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71-792: Jean Pierre Moulin ( French: [ʒɑ̃ mu.lɛ̃] ; 20 June 1899 – 8 July 1943) was a French civil servant and resistant who succeeded in unifying the main networks of the French Resistance in World War II , a unique act in Europe. He served as the first President of the National Council of the Resistance from 27 May 1943 until his death less than two months later. A prefect in the Aveyron (1937–1939) and Eure-et-Loir (1939–1940) departments , he

142-478: A Radical-Socialist politician, named Moulin his second in command or chef adjoint when he was serving as Foreign Minister under Paul Doumer 's presidency. In 1933, Moulin was appointed sous-préfet of Thonon-les-Bains , parallel to his function of head of Cot's cabinet in the Air Ministry under President Albert Lebrun . On 19 January 1934, Moulin was appointed sous-préfet of Montargis , but he did not assume

213-588: A "fellow traveller" because he had communist friends and supported the Republican side in the Spanish Civil War). As préfet , Moulin even ordered the repression of communist 'agitators' and went so far as to have police keep some of them under surveillance. At the trial of Klaus Barbie in 1987, his lawyer, Jacques Vergès , made much out of speculation that Moulin was betrayed by either Communists and/or Gaullists as part of an attempt to distract attention away from

284-589: A Paris tramway station have also been named after him. The photograph with a fedora and scarf has become a popular representation of Jean Moulin and more generally the Resistance movement; in it, Jean Moulin seems to hide from onlookers to protect his clandestine life. However, the photograph itself was taken in Montpellier in February 1940 during a family visit, before his first arrest in June 1940 and subsequent decision to join

355-546: A book of the same name, depicts, through the character of Luc Jardie , played by Paul Meurisse , several events in Moulin's war experience but with some inaccuracy; in the film, his homosexual male secretary is replaced by a female assistant. Two French made-for-television films deal with Jean Moulin: in 2002, Jean Moulin , by Yves Boisset and, in 2003, Jean Moulin, une affaire française , by Pierre Aknine. In 1993, commemorative French 2, 100 and 500 franc coins were issued, showing

426-455: A member of the resistance movement Combat and a specialist in railroads, was also present for reasons that are not clear and in what appears to have been a breach of good security practice. Moulin and the other Resistance leaders were sent to Montluc Prison in Lyon (but not René Hardy, who either escaped or was allowed to flee). They were detained there until the beginning of July. While there, he

497-507: A national leader who could govern France after the war. Thus, while it is not clear that the CNR actually managed to create a unified military force from the various resistance movements, it did play a role in consolidating the role of France as a politically and militarily viable force within post-War French society and as ally of the Allied Forces. In his work in shepherding the Resistance, Moulin

568-918: A partial image of Moulin against the Croix de Lorraine and using a fedora-and-scarf photograph, which is well recognised in France. French Resistance French victory Central Europe Germany Italy Spain ( Spanish Civil War ) Albania Austria Baltic states Belgium Bulgaria Burma Czechia Denmark France Germany Greece Italy Japan Jewish Luxembourg Netherlands Norway Poland Romania Slovakia Spain Soviet Union Yugoslavia Germany Italy Netherlands Portugal Spain Sweden Switzerland United Kingdom United States The French Resistance ( French : La Résistance )

639-570: A piece of broken glass. This act left him with a scar he would often hide with a scarf, giving us the image of Jean Moulin by which he often is remembered today. The suicide attempt did not succeed because he was discovered by a guard and taken to a hospital for treatment. Because he was a Radical , he was dismissed by the Vichy regime , led by Marshal Philippe Pétain on 2 November 1940, along with other left-wing préfets. He then began writing his diary, First Battle, in which he relates his resistance against

710-591: A sum that, in May 1940, was approximately equivalent to four hundred million French francs . The artificial exchange rate of the Reichsmark versus the franc had been established as one mark to twenty francs. Due to the overvaluation of German currency, the occupiers were able to make seemingly fair and honest requisitions and purchases while operating a system of organized plunder. Prices soared, leading to widespread food shortages and malnutrition, particularly among children,

