Épuration légale

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The épuration légale (lit. 'legal purge') was the wave of official trials and administrative sanctions conducted in France following the liberation and the collapse of the Vichy regime. Instituted by the Provisional Government of the French Republic (GPRF) under Charles de Gaulle, the formal legal purge was designed to re-establish the rule of law and replace the épuration sauvage ("wild purge")—the preceding phase of summary executions, arbitrary detentions, and extrajudicial reprisals carried out by local Resistance fighters and civilians. Unlike the international Nuremberg trials, the épuration légale was conducted entirely as a domestic French judicial process. Approximately 300,000 cases were investigated, reaching into the civil administration, judiciary, press, and highest levels of the collaborationist government. More than half of these investigations were closed without indictment. Between 1944 and 1951, special Courts of Justice (cours de justice) and the High Court of Justice...

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