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| Title: | Marshall Petain Spoke to School Children: Vichy Propaganda in French West Africa, 1940-1943 |
| Author: | Ginio, Ruth |
| Year: | 2000 |
| Periodical: | International Journal of African Historical Studies |
| Volume: | 33 |
| Issue: | 2 |
| Pages: | 291-312 |
| Language: | English |
| Geographic terms: | French-speaking Africa West Africa France |
| Subjects: | propaganda colonialism World War II History and Exploration |
| External link: | https://www.jstor.org/stable/220650 |
| Abstract: | In the summer of 1940 French colonial administrators throughout the Empire found themselves in a quandary. They had to explain to the populations under their rule that although the 'Motherland' was now partly occupied by another European power, it was still powerful enough to maintain control over their lives. The new French regime under Pétain quickly endorsed an ideology that came to be known as the 'National Revolution'. The old Republican values - Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité - were replaced by Travail, Famille, Patrie. Propaganda was the Vichy regime's primary tool in pursuing its goals. This article examines the Vichy propaganda directed at the inhabitants of an important part of the French Empire - the federation of French West Africa, or AOF - and what it reveals about Vichy colonial perceptions. It describes propaganda for the African educated elite, propaganda for the urban masses, and the use of African soldiers as a channel of propaganda for the rural masses. It shows that, in general, the main ideas of the National Revolution that were promoted in the Motherland were transmitted to Africans as well. Just as the Vichy government in France constituted a continuity of existing trends within French political theories, in French West Africa it continued and enforced the anti-assimilation trend in French colonial theory. However, an examination of the Vichy propaganda reveals two major changes from the past. First, the French colonial regime no longer had to reconcile Republican values with colonial rule, as these had been totally rejected in France. Second, whereas French colonialism did not lack paternalism before the Vichy period, the establishment of the Vichy regime enabled the colonial administration to present Africans with a fatherly figure. Notes, ref. |