781-585: A telephonist for the 7th and 9th Engineer Regiments. He was de-mobilised in November and, on 4 November 1919, immediately resumed his post as attaché at the préfecture of Hérault, in Montpellier. After World War I , Moulin resumed his studies of law. His position as attaché at the préfecture of Hérault allowed him to finance his university studies while also providing a useful apprenticeship in politics and government. He obtained his law degree in July 1921. He then entered

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852-536: A unified ‘Program’ and recognition of Charles de Gaulle as their leader by disparate elements of the French resistance, including by various resistance units as well as by outlawed labour unions and political parties. Because he was known as a left-wing republican, he also succeeded in obtaining the cooperation of the Communist resistance groups , which had been reluctant to accept de Gaulle as their leader. The unifying Program

923-526: Is not the truth". In mid-June, German troops entered Chartres. Moulin was arrested by the Germans on 17 June 1940 because he refused to sign a false declaration that three Senegalese tirailleurs had committed atrocities, killing civilians in La Taye. In fact, those civilians had been killed by German bombings. Beaten and imprisoned because he refused to comply, Moulin attempted suicide by cutting his own throat with

994-584: Is remembered today as one of the main heroes of the French Resistance and for his efforts to unify it under Charles de Gaulle . He was tortured by German officer Klaus Barbie while in Gestapo custody. His death was registered at Metz railway station . Jean Moulin was born at 6 Rue d'Alsace in Béziers , Hérault , son of Antoine-Émile Moulin and Blanche Élisabeth Pègue. He was the grandson of an insurgent opposing

1065-495: Is supposed to have had decades ago with others long dead, which made his case against Moulin very "dubious". Henri-Christian Giraud, the grandson of General Henri Giraud (who had been outmaneuvered by de Gaulle for the leadership of the Free French movement), hit back in his two-volume work De Gaulle et les communistes , published in 1988 and 1989, which outlined a conspiracy theory suggesting that de Gaulle had been "manipulated" by

1136-620: Is that he used his position in the French air ministry to deliver planes to the Spanish Republican forces. In January 1939, Moulin was appointed prefect of the Eure-et-Loir department, based in Chartres . After war against Germany was declared, he asked multiple times to be demoted because "[his] place is not at the rear, at the head of a rural departement". Against the advice of the Minister of

1207-568: The Révolution nationale stated that when he saw German soldiers in Paris in the summer of 1940, he knew he had to do something because of the look of contempt he saw on the faces of the Germans when viewing the French. In the beginning, resistance was limited to severing phone lines, vandalizing posters and slashing tyres on German vehicles. Another tactic was the publication of underground newspapers like Musée de l'Homme (Museum of Mankind). This paper

1278-569: The Alpilles and met with the leaders of the resistance groups, under the codenames Rex and Max : He succeeded to the extent that the first three of these resistance leaders and their groups came together to form the United Resistance Movement ( Mouvements Unis de la Résistance , MUR) in January 1943. The next month, Moulin returned to London , accompanied by Charles Delestraint , who led

1349-788: The Charlemagne Division of the Waffen SS . The Occupation was hard for the French to accept. Many Parisians remember the shock at seeing swastika flags hanging over the Hôtel de Ville and on top of the Eiffel Tower . At the Palais-Bourbon , where the National Assembly building was converted into the office of the Kommandant von Gross-Paris , a huge banner was spread across the facade of

1420-597: The Istres - Damas - Le Bourget race, he presented the winners with their prize; Benito Mussolini 's son was one of those winners. He became France's youngest préfet in the Aveyron département , based in the commune of Rodez , in January 1937. It has been claimed that during the Spanish Civil War , Moulin assisted with the shipment of arms from the Soviet Union to Spain . A more commonly-accepted version of events

