French Resistance
The French Resistance: a diverse movement of armed men and women who fought Nazi occupation and Vichy collaboration during World War II.
The French Resistance was a resistance movement made of a collection of different revolutionary groups that fought the Nazi occupation and the collaborationist Vichy regime in France during the Second World War.
Quick Facts
- Affiliation
- French Resistance; Free France
- Role
- Playable faction (player avatar)
- First appears
- Medal of Honor: Allied Assault (2002)
- Developer (debut title)
- 2015, Inc.
- Publisher (debut title)
- Electronic Arts
- Setting
- German-occupied France, World War II
Lore & Background
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 the French people who participated in organized resistance has been estimated at from one to three percent of the total population. The French Resistance played a significant role in facilitating the Allies' rapid advance through France following the landings in 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 Allied landings in 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 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, 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.
Reader's Guide
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 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 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 the Charlemagne Division of the Waffen SS.
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