Épuration légale

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Épuration légale (French "legal epuration") is the name of a wave of trials which occurred at the Liberation, following the fall of the Vichy regime.

At the Liberation of France, the government led by De Gaulle was facing the task of rebuilding the country on sound basis, removing traitors, criminals and collaborators from office, and preventing a civil war.

While the laws of 1939 did include provisions against treason, the particular nature of events related to the Occupation of France made a number of offences unclear before the law, such as signing in the SS or the Milice. Hence, exceptional legal procurements were made : the principles set unanimously by the Conseil National de la Résistance on the 15 March 1944 called for the elimination of any person guilty of collaboration with the Nazis between the 16 June 1940 and Liberation. Such offences included, notably:

taking part in collaboration organisations
taking part in propaganda organisations
delation
any form of zeal in favour of the Germans
taking part in the black market

On the other hand, preventing a civil war meant that competent civil servants should not be taken out of office, as well as giving moderate sentences. More importantly, this prevented local Resistance movements from doing "justice" themselves, effectively setting an end to the "combative" period of the Liberation and restoration in France of normal, legal institutions. These new institutions were set on three principles:

the illegality of the Vichy regime
France still being at war with Nazi Germany: the armistice legally called for a cease fire and an end to military operations, but did not end the state of war. Hence, it remained the duty of any French to resist occupation.
retroactivity of the new texts.

On the 26 August 1944, the government published an order defining the offence of indignité nationale, and the corresponding punishment of dégradation nationale. Indignité nationale was characterised as "harming unity of France and neglecting one's national duty".

On the 18 November, the Haute Cour de Justice ("High Court of Justice") was created, with the aim of judging offences of Indignité nationale.