IMO the whole Vichy system is wrong. First of all, Vichy is a rediculous name, after the government seat, and a more proper name would be the French State (L'etat Francais)*. However, I would not be "Vichy" to "declare independence", but the Free French. The regime in Vichy was the legitimate government that signed a cease fire with the Germans, while the Free French were a sort of military counter-government in Britain and later in the colonies.
In the HoI system there is no reason for the player to surrender, as fighting on will keep all the colonies while the Germans have to fight for the remainder of France, surrendering will lose you almost everything to Vichy except a small colony in Africa.
Thus, when France remembers it should keep the unoccupied part in France and the colonies, while after some time the Free French should declare indepence in some colonies and gain more colonies via events. Then there would be a real reason for France to surrender, as it gets out of the war and still keeps a reasonable part of land. (And would regain much of the occupied lands with a pro-German government if Germany wins the war and a real peace treaty is signed.)
There are a lot of these wrong names in common use which sometimes annoy me a lot. Obvious examples are ofcours Russia for Soviet Union, America for USA, England for Great Britain or UK and Holland for the Netherlands, but especcially Byzantium for the (East-)Roman Empire, at pains me that even serious historical works use these names.
