Diplomàcia i repressió. La persecució hispano-francesa de l’exili republicà, 1937-1951

Abstract

Diplomàcia i repressió is a research text that analyses the State, police and unofficial repression of exiles of the Second Spanish Republic in France during three important wars, the Spanish Civil War, the Second World War and the Cold War. The
unoffi cial strategies and diplomatic agreements resulted in dark and sinister police policies that decisively affected the lives of thousands of people. This was a political repression and this work analyses this continuous repression from the Civil War
to the «witch hunt» operation in France in 1950. The research is based on original documents stored in the national and ministry archives of France and Spain, as well as police documentation and fi les on police and military repression. The persecution and repression of republican exiles employed all kinds of casuistries and affected everyone from senior offi cials to the most humble exiles who were deported and exterminated. The Spanish and French states played their part in the entire process and the different diplomatic and geostrategic expectations have traumatically marked our history and our societies. The work with the primary sources enables us to see that these repressive policies are not remote, and are in no way anecdotal or trivial. They were policies —albeit erroneous— which were dictated in violation of all respect for human and citizens’ rights. In addition to the facts, the article provides a European insight into the Franco’s Regime’s hard, fanatical and obsessed «extraterritorial repression» of the republican exile.