The French Civil War Hiding Inside World War II
How three French states came to blows after the Fall of France
On June 23rd, 1940, Adolf Hitler’s motorcade entered the city of Paris by way of the Porte de la Villette. The sight of the car, with Swastikas fluttering in the wind, was sickening to many Parisians. Hitler took time at the Paris Opera and took pictures near the Eiffel Tower, not unlike a standard tourist. To him, this was Germany’s final grand triumph over their bitter rivals, but elsewhere, the shape of the war, and France’s place in it, was forming.
It only took Nazi Germany six weeks to cause France’s capitulation. In a stunning turn of events, the nation that fought Germany to a bloody standstill for four years in the previous war didn’t even last two months in the following war. But the armistice signed by France wasn’t the end of the story. In fact, it was just the beginning. What people don’t realize is that with the fall of France, the nation actually split into three separate entities.
Large portions of France were occupied by Germany and would be known as Occupied France. Some French lands were designated to a puppet government known as Vichy France. Vichy France also retained control of French North Africa and some other far-flung colonial holdings, like Madagascar. Then there was Free France…
