France is one of the weaker majors in Hearts of Iron 4, but one of the most rewarding to play when done right. You have tons of resources except for oil, an alright amount of manpower, and alot of terrible national spirits to navigate around. But before we even take our first focus, lets talk about the RNG (Random chance) that can effect your playthrough and might want to make you restart, as well as discuss releasing your colonies as puppets.

For the general purposes of this guide, we will be playing France historically I.E: appeasing Germany until they attack Poland- then we go to war with them over Poland. However we will not join the allies until the war starts, as that's a waste of a 70 day focus to join them.

For certain countries, you could play them the same way every time and always achieve the same result. For France, there is 1 major and a few minor RNG elements that prevents you from becoming the most powerful France you could be, and if you miss out on the Major RNG, you will want to restart your run (or use console commands if you aren't playing ironman to simulate what would have happen if you got good RNG)

This major event happens really early in your game, France's elections on May 1st 1936


There's a 40% chance you get the good outcome.

"The people have the right to feel safe" this gives you +5% base war support, and Early mobilization, letting you build factories faster and having overall less consumer goods, which means more factories can be used for construction.


and there's a 60% chance you get the worse outcome

You lose stability with either option because you take away support from your ruling party, Democracy. There is 0 upside to getting this event if you are planning on being Democratic, or even unaligned or Fascist. If you get this event on May 1st 1936 while in an Ironman playthrough, you should just restart.

However, if you don't play Ironman, instead take a save around April 27th or 28th before the event fires. If you get the Communists in government event, reload your save and type in this console command:

random_seed

Normally reloading this save and just hoping to get a different event wouldn't work, because the outcome of this event and many other RNG events were decided upon beginning the game. It was seeded from the beginning that you would always get that event.

Unless you use random_seed to randomize RNG of course and get the proper event! So just reload that save you took, type in the console command, unpause and reach May 1st 1936. If you get the Communist in government event AGAIN, just reload the save, and type in the console command again. Eventually you'll randomly roll a good seed and you will get the Re-armament event.

Note: Do not worry about random_seed affecting the AI in any weird ways, it won't. Not on this Historical game anyways. Austria will always get Anchlussed, and Poland will always go to war over Danzig. random_seed will not change that when you're on historical (and not playing ahistorically yourself like going Communist or Fascist as France!)


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So that was the major RNG event. Their are 2 other minor rng events, one of which involves colonial Algeria so read the excerpt on Colonies for the specifics on that bout of RNG. The other is when Greece decides to start paying off debts to you. Every time they pay off 25% of their debt, you get 25Political Power. Very useful since France is starved of PP! Sometimes they might do an extra payment to the U.K first, which will slightly slow you down but only by a very miniscule amount. Just thought i'd mention it. If you don't own Battle for the Bosphorous DLC, you won't get this bonus PP since Greece doesn't have a focus tree, and this PP is rather Crucial for making our France as strong as possible.

So if you've watched HOI4 videos on youtube before, you might know that alot of players like to release France's colonies as puppets at the game start. They claim you get more factories by doing this, and that's true! But it needs explanation.


This is how you release countries as your puppets


When you release your colonies as puppets, they will get the generic focus tree and start doing focus'. If they are 1 state countries, they will not do any industry focus' until 1939. It's hardcoded. If they have at least 2 states, they have a very good chance to rush down and grab the industry focus', which from the generic focus tree can result in 4 civilian factories, 3 military factories, and if they're coastal, 3 dockyards. It's not always a gurantee that each 2-state puppet will do every factory focus right away, but they have a good chance to.

However, since you are releasing them as puppets, you don't get those factories just because you're their master, because puppets don't have to give factories to their master.

Now if they were an integrated puppet, the next lowest level of autonomy, you'd get some factories back directly from them, but since they aren't, and since you have alot of colonies, you can't just use the autonomy system to reduce them all to integrated puppets. that would be too costly.

Instead, we'll be getting factories back from Trade from our puppets.

