Marius Moutet (19 April 1876 – 29 October 1968) was a French Socialist diplomat and colonial adviser. An expert in colonial issues, he served as Minister of the Colonies for four terms in the 1930s and 1940s and was president of the General council of the Drôme department after the war until 1951. He was sympathetic to Ho Chi Minh and advocated the independence of Vietnam. At the age of 92, Moutet was the oldest member of the Senate of France and the French Assembly.
Auguste Champetier de Ribes (French pronunciation: [oɡyst ʃɑ̃ptje də ʁib]; 30 July 1882 – 6 March 1947) was a French politician and jurist.
A devout Catholic, he was an early follower of Albert de Mun and social Christianity. Wounded in the First World War, he was elected to the Chamber of Deputies from the Basses-Pyrénées as a Christian Democrat (PDP) from 1924 to 1934. He was Senator from 1934 to 1940. He served as a junior minister or minister in various governments led by André Tardieu, Édouard Daladier, Paul Reynaud, and Pierre Laval.
In 1940, he was among the 80 parliamentarians who refused to give Pétain full powers (see The Vichy 80) and served in the Combat resistance movement. An early supporter of Charles de Gaulle, he was named by the Provisional Government of the French Republic as the French representative during the Nuremberg Trials, during which he delivered the closing statement from the French Prosecution. Upon his return, he was elected President of the Council of the Republic (now known as the French Senate) by the benefit of age. He had tied Communist Georges Marrane, but was elected because he was older than Marrane. Two days later, he was the defeated MRP candidate in the 1947 French presidential election. His health prevented him from assuming his role as President of the Council and he died in office.
Jean Berthoin (January 12, 1895 in Enghien-les-Bains, Val-d'Oise – February 25, 1979 in Paris) was a French politician. As Minister of National Education under Charles de Gaulle, he instituted a policy of compulsory education for all children, both French and foreign citizens, until the age of sixteen, building on the earlier reforms of 1936. Implemented in 1959, this was known as the Berthoin Ordinance. He also suggested that the baccalauréat be abolished, prompting a significant backlash in the Parisian press.Prior to World War II, Berthoin had been the director of national security (Sûreté) in the French Interior Ministry.
Paul Béchard (25 December 1899, Alès – 26 April 1982) was a French politician. He represented the French Section of the Workers' International (SFIO) in the Constituent Assembly elected in 1945, in the National Assembly from 1946 to 1948, from 1951 to 1955 and from 1958 to 1967 and in the Senate from 1955 to 1958. From January 27, 1948 to May 24, 1951 he was Governor of French West Africa. He was the mayor of Alès from 1947 to 1948 and from 1953 to 1965.
Capitaine Raymond Dronne (8 March 1908, in Mayet, France – 5 September 1991, in Paris) was a French civil servant and, following World War II, a politician. He was the second Allied officer to enter Paris as part of the liberation forces during World War II. A volunteer who joined the Free French Forces in Africa in 1940. Later, he was assigned as commanding officer of the 9e Compagnie, Régiment de Marche du Tchad (Ninth Company, Regiment of March of Chad), known as "La Nueve" as it was mainly composed of Spanish republicans. The 9th Company was a unit of the 3rd battalion RMT, part of the French 2nd Armored Division.
During the move on Paris, due to combat conditions and poor road progress, General Philippe Leclerc, commanding general of the Second Armored, ordered Dronne to form an advance party, go to Paris and let the Resistance know that the Second Armored would be in Paris in 24 hours.
His advance party, the 9th Company, consisted of 15 half tracks (M5s and M5A1s), and three Sherman tanks from 501 RCC of the division, plus engineer units. The H/Ts included those called Les Cossaques, Guadalajara, Madrid and Ebro and the added Sherman tanks were called Montmirail, Romilly and Champaubert.
Henry Torrès (17 October 1891 – 4 January 1966) was a French trial lawyer and politician, and a prolific writer on political and legal matters.
Marcel Dassault (born Marcel Ferdinand Bloch; 23 January 1892 – 17 April 1986) was a French engineer and industrialist who spent his career in aircraft manufacturing.