1491-638: The Oradour-sur-Glane massacre , in which an entire village was razed and almost every resident murdered because of persistent resistance in the vicinity. In early 1943, the Vichy authorities created a paramilitary group, the Milice (militia), officially led by Pierre Laval , but operated by Joseph Darnand to combat the Resistance. This group worked alongside German forces that, by the end of 1942, were stationed throughout France. The group collaborated closely with

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1562-541: The Reich those Germans and Austrians who fled to France in the 1930s. Resistance when it first began in the summer of 1940 was based upon what the writer Jean Cassou called refus absurde ("absurd refusal") of refusing to accept that the Reich would win and even if it did, it was better to resist. Many résistants often spoke of some "climax" when they saw some intolerable act of injustice, after which they could no longer remain passive. The résistant Joseph Barthelet told

1633-625: The coup d'état of 2 December 1851 . His father was a lay teacher at the Université Populaire and a Freemason at the lodge Action Sociale. Moulin was baptised on 6 August 1899 in the church of Saint-Vincentin in Saint-Andiol (Bouches-du-Rhône), the village his parents came from. He spent an uneventful childhood in the company of his brother, Joseph, and his sister, Laure. Joseph died after an illness in 1907. At Lycée Henri IV in Béziers, Jean

1704-411: The music hall era, cabarets and cafes were crowded with personalities and Parisians could catch glimpses of the stars of the day. Le Rire was there to capture scene for its readers. Its pages depicted the likes of Yvette Guilbert , Polaire , Jane Avril , Réjane and even those of popular visitors to the theaters such as Séverine . The magazine was published for almost sixty years, closing down in

1775-445: The "Soviet agent" Moulin into following the PCF's line of "national insurrection" and thereby eclipsed his grandfather, who, he maintained, should have been the rightful leader of Free France . Taking up Giraud's theories, the lawyer Charles Benfredj argued in his 1990 book L'Affaire Jean Moulin: Le contre-enquête that Moulin was a Soviet agent who had not been killed by Barbie but allowed by

1846-498: The Aubracs had tipped off Barbie. It was timed for the publication of the book Aubrac Lyon 1943 by Gérard Chauvy, who meant to prove that the Aubracs were the ones who informed Barbie about the fateful meeting at Caluire on 21 June 1943. On 2 April 1998, following a civil suit launched by the Aubracs, a Paris court fined Chauvy and his publisher, Albin Michel, for "public defamation". In 1998,

1917-655: The British SOE agent George Miller that he made up his mind to join the resistance when he saw German military police march a group of Frenchmen, one of whom was a friend, into the Feldgendarmerie in Metz . Barthelt recalled: "I recognized him only by his hat... I saw his face all right, but there was no skin on it, and he could not see me. Both his poor eyes had been closed into two purple and yellow bruises". The right-wing résistant Henri Frenay who had initially sympathized with

1988-592: The FFI had grown to 400,000 members. Although the amalgamation of the FFI was sometimes fraught with political difficulties, it was ultimately successful and allowed France to rebuild the fourth-largest army in the European theatre (1.2 million men) by VE Day in May 1945. After the Battle of France and the second French-German armistice , the lives of the French continued unchanged at first. The German occupation authorities and

2059-596: The French historian Jacques Baynac, in his book Les Secrets de l'affaire Jean Moulin , claimed that Moulin was planning to break with de Gaulle to recognise General Giraud, which led the Gaullists to tip off Barbie before that could happen. Ashes that are thought to be those of Jean Moulin were buried in Le Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris and later transferred to the Panthéon on 19 December 1964. The speech given at

2130-448: The German government to go to the Soviet Union in 1943, where Moulin supposedly died sometime after the war. Benfredj's book was published with an introduction with Jacques Soustelle , the archaeologist of Mexico and wartime Gaullist whose commitment to Algérie française had made him a bitter enemy of de Gaulle by 1959. The essence of all theories about Moulin, the alleged Soviet agent,

