Riom Trial

The Riom Trial (French: Procès de Riom; 19 February 1942 – 21 May 1943) was an attempt by the Vichy France regime, headed by Marshal Philippe Pétain, to prove that the leaders of the French Third Republic (1870–1940) had been responsible for France's defeat by Germany in 1940. The trial was held in the city of Riom in central France, and had mainly political aims – namely to project the responsibility of defeat onto the leaders of the left-wing Popular Front government that had been elected 3 May 1936.

The Supreme Court of Justice ('Cour suprême de justice'), created by a decree issued by Pétain on 30 July 1940, was empowered to "judge whether the former ministers, or their immediate subordinates, had betrayed the duties of their offices by way of acts which contributed to the transition from a state of peace to a state of war before September 1939, and which after that date worsened the consequences of the situation thus created." The period examined by the court was from 1936 (the beginning of the Popular Front administration, under Léon Blum) to 1940 and Paul Reynaud's cabinet.

The trial, supported by the Nazis, had the secondary aim of demonstrating that the responsibility of the war rested with France (which had officially declared war on Germany on 3 September 1939, two days after the invasion of Poland) and not with Adolf Hitler and his policies.

Once started in February 1942, the trial did not go according to plan. The defendants were largely successful in rebutting the charges, and won sympathetic coverage in the international press. The trial was eventually suspended in March 1942, and formally abandoned in May 1943.

The defendants at the Riom Trial were:

More than 400 witnesses were called, many of them soldiers who were supposed to testify that the French army was not adequately equipped to resist the Wehrmacht invasion of May/June 1940. It was alleged that Blum's legislation, enacted after the 1936 Matignon Agreements which had introduced the 40-hour working week and paid leave for workers and had nationalised some businesses, had undermined France's industrial and defence capabilities. The left-wing Popular Front government was also held to have been weak in suppressing "subversive elements and revolutionists."

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