Resisting through the law? Lawyers and magistrates during the Resistance (1940-1944)

Abstract

This paper seeks to identify three forms of legal resistance though a sociohistorical analysis of the participation of lawyers and magistrates in the French resistance movement in during World War Two. The first refers to “resistance despite the law” and describes the antagonism between legalism and resistance that should have prevented lawyers from participating in the resistance movement. Second, “resistance in the shadow of the law” depicts how, progressively, the subversive potential of judicial professions were discovered and used. Third, “resistance in the name of the law” shows how legal arguments were used to justify and legitimate internal and external resistance. This threefold conception, analytical as well as chronological, is an invitation to a more complex analysis of the relationships between law and politics.