This is a page about the French subculture. For the French musician, see Hector Zazou

Hector Zazou

Hector Zazou was a prolific French composer and record producer who worked with, produced, and collaborated with an international array of recording artists...

The Zazous were a subculture

Subculture

In sociology, anthropology and cultural studies, a subculture is a group of people with a culture which differentiates them from the larger culture to which they belong.- Definition :...

 in France

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 during World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

. They were young people expressing their individuality by wearing big or garish clothing (similar to the zoot suit

Zoot suit

A zoot suit is a suit with high-waisted, wide-legged, tight-cuffed, pegged trousers, and a long coat with wide lapels and wide padded shoulders. This style of clothing was popularized by African Americans, Mexican-Americans, and Italian Americans during the late 1930s and the 1940s...

 fashion in America

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 a few years before) and dancing wildly to swing jazz and bebop

Bebop

Bebop differed drastically from the straightforward compositions of the swing era, and was instead characterized by fast tempos, asymmetrical phrasing, intricate melodies, and rhythm sections that expanded on their role as tempo-keepers...

. Men wore large striped lumber jackets, while women wore short skirts, striped stockings and heavy shoes, and often carried umbrellas.

Origins of the movement

During the German occupation of France, the Vichy regime, in collaboration with the Nazis and fascist itself in policies and outlook, had an ultra-conservative morality and started to use a whole range of laws against a youth that was restless and disenchanted. These young people expressed their resistance and nonconformity through aggressive dance competitions, sometimes against soldiers from the occupying forces.

The Zazous were to be found throughout France, but were most concentrated in Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

. The two most important meeting places of the Zazous were the terrace of the Pam Pam cafe on the Champs-Élysées

Champs-Élysées

The Avenue des Champs-Élysées is a prestigious avenue in Paris, France. With its cinemas, cafés, luxury specialty shops and clipped horse-chestnut trees, the Avenue des Champs-Élysées is one of the most famous streets and one of the most expensive strip of real estate in the world. The name is...

 and the Boul’Mich (the Boulevard Saint-Michel

Boulevard Saint-Michel

The Boulevard Saint-Michel is one of the two major streets in the Latin Quarter of Paris . It is a tree-lined boulevard which runs south from the pont Saint-Michel on the Seine river and the Place Saint-Michel, crosses the boulevard Saint-Germain and continues alongside the Sorbonne and the...

 near the Sorbonne

Sorbonne

The Sorbonne is an edifice of the Latin Quarter, in Paris, France, which has been the historical house of the former University of Paris...

).

The Zazous of the Champs Elysées came from a more middle class background and were older than the Zazous of the Latin Quarter. The Champs Elysées Zazous were easily recognisable on the terrace of the Pam Pam and took afternoon bike rides in the Bois de Boulogne

Bois de Boulogne

The Bois de Boulogne is a park located along the western edge of the 16th arrondissement of Paris, near the suburb of Boulogne-Billancourt and Neuilly-sur-Seine...

. In the Latin Quarter

Latin Quarter

Latin Quarter is a part of the 5th arrondissement in Paris.Latin Quarter may also refer to:* Latin Quarter , a British pop/rock band* Latin Quarter , a 1945 British film*Latin Quarter, Aarhus, part of Midtbyen, Aarhus C, Denmark...

, the Zazous met in the cellar clubs of Dupont-Latin or the Capoulade.

Characteristics

The male Zazous wore extra large jackets, which hung down to their knees and which were fitted out with many pockets and often several half-belts. The amount of material used was a direct comment on Government decrees on the rationing of clothing material. Their trousers were narrow, gathered at the waist, and so were their ties, which were cotton or heavy wool. The shirt collars were high and kept in place by a horizontal pin. They liked thick-soled suede shoes, with white or brightly-coloured socks. Their hairstyles were greased and long.

