From what I've read, when the Allies invaded Morocco and Algeria, the French troops there continued to fight them off. In some cases, to the last man. Why didn't they just surrender, like the Italians?
And why didn't the French government flee to Algiers after Dunkirk and fight on?
In 1940 the British attacked the French fleet in French Algeria because they wore worried that the French fleet might fall in German hands, this would have been a considerable threat to the British naval forces, especially during the Battle of the Atlantic. However, the French admiral Francois Darlan had promised the British not to let Germans capture the French fleet, and after the attack the Vichy French government felt betrayed by the British and they severed communications with them.
Most French forces surrendered fairly quickly, at least within the first few days, there were a couple attempted coups by Allied loyalists. Operation Torch is listed by wikipedia as about 8 days in total but cease-fires at Oran and Casablance were signed by 10th of November. Darlan himself surrendered Algiers on the 8th, the day of the invasion.
In think it's clear, but unspoken in the other answers how complex it would have been for Darlan to surrender after the horrific attack the British subjected the French fleet to. The only other piece, and I have to ask the historians on here for, is wasn't there a protocol issue at one point? Darlan was an Admiral and regarded de Gaulle as too junior to surrender to?
Wow, I've been reading Rising Tide by Jeff Shaara and had this EXACT same question. Could someone give me a TL;DR version that answers the OPs original question. Why didn't they surrender to the Allies when the Axis were obviously their enemies?