Talk:France during World War II

Requested move

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: Nomination withdrawn, please continue the discussion in Talk:France_during_World_War_II. walk victor falktalk 18:35, 15 May 2014 (UTC)

France during World War II → France during the Second World War – per. Moved by user:Anthony Appleyard as uncontroversial. --Relisted. Brown HairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 01:03, 9 May 2014 (UTC) -- walk  victor falktalk 13:40, 28 April 2014 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.


 * Oppose. Use World War II for consistency with the large number of articles in the Category:World War II by country category tree. Title is recognisable, precise, concise and natural; meets all the criteria of Article titles. DrKiernan (talk) 16:21, 28 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Also, both equally meet wp:criteria, naturally enough since they're exactly synonymous, so you haven't provided no means to choose one or the other. Furthermore you haven't considered that wp:articletitles is about articles, and that this a dab page. walk victor falktalk 16:02, 29 April 2014 (UTC)
 * It doesn't matter. WP:RETAIN and WP:ENGVAR must be respected, even if might lead to some sub-optimality. It is a cost to be accepted to have a variety of English language. This is an  extremely  well-established principle on wikipedia. <sup style="color:green;">walk <i style="color:green;">victor falk</i><i style="color:green;">talk</i> 17:19, 28 April 2014 (UTC)


 * Strong oppose. There's a well-established consistency in these articles which, whatever their exact phrasing, all use "WWII". Plus, the top article, World War II, uses this phrasing. I don't think "World War II" any less familiar to Brit Eng speakers (I am one, after all) than "Second World War". Personally, I'd prefer to see "France in World War II" though, per the norm for western European articles. Brigade Piron (talk) 20:45, 28 April 2014 (UTC)
 * No, there is no consistent format, but mostly "main" articles are either in the form "Military history of X in WWII" or "X in WWII", and then there are exceptions like Yugoslav Front, Nazi Germany or German occupation of Norway. The general guidelines are that consistency is to be strived for, but beyond that there is no consensus that all "main" WWII articles must follow a certain format.
 * But this is a bit moot,  since it's not a "main" article, it's not even an article, it's a disambiguation page, so guidelines for consistency across articles do not apply. <sup style="color:green;">walk <i style="color:green;">victor falk</i><i style="color:green;">talk</i> 21:27, 28 April 2014 (UTC)


 * Comment As the creator of this dab page a couple of days ago, I made a very conscious editorial choice to deviate from consistency. The articles about France are of rather inferior quality with what would be expected, when comparing with other countries. This is because France is unique in not having a "main" WWII article; this leads to no single article is thought to be worth editing. It also led to tons and tons of bad pipelinking, e.g. to "Military History of France in WWII" instead of "Free French Forces", or to "Military Administration in France (Nazi Germany)" (which BTW, doesn't include the Northern France areas administrated from the Brussels' kommendantur or Alsace-Lorraine, or the Italian-occupied areas) instead of "Vichy France" (which is not the same, but overlaps significantly with "Zone libre") and vice-versa. It's a mess. I wanted to sort it out with a dab page that would function as a central node for navigating among them, and by using a different styling sending a clear signal that it is not a standard WWII wiki article page. <sup style="color:green;">walk <i style="color:green;">victor falk</i><i style="color:green;">talk</i> 17:38, 28 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Oppose. This is not a WP:RETAIN or WP:ENGVAR issue. I only half understand the nom's rationale directly above, but using "Second World War" instead of "World War II" as some kind of code to the reader (or editors?) about the content of the page is not the way to achieve the goal. Maybe create the "main" France in WWII article? But in the meantime, this is not the solution. Dohn joe (talk) 14:47, 29 April 2014 (UTC)
 * sofixit Creating a "main" article is the ideal. However, click on all those links in this dab page to see what a daunting task it is, actually far more of my time is taken up by WWII articles instead of the pre-Napoleonic ones I wished to edit when I joined the French military history task force. I'd like nothing more than that such an article came to pass and I've been working on that, and then this dab page would be converted to one of the countless redirects to French WWII articles. So the unorthodox name is to avoid imposing a presumption on what the name of that hypothetical article should be. This page is not meant to evolve into such an article, but to be either a disambiguation page (in the interim) or a redirect. <sup style="color:green;">walk  <i style="color:green;">victor falk</i><i style="color:green;">talk</i> 16:02, 29 April 2014 (UTC)
 * I seem to have tried to circumvent that. Having started to form an article around the points linked to, that argument is no longer current. If it stands, we have moved from no general article to a poor general article which is probably still better than a short disambiguation. GraemeLeggett (talk) 21:38, 29 April 2014 (UTC)


