3

Between 1940 and 1944, the Alliance is supported by the French Work Service for Foreign Countries (SOFE), an administration which is part of the Department for Foreign Affairs. In spite of the courageous efforts made by a handful of civil servants, the radical positions of the defenders of the Vichy regime force a weakened Alliance to pass beyond its neutrality. Free France then takes over the action once lead by Vichy in favor of the Alliance, for political, geostrategical, and cultural reasons. As a matter of fact, what seems at stake in the support given to the Alliance – whose humanistic message has recently been renewed by René Cassin – is the survival of French culture in not inconsiderable parts of the world.