Except for Switzerland, those 5 countries buying Steel from you are your puppets, and since they are trading civs for resources from you, yes that is indeed free factories for you. Some of Your puppets will even buy aluminum from you at some point once they research support equipment!

With all that explained, should you just release every country from the game start? No.

Do not release: Morroco, Tunisia, Cameroon, and Vietnam.

You do not want to release these countries as puppets, because they actually start with a civilian factory in their states, and those factories go to you since you have high compliance in those states. That means you're putting that civilian factory to work much faster then if you just released them as a puppet and then had to wait for them to do enough focus' to start buying resources from you. Additionaly, you especially don't want to release Vietnam as that is your primary source of Rubber, Tungsten, and a good source of Chromium. Tahiti is your Main source of Chromium, but you can release them as Chromium doesn't matter, unless you are doing specific navy or heavily armored tank builds.

Also, you don't want to return territory obviously. You get no benefit from giving India French india for example, while you wont get factories from that province, overall you will get some extra manpower from them.

And do note that we aren't releasing any Core French territory, like the basque country or Normandy. That would be dumb.

You'll have to scroll to the bottom of the "Occuptied territories" tab to release Djbouti as well. You can release them as Djbouti or Somalia, doesn't matter. It's a one state country.

By the way, you can also request garrison support from Madagascar and Mali to free up more manpower for yourself. Hurrah!

One final thing, when you release Algeria, the generic focus tree when it loads might choose to put some of those factories in the Algerian desert. This is very bad, because France has a focus that cores Algeria (and re-annexes them if they are a puppet) but the focus that cores Algeria doesn't core the Desert only turns them into a colony state,

which means you aren't getting those factories.

Luckily we can prevent this! When you've got all your colonies released and you're ready to unpause and play the game, take a save then reload your save immediately. This will refresh Algeria's focus tree and will prevent any factories from being built in the god-forsaken Sahara Desert. Also, if Algeria doesn't take "Industrial Focus" as their first focus, you should also reload your save. If they don't take industrial focus first, there's a good chance they might not take all their industrial focus' by the time it's time to annex them.


Oh and also, make sure you switch your garrison law at game start from "Military governor" to "Civilian Oversight". once you reach 80% compliance, you can switch to "Local Autonomy". Switching earlier then 80% stabilty will lead to resistance and thus equipment/manpower losses.

If you already know how you like to play France and just wanted to know what to do with colonies, my guide is over for you. But if you want an examination of how I play France as optimally as possible, read on!

With the RNG and Colony stuff out of the way, its time to talk about the focus tree and political power decisions. There are several ways you can play Democratic France, you can play Leftist France, Right wing France, you can defend Czechoslovakia, or leave the Czechs to their fate historically.

My focus order for this guide is based upon 1 goal: France destroys the Axis mainland by itself in 1940-1941. We are not defending Czechoslovakia, but we are going to war over Poland. Joining the allies is optional, because you can hold and defeat the Axis without joining them- allowing you to form the EU as you take control of the low countries after pushing Germany out of them.

Now then, which democratic path is the better one, Left-wing France or Right-wing France?

I am no photoshop expert but this will do

The answer most people would give is Right wing France, but Left wing France is actually stronger by Factory count and Military equipment produced. Let's discuss the important reasons why as well as the differences.

Right Wing France the traditional player choice

Right wing France gets more daily Political power by upgrading your leaders trait, which makes you go from 0.19 daily PP to 0.39 daily PP. Your leader also gets a +25% trade opinion modifier, which means ai countries may be more inclined to buy resources from you, thus giving you extra factories.

Right wing France's powerful capstone focus gives +10% Production Cap and Growth (and +5% industrial research speed)

Right wing France's early x3 150% Industry research boost is very handy at saving you research time, because to play France optimally, we are not doing a single economic focus until 1940. That means no 4th research slot.

Right wing France will get MIO's up faster as well, as Left wing France can't afford to research using MIO's until they get onto Partial Mobilization.

Right wing France requires less juggling of Focus order, Political power picks, and no need to delay any focus' to stockpile PP.

Right wing France will have slightly more army XP, a difference of about 20-30 over Left wing France.


