André Lalande (26 May 1913 – 19 October 1995) was a French Army officer and general in the Chasseurs Alpins and French Foreign Legion. He fought during the World War II at the heart of the Free French Forces, then in Indochina and Algeria.
Robert Galley (11 January 1921 – 8 June 2012) was a French politician and member of the Free French Forces during World War II, for which he received the Ordre de la Libération.Galley was born in Paris on January 11, 1921. He was the son of a doctor. During the Fall of France in 1940, Galley was able to escape to the United Kingdom disguised as a Polish soldier. He joined the Free French Forces and was sent to North Africa, including the Battle of El Alamein. Galley was next stationed within General Philippe Leclerc de Hauteclocque's 2nd Armored Division, through which he participated in the Liberation of Paris and the Western Allied invasion of Germany. Galley later married General Leclerc de Hauteclocque's daughter, Jeanne Leclerc de Hauteclocque, following the end of World War II.After the war, Galley passed the entrance examinations to the French graduate engineering schools and was admitted to the Ecole Centrale Paris, from which he graduated in 1949.
He worked and held various positions in areas of petroleum, nuclear energy, and informatics. From 1955 to 1966, he headed the construction of various nuclear plants and research facilities for the CEA. He was the Deputy Information Officer to the French Prime Minister and Chairman of the Board of Directors of INRIA in 1967.
Galley began his political career in 1968. He served as a government minister for fourteen consecutive years within the administrations of three French Presidents - Charles de Gaulle, Georges Pompidou and Valéry Giscard d'Estaing. Galley held the portfolios of Minister of Infrastructure, Minister of Housing, Minister of Research and Space, Minister of Telecommunications, Minister of Transportation, Minister of Defence from 1973 to 1974, and Minister of Cooperation from 1976 to 1980.Galley also served as Mayor of Troyes from 1972 to 1995.Robert Galley died in Troyes, France, on June 8, 2012, at the age of 91.
Alain de Boissieu Déan de Luigné (French pronunciation: [alɛ̃ də bwasjø]; 5 July 1915 – 5 April 2006) was a French general who served in the Free French Forces during World War II, later becoming Army chief of staff (1971–1975). He was the son-in-law of General Charles de Gaulle, leader of the Free French and postwar President of France.
Pierre Pouyade (25 June 1911 – 5 September 1979) was a French Air Force general, World War II flying ace, and a commander of the Normandie-Niemen squadron. By the end of the War he had scored eight solo victories and two group victories, all but one on the Eastern Front.
Henri Rol-Tanguy (12 June 1908 – 8 September 2002) was a French communist and a leader in the Resistance during World War II. At his death The New York Times called him "one of France's most decorated Resistance heroes".
Pierre-Henri Teitgen (29 May 1908 – 6 April 1997) was a French lawyer, professor and politician. Teitgen was born in Rennes, Brittany. Taken POW in 1940, he played a major role in the French Resistance. Teitgen's father, Henri Teitgen (1882–1965), was a senior politician of the Popular Republican Movement.
A member of French Parliament from 1945 to 1958 for Ille-et-Vilaine, Pierre-Henri was president of the Popular Republican Movement (Christian Democratic Party) from 1952 to 1956. He was Minister of Information in 1944 (one of the founders of the daily Le Monde), Minister of Justice in 1945–1946 (in charge of the purges from government of the Vichy regime's followers and of Nazi collaborators), Minister of Defence in 1947–48 in Robert Schuman's government at the time of the insurrectional strikes. In May 1948, he attended the Congress of The Hague and worked closely with Robert Schuman in Schuman Declaration and the start of the European Community when he was Minister of Information and Civil service in 1949–1950. He was later Minister of Overseas in 1950. He was member of the Constitutional Committee in 1958. He was twice deputy prime minister in 1947–1948 and 1953–1954. He was member of the Consultative Constitutional Committee in 1958 but became a critic of de Gaulle's policies.He supported the Socialist Defferre in his attempt as candidate for presidency in 1965. In September 1976, he was appointed member of the European Court of Human Rights. He had helped to create the court some 27 years earlier, in 1949, outlining its powers and the rights it should protect in a report for the Consultative Assembly of the Council of Europe. Teitgen died in Paris in 1997.
Georges Thierry d'Argenlieu, in religion Father Louis of the Trinity, OCD (7 August 1889 – 7 September 1964), was a Discalced Carmelite friar and priest, who was also a diplomat and French Navy officer and admiral; he became one of the major personalities of the Forces navales françaises libres. He was the chancellor of the Ordre de la Libération.
François d'Astier de La Vigerie (7 March 1886 – 9 October 1956) was a French military leader during two World Wars.His family were from Vivarais, and were ennobled in 1829 under the French Restoration. His father, le baron Raoul d'Astier de La Vigerie, was an artillery officer, and his mother, Jeanne, née Masson-Bachasson de Montalivet, was the granddaughter of Camille, comte de Montalivet, who had been Minister of the Interior under Louis-Philippe I of France. François d’Astier was brought up partly in Paris and partly at the Château de Rançay at Niherne.