A mass for Pétain The Vichy hymn resurfaces in France

In Verdun, far-right activists sang the hymn of the Vichy regime after a mass held for a wartime collaborator. What is this? A stunt by political fringe figures—or yet another sign of the Fifth Republic’s deepening crisis?

A controversial mass

On November 15, a mass was held in the cathedral of Verdun for Philippe Pétain, the convicted Nazi collaborator. The service was requested by the Association for the Defence of the Memory of Marshal Pétain (ADMP). After the mass, Pierre-Nicolas Nups, a former parliamentary candidate from the far-right party Party of France (PdF), performed the Vichy-era hymn Maréchal, nous voilà! (“Marshal, we are here!”) in front of journalists’ cameras.

The song praises Marshal Pétain—who aligned himself with Hitler—as the “saviour of France” who “restored hope for the nation’s rebirth.”

Initially, the mayor of Verdun banned the event, but the administrative court in Nancy lifted the ban the day before. Officially, the gathering was meant to honour Pétain as a hero of the Battle of Verdun during the First World War.

The former candidate, by performing the Vichy hymn, made it clear which of the marshal’s “merits” are being placed front and centre. In addition, the ADMP president, Jacques Boncompain, told journalists as he left the cathedral that Pétain was “the first fighter of the Resistance in France” and “the greatest servant of France in the 20th century.”

Around two dozen people attended the service, while roughly one hundred anti-fascist and trade union activists gathered to protest the commemoration of Pétain. With loud clapping and chants of “No mass for Pétain, no to fascists in Verdun,” they effectively drowned out the event. Among the protesters were several elected officials wearing tricolour sashes, including the mayor of Verdun, Samuel Hazard. A unit of 20 gendarmes was deployed to prevent disturbances.

But was this stunt really worth so much attention?

There is hardly anyone further to the right

The Party of France is a marginal political group that split from the National Front (National Rally since 2018). Its most radical activists were led away from Marine Le Pen by the former National Front secretary-general, Carl Lang. In 2017, Lang and other far-right figures, including Jean-Marie Le Pen, attempted to run on a joint list against his daughter. Incidentally, Marine expelled her father from the very party he founded precisely because he defended Pétain. Another Party of France figure, Alexandre Gabriac, was removed from the National Front for a photo in which he posed with a Nazi salute.

Nups has not been shy about displaying a penchant for fascist folklore. In April 2023, during a protest against Éric Zemmour’s visit to Nancy, the politician—together with monarchists from Action Française—performed the same hymn and chanted “Marshal, we are here!” while taking cover behind a line of gendarmes.

During the 2024 parliamentary elections, the Party of France made headlines again with a scandal. Once more it was Nups who caused the uproar, campaigning in Lorraine under racist slogans. His posters featured a blond, blue-eyed boy alongside the slogan: “Let’s give white children a future!”

Previously, Nups had been sentenced by the criminal court in Nancy to six months’ suspended imprisonment and five years’ disqualification from holding public office for inciting hatred.

A service against humanity

Following the mass, the prosecutor’s office launched an investigation. The organisers are being examined for denial of crimes against humanity and for using a religious venue for political purposes, punishable by up to one year in prison and a €45,000 fine. The priest who conducted the mass, Gautier Luquin, is also suspected of inciting a church official to resist the enforcement of laws or acts of state authority.

The prefect of the Meuse department is considering filing a complaint against two individuals who “constantly harassed the police” during the event.

The mindset of the organisers is revealed in a piece in the far-right magazine Rivarol, whose editor sits on the party’s Politburo: “The vile and disgusting republican, Judeo-Masonic regime… Today they want to ban the mass for Pétain. But tomorrow they may ban it for Jean-Marie Le Pen, for Maurras, for Franco, and for Salazar…”

The incident has already been condemned by the Minister of the Interior, Laurent Nuñez. The leader of the National Rally, Jordan Bardella, also said he felt embarrassed by the honours paid to “Marshal Pétain, who shook hands with Hitler and handed over the honour and dignity of our country to the German occupiers.”

Moderate right-wingers fear that the antics of the odious radicals are undermining their own respectability. Rivarol called the leaders of the National Rally “traitors, corrupt cowards, and scoundrels.”

According to recent polls, Jordan Bardella (37%) and Marine Le Pen (36%) are leading voter preferences.

These are the results of Emmanuel Macron’s second term, during which more and more citizens are confronting serious problems. Against this backdrop, 90% of French people believe the country is in decline, and 48% are open to considering forms of government “alternative to democracy.” This, in turn, activates the traditional mechanism of redirecting discontent toward nationalism, anti-Semitism, and Islamophobia.

Equally striking is the fact that in early November, Nups and two of his associates were acquitted by the court in Nancy over the “white children” posters—despite the prosecution supporting the charges.

Over the past two years, attacks by far-right groups on their ideological opponents have increased in Nancy. Conflicts have even occurred within the police on racial grounds, leading to convictions of several officers.

On June 11, 2024, during early elections, an unprecedented incident occurred: a group of masked radicals tried to block a demonstration against right-wing extremism. When they were repelled, they retreated behind a police cordon—and then, effectively alongside the police, attacked the demonstrators. The police used tear gas, while the right-wingers wielded belts with buckles.

The day after the mass, on November 17, militants from the group La Digue attacked students at the University of Southern Brittany in Lorient who were covering up their graffiti. The attackers beat several people with telescopic batons before fleeing. Three of them were later arrested. The aggression of these radicals is clearly intensifying.

Stripping the nation of its dignity

Marshal Pétain was one of the main architects of France’s capitulation to Germany. After he assumed leadership of the government, the armistice was signed. France became an authoritarian state, with Pétain acting as a local “Führer” wielding dictatorial powers. The republican system was abolished. Far-right claims that Pétain “saved the Jews” do not withstand scrutiny.

The death toll was lower thanks to the help of the population—leftists, Catholics, and Protestants—but not the regime. Pétain’s “National Revolution” included anti-Semitic laws. During the 1942 Vel’ d’Hiv roundup, the police arrested 13,000 Jews, a third of them children. Fewer than a hundred survived. The French Volunteer Legion and the SS Charlemagne Division fought alongside the Third Reich.

Pétain’s capitulation and the subsequent regime were the result not only of military defeat but also of the widespread influence of far-right ideas and pro-Hitler sympathies among the elites.

In 1945, Pétain was stripped of his national dignity and sentenced to death, a sentence later commuted to life imprisonment by Charles de Gaulle. Every year on  July 23, nationalists gather at his grave on Île d’Yeu. This year marked the 80th anniversary of his trial.

Amid the current crisis, attempts to reassess Pétain’s role increasingly alarm society. In 2023, when Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne referred to the National Rally as “heirs of Pétain,” Macron rebuked her, saying such “words from the ’90s” are unacceptable.

“The fight against the far right no longer relies on moral arguments,” the president believes. In his view, criticism should focus on the “content and inconsistency” of their programme.

For inconsistency in implementing the nationalist agenda? Or for insufficient support for Macron's supporters in parliament?

As for the latest episodes involving far-right activists, they are likely testing just how far they can go. Against the backdrop of rising parliamentary radicals and growing tension, street-level activity by right-wing groups is expected to increase. In a France increasingly engulfed in crisis, this dynamic could quickly take on a threatening dimension.