Service d'ordre légionnaire

The Service d'ordre légionnaire (SOL, "Legionary Order Service") was a collaborationist militia created by Joseph Darnand, a far right veteran from the First World War. Too radical even for other supporters of the Vichy regime, it was granted its independence in January 1943, after Operation Torch and the German occupation of the South Zone, until then dubbed "Free Zone" and controlled by Vichy. Pierre Laval himself (supported by Marshal Philippe Pétain) passed the law which accorded the SOL its independence and transformed it into the Milice, which participated in battles alongside the Nazis against the Resistance and committed numerous war crimes against civilians. After the Liberation, some members of the Milice escaped to Germany, where they joined the ranks of the SS. Those who stayed behind in France faced either drumhead courts-martial, generally followed by summary execution, or simple lynching at the hands of résistants and enraged civilians.

Joseph Darnand, who had taken part in the Cagoule fascist group's conspiracy before the Invasion of Poland, had been one of the first to rally himself to the "National Revolution" — which was the name given to the new Vichy regime issued from the 1940 defeat during the Battle of France and from the July 10, 1940 vote according extraordinary powers to Marshal Pétain. Joseph Darnand took the head of the Légion française des combattants (LFC) in the Alpes Maritimes region, and then created the SOL, which attracted not only the most enthusiast proponents of collaborationism with Nazi Germany, but also criminals from the Nice mafia. The SOL was extended to all of the South Zone and to North Africa on December 12, 1941.

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