Vichy France merges with Spain after the war

Thirded, though to explain why..

Vichy France and Franco's Spain were both Quasi-Fascist and Nationalist, their regimes included nationa lidentity as a key aspect of themselves,
so the two merging simply would'nt happen.

Not to mention the language differences and the fact that their's no reason for them to do so.
 
Thirded, though to explain why..

Vichy France and Franco's Spain were both Quasi-Fascist and Nationalist, their regimes included nationa lidentity as a key aspect of themselves,
so the two merging simply would'nt happen.

Not to mention the language differences and the fact that their's no reason for them to do so.

but is there a possibility for franco's spain attacking vichy france because of the irredentist claims like italy did?
 
but is there a possibility for franco's spain attacking vichy france because of the irredentist claims like italy did?

Given the fact that Spain has no claims on any French territory, no.

Beyond that, if Vichy France is still around after the war has ended that would mean that Nazi Germany is to and the Reich basically
is'nt going to want/let its 'allies' fight each other.
 
Possibly a wee bit more 'plausible' were Franco to die in the early 1940s and be replaced by a more outward looking and committed fascist. Franco wasn't that interested in matters outside Spain (possible exception: Gibraltar); in fact in his later years he wasn't that much interested in Spain! Also, while his views were extremely right-wing, he wasn't a fascist in the party sense (look how he used the Falange then subsumed them into his own creation).

So, would Spain have been interested in union with Vichy France if there were somebody else at the helm in Madrid? IMHO even that would be most unlikely - a friendship pact, even a limited customs union being sort of vaguely plausible.

As for Vichy France, I'm assuming a Nazi WW2 win or some sort of stalemate in Europe for Vichy to survive. If the Nazis are still in power, would they really sanction such a merger? What benefits would Vichy see in the merger?
 
Possibly a wee bit more 'plausible' were Franco to die in the early 1940s and be replaced by a more outward looking and committed fascist. Franco wasn't that interested in matters outside Spain (possible exception: Gibraltar); in fact in his later years he wasn't that much interested in Spain! Also, while his views were extremely right-wing, he wasn't a fascist in the party sense (look how he used the Falange then subsumed them into his own creation).

So, would Spain have been interested in union with Vichy France if there were somebody else at the helm in Madrid? IMHO even that would be most unlikely - a friendship pact, even a limited customs union being sort of vaguely plausible.

As for Vichy France, I'm assuming a Nazi WW2 win or some sort of stalemate in Europe for Vichy to survive. If the Nazis are still in power, would they really sanction such a merger? What benefits would Vichy see in the merger?

This is a constructive suggestion, though the absolute best way to get such a political union is to have a US/Third Reich Cold War go nuclear during the late nineteen fifties or early nineteen sixties.

I can see SAC not going the route of OT's "kill every hostile regime when we lauch against the main opponent" strategy, instead leaving enough of the Nazis' puppet states intact for the political elites in places like Vichy, Rome, Budapest etc to remain largely intact, and to consider the truly unthinkable when it came to their continued national survival. Particularly if there is a Putinesque Russian government sitting behind the Urals.
 
Vichy France was *not* the area commonly thought of as Vichy France: its authority technically covered all of metropolitan France, save for the areas directly annexed to the Reich. The demarcation line only separated areas with german military presence from areas that were not occupied, but in theory Vichy's authority extended to all of France.
 
Did Franco and Petain share the same Catholic Fascist ideology? I'm not familiar with Petain's flavor of religio-fascism, but would it have dovetailed with Franco's hyper-Catholic fascist society?

Petain was quite old during the occupation, so I doubt that Franco would have difficulty usurping political power in a rump Vichy state.

I also doubt that the language issue would have been a stumbling block per se. Franco could not have suppressed the French dialects as he suppressed Iberian dialects.

A Vichy merger with Fascist Spain is ASB, but not entirely crazy. Postwar economic pressures could create odd bedfellows.
 
Vichy France was *not* the area commonly thought of as Vichy France: its authority technically covered all of metropolitan France, save for the areas directly annexed to the Reich. The demarcation line only separated areas with german military presence from areas that were not occupied, but in theory Vichy's authority extended to all of France.

Absolutely; I was just going to say. German civil administration was extended to Alsace-Lorraine, and Italian to some scraps of Savoy, but everywhere else the civil administration was Vichist. Obviously in the middle of a war the military administration was the important thing, but a nominal Vichy government existed after 1942, up to 1945, in fact.
 
Did Franco and Petain share the same Catholic Fascist ideology? I'm not familiar with Petain's flavor of religio-fascism, but would it have dovetailed with Franco's hyper-Catholic fascist society?

Petain was quite old during the occupation, so I doubt that Franco would have difficulty usurping political power in a rump Vichy state.

I also doubt that the language issue would have been a stumbling block per se. Franco could not have suppressed the French dialects as he suppressed Iberian dialects.

A Vichy merger with Fascist Spain is ASB, but not entirely crazy. Postwar economic pressures could create odd bedfellows.
A vichy france+franco's spain(which maybe communist after the war) vs northern french allied state in the cold war this is the scenario in this timeline.
 