Left Wing France Produces more equipment and faster

Left wing France will have more equipment built by the time Germany goes to war in Aug 23rd/Sep 1st 1939. I have done extensive testing of both paths, and Left wing France always beats Right wing France despite the +10% industrial cap just through sheer factory count. It should be noted however, that right wing france might finally catch up to left wing france for military production in 1940/1941 because while left wing france has more factories, that also means they will have more Consumer Goods Factor. Ultimately though, having more equipment by the time the war breaks out is more important for winning the Air war.
If you're curious, in both optimized playthroughs by Aug 23rd 1939 Left wing France I have 1,37k fighters in stockpile, and 1.29k fighters in stockpile for Right wing France. Left wing France also has more tanks.

Ultimately its up to you to judge which path you want to go down, I have a written section for both depending on which one you want to play, but just know, Left wing France builds more equipment. And equipment wins wars.

Before we take our first Focus, lets talk about game Setup.

for Construction, build 1 infrastructure in Franche-Comte and Champagne, then as many civilian factories as possible in those states. when you research concentrated industry 1 and 2, add more civilian factories. Then build Military factories in every 80% infrastructure state.

For Military factories, go 4 mills on Guns, 1 on Support equipment, 1 on Artillery, and 1 on AA. do whatever you want with Dockyards.

For research, research the first level of Electronic Engineering, but then no more. You'll eventually need to research the radio techs, but 1938 Mechanical Computing takes to long. then research Basic Machine tools and Construction 1. Once 1938 mechanical computing is done, make sure you research 1936 light air frame With the MIO.

Now release your colonies just like I wrote down, and take a save/reload it to make sure Algeria does industrial effort first. Don't forget to go on Civilian Oversight!

Focus order list and Political power expenditure


Revive the national bloc
Laissez-Faire
Begin-Rearmament (improve worker conditions)
Protect the Rights of Man
Review Foreign Policy (Chief of air expert)
Aggressive Focus (Chief of Army expert) (do not aid spain) (when improved worker conditions done, switch to local autonomy)
Economic Devaluation
Promote Entreprenuership
Stimulate the Dynamic Market
Air Dominance
The Blum Violette Proposal ( You will get an event since you're under 70% stability. That's fine, just take the bottom event and lose -50pp)
Buy Time (Partial Mob. you may be delayed taking partial mob if Germany does a late Anchluss, so just don't spend your PP)
Strengthen Government
Infantry tanks
Expand the citizenship
Encourage immigration
CAS focus (improve worker conditions)
Air-ground cooperation (Gurantee Poland for 50PP)
Flying artillery

after this point, just get Defensive Strategems whenever you can, and Army Reform immediately afterwards. You want to get Army Reform ASAP to get rid of your horrible doctrine costs, so you can spend your hundreds of Army XP very quickly and become very powerful through having alot of Doctrine.



We do not have time to get the 4th research slot in Right or Left wing France because there's too many 70 day focus' to get to it and too many important focus' to get first! You'll have to play with 3 research slots carefully.

Left wing France requires you to not research anything with MIO's to make sure you have enough Political power to go to partial mobilisation in 1938, with the exception of researching the 1936 light air frame and 1938 medium tank chassis. Use the MIO research on those. After you get Partial mobilisation, research with MIO's to your heart's content.

Form the Popular Front
Reform the Labour Laws
Review Foreign Policy (hire silent workhorse)
Begin Rearmament
Nationalise Key Industries (hire air reformer mid focus)
Form the State Arsenals
Aggressive Focus (hire army guy as soon as you can) (also go local autonomy)
Re-organize the Aviation Industry
General Work Council (get improved worker conditions as soon as you can)
National Champions
The Blum-Viollete Proposal (revoke Matignon agreement on jan 1st 1938)



if you are doing this in a playthrough where you didn't get the "public demands rearmament" event, you will get an event for cancelling the Matignon agreements. Just take the bottom option that costs 50 PP then give yourself 50PP back using the console command pp 50

As an aside on the Matignon agreement, if you cancel this agreement before 1938 you will get an event that completely destroys your industry giving you -90% factory output for a year. so do not revoke before 1938.

