Talk:Black market in wartime France/Archive 1

Archive 1

Archive 2

Advice and help invited

@Mathglot, Shakescene, Scope creep, and Piotrus:

Complete article is much longer, but I need a break from it. TL;DR the French Gestapo helped the Nazis loot the economy. Elinruby (talk) 06:34, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

Good work piloting this important topic into a presence in mainspace. I'll start by trying to generate a few in-links to get it more integrated, and hopefully come back and expand it at some point. Mathglot (talk) 08:07, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

Seems like a fun topic, I'll see if I can help. For now: see also Allo! Allo!? :) _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 11:58, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

oooh. That actually looks really really pertinent. Elinruby (talk) 21:32, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

Idiosyncratic referencing in French article

The French article has an unusual referencing system. Without going too far into the gory details, they use inscrutable VE numeric reference names, compounded by a confusing (and imho unnecessary) use of reference group names. Bringing these over during translation can be challenging, but needn't be. I've set up a worksheet to help convert the French references as new sections get translated and brought in. The list below shows the refs required for the translation of the initial released article; feel free to add new items to the worksheet in the same pattern as you go, and if that seems too opaque, I can do it for your translated section upon request.

Work sheet for adjusting refs from the French article – reference conversion details.

If these refs appear in the French source, they need to be converted to {{sfn}}s: <ref group="Gr" name=":5">{{Harvsp|Grenard|2008|p=35-39}}.</ref> --> {{sfn|Grenard|2008|p=35-39}} <ref group="Gr" name=":6">{{Harvsp|Grenard|2008|p=39-46}}.</ref> --> {{sfn|Grenard|2008|p=39-46}} <ref group="GLP" name=":8">{{Harvsp|Grenard|Le Bot|Perrin|2017|p=211-213}}</ref> --> {{sfn|Grenard|2017|p=211-213}} <ref group="Sa" name=":17">{{Harvsp|Sanders|2001|p=142-143}}.</ref> --> {{sfn|Sanders|2001|p=142-143}} <ref group="Sa" name=":18">{{Harvsp|Sanders|2001|p=175-181}}</ref> --> {{sfn|Sanders|2001|p=175-181}} <ref group="Sa" name=":19">{{Harvsp|Sanders|2001|p=183-191}}.</ref> --> {{sfn|Sanders|2001|p=183-191}} <ref group="Sa" name=":20">{{Harvsp|Sanders|2001|p=194-208}}.</ref> --> {{sfn|Sanders|2001|p=194-208}} <ref group="Gr" name=":24">{{Harvsp|Grenard|2008|p=194-203}}.</ref> --> {{sfn|Grenard|2008|p=194-203}}

Further grouped refs with embedded {{Harvsp}} citations may be added above. Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 08:45, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

Elinruby, not sure what the sig just above was about, maybe you meant to leave a message? Anyway, you mentioned in the section above about the intricate sourcing in the French article. Since I've already done it once when it was in draft, I can volunteer to do that part again if you want, for the remainder of the article. If you like the idea, just bring it over exactly as you see it over there, do your translation but leave the refs alone and I'll fix it up after. The only thing is, we're not in draft space here, so you can't bring it over like that into the article itself, because it will break. So, I'd suggest either using draft space or your sandbox for however big a chunk you want to translate and import, and ping me when you're done, and I'll convert the citations for you. Or, ping me as soon as it's in your sandbox, and I can convert them before you start translating, if that works better for you. Sort of a "relay race", where we pass the baton back and forth; lmk if you want to try sharing the work this way. Mathglot (talk) 03:50, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

Or maybe even better, two sandboxes, and you can be translating in one, while I'm converting citations in the other, with different chunks in each one. Mathglot (talk) 03:52, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

Extra sig

• this skin leaves an extra signature when I preview then go back. I try to delete them when that happens. I'll delete than one in a minute.
• Different chunks: In the third subsection of the history section of Black market in bla bla, I have the very last subsubsection (Who benefited) mostly done in my Italy sandbox. There is a question about what what a named reference got renamed to.

• I pretty much haven't touched any of the rest of that third subsection, just read it.
• I am currently working on the first and second subsections of the History section. What do you think of spinning off "List of Vichy food rationing edicts' from that second section? Is "edicts" the right word?
• I think there are sections in the French article beyond History and the two sections that are already live. If so I do not currently have any translation in progress of those sections
• The lede section of Once upon a time in France is translated in my Countesses sandbox. It has some direct interlanguage links that need to either be converted to either wikilinks or the preferred ILL syntax. Otherwise finished I think. Il y avait une fois en France has references, don't recall if I checked reliability, and at least a couple more short paragraphs
• Going away again, RL calling Elinruby (talk) 06:36, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

Sandman calling; back later. Mathglot (talk) 08:23, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

Is this a military history article?

I am a bit baffled as to why it would get categorized that way, except that the time period overlaps the occupation. The complete, only-partially translated, French article (about three times longet) only ever mentions the Germans in economic terms. Is anyone familiar with the criteria? Elinruby (talk) 22:07, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

I think I included it partly because of the time period overlap, and partly because WP:MILHIST is one of the biggest and best-attended WikiProjects, and it would draw more eyeballs here. I think there is one other reason, and that is the word "wartime" in the title, and even if we go with another title that doesn't have that word, the black market is, in fact, related to the fact that France was an occupied country in wartime, and there wouldn't have been a black market if it hadn't been, so that would argue in favor of keeping it, even if the article isn't about battles and military resistance and so on. But strictly speaking, you're right, and I think it's okay to take it out. Mathglot (talk) 22:02, 1 August 2023 (UTC)

One minor point, which shouldn't carry too much weight due to WP:WINARS, but may be suggestive, is that the French article has seven categories, and three of them correspond to the following categories at en-wiki:

• Category:French collaboration during World War II
• Category:German occupation of France during World War II
• Category:Economic history of World War II

We should make up our own mind, but these do point to a military connection, at least if one agrees with the categorization at fr-wiki. Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 23:17, 1 August 2023 (UTC)

Certainly it is. It relates to activities that were directly related to the military occupation/puppet government of France. They only occurred because the war created the conditions for the black market activities (some of which continued on after the war, but the source of them was the wartime conditions and related scarcity). Not only that, but the Wehrmacht was involved in, facilitated and used it, as well as protecting their middlemen. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 01:40, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

But there was in fact a black market when France was not an occupied country, From 1945 to 1945.

Re categories at French article, yes. I believe that was their attempt to define the scope as not-WWI and not-Algerian War of Independence and not-Années folle for example. I agree that "wartime" should change but not to 'in World War II". If you don't like "1940s France" then I am open to other suggestions. As for the eyeballs: they would be welcome if this was a military history article. Have you ever heard the expression that to a hammer everything looks like a nail? People are saying of course it's military history, look at the title, when we already agree that the title should change since it does not well summarize the content. Of course, if sources surface that talk about the military doing something military, that would be an entirely different story. I am not seeing them at the moment but hey, perhaps they are out there, just not in the text I am currently translating. At the moment I am beginning to suspect that the article went live too soon and our differing understandings of its scope stem from the incomplete and imperfect state of the English article, Mathglot.

Where are you seeing the military in this? Let's start there.

I see the Armistice's economic provisions. Period. Which would be diplomatic history, no? But again I haven't seen a list of criteria for inclusion in the MILHIIST project, so maybe that's why we disagree.

Related materials

• Countesses of the Gestapo
• Henri Lafont
• Illa Meery
• fr:Pierre Bonny(English stub exists but does not yet cover this period)
• 93, rue Lauriston (translation planned)
• Il y avait une fois en France (translation in progress)

None of these mention anything military. I also recommend Nazi King of Paris at Google Books and Hitler's Man in Paris for the needed article on Han Lermer (sp?) Elinruby (talk) 01:55, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

Perhaps, but they all occurred under the occupation, which was, in fact, a military occupation. That's even the title of our article on the Occupied zone, which even though there are plenty of shorter redirects to it, like "Occupied France" and many others, is called, "German military administration in occupied France during World War II". What was the extent of the black market before the war? Any country probably has a peacetime black market more or less constantly, but wouldn't wartime greatly exacerbate it? What does the history say about it? But I don't feel strongly about it, and I've made no move to restore the project above. I am curious, though, about the general question, which is why I opened the discussion over there. In the end, what projects this article is part of isn't a big deal to me, and I'd rather concentrate on expanding/improving the article than worrying about it. (edit conflict) Mathglot (talk) 02:04, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

Yes I am aware of that article. pretty sure I did a copy edit on it back when we wrote Liberation of France. Or linked to it. I remember typing out that name a lot at one point, anyway.

I agree, let's not try to summarize before it's written. My question though: Wouldn't it be best to figure out the scope at least a little? The second subsection of the very long history section could actually be spun off as 'list of Vichy food rationing regulations". I know it's out of scope for the administrative glossary, but hey it's there. It seems like a shame to edit for readability when it's related, after all, to the Fourth Republic, if not part of it. It would be best to check through the French article for all the instances of 'loi du (date)". I doubt that most of them have French articles let alone English one but it would be it would be good to use any links that exist.

All I can think of for now, hth. Elinruby (talk) 05:57, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

So the scope could change. There is probably some corresponding German paperwork that could be traced through, but what would that look like? And who would write it? Let's just see what the article looks like when we get done with the sources.

• Yes it covers part of WWII, so I put the banner back. GraemeLeggett (talk) 11:40, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

Text size

Is there a discrepancy in the History/Background sectioñ? I know the references aren't following the conventioñ but I will come back to them. The thing about 2090 cyclists is in the Ardeche, nor a village. Night night. I will be offline for a couple of days. Feel free to edit the new sections: they were just what I could could manage to enunciate, and not even slightly polish. those are not translations btw.

I am not sure if I got the references in for the 46% inflation under Blum and Vichy as the first French economic planning, but I think one was Milton Friedman. These are from my reading last night and would be open on my other device at home. (I am on a supply trek with almost no battery.) Definitely can be referenced though. Elinruby (talk) 13:49, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

I might be missing the essential point here; at first, I thought you meant font size, but that's not it, so then I'm guessing, the relative length of the two sections? Are they too long? Or, did you mean something else? Mathglot (talk) 04:27, 4 August 2023 (UTC)

font size, then I wandered into other rabbit holes. Starting with font size: I changed my settings while working on these sections. The article was appearing to me in two different font sizes so I was trying to make sure this is was specific to me. It no longer does so I guess it was.

