Paris protocols

Paris protocols, agreements negotiated with the Germans by Admiral Darlan on behalf of the Vichy French government in May 1941. They granted the Germans, retrospectively, military facilities in Syria, and in Tunisia and French West Africa. In return the Germans agreed to reduce their occupation costs from 20 to 15 million Reichsmarks a day; return some 6,800 French specialists from prisoner-of-war camps for service in North Africa; and ease the restrictions that governed the demarcation line between occupied and unoccupied France. Another protocol recorded that the Vichy government hoped eventually to establish its authority over the whole of the country. The first of four protocols was initialled by Darlan and by Otto Abetz, the German ambassador to France, the others were initialled, on behalf of Germany, by German officers. They represented the high point of French collaboration, but Darlan's policies resulted in the Syrian campaign being launched by the Allies; and when he was unable to obtain better terms from the Germans the protocols lapsed and were never ratified.