Talk:Liberation of France

long-term impact on civilian life, thought and values
1) I suggest the military story is pretty well known, and Frenchmen played a relatively small role. b) The civilian liberation is much more interesting--de Gaulle versus Petain/Laval at the top level and many fascinating developments at lower level. c) what is especially important is the question of memory--what the experience meant and how it is remembered. What did it mean for women (Hannah Diamond has the standard book and says it wasn't really a liberation for them). What did it mean for the economy -- for collaborating individuals and companies? For literature and popular culture? What did it mean for foreign policy (esp role of European leadership, roles of USSR, UK and USA). I had these problems in mind in building the bibliography.  Rjensen (talk) 07:08, 17 July 2020 (UTC)
 * , I totally agree (although militarily the underappreciated African contribution deserves to be beefed up, and there are forthcoming sections on the colonial empire, especially FEA). This Draft has been a long time coming, and I released it early a week or so ago, with many empty sections in order to push myself, and hopefully enlist others, to jump in and expand it. I came here to the Talk page just now to add a section (not yet written) about the choppy nature of the article, due to its having been culled from pieces of many other articles, and which needs to be smoothed into a narrative with better flow, as well as having more attention paid to proper proportion of the sections, which is probably all out of whack currently and needs expansion in some areas, perhaps consolidation in others (e.g., Corsica section currently twice as long as Overlord).  Then I rediscovered this comment of yours, which I had totally forgotten.
 * As it happens, I has an empty "#Impact" section since the very beginning, which however sat empty until as recently as a week ago, just after launch (e.g., see the Jan. 26 version). Since then, I've added stubbed subsections for Demographic, Economic, Judicial, Historiographical, Social and cultural, and Political impact, and have added at least a few words to each one so it doesn't stand empty, except for "Political" which remains empty although it may end up being the longest of all of them. (In the case of "Political impact" I wasn't sure whether to break that up into "Political" and "Diplomatic", where the former would cover political parties and interactions, and the latter such things as the more aggressive stance in the Middle East, approach to NATO, the cold war, unaligned nations, and so on, not to mention Algeria and the transition of the colonial empire.) Also, I wasn't sure where to put the agrarian-urban shift so it's currently in "Society and culture", and the "certain image of France", de Gaulle's and really France's view of themself took a hit with the strange defeat, and I think there was a lot of attention trying to put that back in order, partly by ignoring a lot of things (Paxton annoyed a lot of people trying to set part of that to rights) and I don't even know what section to put that into; perhaps a whole new Impact subsection called, "France's Self-image" or "French Identity"?
 * As far as the role of women, that could come up in various sections, relating to recent suffrage in the May elections of 1945, employment of women, and I assume like most wars, a lack of a generation of men either killed, deported, or disproportionately subject to STO. On the flip side, there are the French war brides of GIs. And that's without even discussing societal impact after the purges and tonsures.
 * Anyway, developing and launching this article has been, and remains, a labor of love, and I'm still époustouflé that there wasn't one before this on the topic. I was glad to rediscover your comment from July, and any help your could offer would be appreciated, either pointers here, or of course direct edits to the article would be especially appreciated. When I do write that section about choppiness/narrative flow, I'll ping you there separately; for this section, I want to stick to the topic as you raised it above, i.e, "Impact", especially on civilian life, thought, and values post-Liberation.   Thanks for your thoughts then, and going forward. Mathglot (talk) 03:13, 4 February 2021 (UTC)


 * A couple fast thoughts about this on possible subjects: the maquis are a huge part of the national mythology. There is still a sense of shame about collaborators. Hollywood of course has focused on the American units. I suppose I should mention Casablanca. Pétain of course destroyed the pedestal he had had in the French national mythos. It is still not unusual for a Frenchman to refer to a German as a boche, which is an insult directly from WW2. As for the colonial units, they fought for France and yet and still were not considered French, do in a very meta way this may have been the beginning of the end of French Africa. Just some thoughts off the top of my head; I will go back to reading the article now. It has grown quite a bit since I was last here. Elinruby (talk) 08:24, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

Military organization - soldiers
, with respect to these edits establishing the new "Military organization" section: yes, absolutely; the contributions of Africa were crucial, and aren't sufficiently known. (I surveyed some acquaintances at a French online (non-history) board recently, and few or none knew about Félix Éboué's important role in France's freedom, being the first to align with De Gaulle while governor of Chad, and subsequently bringing the rest of FEA along with him, or about the subsequent Brazzaville manifesto, or the fact that Brazzaville was essentially the capital of Free France for some time. But, I digress...

I'm just wondering about the choice of section title, though. I'm guessing you view this section as a place to discuss the variety of military forces which contributed to the Liberation, which I would heartily agree with; I'm assuming you don't mean "Military organization" in the sense how the military organized itself, quartermasters, generals, chaplains, food service, infantry, and so on. If my assumption is correct, how about we change the section title to Military forces, or Armed forces, and either have various subsections naming them with a brief description and a Main link for those that have their own articles, or a developed subsection?

Some of the armed forces are listed in the Nav template Liberation of France (in the top major section, with "Forces" in the label column); you can find the template at the bottom of the Draft page (or here). Not sure if whether they all should be mentioned here, or if some are more important than others. There may also be others that I missed, this is a brand-new template here. Mathglot (talk) 07:18, 17 July 2020 (UTC)
 * DeGaulle organized the liberation/Free French army and he unusual notions--about the had special needs --intelligence for example--and how to get and train soldiers outside France and use the overseas resources. So it seems to me we should cover these points. Rjensen (talk) 07:52, 17 July 2020 (UTC)
 * De Gaulle made a lot of name changes and spent quite a bit of time with organizational charts. I am not saying that this was a bad thing, but it

looks to me like a lot of the supposed mergers of various underground organizations were fairly aspirational, and set up with an eye to consolidating power ahead of the war's ends. That surmise may be outside the scope of this article, but it seems like we could really use a glossary or some sort of a narrative of which organization begat which. There are also a huge number of informal Resistance, maquis, and underground railroad organization. Elinruby (talk) 13:48, 4 March 2021 (UTC)

Empty sections in need of expansion
This article was moved from Draft with several sections still empty, or nearly. The following empty or stub sections are in need of expansion, if you can help:

Empty or nearly: #Gabon, #Victory, #Justice and retribution, #Elections of May 1945, #Provisional government, #Fourth Republic, #Economic (impact),

Other sections in need of expansion: #Battle of Normandy – June 1944, #Southern France – August 1944, #Pockets of German resistance – to May 1945.

