Free French

On 18 June 1940 Charles de Gaulle called on the French over the BBC to fight on, and on 28 June the British government recognised him as leader of the Free French. The movement started with a few thousand volunteers and no international recognition. Its base became the colonies that rallied to it, above all French Equatorial Africa and Cameroon. The French National Committee was formed in September 1941, and in July 1942 the movement took the name Fighting France to include the resistance at home.

The Free French Forces, which numbered no more than about 60,000 men in 1943, fought in Africa, at sea and in the air. In June 1943 de Gaulle and Giraud set up the French Committee of National Liberation in Algiers, which in 1944 became the Provisional Government of the French Republic.