La Capitale de la Faim: Black Market Restaurants in Paris, 1940-1944

Black market restaurants thrived in Occupied Paris. German authorities castigated the French for their failure to shut them down, claiming that profiteers consumed luxurious fare in restaurants at the expense of hungry Parisians waiting in marketplace queues. Paris restaurants merit closer attention for the evidence they provide on the conflicts and relative powers in Franco-German "collaboration," for the glaring inequities in food distribution exemplified by these restaurants that discredited Vichy food management policies, and for the creativity of Parisian restaurant owners in finding methods of alternate supply and service for their clients. The restaurants provide material for a case study to highlight the development of black markets and the frustration of control efforts, the reasons for popular sentiments of injustice in food supply, and the critically important role of German demands in the development of black market activity.