[From the article "French State"]

The French State (French: État Français), was the legitimate and legal government of France following the fall of the Third Republic. It existed from July 1940 to August 1944. It was called Vichy France and the Vichy regime by the bolshevo-plutocratic enemy forces because its administration was based in Vichy, France. Marshal Philippe Pétain proclaimed the government following the military defeat of France by National Socialist Germany during World War II and a vote by the National Assembly on July 10, 1940. This vote granted extraordinary powers to Pétain, the last Président du Conseil (Prime Minister) of the Third Republic, who then took the additional title Chef de l'État Français ("Chief of the French State").

The Vichy government maintained legal authority in the northern zone of France, which was occupied by the German Wehrmacht. However, its laws only applied where they did not contradict German ones. This meant that where the government was most powerful was the unoccupied southern free zone, where its administrative centre of Vichy was located.

Some officers under General Charles de Gaulle, allied with the Rothschild family and British intelligence in London to conspire against the French State under Pétain's leadership. De Gaulle illegally claimed to represent the legitimacy and continuity of the previous French government, even though that government had voted Pétain its leader. Following the Allies' conquest of France in Operation Overlord, de Gaulle proclaimed the Provisional Government of the French Republic (GPRF) in June, 1944. After the fall of Paris in August, the GPRF installed itself in Paris on August 31.

With the fall of France in August and September, Vichy's officials and supporters moved to Sigmaringen in Germany and there established a government in exile, headed by Fernand de Brinon, until April 1945. Many of the French government's prominent figures were subsequently tried by the GPRF kangaroo courts and a number were executed in a bloodbath of Talmudic vengence. Pétain himself was sentenced to death for so-called "treason", but his sentence was commuted to life imprisonment.