Editing Jean Moulin (section)

==Experience as prefect during the early part of World War II==
[[File:Affiche Préfet Jean Moulin Eure et Loir .img.jpg|thumb|Public notice signed by Jean Moulin, urging the population of Eure-et-Loire department to be calm in the face of the German invasion.]]
In January 1939, Moulin was appointed prefect of the [[Eure-et-Loir]] department, based in [[Chartres]]. After war against Germany was declared, he asked multiple times to be demoted because "[his] place is not at the rear, at the head of a rural departement".<ref>Francis Zamponi, Nelly Bouveret et Daniel Allary, ''Jean Moulin : mémoires d'un homme sans voix'', Éditions du Chêne, 1999, 144 p. ({{ISBN|2-842772407}}).</ref><ref name=Johnson>[https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2002-sep-01-bk-johnson1-story.html Johnson, Douglas. "The Mystery of Jean Moulin"], ''Los Angeles Times'', 1 September 2002.</ref> Against the advice of the [[Minister of the Interior (France)|Minister of the Interior]], he asked to be transferred to the military school of [[Issy-Les-Moulineaux]], near Paris. The minister forced him to return to Chartres, where the War quickly made its way to him in the form of German air strikes and columns of distressed and sometimes wounded refugees. As the Germans approached Chartres, he wrote to his parents, "If the Germans – who are capable of anything –  make me say dishonorable words, you already know, it is not the truth".<ref>Francis Zamponi, Bouveret et Allary 1999, p. 75.</ref> In mid-June, German troops entered Chartres.<ref name=":1">{{Cite book|last=Moulin|first=Laure|title=Jean Moulin|publisher=Presses de la Cité|year=1982|isbn=2-258-01120-5|location=Paris|pages=151–173}}</ref>
[[File:Saint-Georges-sur-Eure La Taye cabanon Jean Moulin Eure-et-Loir (France).jpg|alt=|left|thumb|House where Moulin was tortured in La Taye, Saint-Georges-sur-Eure in the Eure-et-Loire department.]]
Moulin was arrested by the Germans on 17 June 1940 because he refused to sign a false declaration that three Senegalese ''tirailleurs'' had committed atrocities, killing civilians in La Taye. In fact, those civilians had been killed by German bombings.<ref>Raffael Scheck, Une saison noire : Les massacres de tirailleurs sénégalais, mai–juin 1940, Editions Tallandier, 2007, p. 121.</ref><ref>{{Cite web | url=https://www.defensemedianetwork.com/stories/the-death-of-jean-moulin-the-french-resistance-gets-its-greatest-martyr/ |title = The Death of Jean Moulin: The French Resistance Gets Its Greatest Martyr}}</ref>

Beaten and imprisoned because he refused to comply, Moulin attempted suicide by cutting his own throat with a piece of broken glass. This act left him with a scar he would often hide with a scarf, giving us the image of Jean Moulin by which he often is remembered today.{{Citation needed|date=December 2023}} The suicide attempt did not succeed because he was discovered by a guard and taken to a hospital for treatment.<ref name="Clinton, Alan page 91">Clinton, Alan ''Jean Moulin, 1899–1943 The French Resistance and the Republic'', London: Macmillan, 2002, p. 91.</ref><ref>[https://books.google.ie/books?isbn=1483636445 The Devil's Agent: Life, Times and Crimes of Nazi Klaus Barbie] ''books.google.ie'', accessed 21 November 2020</ref>

Because he was a [[Radical Party (France)|Radical]], he was dismissed by the [[Vichy regime]], led by Marshal [[Philippe Pétain]] on 2 November 1940,<ref>{{Cite web | url=https://jeanmoulin.fr/Chronologie | title=Jean Moulin – Artiste, Préfet, Résistant – le site de sa famille – Chronologie}}</ref><ref name="chemins" /> along with other left-wing préfets. He then began writing his diary, First Battle, in which he relates his resistance against the Nazis in Chartres, which was later published at the [[Liberation of France|Liberation]] and prefaced by de Gaulle.