"We shall win because we are the stronger"

To sustain morale during the Phoney War, the French government had to define the tone of its official communication. Was it to maintain the certainty of victory, founded on the supposed material and moral superiority of the Allies and the solidity of the Maginot Line, or to prepare opinion for a long and uncertain ordeal?

The propaganda services made a choice of tone. To broadcast triumphalist optimism to reassure the population and the soldiers, at the risk of blindness. To hold a realistic discourse, preparing the country for a hard and long effort. Or to play down the war so as not to cause alarm, at the risk of demobilisation.

The wager of triumphalism was risky: to promise an easy victory was to expose oneself to a collapse of morale should reality belie the discourse. Conversely, too dark a discourse could sap the will to fight. The question of the right tone — between reassuring lie and mobilising truth — arises for any State at war. Which line should the propaganda services adopt?