1940 in France

See also: 1939 in France, other events of 1940, 1941 in France.

Events from the year 1940 in France.

Events

• 21 March - Édouard Daladier resigns as Prime Minister. He is replaced by Paul Reynaud.
• 10 May - Battle of France begins - German forces invade Low Countries.
• 13 May - German armies open 60-mile wide breach in Maginot Line at Sedan.
• 18 May - Marshal Philippe Pétain named vice-premier of France.
• 19 May - General Maxime Weygand replaces Maurice Gamelin as commander-in-chief of all French forces.
• 20 May - German forces, under General Erwin Rommel, reach the English Channel.
• 26 May - Dunkirk evacuation of British Expeditionary Force starts.
• 3 June - Paris is bombed by the Luftwaffe for the first time.
• 4 June - Dunkirk evacuation ends - British forces complete evacuating 300,000 troops.
• 10 June - Italy declares war on France and the United Kingdom.
• 10 June - French government flees to Tours.
• 12 June - 13,000 British and French troops surrender to Field Marshal Erwin Rommel at St. Valery-en-Caux.
• 13 June - Paris is declared an open city.
• 14 June - French government flees to Bordeaux.
• 14 June - Paris falls under German occupation.
• 15 June - Verdun falls to German forces.
• 17 June - Philippe Pétain becomes Prime Minister of France and immediately asks Germany for peace terms.
• 17 June - Operation Ariel begins - Allied troops start to evacuate France, following Germany's takeover of Paris and most of the nation.
• 17 June - Luftwaffe Junkers 88 bomber sinks British ship RMS Lancastria, that was evacuating troops from near Saint-Nazaire, France. Death toll is over 2500. Wartime censorship prevents the story going public.
• 18 June - General Charles de Gaulle broadcasts from London, calling on all French people to continue the fight against Nazi Germany: "France has lost a battle. But France has not lost the war."
• 21 June - Vichy France and Germany sign armistice at Compiègne in the same wagon-lit railroad car used by Marshal Ferdinand Foch to accept the surrender of Germany in 1918.
• 23 June - Adolf Hitler surveys newly defeated Paris.^[1]
• 24 June - Vichy France signs armistice terms with Italy.
• 28 June - General Charles de Gaulle is officially recognized by Britain as "Leader of all Free Frenchmen, wherever they may be."
• 3 July - British naval units sink or seize ships of the French fleet anchored in the Algerian ports of Oran and Mers El Kébir.
• 4 July - Vichy France breaks off diplomatic relations with Britain.
• 10 July - Vichy France begins with a constitutional law where only 80 members of the parliament voted against.
• 12 September - Lascaux: 17,000-year-old cave paintings are discovered by a group of young Frenchmen hiking through Southern France. The paintings depict animals and date to the Stone Age.

Sport

Births

January to June

• 6 March - Philippe Amaury, publishing tycoon and entrepreneur (d.2006).
• 6 March - Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe, philosopher, literary critic, and translator (d.2007).
• 18 March - Arlette Laguiller, Trotskyist politician.
• 25 March - Jean Ichbiah, computer scientist (d.2007).
• 27 May - Jean-Claude Piumi, soccer player (d.1996).
• 17 June - Marcel Aubour, international soccer player.

July to December

• 23 July - Danielle Collobert, author, poet and journalist (d.1978).
• 28 August - Philippe Léotard, actor and singer (d.2001).
• 24 September - Yves Navarre, writer (d.1994).
• 24 October - Jean-Pierre Genet, cyclist (d.2005).
• 30 December - Philippe Cousteau, oceanographer (d.1979).

Deaths

• 2 February - Eugène Apert, pediatrician (b.1868).
• 24 March - Edouard Branly, inventor and physicist (b.1844).
• 13 April - Pierre Marie, neurologist (b.1853).
• 23 May - Paul Nizan, philosopher and writer (b.1905).
• 25 August - Jean d'Orléans, duc de Guise, great-grandson of Louis Philippe I, King of the French (b.1874).

References