Managing the fall of France: the French decision to ask for armistice conditions from Germany (mid-June 1940) analyzed through a neoclassical realist approach

Between May 10th and Mid-June 1940, a series of military defeats forced the French Council of Ministers to make a hard choice: whether to ask Hitler for armistice conditions or try and set up a government in French Algeria or in exile and continue the war on Britain’s side. This last course of action required a military capitulation of the French Army in the Métropole, for the Ministers not to be seen as fleeing the fight. This Independent Study analyzes the decision-making process through a neoclassical realist lens, at the systemic-international and domestic level and at the level of the individual actors. First, it analyzes the international and domestic contexts and the respective roles of Paul Reynaud, France’s Head of Government, Maxime Weygand, France’s Army Chief, and Marshal Philippe Pétain, hero of Verdun and Vice-President of the Council in France’s Government. It then studies what it calls "the decision", a course of action that decants between the installation of the Government at Bordeaux and the resignation of Paul Reynaud and President Lebrun’s designation of Pétain as President of the Council with a view to inquiring Germany´s armistice conditions. In this part the study analyses French civil-military relations and the underlying issues in the struggle between those in favor of an armistice and those in favor of a capitulation. Finally, the study treats the issue of formal versus real power, the imperfect mediator role of the "Foreign Policy Executive" (Reynaud) and ultimately the role of elites in an existential-survival crisis.