137-732: From 1939 to 1940, the French Third Republic was at war with Nazi Germany . In 1940, the German forces defeated the French in the Battle of France . The Germans occupied the north and west of French territory and a collaborationist régime under Philippe Pétain established itself in Vichy . General Charles de Gaulle established a government in exile in London and competed with Vichy France to position himself as
274-491: A 10-year sentence, but Dreyfus was given a pardon and set free. Eventually all the accusations against him were demonstrated to be baseless, and in 1906, Dreyfus was exonerated and re-instated as a major in the French Army. From 1894 to 1906, the scandal divided France deeply and lastingly into two opposing camps: the pro-Army "anti-Dreyfusards" composed of conservatives, Catholic traditionalists and monarchists who generally lost
411-425: A French credit merchant, had served up to three million customers and was affiliated with La Samaritaine , a large French department store established in 1870 by a former Bon Marché executive. The French gloried in the national prestige brought by the great Parisian stores. The great writer Émile Zola (1840–1902) set his novel Au Bonheur des Dames (1882–83) in the typical department store. Zola represented it as
548-565: A commander, General Alphonse Georges , at La Ferte-sous-Jouarre . General Joseph Vuillemin commanded the French Air Force , headquartered in Coulommiers . Following its disastrous loss in the 1940 Battle of France , the French Third Republic that had fought as one of the Allies fell into the hands of an authoritarian regime, Vichy France, that willingly collaborated with Germany and opposed
685-433: A consumer version of the public square. It educated workers to approach shopping as an exciting social activity, not just a routine exercise in obtaining necessities, just as the bourgeoisie did at the famous department stores in the central city. Like the bourgeois stores, it helped transform consumption from a business transaction into a direct relationship between consumer and sought-after goods. Its advertisements promised
822-479: A daily circulation of about 100,000 and Le Petit Meridional had about 70,000. Advertising only filled 20% or so of the pages. The Roman Catholic Assumptionist order revolutionized pressure group media by its national newspaper La Croix . It vigorously advocated for traditional Catholicism while at the same time innovating with the most modern technology and distribution systems, with regional editions tailored to local taste. Secularists and Republicans recognized
959-562: A decisive defeat for the Boulangists. They were defeated by the changes in the electoral laws that prevented Boulanger from running in multiple constituencies; by the government's aggressive opposition; and by the absence of the general himself, in self-imposed exile with his mistress. The fall of Boulanger severely undermined the conservative and royalist elements within France; they would not recover until 1940. Revisionist scholars have argued that
1096-611: A failed attempt to build the Panama Canal . Plagued by disease, death, inefficiency, and widespread corruption, and its troubles covered up by bribed French officials, the Panama Canal Company went bankrupt. Its stock became worthless, and ordinary investors lost close to a billion francs. France lagged behind Bismarckian Germany, as well as Great Britain and Ireland, in developing a welfare state with public health, unemployment insurance and national old age pension plans. There
1233-459: A few months, as radicals, socialists, liberals, conservatives, republicans and monarchists all fought for control. Some historians argue that the collapses were not important because they reflected minor changes in coalitions of many parties that routinely lost and gained a few allies. Consequently, the change of governments could be seen as little more than a series of ministerial reshuffles, with many individuals carrying forward from one government to
1370-554: A grandson of King Louis Philippe I , who replaced his cousin Charles X in 1830. The Bonapartists lost legitimacy due to the defeat of Napoléon III and were unable to advance the candidacy of any member of the Bonaparte family . Legitimists and Orléanists eventually agreed on the childless Comte de Chambord as king, with the Comte de Paris as his heir. This was the expected line of succession for
1507-561: A hostile manner toward the State ('Nobilissima Gallorum Gens' ). In 1892, he issued an encyclical advising French Catholics to rally to the Republic and defend the Church by participating in republican politics ('Au milieu des sollicitudes' ). The Liberal Action was founded in 1901 by Jacques Piou and Albert de Mun , former monarchists who switched to republicanism at the request of Pope Leo XIII . From
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#17328513345621644-498: A newspaper would blackmail a business by threatening to publish unfavorable information unless the business immediately started advertising in the paper. Foreign governments, especially Russia and Turkey, secretly paid the press hundreds of thousands of francs a year to guarantee favourable coverage of the bonds it was selling in Paris. When the real news was bad about Russia, as during its 1905 Revolution or during its war with Japan, it raised
1781-724: A paramilitary force of Vichy France under René Bousquet . It was a police version of the Mobile Gendarmerie that served as French Milice and German Army auxiliary during battles against the French Resistance's maquisards . In December 1944, the GMR were disbanded. Some members joined the French Forces of the Interior. The unit was replaced with the CRS riot police . Carlingue was the name of
1918-855: A paramilitary youth organization created on 30 July 1940 by former Scout Movement Chief General Joseph de La Porte du Theil [ fr ] of the 42nd Infantry Division as a substitute for a French army draft . Its members acted under Vichy army officers and dressed in military uniforms similar to those of the French Milice ( béret included) and had to claim allegiance to Marshal Pétain with an arm salute. The French Youth Workings were available in all French departments, which means they were also in French Algeria and apply to European settlers and Muslim locals. However, Lieutenant-colonel Alphonse Van Hecke [ fr ] advised De La Porte du Theil to reject young Jews, and so they were barred from
2055-512: A plan to bring together the different groups under his leadership. He changed the name of his movement to Forces Françaises Combattantes ('Fighting French Forces') and sent Jean Moulin back to France to unite the eight major French Resistance groups into one organisation. Moulin got their agreement to form the Conseil National de la Résistance (' National Council of the Resistance '). He
2192-560: A provisional government on 4 September 1870. The deputies then selected General Louis-Jules Trochu to serve as its president. This first government of the Third Republic ruled during the Siege of Paris (19 September 1870 – 28 January 1871). As Paris was cut off from the rest of unoccupied France, the Minister of War Léon Gambetta succeeded in leaving Paris in a hot air balloon , and established
2329-562: A provisional government, ("head of the executive branch of the Republic pending a decision on the institutions of France"). The new government negotiated a peace settlement with the newly proclaimed German Empire : the Treaty of Frankfurt signed on 10 May 1871. To prompt the Prussians to leave France, the government passed a variety of financial laws, such as the controversial Law of Maturities , to pay reparations. In Paris, resentment built against
