawn-tennis et le commissaire général à l’Education générale et aux sports, traitant de l’admission des Juifs dans les clubs’ (7 April 1941, 9 June 1941). 84 IHTP ARC 076 ‘Pascot trial transcript’ (1946).

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85 Ibid. 86 RCF Archives ‘Assemblée générale ordinaires du Racing Club France’ (1944). 87 D. King, Death in the City of Light: The Serial Killer of Nazi Occupied Paris (New York: Crown Publishers, 2011), p. 285. 88 RCF Archives ‘Assemblée générale ordinaire du Racing Club de France’ (1945). 89 Ibid. 90 Ibid. 91 Ibid. 92 For a general conversation about self-exculpatory behaviour during the purges, see especially M. Koreman, The Expectation of Justice (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1999). 93 RCF Archives ‘Assemblée générale ordinaire du Racing Club de France’ (1945). 94 CASG Archives ‘Letter from Bernard Busson to the president of the CASG’ (31 January 1941). Private archives SF ‘Morts au champ d’honneur’ (Dead on the field of honour) Bulletin du Stade, March 1941. 95 SF Archives ‘Nos absents’ (Our absent) Bulletin du Stade, December 1944. 96 SF Archives ‘Renaissance’ Bulletin du Stade, July 1945. 97 ‘Un Club de la Résistance’ (A club of the Resistance) Sportif, 16 November 1944. 98 Ibid. 99 RCF Archives ‘Assemblée générale ordinaire du Racing Club de France’ (1944). 100 Ibid. 101 Ordonnance du 30 septembre 1944, Légifrance, www.legifrance.gouv.fr/ affichTexte.do?cidTexte=JORFTEXT000000791879&categorieLien=id (accessed 4 September 2020). 102 ‘Rapport sur L’Auto’: sa constitution, son activité, son rôle Durant les cinq derniers années (1939–1944)’, unpublished manuscript, c. 1945. The author thanks Christopher Thompson for providing him with a copy: Thompson received his copy from Serge Laget during his research for The Tour de France: A Cultural History. 103 There is a rich historiographic debate about L’Auto’s wartime activities. Claude Bellanger’s Histoire générale de la presse française, tome 4: de 1940 à 1958 deals explicitly with the wartime and postwar conditions of the French fourth estate. C. Bellander, Histoire générale de la presse française, tome 4: de 1940 à 1958 (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1975). Pierre Assouline’s work looks at the purge of intellectuals

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including many journalists and writers. P. Assouline, L’Épuration des intellectuels (Brussels: Tempus, 2017). Sports scholars have also examined Goddet’s wartime conduct, with varying levels of sympathy, including Christopher Thompson, Jean-Luc Boeuf and Yves Léonard, and Jacques Seray. See, J.-L. Bœuf and Y. Léonard, La République du Tour de France (Paris: Seuil, 2003); C. Thompson, The Tour de France: A Cultural History (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2006); and J. Seray, La Presse et le sport. 104 J. Goddet, L’Équipée belle (Paris: Robert Lafont, 1991). 105 ‘Rapport sur L’Auto’, p. 2. 106 Ibid., p. 2. 107 Ibid., p. 3. 108 J. Goddet, ‘D’un jour à l’autre’ (From one day to another) L’Auto, 4 November 1940. 109 Ibid. ‘D’un jour à l’autre’ (From one day to another) L’Auto, 7 November 1941. 110 ‘Rapport sur L’Auto’, p. 14. 111 Ibid., p. 64. 112 Ibid., p. 80. 113 Ibid., pp. 82–83. 114 Ibid., p. 8. 115 Bœuf and Léonard, La République. 116 ‘Faire de la FSGT: une grande école d’éducation physique et morale’ (Making the FSGT: a grande école of physical and moral education) L’Informateur des dirigeants de comités régionaux et des commissions sportives, August 1947. 117 Ibid. 118 G. Hanoteau, Le Red Star: mémoire d’un club légendaire (Paris: Éditions Seghers, 1983), pp. 153–169. 119 A. Pécheral, La Grande histoire de l’OM: des origines à nos jours (Bordeaux: Éditions Prolongations, 2007). 120 ‘Histoire’, Olympique Marseille, www.om.fr/fr/ere/196/196-lom-durantla-2nde-guerre-mondiale (accessed 4 September 2020). 121 ‘Histoire’, FC Girondin, www.girondins.com/fr/histoire (accessed 4 September 2020). 122 ‘Racing Club de France, la passion du sport depuis plus de 120 ans’, Racing Club de France, www.racingclubdefrance.net/le-club (accessed 4 September 2020). 123 ‘Stade français’, Stade Français, https://stadefrancais.com/club/#1522 851193328–132febac-ce3f (accessed 4 September 2020).

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Conclusion

In 1969, the French cyclist Raphaël Géminiani appeared in The Sorrow and the Pity (Le Chagrin et le pitié), the celebrated documentary of everyday life in Occupied France.1 Interspersed in a conversation about wartime cycling, which he remembered as a quiet time, Géminiani remarked that the Clermont-Ferrandais ‘only saw [the Germans] when the Maquis came … we were not occupied’.2 This line stood out. The Germans did occupy the town. The film’s director, Marcel Ophüls, used the cyclist to make a political point about the perfidy of certain French people during the wartime. Géminiani’s statement flashed on the screen in bold letters and Ophüls followed them with video testimony from other Clermont-Ferrandais, mostly farmers and tradesmen, who remembered the Germans’ daily presence in the city.3 Asked how other French people might not have seen Germans in town, Marcel Verdier, a pharmacist, said, ‘Well, they must have been pretty blind, you know, because my God, I saw them everywhere. I saw them by day, and when I was sleeping, I saw them in my dreams. … All I saw was helmets, all I saw was Germans.’ 4 The Germans undoubtedly patrolled with near ubiquity on the very roads on which Géminiani rode his bicycle. Ophüls’s editing raised the question of whether or not it was morally defensible to play games during an Occupation.5 He used Géminiani’s testimony precisely because the cyclist’s activities seemed so politically inappropriate twenty-five years after the war. From the middle of the 1960s, the popularity of wartime sports and leisure activities reflected an absentmindedness or shameful ambivalence

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to the presence of the Germans and to the base conditions of the Occupation. The juxtaposition of the cyclist’s testimony with that of his neighbours left the film’s viewers to assume that Géminiani was so focused on his riding that he missed the Germans all around him or that he had deliberately misrepresented the past in order to account for the moral failure of his cycling in the context of the Occupation. My work largely suggests that during the Occupation the French public did not consider physical education and sports to be problematic. While the Vichy regime supported the physical education of young men to revitalise the state, individual athletes and sporting organisations also pursued their own agendas which often conflicted with the state’s desires. Public discomfiture with physical education and sports was uncommon. Instead, sports were more popular than ever before during the war as a place to organise and socialise locally. Although after the war some athletes did attempt to recontextualise their athletic activities as part of the Resistance, Géminiani was not unique in his apolitical participation in wartime physical education and sports. Many French men and a smaller number of women participated actively in sporting associations or watched athletic competitions during the Vichy regime without considering the postwar political complications. At the same time, Géminiani’s testimony differs sharply from what happened and demands an explanation. In his memoir published in 2003 entitled Mes 50 Tours de France, he returned to his wartime memories and challenged Ophüls’s insinuation that he was blind to the presence of the Occupation. ‘Of course, German soldiers were present in Clermont-Ferrand. … But I remember we were more pissed off about the French who marched with them’, Géminiani recalled.6 His memoirs’ wartime chapters centre on his family’s attempts to survive and thrive, build a community, and find enjoyment and distraction despite the limitations of the Occupation. Cycling represented an opportunity to practise a beloved sport and it was also a strategy for survival. ‘The epoch was not easy for young people’.7 As a budding cyclist, his J3 youth ration card offered insufficient nutrition. With only one small piece of meat per week, his diet consisted mostly of ersatz products like corn bread, rutabaga, margarine, and roasted barley tea. But he lived close to the Auvergne countryside, and discovered opportunities to mix the pleasure of

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Conclusion 293 riding his bike with the necessity of venturing outside of town to find food. ‘For a kilo of bread, 200 grams of butter’, he recalled, ‘one did not hesitate to ride to Combrailles’, a 160-kilometre journey.8 Géminiani’s memoir illustrated how he suffered from wartime shortages but also learned the adaptability and resilience that enabled him to thrive as a teenager during the Occupation and also served him well later in his career as a professional cyclist. Although Géminiani’s father owned a bicycle shop, pieces and parts were in short supply. Top-flight competition cycles came with bespoke frames, derailleur gears, and pedals made of duralumin, a pricy early agehardened aluminium alloy.9 Any damage to his bike would have been costly to fix, if it were not almost irreparable. The cost of a new bicycle, provided you could find one, ranged from 500 to 600 francs, approximating to a decent, monthly salary for a working man. But he wanted to compete and so he scrounged for rubber to replace busted tubes and tyres and grease to keep his chain well oiled. His religious adherence to system-D enabled him to practise for his future trade as an amateur, racing up and down the hills and valleys around Clermont-Ferrand, strengthening his legs and filling his stomach. In 1943, the eighteen-year-old Géminiani won his first major competition, the Premier Pas Dunlop, which set the stage for his illustrious professional career. Ophüls and Géminiani’s differing accounts were products of different eras. As Henry Rousso examined in The Vichy Syndrome, French public memory of the Occupation changed significantly throughout the latter half of the twentieth century.10 Rousso’s Vichy Syndrome had a four-stage evolution. Between 1944 and 1954, France suffered through the ‘mourning phase’, in which people dealt directly with the aftermath of civil war, purge, and amnesty. From 1954 to 1971, the French repressed memories of the civil war, and the résistancialisme myth emerged and became predominant. Between 1971 and 1974, more critical studies shattered the political and social consensus built around the notion of mass resistance. In turn this brought about a fourth phase, continuing to this day: ‘obsession’. This stage is ‘characterized on one hand by the reawakening of Jewish memory and, on the other, by the importance that reminiscences of the Occupation assumed in French political debate’.11 Ophüls’s work, including his rebuke of Géminiani, helped to produce what Rousso called the ‘breaking of the mirror’, a period when the French public first started

