| Unit Name: | Milice française |
| Type: | Paramilitary militia |
| Role: | Anti-partisan duties in Axis-controlled France |
| Size: | – |
| March: | French: Le Chant des Cohortes |
| Battles: | |
| Commander1: | Pierre Laval |
| Commander2: | Joseph Darnand |
| Commander2 Label: | Commander |
The French: Milice française (French Militia), generally called French: la Milice (; pronounced as /fr/), was a political paramilitary organization created on 30 January 1943 by the Vichy régime (with German aid) to help fight against the French Resistance during World War II. The Milice's formal head was Vichy France's Prime Minister Pierre Laval (in office 1942 to 1944), although its chief of operations and de facto leader was Secretary General Joseph Darnand. The French: Milice participated in summary executions and assassinations, helping to round up Jews and French: résistants in France for deportation. It was the successor to Darnand's fr| [[Service d'ordre légionnaire]] (SOL) militia (founded in 1941). The fr | Milice was the Vichy régime's most extreme manifestation of fascism.[2] Ultimately, Darnand envisaged the fr | Milice as a fascist single-party political movement for the French State.[3]
fr | Milice members frequently used torture to extract information or confessions from those whom they interrogated. The French Resistance considered the fr | Milice more dangerous than the Gestapo or SS because its staff were native Frenchmen who understood local dialects fluently, had extensive knowledge of the towns and countryside, and knew local people and informants.[4] [5]
Early Milice volunteers included members of France's pre-war far-right parties, such as the Action Française, and working-class men convinced of the benefits of the Vichy government's politics. In addition to ideology, incentives for joining the Milice included employment, regular pay and rations, the latter of which became particularly important as the war continued and civilian rations dwindled to near-starvation levels. Some joined because members of their families had been killed or injured in Allied bombing raids or had been threatened, extorted or attacked by French Resistance groups. Still others joined for more mundane reasons: petty criminals were recruited by being told their sentences would be commuted if they joined the organization, and Milice volunteers were exempt from transportation to Germany as forced labour.[6] Official figures are difficult to obtain, but several historians including Julian T. Jackson estimate that the Milice's membership reached 25,000–30,000 by 1944. The majority of members were not full-time militiamen, but devoted only a few hours per week to their Milice activities.[7] The Milice had a section for full-time members, the Franc-Garde, who were permanently mobilized and lived in barracks.[7]
The Milice also had youth sections for boys and girls, called the Avant-Garde.[7]
The chosen emblem for the Milice carried the Greek letter γ (gamma), the symbol of the Aries astrological sign in the Zodiac, ostensibly representing rejuvenation, and replenishment of energy. The color scheme chosen was silver in blue background within a red circle for ordinary miliciens, white in black background for the arm-carrying militants, and white in red background for the active combatants.
Their march was
Le Chant des Cohortes.[8]Milice troops (known as miliciens) wore a blue uniform jacket and trousers, a brown shirt and a wide blue beret. (During active paramilitary-style operations, an Adrian helmet was used, which commonly featured the emblem, either painted on or as a badge) Its newspaper was Combats (not to be confused with the underground Resistance newspaper, Combat). The Milice's armed forces were officially known as the Franc-Garde. Contemporary photographs show the Milice armed with a variety of weapons captured from Allied forces.
| Insignia | Rank | Translation |
|---|---|---|
| No insignia | French: Sécretaire général(Joseph Darnand) | Secretary general |
| No insignia | French: Sécretaire général adjoint | Assistant secretary general |
| French: Délégué général de la milice en Zone nord | General delegate in the Northern Zone | |
| French: Chef régional | Regional commander | |
| French: Chef régional adjoint | Assistant regional commander | |
| French: Chef départemental | Department commander | |
| French: Chef départemental adjoint | Assistant department commander | |
| French: Chef de centre | Commander of a center (regiment) | |
| French: Chef de centre adjoint | Assistant commander of a center | |
| French: Chef de cohorte | Battalion commander | |
| French: Chef de cohorte adjoint | Assistant battalion commander | |
| French: Chef de centaine | Company commander | |
| French: Chef de centaine adjoint | Assistant company commander | |
| French: Chef de trentaine | Platoon leader | |
| French: Chef de trentaine adjoint | Assistant platoon leader | |
| French: Chef de groupe (cohorte) | Section leader (battalion) | |
| French: Chef de groupe (centaine) | Section leader (company) | |
| French: Chef de dizaine | Squad leader | |
| French: Chef de dizaine adjoint | Assistant squad leader | |
| French: Chef de main | Team leader | |
| French: Chef de main adjoint | Assistant team leader | |
| French: Franc-garde | Free guard | |
| Sources:[10] [11] |
The Resistance targeted individual French: miliciens for assassination, often in public areas such as cafés and streets. On 24 April 1943 they shot and killed Paul de Gassovski, a French: milicien in Marseille. By late November, Combat reported that 25 French: miliciens had been killed and 27 wounded in Resistance attacks.