2201-516: The Gestapo and that Aubrac was linked to harsh actions during the purge of collaborators after the war. In 1990, Barbie, by then "a bitter dying Nazi ", named Aubrac as the traitor. To counteract the accusations levelled at Moulin, Daniel Cordier , his personal secretary during the war, wrote a biography of his former leader. In April 1997, Vergès produced a "Barbie Testament", which he claimed that Barbie had given him ten years earlier and purported to show

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2272-542: The Interior , he asked to be transferred to the military school of Issy-Les-Moulineaux , near Paris. The minister forced him to return to Chartres, where the War quickly made its way to him in the form of German air strikes and columns of distressed and sometimes wounded refugees. As the Germans approached Chartres, he wrote to his parents, "If the Germans — who are capable of anything — make me say dishonorable words, you already know, it

2343-735: The Nazis in Chartres, which was later published at the Liberation and prefaced by de Gaulle. Having decided not to collaborate , Moulin left Chartres for his parents' home town, Saint-Andiol , Bouches-du-Rhône , and joined the French Resistance , specifically, the organisation Free France . Under the name Joseph Jean Mercier, he went to Marseille , where he met other résistants, including Henri Frenay and Antoine Sachs. Moulin travelled to London in September 1941 after passing through Spain and Portugal. He

2414-459: The Nazis, similar to the Gestapo security forces in Germany. Their actions were often brutal and included torture and execution of Resistance suspects. After the liberation of France in the summer of 1944, the French executed many of the estimated 25,000 to 35,000 miliciens for their collaboration with the Nazis. Many of those who escaped arrest fled to Germany, where they were incorporated into

2485-652: The Resistance. In 1967, the Centre national Jean-Moulin de Bordeaux was created in Bordeaux . Its archives contain documents on the Second World War and the Resistance. The Centre provides pedagogical supports and research material on the involvement of Jean Moulin in the Resistance. Another member of the resistance, Antoinette Sasse , created a bequest in her will to found The Musée Jean Moulin in 1994. The 1969 Jean Pierre Melville fictional film Army of Shadows , based on

2556-502: The Resistance. There is some uncertainty surrounding the exact circumstances of Moulin's death, including about the view that he died while being transported by train to Germany. According to his death certificate (established by the occupying force), he died near or in the train station of Metz , but there are conflicting reports on when and where he died. The question of who betrayed Jean Moulin has attracted much research, speculation, judicial scrutiny and media coverage. Many members of

2627-519: The Soviet resistance in August 1941 led to thousands of hostages taken from the population. A typical policy statement read, "After each further incident, a number, reflecting the seriousness of the crime, shall be shot." During the occupation, an estimated 30,000 French civilian hostages were shot to intimidate others who were involved in acts of resistance. German troops occasionally engaged in massacres such as

2698-416: The Vichy régime became increasingly brutal and intimidating. Most civilians remained neutral, but both the occupation of French territory and German policy inspired the formation of paramilitary groups dedicated to both active and passive resistance. One of the conditions of the armistice was that the French must pay for their own occupation. This amounted to about 20 million German Reichsmarks per day,

2769-408: The actions of his client, by making the true authors of Moulin's arrest his fellow résistants , rather than Barbie. Vergès failed in his effort to acquit Barbie but succeeded in creating a vast industry of various conspiracy theories, many very fanciful, about who betrayed Moulin. Leading historians, such as Henri Noguères and Jean-Pierre Azéma , rejected Vergès's conspiracy theories under which Barbie

2840-424: The allied forces, who were considering a plan to administer post-War France themselves. The Conseil National de la Résistance — by bringing together (both symbolically and as a context for meetings) major resistance units, labour unions and political parties — enhanced the credibility of the French Resistance as a unified movement. With Charles de Gaulle as its recognised head, it also fortified de Gaulle’s position as

2911-405: The building reading in capital letters: " DEUTSCHLAND SIEGT AN ALLEN FRONTEN! " ("Germany is victorious on all fronts!"), a sign that is mentioned by virtually all accounts by Parisians at the time. The résistant Henri Frenay wrote about seeing the tricolour flag disappear from Paris with the swastika flag flying in its place and German soldiers standing guard in front of buildings that once housed