Most of these should have Further templates, or links within an Expand section banner with links to other articles either here or on French Wikipedia which have additional content which can be copied, translated, or mined for secondary sources to be incorporated into this article. If copying or translating content, don't forget to provide attribution in the edit summary; see Copying within Wikipedia. Mathglot (talk) 20:36, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

De Gaulle
I'm thinking that Charles de Gaulle is so central to the Liberation of France, politically, militarily, diplomatically, that he should probably get his own top level section in the article, since he shows up everywhere. Mathglot (talk) 03:00, 30 January 2021 (UTC)
 * P.S. to avoid breaking in the middle of his surname, it should be coded  or   (but not within image or other Filenames or in wikilink targets). Mathglot (talk) 03:40, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

Let's do this once we get down the nuance of his role. He gets a lot of credit because he spoke up immediately, and thus makes possible the narrative that the French always resisted. He certainly deserves a lot of credit, but some of it is undue. For example, no, his appeal did not lead directly to the liberation not Paris. It was, yes, a first step, but the causality is much more complicated and less admirable. North Africa was considered an easy target for the Americans, for example. Elinruby (talk) 20:17, 22 February 2021 (UTC)


 * Probably a good idea, now I am deeper into this. I keep being jarred by mention of him in a Great Man sort of sense, nonetheless if I had had to pick necessary causes for the liberation of France, one would be the STO and the other, de Gaulle persuading the British government to recognize him as the legitimate government, which is no small thing actually, if you think about it. However, a couple of things here which have competing narratives. There seems to be a felt need to explain why he is in London. I keep seeing the word flee put back in, and it is true that the Pétain government had issued a warrant for his arrest because, presumably, he didn't want to go along with the transfer of power to Pétain. A Charles de Gaulle section would be a good place to explain this. I dislike the word "fled" Elinruby (talk) 08:44, 3 March 2021 (UTC)

Comment continues Elinruby (talk) 08:45, 3 March 2021 (UTC)


 * On some fundamental French level, that I can't quite explain however, that he was a general and symbol at that moment of fighting France. "Escaped" would be much better on this level and just true as true, I believe. Someone else wanted to point out that he was a member of the last cabinet of the Third Republic and responsible for British relations (?) or something of the kind. A de Gaulle section would be a place for that as well.

Slight change of subject
 * There is also a lot of fairly arcane detail about the transfer of power to Pétain. The cabinet of the Third Republic did not hand him "dictatorial power". He became a dictator because they gave him *absolute* power to start creating a constitutional process, and he just never did, and became a dictator that way. That should probably also have its own section, as not mentioning it is pretty much wrong, but it is also pretty important in terms of "legitimate government" of France.


 * The fact that the first appeal from London got heard by almost nobody is another apparent technicality: what happened to increase the audience?
 * third necessary cause would be Éboué. He was actively looking for allies against Germans and when visited by de Gaulle had already been turned down by a neighboring country (Niger?). There is probably a reason why French Equatorial Africa joined de Gaulle and French West Africa for the most part initially did not.

Elinruby (talk) 09:04, 3 March 2021 (UTC)

FFF in Africa
The section on Africa needs major expansion. There are a lot of articles that could be mined for information about this, many of them (not suprisingly) on French Wikipedia. Here's a partial list.


 * Algiers
 * Brazzaville Conference
 * Félix Éboué
 * Free French Africa
 * French Chad
 * French Equatorial Africa
 * Henri Giraud
 * Ubangi-Shari
 * Afrique française libre
 * Campagnes d'Afrique, du Moyen-Orient et de Méditerranée
 * Chronologie de la France libre
 * Conférence de Brazzaville
 * Conseil de défense de l'Empire
 * Henri Laurentie
 * Histoire du Tchad
 * Naissance de l'Afrique-Équatoriale française
 * Oubangui-Chari
 * Politique étrangère du Tchad
 * Situation politique en Afrique française libérée
 * Territoire du Tchad

Mathglot (talk) 02:53, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

Liberation of France
As first mentioned in article "military engagements during the Second World War in which German-occupied France was progressively liberated", I think liberation of France should be concentrated on France mainlands, not including battles from other colonies. There are similar pages like Template:Campaignbox Liberation of the Netherlands, Liberation of the Philippines, or Liberation of Belgium. I think we can put battles on colonies as prelude or background. -- Wendylove (talk) 04:16, 9 February 2021 (UTC)


