After watching the World at War, I began trying to read up on various things I heard about for the first time. Among them was Free France (I'd previously only heard of Vichy France).
Whenever I look up Free France I can never find a map of their territorial holdings, where their government was located, or anything of that sort. Where were they based? How did they regain control of France? Considering how far flung the French colonial holdings were, how did they regain control of those? Did the colonial holdings know which France they were apart of?
All right this is the first time I am posting an answer.... Free France refers to the provisional government that formed around Charles de Gaule. In 1940 they held little or no territory, but progressively made gains in Africa and the Middle East, because some of the colonies decided to side with them. They also had the help from the Allies. Some of the colonies were maintaining a certain neutrality: they were not occupied by the Germans but did little for the war effort. They were in theory still part of Vichy France, except if they joined De Gaule. Some even though with the Germans.( though not much)
"Free France" was at first based in England, and they later settled in Alger, which was a French colony. They regained control of France mainly because of the Allies (US, UK...) troops.
Also Vichy France was a some point called "La zone libre" in French, meaning "the free zone", because it was not occupied by the Germans until 1943.