Pierre Laval Quotes

I want to tell you that I think this war is a great mistake. If we had come to terms with Mussolini, as I wanted to do, we might have held Germany. That is no longer possible. We have given most of Europe to Hitler. Let us try to hold on to what we have got left. I am a peasant from the Auvergne. I want to keep my farm, and I want to keep France. Nothing else matters now.

Laval is a French millionaire who has been known for many years to be a direct agent of the Nazi Government. He played a leading part in the intrigues which led to the downfall of France

When Hitler and Goebbels talk of organizing Europe, when the French 'collaborators' echo their words, we know what they mean and what they want. In present realities their European Order is nothing but the utilization of all European resources, the extraction and extortion of all we have, for the benefit of the Axis, and their so-called organization of Europe is no more than the future total enslavement of Europe by the Nazi regime

Clearly, for France in her present position, intelligent activity consists of practicing a policy of entente with Germany in order to survive

There's something Vichy about the French.

The reason that 75% of the Jews in France survived is that the French people helped us.

We can all admit that [Charles] De Gaulle is one of the biggest sons of bitches who ever straddled a pot.

I consider that France and the Republic were in London during the occupation and that the Vichy regime was not France.

I was the little French boy who grew up hearing people talk of De Gaulle and the Resistance. France against the Nazis! Then when that boy grew up, he began to uncover things. We began to legitimately ask the question, 'What exactly did our parents do during the Occupation?' We discovered it was not the story they were telling us.

When you grew up in France in the 1970s and 80s, the Vel' d'Hiv wasn't part of the history program.

In France, when there was a war, we fought and our ancestors fought, though many had real reason to flee the Germans.

When France fell in 1940, De Gaulle was a temporary brigadier general.

Deep down, the ordinary Frenchman doesn't believe that Turks, or Eastern Europeans for that matter, cherish the values he holds most dear. Nor do the French much trust that the Germans and the British have French interests at heart. Given European history -- and given what I see around me -- I can't say I blame them.

The choice is De Gaulle or anarchy.

The student of French history will recall three systems which have tried to deal with this admitted passion of the French people. The Bourbons crushed it; the Orleanists snubbed it; the Bonapartes deceived it.

The Czechoslovakian partition amounted to the complete surrender of the Western Democracies to the Nazi threat of force.

At first, an awful silence prevailed; at length, some cries of “Vive La République!” [Long Live the Republic] were heard. By degrees the voices multiplied, and in less than ten minutes, this cry, a thousand times repeated, became the universal shout of the multitude and every hat was in the air .... Many in the crowd went to the scaffold, and soaked their handkerchiefs in the Kings blood as a souvenir of the event.

I don't think that France is responsible for the Vel d'Hiv.

The best picture I can give of the French Nation, is that of Cattle before a Thunder Storm.

Since Germany seems bent upon getting rid of her brains, could not France offer to take in that “gray matter” that our neighbours seem to scorn? Could not the French government, above and beyond politics, offer Einstein, forced into exile by Germany, a chair in the College de France …

To-day the Peace Treaty was ratified at Paris; the War is over. A terrible era begins for Europe, like the gathering of clouds before a storm, and it will end in an explosion probably more terrible than that of the World War. In Germany there are all the signs of a continuing growth of nationalism.

It is with regret that I pronounce the fatal truth: Louis must die that the country may live.

The events of these last few days constitute one of the greatest defeats that this country and France have ever sustained. There can be no doubt that it is a tremendous victory for Herr Hitler.

The day France remembers that she was and must be the salvation of the human race, when she gathers her children about her and teaches them France as faith and religion, that day she will once again be alive, and as firm as the earth itself.

The French language, which has suffered much hitherto from neglect on the part of those who might have rendered it the most perfect of modern tongues, is now more capable than ever of taking its high place, owing to the great number of persons who possess a special knowledge of the advantages which it enjoys and who can augment these advantages … [I have] arranged meetings of scholars whose decisions in these matters have met with my hearty approval, and that in order to put these decisions into execution and render the French language not only elegant but capable of treating all the arts and sciences, it would only be necessary to perpetuate these gatherings. This could be done with great advantage should it please us to sanction them, to permit rules and regulations to be drawn up for the order of procedure to be observed, and to reward those who compose the association by some honorable marks of our favor.