WW2 Free French (Cross of Lorraine) Libre Lapel Badge

Guaranteed original. Complete & intact. This is an original WW2 Free French (Cross of Lorraine) Libre lapel badge for sale. In good condition. Please see our other items for more original WW1, WW2 & post war British military badges for sale including other WW2 Free French (Cross of Lorraine) Libre lapel badges.

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Free France and its Free French Forces (French: France Libre and Forces francaises libres) were 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 Ally after the fall of France. It was set up in London in June 1940 and also organised and supported the Resistance in occupied France. De Gaulle, a French government minister who rejected the armistice concluded by Marshal Philippe Petain and who had escaped to Britain, exhorted the French to resist in his BBC broadcast “Appeal of 18 June” (Appel du 18 juin), which had a stirring effect on morale throughout France and its colonies, although initially relatively few French forces responded to de Gaulle’s call. On 27 October 1940, the Empire Defense Council (Conseil de defense de l’Empire) was constituted to organise the rule of the territories in central Africa, Asia and Oceania that had heeded the 18 June call. It was replaced on 24 September 1941 by the French National Committee (Comite national francais or CNF). On 13 July 1942, “Free France” was officially renamed France combattante (“Fighting France”), to mark that the struggle against the Axis was conducted both externally by the FFF and internally by the French Forces of the Interior (FFI).

After the reconquest of North Africa, this was in turn formally merged with de Gaulle’s rival general Henri Giraud’s command in Algiers to form the French Committee of National Liberation (Comite francais de Libaration nationale or CFNL). Exile officially ended with the capture of Paris by the 2nd Armoured Free French Division and Resistance forces on 25 August 1944, ushering in the Provisional Government of the French Republic (gouvernement provisoire de la Republique francaise or GPRF). It ruled France until the end of the war and afterwards to 1946, when the Fourth Republic was established, thus ending the series of interim regimes that had succeeded the Third Republic after its fall in 1940. The Free French fought Axis and Vichy regime troops and served on battlefronts everywhere from the Middle East to Indochina and North Africa. The Free French Navy operated as an auxiliary force to the Royal Navy and, in the North Atlantic, to the Royal Canadian Navy. Free French units also served in the Royal Air Force, Soviet Air Force, and British SAS, before larger commands were established directly under the control of the government-in-exile.

Please see our other items for more original WW1, WW2 & post war British military badges for sale including other WW2 Free French (Cross of Lorraine) Libre lapel badges.