The most prominent person killed by the Resistance was Philippe Henriot, the Vichy regime's Minister of Information and Propaganda, who was known as "the French Goebbels". He was killed in his apartment in the Ministry of Information on the rue Solferino in the predawn hours of 28 June 1944 by résistants dressed as miliciens. His wife, who was in the same room, was spared. The Milice retaliated for this by killing several well-known anti-Nazi politicians and intellectuals (such as Victor Basch) and prewar conservative leader Georges Mandel.
The Milice initially operated in the former Zone libre of France under the control of the Vichy regime. In January 1944, the radicalized Milice moved into what had been the zone occupée of France (including Paris). They established their headquarters in the old Communist Party headquarters at 44 rue Le Peletier and at 61 rue Monceau. (The house was formerly owned by the Menier family, makers of France's best-known chocolates.) The Lycée Louis-Le-Grand was occupied as a barracks, and an officer candidate school was established in the Auteuil synagogue.
Perhaps the largest and best-known operation undertaken by the Milice was the Battle of Glières, its attempt in March 1944 to suppress the Resistance in the département of Haute-Savoie (in southeastern France, near the Swiss border).[12] The Milice could not overcome the Resistance, and called in German troops to complete the operation. On Bastille Day, 14 July 1944, the Franc-Garde suppressed a revolt started by prisoners at Paris prison La Santé, killing 34 prisoners.[13]
The legal standing of the Milice was never clarified by the Vichy government; it operated parallel to (but separate from) the Groupe mobile de réserve and other Vichy French police forces. The Milice operated outside civilian law, and its actions were not subject to judicial review or control.
In August 1944, as the tide of war was shifting and fearing he would be held accountable for the operations of the Milice, Marshal Philippe Pétain sought to distance himself from the organization by writing a harsh letter rebuking Darnand for the organization's "excesses." Darnand's response suggested that Pétain ought to have voiced his objections sooner.
After the Allied Liberation of France, French collaborators began fleeing the Allied advance in the west.[14] During a period of unofficial reprisals immediately following on the German retreat, large numbers of miliciens were executed, either individually or in groups. Milice offices throughout France were ransacked, with agents often being brutally beaten and then thrown from office windows or into rivers before being taken to prison. At Le Grand-Bornand, French Forces of the Interior executed 76 captured members of the Milice on 24 August 1944.[15]
Those Frenchmen who managed to escape to Germany and were serving in the German Navy, the National Socialist Motor Corps (NSKK), the Organisation Todt and the Milice security police became part of a new unit known as the Waffen Grenadier Brigade of the SS Charlemagne (Waffen-Grenadier-Brigade der SS Charlemagne).[14] The unit also included some remaining personnel from the disbanded Legion of French Volunteers Against Bolshevism (LVF) and the SS-Volunteer Sturmbrigade France (SS-Freiwilligen Sturmbrigade "Frankreich").[14] Later in February 1945, the unit was renamed the Charlemagne Division of the Waffen-SS. At this time it had a strength of 7,340 men: 1,200 men from the LVF, 1,000 from the Sturmbrigade, 2,500 from the Milice, 2,000 from the NSKK, and 640 who were former Kriegsmarine and naval police.[16] Some of its surviving members were among the last defenders of Hitler's bunker, fighting suicidally to the end in the ruins of Berlin.
An unknown number of miliciens managed to escape prison or execution, either by going underground or fleeing abroad. A few were later prosecuted. The most notable of these was Paul Touvier, the former commander of the Milice in Lyon. In 1994, he was convicted of ordering the retaliatory execution of seven Jews at Rillieux-la-Pape. He died in prison two years later.