Did Franco and Petain share the same Catholic Fascist ideology? I'm not familiar with Petain's flavor of religio-fascism, but would it have dovetailed with Franco's hyper-Catholic fascist society?

Petain was quite old during the occupation, so I doubt that Franco would have difficulty usurping political power in a rump Vichy state.

I also doubt that the language issue would have been a stumbling block per se. Franco could not have suppressed the French dialects as he suppressed Iberian dialects.

A Vichy merger with Fascist Spain is ASB, but not entirely crazy. Postwar economic pressures could create odd bedfellows.

Franco and Pétain were friends long before the Spanish Civil War and the WWII. They met for the first time during the Rif War in Morocco in the late 20's, and since then they shared mutual respect. It's not by chance that, when France recognised Franco's regime, they appointed Pétain as ambassador in Madrid. Probably Franco felt himself more comfortable with another soldier like him than with militaristic wannabes like Hitler and Mussolini.

But the course of war marked a divergence in Vichy and spanish interests, specially regarding Franco's desires in french north african colonies.Also their respective positions towards the axis powers were decided by the circumstances. Franco had the freedom of movements that Pétain lacked. Nevertheless, after the war, Franco attempted to bring Pétain to Spain. So, if there were two leaders that could have built strong international relations in less convulse circumstances, I think those were Franco and Pétain.

This said, the possibility of Spain and France merging beyond a reactionary version of ECSC or, in the better case, EEC is ASB.


OTOH, I find extremely disturbing the link provided by the OP. It's a far right and ultra-catholic forum wich has, for example, a denialist and strongly anti-semitic article in its main page. I think that people don't deserve publicity, and of coure they are not a reliable source for anything.
 
But the course of war marked a divergence in Vichy and spanish interests, specially regarding Franco's desires in french north african colonies.Also their respective positions towards the axis powers were decided by the circumstances. Franco had the freedom of movements that Pétain lacked. Nevertheless, after the war, Franco attempted to bring Pétain to Spain. So, if there were two leaders that could have built strong international relations in less convulse circumstances, I think those were Franco and Pétain.

So the relationship between Franco and Petain would be more of a handover to Franco rather than a hostile takeover by Franco. Then again, one would have to have to ask if Charles De Gaulle would mount an attack to keep parts of France out of Franco's hands. I don't know if the French would be able to do this just after the close of WW II.

OTOH, I find extremely disturbing the link provided by the OP. It's a far right and ultra-catholic forum wich has, for example, a denialist and strongly anti-semitic article in its main page. I think that people don't deserve publicity, and of coure they are not a reliable source for anything.

I didn't realize the motives of the OP when discussing Petain and Franco's abuse of religion. My apologies. Didn't mean to fan the flames.
 
So the relationship between Franco and Petain would be more of a handover to Franco rather than a hostile takeover by Franco. Then again, one would have to have to ask if Charles De Gaulle would mount an attack to keep parts of France out of Franco's hands. I don't know if the French would be able to do this just after the close of WW II.

Weel, in my opinion if Franco had some political influence over Vichy (if he actually had it) was due to the war circumstances and Pétain's sensitive political situation. In a "normal" situation, France had more prestige, power and ability to be the dominant side in their relations with Spain. My point is that, in a peaceful situation, Pétain and Franco could have built strong ties between the two countries, based in their personal friendship. But that doesn't mean a political union, nor Franco gaining leadership over France. Pétain's France was relativelly weak only because the dissaster against the germans and the "special" international situation. But Spain was not in better shape. Any hostile spanish action is impossible. Spain had not the means to do that with the country destroyed by the civil war, and Germany was not going to tolerate it. Also, Franco had not any interest in taking over Vichy France, as far as I know. His only interest regarding Vichy France's territory, in the first moment after the fall of France, was in north Africa.




I didn't realize the motives of the OP when discussing Petain and Franco's abuse of religion. My apologies. Didn't mean to fan the flames.

I'll give him the benefit of the doubt. Honestly I believe Mimeyo himself was not aware about the nature of that forum.
 
Weel, in my opinion if Franco had some political influence over Vichy (if he actually had it) was due to the war circumstances and Pétain's sensitive political situation. In a "normal" situation, France had more prestige, power and ability to be the dominant side in their relations with Spain. My point is that, in a peaceful situation, Pétain and Franco could have built strong ties between the two countries, based in their personal friendship. But that doesn't mean a political union, nor Franco gaining leadership over France. Pétain's France was relativelly weak only because the dissaster against the germans and the "special" international situation. But Spain was not in better shape. Any hostile spanish action is impossible. Spain had not the means to do that with the country destroyed by the civil war, and Germany was not going to tolerate it. Also, Franco had not any interest in taking over Vichy France, as far as I know. His only interest regarding Vichy France's territory, in the first moment after the fall of France, was in north Africa.






I'll give him the benefit of the doubt. Honestly I believe Mimeyo himself was not aware about the nature of that forum.
I like asking ASB thingies because of my colorful imagination...
 
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