"Vichy's shame" Topic

"The town is a shock, a wild skyline of domes and minarets. Its elegant architecture is neogothic, neoclassic, neo-Alpine, neo-everything. At first sight, Vichy is a melancholy fragmentation of Bournemouth, Brighton, Bath, Baden Baden and Brigadoon. The faded splendour of Napoleon III's watering hole is celebrated in esplanades named after him. Here he built houses for his several mistresses and encouraged princes, sheikhs and shahs to summer here with their huge retinues.

Vichy is right in the middle of France. This town of mud baths and colonic irrigation grew rich as a cure centre for rheumatism and liver complaints. Its mineral-rich sulphurous waters, running warm from the surrounding Auvergne volcanic mass, promised soothing baths and massage and, to sweeten the nights, there were casinos, upmarket restaurants and brothels. From the 1880s to the 1940s, Vichy was a high-class Las Vegas. Today, the grand hotels stand empty. I am in search of France's hidden past. Can I find "Vichy" – the centre and symbol of wartime collaboration – in Vichy?

It is only three hours from Paris to Vichy by rail. I arrive to hear train announcements in French, English and German – even though the Germans left in 1944 and English aristocracy is notably absent. My taxi driver complains of too few tourists and too much unemployment. "In the 1960s, there were 140,000 curistes , now there are only 25,000." For him, the villain is Labour Minister Martine Aubry, Jacques Delors' daughter, who has threatened to cut social security payments to those taking "the cure". But Vichy's problems are little to do with Aubry. They are frozen in the town's war history…"
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Amicalement
Armand

Hmmm. So Vichy is in decline because of Petain? Or at least not denouncing him? So what right-wing government was headquartered at English resorts? Or Atlantic City? (I might have to concede Brighton and the Prince Regent.)

I think I'd rate cheap air travel and Spanish beaches above 80 year old politics. And evidently you don't have to travel for drugs, gambling and kinky sex these days.

Also note the outright lie in the article even the Guardian had to concede. But--typically--they buried the correction instead of putting it in the body of the text.

(smile)

Amicalement
Armand

Interesting article. I visited the Carnavalet Museum of Parisian history in 2014, and they had an extensive exhibit on the Vichy period, with a lot of day-to-day type detail. My opinion of Vichy took a nose-dive after that.

BTW, Robert, the error in the article may not be a deliberate "lie", but may also be a careless mistake, or an honest error. You may be jumping to conclusions here. IIRC you are kind of a right-wing guy, but even though I'm not, I share your distaste for deliberate falsehoods. The world is hard enough to deal with using the truth.

MH

You're right Robert. This article is an over simplification (i will not even speak about the few mistakes i found after 1 fast reading). Just one: in an article about thermalism and hype destination between 1960/2000's, i expected to see words like thalassotherapy growing since 1980, heliotropism, Biarritz, Brittany or Basque/Landes coast. Still searching.

Glad you enjoyed it my friend!. (smile)

Amicalement
Armand