2466-399: A public health law which began in the 1880s as a campaign to reorganize the nation's health services, to require the registration of infectious diseases, to mandate quarantines, and to improve the deficient health and housing legislation of 1850. However, the reformers met opposition from bureaucrats, politicians, and physicians. Because it was so threatening to so many interests, the proposal
2603-654: A quarter of the Parisian market and forced the rest to lower their prices. The main dailies employed their own journalists who competed for news flashes. All newspapers relied upon the Agence Havas (now Agence France-Presse ), a telegraphic news service with a network of reporters and contracts with Reuters to provide world service. The staid old papers retained their loyal clientele because of their concentration on serious political issues. While papers usually gave false circulation figures, Le Petit Provençal in 1913 probably had
2740-503: A rebel army, refusing both the armistice with Germany and Vichy's authority. Its allegiance was to General de Gaulle in London; later the headquarters moved to Algiers. The Forces started as a limited group of volunteers from metropolitan France, West African colonies, Belgium, and Spain. It evolved to a full army after its merger with Giraud's Army of Africa, which had new recruits from the French Resistance . General Charles de Gaulle
2877-576: A series of elections in which he would resign his seat in the Chamber of Deputies and run again in another district. At the apogee of his popularity in January 1889, he posed the threat of a coup d'état and the establishment of a dictatorship. With his base of support in the working districts of Paris and other cities, plus rural traditionalist Catholics and royalists, he promoted an aggressive nationalism aimed against Germany. The elections of September 1889 marked
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#17328513345623014-582: A steady financial basis for publishing, but it did not cover all of the costs involved and had to be supplemented by secret subsidies from commercial interests that wanted favourable reporting. A new liberal press law of 1881 abandoned the restrictive practices that had been typical for a century. High-speed rotary Hoe presses , introduced in the 1860s, facilitated quick turnaround time and cheaper publication. New types of popular newspapers, especially Le Petit Journal , reached an audience more interested in diverse entertainment and gossip than hard news. It captured
3151-620: A strong League of Nations after the war, and the maintenance of peace through compulsory arbitration, controlled disarmament, economic sanctions, and perhaps an international military force. Followers of Léon Gambetta , such as Raymond Poincaré , who would become President of the Council in the 1920s, created the Democratic Republican Alliance (ARD), which became the main center-right party after World War I. Governing coalitions collapsed with regularity, rarely lasting more than
3288-591: A sum that, in May 1940, was approximately equivalent to four hundred million French francs . The artificial exchange rate of the Reichsmark versus the franc had been established as one mark to twenty francs. Due to the overvaluation of German currency, the occupiers were able to make seemingly fair and honest requisitions and purchases while operating a system of organized plunder. Prices soared, leading to widespread food shortages and malnutrition, particularly among children,
3425-421: A symbol of the new technology that was both improving society and devouring it. The novel describes merchandising, management techniques, marketing, and consumerism. The Grands Magasins Dufayel was a huge department store with inexpensive prices built in 1890 in the northern part of Paris, where it reached a very large new customer base in the working class . In a neighbourhood with few public spaces, it provided
3562-954: The Action française , the movement declined from 1908, when it lost the support of Rome. Nevertheless, the ALP remained until 1914 the most important party on the right. French resistance French victory Central Europe Germany Italy Spain ( Spanish Civil War ) Albania Austria Baltic states Belgium Bulgaria Burma Czechia Denmark France Germany Greece Italy Japan Jewish Luxembourg Netherlands Norway Poland Romania Slovakia Spain Soviet Union Yugoslavia Germany Italy Netherlands Portugal Spain Sweden Switzerland United Kingdom United States The French Resistance ( French : La Résistance )
3699-570: The Révolution nationale stated that when he saw German soldiers in Paris in the summer of 1940, he knew he had to do something because of the look of contempt he saw on the faces of the Germans when viewing the French. In the beginning, resistance was limited to severing phone lines, vandalizing posters and slashing tyres on German vehicles. Another tactic was the publication of underground newspapers like Musée de l'Homme (Museum of Mankind). This paper
3836-851: The 286th Security Division in 1944. The French State's L.V.F. and the Milice merged to become a full division of the German army. The division's name is a reference to the Frankish emperor Charlemagne , seen as an important Germanic figure in French history. The African Phalange was created in French Tunisia in November 1942 to fight against the Allies, Free French Forces, and Army of Africa following Operation Torch . This unit, led by Lieutenant-colonel Christian du Jonchay [ fr ] , Lieutenant-colonel Simon Petru Cristofini , and Captain André Dupuis,
3973-788: The Charlemagne Division of the Waffen SS . The Occupation was hard for the French to accept. Many Parisians remember the shock at seeing swastika flags hanging over the Hôtel de Ville and on top of the Eiffel Tower . At the Palais-Bourbon , where the National Assembly building was converted into the office of the Kommandant von Gross-Paris , a huge banner was spread across the facade of
4110-769: The Eastern Front had Soviet or German leadership. These forces of French exiles and the French Forces of the Interior (FFI) played varying roles in the liberation of France and the defeat of Vichy France , Nazi Germany , Kingdom of Italy and the Empire of Japan . Control of the French colonial empire proved critical. Free French forces won control, helped by Britain and the United States , and used it to attack Nazi-occupied France . All French colonies except Indochina eventually joined
4247-598: The First French Army were equipped with a mixture of M4A2 and M4A4 medium tanks. The 3rd DB, which served as a training and reserve organization for the three operational armored divisions, was equipped with roughly 200 medium and light tanks. (Of these, 120 were later returned to the US Army's Delta Base Section for reissue.) Subsequent combat losses for the 1st, 2nd, and 5th Armored Divisions were replaced with standard-issue tanks from US Army stocks. The US Army also supplied
Military history of France during World War II - Misplaced Pages Continue
4384-769: The French Fourth Republic . The GPRF stepped into the vacuum left when the Vichy administration fled to Sigmaringen in Germany. The outcome of the war resulted in a victory for France and its allies over Germany after the surrender of the Nazis in May 1945, ensuring the definitive victory for the Allied forces in Europe against the Axis Forces. Recruitment in liberated France led to an expansion of
4521-622: The French resistance , and a further 38,000 lost while serving with the German Army (including 32,000 " malgré-nous "). France had lots of armed forces in World War II, in part due to the German occupation. In 1940, General Maurice Gamelin commanded the French Army , headquartered in Vincennes on the outskirts of Paris. It consisted of 117 divisions, with 94 committed to the northeastern front and