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to question the wartime role of the Vichy state and individual French people. The director’s investigation of the black and the white of Occupied France illuminated the sometimes quite problematic role of French men and women during the Occupation. Nor was it a coincidence that Ophüls’s film appeared almost simultaneously with the massive revision of the French state’s role in the Second World War brought about by Robert Paxton in his seminal work Vichy France. However, these investigations also elided the sometimes contingent and complicated possibilities of everyday life. Géminiani’s memoir, which was published for a more general audience in 2003, focuses on the quotidian but his writing moves beyond the mundane to show how he preserved his individuality and focused creatively on his family’s practical concerns. In doing so he rejected Ophüls’s Manichean view of France during the wartime and presented a more nuanced relationship between ordinary people and the armed men – German, Vichy French, and Resistance – who interrupted their day-to-day lives.12 For Géminiani and many other French people, physical culture continued to offer a way to live a full life, rich with community and even entertainment during the wartime as it had in the years before the war. The need to impose a structure of collaboration and resistance on everyday activities, by contrast, appears to be an artefact of the eras of repressed memories and the ‘shattering of the mirror’, when political and social necessity demanded that people take sides in ways that had not been required during the Occupation. As Henry Rousso commented later, Ophüls presented ‘Champion cyclist Raphaël Géminiani … misleadingly, as having been uncertain about whether Germans were actually present’ to illustrate how criminally absentminded or shamefully ambivalent ordinary French people could be for not politicising every aspect of their daily lives.13 Géminiani’s account of the Occupation makes larger patterns of everyday life during the wartime more comprehensible. His writing brings to mind Robert Gildea’s maxim to scholars to concentrate on ‘the strategies that [the French] adopted, the networks they created and the institutions they subverted in order to negotiate a tricky passage through the occupation’.14 When I came to this project, I started with the question of why and how the Fédération Française de Football Association nearly doubled in size during the Occupation. Why were people out on football fields instead of huddling near a

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Conclusion 295 fire, lining up for food, or hiding in their houses? What I discovered was a vibrant arena of social and cultural life mostly ignored by historians of Vichy France who have focused on the limitations of everyday life brought about by the Occupation. The golden age of Vichy-era sport was two competing phenomena: a massive state investment in a policy of national regeneration, best exemplified by the creation of a massive sports bureaucracy, the Commissariat Général à l’Éducation Générale et aux Sports, and a movement of ordinary people associated with local sporting organisations who made use of state spending to survive and even thrive in spite of the difficulties of wartime. In other words, during the Second World War, the French Government attempted to create a strictly regulated sports regime in Occupied France, but sportsmen and -women in schools, grand clubs, federations, and associations cleverly challenged those regulations and reshaped the meanings of both the Occupation regime and the National Revolution. Acknowledging the power of ordinary people to refashion the state’s grandest policies requires us to re-evaluate the nature of power under authoritarianism. Vichy did not strangle all public life. Some realms flowered because of state investment and the creativity of engaged stakeholders at the local level. The National Revolution should thus be understood less as a Vichy dictum than as a relationship between high-ranking officials in Vichy who possessed strong desires about the restructuring of society and local notables who reshaped the ideologies of the revolution in order to serve their own agendas. The Vichy regime’s physical cultural programme, although based on a similar programme to that of the Popular Front, represented a massive expansion of the biopolitical interventions of the French state. To encourage the revitalisation of French society, the Vichy regime, particularly under the aegis of its first Sports Minister, Jean Borotra, enacted a series of systemic changes to athletic programmes in schools, athletic associations, and youth camps. They emphasised the rationalisation of physical culture, encouraged the training of physical education teachers, facilitated the construction of sporting facilities, and provided massive reservoirs of funding for athletic activities. When athletes opposed their agenda, Vichy officials called upon the failure of 1940 to force dramatic changes, such as the compelled unification of sporting associations, the tripling of physical education classes in secondary schools, and the federalisation of

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professional football. Their efforts undoubtedly explain some of the expansion of wartime sports. At the same time, many French sportsmen and -women strongly opposed the top-down programme instituted by the Vichy regime, and their opposition to those plans defined the limits of the authoritarian state’s power. In order to better explain why ordinary people chose to play games during the Occupation and how those activities shaped their lived experiences of occupation, and in particular their relationship with the state, I relied heavily on the notion of system-D – the idea that ordinary French people used their ability to innovate – to paint a more holistic picture of the balance of power during the Occupation. The state required the support of local actors to enact their athletic agenda and in working with local stakeholders the Vichy regime enabled them to impose their own visions of the National Revolution. Athletes used their wits to transform their sporting associations, to challenge the ideologies of the state through their actions, and thus to make bearable the unbearable. During the wartime, whether they participated in physical culture in schools, local sporting associations, or grand clubs, they learned to negotiate within and outside of the new National Revolution to achieve their own goals. Sportsmen and -women had a diverse range of agendas, which included the defence of local identities, the expansion of capitalist sports franchises, the construction of specific facilities, the preservation of ethnic sports enclaves, and simply to play the games they preferred in their favourite manner. These diverse possibilities show that ordinary people remained empowered despite the limitations imposed by the dual authoritarian regimes of the Vichy state and the German Occupation. Not all individuals could participate fully in this flowering of physical education and sports. From their origins in the interwar period to its height in the Vichy period, France’s various Sports Ministries did not serve their community equally. Some communities gained because of their attentive local governments, while others languished under inattentive ones. Sports administrators opposed the full integration of girls and women into many sporting activities, including football and rugby, but gave more opportunities to women than any previous French Government. The Vichy period brought new challenges to Jewish and communist sporting associations, many of which had to close their doors after 1942, but the massive investment

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Conclusion 297 in physical culture also represented an opportunity for them to level the playing field. The forces of the wartime were only great enough to overcome the individual creativity of ordinary people in very specific instances, such as in the case of the Jewish sporting association, the Yidisher Arbeter Sport Klub. The fact that Vichy never adopted – and in fact actively opposed – the formation of a jeunesse unique meant that even socially alienated communities, like the miners of the Racing Club de Lens, could take advantage of the ‘national’ physical cultural activities. In various localities across the country, sportsmen and -women used their agency within a deeply authoritarian system to claim for themselves the right to pursue their passions, exalt in their emotions, form an identity, enjoy friendships and rivalries, win and lose as a team and a community. For these athletes, physical education and sports were not circuses but sites for significant social and cultural interaction. The resilience of the French athletic community suggests other broader conclusions about twentieth-century European political culture and sports. The golden age of sports in France illustrated similarities between the left and right in the realm of physical culture that began in the interwar years and extended at least until the 1950s. In France, in the 1920s and 1930s, left-wing and right-wing politicians such as Léo Lagrange, Jean Zay, and Colonel François de la Rocque promoted widespread participation in amateur athletics to strengthen the nation in preparation for conflict with Germany. As a corollary to their plans, they conceived of the growth of professional sports as a cancer likely to sap the strength of French society. Vichy’s Sports Ministry did not break from these pre-war consensuses, but rather represented the achievement of Léo Lagrange’s dream and a doubling down of the policies of the Popular Front. The promotion of participatory amateurism persisted into the postwar era. Although the Gaullists would critique Vichy’s physical cultural achievements, sports officials trained and hired during the Vichy regime stayed in their posts. Fewer than 4 per cent were purged. Important Vichy administrators, such as Jean Borotra, held important positions in the post-war period. Borotra was founder of the Comité International pour le Fair Play and a representative of France to UNESCO, as well as the President of the Association pour Défendre la Mémoire du Maréchal Pétain, an organisation devoted to the rehabilitation of Philippe Pétain’s reputation.

