Sport and physical culture in Occupied France: Authoritarianism, agency, and everyday life

358 Pages·2022·8.727 MB·English

by  Keith Rathbone

Sport and physical culture in Occupied France
Edited by
Máire Cross, David Hopkin and Jennifer Sessions
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Sport and physical culture in
Occupied France
Authoritarianism, agency, and
everyday life
Keith Rathbone
Manchester University Press
Copyright © Keith Rathbone 2022
The right of Keith Rathbone to be identified as the author
of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with
the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
Published by Manchester University Press
Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PL
www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the
British Library
ISBN 978 1 5261 5328 9 hardback
First published 2022
The publisher has no responsibility for the persistence or
accuracy of URLs for any external or third-party internet
websites referred to in this book, and does not guarantee
that any content on such websites is, or will remain,
accurate or appropriate.
Front cover:
Éducation Générale et Sports, January 1942.
Bibliothèque Nationale de France.
Typeset
by New Best-set Typesetters Ltd
Contents
List of figures page vi
Acknowledgements viii
Introduction 1
1 The interwar battle between amateurism and
professionalism: the use of physical education and
sports by the French left and right 31
2 Building the world they wanted: bureaucrats,
teachers, and athletic fields in Vichy 77
3 Playground politics, childhood disobedience, and
Vichy’s National Revolution 118
4 Why rugby and not football? Vichy anti-
professionalism and the sporting environment
of wartime France 158
5 The resilience of communities: agency and
autonomy in wartime sporting associations 198
6 French sporting associations and the creation of
the myth of résistancialisme 247
Conclusion 291
Archival sources 302
Bibliography 316
Index 333
Figures
0.1 Julian Durai intercepts a crossed ball, 17 May
1942 (La Coupe de France de football) Le Matin
(Paris), 18 May 1942 4
0.2 Rise in number of football licences, 1930–1943
(B. Prêtet, ‘Sportifs et sports en France
1940–1945’ (Ph.D. Thesis, Université Paris Ouest
Nanterre, 2014)) 5
0.3 Demarcation lines in Occupied France (Wikimedia
Commons) 18
2.1 Philippe Pétain (with cane) and Jean Borotra open
a sporting field in Billezois (Institut National du
Sport, de l’Expertise et de la Performance (INSEP)
‘Terrains scolaires d’éducation physique et
sportive’ (July 1941)) 83
2.2 Type E1 sporting field – the smallest predesigned
sporting facility blueprint produced by the Sports
Ministry (Archives nationale de Pierrefitte, AN
17F14465 ‘Type E1’ (undated)) 102
3.1 Pedagogical handbook for primary schools
featuring Hébertist exercises. (Institut d’histoire du
temps présents, IHTP ARC 074-119 ‘Comment
organiser dès maintenant l’Éducation physique et
sportive à l’École primaire’.) 126
3.2 Doctors test young men’s lungs at the Racing
Club de France (‘Allons … lentement … encore un
Figures vii
effort’ (Let’s go … slowly … still an effort) L’Auto
(Paris), 5 February 1941) 135
3.3 Schoolchildren participate in the Oath of the
Athlete. (Bibliothèque nationale de France, BNF
4-V-14352, ‘Le Serment de l’athlète dans toute la
France’, Éducation générale et sports: revue
officielle du Commissariat général à l’éducation
générale et aux sports (17 May 1942).) 138
5.1 Growing membership at the Racing Club from
1882 until 1945. (Racing club de France, RCF
Archives ‘Assemblée générale ordinaire du Racing
club de France’ (1944).) 232
6.1 Martyred members of the Yidisher Arbeter Sport
Klub (Mémorial de la Shoah, CDJC ML_A2_90
‘Trente-sept résistants morts pendant l’occupation,
anciens membres du club sportif YASK’ (undated)) 262
Acknowledgements
In the years between 1940 and 1944, the number of registered
football players jumped from one hundred and sixty thousand to
more than two hundred and forty thousand. The growth of soccer
in spite of the difficulties of the Occupation struck me as strange,
and I took the lived experience of these athletes, playing games in
the midst of the Vichy period, as the subject of my research. It
would have been impossible to complete this book without the help
of numerous other people: colleagues, friends, archivists, and family
members. All gave generously with their time and energy. Any mistakes
or errors of fact or interpretation are my own and mine alone.
My first debt goes out to my colleagues at Macquarie University,
especially Kate Fullagar, Clare Monagle, Robert Reynolds, Jan Zwar,
Nic Baker, Kelli-Lee Drake, and Bettie Ha; the College of Wooster,
particularly Greg Shaya; and Northwestern University, especially
Sarah Maza, but also Benjamin Frommer, Tessie Liu, John Glassman,
John Bushnell, Deborah Cohen, Peter Hayes, Henri Lauzière, Ed
Muir, Keith Woodhouse, Annerys Cano, Susan Delrahim, Susan
Hall, Paula Blaskovits, and Elizabeth Murray. I also want to thank
Alice Conklin, Alan Beyerchen, and James Bartholomew at the Ohio
State University. Patrick Clastres, Paul Dietschy, and Claire Andrieu
at Sciences Politique de Paris welcomed me to their seminars and
offices for conversations. Henry Rousso, Marc Olivier Baruch, Nancy
Green, and Claire Fontaine made time for me while I was in France.
Jonathyne Briggs has been a close friend and careful reader of material.
Other scholars, such as Julian Jackson, Shannon Fogg, Daniel Lee,