 * thanks for your comment. I agree, in that there will be nothing in this article about the Netherlands or Belgium. (Their names might come up peripherally, as the movements of the 21st Army Group which liberated Normandy and northern France also were involved in Benelux, but only insofar as those campaigns affected the liberation of France, which they mostly did not.) The reason is simple: per article title policy: "The title indicates what the article is about and distinguishes it from other articles." The title of *this* article, is the Liberation of France, and the liberation of Belgium or Netherlands (much less the Philippines) is simply not part of the scope of the topic, as defined by the title.
 * I'm not sure what you meant about "battles from other colonies"; if you are talking about Chad, Congo, Gabon, Ubangi Shari, and other colonies, they are definitely in scope, because they are part of France of the 1940s, and they not only will be discussed, but they are absolutely central to the story, as General de Gaulle's initial power base was in northern Africa, and the African base was crucial to the development of Free France, which is an important part of the story of liberation. Likewise, when you say "France mainlands" I'm not sure what you mean: if you mean "metropolitan France" (north of Spain, west of Germany), then it will not be limited to that, because of the important role of the African colonies. and because the title includes the north African colonies within its scope. Mathglot (talk) 04:52, 9 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Repinging: User:웬디러비. Mathglot (talk) 04:53, 9 February 2021 (UTC)
 * In response, I removed some stuff about Belgium and the Ardennes out of section "#Advance to the Rhine". This is stuff that was left over from a copy from another article, which as you pointed out, doesn't belong here. It's gone, now. The rest of that section, isn't really "Aftermath", which is the top-level section where it was located, within the context of this article, it's more about the liberation of eastern France, and maybe we should rename the section and call it that, but before we do that, I want to check some sources, to see if the expression "liberation of eastern France" is ever used in scholarship (as opposed to specific regions or towns, like "liberation of Alsace", and so on).  Also, I moved it up under top-level section "Campaigns" because it was part of the Liberation (of the east), not part of the Aftermath.  However, "liberation of the east" isn't really a campaign, either (I don't think); so there will have to be some refactoring there. THanks for pointing out these issues. Mathglot (talk) 05:19, 9 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Well, I meant metropolitan France when I mentioned about "battles from other colonies". But, I agree with your idea that other colonies have given significant role to liberate France in WW2. But, as Germany-occupied France usually means "metropolitan France" which was occupied by Nazi.So why don't we put "Build-up" or "Prelude" sections to explain the course of battles that French involved in Africa? Actually, I think the operation in North Africa is a prelude to the liberation of France. -- Wendylove (talk) 05:50, 9 February 2021 (UTC)
 * User:웬디러비, I don't think the following substantially changes your argument, but just so you know, "metropolitan France" is not the same as German-occupied France, and is twice as big as the latter. "German occupied France" means only the part north and west of the demarcation line and does not include Vichy, Lyon, Marseille, Toulouse, Toulon, Grenoble. and so on, which were in the Zone libre. See the map in section Fall of France and rise of Vichy; click it to see more detail. The part of the map that is purple and labeled "Free Zone" was not occupied by Germany.
 * With respect to your comments about "Build up or Prelude", that would be the wrong way to look at it. It gives the impression that only the mainland (metropolitan France) is "France", and that the "liberation of France" is the same as "the liberation of metropolitan France", but it is not.  It is the liberation of "France", including all its colonial empire. The events in Africa are by no means a Prelude; it is part and parcel of liberation.  It's true that it is less well-known, at least in the Hexagon (metropolitan France), but it is by no means just a prelude to the main event.  So, I can't really agree with that suggestion.
 * However, back to your earlier suggestion about the east: I've moved that section up, and am deleting stuff, and will add other stuff and probably rename the "Advance to the Rhine" section to make it clear that it's focus is on the liberation in the east. We can't ignore the fact that that was part of the advance to the Rhine, and that the *purpose* of the Allies was *not* to liberate the eastern part of France (they couldn't care less); their objective was clear: get to Berlin and destroy the German army. They had to go through eastern France to get there, and forced the Germans to retreat eastward, which did in fact liberate eastern France.  We can concentrate on those factors, but they were not the objective, militarily speaking. Mathglot (talk) 06:23, 9 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Okay, I've changed the section previously named "Advance to the Rhine" to "Eastern France", and added links in the section header reflecting the changed orientation of the section. The content still needs to be changed, but I'll look at that tomorrow. I've also added a couple of sentences to the lead in paragraph 5, to reflect the emphasis on liberation in the eastern part of the country. Mathglot (talk) 06:45, 9 February 2021 (UTC)


 * First, I found another map about Occupied France, File:FranceOccupee.jpg, which is including a course of territorial change. Maybe you can take a look at it, if you search this on wikimedia.
 * Second, there are still many questions about whether to put the battle in French Africa into the main battle. Even if Algeria can be included because it had been incorporated into the French government since the French colonize Algeria, wouldn't it be controversial to say that the battles in French Gabon or Tunisia have a direct connection with the liberation of France? As for the position that the word "liberation of France" itself should include the liberation of France and its colonies, I think it would be better to seek opinions from various users rather than talking between the two of us. Again, my personal opinion is to treat it as a separate paragraph from major battles rather than completely deleting it. -- Wendylove (talk) 07:54, 10 February 2021 (UTC)


 * I'm opposed to the use of File:FranceOccupee.jpg because it's inappropriate for the topic of this article. This article is about the Liberation of France, and that strip map is about the progressive expansion of German occupation in France, so you could say it is the *opposite* of the Liberation of France, it is the subjugation of France.
 * As for your second paragraph, I'm not sure I know what you mean. It sounds like you are talking about "France" as if it means Metropolitan France, and that Africa was some kind of sideshow or minor battle (or battles) that had little to do with the Liberation of France. But Africa was crucial to the Liberation of France, and not all of it was through battles. Perhaps you were not aware that Brazzaville was the capital of Free France (and Algiers, for a while) and that the major part of the armed force of Free France was African, until much later in the war.  De Gaulle's power base was in Africa, the capital was in Africa, the soldiers were in Africa, not in metropolitan France, and relegating the African colonies to some kind of second class position makes no sense. It's true that most Westerners have a myopic vision of the liberation of France and think it was all about Normandy, but there was also Dragoon and they both came only in summer of 1944; before that, it was all about Africa, at least as far as organized military, although there was of course the Resistance operating as loose, disconnected, independent cells within the country, but it was in no way a single, commandable, fighting force until the establishment of the FFI in 1944. So yes, winning over the African colonies for Free France, whether by diplomacy (mostly) or by battle was centrally important. Mathglot (talk) 08:23, 10 February 2021 (UTC)
 * My point is two of this.


 * Actions in Africa- It seems like that action in Africa seem to be put on much discuss with others. I understand your points about "Actions in Africa" that made crucial role to Free France. But it is also important to discuss whether Actions in Africa should be categorized as campaign of liberating France or not, because, as you said, "that most Westerners have a myopic vision of the liberation of France and think it was all about Normandy." IF Westerners have a view like that, then resources or references which cite 'Liberation of France' would narrow the meaning of "Liberation of France" as liberating "Metropolitan France". In order to determine the relationship between France's 1940 and 1942 battles in Africa and the liberation of France, we need to have enough data and records to prove the relationship. If various materials conflict with your argument, even if your argument is convincing, people may refute your argument if there is not enough evidence. That's why I'm telling you that we need to talk about the activities of the Free French Army in Africa, with other users participating.


