Armistice of 22 June 1940

The Armistice of 22 June 1940 was signed between France and Nazi Germany after the German victory in the Battle of France. It was signed in the forest of Compiègne, in the same railway carriage in which Germany had signed the armistice of 1918, a choice made by Hitler for symbolic reasons. Under its terms, northern and western France, including Paris and the Atlantic coast, was occupied by Germany, while the south was left unoccupied, and a French government under Marshal Philippe Pétain was set up at Vichy. France had to pay the costs of the occupation and its army was largely disarmed, though it kept its fleet and colonies. General Charles de Gaulle rejected the armistice and continued the fight from London.

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