Foreign relations of Vichy France policy of keeping 2 million French prisoners of war in Germany, effectively as hostages. Although Vichy France was nominally in control of all of France--apart from Alsace Lorraine--in practice the Germans controlled over half of the country, including the northern and western coasts, the industrial northeast, and the Paris region. The Petain government in Vichy controlled the rest until October 1942, when Germany took it all over. At that point, the Vichy regime became entirely a puppet of the German occupiers. Germany wanted food, minerals, and industrial productions, as well as volunteers to work in German factories. Vichy was allowed
Military history of France during World War II the Allies). Thereby Corsica became the first French metropolitan department liberated in World War II; the first liberated département was Algiers in November 1942. The Battle of Dakar, also known as Operation Menace, was an unsuccessful attempt by the Allies to capture the strategic port of Dakar in French West Africa (modern-day Senegal), which was under Vichy French control, and to install the Free French under General Charles de Gaulle there. De Gaulle believed that he could persuade the Vichy French forces in Dakar to join the Allied cause. There were several advantages to this; not only the political consequences