What happened to French soldiers in Britain that refused to continue the fight after June 1940? I bet at least some of them were probably angry about Mars el Kebir, were they interned in special camps?

Please phrase your question in the title! - If the question needs more words, you can replace this text to add more information.

Please only post one (1) question in a topic post - you can post multiple questions, just please keep them separate.

4 Likes

I think if french soldiers were still in England at the beginning of July 1940, they would be considered as deserters and traitors by the vichy french army/german army and there wouldn’t be any easy way to land back to non-occupied France (french soldiers in occupied france went to POW camps, french soldiers in non-occupied france would form the vichy armisitice army or would be dismissed.

Only less than 3,000 soldiers I think choosed to stay or deserted to England to continue fighting with the free french. All had orders to move back to France and I think there was a way for the remaining one to find their way back to France just after the armistice with an agreement between vichy france and the british but not two weeks later.

(one other free french source of sodliers would be the armies in the colonies that would rally one after the other between 1940 and 1942. The third one would be the french interior resistance force, which also had a good proportion of former french soldiers (among other like communists, spanish refugees, young men bound to force labour in germany… )

3 Likes