Moving on to the other issues, I edited this until my eyes crossed and realized yesterday when I was a hundred miles from home in a town with very little public wi-fi, when I didn't have time to linger in thise placrs, that some claims that might seem extraordinary hadn't been specifically referenced. Today I am back home on my own internet access but still tied up with other things, but I will get those references in. I see that someone else has done some additional translating or writing: thank you to that person. (At least, I don't recognize a big chunk of the text. But I am not really reading for meaning when I translate.) One quibble: is "fraud" the right word for disobeying a puppet government at a time when this was seen as patriotic? I know the French article uses it, but I mtself was avoiding it it the parts I did, as perhaps subscribing to a Vichy PoV, and perhaps the discrepancy is confusing to the casual reader?. I have only taken the most superficial look though and don't have strong feelings about this. Elinruby (talk) 15:37, 4 August 2023 (UTC)

Scope creep, I'm getting the impression you're planning to translate subsections 2 and 3 of the History section. No worries if not; I agree that that's the next priority so we can all be talking about the same article. If you are, I am just going to work on something else is all, probably reading those two books or finishing Pierre Bonny. LMK at your convenience? Elinruby (talk) 22:31, 6 August 2023 (UTC)

Morning @Elinruby: I plan to keep working on it intermittently, doing a wee bit everyday. I had a look at the graphic novel your working on and the countesses articles. Intetresting bit of French history. scope_creep^Talk 11:48, 11 August 2023 (UTC)

Excerpt tags

Hi @Mathglot: How do these excerpt tags work. I notice there is quite a few of them. Is it the case of using them until section is complete, then copying the content across with some attribution text. I ask as I can't do much with the references on them. scope_creep^Talk 11:56, 11 August 2023 (UTC)

Hi, scope_creep. The doc at {{Excerpt}} is pretty decent, so start there. Can you explain what the problem is that you are encountering, and in which section of the article? Usually if I have a problem the way the references are done in the original, I just exclude them from the excerpt with |references=no, and then append them right after the excerpt. See how it's done, for example, at Ships of ancient Rome#Battle of Actium, which excludes the Rankov citation in Galley#Roman Imperial era from being excerpted because it's the wrong citation style and importation doesn't work right, and instead, it gets tacked on right after the {{excerpt}} using the citation style that matches the article, which is {{sfn}}. Note that when you do this with refs, you need to add |inline=yes to the excerpt param list (otherwise it adds a paragraph mark between the text and the footnotes). Does that answer your question? It's actually a really good question, and I'm thinking the doc page really should deal with it specifically, and I may add something there to make it clearer.

As far as copying over the text instead of using {{excerpt}}, that's an option. Using the excerpt template has both advantages and disadvantages (also described in the doc), and one of the options is to replace them with copied text with attribution, as you said; but you don't have to—each case is different. Clearly one of the best advantages is that it keeps the two paragraphs in sync, even if the original is changed, without having to revisit the article. Is that a good enough reason? It depends; so, I try to just work out case by case what's better for the article, and the reader. Using it does tend to make it more difficult for the editor who is not used to seeing it, as you're encountering now (and I did a little while ago), but I tend to privilege readers over editors, and if it causes me a bit of extra pain in exchange for a better outcome for the reader, then I think it's worth it. In certain cases, the references are the deciding factor; so for example at Ships of ancient Rome, you can see a mix of both copied-text and excerpts in use, based on what I thought was better in each case. HTH, Mathglot (talk) 19:34, 11 August 2023 (UTC)

@Scope creep and Mathglot: I added quite a few excerpts in that black market batch. I can fix any reference if the problem is that that the named references aren't coming through the excerpt. If there is a need for a copyedit or correction, it needs to be done on the page the excerpt is from.

But which article are you talking about? ...the idea yes is that these should eventually be refined into something bespoke for the particular article.

If Black market, there is a background section because someone was instructing me that the bad Germans were responsible for the state of the French economy. Which... na. The Germans definitely plundered France in the full meaning of the word, but well before the war it had runaway inflation as a result of wage increases following nationwide labor unrest and labor reforms, as well as revolving-door legislative leadership. But I don't think I can write that paragraph from scratch right yet and am still looking for a reference I misplaced. (46%)

If you are looking at Countesses, I think that is mostly bibliography from related articles. This was in response to a talk page post.

How about I work on those extracts and you look at the one I am stuck on?

In Henri Lafont some page patroller took apart a grouped reference. (I think? In any event something broke and there are now four references in a row with a page needed tag appended to each.) I am pretty sure those grouped references have page numbers, but this fixing this manually will require referring back to the French. Or fixing the syntax.

Meanwhile, also in Henri Lafont, I apparently don't know how to cite Wikidata, and probably shouldn't anyway. Some sort of very emphatic redlink is called for however.

I hope that sheds some light. If there are questions I will be in and out of Wikipedia most of the day. Currently finding timestamps in that Godfather of the Underworld video in Henri Lafont. Elinruby (talk) 20:25, 11 August 2023 (UTC)

If there are issues with refs/excerpts in other articles, please raise a section there (and ping me); they are o/t here, as editors interested in those topics won't see the discussion here. Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 20:54, 11 August 2023 (UTC)

I'm not partiularly keen on the use of tempates in this manner. I think they're good at prototyping a large article, but the long term effects are not particularly well known. The advantages and disadvantages I don't think are correct. Certainly there an "up" for the reader, as the section can be built very quickly but at the expense of flexibility, but it is a mainteance nightmare at scale. I suppose its one way of moving from normal raw WP markup to structured content, but it is difficult for any new editor to get started on an established article without significant work as the actual content doesn't hold the context. scope_creep^Talk 00:01, 12 August 2023 (UTC)

Not necessarily disagreeing, but this is perhaps part of a larger discussion, as excerpts have the same characteristics as templates, which also may include content that is found elsewhere. For example, all sidebars and navigation templates are like this, and editors who wish to edit them, have to edit the sidebar or nav template, and not edit the article page where they are actually visible, so we are already in a situation like that; maybe the main difference is that nav templates and excerpts are very widespread, so better known. If you want to make it easier for editors to deal with them, switch any |hat=no params to yes, or just remove it. I agree that it's harder for new editors to deal with them, but then, so many things are, and I don't know that there's any solution for that other than gaining experience. I was a "new editor" wrt {{excerpt}}s until fairly recently. Mathglot (talk) 00:29, 12 August 2023 (UTC)

Coming back to your original question: I had another look, and the doc at {{Excerpt}} wasn't nearly as decent as I thought; so if you had a look already, then have another one, because it is much changed since then, hopefully for the better. Mathglot (talk) 00:54, 12 August 2023 (UTC)

Knackered Refs

Hi @Elinruby: [Gr 1][31] are not working. Knackered somehow. I've copied some of the bib section across. Grenard 2008, p. 194-203. Grenard 2008, p. 15-24 are Gr 1 and Gr2. I can't fix them for some reason. scope_creep^Talk 11:46, 11 August 2023 (UTC)

Scope creep, can you elaborate? I'm not seeing the problem; did Elin already fix them, maybe? Mathglot (talk) 19:38, 11 August 2023 (UTC)

Which article? I have questions also, see thread below Elinruby (talk) 20:30, 11 August 2023 (UTC)

I think it has been fixed. scope_creep^Talk 20:48, 11 August 2023 (UTC)

k Elinruby (talk) 08:10, 12 August 2023 (UTC)

Countess Seckendorff, an authentic German aristocrat who spied on Parisian high society

On Google Search only hit I am getting is The New York Times about a burglary. Haven't tried anything more advanced yet. Currently unreferenced though so therefore a priority Elinruby (talk) 08:16, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

• • in Countesses of the Gestapo

Elinruby (talk) 08:18, 2 August 2023 (UTC) Reference Desk came through on this, got one reference into the article and will work on expanding a bit based on their suggestions Elinruby (talk) 16:58, 12 August 2023 (UTC)

Questions, todo and needs verification

1. Illa Meery relationship with Philip Rothschild not yet verified
2. Role in Lake of Ladies verified, sourced
3. is Lake of Ladies poster fair use in Illa Meery

#Illa Meery headers redo #Biography section split into smaller sections with more descriptive titles Elinruby (talk) 17:29, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

1. Countesses of the Gestapo

should be using King of Paris if it isn't already, extensive discussion of all those women.

1. Republic of Joanovici should be used at 93, rue Lauriston and possibly Henri Lafont and/or Black market in wartime France or what ever its name becomes
2. One of the women in Countesses of the Gestapo apparently had a salon. I have not yet found a secondary source for this but Gallica has a lot of hits in what look like newspaper society columns, so apparently that's notable but we still need a secondary source
3. Pretty sure I saw a link to a Rothschild Foundation page about the financing for Lake of Ladies. Sure it's primary but there's lot to unpack in that sentence at that source would cover part of it

• In Illa Meery I have seen indications in snippet view that the relationship with Hand Lermer (sp?) is correct, but this still needs a source
• Monaco's status as an allegedly neutral country allowed money to be transferred through accounts there
• The second subsection of the very long history section could actually be spun off as 'list of Vichy food rationing regulations". I know it's out of scope for the administrative law glossary, but hey it's there. It seems like a shame to edit for readability when it's related, after all, to the Fourth Republic, if not part of it. It would be best to check through the French article for all the instances of 'loi du (date)". I doubt that most of them have French articles let alone English ones but it would be it would be good to use any links that exist.
• The third subsection of the very long History section at Black market in wartime France or whatever its name is all about the propaganda, patriotism etc and the black market as patriotism. Imagine thousands of city dwellers cycling out into the villages to buy eggs ;) arguably not the same thing as current article either.
  • So a split may be in order. Elinruby (talk) 05:57, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

Third History subsection of what article? I don't see anything about propaganda, patriotism etc. in the paragraph starting, "Under the law of 15 March 1942..."; can you clarify? Mathglot (talk) 19:54, 11 August 2023 (UTC)

This one? i will get you a link I guess. I have been commenting here about some of the subsidiary bios as some of the sources deal with several of the people but I see that this is causing confusion, and I think I have gotten through the worst of the sourcing issues. so I will stop. Part of the problem, I think, is that "black market in wartime Paris" has a whole different set of facts than "black market in wartime France", which seems to be much more about herds of cattle being smuggled into Spain and city-dwellers cycling into villages for vegetables, versus looted artwork and expensive furnishings from abandoned residences. TL;DR there should probably be an article specifically about Paris. But let's do this one first. My goal for today is to improve the economics background. Elinruby (talk) 17:14, 12 August 2023 (UTC)

Title should be tweaked

The topic of the article from which this one derives, is the black market in France during the second world war (Marché noir en France pendant la Seconde Guerre mondiale) so the current title with "wartime France" is not quite right and should be changed. Perhaps, Black market in World War II France, or just a literal translation, Black market in France during the Second World War. Since this was just created, we don't need an RM I don't think, just agreement from the creator or other parties pinged in the section above. Any preference? Mathglot (talk) 08:26, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

I was thinking about the fact that rationing and the black market continued to 1949. With that caveat, if the benefits of the titles matching exactly outweigh that, I am happy with whatever. I did realize after the fact that the title begged the question of which war.

TL;DR kind of agree, and of the two proposals, the first seems more euphonic to me. And yes, agree we are should do it, let's do it soon. Moving Collaboration with the Axis powers was a lesson in exactly how many links can be broken in a page move when you suddenly need a dab page. Elinruby (talk) 21:30, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

Actually, maybe Black market in 1940s France might be better. Otoh would this cause a perturbation in the force? I'll go look at how it's categorized over there. My issue is that this doesn't seem like military history to me, and it just got reviewed that way. Open to discussion on this of course. Elinruby (talk) 22:14, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

they are essentially the same as on this one Elinruby (talk) 22:18, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

@Elinruby: What's the same as what one?

