officially French State French État Français
(July 1940September 1944) French regime in World War II after the German defeat of France.
The Franco-German armistice (June 1940) divided France into two zones: one under German military occupation and one under nominal French control (the southeastern two-fifths of the country). The National Assembly, summoned at Vichy to ratify the armistice, was persuaded by Pierre Laval to grant Philippe Pétain authority to assume full powers in the French State. The antirepublican Vichy government collaborated with the Germans and became increasingly a tool of German policy, especially after the Germans occupied the whole of France in 1942. By early 1944 the Resistance movement against the Gestapo and Vichy militias created a period of civil war in France, and after the liberation of Paris the Vichy regime was abolished.