The importance of Empire to Vichy France

... The importance of Empire to Vichy France France's Third Republic had fallen less than a year after the beginning of the Second World War. Much of France itself was occupied by German forces and a quasi-fascist French government was set up at Vichy under World War I hero Marshal Phillipe Petain. Although it was not apparent at the time, an even more dramatic change had been set into motion by these events. The existing system of colonial economic dependence was torn to pieces as French administrations around the world attempted to decide how to deal with the Vichy administration. This was particularly true of the vast French possessions in Africa, as imperial subjects of all races began to question their assigned political and economic identities. The initial reaction of some administrators was to recognise the Vichy regime, but many others, including Charles de Gaulle, a junior general in French Equatorial Africa,

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