To what extent did the French Resistance assist in the allies liberation of France?

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The French Resistance (La Résistance française) was a collaboration of individual movements against the German occupation of France and the Vichy regime that complied with the Nazis during World War II. Starting in 1940 and ending with the liberation of France, French people from all ends of the economic and political spectrum united in different Résistance groups to perform guerilla attacks, run underground newspapers, provide intelligence to and from the allies, and manage escape networks to allied territory for political enemies and others persecuted by the Nazis (Aubrac, 3).

On June 14th, 1940 the Germans occupied Paris, France, and three days later Philippe Pétain, a French WWI hero, assumed power from the current prime minister and declared an armistice (Northwest). On June 22nd, 1940, the Second French-German armistice was signed near Compéigne, giving the Germans permission to occupy north and west France. While life for the people of France continued without much difference, Pétain’s cooperation with the Germans and the new Vichy government soon became an authoritarian regime. The harsh rules and regulations of the new government left a minority discontented enough to band together and form a resistance movement (Northwest).

The French people were required to finance the German’s occupation, leaving the French bankrupted and short on food, labor, and resources. Malnutrition plagued the young, the elderly, and the remaining working class people. Most laborers were transferred to Germany under a German program Service du Travail

Obligatoire (Compulsory Work Service), and many others were considered German prisoners of war (Northwest). Copious amounts of pro-German propaganda, curfew laws, and the transition of France ...

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...6 Stories of Espionage, Sabotage,

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