[citation needed] This memorandum led to an agreement on 7 August, but provided for the creation of a French Committee or Council as of 26 June.

[2] The British government considered it to have taken effect 11 July 1940, the day Marshal Pétain took full powers and signed into law the end of the Third Republic.

By this act, the British government wished to indicate that it recognized that Free France, still being formed at the time, was the legitimate successor to the Republic that had just died, and was an ally of the United Kingdom in the war.

[7][4] On 27 October 1940, General de Gaulle announced the creation of the Empire Defense Council as the decision-making body of Free France in the "Brazzaville Manifesto", from the capital of French Equatorial Africa.

The members of the council were chosen by Charles de Gaulle[9] because they "already exercise authority on French lands or symbolize the highest intellectual and moral values of the nation.