Léon Solomiac (19 October 1873 in Cajarc –10 May 1960 in Cannes) [1] was a colonial administrator in various colonies of the French Colonial Empire.
Solomiac was a son of a shopkeeper. In the course of his career in the French colonial service,he was appointed in July 1925 as a delegate in Beirut then in 1930 in Damascus,during the French Mandate for Syria and the Lebanon. [2] After the deposition of Taj al-Din al-Hasani,Solomiac officiated on 19 November 1931 as head of state of the Syrian Republic until 11 June 1932,when Mohammed Ali al-Abed was elected by the Syrian Parliament to the presidency. [3]
Later on,Solomiac went to Africa in which he became the governor of French Sudan from 22 May to 30 November 1933 on an interim basis. [4] On 15 August 1934 he became the successor of François Adrien Juvanon as a governor of French India,he held this position until October 1936. [5] On 21 April 1939 he became the Governor-General of French Equatorial Africa,he remained in office until 3 September 1939. [6] On 7 November 1940 Solomiac took over from Jean Alexandre Léon Rapenne the interim post of Governor of Niger. [7] However,he was deposed by the Vichy regime as being not loyal to them,and was replaced on 8 December 1940 by General Maurice Falvy. In August 1944,Léon Solomiac was entrusted with the management of official duties of the prefecture of Tarn. He was the "Prefect of the Libération",replacing a prefect appointed by the Vichy regime in July 1944,and was in office until early 1946. [8]
Free France was a political entity that claimed to be the legitimate government of France following the dissolution of the Third Republic. Led by French general Charles de Gaulle,Free France was established as a government-in-exile in London in June 1940 after the Fall of France during World War II and fought the Axis as an Allied nation with its Free French Forces. Free France also supported the resistance in Nazi-occupied France,known as the French Forces of the Interior,and gained strategic footholds in several French colonies in Africa.
The Alawite State,officially named the Territory of the Alawites,after the locally-dominant Alawites from its inception until its integration to the Syrian Federation in 1922,was a French mandate territory on the coast of present-day Syria after World War I. The French Mandate from the League of Nations lasted from 1920 to 1946.
French West Africa was a federation of eight French colonial territories in West Africa:Mauritania,Senegal,French Sudan,French Guinea,Ivory Coast,Upper Volta,Dahomey and Niger. The federation existed from 1895 until 1958. Its capital was Saint-Louis,Senegal until 1902,and then Dakar until the federation's collapse in 1960.
Adolphe Sylvestre Félix Éboué was a French colonial administrator and Free French leader. He was the first black French man appointed to a high post in the French colonies,when appointed as Governor of Guadeloupe in 1936.
The Mandate for Syria and the Lebanon (1923−1946) was a League of Nations mandate founded in the aftermath of the First World War and the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire,concerning Syria and Lebanon. The mandate system was supposed to differ from colonialism,with the governing country intended to act as a trustee until the inhabitants were considered eligible for self-government. At that point,the mandate would terminate and an independent state would be born.
Henri Joseph Eugène Gouraud was a French general,best known for his leadership of the French Fourth Army at the end of the First World War. Following this,he became the first High Commissioner of the Levant (1919–1922) then Military governor of Paris (1923–1937).
The Syria–Lebanon campaign,also known as Operation Exporter,was the invasion of Syria and Lebanon in June and July 1941 by British Empire forces,during the Second World War.
The Provisional Government of the French Republic was the provisional government of Free France between 3 June 1944 and 27 October 1946,following the liberation of continental France after Operations Overlord and Dragoon,and lasting until the establishment of the French Fourth Republic. Its establishment marked the official restoration and re-establishment of a provisional French Republic,assuring continuity with the defunct French Third Republic.
Numerous internment camps and concentration camps were located in France before,during and after World War II. Beside the camps created during World War I to intern German,Austrian and Ottoman civilian prisoners,the Third Republic (1871–1940) opened various internment camps for the Spanish refugees fleeing the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939). Following the prohibition of the French Communist Party (PCF) by the government of Édouard Daladier,they were used to detain communist political prisoners. The Third Republic also interned German anti-Nazis.