 * I don't think the activities of Free France in Africa are secondary. Rather, I think those battles as prelude, like Operation Bodyguard before the Normandy invasion. The prelude doesn't mean anything secondary. Just as the Normandy landings were successful thanks to the success of Operation Bodyguard, data will show that the Free French have risen in status in the Allies due to their activities in Africa. Instead, you and I are at odds over whether or not Africa's activities will be included in the military operations category of French liberation. And I don't think it's still too much to conclude on that because there are no footnotes or sources on the connection between French liberation and African activities.

If various records or data prove that the activities of the Free French Army in Africa contributed to the liberation of France, there will no longer be any reason for me to take issue with you. -- Wendylove (talk) 10:23, 10 February 2021 (UTC)


 * You misunderstand, I think, what I said. Or perhaps, you misunderstand policy. When you said,
 * that's incorrect; in fact, it's the opposite. We don't go by what popular opinion is, and while it's true (in my opinion, from living in both places) that the African contribution is vastly underestimated and undervalued, that is not at all the case among historians, who give it its rightful due. The fact that the public sees it the wrong way or is uneducated about history, in no way affects actual history, and what the public thinks is irrelevant, since the public doesn't write books and articles that are secondary sources for articles on Wikipedia.  There was literally an article just *today* in the newspaper, about how the public always talks about Normandy, and much less about Operation Dragoon, for example, on the southern Mediterranean coast of France, which was equally important.
 * The following also makes no sense to me:
 * It doesn't matter who was in Africa liberating the colonies and preparing to invade the mainland, it could be it was the army from Mars. There's no reason to give increased importance to efforts of the FFF, their efforts are whatever they were, and although they were of major importance in the overall liberation, clearly American forces were the overwhelming force in Operation Torch. It really doesn't matter, though; had the forces been 85% North African and 15% American, or 95% American and 5% North African, or 50-50, for the purposes of inclusion in this article, it wouldn't matter one bit.
 * This article has been developed slowly for more than half a year, everything will be sourced the way it should be, and the importance of North African contributions will as well. I can't work on everything at once. One of the reasons it has taken so long, as I have had to pause numerous times, in order to go off and create some other article that doesn't exist in English, but which is the "Main" article, that is, the child article" for which for which the sections in this article are the 'parent". Lately, I've been beefing up the "Administration" section; and to do that, I've had to create several other articles that didn't exist, including four of the six articles that support that section. Then I come back and summarize that section here; currently I am working on expanding French Civil and Military High Command, which also covers a part of the African contribution (to Torch).
 * The African contribution to the liberation of France is clear. Rather than spend too much time here trying to persuade you, I'd rather just have it come out in the article itself. If you want to persuade yourself, just look at any of the zillions of books covering the North African campaigns or the Free French. To be honest, I'm not going to be spending too much more time trying to convince you of this any more; I'm just going to continue to build the article. If you have specific questions, or need a specific reference for an assertion in the article that is unsourced, I'm happy to discuss it. Cheers, Mathglot (talk) 09:20, 13 February 2021 (UTC)
 * One last thing: maybe this will help. The liberation of France is not a military campaign, although military campaigns were part of it. Overlord was a military campaign; Dragoon was a military campaign, Torch was a military campaign. The French Resistance is not a military campaign, the Empire Defense Council is not a military campaign, and Radio Londres is not a military campaign. The armistice document signed by the Germans on 7 May 1945 is not a military campaign. All of these things taken together, along with several important military campaigns, contributed to the liberation of France, which is a different type of topic than a campaign article like Operation Dragoon. So, if you are very accustomed to working on military campaign articles, maybe it takes a different kind of focus or thought pattern when thinking about this topic, which is not one.  I hope this helps. Mathglot (talk) 09:29, 13 February 2021 (UTC)
 * The African contribution to the liberation of France is clear. Rather than spend too much time here trying to persuade you, I'd rather just have it come out in the article itself. If you want to persuade yourself, just look at any of the zillions of books covering the North African campaigns or the Free French. To be honest, I'm not going to be spending too much more time trying to convince you of this any more; I'm just going to continue to build the article. If you have specific questions, or need a specific reference for an assertion in the article that is unsourced, I'm happy to discuss it. Cheers, Mathglot (talk) 09:20, 13 February 2021 (UTC)
 * One last thing: maybe this will help. The liberation of France is not a military campaign, although military campaigns were part of it. Overlord was a military campaign; Dragoon was a military campaign, Torch was a military campaign. The French Resistance is not a military campaign, the Empire Defense Council is not a military campaign, and Radio Londres is not a military campaign. The armistice document signed by the Germans on 7 May 1945 is not a military campaign. All of these things taken together, along with several important military campaigns, contributed to the liberation of France, which is a different type of topic than a campaign article like Operation Dragoon. So, if you are very accustomed to working on military campaign articles, maybe it takes a different kind of focus or thought pattern when thinking about this topic, which is not one.  I hope this helps. Mathglot (talk) 09:29, 13 February 2021 (UTC)


 * hi there, resurfacing after a long absence from this article. There is no question that North Africa was an integral part of the liberation of France. I did a deep dive into it in the early stages of the article's creation, and it's beyond question, especially if you include the many colonial units who fought on the mainland. It may well be that these sections lack references; if so this would be because a) I wandered off and b) the work I did was primarily translation from French wikipedia, which expects certain things to be common knowledge among its readers. I plan to make this article a priority for the next little bit and ok, fine, I can start with references about Africa. I assure you that they are out there. Possibly there should be child articles about this, but some of these already exist. Elinruby (talk) 08:09, 22 February 2021 (UTC)


 * , Wb. I had to smile about the fr-wiki folks "expecting certain things to be common knowledge"; well, maybe so; or maybe they're just terrible at sticking to WP:Verifiability and providing sources in general. They also, in my experience, either vastly underrate, or don't know anything about the African contributions. I'm talking about the quidam in the street, not your French historians, although even those seem to have their heads in the sand sometimes, as the Paxtonian revolution amply demonstrated about a different topic. Anyhow, nice to see you here. Oh, also, definitely agree for more child articles; I wrote a few of them as scaffolding for this article, but not in the African topic areas, more in the #Administration section. Closest I got was Operation Torch, which was mature before I got there, although it was confused about Giraud and Darlan, and that still should probably be cleared up a bit more. I added brief stubs here about Africa, but they need expansion and maybe reorganization. And possibly child articles, too. Mathglot (talk) 08:39, 22 February 2021 (UTC)


