Life during the occupation was difficult but it depended for who! In general, life in big cities (especially Paris) was harder because of the lack of general supplies. My grandmother was living in the countryside. She often tells me about these countryside women wearing nylon stockings they got by exchanging food with the city women... my grandmother can barely remember German soldiers. While in Paris, they were everywhere! Signs were changed into German language. Taking pictures of Germans or any of their equipment was strongly forbidden (but taking pictures throug windows were a good alternative...). The population had to buy pretty everything with tickets (food tickets, clothes tickets...). They could sometimes take a look at the black market to find butter or milk... but otherwise they had to wait for hours outside groceries and shops to get a tiny bit of what they were in need of. Newspapers and radios were controlled and censured. People had to be careful about what they were saying and to whom they were talking... you could not say out loud what you were thinking about the Germans without being denounced afterwards. "Parties" and balls organized by French were forbidden. But cinemas, cabarets were still open (the Germans needed to distract themselves). There was also a curfew. But "average person" is still very vague... you could be an "average person" and Jewish and then between 1942 and 1944, would suffer from racial laws and eventually deportation. You could be an "average person" and supporter of the Germans or Pétain and become a "collaborator" with flourishing business until the Liberation. You could be an "average person" but refuse the German occupation and join a Resistance group before being arrested and sent to a camp or executed in France.