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The continuity of political thought about sports across the transwar era raises questions about the historiographic discussion on fascism and sport. For many in the immediate postwar period, interwar physical culture called up images of toned fascist athletes. The notion gained popularity as early as 1936. Celebrated American sportswriter John R. Tunis wrote that ‘Nobody would say that in most democracies, and especially in the United States, athletics has yet to reach a utopian state of perfection. … In the nations ruled by dictators, however, every boy and girl in the country is regimented and exploited.’ 15 Given the importance of the 1936 Berlin Olympics to our image of sport in the 1930s, it is not surprising that historians have linked fascist states, sports, and the body. Many even use terms such as ‘fascist athlete’ and ‘communist athlete’ to describe the differences between athletics within different ideological systems.16 A more accurate view might incorporate the popular notion that physical education and sports were associated with both the political extremes as well as much of the centre. Democratic states also worked in biopolitical ways, promoted physical culture, and demanded their citizens participate in it. The golden age of participatory athletics thus seems less linked to fascism and more squarely connected to interwar state concerns about the shape of male bodies as a kind of preparation for another global conflict. Across Europe, these militarist physical cultural programmes stood in stark opposition to nascent but popular commercialised sports: a split which saw the extreme right and extreme left European parties united against newly powerful commercial and provincial sporting interests. We might wonder why some states appeared to be able to capture the biopolitical energy of their citizens more effectively. The ability of the state to do this did not closely align to types of government. The German state extinguished professionalism in the 1930s. By contrast, Italian Fascists learned to live with professional football and cycling. Neither the Popular Front nor the Vichy state, despite their authoritarianism in other realms, succeeded in completely ending professionalism, even after years of trying to do so. The transwar and transnational model of participatory amateurism, championed by both the Popular Front and the Vichy state, suffered enormous reputational damage during the war. The failures of amateurism to produce successful international-calibre athletes and the association of amateurism with unpopular authoritarian regimes

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Conclusion 299 led to the discrediting of amateurism as a state policy. After the war, the French state, for the first time, started to think national prestige would best be served by a strong team rather than a strong man, and as a corollary started supporting professionalism. Although parts of the Fédération Française de Football Association and the public accepted professionalism, the postwar success of professional sports – particularly as measured by large crowd sizes – suggests that historians have underestimated the role that the Second World War played in its legitimisation to the French state and on the continent. The modern French sports industrial complex, which united government efforts with the forces of global sports capitalism, derived in large part from the failures of wartime state policies, but was only finally fully adopted after the country’s dreadful performance in the 1964 Tokyo Olympic Games. Ordinary people’s love for their clubs and communities also clashed against the state’s prerogatives, and some transwar continuities built on opposition to the interwar, wartime, and postwar state. Many clubs changed irretrievably or collapsed completely during the wartime: the Union Sportive Meilhanaise disappeared, the Yidisher Arbeter Sport Klub revived under a different name, merged with a neighbouring club. By contrast, the Racing Club de France’s cultural position continues until the present. Whole federations were damaged during the war. Infamously, French Rugby League harboured resentment towards the Vichy regime for banning their code and to the Fourth Republic for refusing to allow them to use the name ‘rugby’ in competition. The federation re-emerged as the jeu à treize. Of course, neither the French sporting public nor the Fourth Republic completely rejected Vichy’s athletic legacy. Ordinary French people, too, discovered their love for athletics during this Vichy golden age of sport, including Jacques Marchard, one of the interview subjects for this project, who went on to be a famous French sports journalist. The republican state built off of Vichy’s athletic model, preserving the central role of the state in physical culture, and expanding the range of activities available to young men and women. In doing so they relied on the trained cadres of coaches and teachers, most of whom kept their roles long after the Liberation. Many of Vichy’s physical education programmes persisted into the postwar era. The gendered hébertist curriculum, which first emerged in the interwar period but solidified during the Vichy regime, remained a

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feature of French physical education. Into the twenty-first century, school buildings featured spaces for hébertist exercises. Similarly, French schools continued to play a central role in supervising the sporting body, investing annually in doctors’ visits, categorising boys and girls as fit or weak, and measuring their students’ heights and weights. The republican state even expanded the athletic offerings available through the development of classes de neige in the 1950s, which built upon earlier Popular Front and Vichy models of getting students outdoors to reinforce their physical, intellectual, and moral progress. Finally, studies of everyday life in Occupied France thus suggest larger similarities in other authoritarian systems. While guns and checkpoints might typify our imagination of living under an authoritarian government or a foreign regime, we should also and equally think of people like Raphaël Géminiani. During the German Occupation of France, his life became rich in different ways, expanding into new social and civic venues. At the same time, he faced real constraints. He raced across the south of France looking for food. He searched through rubbish to find parts for his bike. None of these limitations, however, meant he lived a limited life. As he stretched his legs visiting other regions of France to feed his family, his horizons undoubtedly expanded, and he began to see new possibilities for his postwar career. Hopefully, the accounts of wartime athletes illustrate another way of thinking about occupations which does not conjure only images of vast power dichotomies, tanks rumbling down narrow streets, and the lit fires of Molotov cocktails. These images reproduce the confrontation of occupier and occupied at its most violent, and only partially reflect people’s experience of everyday life under occupation, whether in France, Afghanistan, or Iraq. Other areas of life persist and even grow during occupations. In investigating the much less well known aspects of the German Occupation of France, namely physical culture, my investigation has illustrated how an officially promoted physical education programme was implicitly turned against the regime and became a vehicle for a politics of civil disobedience. Physical culture thus presented a paradox of a Government programme meant to discipline French males, but which instead gave sporting associations and individuals an arena of freedom within the public sphere, undermining if only slightly

Conclusion 301 our totalising conceptions of the dual authoritarian systems of the German Occupation and the Vichy regime during France’s dark years. Similar power paradoxes will undoubtedly exist in other occupations.

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Notes 1 Le Chagrin et la pitié (The Sorrow and the Pity), directed by M. Ophüls (1969; Chatsworth, CA: Milestone Film and Video, 2001), DVD. The seminal film developed its own significant literature. For a longer discussion of the history of the film and its place in the memory of the wartime, see H. Rousso, The Vichy Syndrome: History and Memory in France since 1944 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1994), pp. 100–114. 2 Le Chagrin et la pitié, DVD. 3 Ibid. 4 Ibid. 5 For a longer discussion of this phenomenon across Europe, see M. Goksøyr, ‘The rings and the Swastika: political ambiguity in sport before and during the Second World War’, International Journal of the History of Sport 36:11 (2019), 998–1012. 6 In fact, the Milice arrested Géminiani in 1944 as part of a general round-up of young men. R.Géminiani, Mes 50 Tours de France (Monaco: Éditions de Rocher, 2003), pp. 34–35. 7 Ibid., p. 28. 8 Ibid., p. 28. 9 AMT B3239 ‘Cycles France-Sport Toulouse’ (undated), AMT 1Z465 ‘J. Dedieu et A. Belzon: Toulouse’ (undated). 10 Rousso, The Vichy Syndrome, p. 10. 11 Ibid., p. 10. 12 R. Gildea, Marianne in Chains: Daily Life in the Heart of France during the German Occupation (New York: Picador, 2002), p. 310. 13 Rousso, The Vichy Syndrome, p. 104. 14 Gildea, Marianne in Chains, p. 310. 15 J. R. Tunis, ‘The dictators discover sports’, Foreign Affairs 14:4 (1936), 611. 16 G. Read, The Republic of Men: Gender and the Political Parties in Interwar France (Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 2014), passim.

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Archival sources

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Archives départementales de l’Aveyron (ADA) 132W1, W3 324W534, 544 324W877

Archives départementales de Seine-et-Marne (ADSM) 1W27–28, 30–32 110J208

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AZ4336 M3433 SC20274 SC20275 SC25486 SC26364 SC26390 SC26394 SC26459 UP9931

Archives départementales du Gers (ADG) 1W442–449, 452, 754

Archives départementales du Tarn (ADT) 1T1 37–38 506W121–122, 325, 448

Archives départementales Landes (ADL) 81W1

Archives municipale de Lille (AML) 2F2 [Salons foires et expos divers] 15 2R2 [Sports] 2–3, 5, 7–8, 10–13, 15, 17, 53–57, 60, 72, 76, 93, 154–155, 161, 163, 165 4D7 [Personnages Lillois] Felix Grimonprex, Henri Jooris, Georges Monneret, Charles Pacome 4M2 [Installations sportives] 130, 135, 164–168

304

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5H1 [La Deuxième Guerre mondiale] 35–36, 41, 43, 45 5H6 [Enseignement durant la Deuxième Guerre mondiale] 4–6 5H13 [Divers durant la Deuxième Guerre mondiale] 15

Archives municipale de Paris (AMP) VM57 1 VM58 1–5

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Archives nationales du monde du travail (ANMT) 202 AG [Société sportive du Chemin de fer du Nord] 170–173 1994 057 [Association sportive Sainte-Barbe d’Oignies] 1–33 1997 014 [Club olympique Roubaix-Tourcoing] 2, 5, 59, 60, 87, 89, 197 2002 025 099 [Fond privé Sandra Porter] 1–5 2002 026 [Union sportive tourquennoise] 1–7

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305

2002 026 058 [Travail durant la Deuxième Guerre mondiale] 58 2007 016 [Comité français Pierre de Coubertin] 1, 5 2007 068 [Fédération sportive et culturelle de France] 1–2, 8, 199, 231, 234, 251, 265, 281, 287, 292, 324, 326 2007 068 [Rayon sportif féminin] 333 2008 001 [Fédération nationale des Joinvillais] 1, 8, 10, 12, 13 2008 031 [Fédération sportive des associations sportives des postes, télégraphes, et téléphones] 2, 10, 13, 24, 103, 161–162, 282, 283 2009 04 [Fédération française du sport travailliste] 85–86, 92, 96, 99 2009 005 [Union générale sportive de l’enseignement libre] 1–2, 4, 15, 20–22, 28–31, 41–43, 48–49, 65, 70–72, 87, 101, 103, 107, 356, Photo catalogues 2009 015 [Fédération sportive et gymnique du travail] 1–4, 20, 79–81, 95, 134, 149, 165, 176, 199, 256, 280, 409, 417, 432–435, 479, 484–487, 577, 642–645, 671, 678, 761, 762, 768–781, 783–784, 798–808, 838 2009 032 [Fond privé Roger Debaye] 2, 48–54, 73, 75, 78, 80 2010 031 [Union française des œuvres laïques d’éducation physique] 1–2, 4, 33, 40, 133, 141, 156, 265–268 2011 010 [Association des journalistes sportifs] 2, 4, 9–10, 16, 21–23, 43, 49, 63–65, 78, 82

