1940 in France

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

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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 Henri Petain 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 Petain becomes Prime Minister 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 Compiegne 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. [ [http://history1900s.about.com/library/holocaust/blhitler38.htm Hitler in Paris] ]
*24 June - Vichy France signs armistice terms with Italy.
*28 June - General Charles DeGaulle 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-Kebir.
*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.

port

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