Police and Politics in Marseille, 1936-1945

Simon Kitson’s Police and Politics in Marseille, 1936-1945 offers a ‘history from below’ analysis of the attitude of the Marseille Police between the Popular Front and the Liberation of France. Kitson highlights the specificities of policing France’s largest port: clientelism, corruption, a floating population and high levels of criminality, including organised crime. But he also demonstrates why many of his conclusions about Police attitude can be generalised to other parts of France and, in so doing, challenges many of the assumptions of the existing historiography. Although they zealously hunted down Jews and communists, the Police were not as reliable for the Vichy government as is commonly assumed and were, undoubtedly, far more involved in Resistance than most sectors of society.