Pétain Faces Mers-el-Kébir

News of Mers-el-Kébir reaches Pétain on the evening of 3 July: 1,297 French sailors killed by the Royal Navy, an ally of the day before. The country is in shock; opinion, already shaken by defeat, expects a strong response. Pétain, just finishing setting up his government, must decide on the reprisal.

Pressures diverge. Laval pushes for a maximum break with London. Darlan, whose fleet has just been struck, demands reprisals. Baudouin, at Foreign Affairs, pleads prudence so as not to tip France into the Axis camp as a co-belligerent.

For many French, the shock is all the sharper because the Royal Navy was, ten days earlier, an allied navy fighting at their side. Pétain can declare war on London, which would make Vichy a co-belligerent of Hitler; respond with symbolic air reprisals; or limit himself to a diplomatic break. The choice commits the orientation of the entire nascent regime and its relationship with both camps.