Francs - tireurs The term francs - tireurs ( , French for " free shooters " ) was used to describe irregular military formations deployed by France during the early stages of the Franco - Prussian War ( 1870 – 71 ) . The term was revived and used by partisans to name two major French Resistance movements set up to fight against the Germans during World War II . It is sometimes used to refer more generally to guerrilla fighters who operate outside the laws of war . Background . During the wars of the French Revolution , a " franc - tireur " was a member of a corps of light infantry organized separately from the regular army . The Spanish word " francotirador " and the Portuguese word " franco - atirador " , meaning sharpshooter or sniper , are derived from the word " franc - tireur " . Franco - Prussian War . Francs - tireurs were an outgrowth of rifle clubs or unofficial military societies formed in the east of France at the time of the Luxembourg crisis of 1867 ( " see History of Luxembourg " ) . The members were chiefly concerned with the practice of rifle - shooting . In case of war , they were expected to act as militia or light troops . They wore no uniform s , but they armed themselves with the best existing rifles , and elected their own officers . The 1911 " Encyclopædia Britannica " described them as " at once a valuable asset to the armed strength of France and a possible menace to internal order under military discipline . " The societies strenuously and effectively resisted all efforts to bring them under normal military discipline . The Germans executed captured " francs - tireurs " as irregular , armed non - combatants , essentially what also came to be called " guerrillas " . In July 1870 , at the outbreak of the Franco - Prussian War , the French Minister of War assumed control over the societies to organize them for field service . It was not until November 4 , by which time the " levée en masse " ( universal conscription ) was in force , that the militias were placed under the orders of the generals in the field . They were sometimes organized in large bodies and incorporated in the mass of the armies , but more usually they continued to work in small bands , blowing up culverts on the invaders ' lines of communication , cutting off small reconnaissance parties , surprising small posts , etc . The 1911 " Encyclopædia Britannica " describes it as " now acknowledged , even by the Germans " , that the " francs - tireurs " , by these relatively unconventional tactics , " paralysed large detachments of the enemy , contested every step of his advance ( as in the Loire campaign ) , and prevented him from gaining information , and that their soldierly qualities improved with experience . " " Francs - tireurs " blew up the Moselle railway bridge at Fontenoy , January 22 , 1871 . The defense of Châteaudun ( October 18 , 1870 ) was conducted by " francs - tireurs " of Cannes and Nantes , along with Lipowski ' s Paris corps . The German armies and popular press vilified the " francs - tireurs " as murderers and highwaymen ; the insurgents seemed to have a sense of the most vulnerable parts of the German armies in France . The Germans reacted to " francs - tireurs " ambushes with harsh reprisals against the nearest village or town , where they killed civilians . Whole regiments or divisions often took part in " pacifying actions " in areas with significant " franc - tireur " activity ; this created a lasting enmity and hatred between the occupying German soldiers and French civilians . World War I . The experiences of French guerrilla attacks and of the asymmetric warfare during the Franco - Prussian War had a profound effect on the German General Staff . During World War I , they carried out an unusually harsh and severe occupation of areas which they conquered . Hostages were regularly executed in response to reports of sniping in French and Belgian communities . The occupying German forces were reportedly very fearful of spontaneous civil resistance , which led to these arrests and executions , some of which were preemptory or at least before actual violent resistance . After the war , General Erich Ludendorff , Germany ' s chief military strategist and its commander - in - chief on the Western Front at the end of the war , tried to defend German behavior in his memoir published in 1919 , the two - volume " Meine Kriegserinnerungen , 1914 – 1918 " . It was published that same year in London by Hutchinson as " My War Memories , 1914 – 1918 " and in New York by Harper as " Ludendorff ' s Own Story , August 1914 – November 1918 " . In an article in the September 13 , 1919 issue of " Illustrated London News " , the writer G . K . Chesterton responded to Ludendorff ' s book by remarking : " It is astounding how clumsy Prussians are at this sort of thing . Ludendorff cannot be a fool , at any rate , at his own trade ; for his military measures were often very effective . But without being a fool when he effects his measures , he becomes a most lurid and lamentable fool when he justifies them . For in fact he could not have chosen a more unfortunate example . A franc - tireur is emphatically not a person whose warfare is bound to disgust any soldier . He is emphatically not a type about which a general soldierly spirit feels any bitterness . He is not a perfidious or barbarous or fantastically fiendish foe . On the contrary , a " franc - tireur " is generally a man for whom any generous soldier would be sorry , as he would for an honourable prisoner of war . What is a " franc - tireur " ? A " franc - tireur " is a free man , who fights to defend his own farm or family against foreign aggressors , but who does not happen to possess certain badges