Talk:French Resistance

Also, the 1964 film "The Train" needs to be included in the section about the French Resistance in the cinema. A review can be found at http://www.channel4.com/film/reviews/film.jsp?id=109515. --chainsfall 10:33 EST, 10 May 2007

This page needs review. I don't know enough about the subject to do it, but points to consider:

• Assembling into paragraphs and subtopics.
  • Done in the large, but would need some more work. David.Monniaux 03:02, 20 Apr 2004 (UTC)
• Needs NPOVing of the language.
• A fair assessment of the effectiveness of the Resistance - I know that they were the basis of many tales of derring-do (Nancy Wake for instance) but how much did they actually achieve in, say, ending the war sooner?

--Robert Merkel 11:18, 7 Aug 2003 (UTC)

For whoever decides to tackle this: the book Occupation by Ian Ousby is pretty good. -- Tarquin 12:02, 7 Aug 2003 (UTC)

See also Crusade in Europe by Dwight D. Eisenhower, I think there are mentions of the role of French Resistance. David.Monniaux 11:14, 17 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Corrected a few grammar mistakes. -- Chrism 17:21, 5 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Whoever updates this should probably start by reading Jackson, J: France, the dark years; 2001

I removed the "ironic" mention about Algeria and Indochina. I'm not sure it belongs here, and it was not much NPOV. David.Monniaux 03:02, 20 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Jean-Paul Sartre

Sartre never really joined a groups of resistance.Read Nathalie Sarraute opinion on Sartre " he just wrote one or two papers" on Vichy with friends and never publish the documents in the underground !

Sartre is not considered even nearly as a resistant, except maybe in the US where he was famous for describing the Liberation in Combat newspaper and was hailed as a hero. He is actually considered in France as one of the worst example of people jumping in the wagon at day D+1. Actually this article deserves the neutrality flag because it conveys so much the uneducated American view on the French resistance, with a clear "romantic" side.200.199.23.121 19:24, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Joseph Epstein- I added his name and surname because he was a commander of FTP in Paris in 1943, During his command he changed tactic of FTP group in Paris. I will try to write more about him. I'm going to write a short biography of Manouchian, Marcel Langer and article about FTP-MOI. I asked about advice. My plan is that after short introduction, I am going to write about action in which took a part polishmen. I borrowed from Silesian Library in Katowice books about participation of polishmen in french resistance. If I find any information about the other nationalities I will write it too. I would like to ask if people who take a part in writing article french resistance agree on this plan. If you have any suggestions on page history of french resistance

Jean Bruller If I have good memory he wrote memories. In his memories he wrote about his participation in resistance

Louis Aragon- AFter process of Manouchian Group he wrote poem "The red poster"

In french resistance took a part polishmen. They could be divide on five groups, 1 polishmen who settled in France in XIX century after collapsing of uprisings. 2 Polishmen from Westfalia- they were from this part of Poland who was taken by Prussia in 1795 they moved to Westfalia for work in mines and industry- who moved to France in 1919 after agreement between polish and french goverments. 3 Polish soldiers from international brigades. 4 Polishmen from Werhmacht and organisation of Todt- they were recruited to Werhmacht after annextion Wielkopolska, Kujawy, Silesia, Pomerania to germany in october 1939. 5 Soldiers from polish army which took a part in french campaign in my june 1940 and were interned by goverment of Vichy.

About books I think that good book for this article could be history of resistance which was written by Henri Michelet.

neutrality

Why is this article disputed? Stargoat 17:40, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Many Europeans believe that this is historical revisionism, and that the French Resistance was (a) numerically insignificant considering the huge population of France and (b) did not really achieve important victories to further the Allied cause. The lengths that the French have gone to outline the importance of this resistance movement cause suspicion of tampering with the true history of WWII. -- -=vyruss=- 03:35, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I don't see where is the problem did the article claim that the large majority of the French population was in the Resistance did it claim that they achieved major victories ?