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2982-409: The causes of the divorce being Moulin's mother-in-law, who had wanted to prevent her estate passing into Moulin's control upon Cerruti's 21st birthday. Moulin attempted to hide this rejection by excusing his wife's disappearances and not informing his family until after his divorce. Moulin was appointed sous-préfet of Châteaulin , Brittany in 1930. At the same time, he published political cartoons in

3053-485: The elderly, and members of the working class engaged in physical labour. Labour shortages also plagued the French economy because hundreds of thousands of French workers were requisitioned and transferred to Germany for compulsory labour under the Service du Travail Obligatoire (STO). The labour shortage was worsened by the large number of French prisoners of war held in Germany. Beyond these hardships and dislocations,

3124-407: The end of summer of 1940 " the alien presence, increasingly hated and feared in private, could seem so permanent that, in the public places where daily life went on, it was taken for granted". At the same time, buildings were renamed, books banned, art was stolen and transferred to Germany and people started to disappear. Under the armistice of June 1940, the French were obliged to arrest and deport to

3195-403: The front lines, he was nevertheless in a position to observe the horrors of war. He saw its aftermath on the battle fields, the devastation of villages and the state of prisoners of war. He helped to bury the war dead in the region around Metz. While still enlisted after the War, he was posted successively to Seine-et-Oise, Verdun and Chalon-sur-Saône. He worked as a carpenter, a digger and later

3266-583: The institutions of the republic gave him " un sentiment de viol " ("a feeling of rape"). The British historian Ian Ousby wrote: Even today, when people who are not French or did not live through the Occupation look at photos of German soldiers marching down the Champs Élysées or of Gothic-lettered German signposts outside the great landmarks of Paris, they can still feel a slight shock of disbelief. The scenes look not just unreal, but almost deliberately surreal, as if

3337-572: The new Armée secrète , which grouped together the MUR's military wings. Moulin left London on 21 March 1943, with orders to unify the French resistance by forming the National Resistance Council ( Conseil national de la Résistance ); CNR). Again, this was a difficult task since the other resistance movements, besides the three already in the MUR, wanted to retain their independence. Moulin succeeded in this task by obtaining unanimous adoption of

3408-618: The newspaper Le Rire under the pseudonym Romanin . He also illustrated books by the Breton poet Tristan Corbière , including an etching for La Pastorale de Conlie , Corbière's poem about Camp Conlie where many Boon soldiers died in 1870 during the Franco-Prussian War . He also made friends with the Breton poets Saint-Pol-Roux in Camaret and Max Jacob in Quimper . In 1932, Pierre Cot ,

3479-457: The occupation became increasingly unbearable. Regulations, censorship, propaganda and nightly curfews all played a role in establishing an atmosphere of fear and repression. French women consorting with German soldiers angered many French men, though often the women had to do so to acquire food for themselves and their families. As reprisals for Resistance activities, the authorities established harsh forms of collective punishment . For example,

3550-732: The office and chose to remain under Cot. In the first half of April, Moulin was appointed to the Seine préfecture and, on 1 July, he took his place as secretary general in Somme , in Amiens . In 1936, he was once more named chief of cabinet of Cot's Air Ministry of the Popular Front. In that capacity, Moulin was involved in Cot's efforts to assist the Second Spanish Republic by sending it planes and pilots. For

3621-555: The prefectural administration as chief of staff to the deputy of Savoie in 1922 and then sous-préfet of Albertville from 1925 to 1930. After his proposal of marriage to Jeanette Auran was rejected, Moulin, then aged 27, married a 19-year-old professional singer, Marguerite Cerruti, in the town of Betton-Bettonet in September 1926. The marriage did not last long. Cerruti quickly became bored and Moulin responded by offering her further singing lessons in Paris, where she disappeared for two days. Biographer Patrick Marnham cites one of