4658-515: The Jesuits and Assumptionists —indoctrinated anti-republicanism into children. Determined to root this out, republicans insisted they needed control of the schools for France to achieve economic and militaristic progress. (Republicans felt one of the primary reasons for the German victory in 1870 was their superior education system.) The early anti-Catholic laws were largely the work of republican Jules Ferry in 1882. Religious instruction in all schools
4795-674: The M4 Sherman medium tank . French armored divisions were organized and equipped the same way as US Army armored divisions and were sizable offensive commands. In 1943, the French decided to raise a new army in North Africa and had an agreement with the Americans to equip it with modern American weapons. The French 2nd Armored Division ( French : Division Blindée, DB ) entered the Battle of Normandy fully equipped with M4A2 medium tanks. The 1st and 5th DB, which entered southern France as part of
4932-590: The Oradour-sur-Glane massacre , in which an entire village was razed and almost every resident murdered because of persistent resistance in the vicinity. In early 1943, the Vichy authorities created a paramilitary group, the Milice (militia), officially led by Pierre Laval , but operated by Joseph Darnand to combat the Resistance. This group worked alongside German forces that, by the end of 1942, were stationed throughout France. The group collaborated closely with
5069-541: The Reich those Germans and Austrians who fled to France in the 1930s. Resistance when it first began in the summer of 1940 was based upon what the writer Jean Cassou called refus absurde ("absurd refusal") of refusing to accept that the Reich would win and even if it did, it was better to resist. Many résistants often spoke of some "climax" when they saw some intolerable act of injustice, after which they could no longer remain passive. The résistant Joseph Barthelet told
5206-466: The Scramble for Africa , all of them acquired during the last two decades of the 19th century. The early years of the 20th century were dominated by the Democratic Republican Alliance , which was originally conceived as a centre-left political alliance, but over time became the main centre-right party. The period from the start of World War I to the late 1930s featured sharply polarized politics, between
5343-524: The Waffen SS . By 1944, the Milice had over 35,000 members. Just like Vichy police agents, the national police forces collaborated with the German authorities. French Youth Workings alumni had to swear allegiance to Marshal Pétain. The gesture was the Nazi salute while saying "Je le jure!" ("I swear it!") instead of cheering Hitler. The Works of the French Youth ( Chantiers de la jeunesse française ) were
5480-532: The anti-clerical middle class, who saw the Church's alliance with the monarchists as a political threat to republicanism, and a threat to the modern spirit of progress. The republicans detested the Church for its political and class affiliations; for them, the Church represented the Ancien Régime , a time in French history most republicans hoped was long behind them. The republicans were strengthened by Protestant and Jewish support. Numerous laws were passed to weaken
5617-458: The constitutional laws of the new republic . At its head was a President of the Republic. A two-chamber parliament consisting of a directly elected Chamber of Deputies and an indirectly elected Senate was created, along with a ministry under the President of the council ( prime minister ), who was nominally answerable to both the President of the Republic and the legislature. Throughout the 1870s,
Military history of France during World War II - Misplaced Pages Continue
5754-561: The 1870s "the form of government that divides France least"; however, politics under the Third Republic were sharply polarized. On the left stood reformist France, heir to the French Revolution . On the right stood conservative France, rooted in the peasantry, the Catholic Church , and the army. In spite of France's sharply divided electorate and persistent attempts to overthrow it, the Third Republic endured for 70 years, which makes it
5891-693: The 1943 Italian Campaign and in Operation Dragoon , the August 1944 Allied invasion of southern France. Most African soldiers of the CEF grew up in the Atlas Mountains and were skilled and equipped for mountain warfare . Some units of exclusively Moroccan Goumiers (from Arabic : qaum ) from the Rif mountains were grouped in units called tabors with tribal or direct family ties. There were 7,833 Goumiers. The CEF
6028-649: The Allies had landed in Normandy and the southern front moved from North Africa across the Mediterranean into Italy and Provence , these forces routed the German Army, and Vichy officials fled into Germany. France and Britain had both declared war on Germany two days after the invasion of Poland in September 1939. To divert German forces from Poland, France invaded the Saarland region of Germany on 7 September 1939, but
6165-416: The Allies. The Free French forces who opposed Vichy included the grassroots maquis (made of various rebel factions with ancient regional allegiances), a government in exile, and regiments from the French colonial empire, who at times found themselves fighting other French people. French ground armies, navies, and air forces fought on the Allied side in each theater of World War II before, during, and after
6302-399: The Army brought up additional charges against Dreyfus based on false documents. Word of the military court's attempts to frame Dreyfus began to spread, chiefly owing to the polemic J'accuse , a vehement open letter published on the liberal newspaper L'Aurore in January 1898 by the notable writer Émile Zola . Activists put pressure on the government to re-open the case. In 1899, Dreyfus
6439-465: The Asian theatre of World War II and liberate French Indochina , which Japan had occupied since 1940. Recruiting posters for the FEFEO depicted a US-built M4 Sherman tank of general Leclerc's Free French 2nd Armoured Division , famous for its role in the 1944 liberation of Paris and Strasbourg . The posters were captioned, "yesterday Strasbourg, tomorrow Saigon: Join the Far East French Expeditionary Forces". In 1945, after Japan surrendered and China
6576-541: The Battle of France. Even though those forces participated in varying degrees, the Allies considered France a World War II victor and did not impose a US-run military occupation ( AMGOT ). However, United States Air Force bases were maintained in France until 1967, when Charles de Gaulle 's government rejected NATO . French colonial units consisted of some non-French mercenaries from the Foreign Legion and conscripted indigenous people recruited by tribe, ethnicity, or region. The Free French Forces were created in 1940 as
6713-403: The Boulangist movement more often represented elements of the radical left rather than the extreme right. Their work is part of an emerging consensus that France's radical right was formed in part during the Dreyfus era by men who had been Boulangist partisans of the radical left a decade earlier. The Panama scandals of 1892, regarded as the largest financial fraud of the 19th century, involved
6850-472: The British Chindits , to fight the Japanese forces in occupied French Indochina . They served in French Indochina under General Roger Blaizot beginning in 1944, and were airdropped by the British Force 136 's B-24 Liberator . The first CLI commandos were known as "Gaurs", named after the Indian bison . Free French aircrews formed squadrons under the operational control of the Royal Air Force with British and Lend-Lease equipment. Britain lent warships to
6987-430: The British Special Air Service airborne unit with Charles de Gaulle in 1942, becoming the SAS Brigade 's French Squadron. The 3rd SAS and 4th SAS are also known as 1st Airborne Marine Infantry Regiment (1 RPIMa) and 2 régiment de chasseurs parachutistes (2 RCP) respectively. From 1940 to 1945, General Charles de Gaulle led the following departments: Leclerc's Free French Forces met Giraud's Army of Africa for
