Free France continent. Approximately 58,000 men were killed fighting in the Free French forces between 1940 and 1945. A point of strong disagreement between de Gaulle and the Big Three (Roosevelt, Stalin and Churchill), was that the President of the Provisional Government of the French Republic (GPRF), established on 3 June 1944, was not recognized as the legitimate representative of France. Even though de Gaulle had been recognized as the leader of Free France by British Prime Minister Winston Churchill back in 28 June 1940, his GPRF presidency had not resulted from democratic elections. However, two months after the liberation of Paris
Armistice of 22 June 1940 Germans thought the occupation would be a provisional state of affairs and last only until Britain came to terms, which was believed to be imminent. For instance, none of the French delegation objected to the stipulation that French soldiers would remain prisoners of war until the cessation of all hostilities. Nearly one million Frenchmen were thus forced to spend the next five years in prisoner of war camps (about a third of the initial 1.5 million prisoners taken were released or exchanged as part of the "Service du Travail Obligatoire" forced labour programme by the Germans, before the war ended).