Liberation of France

Free France
La France Libre
Government in exile, provisional government over unoccupied and liberated territories
1940–1944
Flag Cross of Lorraine
Colonies under the control of Free France by September 1940   Colonies under the control of Free France by November 1942   Colonies under the control of Free France in November 1942 after Operation Torch   Metropolitan France (French Algeria) under the control of Free France in November 1942 after Operation Torch   Metropolitan france (zone libre) under Vichy control until occupied by the Axis in November 1942 after operation Torch (with Corsica under the control of Free France in September 1943).   Colony occupied by the Axis (French Tunisia) in November 1942 after operation Torch, under the control of Free France by May 1943   Colonies under the control of Free France by July 1943 (French Somaliland and French West Indies)   French Indochina colony (Tonkin) under Japanese occupation by September 1940.   Rest of French Indochina under Japanese and Thai occupation by July 1941.    Occupied metropolitan France under Axis control (German zones and Italian zones) after the fall of the Third Republic in June 1940, under Free French control by August 1944.
Capital		Paris
Capital-in-exile		London Brazzaville (1940–42) Algiers (1942–44)
Political structure		Government in exile, provisional government over unoccupied and liberated territories
Leader		Charles de Gaulle
Historical era		World War II
•	de Gaulle's appeal	18 June 1940
•	Liberation of France	summer 1944
Preceded by Succeeded by French Third Republic Provisional Government of the French Republic

Free France and its Free French Forces (French: France Libre and Forces françaises libres) were the government-in-exile led by Charles de Gaulle during the Second World War and its military forces that continued to fight against the Axis powers as one of the Allies after the fall of France. It was set up in London in June 1940 and also organised and supported the Resistance in occupied France.

Charles de Gaulle, a French government minister who rejected the armistice concluded by Marshal Philippe Pétain and who had escaped to Britain, exhorted the French to resist in his BBC broadcast "Appeal of 18 June" (Appel du 18 juin), which had a stirring effect on morale throughout France and its colonies, although initially relatively few French forces responded to de Gaulle's call.

On 27 October 1940, the Empire Defense Council (Conseil de défense de l'Empire) was constituted to organise the rule of the territories in central Africa, Asia and Oceania that had heeded the 18 June call. It was replaced on 24 September 1941 by the French National Committee (Comité national français or CNF). On 13 July 1942, "Free France" was officially renamed France combattante ("Fighting France"), to mark that the struggle against the Axis was conducted both externally by the FFF and internally by the French Forces of the Interior (FFI). After the reconquest of North Africa, this was in turn formally merged with de Gaulle's rival general Henri Giraud's command in Algiers to form the French Committee of National Liberation (Comité français de Libération nationale or CFNL). Exile officially ended with the capture of Paris by the 2nd Armoured Free French Division and Resistance forces on 25 August 1944, ushering in the Provisional Government of the French Republic (gouvernement provisoire de la République française or GPRF). It ruled France until the end of the war and afterwards to 1946, when the Fourth Republic was established, thus ending the series of interim regimes that had succeeded the Third Republic after its fall in 1940.