The French Resistance was a collection of organizations that fought the Nazi occupation of France and the collaborationist Vichy régime in France during the Second World War. Resistance cells were small groups of armed men and women 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 enemy lines. The Resistance's men and women came from many different parts of French society, including émigrés, academics, students, aristocrats, conservative Roman Catholics, Protestants, Jews, Muslims, liberals, anarchists, communists, and some fascists. The number of French people participating in the organized resistance is estimated at from one to three percent of the total population.
The National Front for an Independent France, better known simply as National Front was a World War II French Resistance movement created to unite all of the Resistance Organizations together to fight the Nazi occupation forces and Vichy France under Marshall Pétain.
Lucie Samuel, born Lucie Bernard, and better known as Lucie Aubrac, was a French history teacher and member of the French Resistance during World War II. In 1938, she earned an agrégation of history, and in 1939 she married Raymond Samuel, who became known as Raymond Aubrac during the war.
Emmanuel d'Astier de La Vigerie was a French journalist, politician and member of the French Resistance.
France Soir was a French newspaper that prospered in physical format during the 1950s and 1960s, reaching a circulation of 1.5 million in the 1950s. It declined rapidly under various owners and was relaunched as a populist tabloid in 2006. However, the company went bankrupt on 23 July 2012, before re-emerging as an online-only media in 2016. In 2020, according to NewsGuard, this media "fails to adhere to several basic journalistic standards".
The Francist Movement was a French Fascist and anti-semitic league created by Marcel Bucard in September 1933 that edited the newspaper Le Francisme. Mouvement franciste reached a membership of 10,000 and was financed by the Italian dictator, Benito Mussolini. Its members were deemed the francistes or Chemises bleues (Blueshirts) and gave the Roman salute.
Jean Cavaillès was a French philosopher and logician who specialized in philosophy of mathematics and philosophy of science. He took part in the French Resistance within the Libération movement and was arrested by the Gestapo on 17 February 1944 and shot on 4 April 1944.
Combat was a French newspaper created during the Second World War. It was founded in 1941 as a clandestine newspaper of the French Resistance.
Défense de la France was an underground newspaper produced by a group of the French Resistance during World War II.
Marie-Claude Vaillant-Couturier was a member of the French Resistance as well as a photojournalist, Communist and later, French politician.
Libération-sud was a resistance group active between 1940-1944 and created in the Free Zone of France during the Second World War in order to fight against the Nazi occupation through coordinated sabotage and propaganda operations.
Franc-Tireur was a French Resistance movement founded at Lyon in November 1940 under the name "France Liberté". It was renamed "Franc-Tireur" in December 1941 on the proposal of Jean-Jacques Soudeille.
Les Lettres Françaises is a French literary publication, founded in 1941 by writers Jacques Decour and Jean Paulhan. Originally a clandestine magazine of the French Resistance in German-occupied territory, it was one of the many publications of the National Front resistance movement. It received contributions from Louis Aragon, François Mauriac, Claude Morgan, Édith Thomas, Georges Limbour, Raymond Queneau and Jean Lescure.
Libération-Nord ("Liberation-North") was one of the principal resistance movements in the northern occupied zone of France during the Second World War.
The Voice of the Belgians was a bi-monthly clandestine newspaper published by the Belgian National Movement (MNB) during the German occupation in World War II. In total, 41 issues were published.
During World War II, La Libre Belgique was one of the most notable underground newspapers published in German-occupied Belgium. This was partly a result of the success of a newspaper with the same title that had been produced in German-occupied Belgium during World War I. Though a number of editions appeared in 1940 and 1941, the most enduring La Libre Belgique published during the World War II was the so-called "Peter Pan" edition which ran to 85 issues with a circulation of 10,000 to 30,000 each.
Various kinds of clandestine media emerged under German occupation during World War II. By 1942, Nazi Germany occupied much of continental Europe. The widespread German occupation saw the fall of public media systems in France, Belgium, Poland, Norway, Czechoslovakia, Northern Greece, and the Netherlands. All press systems were put under the ultimate control of Joseph Goebbels, the German Minister of Propaganda.
The clandestine press of the French Resistance was collectively responsible for printing flyers, broadsheets, newspapers, and even books in secret in France during the German occupation of France in the Second World War. The secret press was used to disseminate the ideas of the French Resistance in cooperation with the Free French, and played an important role in the liberation of France and in the history of French journalism, particularly during the 1944 Freedom of the Press Ordinances.
René Parodi was a French magistrate, member of the French resistance and publisher of an underground newspaper during World War II. He was reported as hanged after torture and imprisonment by the Gestapo.
