The French at War, 1934-1944 by Nicholas Atkin

Author:Nicholas Atkin [Atkin, Nicholas]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Europe, France, Military, World War II, General
ISBN: 9781317878926
Google: AVwSBAAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2014-07-22T16:06:24+00:00

Metropolitan Movements

In their analysis of resistance within France, historians have drawn three broad conclusions. First, it is clear that the different nature of the two zones had a profound effect on the emergence of protest. Because of the German presence, those organisations that emerged in Occupied France tended to be smaller and more fragile than their counterparts in the south. Second, historians have established that it was difficult for resistance to operate across both zones. The only grouping to achieve this with any great success was the Communist-dominated Front National, which boasted another unique characteristic in that it was the sole movement to be linked specifically to a political party. This has led to a third observation. While most partisan groups were not ostensibly linked to political parties, they did recruit among existing networks of friends and work colleagues.

These points are evident in the groupings that first appeared in the Occupied zone. As Jean-François Muracciole observes, these included Musée de l’Homme, the brainchild of the Parisian academics Anatole Lewitsky, Yvonne Oddon and Boris Vildé; Avocats Socialistes, the work of the lawyers André Weil-Curiel, Léon-Maurice Nordmann and Jubineau; La Quatrième République, the inspiration of Socialists in Roubaix; and the conservative-orientated Défense de la France, founded in the cellars of the Sorbonne by the students Philippe Viannay and Robert Salmon (Muracciole, 1996) [Doc. 22]. Such precarious groupings came to be eclipsed by the four principal movements in the north: Ceux de la Résistance (CDLR), Ceux de la Libération (CDLL), Organisation Civile et Militaire (OCM) and Libération Nord. Established in 1942 by the civil servant Jacques Lecompte-Boinet, the CDLR included members of the Paris-based haute bourgeoisie, notably the industrialist, Jean de Vogüé, yet the majority stemmed from outside the capital and were of varied political outlooks (Gordon, 1998: 59-60). This was not true of the CDLL, created in August 1940 by Maurice Ripoche, a First World War flying ace and prominent engineer. Several of its members originated from the extreme rightist PSF and the movement soon found itself in difficulties because of its early antisemitism, a stance it quickly repudiated. Occasionally, the virulence of such views among the Resistance raises eyebrows, but it should be stressed that Vichy did not have a monopoly over prejudice, and it was not uncommon to find right and left alongside one another in underground organisations. Antisemitism was also an initial characteristic of the OCM, established in 1940 by Colonel Heurtaux, a former intelligence officer, who grouped around him several middle-ranking military personnel. The movement quickly dropped its racism, but remained conservative in its general orientation. By contrast Libération Nord, the biggest of the northern-based groupings, founded in November 1941 by Christian Pineau, drew together non-Communist trade union representatives from both the CGT and the Christian Democrat CFTC, and adopted a decidedly syndicalist platform (Sadoun, 1982).

Many resistance organisations also emerged in the south. Among the smaller of these, Muracciole cites the following: L’Insurgé, a newspaper created by Lyon Socialists; Libérer et Fédérer, founded in Toulouse by Silvio Trentin,

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