Female Zazous wore their hair in curls falling down to their shoulders, or in braids. Blonde was the favourite colour, and they wore bright red lipstick, as well as sunglasses, also favoured by some male Zazous. They wore jackets with extremely wide shoulders and short, pleated skirts. Their stockings were striped or sometimes net, and they wore shoes with thick wooden soles.

The Zazous were big fans of checkered patterns, on jacket, skirt or brolly. They started appearing in the vegetarian restaurants and developed a passion for grated carrot salad. They usually drank fruit juice or beer with grenadine

Grenadine

Grenadine is traditionally a red syrup. It is used as an ingredient in cocktails, both for its flavor and to give a reddish/pink tinge to mixed drinks. "Grenadines" are also made by mixing the syrup with cold water in a glass or pitcher, sometimes with ice....

 syrup, a cocktail that they seem to have invented.

The Zazous were numbered in the hundreds rather than thousands and were generally between 17 and 20. There were Zazous from all classes, races, and both sexes but with apparently similar outlooks. Working class Zazous used theft of cloth and black market activities to get their outfits, sometimes stitching their own clothes. Some of the more bohemian Zazous in the Latin Quarter varied the outfit, with sheepskin jackets and multicoloured scarves. It was their ironic and sarcastic comments on the Nazi/Vichy rulers, their dandyism and hedonism, their suspicion of the work ethic and their love of ‘decadent’ jazz that distinguished them as one of the prototype youth movements questioning society.

While they did not suffer like their contemporaries in Germany, the working class Edelweiss Pirates

Edelweiss Pirates

The Edelweiss Pirates were a loose group of youth culture in Nazi Germany. They emerged in western Germany out of the German Youth Movement of the late 1930s in response to the strict regimentation of the Hitler Youth...

 (some of whom were hanged by the Nazis), the Zazou subculture represented an important dissident minority in a society of widespread complicity and acquiescence.

"Syncopated"

One fascist magazine commented on the male Zazou, “Here is the specimen of Ultra Swing 1941: hair hanging down to the neck, teased up into an untidy quiff, little moustache à la Clark Gable

Clark Gable

William Clark Gable , known as Clark Gable, was an American film actor most famous for his role as Rhett Butler in the 1939 Civil War epic film Gone with the Wind, in which he starred with Vivien Leigh...

... shoes with too-thick soles, syncopated walk.”

The Zazous were directly inspired by jazz and swing music. A healthy, black jazz scene had sprung up in Montmartre

Montmartre

Montmartre is a hill which is 130 metres high, giving its name to the surrounding district, in the north of Paris in the 18th arrondissement, a part of the Right Bank. Montmartre is primarily known for the white-domed Basilica of the Sacré Cœur on its summit and as a nightclub district...

 in the inter-war years. Black Americans felt freer in Paris than they did back home, and the home-grown jazz scene was greatly reinforced by this immigration. Manouche Gypsy musicians like Django Reinhardt

Django Reinhardt

Django Reinhardt was a pioneering virtuoso jazz guitarist and composer who invented an entirely new style of jazz guitar technique that has since become a living musical tradition within French gypsy culture...

 started playing swinging jazz music in the Paris clubs.

The Zazous probably got their name from a line in a song – Zah Zuh Zah by the black jazz musician Cab Calloway

Cab Calloway

Cabell "Cab" Calloway III was an American jazz singer and bandleader. He was strongly associated with the Cotton Club in Harlem, New York City where he was a regular performer....

, famous for his Minnie the Moocher

Minnie the Moocher

"Minnie the Moocher" is a jazz song first recorded in 1931 by Cab Calloway and His Orchestra, selling over 1 million copies. "Minnie the Moocher" is most famous for its nonsensical ad libbed lyrics . In performances, Calloway would have the audience participate by repeating each scat phrase in a...