 * Oppose. The Wikipedia article for World War II is "World War II", not "The Second World War". Logically, it would make sense to establish consistency, so, imo: "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." Twyfan714 (talk) 17:47, 29 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Oppose WP:CONCISE ; though I've seen "World War 2"/"WW2" used in British material... instead of "II" -- 65.94.171.206 (talk) 03:55, 30 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Comment - this isn't an ENGVAR issue in the way that "harbor/harbour" or "tyre/tire" is. Yes, British and Commonwealth historians tend to prefer TSWW over WWII, and Americans tend to use the opposite, but both forms are used in all varieties of English. Given that Britain's corresponding article is at Military history of the United Kingdom during World War II, I don't think it's a big deal to leave this one here. Parsecboy (talk) 13:28, 30 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Oppose. Too trivial a difference, too trivial a reason, to justify page rename.  --SmokeyJoe (talk) 07:14, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Alternative proposal
Given that most people seem to be opposed to this idea, I have another proposal. Why not make this article, assuming we agree to create it (see discussion below), consistent with other articles (ex. Belgium in World War II and Spain in World War II) and have it titled "France in World War II"? Twyfan714 (talk) 13:18, 1 May 2014 (UTC) --'''There is no support for the nominator's proposal, but what about the alternative proposal above, of a rename to France in World War II? Does anyone else want to comment on that idea?''' Brown HairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 01:03, 9 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Strong support. No reason nor consensus to use American English all the time. Coreyemotela (talk) 12:51, 3 May 2014 (UTC).
 * Strong support. Per nom. Conformity is important if we are to create articles which are remotely comparable which each other, therefore of more use to our readers. Also conforms with French Indochina in World War II, French Somaliland in World War II and French West Africa in World War II, and numerous others which are of interest here. Brigade Piron (talk) 09:18, 4 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Support consistently making this and other article titles for countries involved in World War II "Country in World War II" - since "during" and "in" convey the same information, there's no need to make these titles longer than necessary. If you compare the proposed "France during the Second World War" with "France in World War II," both convey the exactly same impression of what the article is about, but the longer version is eight syllables spread across thirty-three characters, while the shorter version is a punchy five syllables and twenty-one characters, which is one third more concise by both measures.   - WPGA2345 -     ☛   18:05, 9 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Support France in World War II - I am a huge WP:ENGVAR "fan" and I have absolutely no clue why people are bringing it up here. Seriously? What's the connection here? Red <b style="color:#460121;">Slash</b> 04:02, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

Structure of the article
I'd like to try to establish a structure for the article so that it is logical and doesn't lead to wp:undue issues, and that sections are in the right hierarchy with corresponding main tags: <sup style="color:green;">walk <i style="color:green;">victor falk</i><i style="color:green;">talk</i> 10:08, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

WWII France: Intro ipsum lorem.


 * "Drôle de guerre"

Phoney war, Narvik, Operation Pike

Schlieffen Plan, Mechelen Incident, Manstein Plan,
 * Battle of France
 * Fall Gelb

Battle of Belgium,Ardennes, Sedan, Sichelschnitt,


 * Fall of France
 * Fall Rot

Paris free city,


 * Free France


 * Appeal of 18 June
 * London Government
 * Free French Forces


 * Occupied France
 * Zone occupée
 * Militärverwaltung in Frankreich
 * Militärverwaltung in Belgien und Nordfrankreich
 * Alsace-Lorraine
 * Italian occupation of France during World War II


 * Vichy France
 * Zone libre

Operation Anton, Petain, Laval,

Colonies, Resistance, STO, Maquis,
 * French against French: 1940-1942

Torch, Overlord, Dragoon
 * Liberation: 1943-1944

AL, BW, indochina, far east,
 * Campaigns in France and Germany 1944-1945

This is by all means not complete or exhaustive. Feel free to fixit any want way you want, just leave a comment here on what you did and why. <sup style="color:green;">walk <i style="color:green;">victor falk</i><i style="color:green;">talk</i> 10:08, 30 April 2014 (UTC)
 * I support the creation of an article, but - and I certainly don't mean any offense - I think the summary you have is a bit over exhaustive for a summary article and focuses on military history over other important aspects.
 * I'd propose this as an alternative:

"*Intro
 * Background
 * Declaration of war
 * Phony War & early campaigns (Norway etc.)
 * Invasion
 * Surrender agreement
 * German occupation
 * Occupation administrations
 * Vichy France
 * Life in occupied France (rationing, air-raids, forced labour, deportations etc.)
 * The Holocaust
 * Resistance
 * Collaboration
 * France in exile (government, free French etc.)
 * Colonies
 * Allegiance
 * Colonial campaigns
 * North and sub-Saharan Africa
 * Asia
 * Liberation
 * Campaigns 1944-5
 * Aftermath"


 * Would welcome comments.Brigade Piron (talk) 09:31, 4 May 2014 (UTC)
 * I wholly agree that there should be more emphasis on general and less on military history. I would just put free France after "invasion", as both more chronological (18 June appeal => Compiègne 25 June => establishment of Vichy in July), and corresponding better to the structure of military history of France during World War II, which we should try to keep as coordinated as possible. <sup style="color:green;">walk <i style="color:green;">victor falk</i><i style="color:green;">talk</i> 13:38, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

