Marie-Madeleine Fourcade: Difference between revisions

{{Expand French|topic=bio}}{{more citations needed|date=March 2019}}

'''Marie-Madeleine Fourcade''' (11 August 1909, [[Marseille]] – 20 July 1989, [[Paris]]) was the leader of the [[French Resistance]] network "Alliance", under the code name "Hérisson" ("Hedgehog") after the arrest of its former leader, [[Georges Loustaunau-Lacau]] (“Navarre”), during the [[German occupationmilitary ofadministration in occupied France during World War II|occupation of France]] in the [[Second World War]].

Born Marie-Madeleine Bridou in [[Marseille]], in [[Bouches-du-Rhône]], she grew up and attended convent schools in [[Shanghai]] where her father had a position with the French Maritime service.<ref name="nyt">[[Kati{{Cite news |last=Marton]], [https://www.nytimes.com/|first=Kati |date=2019/-03/12/books/review/lynne-olson-madame-fourcades-secret-war.html?action12 |title=click&module=Editors%20Picks&pgtype=Homepage Remembering a Woman Who Was a Leader of the French Resistance], ''[[|language=en-US |work=The New York Times]]’', March 12, |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/12/books/review/lynne-olson-madame-fourcades-secret-war.html |access-date=2023-05-25 |issn=0362-4331}}</ref> She married young, with the future colonel {{ill|Édouard Méric|fr}}. They had two children, but the couple became estranged and she would not visit her children for years at a time.<ref name=nyt/> In 1936, Fourcade met and impressed the former French military intelligence officer Major [[Georges Loustaunau-Lacau]], code name "Navarre".<ref name=nyt/>

In July 1941, a little over a year after the German invasion, Navarre was arrested and sentenced to two years in prison.<ref>{{cite book|last=Atwood|title=Women Heroes of World War II|page=63}}</ref> He had picked Fourcade to lead the movement he had started.<ref name=nyt/> One example of her spying success was through her agent [[Jeannie Rousseau]], who convinced a Wehrmacht officer to draw a rocket and a testing station on [[Peenemünde]], thereby revealing the [[V2 rocket]] program to the Allies.<ref name=nyt/> When the Vichy-governed part of France was also occupied by Germany, Fourcade spent months on the run as she moved from city-to-city to avoid detection. During this time, she gave birth to her thirdfourth child. The child, a son, had to be hidden at a safe-house. In July 1943, she left for London, where she worked with British intelligence, particularly via her friend“controller” Cmdr. Kenneth Cohen, an MI6 officer in charge of French intelligence.<ref name=nyt/> While she wanted to head back to France, she was forced by her control officers to stay in England until July 1944, when she eventually was allowed to returnedreturn to France to join her agents in the field and managed to avoid capture.<ref name="Olson">{{Cite book |last=Olson |first= Lynne |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1060184003 |title=Madame Fourcade's secret war : the daring young woman who led France's largest spy network against Hitler |year= 2019 |publisher=Random House Publishing Group |isbn=978-0-8129-9476-6 |edition= First |location=New York |pages=268–280 |oclc=1060184003 |access-date=9 June 2020}}</ref><ref name=nyt/>

The Preface to the much-abridged, and poorly-translated, British/US edition was written by Kenneth Cohen who was her wartime (and post-war) "controller" in SIS and the father to her godson.<ref name="Fourcade">{{CitationCite book |last=Fourcade |first=Marie-Madeleine |title=Noah's Ark |year= 1974 |publisher=E. P. Dutton & Co. |isbn=0-525-16820-6 |edition= First needed|datelocation=AugustNew 2020York}}</ref>

* {{cite news |worknewspaper=[[Washington Post]] |author-link=David Ignatius |first=David |last=Ignatius |title=After five decades, a spy tells her tale |date=December 28, 1998}} cited in Olson, p.&nbsp;246