page_title: French Resistance
section_title: Nazi occupation
hierarchical_section_title: French Resistance / Nazi occupation
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: Vassieux-en-Vercors, France, mémorial de la résistance English: Vassieux-en-Vercors, France, in memoriam to the French Resistance
context_page_description: The French Resistance was the collection of French movements that fought against the Nazi German occupation of France and the collaborationist Vichy régime during the Second World War. Resistance cells were small groups of armed men and women, who, in addition to their guerrilla warfare activities, were also publishers of underground newspapers, providers of first-hand intelligence information, and maintainers of escape networks that helped Allied soldiers and airmen trapped behind enemy lines. The men and women of the Resistance came from all economic levels and political leanings of French society, including émigrés, academics, students, aristocrats, conservative Roman Catholics, Jews, liberals, anarchists and communists.
  The French Resistance played a significant role in facilitating the Allies' rapid advance through France following the invasion of Normandy on 6 June 1944, and the lesser-known invasion of Provence on 15 August, by providing military intelligence on the German defences known as the Atlantic Wall and on Wehrmacht deployments and orders of battle.
context_section_description: Following the Battle of France and the second French-German armistice, signed near Compiègne on 22 June 1940, life for many in France continued more or less normally at first, but soon the German occupation authorities and the collaborationist Vichy régime began to employ increasingly brutal and intimidating tactics to ensure the submission of the French population. Although the majority of civilians neither collaborated nor overtly resisted, the occupation of French territory and the Germans' draconian policies inspired a discontented minority to form paramilitary groups dedicated to both active and passive resistance.
  One of the conditions of the armistice was that the French pay for their own occupation; that is, the French were required to cover the expenses associated with the upkeep of a 300,000-strong army of occupation. This burden amounted to about 20 million German Reichsmarks per day, a sum that, in May 1940, was approximately equivalent to four hundred million French francs. (The artificial exchange rate of the Reichsmark versus the franc had been established as one mark to twenty francs.)
  Because of this overvaluation of German currency, the occupiers were able to make seemingly fair and honest requisitions and purchases while, in effect, operating a system of organized plunder. Prices soared, leading to widespread food shortages and malnutrition, particularly among children, the elderly, and members of the working class engaged in physical labour. Labour shortages also plagued the French economy because hundreds of thousands of French workers were requisitioned and transferred to Germany for compulsory labour under the Service du Travail Obligatoire (STO).
  The labour shortage was worsened by the fact that a large number of the French were also held as prisoners of war in Germany. Beyond these hardships and dislocations, the occupation became increasingly unbearable. Onerous regulations, strict censorship, incessant propaganda and nightly curfews all played a role in establishing an atmosphere of fear and repression. The sight of French women consorting with German soldiers infuriated many French men, but sometimes it was the only way they could get adequate food for their families.
  As reprisals for Resistance activities, the authorities established harsh forms of collective punishment. For example, the increasing militancy of communist resistance in August 1941 led to the taking of thousands of hostages from the general population. A typical policy statement read, "After each further incident, a number, reflecting the seriousness of the crime, shall be shot." 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), to combat the Resistance. They worked alongside German forces that, by the end of 1942, were stationed throughout France. The group collaborated closely with the Nazis, and was the Vichy equivalent of 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. Many of those who escaped arrest fled to Germany, where they were incorporated into the Charlemagne Division of the Waffen SS.
caption: The cemetery and memorial in Vassieux-en-Vercors where, in July 1944, German Wehrmacht forces executed more than 200 persons, including women and children, in reprisal for the Maquis's armed resistance.[10][11] The town was later awarded the Ordre de la Libération.[12]
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