Free France (France Libre) Diplomatic Passport
FREE FRANCE and its Free French Forces (French: France Libre et les Forces françaises libres) was 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 an Allied nation, following the Fall of France. Set up in London in June 1940, it organized and supported the Resistance in Occupied France and established a foothold within several French colonies in Africa. Free France Diplomatic Passport
Charles de Gaulle, a French general, and government minister rejected the truce being negotiated by Marshal Philippe Pétain and fled to Britain. There he encouraged the French to resist in his BBC broadcast “Appeal of 18 June” (Appel du 18 Juin), which is regarded as one of the most important speeches in French history. Despite its significance in French collective memory, historians have shown that the appeal was heard only by a minority of French people. De Gaulle’s 22 June 1940 speech was more widely heard.
The Passport Free France Diplomatic Passport
is significant for French passport history and very rare to find. I didn’t even know that such a document existed. Well, we learn something new every day. The diplomatic passport is a folio paper in a simple black folder. The golden imprinted wording is custom-made, and probably the whole cover was custom-made. This treasure sold for an impressive $1325!
A fellow collector sent me this input after he read the Vichy passport article…
Hi Tom, an exciting piece of info: My late French grandfather (whom I never met) was said to have fought in WWII, but my family told me that he had never said anything about it and refused to talk about it. So the question remained, what side was he on? Vichy or De Gaulle? My family had no clue. I did all the research, which took many months and many archives, and I finally found out that he had enrolled in 1941 as a “Free French” with De Gaulle operating in the Eastern Mediterranean.
Only 52,000 “Free French” are recognized, and each received medals and a signed diploma by De Gaulle after the war. My grandfather was one of them, and we had no clue! To qualify as a “Free French,” you would have had to enroll with De Gaulle’s forces before August 1943, which was like signing a death warrant because there was no hint Hitler would lose, and De Gaulle himself had had his citizenship revoked…
Marshal Philippe Petain Passport
Tom Topol | Passport Historian & Author
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