A wartime partnership: establishing the Free French movement in Canada, 1940–42

Abstract

This study, which is based on extensive archival material, analyses the establishment of a Free French movement in Canada. By mid-1942, this movement was providing important political, economic and propaganda support to the French external resistance, at a time when the government of Canada still recognized Vichy as the official government of France. The study argues that this movement was successful because it was not simply an appendage of the Free French movement in London, but rather a mutually beneficial partnership of both interest and understanding within the context of a world war. This partnership was forged by French rebels in exile and, primarily but not exclusively, Canadian francophones, in the small towns and cities of western Canada. These early years offer important evidence of the ways local groups and ordinary people can contribute to diplomacy and cultural understanding in wartime. This is particularly true in the case of women, both at the local level and nationally, where Free French propaganda was directed by two women, Elisabeth de Miribel and the Canadian journalist Gladys Arnold. These early contacts, it is argued, also reveal the emotional costs of war, exile and immigration as well as the importance of empathy and humanitarianism.