Women were generally confined to underground roles in the French Resistance network.
Lucie Aubrac, who has become a symbol of the
French Resistance within France, never had a clearly defined role in the hierarchy of the movement, which in her case involved the regional Southern Liberation.
Hélène Viannay, more highly educated than her husband
Philippe Viannay, the founder of the
Défense de la France, did not write one single article for the clandestine newspaper of the same name, nor did the other companions of the chiefs of the
Défense de la France, although they did take part in meetings to edit the newspaper. On the other hand,
Suzanne Buisson, cofounder of the
Comité d'action socialiste (CAS) was the treasurer until her arrest. Only one woman,
Marie-Madeleine Fourcade, was a head of a network (by leading the British to believe that the true head of the
Alliance network was actually a man). No woman ever led a movement, or a
maquis (guerilla group) or a Liberation Committee, none was installed as a Commissioner within the Provisional Government of the Republic of France or a Minister of the Liberation. Women fought in the armed battles. Although women were typical partisan anti-German resistance fighters in Italy, Spain, Greece, Yugoslavia and the German-occupied Soviet Union, feared and numerous, they were a minority in the
maquis in France. It has been speculated that this may have been influenced by the fact that French women were not subject to the
Service du travail obligatoire (English: Compulsory Work Service; STO), as were women in many other German-occupied countries. Women organized demonstrations of housewives in 1940, were active in the
comités populaires of the clandestine
PCF, and ever present with encouragement and material aid for strikers, as in the Nord-Pas-de-Calais in May 1941, as well as supporting the
maquis. They were indispensable as typists, and above all as liaison agents—in part because the Germans distrusted women less, and also because the numerous identification controls against resistors of the
Service du travail obligatoire (STO) did not apply to them. Historian
Olivier Wieviorka emphasizes that the strategy of these movements was often, in fact to put women into missions that required visibility, since they were less exposed to repression: the Vichy government of occupied France and the German military were not able to fire on French women demanding food for their children.
Madeleine Riffaud, a student midwife who volunteered with the Communist Party-aligned
Francs-tireurs et partisans (FTP), recalled being "cross at being told always to carry weapons across town for the men to use". She secured permission to use a gun herself, and on 23 July 1944, in broad daylight on a bridge overlooking the river
Seine, shot a lone German
NCO. After being arrested, and tortured unsuccessfully for her contacts, she was released in a prisoner exchange and she returned immediately to the struggle. On 23 August, Riffaud commanded an FTP that trapped a train carrying loot and munitions in the Buttes-Chaumont tunnel and secured the surrender of the 80 German soldiers aboard. On the 25th, she also took part in an attack on the barracks on
Place de la République. Yet after the
Liberation of Paris, being a woman, Riffaud was unable to finish the war with the rest of her resistance group, now part of the regular French army. At a time when women in France did not yet have the right to vote, she was told that she did not have her father's permission. ==Individual sacrifices==