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#17328513345627124-498: The British SOE agent George Miller that he made up his mind to join the resistance when he saw German military police march a group of Frenchmen, one of whom was a friend, into the Feldgendarmerie in Metz . Barthelt recalled: "I recognized him only by his hat... I saw his face all right, but there was no skin on it, and he could not see me. Both his poor eyes had been closed into two purple and yellow bruises". The right-wing résistant Henri Frenay who had initially sympathized with
7261-523: The Catholic Church. In 1879, priests were excluded from the administrative committees of hospitals and boards of charity; in 1880, new measures were directed against the religious congregations; from 1880 to 1890 came the substitution of lay women for nuns in many hospitals; in 1882, the Ferry school laws were passed. Napoleon's Concordat of 1801 continued in operation, but in 1881, the government cut off salaries to priests it disliked. Republicans feared that religious orders in control of schools—especially
7398-467: The Chamber and called for a new general election to be held the following October. He was subsequently accused by Republicans and their sympathizers of attempting a constitutional coup d'état, which he denied. The October elections again brought a Republican majority to the Chamber of Deputies, reiterating public opinion. The Republicans would go on to gain a majority in the Senate by January 1879, establishing dominance in both houses and effectively ending
7535-419: The Church's perspective, its mission was to express the political ideals and new social doctrines embodied in Leo's 1891 encyclical " Rerum Novarum ". Action libérale was the parliamentary group from which the ALP political party emerged, adding the word populaire ("popular") to signify this expansion. Membership was open to everyone, not just Catholics. It sought to gather all the "honest people" and to be
7672-438: The Commune, was later elected President of the Republic in May 1873 and would hold the office until January 1879. A staunch Catholic conservative with Legitimist sympathies and a noted mistrust of secularists, de MacMahon grew to be increasingly at odds with the French parliament as liberal and secular republicans gained a legislative majority during his presidency. In February 1875, a series of parliamentary acts established
7809-402: The Comte de Chambord based on France's traditional rule of agnatic primogeniture if the renunciation of the Spanish Bourbons in the Peace of Utrecht was recognised. Consequently, in 1871 the throne was offered to the Comte de Chambord. Chambord believed the restored monarchy had to eliminate all traces of the Revolution (most famously including the tricolore ) , to restore unity between
7946-403: The Democratic Republican Alliance and the Radicals . The government fell less than a year after the outbreak of World War II, when Nazi forces occupied much of France , and was replaced by the rival governments of Charles de Gaulle 's Free France ( La France libre ) and Philippe Pétain 's French State ( L'État français ). During the 19th and 20th centuries, the French colonial empire
8083-447: The FFI had grown to 400,000 members. Although the amalgamation of the FFI was sometimes fraught with political difficulties, it was ultimately successful and allowed France to rebuild the fourth-largest army in the European theatre (1.2 million men) by VE Day in May 1945. After the Battle of France and the second French-German armistice , the lives of the French continued unchanged at first. The German occupation authorities and
8220-421: The Free French Forces and Army of Africa with hundreds of US-built aircraft and materiel such as vehicles, artillery, helmets, uniforms, and firearms, as well as fuel and rations for many thousands of troops. The Armistice Army ( Armée de l'Armistice ), the official name of the army of the Vichy régime, had bases throughout the worldwide French colonial empire . It was created in July 1940 after Germany occupied
8357-476: The Free French Naval Forces. In addition to providing materiel, the British trained some Free French pilots and airborne commandos such as the 3rd SAS (French) and 4th SAS (French) and the CLI. In 1941, while still neutral, the United States began providing Lend-Lease munitions to Britain and China. Some went to the Free French in North Africa, starting in 1942. Among the large inventories of American equipment given to Free French Forces were several versions of
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#17328513345628494-404: The Free French forces numbered 1.25 million, including seven infantry divisions and three armoured divisions fighting in Germany. Other Free French units were directly attached to Allied forces, including the British SAS and RAF , and the Soviet Air Forces . The Forces Expéditionnaires Françaises d'Extrême-Orient (FEFEO) was a French expeditionary corps created on 4 October 1943 to fight in
8631-452: The Free French. The number of Free French troops grew with their successes in North Africa and the invasion of Italy by the Army of Africa . The Allies demanded unconditional surrender from the Axis Powers at the Casablanca Conference . On 30 October 1944, Britain, the United States, and the Soviet Union officially recognized de Gaulle as head of the Provisional Government of the French Republic (GPRF), and eventually as elected president of
8768-436: The French Gestapo. It was headed by Henri Lafont , Pierre Loutrel , and Pierre Bonny . A famous Vichy French agent of the Gestapo was Scharführer -SS Pierre Paoli , who served in central France's Cher department . Michael Mould wrote, "It was staffed by the dregs of the French underworld." The 8th Sturmbrigade SS Frankreich ('8th French assault brigade') was created in 1943. Its surviving troops were incorporated into
8905-407: The French Third Republic, originally envisioned as a provisional government , instead became the permanent form of government of France. The French Constitutional Laws of 1875 defined the composition of the Third Republic. It consisted of a Chamber of Deputies and a Senate to form the legislative branch of government and a president to serve as head of state. Calls for the re-establishment of
9042-440: The French Youth Workings by the decree of 15 July 1942, twenty-four hours before the Vel' d'Hiv Roundup . In November 1942, La Porte du Theil and van Hecke were both in French Algeria when the Allies invaded Algiers and Oran . La Porte du Theil , loyal to Pétain, flew to metropolitan France, while the second sided with the Free French and joined the Army of Africa. Local French Youth Workings became units of this military force,
9179-461: The French armies. By the end of the war in Europe in May 1945, France had 1,250,000 troops, 10 divisions of which were fighting in Germany. An expeditionary corps was created to liberate French Indochina , then occupied by the Japanese. During the course of the war, French military losses totaled 212,000 dead, of whom 92,000 were killed through the end of the campaign of 1940, and 58,000 from 1940 to 1945 in other campaigns, 24,000 lost while serving in
9316-401: The French people on BBC Radio . He asked French soldiers, sailors, and airmen to join in the fight against the Nazis. De Gaulle's Appel du 18 juin was not widely heard in France, but his subsequent discourse was heard nationwide. His speech remains one of the most famous orations in French history. Regardless, Pétain's representative signed the armistice on 22 June and Pétain became leader of