Ericd 11:44, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Ditto for me. As for the "important victories", I refer you to Crusade in Europe by general Dwight Eisenhower; if I remember well, he mentioned that the French resistance, by coordinated sabotaging of the railways and other similar actions, hampered the German army's abilities to fight back the landing in Normandy. Of course, this does not mean that they single-handedly win victory; this means they played a role, not extremely important but not insignificant either, in the direction of victory. David.Monniaux 07:16, 23 Jan 2005 (UTC)

To give an idea of the role of the French resistance. The resistance destroyed 1800 railways targets before and after the D-day against 2400 destroyed by the Allied bombers. This needed less explosive than the load of a single Mosquito plane (by far not the largest bomber used by the Allied). Ericd 11:28, 23 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Is it comparable to other resistance movements? For instance, the Polish ZWZ-AK between January 1941 and July 30, 1944 destroyed 6 930 locomotives, damaged further 803, derailed 732 military transports, burnt or blew up 443, damaged 19 058 (not a typo!) railway cars, blew up 38 bridges... not to mention other sabotage actions (like for instance almost 5 000 damaged plane engines) and effects of open actions. Are there any exact numbers for the effects of the French resistance actions? Halibutt 12:16, Jan 23, 2005 (UTC)

Very good question. David.Monniaux 21:44, 23 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Perhaps somebody could offer external links would help show the actions of the French resistance in specific events and numbers. Then I think we can wrap this page up? -=vyruss=- 07:08, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)

In any case, if there are no better, precise arguments for the article being biased, I'll remove the bias tag. David.Monniaux 21:44, 23 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I think there's is no doubt that the Polish resistance movement was much more important that the French resistance. I think 350 000 persons vs. 100 000. However this doesnt't make this article NPOV biased IMO. Ericd 21:54, 23 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Some Frenchmen do tend to emphasize the resistance and belittle spread of Vichy France which has made some historians suspicious - not to mention many false resistants who have graved publicity. And they are hardly the only resistance fighters that might have misreported their feats. Personally I doubt that anobody actually kept any kind of precise count. Various groups and cells did not keep written records of their membership lest they fall into German hands, so there is no accurate numbers. For political purposes, communists claimed more martyrs in Paris than there were casualties in total.

However, I still find it hard to understand the reason for this POV tag; French resistance movements existed and comparing the damage they caused to feats of other resistance movements is not particularly relevant. Numbers of resisters in Denmark and Belgium were even smaller. Still I would not consider any of those more or less important. Polish resistance movement was definitely larger than the French one, but debating which is more important will probably cause lots of unnecessary and biased argument.

What the article does lack is references to various evaluations of stragetical importance of the French resistance.

One point; in the previous version I wrote that the term French Resistance is a name for all the resistance movements, when now the article begins "The French Resistance was the resistance movement". French Resistance was hardly a cooperative whole, despite of the contemporary and later gaullist and communist attempts to make it look like it. It was a mixmatch of various groups with their own methods and political ideologies and, in some cases, their own agendas.- Skysmith 10:26, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)

One factor is that, at least for a while, the Germans tried to "play it soft" in France, while they considered Poles to be some kind of inferior breed whose leadership was to be exterminated so that the population could be the servant of the Germans. Furthermore, initially, half of France was run by Vichy France, which, despite largely being a puppet regime, was not equivalent to direct German occupation. David.Monniaux 11:26, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Something that confuses me when the combat record of the FFI is discussed is that their combat service after liberation is almost never mentioned. They were not simply drafted into the regular army, they formed FFI battalions and brigades that fought alongside the French regular army for months before being finally merged into regular army units. Moreover, in the months leading up to D-Day, the Allies conserved the FFI's resources deliberately so that they could be used to maximum effect in support of conventional operations. W. B. Wilson 13:45, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

the truth is france is overlooked especially by the british and americans. there's not a single article about the battle of the maquis, and the liberation of paris is till regarded (in germany) as well as an US vs German battle which is REVIONISM. the americans came after the battle. Paris By Night 21:17, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

New Section

I'd suggest a new section itn the article with various historians viewpoints on the overall impact of the French Resistance. I don't think the article is POV as it stands- it just explains the French Resistance existed, a bit about what it did and how it was structured.

There is still a lot of debate about how much of an impact it had. After D-day, the resistance certainly played a role in the liberation of Paris etc. It also played and continues to play a very important psycological role for the French. It's hardly surprising the French people today want to remember the resistance more than Vichy. Maybe this also needs to be in the article.

Finally, most countries view of their own role in WW2 tends to be a bit biased. How many Americans or British people know that 80% of casualities inflicted on the Germany Army were inflicted by the Soviets?

---

We don't want to know this - like the French don't want to know that most of the French were collaborators and most of the resistance was commies.

