ABSTRACT
The liberation of France began with the Allied landings in June 1944 and continued for many months. Indeed, it is impossible to say exactly when it ended, for ‘Liberation’ meant many different things: the military operations of the Allied forces which signalled the end of the German occupation of France; the end of the war in Europe and in the world; the return of prisoners of war, deportees and others who had been absent from France, and their reintegration into French society; the re-establishment of a democratic form of government, marking the end of the Vichy régime (the ‘état français’) and the end of the provisional government of General de Gaulle. The years of the Liberation could therefore be said to have lasted until the beginning of 1947, when the new Fourth Republic was finally in place. The military liberation of Paris was accomplished in August 1944. War correspondent Catherine Gavin wrote that the earliest signs of the approaching liberation-the ‘unobtrusive movements of troops and trucks which started the German retreat from Paris’—were first seen by housewives, queuing for bread in the early morning.2 By late August, in spite of the continued presence of snipers, the streets of Paris were full of excitement and joy. A young boy recorded the day of 25 August 1944 in his diary:
Arm in arm, we walked towards the Place de la Nation, along with hundreds of other people. The atmosphere was extraordinary!
