Budget. Michel Sapin wants to make security rhyme with austerity
CGT Air France. All the violence dooms them.
Justice: how the Macron law grants out impunity to bosses
No Terrorists, But Lunatics
Austerity Spoiled Economic Growth Over Last Six Months
OECD Pits Active Workers Against Retirees
“We Never…!”: The French Bourgeoisie’s Shameful Collaboration With the Nazis
Socialist Party Seeks to Close Ranks Behind European Budget Pact
The Cult Film and Documentary Maker Chris Marker Has Passed Away
Workers’ Rights Notably Absent From the French Government’s Plan For the Car Industry
The CGT Calls Mittal’s London Olympic Honors "Obscene"
PSA’s Restructuring Plan Spells a Social And Political Upheaval
Coal. AXA still isn’t doing enough to divest.
Grande-Synthe. The Causes of the Fire
What if We Talk of Offshoring and its Carbon Footprint?
Anastasia: A Destiny Shaped by Machete Strokes and Courage
“Now, the refugees live like us, with us”
In Henin-Beaumont, the Front National (FN) Looses it’s case Against the Parti Communiste Français (PCF) and the Newspaper l’Humanité
The State has Forgotten the Miners of 1948
From the street to the town squares, people want a future which does not include the El Khomri law
In January 2016, almost 10,000 homeless people phoned 115 without success
L’Humanité on the Airwaves
The El Khomri workers’ code comes under scrutiny
Education: More than one in two teachers on strike against the reform of lower secondary schools
ORIGINAL FRENCH ARTICLE: Révélations sur la part sombre de Coco Chanel
by Romain Silvi
New revelations on the dark side of Coco Chanel
Translated Monday 22 August 2011, by and reviewed by Derek Hanson
A new biography of Coco Chanel written by American journalist Hal Vaughan accuses the French designer of having been a spy for the Nazis during World War II. The Chanel group has quickly responded, confirming that the fashion house founder’s role during the war still has “an element of mystery”.
“Sleeping with the enemy, Coco Chanel’s secret war”, by journalist Hal Vaughan, is the fifty-eighth biography about the French designer. Edmonde Charles-Roux, author of another Chanel biography considers this new release a “time-bomb”. She says “I have met the author. There was written proof for everything he showed me”. This book suggests direct links between Coco Chanel and the Nazi regime. According to the author, Chanel was recruited in 1940, at the age of 57, by the Nazi regime as a secret agent for the regime. She had a relationship with German baron Hans von Dincklage, “a high-society spy” according to Mrs Charles-Roux, who downplays the political role held by the officer in love with the designer.
The Chanel group, owned by the Wertheimer family, insisted on responding, maintaining that the accusations of anti-semitism levelled against the founder were without substance. “It was common in France to have anti-Semitic prejudices. If we had to count up all of the anti-Semites we’d be here for a very long time. It was something terribly evil, and it manifested itself in Chanel’s immediate circle” added Mrs Charles-Roux.
The new biography also reports the designer’s attempts to take back the perfume department, primarily controlled by the Wertheimer family, through her Nazi contacts. “Gabrielle Chanel was quite a character, like many designers. She never completely accepted having given up her rights to create and sell the perfumes she considered to be her own”. This attempt, cleared by the current owners, did not taint the designer’s relationship with the Wertheimers, as she went on to sell them the fashion house in the fifties, the group recalls. “Moreover, Miss Chanel apparently approached Winston Churchill in order to act as a mediator between the Allies and the Germans in the prospect of a peace accord," even though Coco Chanel’s role and motivations in this operation also still have their “element of mystery”.