Other than that, Black market in 1940s France sounds okay if it's substantiated in the sources. I tried a search for Black market in 1940s France and most of the top ten results were all about 1940–1944, but I didn't go deeper than the first page, and the 1940s phrase might hold up if you do. See what you can find out.

While we're on the topic, you have the bolded part of the lead sentence currently is: "The black market in occupied France", and I have two comments about that: first of all, the "The" definitely shouldn't be part of the bolded part. The other thing is, per MOS:BOLDSYN, the bolding applies to "significant alternative names", so not sure if this fits that. Not saying it doesn't, just asking: in your research, did you see that phrase come up a lot? If it doesn't, then it should be unbolded, and if it does, then keep the bolding (minus the The), and then you need to add a redirect page with that title pointing back here (see MOS:BOLDSYN again). Mathglot (talk) 21:51, 1 August 2023 (UTC)

@Mathglot: Try 'Black market in Paris", which brings up a lot of sources. I haven't gone into them to the point of doing common name research; been focused on the French article's existing intricate sourcing.

Good point on the bolding; it's an artifact of when I hadn't yet read the article and was translating as I went. Please feel free to unbold it and rewrite as seems good. I also suggest as categories: Organized crime, which this definitely is, French criminal law, Police in France, Corruption in France, Vichy France and Administrative law in France, or whatever the closest categories or most appropriate subcategories may may be. I do not have HotCat cranked up and need to go do off line stuff for a while. Elinruby (talk) 02:48, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

The other issue regarding bolded names, is that the alt name "...in occupied France" is not exactly an alternative name, but an alternative hyponym, as "occupied France" only represents half of "wartime France"; at least, if we're talking only about Metropolitan France; less than that if we include the Maghreb and the colonial empire, which, I assume, are excluded from the scope of the article—or are they? That's probably worth including in the scoping discussion as well. I won't be shocked, shocked! to find out that nefarious activities were going on in establishments in northern Africa. Mathglot (talk) 08:19, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

I haven't yet seen a discussion of a black market in North Africa or any of the other colonies, but I have been pretty focused on Paris. The rationing would apply in Algeria, since it was a départment, but hmm, my initial reaction is that this should be separately researched, as a lot would depend on the state of Algerian agriculture at the time, about which I don't think I know anything at all, come to think of it, not even enough for a scoping discussion. Also, I believe that enforcement may have been at least to some extent within the discretion of the governor (?) I have even more questions about what this might have looked like in the protectorates, mandates, and straight-up colonies. But where smuggling was a factor topography would have mattered and so would demand for particular commodities, so the details on that probably vary considerably. Consider Indochina vs Algiers vs Paris. Elinruby (talk) 17:30, 12 August 2023 (UTC)

Fact check note

I was a bit startled by the title of a source I added because it was post-war and referred to Blum, but he was in fact the head of a brief post-war transitional administration. Otoh, since this was post-war it does not support the pre-war inflation I was trying to reference so I will be working on that economic background section today. Elinruby (talk) 16:53, 12 August 2023 (UTC)

Yes, in his third ministry, just a month long, as the last chairman of the Provisional Government before the establishment of the Fourth Republic. Mathglot (talk) 19:44, 12 August 2023 (UTC)

Coming into shape

It is remarkably quick how things are coming into shape when there is four people working on the article. I'm reet happy, as Newcastle folk say. scope_creep^Talk 12:09, 12 August 2023 (UTC)

I notice the poster has been thinned. I was desperate to get the images to be smaller as they seemed to be smaller on the fr Wikipedia but couldn't do. I never used the upright property. Collaboration, its all in the word. scope_creep^Talk 12:12, 12 August 2023 (UTC)

Just the amount done today alone makes me really happy ;) Elinruby (talk) 23:20, 12 August 2023 (UTC)

Trying to grok

What for example is wrong with the Berlière reference? Both ends are present and throwing an error. Elinruby (talk) 20:38, 11 August 2023 (UTC)

If you are talking about note [20], there is nothing wrong with it; it links to short footnote "Berlière 2018, pp. 1081–1095", which links to the full Berlière-2018 citation in the § Bibliography section. What problem do you see? Mathglot (talk) 21:04, 11 August 2023 (UTC)

Mmmm maybe it's platform specific? Let me get a screenshot or at least the exact error message, hang on. But if it isn't everyone I am a lot less concerned about it Elinruby (talk) 23:31, 11 August 2023 (UTC)

Its seems to be working fine. scope_creep^Talk 23:36, 11 August 2023 (UTC)

i've forgotten how to upload to Wikipedia not Commons, so I used the email link on your page Elinruby (talk) 23:37, 11 August 2023 (UTC)

apparently the screenshot is too big (?) It's sitting there queued. Rather than pull out the image editor, I decided to go high-tech on this and wrote the message down: Harv error: Link from CITEREFMour%C3%A9219 does not point to any citation

If it's not broken though, I could just stop trying to fix it. Elinruby (talk) 23:53, 11 August 2023 (UTC)

i am guessing you are both on a recent version of Windows? Elinruby (talk) 23:56, 11 August 2023 (UTC)

Is it this article your talking about. I've have a script that shows harv errors and I'm not seeing anything. scope_creep^Talk 00:02, 12 August 2023 (UTC)

I don't see anything, either; and it's nothing to do with the OS, I'm quite sure. Can you please provide a specific revision id (oldid) number that shows the error? You can find it in the history. There is no citation with the name you gave; closest is note [10], with CITEREFMour%C3%A92010 (uri-encoded value for ref "Mouré-2010"), which is the last footnote in section § Black market (1940-1941). If you had a prior version with a typo in the year, so for example, {{sfn|Mouré|219}} instead of {{sfn|Mouré|2010}}, that would cause the error you are seeing. Mathglot (talk) 00:48, 12 August 2023 (UTC)

I see what you're saying and yes it is almost certainly going to turn out to be something stupid like that. The problem I am having though is that the word CITEREF does not appear anywhere and the syntax With a message looks exactly like the syntax that is *not° throwing an error.

. Is it possibly a variable name in this script I just installed? Elinruby (talk) 09:15, 12 August 2023 (UTC)

You recently installed Trappist's HarvErrors script in your common.js, and I assume that's the script you are talking about. If that's the one you mean, then it's extremely unlikely for all sorts of reasons which are too o/t here to go into. (Great script, by the way; really useful.) But if you want to know what happened, just go back in the history and find the version that has the error, and link it here. Mathglot (talk) 18:29, 12 August 2023 (UTC)

the current version has the error, on two different references whose syntax looks exactly like references that don't have the error. But if you aren't seeing it, and Scope creep isn't seeing it, I am not sure how much time I want to spend tracking this down, and I have other things I woild prefer for you to hrlp me with. That year suggestion sounded really plausible but I think I ruled that out; I will double check, because yes, that would totally cause this error. The fact that you guys don't see it is why I was positing that "older Android" might have something to do with this, like the text size problem I am ignoring because apparently nobody else has it. OTOH it is annoying *me* that I can't seem to get Harvard references straight, and probably annoying other people a whole lot more, so chasing error messages that are invisible to other people isn't helping to resolve that. Sigh. Maybe I just need to get the laptop repaired. Elinruby (talk) 19:03, 12 August 2023 (UTC)

(edit conflict) The Mouré ref was first added in this edit of 22:17, 11 August 2023 by yourself in section 'Black market (1940-1941)', as a plain text ref. linking https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20672479/.

In this edit of 23:31, 11 August 2023, Scope creep converted it to a short footnote as {{sfn|Mouré|2010}}, which termporarily introduced a no-target harv error, because the {{sfn}} was there, but the full citation wasn't in the Bibliography yet. You can see that no-target error by clicking note [10] at the end of section 'Black market (1940-1941)' in revsion 1169891278, or just click here. *But* (and this is a big "but"), it does not show the error you seem to have seen; it shows a "normal" no-target error of the type you always get, when you add an sfn in one edit, and the full citation in a subsequent edit. Scope creep added the full citation in the very next edit one minute later (diff) and now in that revision if you follow note [10] at the end of the section (permalink) and click through the word Mouré in the short footnote (permalink) you can see that the linkage is established to the Bibliographic citation, and everything links up correctly, from the body text, through the sfn, to the bibliography.

As Scope creep added the {{sfn}} at 23:31, 11 Aug. and the full citation at 23:32, there was an interval of only 60 seconds where if you loaded or refreshed the page right then, you might've seen the no-target error linked above. This seems pretty unlikely, and even if you did, it doesn't match the error you reported seeing. But after the 23:32 edit, the Mouré citation linkage was established, so I still don't know what you were seeing. This is as far as I can take it, without knowing what revision id you were looking at. Mathglot (talk) 19:08, 12 August 2023 (UTC) updated Mathglot (talk) 19:51, 12 August 2023 (UTC)

Regarding your 19:03 comment (which conflicted with mine above), when you talk in general terms about seeing some error, without linking it or specifying the exact footnote and revision id you are talking about, it's not possible to track it down. Which is the "current version" for you? Depending when you last loaded the page, it could be anything. Only revision id is useful when describing a version (or timestamp of the revision). And "two different references have the error" is untraceable; which exact references? Links are best, but revision id + footnote number in brackets tied to context (section name plus a few words of body text before the note to establish unique location) would do it. Mathglot (talk) 19:16, 12 August 2023 (UTC)

I remember putting that in and forming the citation. I think the harv error has just been for one revision. As an aside, I would be good try and get hold of paper from WP:resource request. scope_creep^Talk 19:17, 12 August 2023 (UTC)

Yes, the harv error only lasted for one minute, between revisions 1169891278 (23:31) when you added the sfn, and 1169891347‎ (23:32) when you added the full citation. After that, it was fine, and still is. Mathglot (talk) 19:32, 12 August 2023 (UTC)

I don't think that's it, and am still not worried about it unless it's going to display to a measurable number of readers, but just for funsies I will close all the windows and reboot, since point taken about current revision being overly vague. You just removed one of the references that had the error, though. I didn't quite understand your edit summary but apparently it was already used (?) and I trust you. I will report back. Just managed to get my mind around France in the Depression and want to do that first. Elinruby (talk) 22:02, 12 August 2023 (UTC)

Have not removed any unique references. Two uncited refs got moved from "Works cited" to "Further reading", one ref got moved in the other direction to avoid harv errors, and one duplicate ref (Berlière-2018) got dropped (diff), but it's still there in the Bibliography section. Otoh, I restored eleven references you had previously added that got reverted by someone, but I guess you saw that. Mathglot (talk) 00:46, 13 August 2023 (UTC)

Background section, proposed rewrite

Having trouble with the chronology; also some huge number of changes in government.

The 6 February 1934 crisis and subsequent general strike destabilized French society. The Popular Front formed around the socialist SFIO, whose leader, Léon Blum, won the 1936 elections. Wage increases agreed to by the administration of Léon Blum after the general strike further stimulated the economy. The wage and hour concessions that emerged have been blamed by some economists for the runaway inflation and subsequent stagflation, but more recent archival studies indicate that reluctance to devalue the franc and abandon the gold standard were also factors, and possibly more important.

