"Gamelin is absolutely useless. The troops are all underground in that wretched Maginot Line, and completely demoralized. They should be in armour, but we haven't got any... Their [the French people] heart is not in this war... Quite soon the Germans are going to attack us. They will defeat us in three weeks, and we shall have to surrender. I would like to avoid that. We have already given them central and eastern Europe, and that we cannot undo. If we accept that, they might leave us alone, at least for a time; and ultimately turn east. Meanwhile, if we are to avoid immediate disaster, we have no alternative but to come to terms with them."
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Remarks to Robert Boothby (c. March 1940), quoted in Robert Boothby, Recollections of a Rebel (1978), pp. 138-139
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pierre_Laval
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Pierre Laval
Pierre Jean Marie Laval (28 June 1883 – 15 October 1945) was a French politician. During the Third Republic, he served as Prime Minister of France from 1931 to 1932 and from 1935 to 1936. He again occupied the post during the German occupation, from 1942 to 1944.
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