The Milice française, generally called la Milice, was a political paramilitary organization created on 30 January 1943 by the Vichy régime to help fight against the French Resistance during World War II. The Milice's formal head was Vichy France's Prime Minister Pierre Laval, although its chief of operations and de facto leader was Secretary General Joseph Darnand. The Milice participated in summary executions and assassinations, helping to round up Jews and résistants in France for deportation. It was the successor to Darnand's Service d'ordre légionnaire (SOL) militia. The Milice was the Vichy régime's most extreme manifestation of fascism. Ultimately, Darnand envisaged the Milice as a fascist single-party political movement for the French State.

Vichy France, officially the French State, was the French rump state headed by Marshal Philippe Pétain during World War II. It was named after its seat of government, the city of Vichy. Officially independent, but with half of its territory occupied under the harsh terms of the 1940 armistice with Nazi Germany, it adopted a policy of collaboration. Though Paris was nominally its capital, the government established itself in the resort town of Vichy in the unoccupied "free zone", where it remained responsible for the civil administration of France as well as its colonies. The occupation of France by Nazi Germany at first affected only the northern and western portions of the country, but in November 1942 the Germans and Italians occupied the remainder of Metropolitan France, ending any pretence of independence by the Vichy government.