Ophuls makes it clear that the majority of Frenchmen were neither supporters of the Germans nor members of the Resistance. Instead, they went along rather quietly with the wartime collaborationist government of Petain and Laval. The movie makes the point that France was the only nation that actually collaborated during the war and that de Gaulle’s “Free French” in London were in the embarrassing position of not being a government-in-exile, because France’s government remained in residence. Those who “went along” did so not because they were lacking in patriotism or moral backbone but because
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