Free France

Free France was a government-in-exile established in 1940 by French military leader Charles de Gaulle in the wake of Germany’s invasion of France. In May 1940, German forces stormed into France, forcing the nation’s surrender and capturing almost all of Western Europe. As new French leader Philippe Pétain agreed to a peace deal with Germany, de Gaulle fled to England where he defiantly called for his country to resist the Nazis. While his pleas at first received little attention, his Free French government eventually gained supporters among French troops outside the nation and resistance fighters within. By mid-1944, with the Allied forces advancing into German-held France, de Gaulle’s army played a key role in recapturing Paris and helping to liberate the rest of Western Europe. After the liberation of Paris, the Free French government reestablished itself as the nation’s official leadership.

Background

During World War I (1914–1918), Germany hoped to secure its western flank by quickly subduing France and then turning its focus to Russia in the east. The German army staged a lighting quick military invasion, pushing through neutral Belgium and coming within a few miles of Paris before becoming bogged down. Ultimately, the strategy was a failure, and Germany went on to lose the war.

By 1939, Germany had once again built up its military strength and began capturing neighboring territories. After the Germans invaded Poland on September 1, 1939, Britain and France declared war on Germany, beginning the six-year conflict known as World War II (1939–1945). For almost eight months, tensions between the two sides simmered as the British and French armies massed in northern France near the border with Belgium. The Allies expected another German assault through central Belgium, just as had occurred a quarter century earlier. However, on May 10, 1940, German forces stormed through the dense Ardennes Forest in southern Belgium and Luxembourg, surprising and quickly overwhelming the French defenders. Within six weeks, the Germans had reached the coast and cut France in half, trapping British and French troops in pockets to the north.

Overview

As the Germans closed in on Paris, the French army abandoned the capital, declaring it an open city to prevent its destruction in battle. With France staring down at a dire situation, Prime Minster Paul Reynaud resigned and was replaced with World War I military hero Philippe Pétain. Pétain believed the only way to save France was to surrender to the Germans, and called for an end to military resistance on June 17, 1940. Five days later, France officially signed an armistice agreement with Germany. The deal gave Germany control over most of northern France and the entire western coastline. Pétain would be allowed to control a French government based in southern France in the town of Vichy.

When Pétain announced his plan to sign an armistice with Germany, General Charles de Gaulle, then a little-known French official, fled the nation for England. On June 18, de Gaulle broadcasted a speech over British radio declaring that the French defeat was only the beginning of a longer war and called on the French people to take up arms and fight the Germans. Initially, de Gaulle’s appeal was mostly received with indifference. Most French people at the time accepted Pétain’s actions as the only way to preserve France. They also believed that it was only a matter of time before England would also fall to the Germans and Western Europe would be under the control of the Nazis.

De Gaulle’s speech is credited as the beginning of both the French Resistance and the Free France government. On June 28, Great Britain formally recognized Free France as a legitimate government with de Gaulle as its leader. Free France adopted the blue, white, and red French flag with the two-barred Cross of Lorraine set in the middle. The cross was a heraldic symbol associated with fifteenth-century French heroine Joan of Arc.

In France, the Vichy government branded de Gaulle a traitor, court martialed him in absentia, and sentenced him to death. However, de Gaulle began to gain followers among some French citizens living in England and members of the French military who had also fled across the English Channel. In late 1940, French colonies in Africa, Asia, and the Pacific declared their support for de Gaulle and his Free France government. Over time, small numbers of Free French soldiers aided the British in several military victories, some of which involved fighting against national forces of the Vichy government. In September 1941, the French National Committee was formed as the official governing body of Free France and recognized by the other Allied nations.

In 1942, de Gaulle sought the support of members of the French Resistance operating in German-held France. He renamed his movement the Fighting French Forces and sent a representative to France to try and unify the resistance factions. That November, Free French troops were among the Allied forces that invaded Northern Africa and achieved several significant victories. Seeing this, a large number of Vichy French soldiers stationed in Northern Africa decided to defect and joined the Free French cause. As a result of this defection, Nazi forces invaded Vichy France and occupied the region.

By 1943, Free French military forces had grown to more than one hundred thousand men and approached three hundred thousand by June 1944. Free French soldiers took part in the D-Day invasion on June 6, 1944, and helped spearhead the Allied advance through France in the months that followed. In August 1944, members of the French Resistance orchestrated a rebellion in Paris that defeated the last Nazi forces in the city. On August 26, 1944, de Gaulle reentered Paris where thousands of people turned out to give him a hero’s welcome.

With the Germans gone, de Gaulle’s Free French government officially formed the new provisional government of the French Republic. By 1945, the French forces numbered more than one million troops and helped the Allies liberate the rest of Western Europe. De Gaulle went on to become prime minister of France in 1958 and served as the nation’s president from 1959 to 1969.

Bibliography

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