Cécile Rol-Tanguy, great figure of the Resistance, died

Cécile Rol-Tanguy belonged to these shadowy heroines who refused to submit to the Occupation. This great resistant died on Friday May 8 at the age of 101, the day of the 75th anniversary of the end of the Second World War in Europe, said her family in a press release.  

"With it disappears one of the last figures of the French interior resistance and more precisely of the Liberation of Paris in August 1944", continues the text. Cécile Rol-Tanguy was the widow of Colonel Henri Rol-Tanguy, one of the main actors in the Liberation of Paris, who died in 2002. 

In 2014, on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of this Liberation, she returned to France 24 on her commitment. In June 1940, Cécile Le Bihan, by her maiden name, a young typist raised in a communist family, chose to resist. While Henri Tanguy, whom she has just married, is caught in the debacle of the French army, she begins to write leaflets for the United Steelworkers union: "My husband always told me that our enemy main was fascism. When I saw the Germans in Paris in 1940, I didn't hesitate. "

When her husband is finally demobilized in August, the couple decides to fight together. Formerly of the International Brigades during the Spanish War (1936-1939), Henri had experience of armed struggle. He joined other communist activists in hiding, while Cécile became his liaison officer.

"We do nothing if we have fear in our stomachs"

For four years, from hideout to hideout, the young woman carries messages but also weapons. She does not hesitate to fulfill her missions with her children, still babies. "It was easier to put a revolver or a submachine gun in a pram bottom! But I was not the only one, we took what we had on hand!", She says with incredible relaxation . The danger is however omnipresent.

During those dark years, she lost many friends following arrests. His own father, a member of the Party, died in Auschwitz in 1942 after being deported. "It hurts, but it never stopped me, says the old lady with fragile surroundings, but the speech still well determined. Often after, we say 'there I was close to pass', but on the suddenly, we do nothing if we are afraid in our stomachs. I trusted everything we did. "

As the war progressed, Henri Tanguy took on more and more responsibilities within the FTP (snipers and partisans). In May 1944, under the pseudonym of Rol (from the name of one of his comrades killed during the Spanish War), he was appointed regional chief of the FFI, which regrouped all the components of the resistance. For several weeks, he actively prepared for the Liberation of the French capital. On August 18, he decreed general mobilization and ordered the Parisians to take up arms. Two days later, with his staff and of course his wife, he set up his command post in an underground shelter in Place Denfert-Rochereau.

In this labyrinth connected to the sewer stations in Paris, Cécile Rol-Tanguy provides secretarial services for her husband and part of her liaison work: "Henri circulated a lot at that time, I was stuck down for relay the press releases. (…) When I go to General Leclerc's museum in Montparnasse and see certain documents, I say to myself 'Ah, I typed them up!' I recognize my husband's wording. "

For a week, the FFI General Staff coordinated the fighting of the resistance fighters in the streets of the capital. Even if some historians believe that Rol-Tanguy's command was sometimes overtaken by events, his wife praises his action: "They reacted as they should. When there was the truce, my husband decided not to "accept in agreement with the General Staff. It was also decisive when he had the barricades done. It was a reaction from the people and it immediately caught on."

On the evening of August 24, the first elements of General Leclerc's 2nd Armored Division (DB) entered Paris. In the underground, the resistance fighters can finally let their joy burst. "When it was announced to us, we didn't hear the bells ringing, but we had a pillow fight with the girls who were with me," recalls the former FFI, reliving the scene. "The next day, my husband said to me 'I remind you that you are a colonel's wife, you don't have to do this', but I passed it over to me!" laughing.

"A bit of madness"

While France is gradually rebuilding, the young woman also resumes a more normal daily life. While Henri Rol-Tanguy pursues a military career, she takes care of their four children. "It changed me a lot," says the former resistance fighter, formerly known as Jeanne or Lucie in hiding. But I did not regret this period because we were 24 hours on the alert. I especially regretted all the ones we left on the way. "

Seventy years after these events, the faces of the disappeared had never left her. "When I go to the bell at Mont Valérien, all these names that I find, it upsets me. They pull me to go." 

"Until his last breath, Cécile Rol-Tanguy will demonstrate his loyalty to the generous utopia of communism, to his youthful commitments to social justice and the emancipation of women," insisted his family in its press release.

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