As was the case for all of France and the French Empire, New Caledonia, one of France's principal possessions in the Pacific, played a role that remains mostly unknown in France today but was nonetheless important, or even crucial, at certain points during the World Wars, especially in the Pacific operations during World War II.

At the beginning of the Second World War (1939-45), Jean de Lattre de Tassigny was France's youngest general.

After the signing of the armistice, on 22 June 1940, he set about planning to overcome the Nazi occupier, under the motto Ne pas subir ('Never give in'). His rallying to General de Gaulle's Free France took him to Algiers, which he left with his army in 1944 to liberate France, from Provence to the Rhine.

On 9 May 1945, de Lattre was present in Berlin, alongside the Allies, to sign, on behalf of France, the official act of surrender of Nazi Germany.

Seventy years ago, on 11 November 1943, Captain Romans-Petit, leader of the Maquis of Ain and Haut-Jura, organised a military parade in Oyonnax to mark the 11th November and to show the Germans the strength and discipline of the Resistance.

The origins of remembrance tourism

Between the 17th and the 20th centuries, France was the site of a great number
of armed conflicts which left behind many remnants as a lasting legacy.

Between 26 May and 11 June 1942, the 1st Free French Brigade (1st BFL) faced the Afrika Korps and its Italian allies on the Libyan front. It did not fall back from its position at Bir Hakeim until it had secured the withdrawal of British troops.

Following General de Gaulle’s call to arms of 18 June 1940, volunteers keen to join Britain and Free France began streaming in, but the British attack on the French fleet at Mers el-Kébir, for fear that the vessels should fall into German hands, dealt a serious blow to recruitment. In early July, Free France amounted to no more than a handful of exiles, dependent on British support.

When the Nazis came to power, they immediately began destroying all books and writings deemed contrary to their ideology. The most spectacular expression of this “policy” was the organisation of book burnings, at which large numbers of works were publicly destroyed.

In both the First and Second World Wars, France called on its empire. Elements of its colonial forces, among them Senegalese tirailleurs, took part in the Battle of France in 1940.

After the seemingly endless ”Phoney War” which followed Britain and France's declaration of war on Germany as a result of the invasion of Poland, the situation suddenly changed in the west when, on 10 May 1940, Germany launched an offensive on Holland, Belgium and Luxembourg.

8 November 1942

In the spring of 1942, the Axis forces - Germany, Italy and Japan - were winning on all fronts: in Russia, in Africa and in the Pacific. Germany occupied a large part of Europe.

Victorious in the east, it was triumphing in Africa too, where German and Italian troops under General Rommel had recaptured Cyrenaica and were preparing to enter Egypt.

The successful landings in North Africa on 8 November 1942 were one of the elements that would sway the balance in the Allies' favour from that point on.