Seminar " Free France in the Mediterranean (1940-1945). Enemies, threats, rivalries "

Seminar organized on June 8 and 9 2023 at the Collège de France (Marcelin Berthelot site).

Free France in the Mediterranean (1940-1945). Enemies, threats, rivalries

Much of the current renewal in the historiography of Gaullism during the war can be explained by the shifting focus of historians : Free France is no longer just an organization in exile in London, it is now studied as an archipelago of colonial territories between which General de Gaulle and his subordinates are attempting to provoke political, military, economic and cultural movements in the name of refusing defeat and keeping France in the second world conflict. The aim of this symposium is to shed light on the Mediterranean phase of Free France (1940-1945). For the Free French, the Mediterranean was not only a front in their colonial civil wars against Vichy, but also the only region in the world where the Free French Forces were in direct and permanent confrontation with Axis forces (notably the Italians). Finally, the Mediterranean was the interface to Southern Europe through which the new authorities set up in Algiers between 1943 and 1944 sought, on the one hand, to reduce their dependence on the Allies for the liberation of Western Europe, and, on the other, to stem the crisis into which the colonial systems of the Middle East and North Africa were sinking.