After 1935 runaway inflation was "a leitmotiv in the French economy." Under German occupation, Vichy printed money to make the ruinous payments Germany demanded to cover its inflated estimate of its occupation costs, pushing inflation to 27%. "Yet, once they imposed huge occupation payments, the victors left the French to decide how to raise the funds and contend with passive and active resistance from the population."

More than a million black market citations were issued during the four years of the occupation. From 1945 to 1947, inflation reached 67%, and the transitional government's attempt to institute price controls only further fueled the black market.

In a 2013 book review, historian Robert O. Paxton wrote:

The historiography of Vichy France since the 1970s has consisted largely of refuting the early postwar view that Marshal Pétain’s regime was an alien import imposed for the moment by Nazi force. ... Recent historians have reinstated Vichy firmly within the continuities of French history. Vichy France reacted to what had gone before, especially to the Popular Front of 1936, and tried to prepare for a postwar world.

For another thing we probably should explain that the 1934 crisis was probably a coup attempt Elinruby (talk) 23:57, 13 August 2023 (UTC) Elinruby (talk) 23:57, 13 August 2023 (UTC)

References

Nuance questions for discussion

• Repression: heard this from too many french left-wing activists and consider the word pretty much meaningless. Using "enforcement" but am open to better ideas
• Fraud: seems to used as a synonym for black market participation generally. Probably comes from Vichy primary sources. Fake tickets or extra tickets probably meet some definition of "fraud' but what about riding your bike out to your mother's village to buy carrots? Trying to work around this
• Meals on Wheels: was this in the text? As what? This phrase, in the US, refers to a program for taking food to shut-ins. It's a bit jarring as a reference to bicyclists, and probably needs to be rephrased, no? Elinruby (talk) 21:45, 13 August 2023 (UTC)

Yip. scope_creep^Talk 23:48, 13 August 2023 (UTC)

Probably some kind of scandal widely reported, re for the "Meals on Wheels" but not named, just like for example the "Telegram Affair". Its needs a lot more detail in there. I've made a request to WP:RX for [1]. scope_creep^Talk 00:28, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

Regarding répression, see section § "Fragilization " above. Mathglot (talk) 01:37, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

Questioned text, taxation section

almost as much as the country's 1939 entire budget) (how much was the govt budget in 1939?

• since I found a citation for a different way to describe the size, I am removing the bit that someone (Graeme?) Tagged as cn. Good catch; it does look like an extraordinary claim, but it seems plausible to me that the government's budget might be a quarter of the country's GDP. Anyway, moving it here in case it is useful; I suspect that as we get further into the sources we may be able to reference this if it seems like a good idea. Elinruby (talk) 05:21, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

"Fragilization "

Though a word, I don't think it makes for good heading. GraemeLeggett (talk) 12:52, 13 August 2023 (UTC)

I figured it would be changed. Its a bit odd. Didn't know what to put in. I was waiting until the end of the section was translated before putting in a change, but ifyou can suggest something, all the better. scope_creep^Talk 13:02, 13 August 2023 (UTC)

It seemed to be all about demonstrations and detachment from the Vichy government. What about something that mentions "Discord"? scope_creep^Talk 13:06, 13 August 2023 (UTC)

@GraemeLeggett: I've changed it to "Discord in the Vichy Regime", which is a closer the summary of the article. Any good? scope_creep^Talk 16:12, 13 August 2023 (UTC)

I'd say the section describes how the perception of the existence of black market as a failure of the Vichy state led to public opposition to the state. But it could equally be that general issues with supply of food was seen as a failure of the Vichy authorities and led to opposition. But why is it under "myth" - is that another issue with translation from the French article? GraemeLeggett (talk) 17:20, 13 August 2023 (UTC)

Microsoft's translator gives the section as "Myths, denunciations and weakening of the regime", though it's no clearer what 'myth' refers to. GraemeLeggett (talk) 17:25, 13 August 2023 (UTC)

I don't know either. Its something I put to hold it together, until the section was completed to find something better. I find the "Myths, denunciations..." is quite an odd name and doesn't really address the meaning, except in the most cursory manner. The section is massive, so open to suggestions. scope_creep^Talk 17:38, 13 August 2023 (UTC)

Its part of the 1940-1941 section on the fr wp, so indented to match. scope_creep^Talk 17:44, 13 August 2023 (UTC)

A couple of thoughts, all open to discussion:

• I translated "fragilization" as "undermining" but I don't claim that that is ideal eitner. I believe what the French article is saying is that while the Germans largely fueled the black market by buying what was brought to them, no questions asked, Vichy was blamed for its existence. Which is pretty much the definition of "puppet regime', but whether that label applies to Vichy is a different controversy
• "myth" is used elsewhere in the article with reference to 'hidden abundance"; a resentful sentiment that somebody somewhere must be stockpiling food. Maybe Jewish, or at least there was apparently some propaganda to that effect.
• My impression is that the article was written somewhat hastily by someone who knows the subject well, but also has opinions and is somewhat prone to generalities. I deleted a couple of sentences of mouth noises last night, and more needs to be done about that probably, but I am still a bit unclear on a central point: What was the precipitating event that led to the change in policy ca.1942 and how exactly did the black market come to be seen as patriotic? That's going to be in the third section that I've read but we haven't translated yet.
• As to what is yet undone, I am under the impression that Scope creep plans to finish the translation. If he doesn't I will but he is doing a good job and there is apparently some historiographical dispute about causation that I am trying to nail down, and also write the political and economic context so I can get rid of the excerpt that Scope creep doesn't like ;)
• I do anticipate that a re-write may be needed for organization, since I am seeing some repetition of certain ideas in different sections, for example that it was the big players who benefited.
• This article does not at all go into the scene with Amt Otto and the Neuilly Gestapo and 93 rue Lauriston. Paris is clearly in scope but this article was written by an economist, I think, and that underworld history isn't covered at all.
• Like many French articles, it makes assumptions about what the reader knows that are valid maybe if the reader is French, but ours are not so if something puzzles someone who is reading it I would like to encourage liberal use of {{what|reason this makes no sense}} tags.

Elinruby (talk) 19:02, 13 August 2023 (UTC)

There isn't a lot of historical detail but not read the whole lot. I think its worth getting some papers and other references together. scope_creep^Talk 21:45, 13 August 2023 (UTC)

(ec) Working on it. The instability of the Third Reich was definitely a factor but there is a lot to try to summarize. I didn't want to overwrite your reference fix (thanks) so I will post a proposed rewrite of that Background srctionI was trying to post in a new section on this page and maybe work on it a bit in my sandbox. RL is calling. I have found some more sources about the article and gold looting and resource drain that went on from Paris also. Or would you like us to make a list of sources here? Elinruby (talk) 23:51, 13 August 2023 (UTC)

In general, it pays to take extra special care with words that may be false friends, or which may have multiple meanings. Most of the words discussed above fall into this category. Case in point: répression :

• répression and , or répressif – While these can mean "repression" or "repressive", in this context, it does not; it's more about stamping out/punishing crime. The French article has forms of répress* 34 times, and I haven't seen one where it means "repression". What it means here, is control, crackdown, enforcement, or stamping out. Note that, for example, agents de répression means "law enforcement officials", and services de répression means "law enforcement agencies" (think of them, as "stamping-out-crime officials", or "crime crackdown agencies"). Droit répressif is "criminal law". Juridictions (or Tribuneaux) répressives are "criminal courts". So, for example, § History first paragraph should probably end with: "...but which nonetheless severely cracked down on these offenses.".
• infraction – The word exists in both French and English. In English, this tends to imply something minor, whereas in French, it can be anything from a parking ticket to serial murder; that is, it's the generic term used when you don't know how serious something is. Offense is a good word in English for the generic sense, but as black market activities are usually more serious, the English word "crime" is probably a better choice to describe most offenses in this article.
• fragilisation – I agree with the suggestion of weakening above. Other possibilities: enfeeblement, debilitation, decay, decline, deterioration, dwindling of support, increased fragility/frailty/weakness of, waning.
• mythes – "rumors". Again, a word which often means the same in English (i.e., "myths"), but which is broader than that, and can include gossip, rumors, hoaxes, fabrications, common misrepresentations, canards, and so on. I think "rumors" fits pretty well here.

Whenever you're translating something that is clearly a cognate for an English word, pause a second, and think about whether it *really* means that in English, because very often, it doesn't. I haven't checked the whole article, only responded to words mentioned above, so I wouldn't be surprised if there are other false friends lurking in the article that are worth another look. Finally, don't forget the Glossary of French criminal law, which may be helpful from time to time. It won't help with words like fragilisation or mythes that have nothing to do with crime, but it may help in other cases. Mathglot (talk) 01:04, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

Struck example for répression above, which was fixed while I was writing this. Mathglot (talk) 01:10, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

yeah I'm on this one :) I changed the translation of fragilization to "delegitimizing", which is still jargon-ish but an improvement IMHO. No need to ping me if someone has a better idea. To answer the discussion above, I'm reading its use to mean "growing public discontent" but I think "discord" is too strong. More like Pétain was initially popular as the war hero who saved lives in World War I, but he was falling down on the job, and on what literally were bread and butter issues at that. If CNN had had analysts at the time the would have said he was losing his base, but obviously that's too anachronistic. As to whether it was the shortages or the black market that was the issue, the answer is both, since they were seen as linked. In the early stages the public perception was that there really was enough of everything and it just wasn't getting properly allocated. This the resentment thus the antisemitism. Anyway. am doing a copy edit for flow and strangenesses. As always I don't need to be consulted if someone edits me--I am doing this as the native speaker most likely to spot the stuff that Mathglot is talking about. Just spelling all that out in case, for any lurking diff-hunters.

