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The refusal to consider the Vichy regime as a legally constituted authority was a constant in the Free France founded by Charles de Gaulle.[4] Already in his Brazzaville Manifesto of 27 October 1940, the general had proclaimed that there was no longer a French government, and that "the Vichy-based organization that claims to bear this name is unconstitutional and submits to the invader",[4][a] even as he published on the same day the first Ordinance of Free France establishing the Empire Defense Council,[2] which organized "the legal authority in all parts of the [colonial] Empire liberated from control of the enemy ... based on French legislation prior to 23 June 1940."[5][4][b]
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Promulgated in Algiers by the GPRF led by General de Gaulle,[6] the ordinance expunged all trappings of legality from the Vichy regime, declaring all constitutional regulatory texts enacted by the regime of Pétain and Laval to be void ab initio,[c] beginning with the Constitutional Law of 10 July 1940. As a consequence, the GPRF did not have to explicitly proclaim the return of the Republic [fr], as the latter had never legally been dissolved.[7] More generally, this ordinance organized the conditions for the transition from the norms in force under Vichy, to republican norms, in the historical context of the Liberation.[7]
Through the text of this ordinance Free France, embodied by the GPRF and led by General de Gaulle, retroactively constituted itself as the continuous and uninterrupted extension of the French Republic. It proclaimed the Vichy regime stripped of all right to present itself as the legal successor of the Third Republic.[7]
This ordinance thus ratified the definitive victory of the government in exile established by de Gaulle as early as 1940 with the Empire Defense Council, which disputed Vichy's claim to legitimate authority, with both parties then claiming sole right to represent France during the war.
Additionally, by explicitly linking France's mode of government to the Republic, the ordinance endorsed a republican vision of France that precluded any legitimacy for a modification of this form of government.
Although the ordinance declared that all Vichy laws were null and void, as reversing all Vichy decisions during the previous four years was impractical, it also stated that only those explicitly listed were invalid.[8]
^"il n'existe plus de gouvernement proprement français" and "L'organisme sis à Vichy et qui prétend porter ce nom est inconstitutionnel et soumis à l'envahisseur."
^"les pouvoirs publics dans toutes les parties de l'Empire libérées du contrôle de l'ennemi [...] sur la base de la législation française antérieure au 23 juin 1940."
^
The Vichy laws were declared void ab initio. The intent was that this was not a repeal, which would have given credence to the fact that Vichy laws once were legitimate, but rather that they were never legal in the first place, therefore never in force.
^Paxton, Robert O. (1972). Vichy France: Old Guard and New Order, 1940-1944. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. p. 477. ISBN978-0-8041-5410-9.
Works cited
"Ordonnance du 9 août 1944 relative au rétablissement de la légalité républicaine sur le territoire continental – Version consolidée au 10 août 1944" [Law of 9 August 1944 Concerning the reestablishment of the legally constituted Republic on the mainland – consolidated version of 10 August 1944]. gouv.fr. Legifrance. 9 August 1944. Archived from the original on 16 July 2009. Retrieved 21 October 2015. Article 1: The form of the government of France is and remains the Republic. By law, it has not ceased to exist. Article 2: The following are therefore null and void: all legislative or regulatory acts as well as all actions of any description whatsoever taken to execute them, promulgated in Metropolitan France after 16 June 1940 and until the restoration of the Provisional Government of the French Republic. This nullification is hereby expressly declared and must be noted. Article 3. The following acts are hereby expressly nullified and held invalid: The so-called "Constitutional Law of 10 July 1940; as well as any laws called 'Constitutional Law';...
Conan, Eric; Rousso, Henry (1998). Vichy: An Ever-Present Past. Sudbury, Massachusetts: Dartmouth. ISBN978-0-87451-795-8., a translation of the French:
"Ordonnance du 9 août 1944 relative au rétablissement de la légalité républicaine sur le territoire continental" [Ordinance of 9 August 1944 concerning the re-establishment of republican rule of law in mainland France]. Journal officiel de la France libre [Official Gazette of Free France]. London: Free France. 20 January 1941.
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