Femmes tondues et répression des « femmes à boches» en 1918

Abstract

After the liberation of the occupied territories in Northern France in 1918, the « bad women » who had slept with the enemy didn't have their shaved off as they did in Belgium and Germany. There was no gap between the german power and the french power, and the inhabitants of the recently liberated areas did not have the opportunity to exorcize their hatred against the women whose unbearable behavior had deeply hurt their patriotism. Thus, the crackdown that followed the first world war is an official, organized one : it was carried out by the army, and order was re-established by evacuating people or puting them in internment camps, not by shaving off any woman's hair.