Riom Trial

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Édouard Daladier
Édouard Daladier

The Riom Trial (February 19, 1942 - May 21, 1943) was an attempt by the regime of Vichy France, headed by Marshal Pétain, to prove that the leaders of the French Third Republic (1870-1940) had been responsible for France's defeat by Germany in 1940. The trial was held in the city of Riom, and had mainly political aims, namely to project the responsibility of defeat on the leaders of the Popular Front government that had been elected in 1936.

The Supreme Court of Justice, created by a July 30, 1940 decree [1], was empowered by a decree of the Vichy regime "to judge whether the former ministers or their immediate subordinates had betrayed the duties of their offices by way of acts which contributed to the transition from a state of peace to a state of war before September 1939, and which after that date worsened the consequences of the situation thus created." The period examined by the Court went from 1936 (the beginning of the Popular Front administration, under Léon Blum) to Paul Reynaud's 1940 cabinet. The trial, supported by the Nazis, had the secondary aim of demonstrating that the responsibility of the war rested with France (which had officially declared war on Germany on September 3, 1939, two days after the invasion of Poland) and not on Adolf Hitler's aggressive policies.

The trial did not go according to plan. The defendants were largely successful in rebutting the charges, and won sympathetic coverage in the international press. The trial was suspended in March 1942, and formally abandoned in May 1943.

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[edit] A political trial: judging the Third Republic and the Popular Front

The defendants at the Riom Trial were:

More than 400 witnesses were called, many of them soldiers who were supposed to testify that the Army was not adequately equipped to resist the German invasion of May 1940. It was alleged that Blum's legislation, enacted after the 1936 Matignon Accords, which had introduced the 40-hour working week and paid leave for workers and had nationalised some businesses, had undermined France's industrial and defence capacities. The Popular Front government was also held to have been weak in suppressing "subversive elements and revolutionists."

Because of the international context, including the June 1941 invasion of the USSR, and deterioration of popular support for Vichy, Marshal Pétain decided to speed up the process. He thus announced to the radio, before the opening of the trial, that he would himself condemn the guilty parties after having heard the advice of the Conseil de justice politique (Political Justice Council) which he had set up. Pétain was entitled to such an act after the Constitutional decree-act of January 27, 1941 [2]). The newly created Conseil de justice politique handed on its conclusions on October 16, 1941. Pétain then decided to withdraw the charges against Reynaud and Mandel, without explanation (both were kept in prison and handed over to the Germans, and Mandel was later murdered by French fascists), while the five others defendants were detained. After Marshal Pétain's condemnation of the political responsibles, the Riom Trial was supposed to judge the men as citizens. The President of the Court, Pierre Caous declared at the outset that the trial was not a political one, but it was widely seen as a political show trial, both in France and internationally.

[edit] Opening of the trial in February 1942

The trial began on February 19, 1942 before the Vichy regime Supreme Court of Justice, which was empowered by a decree "to judge whether the former ministers or their immediate subordinates had betrayed the duties of their offices by way of acts which contributed to the transition from a state of peace to a state of war before September 1939, and which after that date worsened the consequences of the situation thus created." The crimes with which the defendants were charged were retrospectively created: that is, at the time these acts were allegedly carried out, they were not illegal. This was contrary to the principle of Nullum crimen, nulla poena sine praevia lege poenali forbidding retroactivity of laws.

Gamelin, the former commander of the French Army, refused to recognise the right of the court to try him and maintained complete silence. La Chambre and Jacomet were minor figures. Daladier and Blum were thus left to carry the burden of the defence. Blum, who was a lawyer as well as a politician and polemicist, turned on what was widely recognised as a brilliant performance, cross-examining the government's witnesses and exposing the falsity and illegitimacy of the charges. He argued that the largest reductions in defence spending under the Third Republic had taken place under governments in which both Pétain and Pierre Laval, the Vichy Prime Minister, had held office. On the other hand, he showed that the Popular Front had made the greatest war efforts since 1918. Blum even defended the French Communist Party (PCF), declaring about Jean-Pierre Timbaud, a Communist who had been executed, along with 26 other communist hostages, in retaliation for the assassination of a Nazi official: "I was often opposed to him. However, he has been executed by a firing-squad and died singing the Marseillaise... Thus, I have nothing to add concerning the PCF." [3]

Although the court was supposed to consider only the period from 1936 to 1940, excluding military operations from September 1939 to June 1940, the defendants refused to accept this and demonstrated how the responsibility of the defeat of 1940 rested mainly on failures of the French general staff. They also showed that the June 1940 armistice had been signed although the French Army still possessed considerable forces in metropolitan France.

[edit] The press and the May 1943 suspension of the trial

Journalists from neutral countries were allowed to cover the trial, and their reports praised the conduct of the defendants, particularly Blum, and condemned the basis of the trial, although they conceded that Caous conducted the trial itself fairly. This generated sympathy for the defendants in many countries: Eleanor Roosevelt sent Blum a telegram on his birthday in 1942, and on December 7, 1942, The New York Times published an article titled "For Léon Blum". The state-controlled press in France, however, reported the opening of the trial with great fanfare, but thereafter reported less and less of the proceedings, as most of them were unfavourable to the regime.

By April the Germans were increasingly exasperated by what they saw as the incompetent conduct of the trial. Hitler declared on March 15, 1942: "What we were waiting from Riom is an official stance on the responsibility for the war itself!", and decided that the trial should be stopped in order to avoid further disappointment. The German Ambassador, Otto Abetz, on orders from Germany, told Laval that the trial was having harmful effects and should be abandoned.

On 14 April 1942 the trial was thus suspended, allegedly so that "additional information" could be obtained. It was formally ended on 21 May 1943. Blum and Daladier were later deported to Germany and kept in Buchenwald concentration camp, where they remained until the end of the war when they were liberated by Allied forces.

[edit] References

  1. ^ Acte constitutionnel n°5 du 30 juillet 1940
  2. ^ Acte constitutionnel n°7 du 27 janvier 1941
  3. ^ Le Procès de Riom: Eloge de Jean-Pierre Timbaud et des combattants de Stalingrad, Léon Blum's statement in favor of Jean-Pierre Timbaud during the trial. (French)

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