I grew up around jokes about the French and that they were chickens in the war. I have been reading about WWI and WWII and think now it's a bit unfair to label them as such.
France suffered huge losses during the first war. As did England. It's cost was huge. The time between the two wars was grim and money was short. A very young Winston Churchill (long before he became PM) pushed through some very unpopular spending on defence. He paid particular attention to our Navy. Idk if this was amazing foresight on his part but it was the last thing on most peoples mind. Another war.
The French Parliament had no such Winston Churchill, and not surprisingly tried to get their economy in better shape.
So, when WWII developed, and the German's got to France yes they did surrender very quickly. In all fairness this was not down to them being chickens, but simply down to the fact they had not re-armed since the last war. They simply had no war machine in which to fight.
The French fought bravely during WWI.
