Correct me if I’m wrong, but it was my understanding that the Third Republic’s constitution was abrogated by the Constitutional Law of 1940 which gave all powers of the state to Philippe Pétain. Pétain then established the Vichy regime as a collaborationist government and decided against writing a new constitution for his regime, and that lasted until the German occupation forces decided to just take over the rest of France and rule it directly.
Yes, but there’s a conflict on its legitimacy. The question is: had the National Assembly the power to pass the constitutional law of 1940 or not? For Vichy, of course yes, and then the Third Republic stopped there. But for the Free France (the political branch of the Résistance), this law was illegal, and then the Third Republic was still the legitimate form of the French government. That’s why in 1944, at the Liberation, De Gaulle didn’t proclaimed a new Republic, but passed an ordinance reestablishing the Third one.
I think this (or similar) scenarios come up a lot in other histories as well, though. I think an analogous point would be the enactment of “An Act Declaring England to be a Commonwealth” by the English Parliament and the preceding trial and execution of Charles I. Both were retroactively deemed illegal by the restored monarchy (obviously) since the former lacked royal asset on account of the latter, which was deemed regicide. But it still happened and I think it is indisputable that the old Kingdom of England indisputably ended when the English Parliament declared a republic, despite the monarchy’s later restoration. A state can end not just by being dissolved according to its own rules, but since a state only exists in the minds of the people and is not a tangible object, it can also cease to exist when people just stop paying attention to its laws.
People can declare anything they like but it doesn’t change the reality of history. And I know this is splitting hairs at this point and the argument is starting to lose its meaning. But people have also tried re-declaring the Roman Republic twice as well.
And speaking of which, there are also questions like whether the Roman Empire was the same state as the Roman Republic (arguably yes but also arguably no), and whether the Byzantine Empire was the same state as the Roman Republic (ditto). And these are questions I am wholly unqualified to answer with any meaningful depth.
It’s a difficult debate, complicated again in the case of the Free France that the institutions against Vichy always controlled a part of the French Empire.
However, my first comment was more because I understood the way you worded your first message as “the Nazis destroyed the Vichy regime” when the Vichy regime was established by the Nazis.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but it was my understanding that the Third Republic’s constitution was abrogated by the Constitutional Law of 1940 which gave all powers of the state to Philippe Pétain. Pétain then established the Vichy regime as a collaborationist government and decided against writing a new constitution for his regime, and that lasted until the German occupation forces decided to just take over the rest of France and rule it directly.
Yes, but there’s a conflict on its legitimacy. The question is: had the National Assembly the power to pass the constitutional law of 1940 or not? For Vichy, of course yes, and then the Third Republic stopped there. But for the Free France (the political branch of the Résistance), this law was illegal, and then the Third Republic was still the legitimate form of the French government. That’s why in 1944, at the Liberation, De Gaulle didn’t proclaimed a new Republic, but passed an ordinance reestablishing the Third one.
I think this (or similar) scenarios come up a lot in other histories as well, though. I think an analogous point would be the enactment of “An Act Declaring England to be a Commonwealth” by the English Parliament and the preceding trial and execution of Charles I. Both were retroactively deemed illegal by the restored monarchy (obviously) since the former lacked royal asset on account of the latter, which was deemed regicide. But it still happened and I think it is indisputable that the old Kingdom of England indisputably ended when the English Parliament declared a republic, despite the monarchy’s later restoration. A state can end not just by being dissolved according to its own rules, but since a state only exists in the minds of the people and is not a tangible object, it can also cease to exist when people just stop paying attention to its laws.
People can declare anything they like but it doesn’t change the reality of history. And I know this is splitting hairs at this point and the argument is starting to lose its meaning. But people have also tried re-declaring the Roman Republic twice as well.
And speaking of which, there are also questions like whether the Roman Empire was the same state as the Roman Republic (arguably yes but also arguably no), and whether the Byzantine Empire was the same state as the Roman Republic (ditto). And these are questions I am wholly unqualified to answer with any meaningful depth.
It’s a difficult debate, complicated again in the case of the Free France that the institutions against Vichy always controlled a part of the French Empire.
However, my first comment was more because I understood the way you worded your first message as “the Nazis destroyed the Vichy regime” when the Vichy regime was established by the Nazis.
I will admit, that originally read “the Nazis destroyed the Third French Republic” before I changed it hastily.