FRANCE: For Collaboration, Death

In a tiny, jampacked chamber of Algiers’ Palais de Justice, ex-Vichyite Pierre Pucheu fought for life and honor. He was on trial for treason against France, the first high Vichyite brought to bar for trafficking with Germany. But the courtroom mirrored more than one man’s struggle. All week long, before a military tribunal headed by Judge Léon Verin, impassioned Frenchmen of the Left, Center and Right denounced and defended Vichy’s tangled, tortuous policy of collaboration.

Tall Pierre Pucheu had made many an enemy in his career as steel cartelist, Fascist fellow traveler and Vichy Minister of Interior (1941-42). Now, he was on trial for his life, charged with defeatism, lèse-patrie, the murder of French resisters, the hounding of French workers at the behest of the Nazi Reich. His accusers said that the Council of Resistance in the homeland had long ago condemned Pierre Pucheu to death. They cited repressive Vichy measures bearing Pierre Pucheu’s signature. Presumably their most telling evidence was presented in camera, lest unknown Frenchmen in France suffer.

Pierre Pucheu’s friends hurled back the accusations. They called the trial a Communist plot, decried the lack of documentary facts. General Henri Giraud raised his high, thin voice in a plea that judgment be postponed until France was free again. Gaullists testified to Pierre Pucheu’s change of heart toward the Allies just before the landing in North Africa; to support their point they cited documents from General de Gaulle’s office.

Who Has Profited? When the steam of passion and prejudice ran low, the court called for summations. Declaimed Special Prosecutor Major General Pierre Weiss: “Yes or no, has [Pucheu] favored the Germans? Yes or no, has he served the Allies? … We must ask ourselves . . . who has profited by his actions? . . . I think you must [answer]: ‘The enemy!’ . . .”

Pierre Pucheu himself had the last word. Bitterly he cried: “The majority of Frenchmen followed Pétain as long as they thought that he served France. Are they traitors or third-class patriots? . . . [My conviction will] plant the first stake in a civil war. . . . Whatever happens, vive la France!”

The judges retired to deliberate. One hour later the court buzzer sounded. Senegalese guards snapped to attention. The judges returned to their bench. Their verdict: guilty. Their sentence: death.

Before the day was out, the convicted man appealed to the high Military Court of Cassation for a new trial. Beyond that, Pierre Pucheu’s last hope would be a commutation from the tall, melancholy chief of the Committee of National Liberation, General Charles de Gaulle.