Joseph Barthélemy

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Joseph Barthélemy (8 July 1874 – 14 May 1945) was a French jurist, politician and journalist. He was the son of Aimé Barthélemy, a left‑wing mayor of Toulouse, and became a professor of constitutional law at the University of Paris. He was one of the leading French Catholic intellectuals of the 1930s and initially a strong critic of Nazi Germany, especially its anti‑Semitism.

Although he was on the moderate right, he was drawn to the Vichy regime because of his mentor Charles Maurras. Like his ally Pierre-Étienne Flandin, Barthélemy supported pacifism toward Germany and was strongly anti‑communist, which pushed him toward collaboration.

Before the war he was a deputy for the Democratic Republican Alliance. In February 1941 he became Minister of Justice, succeeding Raphaël Alibert. In that role he signed the 1941 law creating the section spéciale, which gave new bodies the power to impose life imprisonment and death sentences without the right of appeal. He later claimed he signed the law only under pressure from Interior Minister Pierre Pucheu and tried to shift blame onto Pucheu.

Barthélemy also supported anti‑Semitic laws and helped draft them with Xavier Vallat, including the 1941 Second Law on the Status of Jews. He co‑signed a restrictive law that criminalized sexual relations between adult men and someone under 21, a law not repealed until 1982.

In 1943 the Ministry of Justice passed to Maurice Gabolde, but Barthélemy remained prominent, leading the proceedings against Léon Blum in the Riom Trial. He was arrested in October 1944, imprisoned, then moved to a hospital where he died in 1945.