Hitler's immediate objective for France, outside of protecting his Atlantic flank, was quite simple: maximise the resources extracted while minimising the costs to Germany. Vichy was the key to this. Not only did it reduce the possibility of the French colonial holdings fighting on but it shifted much of the burden of occupation to the French themselves. This was the logic of Hitler’s message to Mussolini on 17 June 1940. As the French were collapsing, he spelt out that he hoped to avoid...

…the situation in which the French government might reject the German proposals, then flee abroad to London to continue the war from there, quite apart from the unpleasant responsibility which the occupying powers would have to assume in the administrative sphere. (Paxton, Vichy France.)

Instead of assuming the administrative burden of governing forty million French citizens, Hitler was willing to reach agreement with Vichy politicians and humour them at times. The French were to be pushed to service the Reich's war but not to the point where they would pass into outright opposition. So the more annexationist tendencies amongst the Nazi leadership were, largely, contained, in favour of a continuation of French self-government.

But this was nothing more than an expedient. Hitler had no interest in reaching a permanent agreement with Vichy during the war and consistently rebuffed all Vichy attempts to arrive at such a solution. With the odd exception, eg Otto Abetz de facto Nazi ambassador in Paris, ideological collaboration and dreams of a new post-war order were driven by French politicians. Hitler’s aims for Vichy were much more modest.