9453-444: The German Embassy in Paris and sent to the penal colony at Devil's Island in French Guiana (nicknamed la guillotine sèche , the dry guillotine), where he spent almost five years. Two years later, evidence came to light that identified a French Army major named Ferdinand Walsin Esterhazy as the real spy. After high-ranking military officials suppressed the new evidence, a military court unanimously acquitted Esterhazy. In response,
9590-450: The Interministerial Press Commission to supervise the press closely. A separate agency imposed tight censorship that led to blank spaces where news reports or editorials were disallowed. The dailies sometimes were limited to only two pages instead of the usual four, leading one satirical paper to try to report the war news in the same spirit: Regional newspapers flourished after 1900. However the Parisian newspapers were largely stagnant after
9727-409: The Nazis, similar to the Gestapo security forces in Germany. Their actions were often brutal and included torture and execution of Resistance suspects. After the liberation of France in the summer of 1944, the French executed many of the estimated 25,000 to 35,000 miliciens for their collaboration with the Nazis. Many of those who escaped arrest fled to Germany, where they were incorporated into
9864-400: The Republic was finally governed by Moderate Republicans (pejoratively labelled "Opportunist Republicans" by Radical Republicans ) who supported moderate social and political changes to nurture the new regime, such as a purge of the civil service . The Jules Ferry laws making public education free, mandatory, and secular ( laїque ), were voted in 1881 and 1882, one of the first signs of
10001-597: The Republicans' rising popularity and limit their political influence through a series of actions known as le seize Mai . On 16 May 1877, de MacMahon forced the resignation of Moderate Republican prime minister Jules Simon and appointed the Orléanist Albert de Broglie to the office. The Chamber of Deputies declared the appointment illegitimate, exceeding the president's powers, and refused to cooperate with either de MacMahon or de Broglie. De MacMahon then dissolved
10138-470: The Soviet resistance in August 1941 led to thousands of hostages taken from the population. A typical policy statement read, "After each further incident, a number, reflecting the seriousness of the crime, shall be shot." During the occupation, an estimated 30,000 French civilian hostages were shot to intimidate others who were involved in acts of resistance. German troops occasionally engaged in massacres such as
10275-515: The Versailles government, marched on Paris and succeeded in dismantling the Commune during what would become known as The Bloody Week . The term ordre moral ("moral order") subsequently came to be applied to the budding Third Republic due to the perceived restoration of conservative policies and values following the suppression of the Commune. De MacMahon, his popularity bolstered by his victory over
10412-416: The Vichy régime became increasingly brutal and intimidating. Most civilians remained neutral, but both the occupation of French territory and German policy inspired the formation of paramilitary groups dedicated to both active and passive resistance. One of the conditions of the armistice was that the French must pay for their own occupation. This amounted to about 20 million German Reichsmarks per day,
10549-645: The aftermath when the regime of Napoleon III collapsed, resulted in a monarchist majority in the French National Assembly that favoured a peace agreement with Prussia. Planning to restore the monarchy, the " Legitimists " in the National Assembly supported the candidacy of Henri, Comte de Chambord , alias "Henry V," grandson of King Charles X , the last king from the senior line of the Bourbon dynasty . The Orléanists supported Louis-Philippe, Comte de Paris
10686-464: The ante to millions. During the World War, newspapers became more of a propaganda agency on behalf of the war effort and avoided critical commentary. They seldom reported the achievements of the Allies, crediting all the good news to the French army. In a sentence, the newspapers were not independent champions of the truth, but secretly paid advertisements for banking. The World War ended a golden era for
10823-505: The authority of Versailles, responding with the foundation of the Paris Commune in March. The principles underpinning the Commune were viewed as morally degenerate by French conservatives at large while the government at Versailles sought to maintain the tenuous post-war stability which it had established. In May, the regular French Armed Forces , under the command of Patrice de MacMahon and
10960-405: The building reading in capital letters: " DEUTSCHLAND SIEGT AN ALLEN FRONTEN! " ("Germany is victorious on all fronts!"), a sign that is mentioned by virtually all accounts by Parisians at the time. The résistant Henri Frenay wrote about seeing the tricolour flag disappear from Paris with the swastika flag flying in its place and German soldiers standing guard in front of buildings that once housed
11097-755: The conservative and authoritarian Vichy regime considered itself neutral and was more ambivalent about its dependence on Germany. However, the Vichy regime tolerated the LVF and gave it some endorsement. The Tricolore Legion ( Légion Tricolore ) was created by Pierre Laval and Jacques Benoist-Méchin in July 1941 and was disbanded in December 1942. Originating as the shock unit of the French Legion of Volunteers ( Service d'Ordre Légionnaire ), Franc-Garde ("free guard"), la Garde ("the guard"), la Milice ("the militia")
11234-462: The day, especially striking young people in their twenties. Germany set up vigorous measures of public hygiene and public sanatoria, but France let private physicians handle the problem. The French medical profession guarded its prerogatives, and public health activists were not as well organized or as influential as in Germany, Britain or the United States. For example, there was a long battle over
11371-485: The elderly, and members of the working class engaged in physical labour. Labour shortages also plagued the French economy because hundreds of thousands of French workers were requisitioned and transferred to Germany for compulsory labour under the Service du Travail Obligatoire (STO). The labour shortage was worsened by the large number of French prisoners of war held in Germany. Beyond these hardships and dislocations,
11508-407: The end of summer of 1940 " the alien presence, increasingly hated and feared in private, could seem so permanent that, in the public places where daily life went on, it was taken for granted". At the same time, buildings were renamed, books banned, art was stolen and transferred to Germany and people started to disappear. Under the armistice of June 1940, the French were obliged to arrest and deport to
11645-529: The end, it recruited mostly among the liberal-Catholics ( Jacques Piou ) and the Social Catholics ( Albert de Mun ). The ALP was drawn into battle from its very beginnings (its first steps coincided with the beginning of the Combes ministry and its anticlerical combat policy), as religious matters were at the heart of its preoccupations. It defended the Church in the name of liberty and common law. Fiercely fought by
11782-531: The exciting complex interactions with the newest and most fashionable merchandise and upscale customers. Throughout the lifetime of the Third Republic (1870–1940), there were battles over the status of the Catholic Church in France among the republicans, monarchists and the authoritarians (such as the Napoleonists). The French clergy and bishops were closely associated with the monarchists and many of its hierarchy were from noble families. Republicans were based in
