DISINFO: If it was not for Stalin, France wouldn’t be one of the great nations
SUMMARY
France acquired an occupation zone in Germany (during the post-World War period) thanks to Joseph Stalin, Leader of the Soviet Union. If Stalin had said no, (US President Franklin) Roosevelt, and (Britain PM Winston) Churchill would not have dared to add Charles de Gaulle and France to the circle of the great nations.
RESPONSE
This message is part of the Kremlin’s policy of historical revisionism of the WWII events.
After heavy shelling and bombing, Warsaw surrendered to the Germans on September 27, 1939. Britain and France, standing by their guarantee of Poland's border, had declared war on Germany on September 3, 1939, being the first countries to do so, taking such a decision two days after the invasion of Poland.
France and Britain, at that time, were the only remaining countries to be part of the League of Nations. France was then suspended from the League of Nations, until the recognition of the French Committee of National Liberation in October 1944 (after the beginning of the negotiations about the UN), France then became a candidate to be part of the UN's Security Council.
Thus, even though De Gaulle was not invited to the Yalta Conference, France's participation in the Security Council was supported by Britain, according to Pierre Gerbet in his book "The birth of the United Nations", and France was allocated an occupation zone in Germany, to be carved out from the British and American zones, upon British insistence. Stalin agreed with this decision on a single condition: the zones which will be given to France wouldn't be the ones of the USSR.