Small symbolic defiances sustained French morale under Occupation

Evidence

There was much encouragement to be found in miniature rebellions such as those of Jean Paulhan — one of their group — who left small anti-collaborationist poems signed only with his initials lying around on café tables or post-office counters. Other Parisians made similar gestures: forbidden to fly tricolour flags on Bastille Day, for example, people would find ways of bringing red, white and blue together, perhaps on a colourful scarf, or by wearing a red jacket together with a blue purse and white gloves. It all mattered. — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 469

Categorization

• XREF: Echoes the theme in my reading on ritual small acts and everyday resistance; connects to the France chapter of Vidal Gore’s Eighteen Seventy’s milieu. — connects to: Occupation-era French intellectuals cultivated deliberate rudeness toward Germans as patriotic resistance — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café: Freedom,…, 472; American culture signified freedom and defiance during the Occupation. — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café: Freedom,…, 536; Paris cafés functioned as practical and social necessities during wartime — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café: Freedom,…, 477
• CANDY: The red jacket, blue purse, white gloves detail is a light, self-contained story to retell.

Broader Connections

• Occupation-era French intellectuals cultivated deliberate rudeness toward Germans as patriotic resistance #exemplifies (0.93) — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 472
• American culture signified freedom and defiance during the Occupation. #expands (0.80) — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 536