 * I went to high school in France. They definitely expect you to already know who Necker is, and the worst thing you could say about someone was that he was a collaborator, and you were expected to know what that implied. But whatever the reason, the result is the same: French wiki articles on French history do not follow the same rules as the English wiki, shrug, so translations start out not doing so either. I am noticing a couple of places where the Hollywood version seems to intrude, but right now just reading with minor copyedits. I mentioned North Africa campaign and Western Desert campaign; these articles are very focused on military manoeuvers and casualties, but do get into the strategic aspects. When I get there I will see if I can't link that in. Elinruby (talk) 08:56, 22 February 2021 (UTC)


 * , you're identify lots of real problems, COSSAC, CFLN, etc. A lot of this is due to copying stuff from various locations (expand the collapsed copy bar above, it's long!) and not yet getting back to cut back, expand, smooth it all out, and make a connected narrative out of it. And I'm still not at that point yet, given the still empty sections, or minimal stub sections to hold the spot till I (or someone) got back to it. Also, you'll see sections that aren't that great (CFLN et al.) because the original (fr, or en) maybe wasn't that great, and I might've created the summary here, then gone back and fixed our main article, but not come back here again to update the crappy section based on the improvements to the main article. I think that might be partly the case with CFLN, and other sections.  I'll be offline most of today but all the stuff you're finding is great, go for it! It's such a big topic, and so much to say; it's fun trying to wrangle it into shape. Mathglot (talk) 18:23, 22 February 2021 (UTC)


 * Nod, I remember how this started. A lot of the wikilinks from last night are in sections I wrote, because I remember there is an article. Still just reading at the surface, but trying to get typos and stuff like acronyms with no prior reference. Re: my comments about de Gaulle, one section goes into a lot of the nuance, whereas another appears to have been written by someone who subscribes to the Great Man theory of history. But later for that. Since this is France we are talking about there is also a lot of bureaucracy, and those sections need expansion, as you probably know. It needs to be covered, and I suppose it can be made interesting through the lens of the personalities. This part I have to learn from scratch, but am willing to do that at some point. I hope I don't offend anyone with any of my blunter edit summaries -- and I know each other from bad machine translation and are kind of used to each other. That said, a couple of questions:

I did not finish reading the article. I have things I need to do today but I will spend my discretionary online time on finishing a first read of this article. Elinruby (talk) 20:07, 22 February 2021 (UTC)
 * The overview of the Resistance might be close to done now, any feedback on that?
 * There were a *lot* of escape lines that saved a lot of people and got a lot of French guides killed, possibly they deserve their own section.
 * I see a lot of references to the Free French that possibly should be to the Army of Africa. Since this involves a couple of my areas of expertise, I volunteer to dig into this; just putting it on people's radar. There was, yes, segregation in the French Army.
 * Back (briefly) just to note the timeline issue, below. Mathglot (talk) 08:12, 23 February 2021 (UTC)

On "Liberation of" articles about other countries, they perhaps don't go into the colonies because those countries didn't have any?? Just a thought. 09:14, 23 February 2021 (UTC)

Timeline of the Liberation
Just discovered Timeline of the liberation of France, you didn't mention you created this one! Trying to think where to add it to this article as a link or Main somewhere. The table format style, which is in the same style and manner of fr:Chronologie de la Libération en France, I don't think the table format works that well; seems to me that it kind of shoehorns you into a format of what date some town or city was liberated, and what army or general was responsible, and not much else. I prefer a more narrative list, such as found at Timeline of World War II (1944), or Timeline of the Battle of France. In any case, it has plentiful references, and might be useful for double-checking the dates and sequencing in this article, and/or importing some of their references, if we are lacking in some areas. Mathglot (talk) 08:20, 23 February 2021 (UTC)

Yeah. I had forgotten about it, but I am not married to that format. I wanted to use colors to group things that happened on the same day or in the same campaign, but I was having trouble with it. I was primarily trying to get the chronology straight in my head and group subsidiary articles. Feel free to completely reformat if the urge strikes you. I am currently preoccupied with the incarnations of the French Liberation Army, and with explaining the input of North African goumiers and the tirailleurs sénégalais etc. PS. I think current article has too much de Gaulle; he should be considered a Joan of Arc figure with an ego and a gift for intrigue. I think. Improving coverage of Resistance will help with that tho, and I am on it. Elinruby (talk) 09:08, 23 February 2021 (UTC)

Cairo Conference and North African campaign
Cairo turns out to be mostly Turkey and that end of the Mediterranean. Only relevant from 10,000 feet, looks like. North African campaign and Western Desert mostly attrition for Axis. Everybody learns the importance of supply lines.

On the other hand, within weeks of Éboué joining the Allies, the Chad military, including 'camel cavalry, take a strategic oasis from the Italians in Libya, who had thought the Great Sand Sea impassable by land :) Told you there was an untold story in there :) Must have been great for morale. See Capture of Kufra. Elinruby (talk) 03:21, 24 February 2021 (UTC)


 * Check it out: Free French Camel Corps Elinruby (talk) 03:25, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

Battle of Vercors
There ought to be some mention of the Battle of Vercors, a defeat which was a direct result of de Gualle's mobilisation of the whole FFI on D-Day against the advice of Eisenhower, and itself a manifestation of the distrust between de Gualle and Churchill / Roosevelt. Alansplodge (talk) 15:43, 25 February 2021 (UTC)"


 * Agree Elinruby (talk) 06:58, 28 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks Elinruby, I have added a subsection called "3.6.2 Premature activation" under 3.6 "French Forces of the Interior". Perhaps you could cast an eye please? Alansplodge (talk) 16:17, 2 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Yes, nice; new to me, always like learning about this topic. Mathglot (talk) 03:17, 3 March 2021 (UTC)

Lede section
I just performed some major snippage at the top of the article. There was quite a bit of repetition of the story of the dissolution of the Third Republic etc, probably my fault since I was fascinated by a model democracy voting itself out of existence, but anyway.

