著者

平瀬 徹也

雑誌

東京女子大学比較文化研究所紀要

巻号頁・発行日

vol.65, pp.15-32, 2004

---

The fall of France in 1940 shook the world, including Japan, not only because France was a big military power on the Continent, but also because she represented parliamentary democracy as opposed to the totalitarianism of Germany and Italy. So there ensued heated debates among politicians and observers alike on the reasons why France was defeated so easily, how her power was corroded in so short a period, and so on. The present author seeks to examine the successive stages in the defeat of France and to analyze how that country's democracy responded to one of the most crucial challenges in her history, paying special attention to the role of Pierre Laval, one of the so-called "gravediggers of France".