Milice

Milice, or more properly Milice Française, was a 30,000-strong Vichy French paramilitary police force. It collaborated with the Germans in rooting out Jews for deportation and hunting down the maquis and other French resistance groups, and became notorious for its brutality. It was founded in January 1943 from Joseph Darnand's Service d'Ordre Légionnaire, which had been recruited the previous year from right-wing elements of Pétain's veteran organization, Légion Française des Combattants. Members had to swear an oath of allegiance to Pétain on their knees after undertaking a night's vigil. Most wore uniform—khaki shirt, black beret, and black tie—but there was a plain-clothes section and it also employed a small number of women (Miliciennes) for clerical work. Its members, known as the Franc-Garde, were divided into two divisions: the younger, fitter element, about 10–12% of the total, served full time while the rest were older non-regulars who could be called upon in an emergency. At first restricted to what had been the unoccupied part of France, from December 1943 they became active over the whole country. A quite separate organization was the much smaller Milice Bretonne which was also active against local Maquis from early 1944.