David Klemperer (Institute for Policy Research at the University of Bath) ‘Collaborationist Socialism in Nazi-Occupied France‘
Monday 5 October 2026 – IHR Modern French History Seminar
Who collaborated with the Vichy regime and the German occupier between 1940 and 1944? The question is a complicated one: working for Vichy did not necessarily mean collaboration with the Germans, and vice versa. The degrees of collaboration also varied, not least over time. But one does raise an eyebrow when hearing about ‘collaborationoist socialism’, for it is generally assumed that French collaborators were right-winged and/or extremists. This, of course, misunderstands the moment of the fall of France in June 1940, when the military defeat became an opportunity to redirect France’s political future away from republicanism and towards… something new. As David Klemperer explained on Monday evening, some socialists contributed to these discussions around a new political future, and were deeply invested in collaboration with the Germans.
In his paper, which is based on a chapter of his thesis, David Klemperer introduces us to this group of elite socialists who rallied behind the Vichy regime and the German occupier in the summer of 1940. He specifically distinguishes three strands of collaborationist socialism: Marcel Déat’s Rassemblement National Populaire (RNP) wanted to mimic Nazism in many ways, convinced (incorrectly) of the ‘socialism’ of the Third Reich’s National Socialism. At the other end was Charles Spinasse, whilst René Château (an ‘abject persona’), stoof somewhere in the middle. Whilst they each approached collaboration (and socialism) differently, it is possible to say that collaborationist socialism in Nazi-occupied France was mostly a discursive phenomenon, one rooted in the re-imagining of socialist history and of figures (not least Jean Jaurès!).
David Klemperer is a political and intellectual historian currently based at the Institute for Policy Research at the University of Bath. He previously completed a PhD in History at Queen Mary University of London, where his thesis was entitled “The Ideological Crisis of French Socialism, 1920-1946”. He is also co-editor of Renewal – a journal of social democracy.
