The Allied Powers who defeated France in the Second World War asserted governmental authority over all territory of the French Empire, excluding the recently established Socialist Netherlands in the Lowlands and French Guinea which was ceded to Suriname, having formally abolished the French government of René Mayer. The five powers divided this area into five occupation zones for administrative purposes. This division was ratified at the Nanterre Conference (Seventeenth of June to Third of September, 1946). In Autumn 1945, the Republic of China, Empire of Japan, Republic of Portugal, Ireland, and the Soviet Union had agreed on the zone make-up by the Dublin Protocol.