Compagnon de l'Ordre de la Libération table medal,... Lot 3

Compagnon de l'Ordre de la Libération table medal, awarded to resistance fighter Francis-Louis Closon (1910-1998) by decree of November 20, 1944. At the disposal of the Free French Forces from September 1940, he left New York for London and joined the Free French Forces on July 17, 1941. He was then appointed Acting Director of Finance for France Combattante and, in 1942, Director of the Commissariat à l'Intérieur. He volunteered for three missions in occupied France. The first was at Jean Moulin's request, from April 15 to May 20, 1943; he was delegated by General de Gaulle to make contact with underground Resistance organizations. For his second mission, from August 15, 1943 to May 4, 1944, the date of his return to London, he was entrusted, on behalf of the Comité Français de la Libération Nationale, with forming the Comités de Libération. To this end, he traveled extensively under various pseudonyms (Fouché, Cou, Coullanges, Vincent, Derdon), braving the dangers of clandestine action. He succeeded in setting up Liberation Committees in most of France's major cities (Paris, Rouen, Lille, Dijon, Marseille, Toulouse, etc.). Thanks to his personal influence, he also succeeded in uniting Resistance organizations and political parties fighting for the Liberation in a common action through the Liberation Committees. Despite an accident that left him immobilized in plaster, he did not interrupt any of his organizing activities. His third mission (July-August 1944) took him to a maquis in the southern zone, from where he travelled to Paris to install Charles Luizet as Prefect of Police. September 3, 1944: he takes over as Regional Commissioner of the Republic for Nord-Pas-de-Calais until March 1946. From 1946 to 1961, he was General Manager and founder of the Institut National de la Statistique des Etudes Economiques (INSEE), and CEO of Information et Liberté from 1961 to 1976. President of the Société d'Entraide des Compagnons de la Libération from 1969 to 1973, Francis-Louis Closon was also President of the Association Echanges et Consultations Techniques Internationales (ECTI) until 1991, and a member of the Conseil de l'Ordre de la Libération. Director of the Presses Universitaires de France collection, he is the author of several books. Francis-Louis Closon died in Paris on December 12, 1998.