biography
pronunciation:
[moolĩ]
| sex:
| male
|
| lived:
| (1899–1943)
|
| biography:
| Civil servant and French resistance fighter, born in Béziers, S France. After studying law at Montpellier University, he entered the civil service (1925). He served for 20 years in the corps préfectoral and was appointed chef de cabinet under the communist Pierre Cot in the left-wing Popular Front Ministry. Moulin was Préfect of Chartres when France was occupied by the Germans (May 1940) and divided into occupied and ‘free’ zones. In November 1940 he was dismissed by the Vichy collaborationist government, joined the French resistance movement, and in September 1941 was appointed by de Gaulle, leader of the Free French in London, to be his permanent representative in France and political head of the resistance movement. Parachuted into Provence, his mission was to co-ordinate resistance in the Vichy zone as well as in non-Nazi-occupied France. Moulin adopted a variety of false identities including Rex, Joseph Mercier, Regis, Jean Martel, and Max. He was arrested by the Gestapo at Caluire, near Lyon and, under the orders of Klaus Barbie, tortured and presumed murdered. His body was never recovered. One of the most celebrated and enigmatic martyrs of the resistance, a coffin representing his remains was ceremoniously transferred to the Panthéon in Paris in 1964. Numerous books have been written about him, among them The Death of Jean Moulin: biography of a ghost (2000). |
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