Free France Free France Free France and its Free French Forces (French: "France Libre" and "Forces françaises libres") were the government-in-exile led by Charles de Gaulle during the Second World War and its military forces, that continued to fight against the Axis powers as one of the Allies after the fall of France. Set up in London in June 1940, it organised and supported the Resistance in occupied France. Charles de Gaulle, a French government minister who rejected the armistice concluded by Marshal Philippe Pétain and who had escaped to Britain, exhorted the French to resist in his BBC broadcast "Appeal of
Free French Air Forces Free French Air Forces The Free French Air Forces (, FAFL) were the air arm of the Free French Forces during the Second World War from 1940. They officially ceased to hold this title from 1943, with the merger of Free French Forces with General Giraud's anti-German forces, but were still commonly known by the title until the liberation of France in 1944, when they became the regular French Air Army. They were commanded by Martial Henri Valin from 1941 to 1944, who subsequently became commander of the Air Army. On 17 June 1940, five days before the signing of