The French State,popularly known as Vichy France,as led by Marshal Philippe Pétain after the Fall of France in 1940 before Nazi Germany,was quickly recognized by the Allies,as well as by the Soviet Union,until 30 June 1941 and Operation Barbarossa. However France broke with the United Kingdom after the destruction of the French Fleet at Mers-el-Kebir. Canada maintained diplomatic relations until the occupation of Southern France by Germany and Italy in November 1942.
The Army of the Levant identifies the armed forces of France and then Vichy France which occupied,and were in part recruited from,the French Mandated territories in the Levant during the interwar period and early World War II. The locally recruited Syrian and Lebanese units of this force were designated as the Special Troops of the Levant.
Vichy France,officially the French State,was the French state headed by Marshal Philippe Pétain during World War II. It was named after its capital,the city of Vichy. Officially independent,but with half of its territory occupied under the harsh terms of the armistice with Nazi Germany,it adopted a policy of collaboration. The Occupation of France by Nazi Germany at first affected only the northern and western portions of the country,before the Germans and Italians occupied the remainder of Metropolitan France in November 1942. Though Paris was ostensibly its capital,the Vichy government established itself in the resort town of Vichy in the unoccupied "Free Zone",where it remained responsible for the civil administration of France as well as its colonies.
Evacuation Day is Syria's national day commemorating the evacuation of the last French soldier at the end of the French mandate of Syria on 17 April 1946 after Syria's proclamation of full independence in 1941.
Henry Lémery was a politician from Martinique who served in the French National Assembly from 1914–1919 and the French Senate from 1920–1941. Lémery was briefly Minister of Justice in 1934. During World War II (1939–45) he was Colonial Secretary in the Vichy government for three months in 1940 before being dismissed.
The First Syrian Republic,officially the Syrian Republic,was formed in 1930 as a component of the Mandate for Syria and the Lebanon,succeeding the State of Syria. A treaty of independence was made in 1936 to grant independence to Syria and end official French rule,but the French parliament refused to accept the treaty. From 1940 to 1941,the Syrian Republic was under the control of Vichy France,and after the Allied invasion in 1941 gradually went on the path towards independence. The proclamation of independence took place in 1944,but only in October 1945 was the Syrian Republic de jure recognized by the United Nations;it became a de facto sovereign state on 17 April 1946,with the withdrawal of French troops. It was succeeded by the Second Syrian Republic upon the adoption of a new constitution on 5 September 1950.
The green ticket roundup,also known as the green card roundup,took place on 14 May 1941 during the Nazi occupation of France. The mass arrest started a day after French Police delivered a green card to 6694 foreign Jews living in Paris,instructing them to report for a "status check".
The Government of Vichy France was the collaborationist ruling regime or government in Nazi-occupied France during the Second World War. Of contested legitimacy,it was headquartered in the town of Vichy in occupied France,but it initially took shape in Paris under Maréchal Philippe Pétain as the successor to the French Third Republic in June 1940. Pétain spent four years in Vichy and after the Allied invasion of France,fled into exile to Germany in September 1944 with the rest of the French cabinet. It operated as a government-in-exile until April 1945,when the Sigmaringen enclave was taken by Free French forces. Pétain was brought back to France,by then under control of the Provisional French Republic,and put on trial for treason.
The liberation of France in the Second World War was accomplished through diplomacy,politics and the combined military efforts of the Allied Powers,Free French forces in London and Africa,as well as the French Resistance.
François Pierre-Alype was a French civil servant and statesman,in post in the colonial administration,then prefect.
The Ordinance of 9 August 1944 was a constitutional law enacted by the Provisional Government of the French Republic (GPRF) during the Liberation of France which re-established republican rule of law in mainland France after four years of occupation by Nazi Germany and control by the collaborationist Vichy regime.