Editing French Resistance (section)

==Activities==
[[File:Defense de la France.JPG|thumb|upright|The 30 September 1943 issue of the Resistance newspaper, ''[[Défense de la France]]'']]

===Economic resistance===
By June 1941, 81% of the miners employed by the national coal mining company, [[Charbonnages de France]], were on strike, slowing deliveries of coal to German industrial plants supporting the war effort.{{citation needed|date= January 2022}}

===Clandestine press===
{{Main|Clandestine press of the French Resistance}}

The first action of many Resistance movements was the publication and distribution of clandestine press material. This was not the case with all movements, since some refused civil action and preferred armed resistance by groups such as [[Ceux de la Résistance|CDLR]] and [[Ceux de la Libération|CDLL]]. Most clandestine newspapers were not consistent in their editorial stance and often consisted of only a single sheet, because the sale of all raw materials—paper, ink, stencils—was prohibited.

By 1942, however, about 300,000 copies of underground publications reached around two million readers. Resistance workers used friendly print-shop facilities at night. Staff risked the Germans noticing that a resistance newspaper used the same type face as officially sanctioned documents. Profession-specific newspapers also existed. ''Le Médecin Français'' advised doctors to immediately approve known collaborators for ''Service du travail obligatoire'' while medically disqualifying everyone else. ''La Terre'' advised farmers on how to send food to resistance members. ''Bulletin des Chemins de Fer'' encouraged railroad workers to sabotage German transportation. ''Unter Uns'' ("Among Us"), published in German for the occupiers, printed stories of German defeats on the [[Eastern Front (World War II)|Eastern Front]].{{Sfn|Breuer|2000|pp=131–134}}

In September 1940, [[Agnès Humbert]] and [[Jean Cassou]], then employed at the ''[[Musée national des Arts et Traditions Populaires (France)|Musée national des Arts et Traditions Populaires]]'' in Paris and finding they were to be replaced by German-approved staff, used a roneo machine belonging to the Museum to publish an open letter by [[Paul Rivet]] to Marshal Pétain. This was followed by their first tract, ''Vichy fait la guerre'' ("Vichy Wages War"), written by Cassou.{{Sfn|Humbert|2008|p=17}} At the end of 1940, a group of 10, including Humbert, Cassou, Marcel Abraham and [[Claude Aveline]] founded a clandestine newsletter called ''Résistance'', respecting and supporting De Gaulle but circumspect in references to "that ridiculous old fool Pétain".{{Sfn|Humbert|2008|p=23}} It ran to five issues before the arrest of the editors in March 1940.

In the northern zone, ''Pantagruel'', the newspaper of [[Franc-Tireur (movement)|Franc-Tireur]], had a circulation of 10,000 by June 1941 but was quickly replaced by ''Libération-Nord'' which attained a circulation of 50,000, and by January 1944 ''[[Défense de la France]]'' was distributing 450,000 copies.{{Sfn|Jackson|2003|p=480}} In the southern zone, [[François de Menthon]]'s newspaper ''Liberté'' merged with [[Henri Frenay]]'s ''Vérité'' to form [[Combat (newspaper)|Combat]] in December 1941, which grew to a circulation of 200,000 by 1944.{{Sfn|Weitz|1995|p=3}} During the same period ''Pantagruel'' brought out 37 issues, ''Libération-Sud'' 54 and ''Témoignage chrétien'' 15.

The underground press brought out books as well as newspapers through publishing houses, such as [[Les Éditions de Minuit]] (the Midnight Press),{{Sfn|Jackson|2003|p=405}} which had been set up to circumvent Vichy and German censorship. The 1942 novel ''[[Le Silence de la Mer]]'' ("The Silence of the Sea"), by [[Jean Bruller]], quickly became a symbol of mental resistance through its story of how an old man and his niece refused to speak to the German officer occupying their house.{{Sfn|Weitz|1995|pp=74–75}}{{Sfn|Jackson|2003|p=240}}

===Intelligence===
[[File:FTP-p012904.jpg|thumb|[[Francs-tireurs]] and Allied [[paratroopers]] reporting on the situation during the [[invasion of Normandy|Battle of Normandy]] in 1944.]]

The intelligence networks were by far the most numerous and substantial of Resistance activities. They collected information of military value, such as [[Coastal artillery|coastal fortifications]] of the [[Atlantic Wall]] or [[Wehrmacht]] deployments. The [[Bureau Central de Renseignements et d'Action|BCRA]] and the different British intelligence services often competed with one another to gather the most valuable information from their Resistance networks in France.{{Sfn|Crowdy|2007|p=12}}{{Sfn|Cookridge|1966|p=115}}

The first agents of the [[Free French Forces|Free French]] to arrive from Britain landed on the coast of [[Brittany]] as early as July 1940. They were Lieutenants Mansion, Saint-Jacques and Corvisart and [[Colonel Rémy]], and didn't hesitate to get in touch with the anti-Germans within the Vichy military such as [[Georges Loustaunau-Lacau]] and Georges Groussard.

