After the Fall of France during World War II, and the alignment of many West African French colonies with the Free French, Charles de Gaulle recognized the need to revise the relationship between France and its colonies in Africa. In January 1944, Free French politicians and high-ranking colonial officials from the French African colonies met in Brazzaville, the then capital of French Equatorial Africa. The Brazzaville Conference, as it came to be known, recommended political, social, and economic reforms.