It was indeed an ally. In fact, after the war surveys showed French people overwhelmingly credited it with winning WW2. It was decades of american propaganda that reversed that.
The western front was already lost. The game was over. Germany won. Britain was pinned back and had no chance of invading France. If the soviets hadn't won at Stalingrad, turned the whole war and then slowly pushed back Germany... it was over. The US would've done absolutely nothing about it.
More Russians died at Stalingrad alone than Americans in the entire war. WW2 was, for most of it, just Germany v Russia. That's where all the losses were. Thats where all the fighting was. D-day was only in 1944... what was happening from the french surrender in 1940 until 1944? Who was fighting?
Honestly, Americans drinking their own kool-aid is mad to me. This is all basic history and a few hollywood films won't change that.
From France 24:
"Just after the European fighting ended in May 1945, a poll by the French survey group Ifop found that 57 percent of the French thought Moscow had contributed the most to the war effort, compared with just 20 percent who named the United States.
But by the 60th anniversary of the Normandy landings by Allied forces in 2004 -- when Russia was represented for the first time, by Putin -- the figures were reversed, with just 20 percent putting the Soviet Union first.
Instead, 58 percent lauded the US, even though its total losses of 400,000 in both the European and Pacific theatres were just a small fraction of the dead in the Soviet Union.
"In 1945, the great ally was Stalin and the USSR -- their role was absolutely clear for the French," said Stephane Grimaldi, director of the Caen Memorial Museum for World War II in Normandy.
"But 50 years later, it's the US that won, for the very simple reason that in the meantime we had the Cold War," he said.
Hollywood also helped change perceptions with a string of hit films starting in the 1960s showing brave Americans fighting far from home.
"If you look at way it has been portrayed in popular culture, it's all about the battle in France and the Battle of Britain, but World War II was overwhelmingly Germans and Russians killing each other," said Jeremy Shapiro from the European Council on Foreign Relations."