On 22 June 1940, after the Battle of France, Marshal Wilhelm Keitel, representing Nazi Germany, and General Charles Huntziger representing Pétain's government, signed an armistice at the Rethondes clearing in the forest of Compiègne, which stipulated in its second article: The line separating French territory into two zones was defined on a map attached to the treaty. in 1941 This separation line took effect on 25 June 1940. It was thereafter referred to as the ligne de démarcation. French sovereignty persisted throughout the whole territory, including the zone occupée, Alsace and Moselle, but the terms of the armistice in its third article stipulated that Germany would exercise the rights of an occupying power in the zone occupée. When the Allies invaded North Africa on 8 November 1942, the Germans and Italians immediately occupied the remaining free part of France. After being renamed zone sud, it was thereafter ruled by the Wehrmacht as a part of occupied France. The liberation of France began on 6 June 1944 with the Allied forces landing on D-Day and the Battle of Normandy. Most of France was liberated by September 1944.
Extent of the ''zone libre''
The zone libre constituted a land area of, approximately 45% of France, and included approximately 33% of the total French labour force. The ligne de démarcation passed through 13 of the 90 departments:
Of the other 77 departments, 42 lay entirely within the zone libre and 35 lay entirely within the zone occupée.
Theories about the separation of the zones
For the historian Éric Alary, the partitioning of France into two main zones, libre and occupée, was partly inspired by the fantasy of pan-Germanist writers, particularly a work by a certain Adolf Sommerfeld, published in 1912 and translated into French under the title Le Partage de la France, which contained a map showing a France partitioned between Germany and Italy according to a line which partly matched that of 1940. suggests: "During the occupations, the Franks were separated from the Occitans by the famous demarcation line. We have long thought that the route of this line was suggested to Hitler by the romance language specialists in his entourage."
On 24 June 1940, two days after the armistice with Germany, the Vichy government signed an armistice with the Italians at the villa Incisa in Olgiata near Rome, instituting a zone of Italian occupation. The Italian occupation zone concerned certain border areas conquered by Italian troops, including Menton. This zone was of limited importance, comprising and 28,000 inhabitants. Four departments were partially covered by the Italian occupation: Alpes-Maritimes, Basses-Alpes, Hautes-Alpes and Savoie. In addition, a demilitarized zone was established containing all French territory within from the zone of Italian occupation. The department of Corsica was neither occupied nor demilitarized by any provision of the armistice.
The end of the free zone
On 8 November 1942 Allied forces invaded French North Africa. German and Italian forces responded on 11 November 1942 by invading the zone libre in Case Anton. The zone libre became the zone sud from November 1942 onwards; the invading powers shared out its territory between themselves, with a region covering practically the whole area east of the Rhône passing to the Italians. After the capitulation of Italy at Cassibile became public knowledge on 8 September 1943, the Italian armies retreated and the Germans united the southern zone under their own exclusive control. The German military administration in France ruled both zone sud and zone nord; the Vichy regime remained nominally in charge, as it had in the zone occupée.
Other names
Until November 1942, the Germans called the zone libre "Unbesetztes Gebiet" or unoccupied zone. The zone libre was also nicknamed the zone nono by the French, shortened from non occupée. The occupied zone accordingly became the zone jaja. The zone libre was also called the royaume du maréchal by the French author Jacques Delperrié de Bayac.
