June 1940. France, invaded by Germany, is in full collapse. On June 10, the public authorities left Paris for Touraine and then for Bordeaux. The president of the Council, Paul Reynaud, refuses the armistice and wishes to continue the fight outside the metropolis. But isolated in his own government, he finally decided to resign on June 16, leaving room for Marshal Pétain, vice-president of the Council, whom Reynaud himself had called by his side after the start of the German offensive.
Read also: Emmanuel Berl and Françoise Hardy, the improbable friendship
The story of these dramatic days is told to us in detail by a leading witness: Emmanuel Berl. Born in 1892 into a family of the Jewish bourgeoisie, Berl had a brilliant career as a journalist, essayist and historian. A feather for various politicians, a man of the left, although difficult to classify, a pacifist convinced after his experience in the trenches in 14-18, he rubbed shoulders with everyone in the political, intellectual and artistic world from the interwar period.
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