11919-549: The expanding civic powers of the Republic. From that time onward, the Catholic clergy lost control of public education. To discourage the monarchists, the French Crown Jewels were broken up and sold in 1885. Only a few crowns were kept, their precious gems replaced by coloured glass. In 1889, the Republic was rocked by a sudden political crisis precipitated by General Georges Boulanger . An enormously popular general, he won
12056-671: The first time near Tripoli, Libya , in 1943. When the Americans landed in Algiers in 1942 as part of Operation Torch , colonial soldiers of the Vichy-controlled Army of Africa surrendered without firing a shot. Charles de Gaulle drew from them to create the Corps Expéditionnaire Français (CEF) under General Alphonse Juin . The CEF was two-thirds Moroccan, Algerian, and Senegalese , and one-third Pied-Noir , totalling 112,000 men in four divisions. This unit took part in
12193-615: The formation of the Vichy government . The French Third Republic was a parliamentary republic . The early days of the French Third Republic were dominated by political disruption caused by the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–1871, which the French Third Republic continued to wage after the fall of Emperor Napoleon III in 1870. Social upheaval and the Paris Commune preceded the final defeat. The German Empire , proclaimed by
12330-460: The government from late March through May 1871. Paris workers and National Guards revolted and took power as the Paris Commune , which maintained a radical left-wing regime for two months until the Thiers government bloodily suppressed it in May 1871. The ensuing repression of the communards had disastrous consequences for the labour movement . The French legislative election of 1871 , held in
12467-503: The government which would come to evolve into the Third Republic. These representatives – predominantly conservative republicans – enacted a series of legislation which prompted resistance and outcry from radical and leftist elements of the republican movement. In Paris, a series of public altercations broke out between the Versailles-aligned Parisian government and the city's radical socialists. The radicals ultimately rejected
12604-519: The initiative to the anti-clerical, pro-republican "Dreyfusards", with strong support from intellectuals and teachers. It embittered French politics and facilitated the increasing influence of radical politicians on both sides of the political spectrum. The democratic political structure was supported by the proliferation of politicized newspapers. The circulation of the daily press in Paris went from 1 million in 1870 to 5 million in 1910; it later reached 6 million in 1939. Advertising grew rapidly, providing
12741-583: The institutions of the republic gave him " un sentiment de viol " ("a feeling of rape"). The British historian Ian Ousby wrote: Even today, when people who are not French or did not live through the Occupation look at photos of German soldiers marching down the Champs Élysées or of Gothic-lettered German signposts outside the great landmarks of Paris, they can still feel a slight shock of disbelief. The scenes look not just unreal, but almost deliberately surreal, as if
12878-520: The invaders in Palace of Versailles , annexed the French regions of Alsace (keeping the Territoire de Belfort ) and Lorraine (the northeastern part, i.e. present-day department of Moselle ). The early governments of the French Third Republic considered re-establishing the monarchy, but disagreement as to the nature of that monarchy and the rightful occupant of the throne could not be resolved. Consequently,
13015-473: The issue of whether a monarchy should replace or oversee the republic dominated public debate. The elections of 1876 demonstrated strong public support for the increasingly anti-monarchist republican movement. A decisive Republican majority was elected to the Chamber of Deputies while the monarchist majority in the Senate was maintained by only one seat. President de MacMahon responded in May 1877, attempting to quell
13152-472: The legitimate French government, for control of the French overseas empire and receiving help from French allies. He eventually managed to enlist the support of some French African colonies and later succeeded in bringing together the disparate maquis , colonial regiments, legionnaires, expatriate fighters, and Communist snipers under the Free French Forces in the Allied chain of command. In 1944, after
13289-541: The longest-lasting system of government in France since the collapse of the Ancien Régime in 1789. The Franco-Prussian War of 1870–1871 resulted in the defeat of France and the overthrow of Emperor Napoleon III and his Second French Empire . After Napoleon's capture by the Prussians at the Battle of Sedan (1 September 1870), Parisian deputies led by Léon Gambetta established the Government of National Defence as
13426-419: The melting pot sought by Leo XIII where Catholics and moderate Republicans would unite to support a policy of tolerance and social progress. Its motto summarized its program: "Liberty for all; equality before the law; better conditions for the workers." However, the "old republicans" were few, and it did not manage to regroup all Catholics, as it was shunned by monarchists, Christian democrats, and Integrists . In
13563-477: The monarchy and the nation. Compromise on this was impossible, Chambord believed, if the nation were to be made whole again. The general population, however, was unwilling to abandon the Tricolour flag. Monarchists therefore resigned themselves to delay the monarchy until the death of the ageing, childless Chambord, then to offer the throne to his more liberal heir, the Comte de Paris. A "temporary" republican government
13700-545: The monarchy dominated the tenures of the first two presidents, Adolphe Thiers and Patrice de MacMahon , but growing support for the republican form of government among the French populace and a series of republican presidents in the 1880s gradually quashed prospects of a monarchical restoration. The Third Republic established many French colonial possessions , including French Indochina , French Madagascar , French Polynesia , and large territories in West Africa during
13837-450: The most famous being the 7th Africa Light Infantry Regiment ( 7e régiment de chasseurs d'Afrique [ fr ] , 7e RCA ), created in 1943, which fought the Italians, French, and Germans in Allied campaigns from 1944 to 1945. The famous battle song Le Chant des Africains is dedicated to van Hecke and his 7e RCA. The Reserve Mobile Group ( Groupe mobile de réserve , GMR ) was
13974-783: The new regime, known as Vichy France. De Gaulle was tried in absentia for treason and desertion in Vichy France and sentenced to death. But de Gaulle regarded himself as the last remaining member of the legitimate Reynaud government able to exercise power. He saw Pétain's rise to power as a coup d'état . On 15 September 1940, Free French Captain Georges Bergé created the airborne unit called 1 compagnie de l'air, 1 CIA ( 1st Marine Infantry Paratroopers Regiment ) in Great Britain. This unit, later known as 1 compagnie de chasseurs parachutistes, 1 CCP (1st Parachute Light Infantry Company) joined
14111-527: The newspaper as their greatest enemy, especially when it took the lead in attacking Dreyfus as a traitor and stirring up anti-Semitism. After Dreyfus was pardoned, the Radical government closed down the entire Assumptionist order and its newspaper in 1900. Banks secretly paid certain newspapers to promote particular financial interests and hide or cover up misbehaviour. They also took payments for favourable notices in news articles of commercial products. Sometimes,
14248-432: The next, often in the same posts. The Dreyfus affair was a major political scandal that convulsed France from 1894 until its resolution in 1906, and then had reverberations for decades more. The conduct of the affair has become a modern and universal symbol of injustice. It remains one of the most striking examples of a complex miscarriage of justice in which a central role was played by the press and public opinion. At issue
