ABSTRACT
Defeat forced the nation into an essentially reactive state, as Leon Werth pointed out in October 1940: "The stagnant armistice turns the Frenchman into a strange figure. In the tension between fundamental dependence and the various attempts to overcome or transcend it lay the essence of post-defeat politics. The differentiation between older and younger participants hints at the intergenerational divisions produced by defeat. Defeat provided them with a perfect reason to discard laws or practices that they regarded as irrational or antiquated. The defeat had forced France - both Frances - into an unprecedented dependence on other nations. Viewed from a colonial perspective, the defeat at first looked rather less definitive than it appeared inside France. Distance insulated the colonies from some of the disorienting and disheartening effects of the collapse and made resistance seem at least a conceivable option.
