French Resistance

The French Resistance is the name used for resistance movements that fought military occupation of France by Nazi Germany and the Vichy France undemocratic regime during World War II after the government and the high command of France surrendered in 1940. Resistance groups included groups of armed men (usually referred to as the maquis), publishers of underground newspapers or even cinematography and escape networks that helped allied soldiers. French Resistance cooperated with Allied secret services (see Special Operations Executive), especially in providing intelligence on the Atlantic Wall and coordinating sabotages and other actions to contribute to the success of Operation Overlord.

List of groups

Groups include:

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• Conseil National de la Résistance (CNR - Clandestine central underground committee, organised by Jean Moulin, to coordonate every inland resistance groups, with patriotic political parties, and syndicates). CNR supported de Gaulle against Giraud for the unification of the French Empire forces, under the authority of Comité français de la Liberation nationale (CFLN), in Algiers
• Agir
• Armée Secrète (AS or Secret Army) - Gaullist resistance group of Charles Delestraint.
• Bureau d'Opérations Aériennes (BOA) - Service for arranging clandestine air operations in northern France.
• Carte. A putative organisation conceived by André Girard.
• Ceux de la Resistance
• Ceux de la Libération
• Combat - Formed 1942 by Henri Frenay. Group was moderate left-wing and concentrated on sabotage and counterpropaganda. It published an underground newspaper Combat that was printed in Lyon and distributed in Paris. Group's most famous members were Albert Camus and Jean-Paul Sartre and later Georges Bidault. (Combat paper was privatized in 1949 and became the usual commercial newspaper.)
• Combat Zone Nord
• Comité d'Action Socialiste (CAS) - Founded in January 1941 by Daniel Mayer, member of the French Socialist Party. Later it was led by a bookshop keeper Pierre Brossolette in Paris.
• Comité Départemental de Libération (CDL or Departmental Liberation Committee)
• Comité de libération du cinéma français (French Committee of Cinematography Liberation)
• Confrérie Notre-Dame
• Défense de la France - Group of students of Sorbonne University that begun to produce an underground newspaper of the same name. First printing at August 1941 was 15.000. Paper survived through the occupation. Group also had espionage and escape network and produced false ID papers for resistance members. In the end it had close contacts with the maquis.
• Francs-Tireurs et Partisans (Français) (FTP or FTPF) - Formed by French Communist Party and ended up as the military wing of Front National (see below).
• Francs-Tireurs et Partisans de la Main d'Oeuvre Immigrée (FTP-MOI) - Originally communist. Mostly composed of foreigners. In contrast with maquis this group was doing urban guerrilla. See Manouchian, Affiche Rouge
• Francs-Tireur Left-wing group formed by Jean-Pierre Lévy in Lyon in 1941. In December 1941 they began to publish Le Franc-Tireur underground newspaper. There were also members in the Mediterranean area.
• Front National (FN or National Front) - Group founded by members of the French Communist Party in May 1942. Leader Pierre Villon (Not to be confused with the current far-right wing party Front National)
• Interallié - Intelligence organization of Roman Sziarnowski and Mathilde Carre. Crushed 1942.
• Liberation-Nord
• Liberation-sud One of the first groups founded by Emmanuel d'Astier, Lucie Aubrac and Raymond Aubrac. It published an underground paper Libération with the support of remnants of socialist party.
• Musée de L'Homme Another Parisian clandestine newspaper group. It also transmitted political and military information to Britain and helped to hide escaped Allied POWs. Vichy agent infiltrated the group and most members were arrested and many executed.
• Organisation Civile et Militaire (OCM or Civil and Military Organization). Founded by colonel Alfred Touny in April 1942. He was killed with 12 others in Arras two years later.
• Organisation de la Résistance de l'Armée (ORA or Organization of Armed Resistance) - Giraudist, i.e., composed of supporters of French general Henri Giraud. François Mitterrand joined it 1943.

There were other resistance groups like Liberté and Verité (that merged with Combat) and Gloria SMH (that was betrayed). Later Combat, Franc-Tireur and Libération formed Mouvements Unis de la Résistance (MUR) which also had armed bands of its own.

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