No less, Mr Pooh. Although, as the ‘Julian T. Jackson notation’ below attests: the Vichy French claim to legitimacy never matched even early iterations of P. A. Administration. (The paragraphs themselves are Wikipedia sourced):
Vichy’s claim to be the legitimate French government was denied by Free France and by all subsequent French governments after the war. They maintain that Vichy was an illegal government run by traitors, having come to power through an unconstitutional coup d’état. Pétain was constitutionally appointed prime minister by President Lebrun on 16 June 1940 and he was legally within his rights to sign the armistice with Germany; however, his decision to ask the National Assembly to dissolve itself while granting him dictatorial powers has been more controversial. Historians have particularly debated the circumstances of the vote by the National Assembly of the Third Republic granting full powers to Pétain on 10 July 1940. The main arguments advanced against Vichy’s right to incarnate the continuity of the French state were based on the pressure exerted by Pierre Laval, a former prime minister in the Third Republic, on the deputies in Vichy and on the absence of 27 deputies and senators who had fled on the ship Massilia and so could not take part in the vote. However, during the war, the Vichy government was internationally recognised, notably by the United States and several other major Allied powers. Diplomatic relations with the United Kingdom had been severed since 8 July 1940 after the attack on Mers-el-Kébir.
Julian T. Jackson wrote, “There seems little doubt… that at the beginning Vichy was both legal and legitimate”. He stated that if legitimacy comes from popular support, Pétain’s massive popularity in France until 1942 made his government legitimate, and if legitimacy comes from diplomatic recognition, over 40 countries, including the United States, Canada, and China, recognised the Vichy government.
