“The first volunteers were so few in number at the beginning that General de Gaulle received them one by one.” Gilles Ropert, a retired veterinarian and second home resident in La Baule (Loire-Atlantique), has devoted part of his life to keeping alive the memory of the Free French. He pays them a new tribute in a book, Taïaut !like the cry of fighter pilots in combat, which he dedicates at the Maison de la Presse, this Friday, August 30, 2024.
Gilles Ropert had streets, places and airfields named after them. “Many pilots died in combat.” Like Max Guedj, who died in Norway in 1945: he now has his esplanade in the 15the district of Paris. “Among the Free French, some went to London, others were resistance fighters in the territory.”
Free France Square
In La Baule, he participated in the inauguration of the Free France square in 2022. There is a plaque in the name of Pierre Louis-Dreyfus, six times cited as a companion of the Liberation, a secondary resident of La Baule who died in 2011.
In his work, the author, passionate about history, describes the commitment of the first resistance fighters “by focusing in particular on the nobility”. “Communists or aristocrats, there is everything in Free France, he assures, There was no political consideration, courageous people from all walks of life, who were not interested in themselves but in their country.”
This book, he emphasizes, offers “documents which shed light on the suffering endured by the first resistance fighters in the prisons, then at Buchenwal, notes describing the reality of the concentration camps”. Because for him, “This war has resulted in the greatest massacre of innocent people ever committed.”
Friday August 30, at 11 a.m., signing at the Maison de la Presse, 232 avenue du Maréchal-de-Lattre-de-Tassigny. Gilles Ropert. Taïaut ! Amalthée Editions. 258 p., €20.
