WWII: In the footsteps of the African Resistance fighters who fell in the Battle of Vercors

Photo taken of Senegalese soldiers while with the Vercors Maquis, in the French pre-Alps, between June and September, 1944. © DR

Thousands of German soldiers moved in on southeastern France's Vercors Plateau in July 1944 in a bid to crush a regional uprising led by a rural French Resistance group. Over 100 Resistance fighters died in the bloody battles on the mountainside. Many of them were of African origin but who they were and why they decided to join the French Resistance has only recently begun to come to light.

When France on Tuesday inaugurated the commemorations for the 80^th anniversary of the French liberation, President Emmanuel Macron’s very first visit went to the tiny pre-Alps village of Vassieux-en-Vercors, in the Vercors Massif.