A word that isn't in my vocabulary but I may have looked up before: soult. Bribe? Elinruby (talk) 04:43, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

Not familiar with it; seems to be a proper noun: either a person, or a place. Mathglot (talk) 06:01, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

Bibliography corruption

@Elinruby:, Your "tidying" revision 1170277920 of 03:47, 14 August 2023 blew away a major portion (1.3kb) of the Bibliography section, meaning that dozens of short footnotes are unmoored and don't point to anything. Easiest repair is probably to grab the Bibliography section out of revision 1170262310‎ of 01:34, 14 August, and paste it over the Bibliography in the latest version of the article, whatever it is when you read this. Any new sources you've added since 01:34 UT will have to be readded again. Mathglot (talk) 06:34, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

yeah I noticed and that and wondered about it but it was the same error you weren't seeing the other day. Which means maybe this tells us what's up with that. I'll take care of it in just a minute, since I really want to figure out what that's about, and afaik I didn't delete anything. But apparently these references really care about the format of the citations? Because that is what I changed. Anyway yeah, I am up and will take care of it. Thanks for the heads up. Elinruby (talk) 06:41, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

ok I see it. It's pretty different than what my preview looked like, but ok, let's fix it and I won't try to format the source code in the bibliography any more, wow. Since I still don't understand these references apparently, I am going to follow your instructions, since a self-revert would lose the rewrites I just did, right? Your way I just have to re-add the references. Don't think I better attempt to match the reference format right now, though, not until I get this straight. Elinruby (talk) 07:02, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

Right; don't roll back, or you'll lose a dozen edits after that. Just copy the last good bibliography from 1:34, and paste it into the live version. *Just* the bibliography. As far as not deleting anything: look at the history; your 03:47 edit removed 1,287 bytes out of the Bibliography section. Mathglot (talk) 07:27, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

Its still massively damaged. scope_creep^Talk 08:16, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

I see that it got deleted. I assure you that this was not deliberate. Some of it got fixed by backtracking the formatting I was trying to do. Apparently it really doesn't like carriage returns where it doesn't expect them. Some of them seem to be actually missing though, like that one 2008 reference, maybe because I did this a couple of different times. Let me fish them back in here. This is as good a time any for me to figure this out, since I did do this. Never fear Scope creep, I'm on it. Most of that is that one 2008 reference that got used a whole lot. Elinruby (talk) 08:20, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

 Done. Not to worry, clearly a glitch of some sort. Fixed now. Mathglot (talk) 08:35, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

is it? It doesn't look fixed over here. Maybe it's some kind of caching like you suggested before. What the hell. Please verify that none of the references is throwing an error over there. Maybe I should dig out the iPhone, mumble. Elinruby (talk) 09:25, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

Alrighty then. I can't be having with not being able to trust what my screen says, so solving this just shot way up my list of priorities. I will be around backing stuff up and whatnot if there are questions about something else I I did ;) Right now I am converting all the open windows to links, which probably isn't a bad idea anyway, and I guess i should turn off all gadgets and beta stuff before going full-bore factory reset on this. I do have the tools to solve this; I've just been procrastinating, but enough is enough. This could take a couple of days, but as I said I'll be in and out, just not binge editing. Elinruby (talk) 10:19, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

Since the "done" check mark above at 08:35, you introduced errors into the bibliography twice more, with these two edits (of 08:43 and 09:13). The 09:13 one I was able to "undo", but the 08:43 couldn't be undone due to subsequent edits, so I had to back it out manually, which was a bit tedious. This is really easy to avoid, if you can just use the "Show Preview" button with every edit, and scroll down to the Citations and the Bibliography sections to make sure they're okay before you hit Publish. This is now  Done again.

It's hard to diagnose remotely without knowing what you are doing, but if you use multiple tabs or multiple browser windows to edit the same file, there is a risk of picking up the wrong version. If you are doing that, then I'd recommend always reloading the page before hitting the edit button. But that only accounts for certain types of errors, and wouldn't account for, say, this one, where you removed the |ref= param from citation Grenard-2017, which took a previously working citation, and broke it. A "Show Preview" before publishing would've demonstrated the breakage. Mathglot (talk) 10:40, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

Back to normal

• Ref 10 seems to missing a page number, but I can't locate it for some reason. scope_creep^Talk 16:48, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

  PSA: I have opened a help desk ticket positing some sort of memory deallocation issue as to tis morning's wtk. After this post I am switching to a different device, device type, operating system and hardware, so any factor this end that might be a trigger should theoretically be eliminated. Leaving ticket open as the Android devices are ergonomically preferable in some circumstances and I'd like to rule them out if they are *not* the issue.

  On the separate issue of edit conflicts and overwriting, I think I will spend the next day or so on Economic history of France, which has some reference/PoV questions around due weight for the Chicago School of Economics. Meanwhile I have been working on sources about film, literature and national memory and guess it would be good to make a list of those and curate it. That should be a big enough sample of edits to make sure the hardware change makes a difference. Meanwhile I suggest we practice using the 'in use" template if two or more of us are in here at the same time, because edit conflicts are sad. Elinruby (talk) 23:40, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

  this end that might be Elinruby (talk) 23:40, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

  the above reply to myself is a user interface artifact but I am not removing it as I usually do because it's an example in a help desk ticket about these issues. Elinruby (talk) 18:47, 15 August 2023 (UTC)

@Scope creep:, Assuming you're referring to the note [10] of rev. 1170348373 of 14:49, 14 August 2023, which was live at 16:48 when you wrote your message, then the reason you can't find a page number, is that that reference is to a one-paragraph, online book review, and has no pages. It's not clear if it verifies the content, and probably referring to Grenard-2008 directly would be better than that very brief review; in that kind of reference, you would need a page number. Mathglot (talk) 08:01, 15 August 2023 (UTC)

Massive gap in coverage

The buying agencies in Paris aren't really discussed and the focus is on food vs for example raw materials. Should be addressed at some point. Since there are already multiple child or associated articles only a summary is needed but this is currently not really covered. Elinruby (talk) 01:35, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

Three phases, four subsections

Section § Three phases has four subsections. There is no intro or seguë sentence, and nothing explaining what the "three phases" are. Neither three, nor phrase occurs anywhere in the body of the section. Mathglot (talk) 08:05, 15 August 2023 (UTC)

I think the tweak I just did may make things clearer. The fourth period is the épuration. This bit is not a translation but is an attempt to explain the discrepancy between 1940-1944 and 1940-1949, albeit incomplete. The significance of 1949 is that the economy improved so rationing ended and the black market became less important. Feel free to edit my edit, but if what I did makes the article look unfinished it's because right now it is most of the first section of the French article and some of the ...third, I think. I would pitch in but I want to make sure I am looking at the same article as everyone else before I get my hands back in it. Meanwhile Economic history of France has been righteously tagged with a bunch of who templates so I think I will go work on that for a while. Elinruby (talk) 03:14, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

general thrust of article

As I understand the subject at the moment with possible gaps not yet addressed in article.

1) French economy/governance not in good shape prior to war
2) French defeat following German invasion wrecks French economy causing supply issues
3) Black market arises to 'solve' supply issue
4) Vichy regime attempts to curb the black market (but what does German administration do?)
5) Black market for some is an act of resistance against Vichy
6) Does anything change with total German occupation?
7) post war the conditions have not improved so Black market continues until effects of post war reconstruction (Marshall plan?) reduce supply issues.
8) is post war government better able to curb black market?

GraemeLeggett (talk) 06:58, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

What is there in the article, is really just the introduction, perhaps covering 1941. Its needs to cover why price controls came in, who introduced them, their initial effects, definition of the black market, definition of the systems, departments, unit that were put in by government for control at the beginning and the effects with some examples, quotes about the early black market and how it affects farmers for example, towns people, city people with details around. That probably covers 1,2,3. I think we should concentrate on just doing that, first of all. I read the article last night. It massive, much bigger than I thought and will take to time to digest. scope_creep^Talk 07:59, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

Generally speaking and with the caveat that some of this is new to me too and I am no more immune to error than anyone else, yes I do believe you've got it, both of you. There are further complexities: for example the government fell many times before France, a deeply conservative and Catholic country, elected a Jewish socialist just as several fascist movements were gaining on importance. For purposes of this article hopefully we can just have a short paragraph.about all the changes in government. I will try shortly to answer at least some of Graeme's questions, need a short break rn tho. Elinruby (talk) 08:25, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

1) French economy/governance not in good shape prior to war

one of the first things they did after the war was rewrite the constitution to make it harder to dissolve the government

2) French defeat following German invasion wrecks French economy causing supply issues

Already wrecked if that 67 percent inflation is anywhere near accurate. But yes then there was massive massive looting of economic assets as well as unreasonable "occupation costs and a predatory exchange rate

3) Black market arises to 'solve' supply issue

we're talking about France where magouilleur is a compliment. No doubt there always was a black market if only for drugs but probably more. But yes when the Germans came along and went nuts buying French wine, art and jewels, no haggling and no questions asked, it naturally attracted a lot more participants (side note: the four star hotels where the Germans ate were exempt from rationing, which didn't help the shortages.)

4) Vichy regime attempts to curb the black market (but what does German administration do?)

Right around 1942 something changes, I am unsure what, and the Germans become much more focused on raw materials. Maybe the accountants put an end to the party. But raw materials is why Joseph Joanovici managed to survive.

5) Black market for some is an act of resistance against Vichy

For many many many. 2000 people a day riding bicycles into the countryside to buy food in Ardèche. But first there was a year or two of increasingly ineffectual attempts to regulate it, progressing to the unleashing of the milice, government thugs

6) Does anything change with total German occupation?

Nnnnnnooooo?? Not quite sure, but Vichy was already sending thugs after its citizens

7) post war the conditions have not improved so Black market continues until effects of post war reconstruction (Marshall plan?) reduce supply issues.

Not sure when Marshall Plan money came through but of course that would have been a stimulus. But with the defeat of the Germans the ruinous occupation costs went away and shortages would have improved. Having a government that stayed in office helped too

8) is post war government better able to curb black market?

Well it took them four years apparently. Short answer, this is not something I have asked myself so I don't know. Not sure ability was the deciding factor so much as sheer amount of damage done

Unasked question: the reason the psychiatric patients were dying of starvation was that they had no access to the black market and had no way to grow their own food. Come to think of it, if France had not had such a strong tradition of subsistence farming, the death toll would have been much worse.

Unasked question #2: I do not know who set the rationing levels or whether they realized that they were low enough to cause starvation

hth Elinruby (talk) 09:52, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

I can only answer some of this:

Its needs to cover why price controls came in

Public outrage I think?

who introduced them

Definitely Vichy. Unclear if this was at German direction. I am under the impression that the Germans weren't very interested and just told Vichy to take care of it, but this isn't one of the ones where I already have a source in my pocket

their initial effects

top-level section 2 goes into great detail on the individual regulations. There were several. I didn't retain the information.

definition of the black market

there's one there but it's pretty superficial, more of a general definition as opposed to about the one in this country at that time

definition of the systems, departments, unit that were put in by government for control at the beginning and the effects with some examples

the name is mentioned in the text and I have a source about it. It looks very boring so I have not yet examined it but I will post it here. I am not sure it was there in the beginning though. Might have been part of the 1943 crackdown. Contrôle something.

• • Service des Contrôles techniques (SCT) Jean-Marc Berlière in Polices des temps noirs. We have something by this author already on a somewhat different topic I think Elinruby (talk) 16:32, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

quotes about the early black market and how it affects farmers for example, towns people, city people with details around

Yes. We have a lot of archival statistics but few quotes, see "written by an economist" remark.

hth Elinruby (talk) 10:21, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

Section Black market needs renaming

The section currently named § Three phases (formerly, "‎Black market (1940-1941) )" doesn't say what the section is about. The whole article is about the Black market, so that section title doesn't help explain what the subtopic is, which is what the MOS:NOBACKREF part of the style guide is all about. So, it will have to be changed, to something else.

Should there even be a section header at that point in the text? Maybe we should just rip it out, and promote the five subsections, currently subsections § Rationing and taxation, § Origins, § Clients, § Rumors and scapegoating, and § Worsening conditions, up to top level sections?

I also question the § History section; isn't the whole article about the history of it? Perhaps § Major works is the only section that isn't part of the History, which would leave us with only two top-level sections: one, long History section followed by a short Major works section. Mathglot (talk) 08:32, 15 August 2023 (UTC)

I think part of the problem is trying to translate each section of the French article and put it in the same place in this article, rather than writing this article using material translated from the French wiki.

