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Speaker 1

00:00

After France was defeated in the Second World War, the armistice dictated that the north of it was to be garrisoned by German soldiers, whereas the south was allowed to remain unoccupied. This part of France is known as Vichy France due to it being run from said town, and it was a German puppet state in all but name. But despite its leaders acting in German interest, Vichy France never joined the Axis to fight the Allies in a more formal sense. So why not?

Speaker 1

00:22

Why didn't Vichy France join the Axis? So as of the fall of France, President Albert Le Brun gave absolute power to his recently appointed Prime Minister, Philippe Pétain, and this was to allow him to write a new constitution. Pétain dissolved the French Parliament and made himself head of state. Legally, Pétain's government had control over all of France.

Speaker 1

00:39

In reality though, its authority stretched only throughout the non-occupied zone. His government had to relocate from Paris to Vichy here because it had the best postal and telephone facilities outside of the capital. As Breton was attempting to write a new French constitution after its defeat, Britain was worried. France had withdrawn from both the war and the Allies and now sat as a neutral, if occupied, state.

Speaker 1

00:59

The British were concerned that the French fleet would fall into German hands and so they demanded custody of it for themselves. The French said no and so the British calmly dropped the subject, and some bombs, on the French fleet. The French responded by bombing Gibraltar and it would seem then that the 2 were at war. But France never made any declarations nor did it try to join the Axis.

Speaker 1

01:17

And there were several important reasons why. The first was that Pétain didn't believe that France was ready to join the conflict on either side. The second reason was that Pétain enjoyed international recognition as the legitimate ruler of France, with some exceptions, and joining the war would see this revoked by some. It also meant that the French people in both France itself and the colonies wouldn't have to pick a side, since many weren't too happy about the German occupation but there was also a very strong anti-British sentiment amongst the French people, and Pétain didn't want to test which of these were stronger.

Speaker 1

01:43

The third reason was that the Axis didn't really want France to join. The German government didn't feel that France would fare too well in an all-out war, and importantly they didn't want to risk having to divert troops to help in Africa. It wasn't just Germany though that didn't want France on the team. The Italian government had been eyeing up French territory for a long time, and even a rump France on side could have prevented Italy from realising its ambitions.

Speaker 1

02:04

And across the world, Japan wasn't a fan of France either. Its ideological justification for its conflict with the West was freeing Asia from European colonialism, and France held these lands that Japan wanted. That said, the debate didn't last too long. Since in late 1942, fearing that Vichy France would either join the Allies or fall to them, the German and Italian militaries invaded and put an end to its existence, thereby ending the short and technically neutral existence of Vichy France.

Speaker 1

02:28

I hope you enjoyed this episode with a special Thanks to my Patrons... Daniel Tabean, Camoon Yoon, Miss Isette, Gustav Swann, Aaron the White, Anthony Beckett, The McWhopper, Maggie Paskowski, Copper Tone, Spinning 3 Plates, Shuenin, Words About Books Podcast, and Charles I.