The military-political collapse of France in the summer of 1940 was one of the turning points of World War II, which predetermined its course and thereby influenced the future of the entire European continent. The reasons for the crushing defeat of the French army, which since 1918 was considered one of the strongest in the world, and the subsequent fall of the Third Republic, to this day cause controversy among historians. Did they flow from the entire course of the socio-political and economic development of France after the First World War? What was primary - a military defeat or a political crisis of French society, which did not find answers to the challenges of the era? What role did individual historical figures play in these dramatic events - Edouard Daladier, Paul Reynaud, Philippe Petain, Charles de Gaulle?