After the liberation, "Paris-Soir", which with 1.7 million copies in 1936 was the leading French daily between the wars, forfeited its printing plant in Lyon due to its ambiguous behavior under occupation. Pierre Lazareff, its former editor, had returned from the US and joined "Défense de la France" in September 1944. The first issue of "France-Soir - Défense de la France" was printed using "Paris-Soir"s presses on 7 November 1944. The hyphenated name affiliated the old paper with that of the French resistance. The paper's name was truncated to "France Soir" after World War II.