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3692-401: The resistance who could have provided a first hand account of what happened died during the War. Furthermore, internecine tensions within the resistance movement are well documented and have left fertile ground for speculation about who within the movement might have provided the information to the Gestapo. Regarding Moulin's arrest, suspicions have focused on resistance member René Hardy , who

3763-464: The restoration of universal suffrage, liberty of the press, the right to unionise and social security. The first meeting of the CNR took place in Paris on 27 May 1943. The meeting was attended by representatives of eight resistance movements, two major labour unions and the six most important political parties of the Third Republic . This show of unity consolidated the position of de Gaulle vis-à-vis

3834-462: The skin, breaking the bones in his wrists. He was beaten until his face was unrecognizable and he fell into a coma. After the torture sessions, Barbie ordered that Moulin be displayed as an object lesson to other imprisoned members of the Resistance. The last time he was seen alive he was still in a coma, his head swollen and yellow from bruising and wrapped in bandages, according to the description given by Christian Pineau, fellow prisoner and member of

3905-554: The total population. The French Resistance played a significant role in facilitating the Allies' rapid advance through France following the invasion of Normandy on 6 June 1944. Members provided military intelligence on German defences known as the Atlantic Wall , and on Wehrmacht deployments and orders of battle for the Allies' invasion of Provence on 15 August. The Resistance also planned, coordinated, and executed sabotage acts on electrical power grids, transport facilities, and telecommunications networks. The Resistance's work

3976-472: The transfer site by André Malraux , a writer and cabinet minister, is one of the most famous speeches in French history. France's French education curriculum commemorates Moulin as a symbol of the French resistance and a model of civic virtue, moral rectitude and patriotism. As of 2015, Jean Moulin was the fifth most popular name for a French school, and as of 2016 his is the third most popular French street name of which 98 percent are male. Lyon 3 university and

4047-429: The unexpected conjunction of German and French, French and German, was the result of a Dada prank and not the sober record of history. This shock is merely a distant echo of what the French underwent in 1940: seeing a familiar landscape transformed by the addition of the unfamiliar, living among everyday sights suddenly made bizarre, no longer feeling at home in places they had known all their lives." Ousby wrote that by

4118-476: Was Théophile Steinlen . His illustrations were biting caricatures of the political "jackasses" of the day. Illustrations were contributed by artists such as Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec , Georges Goursat , René Georges Hermann-Paul , Juan Gris , Lucien Metivet , Georges Meunier, Jean-Louis Forain , Adolphe Willette , Joaquín Xaudaró , Leonetto Cappiello , Albert Guillaume , Manuel Luque , Jules Grandjouan , Abel Faivre , and Jules-Alexandre Grun . During

4189-860: Was a collection of groups that fought the Nazi occupation and the collaborationist Vichy regime in France during the Second World War . Resistance cells were small groups of armed men and women (called the Maquis in rural areas) who conducted guerrilla warfare and published underground newspapers . They also provided first-hand intelligence information, and escape networks that helped Allied soldiers and airmen trapped behind Axis lines. The Resistance's men and women came from many parts of French society, including émigrés , academics, students, aristocrats , conservative Roman Catholics (including clergy), Protestants , Jews , Muslims , liberals , anarchists , communists , and some fascists . The proportion of French people who participated in organized resistance has been estimated at from one to three percent of

4260-424: Was a time in which French governance was frequently characterized by corruption and mismanagement. Government ministers and military officials became frequent targets. The satirical journal was filled with excellent drawings by prominent artists. It featured full-page chromotypographs on both covers and in the centerfold. Many of these pieces are now highly desirable collectibles . The most prominent contributor

4331-502: Was aided by his private administrative assistant , Laure Diebold . On 21 June 1943, Moulin was arrested while holding a meeting with fellow Resistance leaders in the home of Dr. Frédéric Dugoujon in Caluire-et-Cuire , a suburb of Lyon , as were Dugoujon, Henri Aubry (alias Avricourt and Thomas), Raymond Aubrac , Bruno Larat (alias Xavier-Laurent Parisot), André Lassagne (alias Lombard), Colonel Albert Lacaze and Colonel Émile Schwarzfeld (alias Blumstein). René Hardy (alias Didot),

