Libération-sud

Libération-Sud
Front Page of Libération Newspaper, May 1944
Motto	Un Seul Chef: De Gaulle - Une Seul Lutte: Pour Notre Patrie (One leader: De Gaulle - One struggle: for our homeland)
Formation	December 1940
Extinction	1944
Purpose	Armed resistance and organised propaganda
Location	Free Zone, France
Leader	Emmanuel d'Astier, Raymond Aubrac
Key people	Jean Cavaillès, Pierre Kaan, Lucie Aubrac

Libération-sud (French for "Liberation-South") was a resistance group active between 1940-1944 and created in the Free Zone of France during the Second World War in order to fight against the Nazi occupation through coordinated sabotage and propaganda operations.

Origins

Libération-Sud was established in the Free Zone of Clermont-Ferrand by an assortment of French intellectuals and activists including Emmanuel d'Astier, Pierre Kaan, Jean Cavaillès, Lucie Aubrac and Raymond Aubrac. The first important Resistant group to emerge after the German occupation, it began publishing Libération in July 1941. With the support of Daniel Mayer and the clandestine French Section of the Workers' International (SFIO, socialist party), the Libération-sud group grew rapidly.^[1]

Relationship with other Resistance Movements

In 1942 Emmanuel d'Astier entered talks with Jean Moulin about the possibility of uniting all the resistance groups working in France. After much discussion Moulin persuaded the eight major resistance groups to form the Conseil National de la Résistance (CNR, National Council of Resistance). This included D'Astier's Libération-Sud as well as Combat (Henri Frenay), Franc-Tireur (Jean-Pierre Lévy), National Front (Pierre Villon), Comité d'Action Socialiste (Pierre Brossolette) and the Armée secrète (Charles Delestraint).

Positioning

Libération-Sud attempted to oversee and coordinate all resistance activities in the southern zones of France that were unoccupied by Nazi troops. The group positioned itself as a movement "of the left, with a strong worker presence, socialist, masonic and Christian ^[2]

Libération Newspaper

The first published edition of Libération, dated July 1941, resulted in the distribution of over 10,000 copies. In autumn 1942, Jules Meurillon was appointed in charge of the propaganda and diffusion service of the organisation and successfully increases the yearly distribution of Libération to over 200,000 copies by August 1944.^[3]

The paper published by Libération-Sud is the same paper that Jean-Paul Sartre and Serge July re-founded in 1973.^[4]

References