. Johnny Hess, a French crooner popular with the Zazous, released Je suis swing in early 1942, in which he sung the lines “Za zou, za zou, za zou, za zou ze”, selling more units than any previously released record in France. An associate of the Zazous, the anarchist singer/songwriter, jazz trumpeter, poet and novelist Boris Vian

Boris Vian

Boris Vian was a French polymath: writer, poet, musician, singer, translator, critic, actor, inventor and engineer. He is best remembered today for his novels. Those published under the pseudonym Vernon Sullivan were bizarre parodies of criminal fiction, highly controversial at the time of their...

 was also extremely fond of z words in his work. The long drape jacket was also copied from zoot suit

Zoot suit

A zoot suit is a suit with high-waisted, wide-legged, tight-cuffed, pegged trousers, and a long coat with wide lapels and wide padded shoulders. This style of clothing was popularized by African Americans, Mexican-Americans, and Italian Americans during the late 1930s and the 1940s...

s worn by the likes of Calloway.

“The Zazous were very obviously detested by the Nazis, who on the other side of the Rhine, had [for] a long time decimated the German cultural avante garde, forbidden jazz and all visible signs of...degenerations of Germanic culture…” (Pierre Seel, who, as a young Zazou, was deported to a German concentration camp because of his homosexuality.)

When the yellow star

Yellow badge

The yellow badge , also referred to as a Jewish badge, was a cloth patch that Jews were ordered to sew on their outer garments in order to mark them as Jews in public. It is intended to be a badge of shame associated with antisemitism...

 was forced on Jews, non-Jews who objected began to wear yellow stars with ‘Zazu’, ‘Goy’ (Gentile) or ‘Swing’.

Antagonism during the War

Vichy had started ‘Youth Worksites’ in July 1940, in what Zazous perceived as an attempt to indoctrinate French youth. As in 1870-1, France reacted to her shattering defeat by reforming existing institutions and creating new ones. The Vichy regime was very concerned about the education, moral fibre and productivity of French youth. In 1940 a Ministry of Youth was established. They saw the Zazous as a rival and dangerous influence on youth.

In 1940, 78 anti-Zazou articles were published in the press, a further nine in 1941 and 38 in 1943. The Vichy papers deplored the moral turpitude and decadence that was affecting French morality. Zazous were seen as work-shy, egotistical and Judeo-Gaullist shirkers.

By 1942 the Vichy regime realised that the national revival that they hoped would be carried out by young people under their guidance was seriously affected by widespread rejection of the patriotism, work ethic, self-denial, asceticism and masculinity this called for.

Soon, round-ups began in bars and Zazous were beaten on the street. They became Enemy Number One of the fascist youth organisations, Jeunesse Populaire Française

Jeunesse Populaire Française

Jeunesse Populaire Française was a fascist youth movement created by Jacques Doriot and connected to his Parti Populaire Français. They wore a blue uniform...

. “Scalp the Zazous!” became their slogan. Squads of young JPF fascists armed with hairclippers attacked Zazous. Many were arrested and sent to the countryside to work on the harvest.

At this point the Zazous went underground, holing up in their dance halls and basement clubs. The Zazous were suspected by the official Communist resistance of having an apathetic, even flippant attitude to the war in general.

Cultural references

Zazous were referenced by the Pet Shop Boys

Pet Shop Boys

Pet Shop Boys are an English electronic dance music duo, consisting of Neil Tennant, who provides main vocals, keyboards and occasional guitar, and Chris Lowe on keyboards....

 in their song "In the night" and by the 80's Belgian rock group TC Matic

TC Matic

TC Matic was a Belgian rock band, originating in 1980 from the duo Tjens Couter . Decoutere was replaced shortly after the establishment of TC Matic by Jean-Marie Aerts, who cooperated with Hintjens in the majority of the band's compositions.TC Matic mixed diverse styles: new wave, blues, funk,...

in their song ¨Les Zazous.¨

External links

• Libcom.org/history: The Zazous, 1940-45

This page is partly work by Libcom.org (Libcom.org/history: The Zazous, 1940-45), used here with their kind permission