The various Resistance movements in France had to understand the value of intelligence networks in order to be recognized or receive subsidies from the BCRA or the British. The intelligence service of the [[Franc-tireur|Francs-Tireurs et Partisans]] was known by the code letters FANA{{Sfn|Marshall|2001|p=38}} and headed by Georges Beyer, the brother-in-law of [[Charles Tillon]]. Information from such services was often used as a bargaining chip to qualify for airdrops of weapons.

The transmission of information was first done by radio transmitter. Later, when air links by the [[Westland Lysander]] became more frequent, some information was also channeled through these couriers. By 1944, the BCRA was receiving 1,000 telegrams by radio every day and 2,000 plans every week.{{Sfn|Moore|2000|p=135}} Many radio operators, called ''pianistes'', were located by German [[goniometer]]s. Their dangerous work gave them an average life expectancy of around six months.{{Sfn|Christofferson|Christofferson|2006|p=156}} Even children partook in radio work (see [[Eddy Palacci]]). According to the historian Jean-François Muracciole, "Throughout the war, how to communicate remained the principal difficulty of intelligence networks. Not only were the operators few and inept, but their information was dangerous."{{Sfn|Cointet|2000}}

===Sabotage===
[[File:B17-dropping-supplies-for-resistance.jpg|thumb|upright|[[USAAF]] [[B-17 Flying Fortress]]es dropping supplies to the [[Maquis du Vercors]] in 1944.]]

[[Sabotage]] was a form of resistance adopted by groups who wanted to go beyond just distributing clandestine press publications. Many laboratories were set up to manufacture explosives. In August 1941, the Parisian chemist [[France Bloch-Sérazin]] assembled a small laboratory in her apartment to provide explosives to communist Resistance fighters.{{Sfn|Crowdy|2007|p=45}} The lab also produced cyanide capsules to allow the fighters to evade torture if arrested.{{Sfn|Crowdy|2007|p=45}} Indeed, she herself was arrested in February 1942, tortured, and deported to [[Hamburg]] where she was beheaded by guillotine in February 1943. In the southern occupation zone, Jacques Renouvin engaged in the same activities on behalf of groups of [[francs-tireurs]].

Stealing dynamite from the Germans eventually took preference over handcrafting explosives. The British [[Special Operations Executive]] also parachuted tons of explosives to its agents in France for essential sabotage missions.{{Sfn|Marshall|2001|p=20}} The railways were a favorite target of saboteurs, who soon understood that removing bolts from the tracks was far more efficient than planting explosives.

[[Rail sabotage|Train-derailment strategies]] varied considerably in their effectiveness. The Germans managed to repair the tracks quickly in agricultural areas with level ground, since the salvage of some matériel was a relatively easy proposition in such terrain. But unbolting a connector plate on an outside rail in a mountainous area (given the higher speed of trains going downhill) could result in the derailment of an entire train with considerable amounts of front-ready matériel strewn far down the mountainside. Among the [[SNCF]] employees who joined the resistance, a subset were in [[Résistance-Fer|Resistance-Fer]] which focused on reporting the movement of German troops to the Allied forces and sabotaging the railways' rolling stock as well as their infrastructure. Following the invasions of [[Operation Overlord|Normandy]] and [[Operation Dragoon|Provence]] in 1944, the sabotage of rail transport became much more frequent and effectively prevented some German troop deployments to the front and hindered the subsequent retreat of German occupying forces.{{Sfn|Christofferson|Christofferson|2006|p=170}}

Generally, the sabotage of equipment leaving armaments factories and derailment in areas where equipment could not readily be salvaged was a more discreet form of resistance, and probably at least as effective as bombing. Sabotage by resistants freed up vulnerable and expensive aircraft for other uses rather than risk heavy losses by attacking heavily defended targets. It was also preferred since it caused less [[collateral damage]] and fewer civilian casualties than Allied bombing.{{Sfn|Crowdy|2007|p=47}}

===Guerrilla warfare===
[[File:SimoneSegouin.jpg|thumb|[[Simone Segouin]] in 1944]]
After the invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, communists engaged in [[guerrilla warfare]], attacking German forces in French cities. In July 1942, the Allies' failure to open a second front resulted in a wave of communist guerrilla attacks aimed at maximizing the number of Germans deployed in the West to give the USSR military relief.{{Sfn|Jackson|2003|p=424}}

The assassinations that took place during summer and autumn 1941, starting with Colonel [[Pierre-Georges Fabien]]'s shooting of a German officer in the [[Paris Métro]], caused fierce reprisals and executions of hundreds of French hostages. As a result, the clandestine press was very discreet about the events and the communists soon decided to discontinue the assassinations.

From July to October 1943, groups in Paris engaging in attacks against occupying soldiers were better organized. [[Joseph Epstein]] was assigned responsibility for training Resistance fighters across the city, and his new commandos of fifteen men perpetrated a number of attacks that could not have been carried out before. The commandos were drawn from the foreign branch of the [[Francs-Tireurs et Partisans]], and the most famous of them was the [[Missak Manouchian|Manouchian Group]].[[File:FFI Fighter.jpg|thumb|An FFI fighter]]