Editing French Resistance (section)

===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}}