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| | French State, Vichy government (1940-1944) (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-07) |
 | | État français is also called État de Vichy, from the thermal city in the center of France where the MPs met, because it was far enough from the front and had a lot of facilities, and where Pétain's regime was established. |
 | | At the end of war, there was a need of national reconciliation and international recognition of France among the winners, to avoid both Communist pressure and an Austrian-like occupation situation. |
 | | Although Metropolitan France was under the German boot, pretending to be independent, parts of the Empire such as French Equatorial Africa, New Caledonia, French Polynesia and Saint-Pierre and Miquelon rallied Free France, thus giving it a territorial reality from which de Gaulle could claim the active participation of France to the Allied war effort. |
| www.crwflags.com /fotw/flags/fr-etatf.html (710 words) |
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