Editors may wish to review the extensive rewrite for missing words, continuity, and what got cut. It's still pretty long. I will review again myself in another day or two; right now need to go close some browser tabs. Elinruby (talk) 00:08, 28 February 2021 (UTC)
 * The main problem is that it's beyond four, solid paragraphs. The overall length of the lead is probably okay (Lead is now 7.1 kb, or 4.4% of total article size of 163 kb. Compare WW I: 13,396 of 305,718 (4.4%); and WW2: 12,296 of 235,663 (5.2%).)
 * I haven't done much review yet, except I noticed you took out "Metropolitan France" in this edit, but that is what it means. It's synonymous with "Hexagone (France)", meaning the part of France on the European continent, and is often used separately from just plaain, "France" which may be ambiguous, because the DOM-TOM is also France, and because Algeria occupied a special position as not even being "overseas France" but an integral part of "non-overseas France"; there's no exact equivalence, but perhaps in the way that Northern Ireland is part of the UK, or Alaska and Hawaii are part of the US, and not "overseas possessions" but integrally part of their respective countries. So, I think "Metropolitan France" is the term that should be used there, although "the Hexagon or even, "continental France" would be okay. Mathglot (talk) 21:13, 28 February 2021 (UTC)


 * yeah it narrates too much. I can work on it more, because I realized after I wrote this that there is a lot of overlap between the lede and the overview section. We may wind up with consensus questions to settle but I am not dogmatic. Speaking of, I see your comments on "metropolitan". I dislike the term but perhaps you are right. I will look into it some more on my next deep dive, which will not be tonight. But a couple of possibly controversial meta thoughts: one result of the liberation of France was decolonization. There are academic sources for this. Also, the service de travail obligatoire led to the growth of the Resistance and the presence and size of the Resistance saved a lot of airmen and helped to win the war. One more, which just occurred to me -- effects should include literature. Did you know Sartre was a prisoner of war? Elinruby (talk) 06:50, 1 March 2021 (UTC)


 * I did not, excellent point. We could add a new subsection "#Literature" (or, "The Arts, as I assume more than just lit. was involved) under section Impact. This is not a topic I know much about, but here's one source as a starter: Evans (2008). Mathglot (talk) 10:57, 1 March 2021 (UTC) Maybe also a subsection on the connection between the Liberation and the wave of decolonialization that followed? Mathglot (talk) 10:57, 1 March 2021 (UTC) Oh, you just said that; I'm too tired, or it registered subliminally. Mathglot (talk) 11:00, 1 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Aha art. Années folles -- I just had an epiphany, remember how many of those artists were Jewish? or Polish or Russian? As I recall at least one of them got swept up in the deportations. And there was a sad story of a fairly major artist who fled to Marseille and died there of illness. It has been a while, would need to review. As for Sartre, at least one of his plays was about resistance fighters in German custody. This is why I was looking at his bio; I didn't see any time in the Resistance, but some faint memory is telling me he was a journalist, maybe at one of your underground newspapers. Just sticking my head in. I have not reviewed changes but I haven't had a problem with your edits yet. I will probably be tied up for a couple days. Elinruby (talk) 12:50, 1 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Albert Camus started Combat and Sartre wrote for it as well. I haven't found the name of the play yet. Side note, three of four images in Années folles is Josephine Baker. I know she is important and photogenic, but still. Elinruby (talk) 13:09, 1 March 2021 (UTC)

Louis Ferdinand Céline
I have been mulling where he should be mentioned. Amazing writer. I once proposed a thesis on his use of language (think Joyce) but was emphatically turned down because of his reported anti-Semetism. I had only ever read his fiction and was somewhat startled, but he *was* a sort of Hanoi Jane, and was at Sigmaren. His roman à clef about that, D'un château l'autre, specifically describes everyone there as cowardly, including himself, so as in most things the truth is probably much more complicated.

Note to self and others, probably deserves a mention in the literature section at a minimum. Elinruby (talk) 13:28, 1 March 2021 (UTC)


 * He is now mentioned under Sigmaren, which resolves this concern. Elinruby (talk) 11:11, 7 March 2021 (UTC)

Biens mal acquis
Note to self and others: Someone has edited out the history of this doctrine in its article, (which I need to remedy), probably because it came across as dry legalese.

It was *originally* used against Frenchmen who had made money out of the German occupation, for example on the black market. In principle it is similar to Scotland's unexplained wealth law. Just in case anyone is wondering why I added it as a See also on this article. I think the name and date of the 1945 ordonnance are in the French article I translated, if there are problems finding them in the history of the translation. Elinruby (talk) 13:43, 1 March 2021 (UTC)


 * here is the French text from fr.wiki: "A la Libération, des ordonnances visant les profits illégitimes réalisés pendant l'Occupation constituent un précédent. Les ordonnances du 18 octobre 1944 et du 6 janvier 1945 s'inspirent du motif suivant : « La plus élémentaire justice fiscale exige que soient reversés au Trésor Public tous les gains qui ont été rendus possibles par la présence de l'ennemi. Alors que la Nation s'appauvrissait, il est inadmissible que certains se soient enrichis à ses dépens »." Elinruby (talk) 14:04, 1 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Good find; if confirmed, that would be a good addition to section #Judicial. I see the text in the French article, but it's unsourced, and that little clause, "s'inspirent du motif suivant" is a possible OR red flag; so we need to try to verify that on the French side first, before importing anything here. I'll maybe have a look over there, and see what I can do there first. Mathglot (talk) 18:57, 1 March 2021 (UTC)
 * I found four sources about this, and added them to the talk page at Talk:Biens mal acquis, in case you're interested. Mathglot (talk) 00:28, 2 March 2021 (UTC)


 * French wikipedia is rarely sourced. I believe you will find that that language is in the text of the ordonnance. I was able to verify this online; I forget whether it was at fr.wikipedi. I think if it wasn't, it's on the legislature' s register. It should also he in the history of Biens mal acquis, because I put it there. And then that Belgian NGO quoted the text of the ordonnance, and William Bourdain, was that his name, pointed out that the law was still in effect...you and I talked about that article at the time. Anyway, wiped out, may wikignome about the edges a bit tonight, but no more.
 * of course you did; it is quite an important doctrine. Thank you for adding them, additional sources are always a good thing.