Looking at the French article in translation it seems to break up the content in small individual topics rather than relating to the periods of the occupation of France. GraemeLeggett (talk) 08:49, 15 August 2023 (UTC)

I noticed that. Its something we should do to organise it much more recognisable way. I think its light on detail as well, something that Elinruby said possibly being written by an economist. The good thing is, there seems to be a whole bundle of accessible references available to update the article with more detailed content. For example, that section I translated last has a complete paper on the formation of the CE and reformation on 1942. It talks about how it formed, use of the civil service to staff it, use of units across france, checking ration tickets, pushback and so, then its reformation in 42 and the reasons for it. I also got the resource request document, the medical doc on rationing, that detailed the fact the ration were not sufficiently nutricious enough for the average man women and child and drove the creation of the market. It goes a lot of detail why that happened. So I think we provide much more detail when we come to reformat it. I plan to update that clarify bit sometime today or tommorrow. scope_creep^Talk 09:36, 15 August 2023 (UTC)

Totally agree with you re re-org. I do a fair bit of translation from fr-wiki, and I have a lot of reservations with the way they do things, and a lot of times I do what Graeme said, that is, I develop my own organization and just grab bits and pieces of their article for translation—if the piece is up to snuff—and fit it in where it belongs in our article. A lot of times, I don't translate that much of it, and sometimes hardly anything, just checking the French article to see if they found some good sources, and just start again directly from that point, pretty much ignoring their article entirely. The main use I find for fr-wiki, is finding good topics, and some good sources; occasionally some good snippets of text, but I don't count on it. I think this article could stand a good re-org of the section structure; we need to figure out what is "History" and what isn't, name the sections accordingly, and figure out what to do with the "Black market " section; maybe just eliminate the header, and keep the content in its subsections. Mathglot (talk) 10:17, 15 August 2023 (UTC)

That's because Vichy is not exactly "the occupation" maybe. I agree that we may need to reorganize the text but let's understand the structure of the French article, which is chronological (and used in at least some of the sources). I remember the problem about three phases and four sections but I am currently working on hardware stuff and am leery of making extensive changes. I'll get back to this but look at the French article with all of the headers collapsed. I am not necessarily suggesting we adopt it forever and ever but following it for now would help make it easier to keep track of what's been translated. I've been pulling sources and know there's at least one RS that divides the period up that wat. But given the length of the article it's safe to say that there will need to be many spinoffs, Film and Literature for example, or whatever we are calling it right now. Elinruby (talk) 22:42, 15 August 2023 (UTC)

So, where are we with the section header labeled § Black market? Unless someone sees a need for it, I plan to delete the header, and promote the subsections currently under it, up one level. Mathglot (talk) 22:36, 15 August 2023 (UTC)

no objection to that so long as sections remain in same place for now.

Agree with Scope creep about the importance of the caloric requirements vs allocations; should probably become a spinoff eventually. I have a source that says that psychiatric patients starved to death under Vichy; will post it shortly. it's on that curated ust I said I was working on Elinruby (talk) 22:48, 15 August 2023 (UTC)

If we remove that and promote the others, then we'd have the following section organization:

Section organization after dropping section 3 "Black market", and promoting its subsections

1 Background 2 History 2.1 Fall of France 2.2 Three phases 2.2.1 Publicly condemned 2.2.2 Grey market 2.2.3 National pastime 2.2.4 Biens mal acquis 3 Black market – was here 3 Rationing and taxation 4 Origins 4.1 Diversion within official channels 4.2 landestine networks 4.3 Clandestine stockpiles 5 Clients 5.1 Rich Frenchmen 5.2 Occupation forces 6 Rumors and scapegoating 6.1 Hidden wealth 6.2 Official antisemitism 7 Worsening conditions 7.1 Housewives' demonstrations 7.2 Public opinion 7.3 Political opposition 8 Response by authorities 9 Representations in media 10 See also

I think that's better without the old section 3, but it leaves kind of a chaotic organization of top level sections, and I think we have to organize it much better than this. Any suggestions for improvement would be welcome! Mathglot (talk) 23:29, 15 August 2023 (UTC)

That hat isn't unhatting for me. I will look shortly in source. (I am currently trying desktop mode on the phone to see if that's better, which is why I am staying out of the article itself just now btw, if that's reassuring)

Meanwhile, here's what I know about this: The section title #History may be an artifact from translation. "Overview" might be better. I worked on the content of that section and saw it as an explanation of the three-phase paradigm, to be followed by three sections, one for each phase. That structure does not seem to be apparent to the readers of the current English article.

I am not against a re-organization and in fact have proposed spinning off the second top-level section as essentially a list of Vichy, loi du x black market regulations, but for example, the massive purchases made of absolutely anything at absolutely any price stopped in 1942 or 1943, and certainly were not a factor for the entire 1940-1949 period.

(There is also the discrepancy in sources of 1940-1949 vs 1940-1944; I myself currently see this as a matter of whether the author is looking at the economic cycle or at the political/military events. But I haven't systematically explored this yet.)

But yes the article was written by an economist most likely imho, or someone interested in economics at least. As for your comments about fr.wikipedia, it is true that their articles make judgements about BLUESKY that aren't necessarily valid for English speakers; as I told Scope creep once, if you translate an article from French Wikipedia to English Wikipedia, you better be able to reference it. All I am saying is that I have never not been able to. So normally I translate then reference in chunks. But the fact that this is how I usually proceed does not mean that this is how we as a group proceed, but if not, then I think we should agree on the goals and structure. The big old TL;DR from this is that the character of the black market changed radically at a couple of specific inflection points.Elinruby (talk) 00:08, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

That very last sentence, about the couple of inflection points, was the most interesting take-away for me, as I was not aware of that. If I had my druthers, I'd like to see those points named and sourced (if they aren't already), and then after that you could pretty much lift that last sentence and paste it right into the lead, maybe as a new, 3rd paragraph right above "Even after the liberation..." in the last paragraph. Mathglot (talk) 00:24, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

I am still fuzzy on causation but it goes something like:

1. Germans buy anything at any price, causing massive shortages for which Vichy is blamed. This is where Lafont comes in
2. Germans become more focused raw materials, Vichy attempts to regulate the black market
3. No longer frowned upon, the black market becomes both a necessity and "a national pastime", a type of civil disobedience.

I tried to explain this in the history section, clearly not well enough. Elinruby (talk) 08:01, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

Slightly o/t for this section but regarding this:

That hat isn't unhatting for me. I will look shortly in source. (I am currently trying desktop mode on the phone to see if that's better

I'm sorry you're having all these problems. Imho, desktop mode on the phone is definitely the way to go, if you're using a phone. For more on this, please see Cullen328's very useful essay on */Smartphone editing. Not sure if inability to expand a {{collapse top}} is one of the symptoms of mobile view, but maybe Cullen will know. HTH, Mathglot (talk) 20:30, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

I am not aware of that specific problem on mobile view since I use it so rarely. But I have no problem uncollapsing collapsed sections using the desktop mode on my Android smartphone. Cullen328 (talk) 20:44, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

Thank you Cullen: I hope the wildfire season is treating you well this year. Desktop mode does not seem to have the same glitches as web mobile; still cautiously testing. Thanks for your input.

Mathglot I see it as open now, but I guess you just changed the settings? I am thinking about how to proceed and may have a proposal later. Elinruby (talk) 22:07, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

Not sure what you mean is open, or what settings. Mathglot (talk) 22:19, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

Elinruby, Things were OK until a couple of hours ago, when an evacuation order was issued for the tiny community of Washington, California, about 30 miles from my house. Cullen328 (talk) 00:32, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

@Cullen328: Ugh be careful. I am sure you know there was a bad fire there some years ago, and egress was a problem. I am no longer in the area but it has been very hot here and the last time the temperature got this high the next the next town over pretty much spontaneously combusted, so I spent part of the day coaxing my neighbor not to use his chainsaw to cut down that tree in his yard lest he throw sparks. Hopefully none of the tourists throw a cigarette out the window. Knowing you I am sure you have your go bag all set though? Elinruby (talk) 06:18, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

Cullen328 Actually now I look at a map it looks like there are several intervening mountains so you should be fine. They assure me around here that things have to be pretty bad for a wildfire to burn *down* a mountain slope. Will keep you in mind for whatever good that may do...Elinruby (talk) 07:18, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

Elinruby, Fwiw, I said something similar on Cullen's UTP (here), and it sounds like it's not a problem. (edit conflict) Mathglot (talk) 07:04, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

This is seriously off-topic at this point, but I am at no immediate risk. This relatively small fire is 30 miles away and quite remote from my home. If things change, I will be begging all the big shot editors in Singapore for help. Cullen328 (talk) 07:27, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

The "Black market" section header has been removed. See § Section structure re-org below for details. Mathglot (talk) 22:17, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

Ok. I know you don't like the section header and I don't care about it. Just saying, there's a lot more material and I am about to drop a translation about 1942 iny sandbox as previously discussed. It will be unfinished but adequate for English speakers to get the and I'll polish it and check the wikilinks and stuff in the sandbox. And convert those grouped references, unless you want to do it. But imma go finish get rid of the stray French and we can go from there. This would be all or part of the section 2 I am talking about. Elinruby (talk) 06:18, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

If you want help in the sandbox with the refs, I can convert them before or after you translate; just ping me from there. Also, don't forget the copy attribution when copying stuff to your sandbox; copy attribution isn't just about copying to articles or drafts; it applies to any page hosted by Mediawiki anywhere, that includes all user subpages and sandboxes. Mathglot (talk) 06:53, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

Yep. That is why I have been putting translated templates on the translations in my sandboxes also, even though theoretically they only go on articles. Excess of caution etc. Thanks for the reminder about the edit summary tho. @Scope creep: to make sure he knows this chapter is getting done, but I am certain he hadn't reached these sections yet. I am definitely not doing another chunk tonight if you are trying to figure out where to pick up, Scope creep, and this one may not be ready to go live tonight. I will ping you and Mathglot both in about an hour. Graeme, I am under the impression that you don't do translation, but please do let me know if I am wrong about that, or if you just want to take a look. Elinruby (talk) 07:18, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

You can skip the {{translated}} templates in your sandbox pages if you want as they are optional, and it's doubtful anyone else will ever notice them there. If they help you, then by all means, use them. The only attribution required by the ToU is the one in the edit summary, linked to the original article. That goes for article space as well. Mathglot (talk) 07:25, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

Popular culture section

This section will need to renamed or reformatted into the article somehow as these types of sections are no longer considered de rigueur. They are often a catch-all section for all sorts of junk trivia. Perhaps rename it to literature once the graphic novel section is taken out to its own article. scope_creep^Talk 10:30, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

The French article has quite a long section about this, which I think should probably spin off. I would say that the section is long but in the context of the article... Assuming the references hold up it seems clear to me that splitting is the way to go versus a big trim, so section that is an obvious candidates. Given the plethora of examples about the black market specifically, I am pretty confident that there's a good article there. Maybe I should start a list of sources here? Definitely we will need a split, I think, likely several, especially once we start building in English-language sources... Elinruby (talk) 20:44, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

Lists of sources

Here are some lists of sources about various topics. (Regrouping previously existing sections under this header.) Mathglot (talk) 03:21, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

Important source

(for daily life in Vichy Paris)

• • Paris Under the Occupation By Jean-Paul Sartre · 2011

Extremely notable writer who was there Elinruby (talk) 22:54, 15 August 2023 (UTC)

related: CARRARD, PHILIPPE. “EVERDAY LIFE IN FRANCE AT THE TIME OF THE OCCUPATION: SIMONE DE BEAUVOIR’S PRIVATE WRITINGS AS ARCHIVAL EVIDENCE.” Simone de Beauvoir Studies, vol. 17, 2000, pp. 37–47. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/45170472. Accessed 27 Aug. 2023.

