“Sounds like a reasonable expectation based on Englands actions”
England took those actions 40 years after Versailles.
“the French being unwilling to commit serious forces to oppose him the logical thing would have been to make a deal for VERY favorable trade terms and let him rule.”
I’d imagine he approached us because France didn’t want to fight the war and we pushed them into it. We armed them (including lending them an aircraft carriers) to the point where French Indochina troops of the early 1950s are indistinguishable from US troops in Europe in the early 1940s (same helmets, radios, weapons, etc.). We were the ones advocating containment, not France.
I was thinking of all the colonies released in the 1940’s early 50’s (or promised during that time with turnover to local rule at a later date)... particularly African ones. I didn’t know we were supplying the French in the 1950’s ... I thought they were relying on a small “foreign legion” type force for suppression. Makes sense , we had so much “surplus” at that time and France was .. well france..