I'm taking a class on modern Algeria right now and we're covering the war for independence. Tangentially we have discussed Vichy France, of course, and it was mentioned in passing that during WWII, the Americans supported the Allied move to hand the government of French North Africa to Francois Darlan, a Vichy official.
I don't really understand why this was the case. Why would the Allied powers have wanted to install a Vichy government at all, instead of someone like de Gaulle who actually was associated with the Allies, and why would the United States support it?
Why would the Allied powers have wanted to install a Vichy government at all, instead of someone like de Gaulle who actually was associated with the Allies, and why would the United States support it?
"Install" is the wrong way to think about it. Francois Darlan had been the serving lieutenant governor and then governor of Algeria since 1940.
The deal, as I understand it, was to co-opt the serving Vichy governor and bring him over to the Allied side, and ensure a continuity of government and minimize any resistance.
Theoretically, the British and Americans could have installed a de Gaulle loyalist as a new governor. But to do so would mean contending with the fact that Free French forces were not very numerous in North Africa, and establishing a new government in North Africa would tie up a lot of FF administrative and military resources to get the governorship set up.
From an American perspective at the time, it was a lot easier to simply promise Darlan that he would keep the power that he had and convince him to come over to the Allied cause, while keeping administration in North Africa intact.