Vichy caloric restriction: Psychiatric patients starving

This isn't the one I was thinking of but there seem to be quite a few RS for this, making a list here. Screening by topic and RS only ATM.

• Death by starvation in French psychiatric hospitals during the occupation [Article in French] Michel Caire. Hist Sci Med. 2006 Jul-Sep. Elinruby (talk) 23:17, 15 August 2023 (UTC)

• Here's the one I meant, which has mortality figures, will post a few others: The Mentally Ill Who Died of Starvation in French Psychiatric Hospitals during the German Occupation in World War II, Isabelle von Bueltzingsloewen, In Vingtième Siècle. Revue d’histoire Volume 76, Issue 4, 2002, pages 99 to 115 Translated from the French by JPD Systems,

• The Mentally Ill Under Nazi Occupation in France International Journal of Mental Health Volume 35, 2006 - Issue 4

• Conditions of life and death of psychiatric patients in France during World War II: euthanasia or collateral casualties? Patrick Lemoine et al. CNS Spectr. 2018 Apr, via PubMed

• THE EXTERMINATION OF MENTALLY ILL AND HANDICAPPED PEOPLE UNDER NATIONAL SOCIALIST RULE Date: 17 November, 2016, Auteur: Gerrit Hohendorf, Sciences Po (elite French university): Mass Violence & Resistance (MV&R) is an interdisciplinary online journal focusing on 20th and 21st century massacres and genocides as well as on local resistance against mass violence. Elinruby (talk) 01:27, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

• Silence, Scapegoats, Self-reflection: The Shadow of Nazi Medical Crimes on Medicine and Bioethics; Volker Roelcke, Sascha Topp, Etienne Lepicard Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Jan 28, 2015

Extensive preview Elinruby (talk) 01:29, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

• Montdevergues-Ies-Roses (1940-1945) : Un hôpitalpsychiatrique sous Vichy (1er partie) [article]

Chimères. Revue des schizoanalyses Année 1996 28 pp. 135-160 Fait partie d'un numéro thématique : Les Arts de l'Éco Elinruby (talk) 20:47, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

• Drôles d’histoires : l’extermination douce[article]

Armand Ajzenberg Chimères. Revue des schizoanalyses Année 1996 27 pp. 135-148 Fait partie d'un numéro thématique: Le Temps de la rueElinruby (talk) 21:21, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

Vichy business history

• Histoire, économie et société 1992, 11ᵉ année, n°3. Stratégies industrielles sous l'occupation, sous la direction de Dominique Barjot.

Sous la direction de : sem-linkDominique Barjot (large collection)

• Dirigisme économique, planification et industrialisation à sous le régime de Vichy: 1940-1942 [article]

sem-linkLucile Rabearimanana Outre-Mers. Revue d'histoire Année 2004 342-343 pp. 109-125 Fait partie d'un numéro thématique : Vichy et les colonies

La bataille du beurre fermier dans le Calvados pendant la Seconde Guerre mondiale : la revendication d'une autonomie paysanne [article] sem-linkAntoine Cardi Annales de Normandie Année 2002 52-2 pp. 163-180Elinruby (talk) 21:16, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

• [Mélanges de l'École française de Rome. Italie et Méditerranée, tome 108, n°1. 1996.

[www.persee.fr/issue/mefr_1123-9891_1996_num_108_1 ] = Labor

• How Much Can a Victor Force the Vanquished to Pay? France under the Nazi Boot Filippo Occhino, Kim Oosterlinck and Eugene N. White

The Journal of Economic History Vol. 68, No. 1 (Mar., 2008), pp. 1-45 (45 pages) Published By: Cambridge University Press The Journal of Economic History https://www.jstor.org/stable/40056775

Propaganda

• [2]
• [3]
• [4]

Mélanges de l'École française de Rome. Italie et Méditerranée, tome 108, n°1. 1996. www.persee.fr/issue/mefr_1123-9891_1996_num_108_1

• Encadrer et contrôler le documentaire de propagande sous l'occupation [article] Jean-Pierre Bertin-Maghit

Vingtième Siècle. Revue d'histoire Année 1999 63 pp. 23-49

Arts, literature, music

• LANE, JEREMY F. “‘And What If Jazz Were French … ?’: Postcolonial Melancholy and Myths of French Louisiana in Vichy-Era France.” Jazz and Machine-Age Imperialism: Music, “Race,” and Intellectuals in France, 1918-1945, University of Michigan Press, 2013, pp. 126–54. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.3998/mpub.5328915.8. Accessed 27 Aug. 2023.

• Vaillant, Derek W. “La Police de l’Air: Amateur Radio and the Politics of Aural Surveillance in France, 1921-1940.” French Politics, Culture & Society, vol. 28, no. 1, 2010, pp. 1–24. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/42843635. Accessed 27 Aug. 2023.

• Lloyd, Christopher. “Reconstruction and Retribution: Clouzot’s Post-War Films.” Henri-Georges Clouzot, Manchester University Press, 2007, pp. 63–86. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt155j8q4.8. Accessed 27 Aug. 2023.

• McKinney, Mark. “Avant-Gardism, Migration and Postcolonialism in Alagbé’s Comics.” Postcolonialism and Migration in French Comics, Leuven University Press, 2020, pp. 251–82. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv15vwk0p.12. Accessed 27 Aug. 2023.

• Scott, Ian. “POLITICAL FILMS IN THE CLASSIC STUDIO ERA.” American Politics in Hollywood Film, NED-New edition, 2, Edinburgh University Press, 2011, pp. 34–79. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.3366/j.ctt1g0b3nb.7. Accessed 27 Aug. 2023.

• Esquevin, Christian. “Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.” Designing Hollywood: Studio Wardrobe in the Golden Age, University Press of Kentucky, 2023, pp. 125–61. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/jj.5329463.9. Accessed 27 Aug. 2023.

General introduction with coverage

• The Black Market in Occupied Northern France, 1940-4 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Scope creep (talk • contribs) 23:34, 15 August 2023 (UTC)

  Looks like it would make a good addition to § Further reading, where it can hang out until someone uses it in a footnote. Mathglot (talk) 00:27, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

  Elinruby (talk) 00:47, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

• CARRARD, PHILIPPE. “EVERDAY LIFE IN FRANCE AT THE TIME OF THE OCCUPATION: SIMONE DE BEAUVOIR’S PRIVATE WRITINGS AS ARCHIVAL EVIDENCE.” Simone de Beauvoir Studies, vol. 17, 2000, pp. 37–47. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/45170472. Accessed 27 Aug. 2023.
• RÉE, HARRY. “LOOKING BACK.” A Schoolmaster’s War: Harry Ree - A British Agent in the French Resistance, edited by Jonathan Rée, Yale University Press, 2020, pp. 149–69. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvxkn7h7.11. Accessed 27 Aug. 2023.

• Another source *about that period:Economic draining – German black market operations in France, 1940–1944, Paul Sanders Global Crime, Volume 9, Issue 1-2 (2008) Elinruby (talk)

01:25, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

@Elinruby: That looks like a good one. 32 pages. The german perspective. I'll make a resource request for it. scope_creep^Talk 08:03, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

• Another survey, this one of the broader period: La France du marché noir: 1940-1949 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Elinruby (talk • contribs) 02:46, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

Knegt, Daniel. “Facing a Fascist Europe: 1939-1943.” Fascism, Liberalism and Europeanism in the Political Thought of Bertrand de Jouvenel and Alfred Fabre-Luce, Amsterdam University Press, 2017, pp. 95–158. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt1zkjzhc.8. Accessed 27 Aug. 2023.

• Gordon, Bertram M. “German Tourism in Occupied France, 1940–1944.” War Tourism: Second World War France from Defeat and Occupation to the Creation of Heritage, Cornell University Press, 2018, pp. 99–145. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7591/j.ctt21kk2bs.8. Accessed 27 Aug. 2023.

• Geroulanos, Stefanos. “An Army of Shadows: Black Markets, Adaptation, and Social Transparency in Postwar France.” The Journal of Modern History, vol. 88, no. 1, 2016, pp. 60–95. JSTOR, https://www.jstor.org/stable/26547463. Accessed 27 Aug. 2023.

• McGrattan, Ellen R., et al. The Macroeconomics of War and Peace. no. 511, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, 1993. JSTOR, https://jstor.org/stable/community.28111799. Accessed 27 Aug. 2023.

• Forsyth, Douglas J. “A Sea Change in Economic Governance Across Europe, 1931–1948.” Regime Changes: Macroeconomic Policy and Financial Regulation in Europe from the 1930s to the 1990s, edited by Douglas J. Forsyth and Ton Notermans, 1st ed., Berghahn Books, 1997, pp. 69–123. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv287sh3z.6. Accessed 27 Aug. 2023.

Chicago School of Economics weighs in

Black Markets Were a Lifeline for Postwar France - Milton Freedman contemporaneous interview. Obviously he was against market regulation; that point about Vichy instituting the first French economic planning is verified though Elinruby (talk) 00:21, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

• Not Chicago, but an outdated (according to others) paradigm refuted in the text: The Economic Crisis of the 1930s in France Alfred Sauvy Elinruby (talk) 01:24, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

Perhaps relevant to housewives' riots

I do not have access ATM tho, need to check Wikipedia Library:

• Les Parisiennes How the Women of Paris Lived, Loved and Died in the 1940s By Anne Sebba · 2016

Elinruby (talk) 01:21, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

• Clothing Goes to War: Creativity Inspired by Scarcity in World War II

Nan Turner Copyright Date: 2022 Edition: NED - New edition Published by: Intellect https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv36xw28g

Black market or rationing in other countries in World War 2

• rationing in US: Price Controls, Black Markets, And Skimpflation: The WWII Battle Against Inflation February 8, 2022

Greg Rosalsky, NPR US: BLACK MARKET - A STUDY OF WHITE COLLAR CRIME NCJ Number 15515 Author(s)M B CLINARD Date Published 1969

• Overview, not sure if WW2: Emergence of Black-Market Bureaucracy: Administration, Development, and Corruption in the New States Robert O. Tilman Public Administration Review

Vol. 28, No. 5 (Sep. - Oct., 1968), pp. 437-444 (8 pages) Published By: Wiley

• Germany: Berlin’s Black Market: 1939–1950. By Malte Zierenberg. Worlds of Consumption. Edited by Hartmut Berghoff and Uwe Spiekermann.Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015. Pp. x+292. $109.00 (cloth); $84.99 (e-book).

