During the course of World War II (1939-1945) the Germans invaded Paris and occupied the northern and western parts of France from 194CM4. The rest of the country was under the authority of the puppet government of Vichy led by Marshal Petain and supported by much of the traditional French right. Simultaneously, General Charles de Gaulle was organizing the resistance movement of the Free French from London. Soon after the American, British, and Canadian military invasion on the Normandy beaches on June 6, 1944, de Gaulle entered Paris to head the new government.

France's defeat by the Germans unexpectedly prodded modernization forward after the end of Nazi occupation and the Vichy regime. The resistance movement that emerged, though existing in frictional coexistence, contained most of France's forward-looking elements. With the right discredited and the resistance elements committed to significant change, the two-year life of the post-WWII liberation coalition...