Coins of Vichy France 5 Francs 1941 Marshal Petain
Obverse : Bust of Pétain, facing left; "PHILIPPE PETAIN MARECHALL DE FRANCE", above and "CHEF DE L'ETAT + L. BAZOR", below.
Engraver: Lucien Georges Bazor
Reverse: The personal emblem of Philippe Pétain was a stylised francisca, which was featured on an order of merit and was used as Vichy France's informal emblem, between 5 and F., (date 1941) below between cornucopia and wing all between two cornucopias.
Lettering: TRAVAIL FAMILLE PATRIE 5 F P PETAIN 1941 ESSAI
Engraver: Lucien Georges Bazor
Face value: 5 Francs.
Metal Copper-nickel
Weight 4 g
Diameter 22 mm
Emblem of Philippe Pétain, chief of state of the French State (Vichy France), featuring the motto Travail, Famille, Patrie (Work, Family, Fatherland). The Francisque was only Pétain's personal emblem but was also gradually used as the regime's informal emblem on official documents.
Philippe Petain
Philippe Pétain, in full Henri-Philippe Benoni Omer Joseph Pétain (born April 24, 1856, Cauchy-à-la-Tour, France — died July 23, 1951, Île d’Yeu), French general who was a national hero for his victory at the Battle of Verdun in World War I but was discredited as chief of state of the French government at Vichy in World War II. He died under sentence in a prison fortress.
Born into a family of farmers in northern France, Pétain, after attending the local village school and a religious secondary school, was admitted to Saint-Cyr, France’s principal military academy. As a young second lieutenant in an Alpine regiment, sharing the rough outdoor life of his men, he came to understand the ordinary soldier. The extraordinary popularity he was later to enjoy with the rank and file in World War I is believed to have had its origin there.
His advancement until the outbreak of World War I in 1914 — he was 58 when he finally became a general — was slow because as a professor at the War College he had propounded tactical theories opposed to those held by the high command. While the latter favoured the offensive at all costs, Pétain held that a well-organized defensive was sometimes called for and that before any attack the commander must be sure of the superiority of his fire power.
After successively commanding a brigade, a corps, and an army, Pétain in 1916 was charged with stopping the German attack on the fortress city of Verdun. Though the situation was practically hopeless, he masterfully reorganized both the front and the transport systems, made prudent use of the artillery, and was able to inspire in his troops a heroism that became historic. He became a popular hero, and, when serious mutinies erupted in the French army following the ill-considered offensives of General Robert-Georges Nivelle, then French commander in chief, Pétain was named his successor.
He reestablished discipline with a minimum of repression by personally explaining his intentions to the soldiers and improving their living conditions. Under him the French armies participated in the victorious offensive of 1918, led by Marshal Ferdinand Foch, generalissimo of the Allied armies. Pétain was made a marshal of France in November 1918 and was subsequently appointed to the highest military offices (vice president of the Supreme War Council and inspector general of the army).
Following the German attack of May 1940 in World War II, Paul Reynaud, who was then head of the government, named Pétain vice premier, and on June 16, at the age of 84, Marshal Pétain was asked to form a new ministry. Seeing the French army defeated, the “hero of Verdun” asked for an armistice. After it was concluded, the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate, meeting in Vichy, conferred upon him almost absolute powers as “chief of state.”
With the German army occupying two-thirds of the country, Pétain believed he could repair the ruin caused by the invasion and obtain the release of the numerous prisoners of war only by cooperating with the Germans. In the southern part of France, left free by the armistice agreement, he set up a paternalistic regime the motto of which was “Work, Family, and Fatherland.” Reactionary by temperament and education, he allowed his government to promulgate a law dissolving the Masonic lodges and excluding Jews from certain professions.
He was, however, opposed to the policy of close Franco-German collaboration advocated by his vice premier Pierre Laval, whom he dismissed in December 1940, replacing him with Admiral François Darlan. Pétain then attempted to practice a foreign policy of neutrality and delay. He secretly sent an emissary to London, met with the Spanish dictator Francisco Franco, whom he urged to refuse free passage of Adolf Hitler’s army to North Africa, and maintained a cordial relationship with Admiral William Leahy, the U.S. ambassador to Vichy until 1942.
When, in April 1942, the Germans forced Pétain to take Laval back as premier, he himself withdrew into a purely nominal role. Yet he balked at resigning, convinced that, if he did, Hitler would place all of France directly under German rule. After Allied landings in November 1942 in North Africa, Pétain secretly ordered Admiral Darlan, then in Algeria, to merge the French forces in Africa with those of the Allies. But, at the same time, he published official messages protesting the landing. His double-dealing was to prove his undoing.
In August 1944, after the liberation of Paris by General Charles de Gaulle, Pétain dispatched an emissary to arrange for a peaceful transfer of power. De Gaulle refused to receive the envoy. At the end of August the Germans transferred Pétain from Vichy to Germany. Brought to trial in France for his behaviour after 1940, he was condemned to death in August 1945. His sentence was immediately commuted to solitary confinement for life. He was imprisoned in a fortress on the Île d’Yeu off the Atlantic coast, where he died at the age of 95.
Travail, Famille, Patrie" - "Work, Family, Fatherland"
Travail, famille, patrie (English: Labor, family, fatherland) was the tripartite motto of the French State (usually known as Vichy France) during World War II. It replaced the republican motto, Liberté, égalité, fraternité of the Third French Republic.
The Law of 10 July 1940 gave Marshal Pétain full powers to draw up a constitution before being submitted to the Nation and guaranteeing "the rights of Work, of the Family and of the Homeland (la Patrie)". That constitution was never promulgated.
The motto Travail, Famille, Patrie was originally that of the Croix-de-Feu, then of the Parti social français (PSF or French Social Party) founded by Colonel de La Rocque.
It has often been written that these three words express the Révolution nationale (RN), the National Revolution undertaken by the Vichy regime.
Travail (Work)
On 24 April 1941 Marshal Pétain officially inaugurated 1 May as the fête du Travail et de la Concorde sociale, the day on which work and mutual understanding were celebrated.
The regime won over some trades unionists for the drawing up of a Work Charter. In it they declared themselves against both capitalism and socialism - the pétainist regime advocated the finding of a third way.
It is often told that in 1941 the Vichy Government set up a retirement system; the allowance for old, waged workers, but actually it renewed the old contribution-based retirement system which was devalued by inflation and extraordinary expenses.
Famille (Family)
The regime wrote Mothers’ Day into the calendar. With regard to the family, there had been continuity rather than a break with the family policy of the period of the Daladier government, which continued through the Pétain years; into the Fourth Republic.
Patrie (Homeland)
The nationalism of Pétain, who saw himself as maintaining the tradition of the victorious nationalism of 1918, did not stop his collaborating with the Nazi regime. Until he died, he kept a certain degree of germanophobia of the sort expressed by Charles Maurras. He had no pro-German or anti-British record from before the war. Several times, he restated that he regarded himself as the ally and friend of Great Britain. In his broadcast of 23 June 1940, he reproached Winston Churchill for the speech made by Churchill on 22 June 1940, following the signature of the armistice on that day.