Elinruby (talk) 02:51, 2 March 2021 (UTC)

Thematic approach to bibliography
I like it. Two comments: 1) the headers seem slightly too big. 2) there are two historiography sections. Someone should merge or distinguish Elinruby (talk) 09:41, 3 March 2021 (UTC)

Effects
Some nominations for this section, literature, subsection: Other Elinruby (talk) 10:01, 3 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Camus founded Combat, Sartre writes for it
 * Casablanca and The Snowbird All Quiet on the Western Front, The Sound of Music
 * Paris under Nazis an obscenity
 * Large expatriate community in Paris dispersed
 * Confiscated art
 * Wasn't Josephine Baker a freedom fighter?
 * Votes for women (?)
 * Algerian War, liberation
 * constitutional changes
 * Independence movements, decolonization
 * Legacy of Pétain irrevocably tarnished


 * Are those effects of the Liberation, or of France being invaded and under German occupation in the Second World War? I think you're risking hanging more things on this article than it can bear without being unwieldy

Fair question, person who forgot to sign their post. One problem the article has is that the scene-setting is getting set both in the lede, and in the Background section. I propose to merge that, and is a big part of the reason that it feels bogged down and too long. It will still be bogged-down and too long after that though, and that will still be a good question, so...I was talking about what the *necessary* causes of the Resistance, and maybe we should apply this same principle to the effects? In other words, if France not been liberated, would x have occurred? That should help focus the narrative. Meanwhile, cutting back to one single narrative of the causes and preceding events would leave the lede basically one paragraph listing participants, so we could easily afford two or three paragraphs up top exploring some of the effects.

TL;DR=propose liberation as necessary cause of events in Aftermath section; I plan to reduce duplication in narrative of preceding events Elinruby (talk) 19:29, 3 March 2021 (UTC)
 * I did do the merge I was talking about above. The article now starts with quite a short intro containing a definition and a couple of causes, followed by a short narrative of preceding events. I suggest that other editors review the changes for errors and omissions; I was careful but this is a big structural change. I also rewrote several sentences from passive to active voice. Elinruby (talk) 12:21, 4 March 2021 (UTC)

split off summary of previous events from lede
So now there is an intro, then a summary of events which includes the highly notable and highly relevant end of the Third Republic. I think it goes from there into the section on de Gaulle, which should be where we put all of the fussy details. For instance, the appeal of June 18 in fact reached almost no-one, but there were several broadcasts and they were important. I wrote the sentence that says it is generally considered the beginning of the Resistance, and felt comfortable enough with it at the time with writing it, since I had in fact just seen this in several. This view is in fact out there, but what is true about the sentence is that people believe this, not that this is exactly correct, because it isn't. So I will find a reference for people saying this, them mention the other broadcasts as briefly as possible.

TL:DR - another big edit at the top of the article. Please check out the new organization and comment, thanx. Elinruby (talk) 13:28, 4 March 2021 (UTC)


 * Well, that dropped off a lot of context some of which I think is needed; plenty of people won't know much about the invasion, the Fall of France, de Gaulle, the Resistance, and so on. A lot of people think Liberation equals D-day, end of story. I've added some of this back, albeit in much tighter format: the lede is now down to a defining sentence and four paragraphs: one intro & context, one North Africa, one 1944 military invasions, and one aftermath. The big cut also meant that the lead no longer summarized a significant portion of the article, and I think this new version does that, while giving a tighter but still decent envelope for the main thrust of the article. What do you think? Mathglot (talk) 03:01, 5 March 2021 (UTC)

Haven't looked yet. My idea was that there was a lot of repeated narration, so let's more that into it's own section, and do an intro from 10,000 feet. Added Josephine Baker because everyone finds her interesting. I expect that the lead will go through several more iterations as the article is fleshed out. I see your point about context though, and will look. Elinruby (talk) 05:57, 6 March 2021 (UTC)

Aftermath - camps
There's maybe another small subsection to add to the #Aftermath section which I hadn't considered before: namely, the disposition of the internment and transit camps within France that were used for transporting Jews to work and death camps. I actually don't know much about this topic, but Rivesaltes, which was used for various purposes including deportations, and which is now a memorial and museum, went through a period just after Liberation where it housed German and Italian POWs. Later, it was used in the Algerian war. I'm not sure if this is important enough to mention individually, but there were a number of these camps, and what happened to them all? That could either be a separate subsection if there's enough to say about it, or perhaps be incorporated into a subsection of broader scope of de-Vichyization in general, not only people, but institutions and organizations, maybe an extension of épuration légale. Mathglot (talk) 03:40, 5 March 2021 (UTC)
 * List of World War II prisoner-of-war camps administered by France is a big old list. Worse, its items have been wikilinked to the town of that name, so somebody would have to go through it to figure if there are any articles about camps. But if you're interested enough to do it, I am not against it, except that like everything else this would have to be condensed way way down. Elinruby (talk) 09:27, 7 March 2021 (UTC)

There is also a list of internment camps. As you suspected, there is overlap Elinruby (talk) 11:14, 7 March 2021 (UTC)

So just to be clear, I was skimming, but I am pretty sure some of these vamos were used by the Nazis, for Axis Prisoners of war, then during the Algerian War Elinruby (talk) 20:56, 7 March 2021 (UTC)

Bataillons de marche
I am still chipping away at the attack on Libya from Chad. I want to translate an article on the bataillons de marche, which is literally translated as "marching battalions" in the article I was looking at. Since some of you seem to have more grounding in military history than I do -- I just wound up translating a bunch of French and African military history because it was in French -- is there an equivalent term in English? Marching battalions seems awkward -- all infantry marches, after all. It seems that it means a unit that is formed of parts, or survivors, of other units. It comes up in Free French Africa quite a bit. Any suggestions? Elinruby (talk) 05:08, 7 March 2021 (UTC)
 * For the English, I see "makeshift batallion" on p. 37 of French-English Military Technical Dictionary. From fr:Bataillon de marche: Un bataillon de marche est une unité provisoire composée de plusieurs compagnies formées de manière non conventionnelles. Une unité est dite « de marche » (BM) lorsqu'elle est formée à partir d'éléments d'autres unités.. Mathglot (talk) 10:48, 21 March 2021 (UTC)

