Jeu d'Histoire de la France

This loto-style game has 10 player boards, each with illustrations of 10 events in French history, from 650 B.C. to 1940. While winning the game depends simply on having the 10 dates on a player card drawn before any other player's card is completed, this game provides an immense amount of historical detail.

The front of each of the small date cards includes a title for the image, a reference to its period in history, and the first part of a sentence of additional information that is then continued on the back side of the card.

What makes this game truly unique is that the final image, dated 1940, is of Marshal Pétain surrounded by a halo bearing the words Travail, Famille, Patrie (Work, Family, Motherland). This was the slogan of Vichy France, which was formed after France's surrender to the invading Germans in the spring of 1940. Interestingly, while unoccupied Vichy territory was limited to southern and eastern France, the map of all of France behind Pétain is filled shoulder to shoulder by supportive French men and women.

The full text of the final 1940 card reads: "Marshal Pétain appeals for French unity. End of the Third Republic. After her victory (in WWI), France falls into moral ruin: impotence, corruption and scandal dominate its rulers. Beaten by Germany, she changes her regime and entrusts power to Marshal Pétain."

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