David F. Crew

• post-war Germany: [https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/fears-of-retribution-in-post-war-germany Fears of Retribution in Post-War Germany: Three groups were at the heart of post-war German fears of revenge: Jewish Holocaust survivors, Eastern European Displaced Persons, and American occupation officials. The National WWII Museum, New Orleans,

September 21, 2021

• Belgium: À propos de l'économie belge au cours de la seconde guerre mondiale [note critique]

Vanwelkenhuyzen Herman Van der Wee, Revue belge de Philologie et d'Histoire Année 1979 57-2 pp. 394-409 Fait partie d'un numéro thématique : Histoire (depuis l'Antiquité) - Geschiedenis (sedert de Oudheid) /doc/rbph_0035-0818_1979_num_57_2_3242?q=marche+noi+seconde+guerre+mondiale

Modiano

• The Unforgotten: Patrick Modiano’s mysteries, Alexandra Schwartz, New Yorker, September 28, 20

• Dora Bruder ou la biographie déplacée de Modiano [article]

Jeanne Bem Cahiers de l'AIEF Année 2000 52 pp. 221-232

• Naissance d’un fantôme[1]Dora Bruder de Patrick Modiano

Catherine Douzou, 11 février 2008 https://www.erudit.org/fr/revues/pr/2007-v35-n3-pr1985/017476ar/ DOI https://doi.org/10.7202/017476ar revue Protée Volume 35, numéro 3, hiver 2007, p. 23–32 Poétiques de l’archive

• [https://www.erudit.org/fr/revues/tce/1992-n38-tce656/025737ar/ L'univers trouble de Patrick Modiano et de Paul Auster : une étude de Vestiaire de l'enfance et de La Musique du hasard Numéro 38, décembre 1992, p. 42–54

Fiction policière et roman actuel

• Le chaland des boutiques obscures. L'homme et la mémoire selon P. Modiano [article] Christine Vial

Bulletin de psychologie Année 1989 42-389 pp. 366-369 Fait partie d'un numéro thématique : La mémoire

• Le scénario de Lacombe Lucien (1974) par Louis Malle et Patrick Modiano : une écriture à quatre mains [article]

Aurélie Feste-Guidon Bibliothèque de l'École des chartes Année 2009 167-1 pp. 133-153

Section structure re-org

I've taken a shot at a section structure re-org. The "Black market" section header is gone (per MOS:NOBACKREF, we never should've had a section by that name anyway). The basic structure is now a three-part, chronological sequence, with top-level sections § Background, § History, and § Postwar impact. The history section is by far the longest, but suffers from a confused approach of appearing to be subsectioned by theme, rather than chronologically. But I think overall, the sectioning is more coherent now. Mathglot (talk) 22:17, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

The fr article has three main headings.

• Generalization and democratization (autumn 1941-1943)
• Black market, a patriotic challenge (spring 1943-summer 1944)
• After the Liberation (1944-1949)

The section thats in there in "History" only really covers the early part of 1941, within the first main heading. scope_creep^Talk 22:37, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

Right, it is an overview of the section structure that follows. I have been wary of duplicating Scope creep's work unnecessarily but I didn't realize that he didn't realize the actual length of the thing. Here is my thought: I don't actually care if we keep the structure of the French article but I suggest we get it into English before we reorganize it. Since Scope creep seems to be proceeding sequentially from the beginning, would it help if I busted out a quick and dirty translation of the third top-level section? Probably in a.sandbox, out of an excess of caution? This is the one about the black market as a national pastime.

The second one, well. I have proposed spinning it off for the French admin law project, but that is partly my own burnout. I guess it is important to the extent that it goes into great length as I recall about first Vichy passed this regulation and then they passed that one. I have seen way too many "loi du (date)" articles to find that interesting, but we *are* still dealing with the fact that most readers will come to the article with the preconception that any rationing must have been imposed by the Germans, so we need some kind of summary of this at least.

I still need to figure out how to *stay* in Desktop view -- this may simply be that I still have Mobile view tabs open -- so I don't want to touch the bibliography at the moment, but setting aside the referencing, I want to emphasize that everything we have so far relates to 1940-1941 and doesn't do much to clarify that although the Germans created some of the environment with what the sources seem to be calling a resource drain, when it comes to most of the black market and maybe all of the rationing, the French State carried out most of the actions.

I think.

But if we get all of it in English *then* reorganize, it might be better, so that the ability to read French is not a prerequisite to helping with this article Elinruby (talk) 23:47, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

Re: second section, which I just said was boring. This is where the part about people starving if the couldn't grow vegetables would go, so...maybe it's just boringly written.

But yeah, there's my offer. It probably wouldn't be pretty but I could get something into English with relatively minor difficulty so long as I don't have to worry about blowing up other people's work in the process. Elinruby (talk) 23:53, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

Elin, I see what you're saying, and wrt Scope creep's "massive" comment, what do you think about this idea: instead of just translating top to bottom through the whole article, why not just translate the introductory sentence or paragraph of each major section, or a summary of the lead sentences of the subsections if there is no intro, just to get the English section and subsection structure in place, even if our sections are a tenth or twentieth the length of the French ones. Then, once the whole structure is in place (and after a period of restructuring/re-org, if needed), then we can go back top to bottom, filling out the translations of each of the sections. Plus, we could divvy up the sections and all translate simultaneously, as long as we work on different ones. What do you think? Mathglot (talk) 07:42, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

That is a good idea re: divying sections up for translating. It would probably have taken me about at two months to translate it at the rate I was going. Its enormous. It an interesting idea as we need to get sections right to see whats missing. There could more detail in certain parts of it. scope_creep^Talk 08:17, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

Yeah there are a whole bunch of nested sections. I was going to tell you where I am starting and stopping by since you are both around and talking about this I will go ahead and move the unfinished text to my sandbox. There is a whole load of detail, maybe too much, and yes, I realize it isn't ready to go live. PS. Several related articles have these grouped Harvard references also. Will ping on those translations also.Elinruby (talk) 08:28, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

So question... Why don't I get out of there to reduce edit conflicts and you guys work on this if you want? Divide up sections maybe? I am kinda tired but I think I can do the third one with just the headers, but the French syntax will throw a million errors though. Speaking of, a lot of the reference errors in this one are over French date format. It's possible there is untranslated syntax too. Consider it extremely version 0.2 if you work on it. Either way, to whom it may concern, I am out of that sandbox for the night. Feel free if you want to tag with any questions or do whatever else is needed Elinruby (talk) 09:55, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

There is lots of untranslated text needing translated. I think it would take about 6-10 hours to get it into shape. Then we can copy it across, and then look at the section headers, to see how they fit. It encompasses the the middle section, or part of it anyway. The references can be fixed in double quick time as most of them are already in. scope_creep^Talk 10:02, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

It needs work. But it is easier to show the structure than explain it. I believe that was the entire second section minus 'clients" which I already did. Per Mathglot's request I am also moving over the third section, but I have commented out everything but the headers. There is a fourth section about the post war period Elinruby (talk) 10:20, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

okay! Sorry for the extra ping. Definite time for a break. But they should help with discussions of structure I do want to reiterate that we need a summary section for Paris. I can write it or.at least start it, eventually if need be but for now just remember to take Henri Lafont, Joseph Joanovici and Countesses of the Gestapo into account in this reorg planning, because they are definitely in scope yet quite different from what we have here so far Elinruby (talk) 11:08, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

To make this easier to understand

• mostly translated (80%?) section 2, quite rough still

headers only, French text commented out

• Black market 3
• Black market 4 Elinruby (talk) 14:06, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

You could if you want, create a sandbox page off this article and put material there. GraemeLeggett (talk) 14:44, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

Huh didn't realize that. Need to go this second but probably section two (1941-1942) should go there. Will do that when I come back if nobody else has done so sooner. Status update: at least two paragraphs of French remain in that but it's not so much a translation problem anymore. There are probably stray instances of 'le" or whatever, and a few words I skipped because I want to look then up. And, an all-important technical question: ton or tonne in this context? Tonne is just there because it didn't require me to change the French word.

I don't claim the writing is elegant; I was focused on powering it into English and eliminating errors. I have checked some but not all of the wikilinks, and I think I got all the reference errors caused by French syntax. I did not fix the errors caused by date format yet. There are probably also some caused by the grouped Harvard references. I just ran through the article this morning and got a lot of low-hanging fruit. Edit at will you guys, if you want of course. Oh and another thing that isn't done yet is verifying the references to be sure they do say what they are supposed to support. Probably gone for the rest of the day. Elinruby (talk) 19:31, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

side note: Persée gas an enormous number of items about "daily life in place x", and that's without touching the primary sources, so it may be possible that the price examples can be cited to a journal article or a book as well as to the regional newspapers of the period. As far as the lesser-known newspapers are concerned a lot of them exist at least to the extent of having a Wikipedia article, irony intended. This is a progress report.

Also, somewhere towards the end of section 2, there is a mention of Vichy sending the milice out to enforce the rationing laws. I am not saying it's wrong but those references should be carefully checked. The article I was looking at for supposedly "the" armed militia of the milice doesn't seem to mention this, but it's probably a matter of which Vichy and which milice -- the one I looked at was pretty famous for the Battle of Vercors. Elinruby (talk) 02:29, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

So do people want me to put that stuff in a sandbox of this page? I can do that in a minute but although the power is back on I will probably spend most of the day obsessing about where the southern edge of the fire is, besides way too close. It overlaps two fire districts and apparently no fire information response lessons have been learned since last time, because the best information is like 4th-hand from one of the indigenous fire-fighters. Official channels drowning in other fires. Light copy-edits at best from me today, nada if the power goes out again.Elinruby (talk) 20:46, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

Sandbox

Draft:Black market in wartime France/translation in progress Elinruby (talk) 22:05, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

(Link updated to reflect discussion below),Elinruby (talk) 00:27, 19 August 2023 (UTC)

somebody didn't like that idea and moved the sandbox to draft, which makes me worry that somebody well-meaning will overwrite this article. Unsure how to proceed. I guess I will drop a note to the person who did that? Elinruby (talk) 23:40, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

update

I added section 3 (reminder: only headers translated, French text Commented out). I wasn't sure if the html commenting was going to prevent errors caused by for example the "pages totales" reference parameters in the untranslated French. It seems so, although a bot sent a message to my user page about what seems to be a different problem. If that strategy seems to be working I will add section 4 later today probably. There is also a separate "Black market in popular culture" or whatever we are calling it now, different from the popular culture article that is currently in the article, which I wrote from other sources I had stumbled across.

As I mentioned above in another section to Scope creep, most likely we will split the article, and that popular cultural section seems like the easiest to split off for a start, but ok, let's put everything in one place for now. I am really confident that there are more than enough novels, films and graphic novels about the black market to warrant a separate article. Psychiatric hospitals also probably, and I saw some sources that make me think that there may have been similar situations in the prisons and internment/PoW camps.

I intend to be in and out of Wikipedia today but there is a new wildfire quite close to me now, so this may change quickly. At the moment it is being actively worked and moving away however so I am currently in no particular danger and not even on evacuation alert, just close enough to pack a bag, in case. Elinruby (talk) 01:00, 19 August 2023 (UTC)

I moved it to Draft:Black market in wartime France/translation in progress. I hope that's acceptable. - Sumanuil. _{(talk to me)} 00:12, 19 August 2023 (UTC)

@Sumanuil: works for me, thanks. Elinruby (talk) 00:25, 19 August 2023 (UTC)