The Demarcation Line, a France cut in two

Between June 1940 and March 1943, a border separated the French in their own country: the demarcation line. Imposed by the German occupiers after the armistice of June 1940, this 1200 km long internal border running from the Alps to the Pyrenees divided France in two: in the North, the zone occupied by Hitler's soldiers. To the south, the zone administered by the Vichy regime of Marshal Pétain. For almost three years, the demarcation line controlled the daily life of 40 million French people. How did they live through this unprecedented ordeal? How did they love, exchange, move from one zone to another? How did they work when everything was blocked and disrupted? And how did they cross this inner border when their lives were threatened?