Periodicals 2007 025 Le Bonhomme du Nord-Pas-de-Calais (1931–1939) 2007 029 Les sports du Nord: Organe régional d’informations sportives (1938–1944) 1998 013 0049 Liberté sports (1947) 2007 032 Nord-Sports (1938–1939) 2007 033 Nord-Sports (1946–1947) 2007 035 Sports éclairs (1946)

306

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Archives nationales Pierrefitte (AN) 2AG [État français] 459, 570 39AJ [Chantiers de la jeunesse] 54, 55, 56 40AJ [Archives allemandes de l’occupation] 557, 888, 932, 938, 939, 1395, 1397, 1438 69AJ [Sport scolaire et universitaire] 1–14 72AJ [Papiers du Comité d’histoire de la Deuxième Guerre mondiale, 1939–1945] 50, 56, 707, 1179, 1257–1282, 1798–1800, 1826–1827, 1854–1855, 1856, 1860, 2201 451AP [Fond privé La Rocque] Boxes 151–156 7F [Police générale] 13137 9F [Affaires militaires] 2893–2894, 2901 12F [Commerce et industrie] 12216, 12218–12220, 12351, 14460 17F [Instruction publique] 13346–13348, 13364, 13376, 13381, 14461–14465, 14600, 15726, 17956 41F [Information] 292–294 44F [Jeunesse et sport] 1–120 60F [Secrétariat général du gouvernement et service du Premier ministre] 435, 475, 476

Archives of the Institut national du sport, de l’expertise, et de la performance (INSEP) 9991357523 Mémento d’éducation physique et d’initiation sportive (1941)

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Archival sources

307

9991382952 Éducation et culture du corps (1942) 9991385779 Étude de l’état d’esprit de la population parisienne à l’égard de la pratique de l’éducation physique et des sports (1942) 9991386394 L’Éducation générale et sportive (1942) 9991386424 Éducation générale: demi-jours de plein air (1942) 9991386431 Éducation générale: pour une école vivante (1943) 9991386462 Éducation générale: vigueur en cran pour nos enfants (1941) 9991386943 Éducation physique et sous-alimentation (1944) 9991388305 Réalisations 1942 (1942) 9991388428 Résumé des conférences faites à l’occasion des stages d’éducation générale et sportive (1941) 9991388442 Le Sport dans la tradition française (1941) 9991388459 Piscines et bassins de natation (1941) 9991388503 Professorat d’éducation physique et sportive (1944) 9991388527 Le Quarte heure d’éducation physique à la radio (1943) 9991388534 Brevet sportif national (1942) 9991388831 Répertoire des textes réglementaires à l’usage des maîtres et maîtres-assistants d’éducation générale (1944) 9991388886 Les Activités d’éducation générale (1941) 9991388930 Terrains scolaires d’éducation physique et sportive (1941) 9991388992 Recueil des lois, décrets, arrêtes et circulaires relatif à l’équipement sportif du 15 juillet 1940 au 30 avril 1942 (1942) 9991390063 Les Champs d’action du Commissariat général à l’éducation générale et aux sports (1941)

Archives of the Musée nationale de sport DOC00000239 DOC00000696 DOC00000967 DOC00000969 DOC00001027 DOC00001067

Aptitude aux sports et contrôle médicale (1941) Football (1942) Football règles, conseils, humour (1941) Football et footballeurs (1943) Une frise à colorier, le football (1946) Pour bien connaître le football (1944)

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308

Archival sources

DOC00001072 Almanach guide de football saison 1934–1935 (1935) DOC00001080 L’Arbitre de football association (1938) DOC00004220 Aptitude aux sports et contrôle médicale (1941) DOC00004603 Un onze parmi les onze (1930) DOC00004605 L’Elite du football française (1947) DOC00005214 Le Défi de Sedan (1982) DOC00008981 Esprit du sport (1941) DOC00009059 Football joie du monde (1944) DOC00010730 L’Art et pratique du foot-ball association illustré par la photographie (1930s) DOC00013864 La Marche du football (1942) DOC00016792 Clubs autorisés à utiliser des joueurs professionnels … (undated)

Archives of the Préfecture de la police (APP) BA2033 BA2445 DB280 GAE3

Bibliothèque de documentation internationale contemporaine (BDIC) BDIC BDIC BDIC BDIC BDIC BDIC BDIC BDIC BDIC BDIC BDIC

4 P 4048 (Chronique) FOP2094 (Feuille d’information) O pièce 22686 (De Province en province) O pièce 32348 (Les Messages de M. Abel Bonnard) O pièce 41558 (Étudiant, mon camarade) O pièce 45148 (Vers l’unité) Q pièce 4290 (Quatre ans d’occupation à l’Auto) Q pièce 4490 (Les Enfants. Comment ils ont supporté) S 26330 (Message à la jeunesse) S 26834 (Le sport, ta joie, ta santé) S 29260 (Comment les jeunes reconstruiront la France)



Archival sources

309

Bibliothèque nationale de France (BNF)

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Books 4-R-5820 L’École de la famille (1944) 4-V-11832 Almanach de tous les sports (1933) 8-V-57537 Le Football simplifié (1947) 8-V-106594 (2) Le Sport et l’éducation physique (1925) 8-V-PIECE-26908 Les Sports et l’éducation de la jeunesse (1941) 16-V-1405 L’Élite du football français, ses dirigeants, ses clubs, ses joueurs, ses arbitres (1947) MFICHE 8-F-33845 Les Sports et le droit (1930) MFICHE 8-R-46592 Manuel a l’usage des éducateurs volontaires de l’enfant à l’heure de ses loisirs (1941) MFICHE 8-R-47696 Les Devoirs présents des éducateurs (1942) MFICHE 8-V-19530 Football: Joie du monde (1947) MFICHE 8-V-50621 Le Sport au secours de la santé, réglage du moteur humain (1933) MFICHE 16-LN8BIS-2 Héros du sport, héros de France (1944) MFICHE 16-R-482 L’Éducation de la jeunesse et la Révolution nationale (1943)

Official documents 4-R PIECE-3954 Disciplines d’action (date unclear) 4-V PIECE-10201 Instituteurs de France … vous répondrez à leur appel (1941) 4-V PIECE-10431 Le Métier et le sport (1942) 4-V-14352 Bulletin mensuel du Commissariat général aux sports (1942–1943) 16-V-PIECE-8 Sport et la vie rurale (1942) 16-V-1767 Brevet sportif populaire (date unclear but between 1936 and 1938) MFICHE 8-R PIECE-23086 Politique et doctrine sportive (1942) MFICHE 8-V-55960 ABC d’éducation féminin (1942) MFICHE 16-V-518 Annuaire de sports 1944 (1944) MFILM 16-LK7-47750 Une expérience, un exemple (1941)

310

Archival sources

Other 8-R PIECE-20625 Hors la loi (undated) MICROFICHE M-25773 A Who’s Who in Vichy France (1944)

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Periodicals 4-JO-3074 Almanach de sprint (1944–1945) 2003-176784 (112) Le Jeune combattant (1944) 2003-176784 (112) Le Jeune patriote (1944–1945) 2003-176784 (112) Je Suis partout (1943–1944) FOL-JO-2211 Sport (1942–1944) FOL-JO-2639 Les Sports du centre et du sud-est (1944–1947) FOL-JO-2789 Les Échos de la côte d’azur (1939) FOL-JO-2821 Sud-est sport (1942–1944) FOL-JO-4055 Sportif (1944) FOL-S-775 Le sport universel illustré (1943) GR FOL-JO-2143 Les sports (1947) GR FOL-JO-3461 (BIS) Sport libre (1944–1946) JO-25326 Le Forez sportif (1937–1939) JO-31339 Sports (1934) JO-35481 (BIS) Le Centre sportif (1936) JO-40685 Sport alsacien (1936–1939) JO-65984 Allez! Besançon (1945–1958) JO-77050 Midi-football (1936) MFILM FOL-1334 Match (1937–1939) MFILM FOL-JO-2669 (TER) Midi-sports (1946) MFILM GR FOL-JO-3206 Tous les sports (1941–1944) MFILM JO-21147 La Sportive (1933–1935) MFILM JO-25457 Les Sports du nord (1938–1944) MFILM JO-41129 Football (1936–1944) MFILM JO-65398 (N1473) Sporting (1936–1939) MICR D-156 L’Auto (1932–1944)

Sporting Federations and Associations Publications 4-JO-567 Le Racing (1934–1937) 4-JO-5116 Le Sportif mutualiste (1937) 4-JO-5783 Bulletin de l’association sportive brestoise (1943–1948)

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Archival sources

311

4-WZ-11338 Assemblée générale de Racing club de France (1944–1945) 8-JO-13645 Annuaire de groupement de sporting club de Lyon (1893–1960) 8-V PIECE-27433 Racing club de France 1939–1943 … Quatre années de sport bleu ciel et blanc (1943) 8-V PIECE-28066 Association sportive de Tonkin (1942) 16-V PIECE-261 Football-club de Rouen (1946–1947) GR-OL-JO-3280 Sang et or (1937–1939) JO-21210 Sporting supporter (1934) JO-68252 Fédération française de Football Ligue Nord (1938–1944) JO-68413 Sporting club universitaire de France (1938–1947) MFILM 4-JO-717 L’Athlétique-sports (1936) MFILM 4-V-10301 L’Almanach sportif (1930)

Centre de documentation juive contemporaine (CDJC) II-43 II-73 V-58 XIc-683 XId-34 XId-37 XXVIII-48 XXVIII-74 XXVIIIa-240 XXIX-29 XXXI-123 XXXV-50 LXI-60 XCV-39 CXI-34 CXCIII-43_002 CCXIV-100 CCXIV-110 CCXIV-111 CCXXXVI-51

312

Archival sources

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CCXXXVI-102 CCXXXVIII-37_003 CCCLXXI-36_001 CDXVII-5 LIV-45 Numerous photos, posters, and other ephemera available on request and in the research binders in the back room of the Centre.

