Key Point: Paris might have fallen, but the French military and political leadership could have kept fighting. The proximate cause, of course, was the success of the German invasion, which left metropolitan France at the mercy of Nazi armies. Against Germany, French squadrons could have hunted raiders, driving the Germans to the Arctic even before the entry of the United States. Still, France mostly avoided “Polanisation,” the complete destruction of the national unit that the Germans carried out in the East. Nevertheless, the eventual course of World War II put an especially bad light on the decision of the French military and political hierarchy to cease resistance against Germany.

Source: The North Africa Journal February 11, 2020 19:52 UTC