La Francia fuori dalla Francia: dialoghi globali su sconfitta, pace e futuri della resistenza francese (1940-1944)

The defeat of June 1940 marked a watershed in French politics and identity. The catastrophe forced the French to reflect on the pillars of Western civilization and reframe future trajectories through the prism of collective failure. Drawing on new primary sources, this study reconstructs the link between débâcle and recovery, past and future, in the wartime process of rescuing lost national unity and international prestige. In particular, the analysis sheds light on four key global spaces of French resistance outside Vichy: Marseille, Brazzaville, Algiers and New York. These cities are here interpreted as the nodal spots of the French intellectual life before the Liberation, where the memory of the defeat conditioned peace planning. Hannah Arendt, Walter Benjamin, Felix Ebouè, Charles de Gaulle and Jean Monnet are some of the leading voices of a plural debate bridging academia, diplomacy and activism. Their diagnosis of the decline of the Third Republic eventually paved the way for the reforms of the Fourth Republic.