To whoever posted the above comment, could you please put some sort of page break in. Your original post made it look like it was part of my larger post. I have to take issue with your assertion that "most" French people were collaborators. I think you'll find most French people just got on with their lives neither supporting nor fighting against the German occupation. You could argue that anything other than active resistance counts as collaboration, but that isn't the general meaning of collaboration.

Ditto with the above. By the way, the French know very well that a lot in the Résistance were Communists (following Germany's breaching the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact), because the French Communist Party based a lot of its post-war aura on this. Get your facts right before commenting. David.Monniaux 01:45, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

According to Urlanis, 20 000 Frenchmen died in the Resistance, while 40 to 50 thousand Frenchmen died while serving in the German army. Out of pre-war population of 40 million, the amount of resistance people killed is 0.05% . Other european resistance dead - in Poland - 33 thousand of 35 million (0.09%), in Yugoslavia - 300 thousand of 16 million (1.88%), in Albania - 29 thousand of 1 million (2.9%). As you can see, the proportion of people killed to total population in the Polish resistance is about 20 times less than in Yugoslavia and 30 times less than in Albania. The french did more to help the nazis, than they did to fight them. According to Alan Tailor - "Germans found enough fuel [in France] for the first grand campaign in Russia. Taking occupation fees from France allowed having an army of 18 million people" Ko Soi IX 16:03, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Not sure who "Urlanis" is, but figures provided by Ian Sumner in "The French Army 1939-1945 (2)" indicate the FFI losses were 24,000 and the German service losses were 38,000. Your comment, however, misses a key aspect. The 24,000 FFI dead were volunteers; the 38,000 dead in German service were overwhelmingly drafted into German military service as a consequence of Germany declaring that Alsace and Lorraine were German territories and their citizens were therefore German and subject to service in the Wehrmacht. The figure of 18 million sounds grossly inflated -- try less than 10 million, as documented in Table One on page 254 of Volume III of Burkhard Müller-Hillebrand's Das Heer 1933-1945 (Frankfurt am Main: E. S. Mittler & Sohn, 1969). And it should not be necessary to point out that Germany's military adventures were supported by plundered resources from many nations, not just France. W. B. Wilson 13:20, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

you are stupid, how could arrogant foreigners like you could know about underground groups that were secretly active during the german occupation. did anyone of you has ever heard about Operation Jedburgh and the french resistance in french indochina under japanese occupation? don't make me laugh you are ridiculous and fed with propaganda. wikipedia itselft is a powerfull tool of revisionsm based on a UK/US biaised view with most of its articles being translated from the english to other language and propagating the same UK/US nationalist propaganda and myth. Paris By Night 21:24, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Fourcade

I'm not up on wikipedia procedures, but there seems to be a lot mising from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Resistance

I can provide a biog of Marie-Madeleine Fourcade [a 'Marie Fourcade' is mentioned, but with no biog] - she was my godmother. I think I have one written by my father who was her controller. He was also indirectly SIS controller of Rémy's Confrèrie Notre-Dame [it is mentioned, but not him or his boss in what I guess we would now see as the rival Gaullist BCRA, Col Passy].

Incidentally it does not mention her group [reseau], probably the largest [Arche de Nöe/Noah's Ark] about which there is a book of that name respectively in French and English.

I guess one could add to this topic for ever, but I would not want to get into the larger picture, nor would I want biographical details which are accurate significantly altered except for style.

Huge amounts of material are now available from the BCRA archive in the Archives National in Paris and the NARA in Washington.

You are welcome to add material, if you can specify sources. If you can provide details for Ms Fourcade, you could include it into the article about her, Marie Fourcade (click this red link or the one on the page to start the new article) - Skysmith 11:32, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)

This Text

Was added by an anon. It looks like it could be of use, but it at least needs to be cleaned up.--Shanel 00:40, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

-(I HOPE THIS IS NOT OUT OF PLACE :)- French resistance in 1944, summary , Later that month the German Army began a campaign of repression throughout France. This included a policy of reprisals against civilians living in towns and villages close to the scene of attacks carried out by members of the French Resistance. As one official wrote on 15th April, 1944 that the authorities "wanted to strike fear into the population and change their opinion by showing them that the evils they were suffering were the direct consequence of the existence of the marquis and that they had made the mistake of tolerating them."

On 5th June, 1944, General Dwight D. Eisenhower asked the BBC sent out coded messages to the resistance asking them to carry out acts of resistance during the D-day landings in order to help Allied forces establish a beachhead on the Normandy coast.

