The vast majority returned to France. Most of them returned before France fell, and about half of them were able to reform their units and continued fighting the Germans. For example the 1st light motorized division was reformed with new and salvaged vehicles. They ended up defending the crossing of the Seine, and remained in more or less constant action from the 10th of June till the end of action. This was fairly typical. But a bit less than half of the repatriated French forces remained disorganized; their units unformed an unequipped, not seeing any further action after Dunkirk.

Most of the repatriation happened before the end of fighting. Of the remaining men, around 3,000 stayed in the UK with Charles de Gaulle. These formed the initial kernel of the Free French forces. But there were also a couple thousand that repatriated after the end of the Battle of France.