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In March 1941, Bogomolov was promoted to Soviet Ambassador to France. [12] The Vichy Ambassador to the Soviet Union, Gaston Bergery, arrived in Moscow only in late April 1941. In July 1941, the Soviet Union broke off diplomatic relations with Vichy France. Unofficial relations with Free France were established in August 1941. [13]
Officially called the French State, Vichy France was established after the German victory over France with the armistice of 22 June 1940 in the non-occupied zone libre. Hitler had a number of reasons for capturing France, the most prevalent among them its future use as a stepping stone to Great Britain, and France's rich natural resources.
Vichy France in 1940–1942 was recognised by most Axis and neutral powers, as well as the United States and the Soviet Union. During the war, Vichy France conducted military actions against armed incursions from Axis and Allied belligerents and was an example of armed neutrality .
The Vichy government remained in existence, even though its authority was now severely reduced. The German military administration in France ended with the Liberation of France after the Normandy and Provence landings. It formally existed from May 1940 to December 1944, though most of its territory had been liberated by the Allies by the end of ...
In September 1940, Vichy France was forced to allow Japan to occupy French Indochina, a federation of French colonial possessions and protectorates encompassing modern day Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. The Vichy regime continued to administer them under Japanese military occupation.
The German invasion of the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941 provided the factions with an opportunity to consolidate German support by demonstrating their loyalty and political importance to the German occupiers. [13] Although the invasion did not lead Vichy to declare war, it broke off diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union on 30 June 1941. [14]
The USSR maintained relations with Vichy until 30 June 1941, after the Nazis invaded Russia in Operation Barbarossa. France for a long time took the position that the republic had been disbanded when power was turned over to Pétain, but officially admitted in 1995 complicity in the deportation of 76,000 Jews during WW II.
The Vichy régime nominally governed all of France, but in practice the zone occupée was a Nazi dictatorship and the Vichy government's power was limited and uncertain even in the zone libre. Vichy France became a collaborationist regime, little more than a Nazi client state. [8]