Films like The Sorrow and the Pity and Lacombe Lucien, as well as recent scholarship, have replaced the old Gaullist myth of Nazi-occupied France and ""a nation of resisters"" with a new myth of ""a nation of collaborators."" John Sweets's provocative assessment challenges both stereotypes. From evidence gathered at Clermont-Ferrand, the largest town near Vichy, the Occupation capitol, Sweets found the French far less devoted to Petain than some have argued, and far more supportive of de Gaulle than has been suspected. The New Order was emphatically rejected by most of the French, he concludes