INAthèque AFE86004276, ‘Journal les actualités mondiales: émission du 22 mai 1942’

Institut d’Histoire du Temps Présent (IHTP) ARC 020 ARC 074–18, 19 ARC 074–27 ARC 076 Bonnard ARC 076 Pascot ARC 076 Ybanegaray ARC 131 Jeune légion Jeunesse France Nouvelle jeunesse German reports on Occupied France (online: www.ihtp.cnrs.fr/ prefets/) Prefect reports on Occupied France (online: www.ihtp.cnrs.fr/ prefets/)

Private Archives of Racing Club de France (RCF Archives) Annuaire 1933 Procès verbal (1938–1946) Bleu ciel (1936–1948)



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Smash (1939–1945) Assorted other wartime records

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Private Archives of Stade français (SF Archives) Annuaire 1938 Procès verbal (1931–1948) Bulletin du stade français (1936–1948) Comité directeur de stade français (1931–1948) Football committee (1930–1944) Emile Lesieur notes Assorted other wartime records

Private archives of the Centre d’histoire de Sciences politiques de Paris (CHSP Archives) LR [Fonds de la Rocque] 12, 16, 27–28, 30, 48, 90–92

Private Archives of the Club Athlétique de la Société Générale (CASG Archives) 366, 1022, 1023, 1024, 1026, 1044, 1047, 1049, 81356

Private Archives of the Diocese de Paris 6C St-Honoré d’Eylau 8K1 17 1–2 8K1 18

Private Archives of the Fédération Française de Football Association (FFFA Archives) Annuaire 1937 Procès verbal (1932–1946)

314

Archival sources

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100 ans de football français 100 dates, histoire, objets du football français France football (1945–1946) Le miroir des sports (1932–1939) Tous les sports (1940–1944)

Private Archives of the Fédération sportive et gymnique du travail (Pantin) Informateur sportif (1933–1938) Sport (1934–1936)

Private Archives of the Ligue parisienne de football-association Paris football (1929–1940)

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Interviews Personally conducted: Raymond Roussennac Personally conducted: Jacques Marchand Interview notes from other historians: Robert Aronaud, Alter Goldmann Interview transcripts from other historians: Louis Chevé



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Unpublished document Rapport sur L’Auto: Sa constitution, son activité, son rôle, durant les cinq dernières années (1939–1944)

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Archival sources consulted remotely Archives départementales du Haut-Rhin Mémorandum, Du Mesnil to M. Marquant, 27 August 1948 Letter, Du Mesnil, Le Chefe du bureau de l’Éducation physique et des sports, to Monsieur l’Inspecteur général Chef de la division éducation publique s/c de M. le Chef du Service de contrôle, 27 August 1948 Letter, Schmittlein, le Directeur général des affaires culturelles to Monsieur l’Ambassadeur de France haut commissaire de la république en Allemagne, 29 December 1949 Letter, Le Directeur chargé des relations culturelles for the délégation, le Délégué secrétaire général, Le Haut-Commissaire de la R.F. en Sarre, to Monsieur l’Inspecteur Général Chef de la S/Direction Jeunesse et Sports Direction de l’Education Publique auprès du G-M-Z-F-O, 18 May 1948 Rapport concernant la conférence de la Délégation du Comité des Sports de la Saare Paris le 29 et 30 avril 1948, 4 May 1948

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Index

Abetz, Otto 174, 194n62, 269–270 accommodation 159, 230, 237, 265–267 Burrin’s notion of 199–201 agency 6–8, 14–15, 17, 24, 80–81, 95–96, 130, 131–133, 136, 142–150, 160–161, 180–189, 201, 205–206, 214–215, 223–225, 230, 237, 295–297, 300 culture of the outlaw 121, 149, 151 failures of agency 223 limits to agency 106–107, 201, 238, 296 resistance 149 System-D 200–201, 239n9, 293, 296 amateurism 20, 32–33, 48–50, 54–55, 63–66, 94, 127, 144, 159, 161–163, 167–175, 180–187, 297–299 amateurisme intégrale 159 defence of amateurism 48–50, 54–55, 63–66, 167–171 moral value of amateurism 167, 185–188

Paris as centre of 55 participatory amateurism 20, 42, 68, 159, 169, 189, 298 popularity of 169 resistance to 172–174 why remain amateur 181–187 André, Geo 137 anglophile 163–164, 181 anti-Semitic press 263 apolitical sport (apoliticism) 6, 8, 24, 32–35, 198, 248–250, 253, 255, 257, 260, 265, 267–271, 273, 277–279, 281–282, 292 Arendt, Hannah 206 Aronaud, Robert 211, 259 Associational Law of 1901 162, 177, 198, 202, 220, 223 associational life 37–38, 180–189, 198, 201, 204, 211–213, 219–220, 254, 283, 292 access to state resources 215 cohabitations 225–228, 230, 235–237, 274 competition 142 daily life 228 disruptions to 204–206 fandom 59, 61

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334 Index forced fusions 85, 219–220 gendered nature of club life 202, 212 moral education in clubs 61–62 mutual aid and assistance 217–218 natural communities 78, 80, 112n4, 207, 210 negotiations with the CGEGS 180–188, 196n96, 215, 223 negotiations with the Germans 225–227 publications 58 rehabilitation of club reputations 248–249, 267–268, 273–276 resistance to club leaders 235 resistance to the CGEGS 177–179 resistance to the Germans 247 résistancialisme 228 sociability 56–57, 206 supporters’ groups 58 striking off of members (radiations) 250, 274, 280 threats to 218–224, 235 why participate 200–203, 207–209, 216–218, 238, 256, 294–296 Association Sportive de SainteBarbe d’Oignies (ASSBO) 53–54, 160–161, 181– 190, 196n96 athletic citizenship 32, 131, 253–254 athletic facilities architecture and urban planning 103–104 blueprints and planning 101–104 construction of new facilities 45, 103–105, 183, 295 damage to facilities 98, 100, 183, 205–206

failures of the Vichy building program 107–110, 252 funding 99–100, 110, 144, 215 lack of facilities 97–98 limited facilities 42, 98 problems with construction 104–105 stadiums 60–61, 78–79, 81 athletic resistance 247–254 athletics 6, 20, 37, 42, 45, 48, 78, 93, 124–130, 137, 149, 200, 202, 209, 212, 215, 249, 255, 297–298 Atkins, Nicolas 118 L’Auto 48, 101, 134, 162, 169–170, 174, 178, 204, 211, 250, 289–290n103 defence of 277–280 investigation of 276–280 punishment of 277–280 Avia Club 254 Aznar, Emmanuel 169, 171 badminton 212 Barreaud, Marc 62 Barreau, Georges 51, 174, 269 basketball 4, 33, 54, 87, 92–93, 98, 101, 105–107, 128, 130, 136, 139, 146–147, 150, 162, 172, 186, 200, 207, 209, 212, 216–217, 229 Basque pelota 167 Bastien, Jean 75n102, 171, 179–180 billiards 212 biopolitics 19, 34–36, 44–45, 124, 150, 189, 295, 298, 300 balanced bodies 85, 123–124, 127 control and management of bodies 125, 134–136, 146, 150, 155n52 discipline 136, 143, 147–148

