The Day When... De Gaulle Chose War

On 16th June 1940, Paris fell to the Nazis, and the German conquest of France was almost complete. In Bordeaux, an almost stranger Under-Secretary of State for War decided to secede and to rebel openly against the policy adopted by French Prime Minister Henri Petain, who was preparing to ask for an armistice. The following day, this Under-Secretary flew to England. This episode tells the story of how a provisional general in a subordinate function became De Gaulle, leader of Free France, without whom the country would have ended the war in the camp of the vanquished.