Air Dominance
DON'T take any focus until 150 pp then get partial mob. If Germany doesn't do Anchuss before you get 150 PP, then move onto the next focus once you've banked around 130-140 PP



Buy Time
Strengthen Government
Infantry tanks
Expand the citizenship
encourage immigration
CAS focus
Air-ground cooperation (Gurantee Poland for 50PP)
Flying artillery (Improve worker conditions, or spend 50 PP first on reorganizing air industry in the south east, which will give your fighter MIO a free level and also 1 military factory in 120 days)


after this point, just get Defensive Strategems whenever you can, and Army Reform immediately afterwards. You want to get Army Reform ASAP to get rid of your horrible doctrine costs, so you can spend your hundreds of Army XP very quickly and become very powerful through having alot of Doctrine.

So if you're following from the game setup, once you do "Begin re-armament" and get 4 more factories, put 1 more on guns, support equipment, artillery, and AA.


After that, you're going to want to go up to 3 military factories on fighters. Along the way and before you finish researching medium tanks in 1938, you're going to want to end up with:
8 mills on guns
3 mills on support equipment
3 mills on artillery
3 mills on AA
2 mills on trucks
1 mill on trains
9+ mills on fighters
3 mills on CAS


Once medium tanks are researched, you're basically only putting new mills on Tanks and fighters until 1940. (maybe an extra 1-2 on trucks and 1 on train)

If you're over 15 factories on fighters, Cap it at 15 and put the extra mills on Tanks until you get to 15 mills on Tanks. After that, go 1:1 ratio of mills on tanks and fighters, until you get to 20 on Each- then you're going to want to stop putting them on tanks and go up to about 25-28 mills on fighters, then no more. After that, assign your mills to your hearts content- more tanks, of course! more guns? Oh you will have to, or else you won't be able to Garrison the low countries and Axis!


Now for your fighter design, since France starts with Cannon 1 techs, you should build a 1936 light airframe like this:

Max air attack annihilates the AI

as for your 1938 Medium tank design...

Maximising soft attack destroys the enemy AI. Don't worry about low reliability, so long as you're not fighting in supply starved africa or eastern europe, these babies will wreck Germany.

Of course, if you want to do a different tank, or even fighter, go right ahead. This is just what I use. Cheap, Simple, Effective.

once you reach 1938, queue up an Experimental air facility, Radar is key to destroying the enemy airforce. Otherwise keep building mills.

Your land warfare facility that you start with should research flamethrower tanks ASAP, and after that its up to you. I like to research Railway guns and then do the Super-Heavy Railway gun experimental project, because France has the resources to do them, and you get 1 for free just by finishing the project! It's really powerful.

We will not be building any forts. Building forts can be fun, but to play optimally and win as fast as possible, we don't need them.

in Late '39, we need to build 1 infrastructure and 1 supply hub in Savoy so our divisions don't starve, as well as extend a railyway down near the Italian North Africa border. We also need to build a Level 1 Radar station in Alscase Lorraine and a state in Northern France like Picardy.

To hold against Germany, we need as many 9/0 divisions as you can muster before Germany invades.

Enough of these divisions will stonewall the Axis. With Full planning bonus and Air superiority, they also do a great job attacking

our tank division should look something like this:

By the time Germany is crossing into Belgium, you'll only have 3-5 of these, but with massive soft attack the Germans are going to hurt!
Some people go for cavalry instead of motorized because of how slow the tanks are anyways, as well as the fact that France has a cavalary expert military high command. I still prefer the trucks.


You have 5 fronts to manage.
#1. Belgium-Metz

the Infantry divisions should form up from Belgium to Luxembourg. We are going to let them die to the Germans, so we can... "liberate" them! However, if you are playing France in the allies, you should just send all your divisions into Belgium as soon as they get war declared, they have some good defenses and terrain so you could easily stop the Germans there too.

This is also where all of our tank divisions are.

