On 22 June, France signed an armistice at Compiegne with Germany and on 24 June, the Franco-Italian Armistice was signed. Italy gained a demilitarised zone inside France (as well as similar zones where Italian and French colonies met). Italian occupation forces took over an area of France, which included 28,500 people and the town of Menton. The Royal Navy attacked the French fleet in the North African port of Mers-el-Kébir on 3 July 1940, after it refused to sail to Britain or the French West Indies and demobilise, as part of a larger plan to stop the French fleet from falling into German or Italian hands.