Editing Free France (section)

=={{lang|fr|Forces Françaises Combattantes}} and National Council of the Resistance==
{{Main|French Resistance|National Council of the Resistance}}
[[File:Resistance.jpg|thumb|Picture of [[Jean Moulin]] and his iconic scarf. He was probably tortured to death by [[Klaus Barbie]] personally.]]

The [[French Resistance]] gradually grew in strength. General {{nowrap|de Gaulle}} set a plan to bring together [[List of networks and movements of the French Resistance|the fragmented groups]] under his leadership. He changed the name of his movement to "Fighting French Forces" (''Forces Françaises Combattantes'') and sent [[Jean Moulin]] back to France as his formal link to the irregulars throughout the occupied country to co-ordinate the eight major [[Résistance]] groups into one organisation. Moulin got their agreement to form the "National Council of the Resistance" (''Conseil National de la Résistance''). Moulin was eventually captured, and died under brutal torture by the [[Gestapo]].

De Gaulle's influence had also grown in France, and in 1942 one resistance leader called him "the only possible leader for the France that fights".<ref name="derochemont19420824">{{cite news |url = https://books.google.com/books?id=fk4EAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA92 |title = The French Underground |magazine = Life |date = 24 August 1942 |access-date = 20 November 2011 |last = deRochemont |first = Richard |page = 86 |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20160503004940/https://books.google.com/books?id=fk4EAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PA6&pg=PA92#v=onepage&f=true |archive-date = 3 May 2016 |url-status = live |df = dmy-all }}</ref> Other Gaullists, those who could not leave France (that is, the overwhelming majority of them), remained in the territories ruled by Vichy and the Axis occupation forces, building networks of propagandists, spies and [[sabotage|saboteurs]] to harass and discomfit the enemy.

Later, the Resistance was more formally referred to as the "[[French Forces of the Interior]]" (Forces Françaises de l'Intérieur, or FFI). From October 1944 – March 1945, many FFI units were amalgamated into the [[French Army]] to regularise the units.