I read this claim a week or so ago, can’t remember where now. My eyes just glided over it but a week later I had the “hey wait a minute” reaction.
I have googled and not found anything conclusive, but remain curious.
Factual basis for the claim: The French National Front is a direct lineal descendant of Vichy Regime
One thread:
Jean-Louis Tixier-Vignancour was “general-assistant secretary on Information for the État français (the Vichy government), and as such in charge of its censorship” per Wikipedia. A non-trivial player overall in the Vichy regime.
He continued to be an extremist far right politician after the war.
His campaign co-manager in the 1965 presidential campaign was Jean-Marie Le Pen, who you should know if you’ve been Googling The National Front.
Other similar connections exist. If you want to pick a group that is descended from the Vichy years, The National Front is it. There were/are other groups, some of which merged into NF and others spit off form it. But the NF is the only significant stable group on the far right. If you added up folk that are far right but not NF, it’s pretty good size, but they are aren’t cohesive.
And National Front cofounder Roland Gaucher was the head of the youth organization of the RNP, which was one of the parties in Vichy government.