Political architecture
The Constitution approved after the Liberation of France instituted a government system it describes as a. Now, he can translate this as I just did, but there is often an "official" translation is such terms, and while looking I found "semi-parliamentary" -- does any one want to comment on the proper terminology in English? The UK is given as example of a semi-parliamentary system. They don't have presidents, of course, but there is a similar concept of an executive to mitigate potential volatility from the legislature (?) Elinruby (talk) 09:18, 7 March 2021 (UTC)

Going with what the Library of Congress says. solved, thanks Elinruby (talk) 00:39, 8 March 2021 (UTC)
 * I couldn't find anything about this, in this article. Are you talking about French Constitution of 27 October 1946 (from: fr:Constitution française du 27 octobre 1946)? If not, what?  Probably the page Parliamentary sovereignty should have a section added for France. Mathglot (talk) 11:00, 21 March 2021 (UTC)
 * reping: Mathglot (talk) 11:02, 21 March 2021 (UTC)

Apparently I dropped a word. I think I was looking for a translation for "rationalized parliamentarianism"; I haven't been in that section recently. I did decide to use the description I found on the library of congress page, but am open to other suggestions. Elinruby (talk) 22:10, 21 March 2021 (UTC)

The word "degradation" in lede
Re the definition given for épuration légale; the French does say "degradation" but this is legalese that has a specific meaning different from the meaning of the English word "degradation". Suggest either vague penalty or more specific "loss of voting rights" Elinruby (talk) 18:57, 20 March 2021 (UTC)
 * It's not really that. It's more like a public disgrace. Think of the degradation of Dreyfus in solemn military ceremony, where they publicly strip his insignia off his uniform, take his sword away and break it in two, and lead him away in humiliation before everyone. It's intended to be degrading.  I'm not sure if Anglo-Saxon countries have a similar ceremony or not, and if they do, what it might be called.  We could leave the word in French (in italics, and with the accent, so it wouldn't be confused with the almost identical English word). Mathglot (talk) 10:30, 21 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Okay, I went a little further into it, and the word by itself is ambiguous, and may refer to either of two things: Dégradation militaire (which is what I was talking about wrt Dreyfus), or Dégradation nationale, which I think is a civilian penalty, which has loss of voting rights and other things, as you pointed out, so maybe not the same degrading treatment, other than the penalties which involve not being able to show your face in certain ceremonies and events, which does have an edge of degradation or humiliation to it. Turns out the military version does have a term in English, though I wasn't aware of it: it's called Cashiering, and the top image on that article, is in fact of Dreyfus's fr:dégradation militaire in 1895. Oh, and it looks like we have a stub about the civilian one, too: it's at Dégradation nationale. Mathglot (talk) 10:39, 21 March 2021 (UTC)

So... Cashiering seems mostly military? Normally I would use the French word in italics, and if possible wikilink it to an English language article on the concept in France. We have a lot of those vocabulary links, but we really do need to define a lot of these. Dégradation nationale is in fact what we're talking about, exactly, and it's in English, so I guess use that? Elinruby (talk) 07:02, 22 March 2021 (UTC)

Constituent Assembly.
Someone added these words to the section on the referendum, and someone else added a cn tag, presumably because they didn't click to the child article to see that the wording of the the question is literally "should this Assembly elected in this election be a constituent assembly?". I suggest going back to "should it be able to write a constitution?" but will be happy with anything less inane this. I believe the problem here is that the common law tradition does not include constituent assemblies. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Elinruby (talk • contribs) 19:24, 20 March 2021 (UTC)

Broken referencing, and Kiwis and Aussies
In edit 1033183809 of 04:09, 12 July 2021 you somehow broke referencing. If you look at the current version, you'll see a big red message about "missing reflist" at the bottom of the page. Revision 1033182461 right before that one was still good, so it was something in the 4:09 edit. I didn't investigate much, but I do note that it includes a refn with an embedded &lt;ref>, and if you failed to close either of them, that could account for it.

As far as the stuff about Aussie and Kiwi units that you added in that edit, that content was already there once before, and then got removed by User:Rjensen as too unimportant to include in this edit of 29 June. I agree with him&mdash;if you look at the numbers, I think for a summary article like this one, he is right; after all, with 2 million men coming in from the UK to the beaches and only a few thousand Aussies and Kiwis, that's definitely a "tiny minority" and per WP:DUEWEIGHT we should not mention them here. (I think you could add, "and scattered units from other Allies" or similar; or you could briefly mention them in an explanatory note.) It might be a minor entry at the main article on the Normandy landings, but it seems inappropriate here. Maybe the simplest way to fix both the referencing problem, and this one, is to simply undo the 4:09 edit (if that can still be done in one click). I think Richard is right that this stuff just doesn't belong here; but it would maybe work better at the Normandy landings article. Mathglot (talk) 01:16, 13 July 2021 (UTC)


 * Ok, will check that out in a few minutes. While I have you here, I noticed yesterday that the article is categorized as having vague or undefined geographic scope. The timing indicates this probably came from that person who maintained that Algeria was not "really" France, but I am not sure how to remove it. As for the reference, pretty sure I know the problem; should have double-checked the reference.sectiom when I thought I had this straightened. And btw thank you for the cabinet ministers catch. Elinruby (talk) 01:25, 13 July 2021 (UTC)


 * Should be fixed. This was an edit to answer somebody's Cn tag, but all the detail in the note should have been trimmed off. I probably saw a shiny object. It's much condensed now with one reference, but I do feel it is important to mention Australian and Canadian support -- those are English-speaking Wikipedia users who would expect to see their history in the English Wikipedia. Subject, of course, to WP:DUE. Where that balance is, is of course the question, and I have disagreed with RJenson before about the proper measure for this balance -- so if someone still has an issue with the way it is, let us discuss. Going back now to make sure the rewording also fixed the reference issue. Elinruby (talk) 02:17, 13 July 2021 (UTC)

Useless, lazy referencing
Someone has been copying over from other articles without bothering to copy over the references called in the text. I've just fixed a load, but more remain. DuncanHill (talk) 10:40, 7 September 2023 (UTC)
 * Can you provide specifics, or links, so they can be fixed? And thanks for the ones you fixed. Mathglot (talk) 08:52, 23 April 2024 (UTC)