Description:
<jats:p>During the interwar years, under Vichy rule and German occupation, French Basques upheld a longstanding right to judge their fellow citizens and to address wrongdoing that threatened stability and order in their conservative, Catholic moral community. In the province of Xiberoa, that dual community-based right underpinned the wish of Xiberoans to manage their own justice and intra-community conflicts, in certain circumstances, without intervention from the state and its representatives. This article examines cases when local holders of civic and moral authority chose, or were forced, to seek legal justice and to resolve conflict through authorities external to their moral community. The small, industrial town of Maule provides a local focus for exploring the management of justice and intra-community conflict by Basque notables, who made strategic use of information about wrongdoing to protect their moral community from internal and external harm, embodied by the communists in their midst.</jats:p>