Poster announcing the founding of the French Committee of National Liberation.
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First page of La Dépêche algérienne headlining the creation of the French Committee of National Liberation 4 June 1943
After the defeat of France in 1940, Marshal Philippe Pétain assumed complete power and signed an armistice with Nazi Germany with Fascist Italy. Pétain set up the Vichy regime, which governed unoccupied southern and central France. Vichy also controlled French overseas territories, with the exception of a few colonies which declared support for Free France and de Gaulle. Vichy France was officially neutral in the war, though regarded as a German puppet, but German forces did not enter Vichy territory.
Free France became a government in exile, supported by Britain, rallying several thousand troops and gaining control of additional French colonies occupied by the Allies. But Free France was not officially recognized by the United States or even Britain.
In November 1942, the Allies invaded French North Africa. Vichy forces there resisted the Allies until ordered to join them by Vichyite Admiral François Darlan, whom the Allies recognized as ruler of French North Africa and other Vichy-loyal colonies. The Allies had brought General Giraud to North Africa, hoping that his high rank and heroic record would get Vichyites to join the Allies, but had no success. However, Darlan named Giraud commander-in-chief of French army forces. Free France had not been informed of the invasion and the subsequent "Darlan deal" were made without their consent.
Vichyite officials in North Africa remained in authority, under Darlan until he was assassinated in December, and then under Giraud. De Gaulle in London furiously lobbied for Free French control. Giraud had no interest in politics, but he wanted to fight the Germans immediately and therefore relied on the Vichyite incumbents. He resisted de Gaulle's call for a purge (épuration) of all former Vichy collaborators.
Giraud started to become more critical of Vichy (notably in a speech written by advisor Jean Monnet). In June 1943, Free France and the Algiers regime merged: De Gaulle and Giraud created the unified French Committee of National Liberation.
The Committee was formed on 3 June 1943 in Algiers, the capital of French Algeria Giraud and de Gaulle served jointly as co-presidents of the committee. The charter of the body affirmed its commitment to "re-establish all French liberties, the laws of the Republic and the Republican regime." The committee saw itself as a source of unity and representation for the French nation. The Vichy regime was decried as illegitimate over its collaboration with Nazi Germany. The Committee received mixed responses from the Allies; the U.S. and Britain considered it a war-time body with restricted functions, being different from a future government of liberated France. The Committee soon expanded its membership, developed a distinctive administrative body and incorporated as the Provisional Consultative Assembly, creating an organized, representative government within itself. With Allied recognition, the Committee and its leaders, Gens. Giraud and de Gaulle enjoyed considerable popular support within France and the French resistance, thus becoming the forerunners in the process to form a provisional government for France as liberation approached. However, Charles de Gaulle politically outmaneuvered Gen. Giraud, and asserted complete control and leadership over the Committee.
With the Allied invasion of Normandy, the Committee moved its headquarters to London, and in August 1944 the Committee moved to Paris, following the liberation of France by Allied forces. In September, Allied forces recognized the Committee as the legitimate, provisional government of France, whereupon the Committee reorganized itself under the presidency of Charles de Gaulle, incorporating representatives of various French political parties such as the Socialists and French Communists. The Committee also began the process of writing a new constitution to found the French Fourth Republic. However, Charles de Gaulle resigned in 1946 over the provisional legislature's refusal to grant more powers to the President and owing to the in-fighting between various political factions and the Communists.
↑American University (Washington, D.C.). Foreign Areas Studies Division; United States. Army (1965). U.S. Army Area Handbook for Algeria. Division, Special Operations Research Office, American University. p.28. OCLC1085291500. Retrieved 23 July 2020. Most of the European colonial population of Algeria wholeheartedly supported the Vichy government. ... Even after the Allies under General Dwight D. Eisenhower liberated Algeria in November 1942, General Henri Giraud, appointed by Eisenhower as civil and military commander in chief, only slowly rescinded the Vichy legislation. It was almost a year before the Crémieux decrees were reactivated, against the virulent opposition of the European colonialists.
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