The US Iraq administrator Paul Bremer remarked that “The French have never forgiven us for liberating them.” What’s the story behind that comment? For the majority of the war, the United States had intended that France be part of a post-war American protectorate without national sovereignty once the Germans were defeated. The United States went as far as to begin negotiations with the pro-Nazi Vichy government before reversing it’s intentions and officially recognizing De Gaulle as head of the French government in October 1944. Read on…