and articles of clothing catalogued by Prussia in 1870 . In other words , a " franc - tireur " is you or I or any other healthy man who found himself , when attacked , in accidental possession of a gun or pistol , and not in accidental possession of a particular cap or a particular pair of trousers . The distinction is not a moral distinction at all , but a crude and recent official distinction made by the militarism of Potsdam . " World War II . Two major Résistance groups adopted the name " Franc - Tireur " during the German occupation of France during the Second World War . The first to be established was the Franc - Tireur ( movement ) , founded in Lyons in 1940 . The second was " Francs - tireurs partisans " ( FTP , Partisan irregular riflemen ) , which were established as the military branch of the French Communist Party ( PCF ) . They became active in the resistance after the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941 . The groups named themselves after the French irregular light infantry and saboteurs who fought the Germans during the Franco - Prussian War . A number of smaller resistance groups united in the Francs - Tireurs et Partisans ( FTP ) under Pierre Villon , the former editor of the magazine , " l ’ Humanité . " Their job was four - fold : to destroy rail lines carrying men and materials to the eastern front ; sabotage factories working for the Germans ; punish traitors and collaborators , and kill the occupying soldiers . “ A librarian called Michel Bernstein became a master forger of false documents . ” And " France Bloch , a young chemist with two science degrees , who as a Jew had lost her job in the Musée d ’ Histoire Naturelle , was given the job of making explosives . ” Bloch - Sérazin was later captured by the Germans ; she was beheaded with an axe in Hamburg . Although individual communists opposed the German occupation of France , the official Communist position was not to offer resistance , as the Soviet Union was in a non - aggression pact with Germany . After the German invasion of the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941 , this position changed . ( For more information on the Soviet Union during World War II , see the article titled " German - Soviet War " . ) The PCF initially called their group the " Organisation Spéciale " ( OS ) ; a number of its leaders had served in the International Brigades during the Spanish Civil War ( notably , " Colonel " Henri Rol - Tanguy ) . FTP became the first resistance group in France to deliberately kill a German . In February 1944 , the FTP agreed to merge with the Forces Françaises de l ' Intérieur . After World War II , the PCF called itself the " party of 80 , 000 executed people " ( " le parti des 80 000 fusillés " ) ; it had great electoral success due to the FTP ' s prestige as a major part of the Résistance . The foreign workers ' section of the FTP , the FTP - MOI ( " Francs - Tireurs Partisans — Main d ' Œuvre Immigrée " ) , became especially famous after the Manouchian Group was captured , its members executed , and ten of its members advertised as foreign criminals by the infamous Affiche Rouge . The Manouchian Group operated in the Paris metropolitan area , but other FTP - MOI groups operated in Lyons and the South of France , where they carried out armed resistance . Many of its immigrant members throughout the country were Jewish artists , writers and intellectuals , who had gone to France for the cultural circles in Paris . Others had taken refuge in France to escape Nazi persecution in their home countries . Alter Mojze Goldman , father of Pierre Goldman and Jean - Jacques Goldman , was a member of FTP - MOI , as was the Hungarian photographer , Ervin Marton , who achieved international recognition after the war . Prisoner status . Before the two world war s , the term " franc - tireur " was sometimes used for an armed fighter who , if captured , was not necessarily entitled to prisoner of war status . An issue of disagreement at the 1899 Hague Conference , the controversy generated the Martens Clause . The Martens Clause was introduced as a compromise between the Great Power s , who considered " francs - tireurs " to be unlawful combatants subject to execution on capture , and smaller states , who maintained that they should be considered lawful combatants . After World War II , during the Hostages Trial ( or , officially , " United States v . Wilhelm List , et al . " , 11 Tr . of War Crim . Bef . Nuremberg Mil . Trib . 1248 ( 1948 ) ) , the seventh of the Nuremberg Trials , the tribunal found that , on the question of partisans , according to the then - current laws of war ( the Hague Convention No . IV from 1907 ) , the partisan fighters in southeast Europe could not be considered lawful belligerents under Article 1 of said convention . In relation to Wilhelm List , the tribunal stated : We are obliged to hold that such guerrillas were francs tireurs who , upon capture , could be subjected to the death penalty . Consequently , no criminal responsibility attaches to the defendant List because of the execution of captured partisans . . . The Geneva Conventions established new protocols , namely , according to Article 4 of the Third Geneva Convention of 1949 , " francs - tireurs " are entitled to prisoner - of - war status provided that they are commanded by a person responsible for his subordinates , have a fixed distinctive sign recognizable at a distance , carry arms openly , and conduct their operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war . Other uses . " Le Franc - Tireur " was the name of an underground French Resistance newspaper published by the group in Lyons by the same name . See also . French Resistance