Darlan, Admiral (Jean) François

Darlan, Admiral (Jean) François (1881–1942),French naval officer who served as minister of marine and then as foreign minister and vice-premier in the Vichy government.

Darlan was influential in building up the French Navy between the wars and was promoted admiral (the navy's highest rank) in 1939 when he assumed command of all French naval forces. He supported France's armistice with Germany, agreed in June 1940, but assured the British that his forces would never fall into German hands. He issued specific instructions for the French fleet to be scuttled should the Germans attempt its seizure, which they eventually did (see French fleet, scuttling of); but the British, doubting Darlan's ability and perhaps his will to keep it out of German hands, seized or sank what ships they could (seeMers-el-Kébir), an action which intensified Darlan's anglophobia.

After serving as minister of marine in Pétain's first government he became one of the ruling triumvirate before replacing Pierre-Etienne Flandin (1889–1958) as foreign minister in February 1941. He was also appointed vice-premier, minister of information, and minister of the interior while remaining minister of marine; and in August 1941 he added the portfolio of minister of defence to his posts, an accumulation of formal power which not even Laval, Vichy's arch collaborator, ever achieved. He soon proved as keen as Laval to collaborate with the Germans, and was even more willing to co-operate with them militarily. After meeting Hitler in May 1941 he and the German ambassador, Otto Abetz, initialled the Paris protocols which gave the Germans significant military concessions in Africa and the Middle East. Darlan's attempts to obtain better terms from the Germans failed miserably. The protocols remained unratified and Darlan was replaced by Laval in April 1942, though he remained C-in-C of the armed forces and Pétain's official successor.

By chance he was in Algiers when the North African campaign landings took place on 8 November 1942 and he assumed command of the Vichy French forces opposing them. After extensive negotiations with the Americans, and with his own government, he arranged a general ceasefire on 10 November. He then agreed to work for the Allies and was appointed high commissioner for French North Africa. In performing this volte face, wrote an early biographer, ‘he betrayed the Germans, he betrayed Pétain, he betrayed France’ ( G. Mikes, Darlan: a Study, London, 1943). In vain did the Vichy government assure the Germans that Darlan was acting illegitimately: Hitler ordered his troops into the unoccupied zone of France and into Tunisia. Darlan was assassinated on Christmas Eve by a young French royalist, who, though trained by SOE, was not acting on its orders. He was executed two days later.

Bibliography

Coutau-Bégarie, H., and and Huan, C. , Darlan (Paris, 1989).