The Vichy government in occupied France during the Second World War became notorious for its collaboration with Nazi Germany and its organization of deportations of Jews and its participation in the bureaucratic mechanisms of the Holocaust.

The Vichy regime and its history continue to be highly controversial in modern French politics and the labels Vichy or collabo can be used as insults in French language. Since the 1980s, the legacy of Vichy collaboration with Nazi Germany has emerged as a key aspect in debates over French politics and historical memory, based on the historical research of Robert O. Paxton and other historians of Vichy France.

In a new op-ed piece, French historian Robert Zaretsky considers whether the history of Vichy France offers insights in to America in the Trump Era.

Zaretsky’s op-ed appears in the New York Times.