In 1942 the dictatorial regime of occupied France held a show trial that didn't work. In a
society from which democratic checks and balances had been eliminated under a regime that made
its own laws to try its opponents the government's signature legal initiative - a court packed
with sympathetic magistrates and soldiers whose investigation of the defunct republic's leaders
was supposed to demonstrate the superiority of the new regime - somehow not only failed to
result in a conviction but in spite of the fact that only government-selected journalists
were allowed to attend turned into a podium for the regime's most bitter opponents. The public
relations disaster was so great that the government was ultimately forced to cancel the trial.
This catastrophic would-be show trial was not forced upon the regime by Germans unfamiliar with
the state of domestic opinion rather it was a home-grown initiative whose results disgusted
not only the French but also the occupiers. This book offers a new explanation for the failure
of the Riom Trial: that it was the result of ideas about the law that were deeply imbedded in
the culture of the regime's supporters. They genuinely believed that their opponents had been
playing politics with the nation's interests whereas their own concerns were apolitical. The
ultimate lesson of the Riom Trial is that the abnegation of politics can produce results almost
as bad as a deliberate commitment to stamping out the beliefs of others. Today politicians on
both sides of the political spectrum denounce excessive polarization as the cause of political
gridlock but this may simply be what real democracy looks like when it seeks to express the
wishes of a divided people.
