Code name Monaco. It was a meeting that would mark a milestone in the history of the Liberation of Isère, laying the foundations for the department’s insurrection and the reestablishment of the Republic.
It is January 25, 1944, in the midst of the Occupation. It is in Méaudre, at the Hôtel de la Poste, that the leaders of the main resistance movements are meeting.
There are representatives of Franc-Tireur (Eugène Samuel), Libération (André Sibellas), Combat (Alphonse Manhaudier), the Socialist Party (Eugène Chavant), the Secret Army (Albert Séguin de Reyniès), the National Front (Léon Chevallet), the Communist Party (Pierre Flaureau). All of them founded the CDLN, the Departmental Committee for National Liberation, chaired by Albert Reynier (Vauban in the underground) appointed as the future prefect of Isère.
As soon as Grenoble was liberated on August 22, the members of the CDLN, whose president was Roger Bonamy, took up positions of power.
Pierre Flaureau, secretary of the committee, signed the administrative acts until August 28 despite the arrival of Albert Reynier, who had been appointed prefect by the national council of the resistance. Frédéric Lafleur was elected mayor of Grenoble by the provisional municipal council. Captain Alain Le Ray (FFI leader) assumed military command of the department until the arrival of General Humbert, while Louis Nal was to lead the police forces.
Restoring Republican Life
The CDLN aims to quickly re-establish republican life in the territory. Thus, it takes several decisions in this direction: it suspends the three newspapers that supported Vichy’s policy, The Allobroges thus replace The Little Dauphinois. A purge committee was created, in particular to deal with questions of collaboration within the administrations and the judicial system. The CDLN also worked to facilitate supplies and limit looting. Thus the CDLN, an organ emanating from the Resistance, took precedence in these days of the Liberation over the directives of the provisional government of the French Republic which provided for management by the prefect, assisted by the CDLN.
All these measures allow for a rapid and effective restoration of public life, thus avoiding a wave of panic, popular violence and the voracity of opportunists, and affirming the return of the Republic and its values.
To read tomorrow: The bloody rout of the Nazis at Beaurepaire and Chanas.
