Never heard this before in these words.

I hate the idea of duty to a slogan or banner - it gives other people the right to speak on your behalf. I'd rather do it myself.

But here is one banner I could stand underneath

To create is to resist. To resist is to create

You can't be me, I'm taken

You can also listen to (in French only unfortunately) an interview on France Inter of former résistant, Maurice Kriegel-Valrimont, one of the national leaders of the Résistance, a member of the Military Action Committee of the Résistance National Council, who is one of the signatories of the appeal relayed in this diary.

In Real Audio format. (skip the first several minutes of answering machine messages left by the radio station's listeners, to get to the interview)

(alternate source in OGG Vorbis format)

He is passionate, even in old age, and makes you feel like standing up for your rights, right here, right now!

He explains how the authorities, the radios, the TVs of Vichy described his clique as terrorists during the war, and how it was hard not to lose focus of any objectives when resistants were insulted, despised, treated like traitors ... while passivity was lauded and applauded.

There is a small excerpt from a radio news program from the times: "In Grenoble an attack by terrorists has destroyed the town's munitions depot... some dead, some wounded, two thousand people made homeless, an entire neighbourhood destroyed [..] French blood flows again, but this time spilled by Frenchmen".

Maurice Kriegel-Valrimont goes on to explain that back then during the occupation, the movement was comprised of a majority of youths too, and the situation was one of total despair, utter violence and fear, and that it was very very hard not to feel like giving up entirely. But in all that horror, the Résistance National Council was providing hope, bringing forth a program, which, I quote him "would make its authors, today, seem like fanatic extreme-leftists, for having pretentions that today would be said to be unrealisable ... a retirement plan making it possibly for old workers to finish their days with dignity, the possibility for any competent worker in a company to access higher rungs of management and direction [..]", and these were not only the ideas of the Communists engaged in the Résistance, but also those of the Gaullists.

He adds: "there was no minor résistance and minor collaboration ... there was only passivity and résistance (nothing in between) [..] Do you know how many Judges in all of France refused to swear allegiance to Pétain? ONE! Churches, economic forces, it was frightening, they went straight to the service of the Germans! [..] And the résistance was not composed of a unique type of man wearing berets in green fields, it was diverse, with conflicting views, it was France, it was France with all its differences"

Listen to the Chants des Partisans (MP3), the Résistance's rallying song.

Friend, do you hear the crows' dark flight over our plains?

Friend, do you hear the muffled screams of the country being shackled?

O-hay patriots, labourers and farmers, the alarm has sounded!

Tonight the enemy shall know the price of blood and tears.

Climb up the mine, come down the hills, comrades,

From the straw unhide the guns, the munitions and the grenades;

O-hay killers, with bullets and knives kill swiftly!

O-hay saboteurs, be careful with your burden, of dynamite!

It is we that break the jail bars, for our brothers,

Hate is running after us, and hunger drives us, in misery.

There are countries where people sleep in their beds and dream.

Here, see, we, we walk and we kill and we die

Here, each one of us knows what one wants, and what one does when he passes by;

Friend, if you fall, a friend emerges from the dark to take your place.

Tomorrow, black blood shall dry out in the sun on the roads

Sing, companions, for that in the night freedom listens to us.

--relayed from Là Bas si j'y Suis via La Liste à Suivre--

At a time when it's easy to perpetuate the notion that old people are more reactionary and likely to vote Le Pen (a prejudice which I often transmit myself), this is very refreshing.

Ok, this is a generalisation, but still ...

I couldn't google upon an original poster from the WWII era, but the text, which I attempted to translate, was published and pasted by the Résistance (without the gap in the middle, obviously). I remember seeing it in Gothic letters, looking nasty.

Love and admire         chancellor Hitler !
Eternal England         does not deserve to live
Despise, crush          those across the channel
The Nazi on Earth       will survive alone.
Let us be the support   of the German führer
Of these navigators     the race is cursed.
To these men alone      a just punishment
The winner's palm       answers to true merit.

Original:

Aimons et admirons      le chancelier Hitler !
L'Éternelle Angleterre  est indigne de vivre.
Maudissons, écrasons    le peuple d'outremer
Le nazi sur la terre    sera seul à survivre.
Soyons donc le soutien  du führer allemand
De ces navigateurs      la race soit maudite.
À eux seuls appartient  ce juste châtiment
La palme du vainqueur   répond au vrai mérite.

the sheeps' clothing is dropping off these wolves daily, as their true colours emerge.

the xenophobes, the racists, the corporatists, the opus dei-run, pedophilia-covering vatican, the mafia, the media manipulators, the secret P2, the spook assassins, the anti-partisans....so nice to see you all, exposed for all to see in your disgusting belief systems.

you stand together, you try to convince pinko pallino to vote for you so he can sell his soul to the dark ones.

we see you ever more clearly, and we will not rest until the rest of the world sees you too for the sorry excuses for human beings you have become, and the outright evil you spread through your deceit.

i am so proud italy has rejected you, and i hope justice catches up with you all, and puts you where you belong.

'The history of public debt is full of irony. It rarely follows our ideas of order and justice.' Thomas Piketty