Madeleine Riffaud's life was woven by struggle, writing and three wars – a century of resilience and resistance. The renowned French journalist, who fought the Nazis as a teenage Resistance fighter and later covered conflicts from Algeria to Vietnam, died this week in Paris at the age of 100.
"A heroine has gone," wrote the daily newspaper L'Humanité, for whom she worked as a war correspondent. Riffaud's publisher Dupuis confirmed her passing on Wednesday.
Born in 1924 in the Somme, Riffaud was the only daughter of schoolteachers.
By 16, she had joined the Resistance, first as a midwifery student and later as a liaison officer with the communist resistance group, the Francs-tireurs et partisans (FTP).
Operating under the codename “Rainer”, in homage to the German poet Rainer Maria Rilke, she often said she was “not at war with the German people, but with the Nazis”.
Home village decimated
What led to her taking up arms was the massacre of Oradour-sur-Glane, the village of her youth, decimated in June 1944 by the Nazis.
Riffaud’s commitment was fuelled by the Nazi massacre at Oradour-sur-Glane, which left her childhood village decimated in June 1944.
On 23 July 1944, she shot a Nazi officer on Paris’s Solférino Bridge, a defining act in her Resistance activities.
France remembers Oradour, a WWII massacre and the martyred village left behind
She later expressed mixed feelings about the act, saying: “Can one be mean, when one looks at the Seine? He was perhaps a good guy… but well, that’s war.”
Captured soon after, she was tortured for three weeks without food, water or sleep – yet refused to reveal information about her fellow "resistants".
“Killing someone is a terrible thing to do. It is never good to kill anyone, even an enemy, you should know that,” she told reporters years later.
War reporting
Following the war, Riffaud channelled her experiences into journalism, working for L'Humanité and reporting on global conflicts, including the wars in Algeria and Vietnam.
She spent seven years embedded with the Viet Cong, documenting the resistance during the Vietnam War. Her experiences inspired a book on guerrilla warfare and solidified her reputation as a fearless correspondent.
In 1946, she met with Ho Chi Minh in Paris and travelled to Vietnam, joining the Viet Cong resistance for seven years and covering their fight during the Vietnam War.
She later wrote a book on guerrilla warfare inspired by this experience.
Remembering D-Day's heavy toll on French civilians
After returning to France, she published Les Linges de la Nuit, her first book, and an anthology of poetry in 1972.
Her work was widely recognised, and in 2001, she received the Legion of Honour from fellow resistance fighter Raymond Aubrac, marking her lifelong dedication to justice.
On her 100th birthday, Riffaud released the final volume of her graphic memoir, Madeleine, Résistante, created with artist Dominique Bertail and writer Jean-David Morvan, chronicling her war years.
Morvan paid tribute to her on social media shortly after her passing, sharing a photo of her.
Riffaud died in her Paris apartment on 6 November, 2024.
