1942-1953
Gaullist legal preparations to post-war purges started in Lyon in 1942. Chief prosecutor for Paris Maurice Rolland [fr] joined the Lyon Commission in 1943.[4] Charles de Gaulle was inclined to leave the post-war purges to ad hoc decisions of the judges, relying solely on the 1939 statute that punished treason with death. Meetings of the Consultative Assembly, which convened beginning on January 11, 1944, persuaded de Gaulle that "containing vengeance" would be more difficult than he thought.[5] Indeed, in the few months that followed the Normandy landings, at least 4,500 alleged collaborators were killed in summary judicial executions.[6]
De Gaulle and his government needed a legal instrument which, unlike the 1939 law on treason, would not involve harsh sentences and could thus be applied to a wide circle of offenders. They also wanted to avoid enacting an ex post facto law, and created the concept of continuing "state of indignity" as a workaround solution.[6] The new law instituted a new concept of a criminal state of a person, the state of indignity. A person entered the state of indignity through committing certain acts (not necessarily crimes) in the past, and this state continued until redemption through punishment.[6] The offence is defined as "having after June 16 1940 knowingly aided, directly or indirectly, Germany or its allies in France or abroad, or having attacked the unity of the Nation, or the liberty of the French people, or the equality between them",[7] including the following acts named by law:
By the beginning of 1951, when indignité nationale ceased to be a criminal offence, more than 46,000 people had been convicted: 3,158 by the Courts of Justice (counting only the cases where indignité nationale was the main offence) and 46,145 cases tried by the Civic Chambers. Only 3,184 people so charged were acquitted.[9] In 1953, all surviving convictees, except those convicted by the High Court, were amnestied of indignité nationale charges.[3]
January 2015 Attacks
After the January 2015 Île-de-France attacks, French President François Hollande considered the possibility of reviving indignité nationale as a penalty for French citizens who contribute to a terrorist attack. After deputy Philippe Meunier of the UMP previously brought the idea before the National Assembly in November 2014, it was taken up again by Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet and Anne Hidalgo. Marine Le Pen declared herself against the idea, calling it a "gadget measure".
Socialist deputy Jean-Jacques Urvoas, author of a 2015 parliamentary report on the issue, declared himself for a dégradation républicaine ("Republican demotion") instead of indignité nationale.