ABSTRACT
The period after the german defeat of French forces in 1940, from the signing of the armistice on June 22, 1940, to the liberation of France in the summer of 1944, was a bleak time for the press. The Third Republic was terminated, and the country was divided in two. In the north and west, two-thirds of France was occupied by the German army, which held newspapers under its control with the help of collaborationist journalists. The history of underground journalism nevertheless shows constant expansion. The first handbills appeared at the end of the summer of 1940: in the confusion and distress of the time, they expressed a refusal of defeat. The first publishers of underground sheets were journalists by chance. They were amateurs whose personal hostility to the Vichy regime motivated them to venture into journalism even though they were ignorant of its techniques.