This included attacks on the occupied garrisons in the towns of Tulle and Gueret. In revenge for the French attack on the German garrison 120 men were hanged in Tulle on 9th June. Later that day another 67 were murdered in Argenton.

These armed resistance groups were able to slow down the attempt by the 2nd SS Panzer Division to get to the Normandy beaches. It was decided to carry out a revenge attack that would frighten the French people into submission. On 10th June a group of soldiers led by Major Otto Dickmann, entered Oradour-sur-Glane, a village in the Haute-Vienne region of France. He ordered the execution of more than 600 men, women and children before setting fire to the village. --164.58.68.3 14:19, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

This is mostly accurate material IMO. Ericd 19:47, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

rv edits by 62.53.32.175 to last version by UkPaolo

62.53.32.175 has previously blanked this page; this time, it seems he removed much original content and replaced it with text from [1] Detritus 05:47, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Clean-up

I would like your thoughts on cleaning this up? ComputerJoe 21:01, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Review

The article covers the basics of the French Resistance movement in World War II, but it does so in an often scattered, haphazard manner. The introductory “Origins” section provides a coherent and well thought-out introduction to the topic. The article quickly degenerates, however, into a series of facts and lists, which lack a basic overall structure.

The author does not come across as trying to persuade the reader of a particular view of the Resistance. Instead he seems to be concerned with providing the basic historical facts of the movement. In the case of this article, this tactic has led to a fragmented gathering of lists (i.e. Risks Involved, List of Groups) and short paragraphs (i.e. Activities) with little connection to information preceding or following. Ironically, this does serve to highlight the rather fragmented nature of the Resistance movement itself, as the author has clearly struggled to weave a common thread through what were myriad cells operating for the most part independent of one another.

In addition to scattering random facts across the page the author fails to follow up on the facts that he does provide. He assumes familiarity with the key people involved and provides no information about who they are, or how they came to be involved with the Resistance. Given that this is an encyclopedia article in which one can click on the name of an individual and be taken to a page about that person, a full biography is not needed, but it would be nice to have some basic background information on important figures.

The “Origins” section of the article stands out as the most convincing and well-written section. Very quickly, however, it seems as if the author lost steam in the middle of the article and resorted to simple recitation of facts without any concern for a sense of narrative or even for a well flowing paper. By the end of the article one is less convinced of the validity of certain statements, owing to confusing sentence structure and grammatical errors, which suggests a certain carelessness in research and composition.

No sources are given, although there is a “further reading” list. If this is assumed to be a list of sources as well, it is adequate yet sparse. There are only two books listed, both of which are written in the not too distant past. They may well serve as authoritative sources, but it would be nice to see a few more texts used in the research as well.

Notably missing from the article is any analysis of the effectiveness of the French Resistance in World War II. There is no mention of the relative importance of the Resistance operations to the overall war effort. The reader is given no hint as to whether the movement was tactically effective or merely served to boost French moral. The author briefly mentions operations before and during D-Day, but does not indicate how big a role they played in the invasion or how important the Resistance was to the Allies.

Aside from the missing information about the effectiveness of the Resistance, the article does contain some useful, if basic, information. What it fails to do, however, is convey that information in a well thought-out, coherent manner. In general, the material is there, but it needs to be better organized.

Benz0519 19:51, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

quote : "On August 15th, 1941, Charles de Gaulle addressed the people of France from London."

obviously wrong. The first call for resistance from De Gaulle is named "Appel du 18 Juin" and took place on this date in 1940.

But was the Appeal of June 18 in fact a call for resistance action within France? It doesn't read that way; it reads as an appeal for military volunteers to join the Free French Forces and fight outside France. De Gaulle specifically calls on French soldiers to come to British territory and contact him. Was there another radio appeal in August 1941 where de Gaulle specifically asked for internal resistance? I don't know but I don't find that implausible. --Mathew5000 18:17, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

@Mathew The first call was effectively mainly addressed to military forces not yet seized by Germans, or located in france "empire". But it contains this seminal sentence : "Quoi qu'il arrive, la flamme de la résistance française ne doit pas s'éteindre et ne s'éteindra pas." which define the name and the spirit of a patriotic resistance movement whatever could be location or function of the listener. furthermor, on june 22, De Gaulle renew his message to french soldiers, engineers, & workers to refuse the Petain governement politic. This message end by : "j'invite tous les français qui veulent rester libres à m'écouter et a me suivre"

