In a moment of high Gallic drama, President Charles de Gaulle entered the resort town of Vichy fortnight ago for the first time since World War II, emotionally told a cheering crowd: "We are a single people, the great, the only, the unique French people." This statement, delivered in the seat of Marshal Henri Philippe Pétain's wartime collaborationist government, seemed to most Frenchmen to be De Gaulle's way of saying that the time had come to forgive and forget World War II collaboration with the Germans. Last week his countrymen learned once again how risky it is to interpret their unbending...
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