quote:
So they were scared Germany would destroy their cities if they put up a fight. So, afraid of that, they just surrendered.

That sounds like the definition of cowardice.

I think World War One broke the French. So many of their men with a sense of honor and bravery were killed. All they were left with were the shirkers that hid in the ditch and lived. Those are the ones that rebuilt France after World War One. And we have been seeing the consequences of that for the last 100 years.

It can certainly be viewed as cowardice if you want, but like I said, the French were operating under different (19th Century) rules.

For the past couple centuries, France had beaten Prussia, Prussia had beaten France, back and forth a few times. Nothing really happened to the losers, in terms of change of native culture. The loser would cede a political point, maybe control of a border area, maybe some colony far away from the homeland.

I think the French position with WW2 was in line with that- frick it, let the Germans have control over Central Europe, it's not worth fighting WITHIN France over.
They didn't conceive the scale of what was actually going to happen, because European wars had never played out that way before. They didn't want the repeated loss of population WW1 had brought, for what they expected would be a matter of foreign policy amongst the major powers.