More factually, a simple look to the chronology shows noticeable events of resistance quite ahead of august 1941. 14 juillet 1940 : Fondation du mouvement de résistance parisien Les Amis d'Alain Fournier. 17 juillet 1940 : Parachutage du premier espion de la France Libre en Zone Occupée. 25 septembre 1940 : Premier tract du groupe du musée de l'Homme, groupe de résistants parisiens. 29 septembre 1940 : Constitution d’un groupe de résistants catholiques à Lyon sous la houlette de Emmanuel Mounier. octobre 1940 : Parution des premiers numéros des journaux de la résistance français tels Pantagruel, L'Université Libre, Notre Droit, Libre France, La Révolution française, En Captivité, L'Homme Libre. http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronologie_de_la_France_pendant_la_Seconde_Guerre_mondiale_(1940-1945)

Resistance is mainly a grass root movement, many people have acted by their way, without plan or directive at the beginning. So, giving a unique birth date for all branches is not relevant. For example most part of french communist stay iddle until Barbarossa offensive. But anyway, the firt acts of retaliation against the occupants, and the creation of clandestine networks take place immediately during spring and autumn 1940. And the De Gaulle address is the first Milestone of this movement. Cordially - Philippe Denis - Paris

I edited the "Origins" part of the article to quote the passage you mention from the Appeal of June 18. I'm still curious, however, about that date of August 15, 1941. --Mathew5000 17:56, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Supression

I have removed from the list Simone de Beauvoir, Mathilde Carre, André Gide, Simone Weil. fr:EdC

Odd

It seems odd that searching for "La Résistance" goes straight to some wrestling article rather than here. Shouldn't this be the primary "La Résistance" article? --Comrade Yev 03:19, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

This page is inconsistent with the page on Jean Moulin. This page claims:

the Gestapo captured resistance member René Hardy. Klaus Barbie tortured Moulin's whereabouts out of him and Moulin was arrested

However, that fact is suspect. The page on Jean Moulin claims:

René Hardy was caught and released by the Gestapo. They followed him when he came to the meeting at the doctor's house in Caluire, thus leading the Germans to Jean Moulin. Some believe that this was a deliberate act of treason; others think René Hardy was simply reckless.

Two trials were unable to determine that René Hardy was a traitor, and both concluded that he was innocent.

I don't know which is correct, but they should be consistent.--Bex 21:31, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

Renaming the article?

To "The legend of the French Resistance". Or possibly adding a section about how the de Gaulle goverment created this "legend"? :)

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I'd certainly be against renaming it. I don't know if you're comment was meant to be constructive, or just another jibe at the French, but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume it was well meant. If so, there could certainly be a place for a new entry, or a section in this one, on how the de Gaulle govt. used the romantic image of the resistance for their own ends and how a legend grew up around the resistance in order to negate some of the shame French people felt because of Vichy. However, renaming the article would suggest the resistance never existed, which is not just stupid, but also disrepecful to the thousands of French people who gave their lives fighting fascism. 217.196.239.189 14:05, 10 October 2006 (UTC) seanjw

The cross of Lorraine

What happened to The cross of Lorraine and why? S.dedalus 06:09, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

FFI

I am looking for a link to the FFI for the article Maurice Kriegel-Valrimont. Should I just link to this page? Or should there be a separate article explaining what FFI stands for? Also, I was going to add Kriegel-Valrimont to the list of notable resistance members. He was one of those accepting the German surrender in Paris. Would that be OK? Itsmejudith 23:46, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

For FFI, see French Forces of the Interior. Maurice KV is actually one of those accepting the German surrender in Paris. I do not like at all this stupid "list of notable persons" but you may add MKV to this list. He is actually a leader of the french resistance. --EdC2 16:16, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

'The Memory of the Resistance - The Legendary Myth'

What, exactly, does this section mean? It's very difficult to understand. RKernan 14:58, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

German Communists

My professor was talking about the involvement of Spanish Republicans and German Communists as being important backbone of the resistance. This article seems to focus a lot on "anti-German" which... should be clarified and something about German leftist groups forced out by the Nazis should be added. 128.175.83.176 20:41, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

what did they wear

Did the french resistance have a certain outfit that they wore, because from what I know I think they wore these long coats and berets, did all French resistance groups dress this way or am I wrong? Atomic45 06:56, 30 October 2007 (UTC)