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Translator's Introduction
A chastened France emerged from the occupation to face the world. Paris was liberated not by itself, as De Gaulle proclaimed on 25 August 1944, but by the Allied armies. Few French people at the time would have said that their nation behaved heroically during the war. If outright collaboration was rare, resistance was far less common than revisionist myths would have us believe. How could France hope to play a role in the postwar reconstruction of Europe, given its sorry record?
Published in November 1944 in La France libre, a Gaullist journal founded in London by André Labarthe and Raymond Aron, "Paris sous l'Occupation" was Sartre's attempt to justify his country's inactivity-the ease with which he and his fellow citizens accommodated themselves to the Germans-for four long years. It is a fascinating piece of political analysis: poignant, tortured, and unflinchingly honest-all this from a thinker who is not generally known for humility. Addressing himself to an audience outside of France, Sartre presents a somber account of the Parisian experience of occupation. "[E]very choice was a bad choice," he admits, "and yet it was necessary to choose and we are responsible." In this admission may be found, perhaps, the impetus for Sartre's postwar career as a champion of left-wing causes and outspoken critic of colonialist regimes.
L. L.
ARRIVING IN PARIS, many English and Americans are surprised to find us less thin than they imagined. They have seen the elegant dresses that appear to be new, the suits that, from afar, still seem fashionable; rarely have they encountered that paleness of face, that bodily decline that normally signifies starvation. Their solicitude, since it has been deceived, turns to rancor: I believe that they are dismayed not to find us conforming to the pathetic image they had formed of us in advance. Perhaps some of them even asked themselves, in their heart of hearts, whether the occupation was as terrible as all that, if, all things considered, France did not take advantage of the defeat to stay out of the game and now hopes to regain her place as a great power without having merited it by great sacrifices; perhaps they have thought, along with the Daily Express, that the French, in comparison to...