After the French armistice was signed, the French carried on as best they could.

French colonial governments tried to work out what to do, while everyone waited for the inevitable British capitulation.

But the British were not ready to make nice.

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Music Episode 300 Episode 325, After the Fall

The Armistice and the End of Fighting in France

came as a relief to most French people.

In Paris, during the weeks of the German offensive, the radio kept claiming French victories,

but the streams of refugees flowing into Paris from the northeast told a different story.

The first to come were Belgians, then came French refugees, from Eno and Cedin, from Saint-Catant and Aura,

from Abbevi and Amiens, places increasingly near to Paris itself.

Germany's Radio Stuttgart broadcast bulletins in French for French consumption, and it was crowing about German victories.

Many French soon realized that Radio Stuttgart's account of the war was closer to the truth than was their own governments, and more and more people tuned in.

Radio Stuttgart took to reading out long lists of the names of French soldiers taken prisoner,

which made it required listening for any French family who had lost contact with a loved one in uniform.

That was a lot of French families.

The French government denied rumors that it would be evacuating Paris right up to the day it evacuated Paris.

As the German army drew nearer, French newspapers reminded everyone of every accusation

made against German soldiers in the last war, recounting lurid tales of barbarism,

of torturing men, raping women, and bayoneting children for sport.

Hundreds of thousands of Parisians became refugees themselves in the final days,

fleeing Paris by car if they could, on foot if they couldn't.

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