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André Broc (4 December 1909, Arras – 5 January 1997, Bueil) was a French civil servant and jurist. He is known for his research work on defining the legal "quality of Jew" and for his involvement in the development of police tools used in the persecution of Jews under the Vichy regime.

Biography

André Broc, born in Arras in 1909, attended Sciences Po Paris in 1933. During World War II, he worked within the Sub-Directorate of Jewish Affairs at the Paris Police Prefecture. Broc was a close associate of Georges Montandon. On 15 December 1942, Broc defended a doctoral thesis in law titled La qualification juive ("The Jewish Qualification") at the University of Paris Faculty of Law. His thesis committee included three prominent legal scholars: Achille Mestre (thesis advisor), Pierre Lampué, a specialist in colonial law, and Georges Scelle, an expert in public international law. The thesis received the highest distinction and was published by the Presses universitaires de France under the title La qualification juive. In 1943, it was republished as La qualité de juif: Une notion juridique nouvelle ("The Quality of Jew: A New Legal Notion").

According to Danièle Lochak, the thesis, ostensibly based on a scientific and sociological approach, served primarily as a practical tool for racial identification.

At the Liberation of France, Broc defended himself before the épuration commission, denying any antisemitism in his thesis and claiming to have rendered services. He remained at the Paris Police Prefecture, overseeing archives alongside Hélène Tulard, the wife of his former director, André Tulard. Broc later became active in union activities within the Prefecture.

In 1958, Broc was awarded the Légion d'honneur in the presence of General Charles de Gaulle. The event sparked controversy when Eugène Saint-Bastien, a French Communist Party member, protested vehemently during a Council of Paris session, holding a copy of Broc's book on the "quality of Jew."

References

1. Relevé des fichiers de l'Insee
2. Serge Klarsfeld, Le premier statut des juifs, Paris, 4 October 2010.
3. Philippe Fabr (2001). Le Conseil d'État et Vichy: Le contentieux de l'antisémitisme. Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne. pp. 274 (note 511). ISBN 978-2-85944-399-3.
4. Laurent Joly (2006). Vichy dans la « solution finale ». Paris: Grasset & Fasquelle. ISBN 978-2-246-63841-4.
5. Danièle Lochak, "La doctrine sous Vichy ou les mésaventures du positivisme," in Les usages sociaux du droit, CURAPP-PUF, 1989, p. 252.
6. Laurent Joly (2006). Vichy dans la « Solution finale ». Paris: Grasset. ISBN 978-2-246-63841-4. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |subtitle= ignored (help)
7. Thomas Wieder (2 June 2011). "Enquête chez les soutiers de la persécution". Le Monde. Retrieved 13 November 2020.
8. Laurent Joly (2011). L'antisémitisme de bureau. Paris: Grasset. ISBN 978-2-246-73691-2. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |subtitle= ignored (help)

Further reading

• Laurent Joly (2011). L'antisémitisme de bureau, Enquête au cœur de la Préfecture de police de Paris et du Commissariat général aux questions juives (1940-1944). Paris: Grasset. ISBN 978-2-246-73691-2.

• 1909 births
• 1997 deaths
• People from Arras
• French jurists
• French civil servants
• Knights of the Legion of Honour
• Sciences Po alumni
• Vichy regime collaborators
• People from Eure
• 20th-century French lawyers