#2. Savoy

The supply hub and +1 infrastructure has not finished yet, so I'm keeping my troops behind the border where supply is good.
Your 4 starting Mountaineer divisions (you need to add support companies to them though) and 20 9/0 divisions are not only enough to hold Italy, but actually Attack them. If you only attack at full planning (which your divisions will do when you select your general to the "attack carefully" option, these divisions are going to obliterate Italy.

#3. North Africa

France starts with 7 Motorized divisions, and they are going to Kill the Italians in Libya for us. It's important to support these divisions by convoy raiding with your submarines to take out Italian supply, as well as make a concerted push to Tripoli.

#4. Corsica

Use 1 9/0 and 5 of your starting Brigade Colonial divisions to defend Corsica. They will defend easily with support from your submarine fleets eating away at the Italian convoys.

#5. The Maginot line.

This is where you put every other starting division from 1936. These crappy divisions will do just fine sitting in Level 10 forts. Mostly. Sometimes you might need to train up a few extra divisions to Man the Maginot because 2 tiles can be broken by determined enough german AI attacks (the plains tile next to Metz and the most North-east tile)

As for the Navy, you should train them up before war with Italy, and that consumes alot of Fuel. Its unfortunate, but you'll need to trade some. you can delay this training until WW2 has already started however since Italy will not join the war until about April 1940.


Every Submarine should be under its own admiral in wolfpacks, ready to sink Italian convoys at war start.
Every other ship should be in 1 Stack under 1 Admiral, the "Doomstack". This should just be set to Strike Force over the seas to keep yourself safe from naval invasions and sally forth to fight the Italian Fleet. Although we aren't in the Allies, the U.K who is also in this war will help keep you safe from naval invasions via Naval Supremacy and also through their own engagements with the Italian Fleet.

Finally, your Airforce. We've built alot of fighters, and they are going to shred the German Airforce to nothing over Western Germany and Northern France. just set your fighters on Air superiority and if you've built enough well designed fighters, the German airforce will be out of fighters by February 1940.

To make sure the German airforce comes out to fight, use your starting strategic bombers to bomb West Germany and force the Germans to fight in the air.

WIth the German airforce gone, the Germans lose alot of their striking power- however they can still defeat you on Land coming through Belgium even without an airforce, which is why you need to have as many 9/0 divisions as possible guarding Beligum-Metz! I usually have about 76 9/0 divisions by the time Germany conquers Belgium, and 76 9/0 divisions under air superiority are an Iron wall to the Germans. They aren't getting through.

When the Germans attack you in Belgium, they'll burn tons of equipment and manpower for nothing.
When you have about 5 Tank divisions, you can begin counterattacking and watch the germans slowly lose ground to your crazy high tank divisions with tons of soft attack. You can even counterattack using your 9/0 Infantry divisions, provided they have full planning and the german divisions aren't at full strength!


When the Italians attack you, they'll find themselves being attacked in Piedmont, unable to break Corsica, and losing Tripoli. They'll be your puppet in 10 month's time!

Winning the war at this point is basically a given, since the AI is unable to break your defences. It's up to you to manage your ever increasing Tank divisions, air superiority, and occasional Infantry attacks to Beat the Axis. I have given you all the tools you need to win the war, but if you want to see how the counterattack goes in real time, I have a video(s) for you.

Want to see my strategy put into action in a video? Or watch how I slowly counterattack and destroy the Germans and Italians in 14 months time? I've uploaded some videos if you want to see how its done!

Left-wing Democratic Germany playthrough

Right wing France coming soon.

This is the end of the guide, thanks for reading!

Now, I command you to sally forth and form the European Union as France, by destroying Germany and Italy, "liberating" the low countries, then annexing all German/Dutch/Belgium/Luxembourg core territory, and giving all Core Italian lands to your Italian puppet in the peace conference, then annex Italy using the autonomy system!

For the EU! (dominated by France)

I finished the war and got the peace conference on April 18th 1941, I then used console commands to annex my Italian puppet instead of the autonomy system because I was tired and just wanted to get the screenshot :p

Thank you to the creator of this mod for the Guide's pic.
https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3304248394