The French Third Republic (, sometimes written as ) governed France from 1870, when the Second French Empire collapsed, to 1940, when France's defeat by Nazi Germany in World War II led to the Vichy France government. The end came in July 10, 1940 when the National Assembly of the Third Republic under its last President Albert Lebrun delegated all constitutional powers to Marshal Philippe Pétain of the rump French State in the Zone libre in the south of France.