[kincardine]

I think it would also be hard to say that France lost the Second World War. The French government signed an armistice, but France was also part of the victorious Allies (with French units being involved in both the liberation of France and the invasion of Germany).

[vonnik]

Germany may have been defeated at the end of WWII, but France was routed during the war. The Germans occupied the northern parts of the country, and were widely accepted by a population of collaborators and anti-Semites. The Vichy government of the south was a puppet structure controlled by the Nazis. The French did not successfully resist, or participate in the victory in any meaningful way, until they started writing textbooks in the post-War period. France was reconquered by Americans, British and Canadian soldiers with a token French army.

[Thimothy]

The textbook comment is pretty funny, as the french from 1945 have a quite different opinion about who actually won the war.

http://www.les-crises.fr/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/sondage-...

[vonnik]

Yeah, I think there's more acknowledgement in Europe of the sacrifices the USSR made during the war, particularly in countries like France with a strong communist tradition. But winning the war and reconquering France were two different things. The latter was an affair for the western powers.