Guy Môquet

Guy Môquet (1924 — 22 October 1941) was a young French Communist militant. During the German occupation of France during World War II, he was taken hostage by the Nazis and executed by firing squad in retaliation for attacks on Germans by the French Resistance. Môquet came down in history as one of the symbols of the French Resistance.

Family Background

Guy Môquet was the son of the Communist député of the Seventeenth Arrondissement of Paris, Prosper Môquet. As the French Communist Party was dissolved by Édouard Daladier in September 1939, Prosper Môquet was arrested on 10 October, 1939, stripped of his mandate in February, 1940, and later deported to Algeria. Henri, the brother of Prosper, was concierge of the Communist party chair. By the end of the summer of 1940, he was a member of the party's clandestine forces.

Biography

Môquet studied at the Lycée Carnot and joined the Communist Youth Movement. After the occupation of Paris by the Germans and the installation of the [[Vichy France|Vichy government], Môquet was arrested by the French police as he distributed flyers in his neighbourhood denouncing the new government and demanding the liberation of its prisoners. He was arrested, at the age of 16, on 13 October 1940, in the Métro station Gare de l'Est by French police who were looking for Communist militants. The police behaved in a friendly way toward him in the hopes that he would reveal the names of his father's friends.

Imprisoned in Fresnes Prison, then in Clairvaux, he was later transferred to the camp at Châteaubriant, where other Communist militants were detained.

On 20 October 1941, the commanding officer of the German occupation forces in Loire-Atlantique, Karl Hotz, was assassinated by three communist resisters. Pierre Pucheu, Interior Minister of the [[[Pétain]] government, chose Communist prisoners to be given as hostages "in order to avoid letting 50 good French people get shot." His selection comprised 18 imprisoned in Nantes, 27 at Châteaubriant, and 5 from Nantes who were imprisoned in Paris.

Two days later, nine posts were erected the Sablière (the vast quarry at the exit of Châteaubriant). In three groups, the 27 prisoners were shot. They refused blindfolds, and died crying "Vive la France." Guy Môquet was the youngest. He was executed at 4PM.

Before having been shot, he had written a letter to his parents. His younger brother, Serge - 12 years old at the time - was traumatised by the death of Guy and survived him only by a few days.

Legacy

In homage to Guy Môquet, a street and a Métro station in Paris were named after him in 1946. Many other place names across France also bear his name. Châteaubriant dedicated a high school to him.

Louis Aragon dedicated to him, along with three other resisters (Gabriel Péri, Honoré d'Estienne d'Orves, and Gilbert Dru, altogether two Christians and two Communists), his poem "La rose et le réséda." This poem contained the famous line "Celui qui croyait au Ciel / Celui qui n'y croyait pas". (He who believed in heaven \ He who believed not).

Recently, French President-elect Nicolas Sarkozy has stated that his first order of business as President would be to make all schools read the final letter of Guy Môquet to his family, in order to teach children the horror and barbarism of war.

Bibliography

• Albert Ouzoulias, Les Bataillons de la Jeunesse, Éditions Sociales, 1972, ISBN 2209053722;
• Pierre-Louis Basse, Guy Môquet, une enfance fusillée, Stock, 2000;
• Articles Prosper Moquet, Henri Môquet, Charles Michels, Jean-Pierre Timbaud; du Dictionnaire biographique du mouvement ouvrier français (le Maitron), Éditions Ouvrières.
• Lettres des fusillés de Châteaubriant, Amicale de Châteaubriand Voves-Rouillé, 1989.

External links

• Guy Moquet's last letter to his family Template:Fr icon
• Biography Template:Fr icon
• Sarkozy's first decision as President