Vichy France summary

France, country of northwestern Europe. Historically and culturally among the most important nations in the Western world, France has also played a highly significant role in international affairs, with former colonies in every corner of the globe. Bounded by the Atlantic Ocean and the

Normandy Invasion, during World War II, the Allied invasion of western Europe, which was launched on June 6, 1944 (the most celebrated D-Day of the war), with the simultaneous landing of U.S., British, and Canadian forces on five separate beachheads in Normandy, France. By the end of August 1944

World War II, conflict that involved virtually every part of the world during the years 1939–45. The war was in many respects a continuation, after an uneasy 20-year hiatus, of the disputes left unsettled by World War I. The principal belligerents were the Axis powers—Germany, Italy, and Japan—and

Philippe Pétain was a French general who was a national hero for his victory at the Battle of Verdun in World War I but was discredited as chief of state of the French government at Vichy in World War II. He died under sentence in a prison fortress. Born into a family of farmers in northern France,