Vichy’s anti-Jewish laws originated from French sources, not German coercion

Evidence

The myth that Pétain’s anti-Jewish legislation was forced upon him by the Reich, which took in almost the whole of French Jewry, has been exploded on the French side itself. See especially Yves Simon, La Grande crise de la République Française: observations sur la vie politique des français de 1918 à 1938, Montreal, 1941. — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 2098

Categorization

• XREF: Directly parallels the ‘forced by Reich’ exculpation myth Arendt will dismantle for totalitarian collaboration generally; also ties to the Algerian-system racial-administration genealogy.