IB History Impact of the Second World War on One European Country Key Definitions

The French government-in-exile led by General Charles de Gaulle from London from June 1940. De Gaulle rejected the armistice and called for continued resistance in his BBC broadcast of 18 June 1940. Free French Forces drew on colonial territories and volunteers who escaped occupied France, numbering around 400,000 troops by 1944. Free France also coordinated the internal Resistance through the Conseil National de la Resistance (CNR).

A French forced labour scheme introduced in February 1943 under Vichy that required young men from specific birth years to perform labour service in German factories. Approximately 650,000 French workers were sent to Germany under the STO. It unintentionally increased the size of the Resistance, as many men fled to join the Maquis rather than comply.

Antisemitic racial legislation enacted by the Vichy regime in October 1940, before Germany formally demanded it. The first statute defined Jews by racial criteria and excluded them from the civil service, military, teaching, and press. A second statute in June 1941 extended exclusions to commerce and industry. The statutes demonstrated that Vichy collaborated voluntarily in the persecution of Jews.

A mass arrest of Jews in Paris conducted by French police on 16-17 July 1942. Some 9,000 police officers arrested 13,152 Jews, including 4,115 children, who were held in the Velodrome d'Hiver sports stadium before deportation to Auschwitz via the Drancy transit camp. French police chief Rene Bousquet volunteered to include children, exceeding German quotas. It is the most prominent single act of French state participation in the Holocaust.

The government of unoccupied southern France from July 1940 to August 1944, led by Marshal Philippe Petain with its capital at Vichy. The regime ended the Third Republic, concentrated power in Petain, promoted the "National Revolution" (authoritarian, Catholic, and anti-republican values), and actively collaborated with Nazi Germany including passing its own antisemitic legislation and participating in the deportation of Jews.