Article or not?
Well, my start at an article got reverted yesterday night on the grounds of lack of citations (fair enough - I should have added at least one or two even if I was working by précis-ing topics from the ledes of the article) and because it was "unilaterally" created. And gave BRD. So lets Discuss. Do we want an article here? I got the impression from the discussion that was reasonable and through feedback at least one editor supported it. GraemeLeggett (talk) 09:59, 1 May 2014 (UTC)


 * I think what the problem was (besides the lack of citations) was that other articles (eg. Military history of France during World War II) have already discussed most of what the subject here is. That being said, I wouldn't mind combining those articles into this one, but we just have to be careful and prevent it from becoming too long. Plus, there are other articles that have the same idea (see Belgium in World War II and Spain in World War II) so I'd vote for creation. Twyfan714 (talk) 12:51, 1 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Military history of France during World War II is a very problematic article. It is more of a compilation of French units than a narrative history, military or general. Despite being already too long, it consists predominantly of empty or minimal sections. <sup style="color:green;">walk <i style="color:green;">victor falk</i><i style="color:green;">talk</i> 13:08, 1 May 2014 (UTC)
 * I took a quick glance, and you're right. This is going to pose a problem for this article (assuming we agree to create it). I'd still say we turn this into an article, but it looks like it might be very difficult, given that the military history article isn't really well written. Twyfan714 (talk) 13:14, 1 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Nothing is impossible and things generally start out poor before they get better. Consider the state of "Military history of the United Kingdom during World War II" in Nov 2003 or what can be achieved by looking at History of the United Kingdom during World War I as it is now. Though a France in WWII would have more about the battles on its territory. Not all articles spring fully-armed at creation but most can reach B or better class with a bit of work. The long slog to "Good" or FA takes more effort but is not impossible. GraemeLeggett (talk) 15:13, 1 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Obviously, one would need to keep WP:SS closely in mind, and any attempt of making a WWII article would necessitating major editing of "Military history", but this could be seen as getting two (important) good articles for the price of one. I think a draft of the narrative of the whole war should be written first, without sections, but with an eye on the structure. I'd also suggest not writing on concentrating in fleshing out the latter bits of the war first. The coverage of the topic across all articles is quite good in 1939-40, gets gradually worse until there is barely anything about the end of the war. Perhaps start with Torch and the Liberation. As part of WWII France gets reasonably fleshed out, corresponding sections in "military history" shoud be used to expand on military details. Well, that's my thoughts for now, what do people say? <sup style="color:green;">walk  <i style="color:green;">victor falk</i><i style="color:green;">talk</i> 12:50, 2 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Specifically as two whether Military history of France covers the topic sufficiently, I don't think it does - eg you have the Vichy state and Jews and the supply of forced labour to Germany. Both are important to France but neither are normally covered as "military". Rationing of food and currency control are other topics that affected the French civilian. GraemeLeggett (talk) 14:56, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

French prisoners of war in World War II GA-nominated
Please participate in the review here: Talk:French prisoners of war in World War II/GA1. Thank you! <sup style="color:green;">walk <i style="color:green;">victor falk</i><i style="color:green;">talk</i> 05:32, 28 May 2014 (UTC)

Rename to outline article or delete
The title of this article, currently France during World War II, does not correspond to the way it is currently structured. Narrative-poor, and with hierarchical lists of bullet items, this resembles very much the structure described by WP:Outline article. From a content point of view, this article is a very brief stub, with six sentences in the lead, and virtually no other running text, the remainder consisting of bullet points with links to other articles, like an outline. See for example, Outline of France.

I propose that we do one of the following: There is nothing here worth merging to the mature articles Free France and Vichy France, so if it isn't worth conversion or merging into an outline article, then it isn't worth keeping at all. If this doesn't glean sufficient feedback, I'll probably do the Afd. Mathglot (talk) 09:12, 27 May 2021 (UTC)
 * 1) rename this article to Outline of French World War II topics
 * 2) merge the bullet content into Outline of France
 * 3) nominate the article for deletion.
 * Listed at WT:MILHIST and WT:FRANCE. Mathglot (talk) 09:45, 27 May 2021 (UTC)


 * Delete -- I'd support just nominating this article for deletion. No point in having an outline if it could basically be summarized with two bullet points: one pointing to Free France and one pointing to Vichy France, as you mentioned. Rovenrat (talk) 22:16, 27 May 2021 (UTC)


 * Right now, I think readers are best served with links to Vichy France and German military administration in occupied France during World War II, maybe Free France and Battle of France (although Free France wasn't IN France for most of WWII)... Writing a decent broad concept article would be even better. (t &#183; c)  buidhe  04:26, 29 May 2021 (UTC)


 * This article should be written out into a proper prose summary, but until that's done, no point in deleting it. It gives readers the pointers they're looking for. DFlhb (talk) 15:53, 15 July 2023 (UTC)