I’d like to see a map showing where there was the most resistance and the most collaboration—not sure how that would be determined—and see what that was corellated with.

I didn’t realize that Italy occupied part of France. That must have been really embarrassing for the French.

What’s up with the Belgium-administered zone? Did the Nazis give them the rest of Flanders or what?

The most resistance was in Vichy zone, especially in the midi (the south), full of spanish reds (a hooray for them :) ).

Was the Vichy government software on resistors than the German occupied zone? (I would imagine so.)

I know that Alsace and Lorraine regions have considerable Germanic population. What was their opinion about German occupation of their regions? What is their attitude to Germany in general?

Brian, the Alsatiens who served in the German Army in WWII were known as “malgre nous” (loosely: “against our wishes”). The war memorial in Strassbourg depicts a mother grieving over two slain sons. One looks east into France, and one looks west into Germany. Perhaps an Alsatien will come up on the net and address your last question. My tourist impression was that Alsatiens are German in language and culture, but French by choice. I recall a painting of three Alsatien sisters under the first German occupation. Each wore a solid color dress: blue, white, and red. So when they stood together, their loyalties were on display. Bismarck, by the way, opposed keeping Alsace-Lorraine after the Franco-Prussian war, but was overruled. As I recall, he regarded it as an act that the French would never forgive, and therefore something that would poison Franco-German relations for decades to come, but I wonder how much was based upon his evaluation of the political sentiment of the population.

“Was the Vichy government software on resistors [...]”

Hardware on capacitors?

I think you meant softer on resisters. And the answer is not so.

Also, this map is only valid until 1942. After which Germany invaded the southern part of France and closed up Vichy’s sorry excuse of a government.

Thank you very much, lirelou, for that link ;). The U.N.E. (_Unión Nacional Española_ or ‘National Spanish Union’) was probably the strongest ‘spanish only’ organisation in France. In its moment of maximum force (last months of 1944) was able to raise a force of 5000-7000 guerrilleros and a similar number of supporters and collaborators to try an invasion of Spain by the Aran Valley and other secondary routes (they called it ‘Operation Reconquista’ ).

This invasion tried to occupy the valley mentioned above to create a little ‘spanish liberated zone’ intended to press the Allies to get into aSpain and end with Franco’s dictatorship. They also thought that spanish people was waiting an opportunity to raise against Franco’s goverment and so they were trying to start that rebellion. But Franco was perfectly informed about all this and has disposed the army by the border. Added to that point, the civil population was divided, terrified and very much tired of war and blood and they didn´t offer the intense supporting the guerrilleros waited, so the invasion crashed with a lot of casualties. Most of the guerrilleros returned to France. In despite of this, some columns were able to join the guerrillas which were echados al monte (‘in rebellion in the hills’) since 1939.

There is something that must be pointed out about the UNE. The UNE was mainly communist, a creature of the PCE (Communist Party of Spain) but was not just a ‘organisation of communists’: there were members of other political ideas ‘under its umbrella’. The UNE, in its origins, was a project of the PCE to join forces with all the others ‘spanish-only’ resistance organisations, with the Operation Reconquista in mind, but failed in this goal: the communists were not very much ‘popular’ by those days for the other spanish republicanos. In the french Resistance existed other spanish guerrillas (with an anarchist, socialist, et al, ‘soul’) and there were a lot of spaniards who were in the ranks of french groups. In fact, the first spanish resister who was captured and executed by the germans (in Paris), as soon as January or February of 1942, was a member of a french comité.