The stupidest myth about the French Resistance is that it did not take place, writes Enda O'Doherty.
The liberation of Paris from German occupation, whose 60th anniversary is being marked today, is without doubt one of the most emotionally compelling events of 20th-century history. Yet it is one which evokes not just celebration but also controversy, and among those inclined to be hostile to French national pride a scepticism or irreverence sometimes bordering on contempt.
The words Charles de Gaulle addressed to Parisians on August 25th some hours after his arrival in the city, in which he saluted a city abused, broken and martyred "but liberated by her own people" are memorable and inspiring. But are they true?
In the most literal sense of course they are perfectly factual, since Gen Eisenhower had conceded to de Gaulle that Gen Leclerc, whose French Second Armed Division made up a small element of the Normandy invasion force, should have the privilege of formally liberating the city. But was Paris, and was the nation as a whole, in any real sense liberated, as de Gaulle sonorously claimed, with the help and support of the whole of France, fighting France, true France, eternal France?
"In the second World War," the columnist Mark Steyn has written, "half of France was occupied, the rest was run by a collaborationist regime; there were a couple of dozen in the French Resistance listening to the BBC under the bed, and a gazillion on the other side, enthusiastically shipping Jews east." This is of course a typically blithe provocation, but even outside the 'Allo, 'Allo school of history there has been a tendency among many commentators to dispute the reputation of the French Resistance and to suggest that too much has been made of it precisely in order to cover up the less glorious national legacies of widespread collaboration and connivance in the deportation of French Jews.
But was resistance a myth? Or is it more accurate to say that "the Resistance" was mythologised, not invented but shaped into an appealing narrative for the benefit of those who came after in a way which should not be too unfamiliar to students of Irish, British or even American history?
To understand French resistance, in both its strengths and its weaknesses, it is first necessary to ask what resistance is for and what it is capable of. France in June 1940 suffered a rapid and devastating military defeat, following similar disasters inflicted by the Germans on Czechoslovakia, Poland, Belgium, Holland, Denmark and Norway. At this point the vast majority of the stunned French accepted the disaster and welcomed the armistice negotiated by Marshal Pétain .
One very junior general, Charles de Gaulle, did not accept defeat and, with a small number of supporters, flew to Britain in the hope of somehow continuing the fight. With the French army demobilised and virtually no arms in the hands of the non-military, there was no possibility at this stage of armed resistance.
Within months however networks began to be set up, in liaison with the "Free French" in London and the British secret services, to gather and transmit information on German troop movements and fortifications and repatriate stranded soldiers and airmen.
By autumn 1940 sabotage was occurring on a sufficient scale to encourage the occupying authorities to announce that such acts would be punished by death.
Later - and particularly after the German attack on the Soviet Union in 1941 encouraged French Communists to take up resistance - sabotage, information-gathering and propaganda were to be joined by acts of "terrorism", individual attacks on German soldiers, often unarmed or off-duty. These provoked reprisals, counter-attacks and counter-reprisals in a savage dynamic familiar to, and often welcomed by, underground fighting movements.
If individual units of resistance were throughout the war always clamorous in their calls for more arms and explosives to prosecute their fight, those in London did not always see the point of distributing scarce matériel to isolated groups whose enthusiasm was often matched by inexperience and amateurishness.
De Gaulle, as a professional soldier and former tank commander, never believed the Wehrmacht could be militarily defeated by bands of guerrillas armed with light weapons. Their actions, nevertheless, were important as propaganda of the deed just as myriad underground journals, which kept hope alive, were vital for morale. And as D-Day approached the much-accelerated rhythm of both sabotage and direct military attacks eased the way of the invading armies.
Overall, the cost of resistance was considerable. According to the figures of one British expert, Ian Ousby, 30,000 résistants were shot, 60,000 were deported and 20,000 "disappeared". If the French are naturally unwilling to have such sacrifices sneered at, they are particularly unwilling to listen to unhistorical sniping from American sources.
De Gaulle's evocation 60 years ago today of "fighting France" was undoubtedly intended as a first move in a healing process for a spiritually damaged nation. But the French did not, as is often claimed, simply cover over the extent of collaboration. Over the next nine years 1,500 collaborators were (officially) executed until it was decided the nation had had enough. Selfless heroism and selfish or craven collaboration were all facts of France's "dark years". The stupidest myth about the French Resistance is that it did not take place.
Enda O'Doherty is an Irish Times journalist