Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. The Provisional Government of the French Republic (gouvernement provisoire de la République française or GPRF) was an interim government which governed France from 1944 to 1946, following the fall of Vichy France and prior to the Fourth French Republic. Following the Battle of France in 1940 the state of Vichy France had been established under the rule of Philippe Pétain. However, after Operation Overlord, the liberation of Paris and the fall of the Chambois pocket, the Vichy regime dissolved. Jurisdiction was then seized by the Provisional Government under the leadership of Charles de Gaulle in the wake of the Allied front lines moving through France.