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Index 335 measurability of bodies 125, 129–136 weak bodies 89, 129 women’s bodies 129–130 bodies and body politics 32, 38, 41, 47, 66, 68, 85, 89, 118, 120, 123–125, 127, 133–139, 141, 147, 149–150, 154n40, 161, 189, 253, 255–256, 295, 298, 300 Bois de Boulogne 92, 103–104, 125, 198, 229–231, 233, 237, 261, 276 Bood, Micheline 146, 150–151, 210 Bordeaux Étudiants Club 144–145 Borotra, Jean 11, 21, 31, 33, 69, 82–88, 90, 93, 96, 101, 107, 110–111, 139, 159, 161–163, 165, 168, 173–176, 189, 194n62, 220, 222, 229, 250, 273–274, 279, 295 trial of 269–270, 272 Bourdieu, Pierre 5, 215, 242n66 boxing 48, 57, 159, 165–167, 207, 256 Brevet sportif national 131–133, 148, 150, 164n51, 212 brevet sportif populaire 45–47, 65, 164n51 Buffet, Marie-George 11, 78, 158 Burrin, Philippe 199–200 Busson, Bernard 250–252 camping 92, 253–255 Carcopino, Jérôme 139 carte sportive 134, 143, 148, 254 Catholic sport 8, 17, 35, 41, 46, 85, 87–88, 90–91, 93, 95, 124, 203, 213–214, 216, 219, 243n86–87 diocese of Paris 213 fights with the Vichy regime 213–214

fusions with non-Catholic organisations 85, 219– 220, 243n86–87 resistance to the Catholic Church 214 resistance to the Vichy regime 214 Centre de Charaintru 141–142 Champetier de Ribes, Auguste 129 Chantiers de la Jeunesse 83, 90, 106, 119, 123, 136, 139–140, 145, 147, 149, 151, 255 Charte des Sports 78, 84–85, 89, 162–163, 170, 219–220, 223–224 cheating 143–145, 148–149 Chevé, Louis 244n95, 247–248, 257 choral singing 129 classical sport 45, 127–128 Clermont-Ferrand 291–293 Club Athlétique de la Société Générale (CASG) 54–55, 57, 104, 203, 215, 275 Club Athlétique de Paris 175 Club Athlétique de Radiotechnique 163 Club Populaire et Sportif du Xe Arrondissement (CPSX) 211, 259–265, 281 Club Sportif Longovicien 61 collaboration 2, 6, 12–13, 15, 23, 225, 250, 253, 255, 266–275, 282, 294 defence against accusations of 267, 269–275, 277–280 shield defence 269, 271, 274 definition of 272 economic 279 collaborationist groups and sport Jeunesse Francistes 92, 255 Légion Nationale Populaire 255

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336 Index collaboration/resistance framework 2, 6, 12–13 collapse of the French sports world during the Second World War 204–206, 219–220, 237 closure of clubs 206 colonial sport 163, 256–257 Algeria 256–257 Morocco 163 Colonies de Vacances 106 combat sports 92, 255, 256 Comité Nationale des Sports 46, 99, 162, 164, 166, 175, 178, 188 commercial sport 19, 48, 52–63, 182, 184, 187, 234–235, 298 Commissariat Général à l’Éducation Générale et aux Sports (CGEGS and Sports Ministry) 2, 11, 31, 79–81, 91, 96, 129–131, 133, 135–139, 145, 147, 151, 159, 162–163, 167–168, 177, 185–187, 196n96, 219, 221–223, 257, 263, 292, 295–297 bugdets 110 educational reforms 120 failures of Vichy’s sports programme 109–110, 142–149, 160, 252, 265 growth of the 88–89 local and regional officials 185–187 organisation of the 82–83 partnerships with local communities 101–102 Commissariat Général aux Questions Juives (CGQJ) 95–96, 222, 272, 278 communist and socialist sport 8, 20, 33–36, 39–53, 64–68, 158, 180, 188, 200–201,

216, 219–221, 224, 238, 247–248, 259, 261, 264, 296, 298 communist athlete 33, 67, 298 competition different ideas about competition 136–137, 139–144, 142, 149, 150, 171, 212, 238, 233 competition between French and German athletes 172–173 conservative sport 20, 32, 39–42, 45, 47–50, 53–58, 63–68, 82, 85, 88–90, 93–95, 162, 170, 215, 220, 223–224, 238 Coubertin, Pierre de 38, 58, 127, 154n40, 226, 229, 267 Coupe de France 1–4, 57, 170– 171, 211, 233, 239, 283 Coupe de la Libération 248 cross country 171, 210, 221 cycling 48, 57, 65, 137, 148, 159, 165–167, 202, 207, 216, 253, 291–293, 298 dark years metaphor 10, 16, 24, 26n18, 200, 206, 238, 201 Déat, Marcel 84 Delaunay, Henri 176, 178 Delaune, Auguste 180, 252, 281 Dembicki, Stefean 63, 182, 184–185 democratic states and sports 7, 20, 23, 31, 33–37, 42, 67 democratisation and sporting clubs 7, 23, 37–38, 60, 203, 226, 238 deprofessionalisation 159–169, 172, 182, 187, 189 resistance to 172–174 despoliation 158–161, 190n4, 224, 253, 263 Deutsch Tennis Klub 227, 230, 236–238

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Index 337 Dourdin, Jacques 145–146 Direction d’Équipement Sportif 99, 101–104, 112 Drancy 209, 264 Duchenne, Achille 170 Dumazedier, Joffre 129 Dumoret, Jean-Jacques 230 Dupuy, Aline 146 Duval, Raymond (General) 271 École de Joinville 41, 90 École Nationale d’Éducation Physique et aux Sports 104, 128 École Normale d’Éducation Physique (later INSEP) 83, 91–92, 111 education acceptance of National Revolution 140–141 age differences 133 éducation générale 119–120, 132, 146, 148 failures of the educational system 89 hours of instruction 123, 132 intensification of physical education instruction 132 leadership schools 140–142 medical examinations 134, 148 moral education and sports 64, 84, 93, 131, 142, 150 overwork of students 134 primary education 89 punishments 143 reform of schools 118–120, 123–124 resistance to 130–132, 136, 142–149 school sports 95–96, 128 sexual separation of physical education 119–120, 128–130 teacher training 90–93, 131, 141, 295

elites and sport 12, 22, 37, 50–53, 55, 63, 201, 208, 283 elite sports 66, 162, 164, 167–172 sport as training for elites 65, 131, 140–142, 150, 171–172, 188 Eyquem, Marie-Thérèse 129–130 fair play 66, 96, 124, 144, 186, 189, 253–254, 266, 297 Comité International pour le Fair Play 297 Fall of France 6, 14, 23, 77–78, 83–84, 89, 97, 111, 118, 162, 209, 211, 257, 260 fascism 8–9. 20, 30n47, 31–37, 66–68, 72n51, 119, 298–299 fascism and sports 8–9, 20, 31–37, 42 fascist athlete 8–9, 31–37, 47, 298 French fascism 46, 72n51, 84, 92 resistance to 9, 40, 42–43 Fédération des Sociétés d’Aviron 162 Fédération Française d’Athlétisme 49, 139 Fédération Française de Football Association (FFFA) 15, 48–52, 56, 65, 83, 94, 159–162, 165, 167, 170, 173, 185, 189, 206, 209–210, 221, 223, 233, 248, 294, 296, 299 federalisation 175–179, 296 fighting with clubs 185–188 protests against the CGEGS 86 resistance to the CGEGS 160, 176–177 Fédération Française de LawnTennis 162, 165 Fédération Française de Rugby 49, 158–160, 163, 166

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338 Index Fédération Française de Sports Athlétiques 220 Fédération Gymnastique et Sportive des Patronages de France (FGSPF) 41, 213, 216, 219 fights with the Vichy regime 213 Fédération Sportive des Associations des Postes, Télégraphes et Téléphones 214 Fédération Sportive du Travail (FST) 39, 42 Fédération Sportive et Gymnique du Travail (FSGT) 19–20, 32, 35, 56, 64, 66–67, 180, 188–189, 203, 221, 224, 252, 259, 281 Fémina Sport 203, 212–213 femininity 8, 19, 34, 119, 129– 130, 140, 142, 150, 203, 212–213 fencing 41, 148, 207 field hockey 127, 212 Finot, Louis 171 First World War 13, 38–39, 48, 56, 93, 132, 203, 251–252 Flouret, Jacques 46, 87–88, 144–145 Fogg, Shannon 201 folkloric dance 128 football (soccer) 1–5, 7, 9, 14–15, 22, 35, 39, 45, 48–67, 81, 83, 86, 92–95, 98, 100–101, 104–107, 111–112, 127–128, 140, 146–148, 152, 159, 161, 165–167, 170–171, 177, 181, 186, 189, 200, 202, 207, 212, 229, 251, 255, 296 numbers of players 3–5 pitches 7, 8 resistance 247–248

forced fusions 165, 219–220 associations 219–220 federations 220 rugby league ban 158–159, 163–166, 188–189, 190n5, 199, 220, 224, 299 Foucault, Michel 120 Fourth Republic 15, 112, 188, 280, 299–300 Franco-Prussian War 37, 252 Free French Forces 110, 175, 256, 261, 276 Galia, Jean 164 games 136–137 naturalistic games 120, 122–123 war games 122–123 why play 142–143, 145–149, 167 de Gaulle, Charles 270 Gaullist Provisional Government 109, 112, 188, 248, 266–267, 273, 281, 297 Gay-Lescot, Jean-Louis 11, 77–78, 87 Géminiani, Raphaël 291–294, 300 Germanophobia 174, 269 Germans and Germany 124, 133, 183, 206, 210–211, 224–228, 230, 238–239, 252–253, 257, 263, 268, 273–274, 276–279, 291–292, 298 club negotiations with the 184–185 cohabitations 198, 226–227, 230–231, 234–237 comparisons with Germany 97, 118–119 Gestapo 252, 274, 276 negotiations with French sports stakeholders 225–227, 230, 234

