High-school level history presents Charles De Gaulle as the effective leader of the french, and is largely dismissive of the Vichy government. It goes to great pains to discuss the existence of the 'free french' and the french resistance, and leaves students with the impression that overall, the French remained active allied combatants even after surrender.

This seems to me like its ex post facto bullshit stemming from allied and domestic french propoganda after the war.

Now, I don't mean to deny the existence of the free french or the role of the french resistance - my grandfather was in the OSS and worked directly with the french resistance during the war - but they seem to be the absolute minority, even in military circles.

The main thing I point to is the fact that you didn't see any serious effort to retreat significant military force away from mainland France, not even for naval units that weren't under direct German threat. This lead to the incident at Mers-el-Kebir, where overwhelmingly the French navy seemed fully surrendered.

It seems to me like the French for the most part were largely quiet in defeat, and that the story of the french resistance is overplayed, and pales in comparison to more dramatic efforts in Eastern Europe. Is this correct?

Also, how much of an opportunity did the French really have to resist once their front lines were penetrated (roughly post-Sedan)? For an amateur, it's easy for me to imagine how the French could have looked to defend Northern France much in the way the Germans did when the Allies landed in Normandy, and turned Paris into another Stalingrad or Moscow. It would have been bloody, and certainly the French didn't have the time that the Russians did as a result of the extreme distances involved in Russia, but could it, in any way, have turned into a credible defense?