Using a wealth of archival resources, Richard Carswell here examines the global story of the Free French movement during the Second World War. Moving beyond the story of leader, General Charles de Gaulle, and the history of internal resistance in France, Carswell traces the involvement of all those men and women who refused to accept France's defeat by Germany in 1940 and who resolved to continue the struggle one way or another outside metropolitan France.

France's First Resistance reflects on the Free French movement as a complex network of 'micro-societies', separated geographically yet united in their common goal of liberating France. It considers how this network stretched from de Gaulle's headquarters at Carlton Gardens in London to Free French soldiers fighting in Africa, the Middle East and Europe, to colonial governors in the South Pacific, Africa and elsewhere, to agents parachuted into France, to the Free French support committees that sprung up in North and South America and many other countries.

The book also analyses the many debates and controversies surrounding the Free French movement, including:

* the Free French movement's difficult birth in time and space
* differences and antagonisms between the Gaullist and non-Gaullist adherents of the movement
* the many political and practical obstacles facing the movement, including Vichy's outlawing of French 'dissidents'
* the Free French movement's military and political objectives, including its views of Vichy's leaders and policies on collaboration with Germany
* the contribution of the French empire to the Free French and the Franco-French armed clashes in the empire