Pétain sentenced to death: Franco reacted with sorrow

August 15, 1945: Pétain's death sentence is announced

Franco received the news with "great sorrow and sadness." On August 15, 1945, the verdict condemning his friend Marshal Philippe Pétain, hero of Verdun and head of the Vichy regime, to death was made public. The sentence was commuted to life imprisonment, but Franco's gesture did not go unnoticed: in an interview with the newspaper Arriba, the Caudillo offered Pétain hospitality in Spain if he were ever released. "There is little we can do, but if he were to be liberated, we would gladly offer him the hospitality of our country," he declared.

The relationship between the two was forged on the battlefield. Pétain was commander of the French forces in the Rif campaign (1924-26), where Franco earned his colonel's stripes and, at 33, became the youngest general in Europe. Mutual respect transcended politics: Pétain described Franco as "the cleanest sword of the West" in 1939, when France recognized the Francoist government. In 1941, with France already occupied, they met in Montpellier.

The trial of Pétain, however, divides opinion. For some, it was a legal process that met French standards; for others, an act of political revenge that was not applied with the same yardstick to his victims. "He had a fair trial. Much more than his victims had," maintains one side. "Was it fair? In Spain, the elderly are not imprisoned for humanitarian reasons," replies another. Eighty years later, the question of the legitimacy of the conviction remains open.