But the journalist has an agenda of his own: to press the statesman for the specifics of his service in the Vichy regime.

NEWYORKER: The Last Mitterrand

The probings of the black-clad police inspector Henri Monet (Jean-Pierre Darroussin) recall the sinister ways of the Vichy regime, as the hunted boy evokes Jewish wartime refugees, and the solidarity of the shopkeepers and laborers who protect him reflects a bygone but heartwarming class unity (as well as the comforting myth of a nation of resisters).

NEWYORKER: Le Havre

In 1945, Marshal Henri Philippe Petain, leader of France's Vichy collaborationist regime during World War Two, was arrested on treason charges.

CNN: Saturday,

For the next four years, the occupants, and the collaborationist regime of Vichy, simplified the system by executing anybody found in possession of a mere hunting rifle.

CNN: France: Where fear and taboo control guns more than laws