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
May 1940 War Cabinet Crisis May 1940 War Cabinet Crisis The May 1940 War Cabinet Crisis was a confrontation between Winston Churchill, newly appointed as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, and Edward Wood, the Viscount Halifax and Foreign Secretary, which took place between 25 and 28 May. Halifax believed that in view of the imminent Fall of France and the encirclement of British forces at Dunkirk, the U.K. should explore the possibility of a negotiated peace settlement with Adolf Hitler, with the still-neutral Italian leader Benito Mussolini brokering the agreement. Churchill outmaneuvered Halifax by calling a meeting of his 25-member Outer Cabinet two days