The Tactics of The French Resistance

A loose-knit group of people made life hell for the Nazi occupation

Photo by Alice Triquet on Unsplash

While it’s true that men disproportionately think about the Roman Empire, I’m in the minority that thinks about the French Resistance.

I decided to do a deep dive into them for several reasons, the main one being that they were called “The Maquis” which was then stolen by Star Trek in the early 90s for a storyline that spanned three TV series shows. That means I get to write about something interesting AND bring up Star Trek, so I’m happy.

Plus, France is our oldest ally. Without the French, we would likely not have won our Independence from Britain. We owe them a lot.

The speed at which Germany overtook France in 1940 stunned the world, but no one was more shocked than the French themselves. In just six weeks, the Nazis stunned the Allies, avoiding a line of French defenses known as the Maginot Line that had been established after WWI to prevent Germany from invading by way of Belgium again. Instead, they came through the Luxembourg Ardennes. They had also broken the French codes and knew exactly where the French army would be positioned.

It was a stunning, blistering defeat that sent an already tumultuous French political situation hurtling over the edge.

Prime Minister Marshal Philippe Pétain signed an armistice on June 22, 1940, that divided the nation into two zones, one in the north under German rule, and one in the south left to French sovereignty and ruled from the city of Vichy.

In reality, the Vichy government was made up of collaborators that Germany could easily manipulate and puppet as they saw fit.

The Maquis were not a unified force with a centralized mission until 1944, after the Allies landed at Normandy. That’s when the French Forces of the Interior (FFI) were formed from about 100,000 fighters from every walk of life, every gender, and every ideology one could imagine.

By October 1944, the FFI numbered over 400,000.

During the occupation, they operated as splinter groups, loosely aligned and vaguely aware of each other. While this prevented large-scale operations, it also made them extremely difficult to get rid of.

They sabotaged electrical grids, communications networks, and railroad lines. Lots of railroad lines. They really, really liked blowing up railroad lines. They also bombed a few bridges from time to time, but they tended to do so surgically instead of in large-scale attacks.

In addition, they found ways to pass intelligence to Allied forces. That work especially was vital in helping remove the occupiers from French territory.

While we’ll never know the exact number of people who participated, estimates range from between 1% and 3% of the total population.

The Germans were brutal. They blamed and punished the populace for resistance activities:

As reprisals for Resistance activities, the authorities established harsh forms of collective punishment. For example, the Soviet resistance in August 1941 led to thousands of hostages taken from the 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 1943, the Vichy government formed a militia group, the Milice (that means “militia” in French), and tasked them with fighting the Maquis alongside Nazi occupiers. They brutalized the population further, even using torture in many circumstances to punish or in attempts to derive information about Maquis activities.

Once France was liberated, some 25,000 to 35,000 of the miliciens were executed for their treason.

Despite their actions resulting in harm and death coming to their fellow countrymen, the Maquis did not relent. They persisted, slowing down the German forces whenever and wherever they could, both through acts of outright sabotage and by passing intelligence to the Allies.