TWO opposing images have come to symbolise women during the Liberation of Paris. One is of chic girls waving the French Tricolour in front of the Arc de Triomphe. The other is of the "femmes tondues", shorn and sexually humiliated for the crime of "collaboration

horizontale": sleeping with the enemy.

Patriots versus traitors; defiers versus colluders. For years after WWII, Paris struggled to come to terms with this dichotomy. In a city troubled by its guilty conscience, (male) resisters were honoured and collaborators punished; reputations were upheld or

besmirched in a manner that obscured the complexity of human behaviour. With most of their men PoWs or fighting with Allied forces, and German soldiers on their streets, most women's lives were neither one thing or the other; rather, a tangled mess of tiny

rebellions and uneasy compromises.

In Les Parisiennes: How the Women of Paris Lived, Loved and Died in the 1940s, historian Anne Sebba explores the tough choices made during the Occupation. By weaving together a range of stories – of struggling housewives, social climbers, artists and actresses

– she brings alive the challenges of Les Années Noires.

In 1940, when the Germans conquered France, women in Paris had little power; not only were they denied the vote, but they needed their husbands' permission to work or open bank accounts. With food in short supply, they were thrown back on their own resources.

For many, the prospects were bleak. Over 75,000 Jews were deported from France to death camps. But war makes as well as breaks people. There were resisters and collaborators alike to whom the invasion offered opportunity, glamour, an escape from domestic ennui.

Some of the women Sebba features took extreme paths, either rallying to Charles de Gaulle's call to arms or enjoying a life of luxury with German officers. Marie-France Geoffroy-Dechaume made bombs to place on railway lines and cycled with gelatine strapped

to her chest. Geneveive de Gaulle (the General's niece) recruited Free France fighters and delivered false identity papers.

In contrast, for pretty starlet Corinne Luchaire, whose father Jean was the editor of a collaborationist newspaper, the war was a giddy whirl of German Embassy receptions and dinners at Maxims. After it was over, Jean was executed and Corinne was sentenced

to 10 years of "degradation nationale" (the loss of civil, political and professional rights).

More interesting, however, are those whose actions were less absolute: the artists who co-operated so they could keep on working, the women who had love affairs with German soldiers and the Jewish novelist Irene Nemirovsky who pleaded with Marshal Philippe

Petain for special status. “I cannot believe, Sir, “ she wrote, “that no distinction is made between the undesirable and the honourable foreigners."

If Sebba's book has a fault it is that the dizzying array of characters means no one life is covered in depth and – unless you are already very knowledgeable – a degree of flicking back will be required to remind yourself where some of the lesser-known ones

fit in. On the plus side, you get to glimpse the city in its entirety, from its famous brothels to its haute couture fashion houses.

The author is fascinated by the way war brings out the best in some people and the worst in others. Why did one concierge risk her life to protect her Jewish tenants, while a second informed on them, before stealing their possessions?  Why did Jeanne Bucher

exhibit the work of despised Jewish artists in her gallery while American arts patron Florence Gould entertained anti-Semites at her weekly salon?

But she also demonstrates that, under Occupation, life was mostly blurred lines and ethical trade-offs. “C'est tres compliqué,” Sebba's interviewees tell her. Edith Piaf and opera singer Germaine Lubin were criticised for agreeing to perform in Germany, but

claimed to have helped Jewish people while there. Is a degree of collusion justified if it puts you in a position to do good? And can too great an adherence to principles be counter-productive? When spy Jeannie Rousseau and others were transferred from Ravensbruck

to Torgau – a munitions factory where they were expected to make German armaments – she led a rebellion that probably cost lives.

The behaviour of women during the Occupation cast long shadows. After the war, Lubin, a favourite of Hitler, was imprisoned for two years. She was found not guilty of collaboration when the court heard she had indeed saved Jews from deportation, but her reputation

was destroyed.

Jewish resister Odette Fabius's dedication was such she sometimes hid illegal documents in her daughter Marie-Claude's suitcases. Later, she had doubts about her actions. “Would it have been better if we'd had a peaceful life in Le Lavandou or would living

in a fixed abode have hastened our departure to Auschwitz? " she wondered.

For a long time, Rousseau would not give interviews as she knew some fellow prisoners blamed her for what happened at Torgau. When she finally opened up, she would say only: “We were so childish, but there you are.”

Many of those Sebba speaks to play down the idea of "choice" during a time of oppression. “Le choix, c'est contestable,” says one man whose Jewish mother paid a passeuse, or people smuggler, to take him and his brother to safety. Marie-Claude believes her mother

“could never have been different. That's who she was.”

However Sebba concludes surviving in occupied Paris did demand some sort of decision about how best to live alongside the Germans. “It is not for the rest of us to judge, but, with imagination, we can understand,” she says. Her sweeping, nuanced account makes

it easier for us to do just that.