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Index 339 permissions 104, 184, 186, 229, 233 prohibitions 199, 206–207, 225 requisitions 104–105, 108–109, 111, 225 sporting critique of the 236–237 sporting policies 224 Waffen SS 278 Gildea, Robert 2, 221, 294 Bad France position 11 Good France position 10–11 Innovative France position 10, 14 Poor France position 2, 11–12 Gillou, Pierre 205, 227–228, 230–231, 233–235, 238–239, 273–276 Ginesty, Albert 165 Girondins de Bordeaux 171, 282–283 Glasser, Georges 99 Goddet, Jacques 161, 170, 173, 277–280 rehabilitation of reputation 277–280 golden age of sports 2, 10, 15, 23–24, 207, 238, 295, 298 Goldman, Alter 211, 264 growth in sports during Vichy 3–5, 200, 207, 238 Guignot, Jean 178 gymnastics 13, 21, 36, 38, 91, 95, 119–120, 136–137, 140–141, 146, 148, 150, 154n4, 255, 299 corrective gymnastics 134–135 hébertisme 47, 105–106, 112, 125–126, 128, 137, 140–141, 147, 149, 300 natural movements 124 handball 4, 128, 162, 172, 200, 207 Hanot, Gabriel 51–52

health 6, 13, 36, 38, 43, 45–47, 68, 97, 103, 119–120, 124–125, 132, 134–137, 139, 140, 146, 148, 155n52, 170, 209, 253–254, 256, 281 hygiene 8, 38, 89, 119–120 malnutrition 134–136 medical care 134–136, 148 wellness 6, 38, 134–136 Hébert, Georges 46, 125, 140, 153n27 Holocaust 25n9, 209, 211, 217, 228, 254, 257–258, 263, 265, 268, 293 anti-Semitism 95–96, 260–263 concentration camps and sports 25n9, 241n9 denaturalisations 260 denunciations 222 deportations 254 despoliations 190n4, 222, 255, 263 roundups 222, 264 Innovative France 2, 10, 14–20, 159, 180, 186, 199–201, 205, 268, 292–296 limits to Innovative France 201 System-D 200–201, 239n9, 293, 296 international competition 51, 160, 167–168, 174, 189, 254, 299 French national football team 171–172 against Spain 173 against Switzerland 173 Jackson, Julian 24, 79–80, 284n15 Jardin, Pascal 122 Jewish sports 9, 17, 22, 35, 89, 158–159, 201, 211, 215, 217, 220–222, 224, 228–229, 238, 239n47,

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340 Index 244n99, 254–265, 268, 271–272, 281, 296–297 in clubs 211, 259–265 continuities during Vichy 211 CPSX 259–265 Holocaust and sport 25n12, 211, 217, 254 Salle Géo Gras 256–257, 286n40 in schools 95–96 Scouts 211 YASK 211, 259–265, 281, 297, 299 Jooris, Henri 52–53 Jousselin, Jean 141 Kedward, Rod 121, 149, 151, 258 Laborde, Marcel 165 Lacoste, René 229 Lagrange, Léo 20–21, 31–36, 43–47, 55, 65–67, 79, 81–84, 87, 97, 107, 111, 180, 297 Lamirand, Georges 46, 90, 139, 147 La Porte du Theil, Joseph de 106 La Rocque, François de 46, 68, 82, 297 Laval, Pierre 84, 155n15, 173, 263 Lee, Daniel 114n27, 211 left–right convergence 20–21, 31–47, 67–68, 253, 297–298 Lewis, Robert 13, 35, 67–68, 78–79, 244n91 Libération 109–110, 112, 166, 184, 188, 227–229, 235, 239, 248, 250, 252, 265–267, 277, 280 Ligue Anti-Communiste 278 Ligue Nord du Football Association 185–186 Ligue Parisienne d’Athlétisme 225

Ligue Parisienne de FootballAssociation (LPFA) 64, 66–67 local sport and sports culture 2, 14–16, 19–24 communal networks 206 differences to associational leadership 215 differences in Government efforts 6–7, 100–101, 103–107 local government 92–95, 97–98 local resistance to the CGEGS 176–179, 189 local networks 10, 12, 247 local sporting cultures 12, 85, 219–220 mayors 99–100, 107 partnership with the CGEGS 12, 21, 101–102 Maccabi Paris 203 Maison des Jeunes 217 Marchand, Jacques 216–217, 299 masculinity 6, 8, 13, 19, 23, 25n9, 33–34, 37–39, 41, 68, 119–122, 129–130, 140–142, 150, 204, 212, 282 crisis of 6, 25n9, 38–39 Massard, Armand 269 mass participation 13, 33, 36, 42–48, 65, 96, 160, 166, 174, 189, 298 mass spectatorship 13, 32, 48, 58, 64, 160, 168, 179 memory 250, 280, 282–283, 284n7, 293, 297 mens sana in corpore sano 124, 213 militarism 32–34, 37–47, 87, 90–93, 97, 139, 207, 251, 254, 298 military preparation 119, 124, 207

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Index 341 military sport 203–204, 225 ban to 5, 199, 225 Moquet, Guy 152 moral value of sport 6, 21, 38, 41, 47, 57, 61–62, 64, 67, 84–85, 88, 93, 119–124, 129–131, 136, 142–143, 147, 149–150, 167, 185–188, 251 immorality of professionalism 45, 53–56, 64–66 immorality of sport during the Occupation 8, 291–293 mutual aid and assistance 10, 57, 200, 217–218, 238 Nakache, Alfred 254, 269 National Revolution 10, 17, 23, 77, 79–82, 85–86, 89, 93, 96–97, 112, 121, 147, 149–150, 170, 180, 189, 211, 228, 277–278, 283, 295–296 acceptance of the 140–142 gendered nature of the 119, 152n4 national unity 139 rites and rituals 137–139 new men and women 149–150 47 Vichy Man 26–27n24, 77, 119–120, 123, 127 Vichy Women 119–120 Nord-Pas-de-Calais 181–188 Lille 52–53, 133, 148 local resistance to the CGEGS 177–178 Nordiste sport 52–53, 181–188 normalcy 200, 207, 209–212, 214, 249, 265 Oath of the Athlete (Serment de l’athlète) 137–139, 167–171 Office du Sport Scolaire et Universitaire (OSSU) 31, 46, 128

Oger, Marcel 162 Olympics and Olympic Movement 49, 125, 127, 137, 229, 298 Berlin Olympics 34, 67, 69n5, 254, 298 Paris Olympics 45, 59 Olympique Lillois 52–53, 180 Olympique Marseille 169, 171, 179, 282–283 Ophüls, Marcel 291–293 organic hierarchy 140–142, 226 class hierarchies 226 outdoor education 120, 124–125, 128–129, 132, 137, 140–141, 149, 253–255 parents 6, 16, 121, 131–133, 137, 150 Paris 98, 103–104, 108–109, 135, 141, 145–146, 171, 198, 203, 209–211, 213, 216–217, 221, 225–226, 229, 233, 239, 259–266, 281 Academie de Paris 84, 98–99 bombing of Paris 100 Saint-Mandé 107, 112, 125, 134–135 Parti Populaire Français 278 Parti Social Français 46, 68, 72n51, 82, 270 Pascot, Joseph “Jep” 11, 91, 94, 110–111, 151, 159, 164–165, 171, 175–176, 178, 189, 250, 263, 269–274, 277, 279 Pascot Plan 160, 174–180, 189 trial of 269–274 patronal sport 19, 45, 51–53, 55, 59, 61, 63, 160–161, 181–190, 196n96, 217–221, 297 Paxton, Robert 11, 252, 294 de Pellepoix, Louis Darquier 222, 263

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342 Index Pétain, Philippe 1, 41, 82–84, 89, 100, 104, 139–140, 175, 228, 270, 278, 288n69 Association pour Défendre la Mémoire du Maréchal Pétain 297 plural Vichy 23–24, 79, 81, 132–133, 142, 163, 221, 295 Police (French) 255, 264, 285n33 Pollard, Miranda 119, 129, 212 Popular Front 36, 40, 43–47, 55, 67, 78–81, 87–88, 107, 111, 119, 121, 128, 160, 200, 203, 207, 295, 298, 300 Sous-Secrétariat d’État aux Sports et à l’Organisation des Loisirs 43–46 postwar trials 250, 266–273 prefects 98–101, 105, 107, 142, 148 Prêtet, Bernard 12, 25n5, 41–42 principles of the reorganization of sports decentralisation 163 modernisation 77 pragmatism 159, 166, 168, 186 rationalisation 106–107, 123, 132–135, 139–140, 145, 165–166, 219, 223–224, 295 technocracy 22, 130–133, 159, 162 prisoners of war (POWs) 144, 204, 217–218, 238, 253, 271, 276 aid to POWs from clubs 218–219 professionalisation (of Sports) 36, 48–69, 158–159–163, 165–168, 170, 175, 178–179, 181, 183, 187, 212, 233, 297–299 amateurisme marron 48, 51, 59, 66, 167, 169, 188

anti-professionalism 45, 53–5, 64–66 costs of professionalism 75n102, 75n105–106 debates over professionalism in clubs 48, 54–66 defence of 173–174, 182, 189, 194n56 Élèves-moniteurs 94, 115n60 logics of professionalism 53 popularity 169, 171 postwar popularity of 180 problems of professionalism 167 usefulness to the state 171–172 propaganda 226, 249–250, 253, 276–278 Pugibet, Henri 118 Puig, Manu 271 purges (épuration) 248–249, 265–269, 273–274, 276–281 Comité Sportif Pyrénéen de Libération 268–269 numbers of 269 of the press 276–280 purge committees 249 trials 250, 266–273 racial thinking 38, 41, 43–44, 46, 129–130, 161, 281 Racing Club de Calais 62 Racing Club de France 37, 41, 49, 54–57, 100, 103, 134– 135, 198, 203–205, 208, 211–212, 215, 217, 226, 228, 238–239, 248, 250–251, 273–276, 280, 283, 299 cohabitations with the Germans 229–230, 234–237, 250, 274 construction of facilities 230–233, 237 expansion 231, 237 finances 231

