Not only was this newly established government in France fundamentally right wing, but they introduced antisemitic laws, built and controlled internment camps for “undesirables,” and instigated a roundup of more than one‐quarter of France’s native and refugee Jewish population, including women and children, against previous Gestapo orders to round up only fit men.

This government of France chose to implement certain Nazi‐like policies in ways that were independent from [Berlin’s] administrative orders, yet served a common goal.

[…]

The independent enactment of racist policies is one of the central examples that demonstrate the collaborative nature of the Vichy Government.

In the fall of 1940, a series of anti‐Semitic laws were created without any instruction from the occupying [Fascist] government and introduced within three to six months of the Vichy Government coming into power.

Legislative changes were introduced three months after inauguration and began with the “abolition on August 27, 1940 of the ‘Marchandeau Decree”’, which repealed prior laws against anti‐Semitism in the media.

[…]

In addition, the new Vichy government had created a “Committee on the Jewish Questions” (Commissariat général aux questions juives) in 1940 that was led by Xavier Vallat.

With the exception of ordering the registration of Jewish persons, “none of these actions were forced upon by the [Third Reich]; on the contrary […] the [Third Reich] noted the rapidity and scope of French legislation with bemusement, opportunistic glee, and even occasional annoyance”. The Vichy Government was in fact “eager to legislate, [and] prideful of tracking its own course on questions of race”.

(Emphasis added.)

See also: The Third Reich interfered minimally in France’s private sector.