14385-633: The northern part of the metropolitan French territory under the armistice in June 1940. Apart from the Armistice Army, the French State created irregular forces to fight the French Resistance and internal and external communists, whom both Vichy and German authorities considered enemies. The Vichy French Navy ( Marine de Vichy ). The Vichy French Air Force ( Armée de l'air de Vichy ). The French Legion of Fighters ( Légion française des combattants )
14522-457: The occupation became increasingly unbearable. Regulations, censorship, propaganda and nightly curfews all played a role in establishing an atmosphere of fear and repression. French women consorting with German soldiers angered many French men, though often the women had to do so to acquire food for themselves and their families. As reprisals for Resistance activities, the authorities established harsh forms of collective punishment . For example,
14659-431: The opportunity to participate in the newest, most fashionable consumerism at reasonable cost. The latest technology was featured, such as cinemas and exhibits of inventions like X-ray machines (that could be used to fit shoes) and the gramophone . Increasingly after 1870, the stores' work force became feminized , opening up prestigious job opportunities for young women. Despite the low pay and long hours, they enjoyed
14796-468: The potential for a monarchist restoration. De MacMahon himself resigned on 30 January 1879 to be succeeded by the moderate Republican Jules Grévy . He promised that he would not use his presidential power of dissolution, and therefore lost his control over the legislature, effectively creating a parliamentary system that would be maintained until the end of the Third Republic. Following the 16 May crisis in 1877, Legitimists were pushed out of power, and
14933-452: The press. Their younger staff members were drafted, and male replacements could not be found (female journalists were not considered suitable). Rail transportation was rationed and less paper and ink came in, and fewer copies could be shipped out. Inflation raised the price of newsprint, which was always in short supply. The cover price went up, circulation fell and many of the 242 dailies published outside Paris closed down. The government set up
15070-454: The provisional republican government in the city of Tours on the Loire river. After the French surrender in January 1871, the provisional Government of National Defence disbanded, and national elections were called to elect a new French government. French territories occupied by Prussia at the time did not participate. The resulting conservative National Assembly elected Adolphe Thiers head of
15207-418: The roles of railroads, republican schools, and universal military conscription . He based his findings on school records, migration patterns, military service documents and economic trends. Weber argued that until 1900 or so a sense of French nationhood was weak in the provinces. Weber then looked at how the policies of the Third Republic created a sense of French nationality in rural areas. Weber's scholarship
15344-591: The signing of the French–German–Italian armistices in July 1940. There were myriad paramilitary groups of various sizes and political ideologies which made it difficult to later unify them under a single chain of command. Famous groups included communist Francs-Tireurs et Partisans , FTP ('Partisan irregular riflemen') and rebel police force Honneur de la police ('Honour of the Police'). The French Resistance gradually grew in strength. Charles de Gaulle set
15481-657: The total population. The French Resistance played a significant role in facilitating the Allies' rapid advance through France following the invasion of Normandy on 6 June 1944. Members provided military intelligence on German defences known as the Atlantic Wall , and on Wehrmacht deployments and orders of battle for the Allies' invasion of Provence on 15 August. The Resistance also planned, coordinated, and executed sabotage acts on electrical power grids, transport facilities, and telecommunications networks. The Resistance's work
15618-429: The unexpected conjunction of German and French, French and German, was the result of a Dada prank and not the sober record of history. This shock is merely a distant echo of what the French underwent in 1940: seeing a familiar landscape transformed by the addition of the unfamiliar, living among everyday sights suddenly made bizarre, no longer feeling at home in places they had known all their lives." Ousby wrote that by
15755-469: The war. The major postwar success story was Paris Soir , which lacked any political agenda and was dedicated to providing a mix of sensational reporting to aid circulation and serious articles to build prestige. By 1939, its circulation was over 1.7 million, double that of its nearest rival the tabloid Le Petit Parisien . In addition to its daily paper, Paris Soir sponsored a highly successful women's magazine Marie-Claire . Another magazine, Match ,
15892-512: Was a Vichy French paramilitary force created on 30 January 1943 by the Vichy régime as an auxiliary of the German occupation. It aimed to hunt down members of the French Resistance and the maquis . Its commander was Joseph Darnand , a veteran of the Battle of France and volunteer brigade; he took an oath of loyalty to Adolf Hitler in October 1943 and received the rank of Sturmbannführer ( major ) in
16029-966: Was a collection of groups that fought the Nazi occupation and the collaborationist Vichy regime in France during the Second World War . Resistance cells were small groups of armed men and women (called the Maquis in rural areas) who conducted guerrilla warfare and published underground newspapers . They also provided first-hand intelligence information, and escape networks that helped Allied soldiers and airmen trapped behind Axis lines. The Resistance's men and women came from many parts of French society, including émigrés , academics, students, aristocrats , conservative Roman Catholics (including clergy), Protestants , Jews , Muslims , liberals , anarchists , communists , and some fascists . The proportion of French people who participated in organized resistance has been estimated at from one to three percent of
16166-446: Was a member of the French cabinet during the Battle of France in 1940. As French defence forces were increasingly overwhelmed, de Gaulle found himself part of a group of politicians who argued against surrender to Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy . The president of the council, Paul Reynaud , sent de Gaulle as an emissary to Britain, where de Gaulle was working when the French government collapsed. On 18 June 1940, de Gaulle spoke to
16303-792: Was a unit of the Wehrmacht army recruited from French collaborationist movements for the German invasion of the Soviet Union in July 1941. Officially designated the 638th Infantry Regiment ( German : Infanterieregiment 638 ), it was one of a number of units formed at the same time in other parts of German-occupied Western Europe. The Legion began as part of a coalition of far-right political factions including Marcel Déat 's National Popular Rally , Jacques Doriot 's French Popular Party, Eugène Deloncle 's Social Revolutionary Movement, and Pierre Costantini 's French League, which explicitly supported Nazi ideology and collaborated with Nazi Germany. By contrast,