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Index 343 negotiations with the Germans 230–231, 237 publications 227 rehabilitation of their reputation 273–276 resistance of members 233–235 Racing Club de Lens 45, 55, 59, 61, 63, 160–161, 181– 190, 220–221, 297 Racing Club de Paris 144, 175, 179, 200, 233 rationing 135–136, 213, 218, 253, 292 Rayman, Marcel 261 Read, Geoff 33–34 Red Star Olympique Paris 1–4, 55, 75n102, 175, 203, 282 Reichel, Frantz 49–50, 58 repression of French sporting community by the Vichy state 62, 165, 168, 175–177, 179, 214, 219, 223–224, 295, 297–298 republicanism 16, 21, 23, 32, 36–37, 78–80, 84, 88–96, 110–112, 114n45, 119–120, 162, 170, 218–219, 238, 299–300 resistance and resistance organisations 109, 112, 151–152, 205, 208–209, 221, 229, 238, 248, 252–253, 260, 273–282, 283n4, 292–294 activities 256, 261 strikes 221 athletic resistance 247–252 double game 267, 269–271, 274, 277–280, 288n69 false paperwork 143 groups Franc-Tireur et Partisans – Main d’Œuvre Immigrée (FTP-MOI) 261 Front National 247–248

Salle Géo Gras 256–257, 286n40 Guerre franco-française 257 Maquisards 255 resistance press 109, 180, 252–253, 278, 280 resisters 249–252, 256–257, 260 sport as training for 254–256, 281 sports boycotts 254 why participate 257, 263, 265 why not sport resistance 257–258 résistancialisme 228–229, 248– 250, 265, 267–268, 271, 275, 279–280, 282, 284n7, 293 rhythmic dancing 120, 128–129 Rimet, Jules 50, 52, 161, 167–168, 176, 192n29, 195n70, 229 Rivaud, Albert 123 Roberts, Mary Louise 38 Roland-Garros 104, 225, 231, 237 Roussennac, Raymond 124, 146, 210, 252 Rousso, Henry 248, 278n7, 293–294 rowing 207 rugby 4, 19, 30n45, 48–49, 55, 93, 106, 127–128, 130, 146, 191n16, 127–128, 147, 158–165, 202, 207, 209–210, 212 rugby de meutre 164 Rugby League (jeu à treize) 30n45, 146, 158–161, 163–166, 188, 299 Ligue Française de Rugby à Treize 164, 188 Rugby League ban 19, 158– 159, 163–166, 188–189, 190n5, 199, 220, 224, 299

344 Index

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rural sport 85, 92–93, 97, 100–101, 105, 108, 125, 219–220, 299 Salle Géo Gras 256–257, 286n40 Scapini, Georges 271–272 scouting 5, 38, 43, 87, 145, 211 Jewish scouts 211 Protestant scouts 141 Second World War 13, 204, 209, 251, 256–257, 294, 299 interruptions to sport 204–206 torch landings 256–257 Service du Travail Obligatoire (STO) 184, 217, 268–269, 271–272 shortages 2, 22, 42, 80, 90, 94, 104–105, 108, 111, 134–136, 148, 187, 210, 214, 252, 276 automobiles 186 food 218 of sporting equipement 183– 184, 186, 196n96, 253, 272, 293 of sportswear 213 single youth movements Jeunesse unique 84, 88, 114n27, 220, 297 Hitler Youth 8, 32, 84 sociability 56–57, 203, 206–218 social capital 213, 215, 218, 223, 238, 242n66 social networks 16, 207, 238, 258–259, 261, 264–265, 281 Société de Préparation et d’Éducation Sportive (SPES) 32, 46–47, 72n51, 223–224, 238 Negotiations with the CGEGS 223–224 The Sorrow and the Pity (Le Chagrin et le pitié) 291–293, 301n1

southwest France 163, 166, 203, 219, 255, 258, 260–261, 264, 268 Bordeaux 105, 144, 164, 171, 221, 282 Toulouse 19, 105, 134, 146, 158, 165–166, 202, 215, 252, 254 spaces of freedom 7, 21, 77, 80, 121, 142, 150, 157n108, 238, 300 spectatorship 2–4, 45, 48–64, 80, 93, 101, 160–162, 168, 171, 210–211, 272 Travel for the purposes of 210–211 Sporting-Club de Nimes 58, 61 Sporting Club Universitaire de France (SCUF) 49, 225 sport in Europe during the interwar and wartime 8–10, 13–14, 33, 40, 42, 52, 59, 62–63, 68, 97, 124–125, 188, 297–298, 301n5 immigration of players 62–63 in Germany 32, 34, 37, 44, 84, 298 in Italy 34, 298 sports medicine 134–136 Sport Ouvrier Clermontois 275–276 sports press 38, 46, 64, 77, 94, 104, 122–123, 137, 139, 160, 162, 169, 170–174, 178, 188, 204, 208–210, 221, 247–248, 252–253, 275–280, 284n18 Association International de la Presse Sportive 49 L’Auto 48, 101, 134, 162, 169–170, 174, 178, 204, 211, 250, 276–280, 289–290n103 censorship 208, 250, 276, 278 limits to the 210

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Index 345 Marchand, Jacques 216–217, 299 postwar press 109–110 practical advice for communities 103, 108 purge of the 276–280 support for professionalism 51–52, 56 sports spectacles 4, 7, 55, 57–63, 97–98, 107, 137–139, 155n66, 160, 168 sportswear and sporting goods 2, 9, 35, 50, 61, 130, 183, 196n96, 214, 271, 293 fights with Catholic sportsmen and -women over (tuniques) 213–214 shortages of 183–184, 186, 196n96, 213, 253, 272, 293 Stade Français 37, 41–42, 54, 56, 103, 164, 203, 208–210, 216, 226, 267–268, 275, 283 cohabitation 226, 267–268, 275 resisters inside of 275 Stade Rennais 216 Stade Toulousain 202, 216 students 16, 21, 45–47, 89–96, 101, 112, 118–152, 211, 229, 254, 300 cheating 143–145 resistance 142–149 student disobedience 136, 142–152 surveys with 145–146 subventions 6, 66, 109–110, 183, 214–215, 242n61, 279 surveillance 80, 120, 130–133, 148, 150, 255 swimming 4, 16–17, 35, 44, 47, 92, 98, 103, 106, 125, 128, 130–132, 146, 150–151, 200, 202, 212, 255, 261, 271

table tennis 260 teachers 6–7, 21–22, 41, 47, 77, 79–81, 86–96, 110–112, 118–121, 124–134, 136, 139, 141, 145–146, 148–152, 250, 254–255, 281, 295, 299 coaches 7, 13, 40, 47, 79, 86, 90–92, 96, 136, 142, 247–248, 250, 255, 281, 299 resistance to National Revolution 146, 149–150, 247–248 teacher training 90–93, 131, 141, 295 team sports debates over their value 120, 146–147 limitations of 127–128 tennis 4, 16, 35, 54, 82, 86, 92–93, 99–100, 104–107, 162, 165–166, 203, 205, 207, 212, 225–239, 260, 273 Tissié, Philippe 38 Todt organisation 105, 109 Tompouski, Georges 260 Toulouse Olympique 15, 158, 166, 188, 210, 252 Tour de France 57, 166 transwar 33, 281–282, 298–299 Tumblety, Joan 13, 161 Union des Sociétés Françaises de Sports Athlétiques (USFSA) 56–57, 220, 267 Union du Sport Scolaire et Universitaire (USSU) 87–88, 128, 142–144, 148, 220 Union Française de Rugby Amateur 164 Union Française des Œuvres Laïques d’Éducation Physique 220

346 Index

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Union Générale Sportive de l’Enseignement Libre 220 Union Sportive Bassin de Longwy 63 Union Sportive Vesinet 216–217 Uriage 129, 140–141, 151, 154n40, 156n74, 254 Vallet, Xavier 222 Vélodrome D’Hiver 222, 264, 279, 285n33 Vichy’s collapse 109–110, 160, 265 Vichy syndrome 293 Voivenel, Paul 164–165, 190n18, 202–203, 216 volleyball 92, 101, 106–107, 128, 200, 207, 212, 231, 255 Vuillemin, Roger 140–141 weightlifting 207 Whitney, Susan 35, 39 winning and losing 139–144, 150, 212, 228, 233 women’s physical education and sports 2, 6–7, 19, 23, 34,

42, 59–61, 75n99, 119–120, 129–130, 142, 148, 150, 152n4, 202, 207, 210, 212–214, 296 working class sport 20, 33–36, 39–53, 64–68, 135–136, 158, 164, 180–182, 202, 221, 253–254, 258–260, 275–276 World Cup 35, 52, 59, 251 World War One see First World War World War Two see Second World War wrestling 48, 128 Ybarnégaray, Jean 46, 68 Yidisher Arbeter Sport Klub (YASK) 211, 258–265, 281, 297, 299 repression by Vichy 264 youth 120–122, 134–136, 152n2 Zandkorn, Albert 260 Zay, Jean 82–84, 87–88, 111, 297