synarchy movement of empire book ii - Pierre Beaudry's Galactic ...

Affairs. Under an initiative taken by Charles-Roux, Petain was advised that
Laval should not hold the external Affairs Ministry that he was hoping to
get, because he was too obviously anti-British. This move was also made to
reassure the British and the Americans that France would not put the fleet
into the hands of the Germans. Laval was offered Ministry of Justice, but he
refused and was therefore left out of the Cabinet altogether.
Laval had no power in and of himself, and he was fully aware of that.
Laval was nothing without Petain. Marshal Petain was the tight rope that
Laval had to walk on, in a balancing act between French public opinion on
the one side and Hitler on the other. This is why Laval chose to introduce
Petain early into politics, but he was also aware that the old rope could snap
under him at any time, and there was no safety net.
Laval was already a fascist in the early 1930's. After 1933, he had the
support of Mussolini and Hitler. Petain, on the other hand, was the Great
War hero of Verdun who had the respect and trust of the French people,
because he "{had given his person to the nation}." This is why everything
Laval did in public was never under his own name, or under the name of
Hitler, but in the name of Marshal Petain.
The different so-called Acts of Constitution during Vichy, for
example, starting with the first Constitutional Act of July 11, 1940, which
"abrogated the constitutional law of 1875," were all designed to give
Marshal Petain all of the powers. The Second Constitutional Act of July 11,
was conferring to Petain, all of the "executive and legislative powers of the
French State." Fearing the worse, by July 12, 1940, Laval provided himself
with a safety net when he convinced the Marshal to sign a Fourth
Constitutional Act whereby "If for some reason Marshal Petain were unable
to exercise his function of head of State, M. Pierre Laval, vice-minister of
the Council of Ministers, shall assume that function with full rights." There
were 12 such constitutional Acts, each and every one of which merely gave
the authority and power to Petain or Laval. Fascism was obviously incapable
of establishing a real constitution, as we shall see later. The net result was
that the Right, which was Petain and Laval, had reserved all of the rights and
powers for themselves, and the Left, that is the rest of the government and
the population, had none. Again the artificial system of Right and Left had
broken down.
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