16440-602: Was also called the Legion of French Volunteers ( Französische Freiwilligen Legion ) or Frankonia Company ( Compagnie Frankonia ). The Légion nord-africaine [ fr ] (LNA), or Brigade nord-africaine (BNA), was a paramilitary force of Parisians of Arab and Kabyle descent, created by French Gestapo agent Henri Lafont and Muslim Algerian nationalist Mohamed el-Maadi . The first French Resistance groups were created in June 1940 following Marshal Pétain's call to stop fighting on 17 June. More groups formed after
16577-463: Was an accident insurance law for workers in 1898, and in 1910, France created a national pension plan. Unlike Germany or Britain, the programs were much smaller – for example, pensions were a voluntary plan. Historian Timothy Smith finds French fears of national public assistance programs were grounded in a widespread disdain for the English Poor Law . Tuberculosis was the most dreaded disease of
16714-533: Was blatant anti-Semitism as practised by the French Army and defended by conservatives and Catholic traditionalists against secular centre-left, left and republican forces, including most Jews. In the end, the latter triumphed. The affair began in November 1894 with the conviction for treason of Captain Alfred Dreyfus , a young French artillery officer of Alsatian Jewish descent . He was sentenced to life imprisonment for communicating French military secrets to
16851-431: Was debated and postponed for 20 years before becoming law in 1902. Implementation finally came when the government realized that contagious diseases had a national security impact in weakening military recruits, and keeping the population growth rate well below Germany's. There is no evidence to suggest than French life expectancy was lower than that of Germany. The most important party of the early 20th century in France
16988-578: Was equipped with Allied weapons such as the .45 (11.43 mm) Thompson submachine gun and .50 (12.7 mm) Browning machine gun . The Moroccan fighters also carried a traditional curved dagger called a koumia . By September 1944, the Free French forces had 560,000 soldiers. They grew to one million by the end of the year. They fought in Alsace , the Alps , and Brittany . When the war in Europe ended in May 1945,
17125-574: Was eventually captured and killed under torture. French Third Republic The French Third Republic ( French : Troisième République , sometimes written as La III République ) was the system of government adopted in France from 4 September 1870, when the Second French Empire collapsed during the Franco-Prussian War , until 10 July 1940, after the Fall of France during World War II led to
17262-491: Was forbidden, and religious orders were forbidden to teach in them. Funds were appropriated from religious schools to build more state schools. Later in the century, other laws passed by Ferry's successors further weakened the Church's position in French society. Civil marriage became compulsory, divorce was introduced, and chaplains were removed from the army. When Leo XIII became pope in 1878, he tried to calm Church-State relations. In 1884, he told French bishops not to act in
17399-460: Was forced to retreat. The Phoney War ensued until 1940, when the Germans invaded and overran northern France, forcing the British from the continent. France formally surrendered . Germany sent two million French prisoners of war to forced labor camps in Germany. In August 1943, the forces under de Gaulle and under Giraud merged into a single chain of command under Allied leadership. French forces on
17536-814: Was in charge in Indochina, the Provisional French Republic sent the French Far East Expeditionary Corps to Indochina to pacify the Vietnamese liberation movement and to restore French colonial rule. Free French commando groups called Corps Léger d'Intervention (CLI) were created by de Gaulle in November 1943 as part of the FEFEO. They trained in French Algeria, then in British India after
17673-495: Was modelled on the photojournalism of the American magazine Life. France was a rural nation, and the peasant farmer was the typical French citizen. In his seminal book Peasants into Frenchmen (1976), historian Eugen Weber traced the modernization of French villages and argued that rural France went from backward and isolated to modern with a sense of national identity during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He emphasized
17810-479: Was politically and morally important to France during and after the German occupation. The actions of the Resistance contrasted with the collaborationism of the Vichy régime. After the Allied landings in Normandy and Provence, the paramilitary components of the Resistance formed a hierarchy of operational units known as the French Forces of the Interior (FFI) with around 100,000 fighters in June 1944. By October 1944,
17947-458: Was returned to France for another trial. The intense political and judicial scandal that ensued divided French society between those who supported Dreyfus (now called "Dreyfusards"), such as Anatole France , Henri Poincaré and Georges Clemenceau , and those who condemned him (the anti-Dreyfusards), such as Édouard Drumont , the director and publisher of the anti-Semitic newspaper La Libre Parole . The new trial resulted in another conviction and
18084-466: Was stability. The workers' demands for strikes threatened such stability and pushed many Radicals toward conservatism. It opposed women's suffrage for fear that women would vote for its opponents or for candidates endorsed by the Catholic Church. It favoured a progressive income tax, economic equality, expanded educational opportunities and cooperatives in domestic policy. In foreign policy, it favoured
18221-673: Was the Radical Party , founded in 1901 as the "Republican, Radical and Radical-Socialist Party" ("Parti républicain, radical et radical-socialiste"). It was classically liberal in political orientation and opposed the monarchists and clerical elements on the one hand, and the Socialists on the other. Many members had been recruited by the Freemasons. The Radicals were split between activists who called for state intervention to achieve economic and social equality and conservatives whose first priority
18358-556: Was the French State's first paramilitary force, created on 29 August 1940 by Xavier Vallat . On 19 November 1941, the force changed its name to French Legion of Fighters and Volunteers of the National Revolution ( Légion française des combattants et des volontaires de la Révolution nationale ). The National Revolution was the French State's official ideology. The Legion of French Volunteers Against Bolshevism ( Légion des volontaires français contre le bolchévisme , or LVF)
18495-485: Was the second largest colonial empire in the world only behind the British Empire ; it extended over 13,500,000 km (5,200,000 sq mi) of land at its height in the 1920s and 1930s. In terms of population however, on the eve of World War II, France and its colonial possessions totaled only 150 million inhabitants, compared with 330 million for British India alone. Adolphe Thiers called republicanism in
18632-549: Was therefore established. Chambord lived on until 1883, but by that time, enthusiasm for a monarchy had faded, and the Comte de Paris was never offered the French throne. Following the French surrender to Prussia in January 1871, concluding the Franco-Prussian War , the transitional Government of National Defence established a new seat of government at Versailles due to the encirclement of Paris by Prussian forces. New representatives were elected in February of that year, constituting
18769-408: Was widely praised, but was criticized by some who argued that a sense of Frenchness existed in the provinces before 1870. Aristide Boucicaut founded Le Bon Marché in Paris in 1838, and by 1852 it offered a wide variety of goods in "departments inside one building." Goods were sold at fixed prices, with guarantees that allowed exchanges and refunds. By the end of the 19th century, Georges Dufayel ,
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