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4402-403: Was an average student. In 1917, he enrolled at the Faculty of Law of Montpellier, where he was not a brilliant student. However, thanks to the influence of his father, he was appointed as attaché to the cabinet of the prefect of Hérault under the presidency of Raymond Poincaré . Moulin was mobilised on 17 April 1918 as part of the age class of 1919, the last class to be mobilised in France. He

4473-473: Was arrested by the Gestapo at the house in Caluire-et-Cuire , but who either escaped or was allowed to flee. In two post-war trials that examined his alleged role in the arrest, Hardy was acquitted for lack of evidence. Communists have also been the target of allegations, though no hard evidence has ever backed up that claim. Marnham looked into these assertions but found no evidence to support them (although Communist Party members could easily have seen Moulin as

4544-420: Was assigned to the 2nd Engineer Regiment of Montpellier. At the beginning of September, after an accelerated training, he headed with his regiment to the front in the Vosges, where he was posted in the village of Socourt. His regiment was preparing to go to the front lines as part of the attack planned by Foch for 13 November, but the Armistice was signed on 11 November. Although Moulin did not fight directly on

4615-423: Was established by two professors, Paul Rivet and the Russian émigré Boris Vildé in July 1940. Jean Cassou also organized a resistance group in Paris that month and a liberal Catholic law professor François de Menthon founded the group Liberté in Lyon. Le Rire The Dreyfus Affair occurred in 1894 and Le Rire was one of many publications to tap anti-Republican sentiment in wake of that scandal. It

4686-428: Was politically and morally important to France during and after the German occupation. The actions of the Resistance contrasted with the collaborationism of the Vichy régime. After the Allied landings in Normandy and Provence, the paramilitary components of the Resistance formed a hierarchy of operational units known as the French Forces of the Interior (FFI) with around 100,000 fighters in June 1944. By October 1944,

4757-487: Was received on 24 October by Charles de Gaulle , who wrote about Moulin, "A great man. Great in every way". Moulin summarised the state of the French Resistance to de Gaulle. Part of the Resistance considered him too ambitious, but de Gaulle had confidence in his network and skills. He gave Moulin the assignment of co-ordinating and unifying the various Resistance groups, a difficult mission that would take time and effort to accomplish. On 1 January 1942, Moulin parachuted into

4828-512: Was set forth in a document called the 'Program of the National Council of the Resistance.' Adopted on March 15, 1944,: the Program is a text of fewer than ten pages. It consists of two parts: an "immediate action plan", which concerns resistance action prior to the Liberation of France. The second part describes "measures to be applied after the territory is liberated", a kind of government program describing how Nazi influence should be purged from French society as well as longer-term measures, such as

4899-455: Was somehow less culpable than the supposed traitors who tipped him off. The British intelligence officer Peter Wright , in his 1987 book Spy Catcher , wrote that Pierre Cot was an "active Russian agent" and called his protégé Moulin a "dedicated Communist". Clinton wrote that Wright based his allegations against Moulin entirely on secret documents that he claimed to have seen but which no historian has ever seen, and on conversations that he

4970-506: Was that because de Gaulle had agreed to co-operate with the Communists during the war, all of which was Moulin's work, he had set France on the wrong course and led to him granting Algeria independence in 1962, instead of keeping Algeria in France. It has also been suggested, principally in Marnham's biography, that Moulin was betrayed by communists. Marnham points the finger specifically at Raymond Aubrac and possibly his wife, Lucie. He alleges that communists at times betrayed non-communists to

5041-413: Was tortured by Klaus Barbie , head of the Gestapo in Lyon and, later, briefly in Paris . According to witnesses, Moulin and his men had their fingernails removed using hot needles as spatulas. In addition, his fingers were placed in the door frame of the interrogation cell, with the door then repeatedly closed until his knuckles were shattered. They increasingly tightened his handcuffs until they penetrated

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