France signs armistice with Germany;

France signs armistice with Germany at Rethondes, in the same railway carriage in which the November 1918 Armistice was signed. It provides for occupation of the country north and west of a line through Geneva, Tours and the Spanish border so as to give the Kriegsmarine access to all French Channel and Atlantic ports. A minimal French army is to be permitted and the navy is to be disarmed but not surrendered. The occupied area is to be governed by a team with Pétain as its Head and Laval as Chief Minister. All remaining French forces are to surrender, though 38.000 assorted French and Polish troops from the 45th Army Corps cross into Switzerland and are interned. The armistice in effect reduces almost two million French people to the status of prisoner of war. At this point the Blitzkrieg to the west has seen the Germans lose 27.000 dead more than 111.000 wounded and 18.000 missing. The French have lost 92.000 dead and more than 200.000 wounded; the British Expeditionary Force has lost more than 68.000 men.