the PPF tended more towards fascism, and especially after the French defeat and the establishment of Vichy France, anti-Semitism became much more a central feature of party policy. In 1941, Doriot, writing in the journal Au Pilori, would write: (t)he Jew is not a man. He's a stinking beast." This overt anti-semitic ideology was manifested by the paramilitary Gardes Françaises (formerly the Service d'Ordre), in which many PPF members operated and which participated in wide-scale violence against Jews in France and North Africa and in the mass-deportation of Jews to concentration camps. Apart from its anti-communism, the party also claimed to be anti-capitalist. Despite this, the PPF was financially supported by employers and French businessmen which sought to encourage a popular nationalist anti-Communist force and experienced rapid growth in its membership, particularly from the middle classes. The program of the party also did not envisage any nationalization of business and did not intend to undermine large property and free profit. The PPF during the war After the French defeat in the Battle of France and the establishment of the regime of Philippe Pétain at Vichy, the PPF received additional support from Germany and increased its activities. The U.S. State Department placed it on a list of organizations under the direct control of the Nazi regime. As a fascist party, the PPF was critical of the neotraditional authoritarian state established by Petain, criticizing the regime for being too moderate, and advocating closer military collaboration with Germany (such as sending troops to the Russian front), and modeling French government, and its racial policies, directly on those of Nazi Germany. The PPF and the home front The PPF increasingly placed anti-Semitism at its core as it collaborated with units of the Gestapo and the Milice, the French paramilitary organization led by Joseph Darnand, in violently rounding up Jews for deportation to concentration camps. The PPF paramilitaries participated in beatings, torture, assassinations and summary execution of Jews and political enemies of the Nazis. For this, the Germans rewarded them by allowing them the right to steal property from the Jews they arrested. After Pierre Laval ascended of to leadership of the government on 18 April 1942, he requested that Nazi Germany allow him to force the PPF to merge into his own supporters, but the Nazis denied that request. However, as Laval moved France closer to the Nazi regime, the PPF ceased to be