Marie-Medeleine Riffaud the renowned French resistance fighter, war reporter and poet was born in Arvillers in the Somme region of France on 23 August 1924..
Her parents were Jean-Emile Riffaud and Armande (Gabrielle) Boisson. They were both primary school teachers from Limousin, who moved to Picardy for work.
Her father had been wounded in the First World War and had become a pacifist. She grew up in an area still devastated from the carnage caused by the First World War and was educated at a school in Paris where she developed a love of literature, and in particular, poetry.
Madeleine’s mother, Armande Boissin, was an orphan whose mother had died of tuberculosis and whose education was paid for by her maternal grandfather.
Madeleine’s father, Émile Riffaud, was the first boy in his family to receive a formal education, and the only boy at his school who didn’t own a ‘proper’ pair of shoes. Instead, he wore wooden clogs, the footwear of the poor who could not afford leather.
Like his future wife, he went on to win prizes and became a teacher who was recognised in the local community for his contribution to education. As well as teaching at the local village school of Folies, Émile was made headmaster of the school in Bouchoir, about one and a half kilometres away from Folies, and an officer of the Academy in 1937. He continued working in the education system right up until his death in September 1984.
Madeleine’s parents saw themselves as republicans and were proud of a heritage that linked their country’s constitution with the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. Republicanism, however, includes many shades of political and philosophical distinction, and in their case, one of the most obvious differences between their worldviews had to do with religion. Where Madeleine’s father was agnostic and freethinking, her mother respected the authority of the Catholic Church. So although she taught in a secular education system, as did her husband, Armande ensured that her only daughter, Madeleine, received a Catholic upbringing through regular attendance at mass.
In this respect, the maternal and paternal branches of the family tree connect Madeleine’s to two different strains of republicanism that have shaped French society, where laïcité, or secularism, is still a passionately debated feature of the country’s education system and its constitution. Because of this, perhaps, Madeleine’s never felt it necessary to choose exclusively between leftwing, secular republicanism and the Catholic faith. As an adult, she embraced both seeing the social ideals of communism (she joined the Party in 1942) and Christianity as perfectly compatible.
Madeleine loved her paternal grandfather, Jean, dearly he was a retired gendarme. and she has described the times she spent in his company when she was growing up (he lived with them when he was elderly) as the happiest moments in her childhood. He taught her songs from France’s left-wing past, took her on rambling walks through the forest and impressed on her the importance of loving all things that grow in gardens. ‘I have never in my life intentionally damaged a plant … My gardener Grandfather forbad it, and taught me respect for flowers'
Madeleine’s mother was born Armande Boissin in 1894 in Djerba, Tunisia, 13 years after the French had conquered the country and placed it under the authority of the French Resident-General.12 By virtue of her birthplace, she was associated with a colonial system that her daughter would one day vilify.
Madeleine who detested authority in almost any form, however had a strained relationship with her mother during her teenage years, for the usual kinds of reasons. Armande wanted her to be ‘normal’ – that is, to marry and have children – while Madeleine’ wanted to chase after adventure and fantasised about running away from home. ‘When I was growing up’, sheinsisted in an interview, ‘my mother was very “bourgeoise”’ – the classic insult French.
Armande certainly wanted her daughter to have ‘nice’ friends. She disapproved both of the ill-educated children in the village when Madeleine was growing up and, in later years, of some of Madeleine’s friends in the Resistance. She could not admire people who seemed to be incorrigible risktakers without propriety or concern for their futures. However, thanks to her mother’s diligence and pride in her achievements, Riffaud was able to include some of her poems from her school days in her first anthology of poetry,
Her mother had kept them all. Looking back, Madeleine regretted her intolerance of her mother’s views and needs. Some of this regret and affection found expression years later, when her mother developed cancer of the throat and Madeleine spent long hours at her bedside.
Sadly, the tumour affected Armande’s brain and in her final months she couldn’t recognise either her daughter or her husband. She died on 13 December 1970.
Madeleine was at home when the Nazis invaded France. The family were part of ‘L’exode’, the mass column of refugees that left Picardy to head south, hoping to escape from the invaders. On their journey, the column was attacked by Stukas from the Luftwaffe. Madeleine decided to return to the family home with her sick and infirm grandfather. The most terrible moment in Madeleine’s young life, by the same token, was when her beloved grandfather subsequently died.
Upon arriving in Amiens, Madeleine went to the Red Cross headquarters to get her grandfather a stretcher. Crossing a square, she was molested by a group of German soldiers. Seeing what was happening, their commanding officer intervened.
To her shock, the officer turned round and kicked her in the backside, sending Madeleine flying face down into the gutter. Humiliated by the laughter of the Germans, it was at this moment at the age of 18 that she decided to join the French Resistance movement as part of the communist group Francs-Tireur et Partisans,
Madeleine always claimed that activism ran in her blood. Her great, great grandfather had taken part in the popular uprising of 1851, protesting at the coup d’état of Louis Napoleon. For this, he had been sentenced to hard labour in Algeria.
Before Madeleine could take any action herself, she contracted tuberculosis. She was sent to a sanitorium for young students, just outside Grenoble. She had not realised it was a hub for the French Resistance. She was approached by Marcel Gagliordi – but it took very little persuasion to get her to join them.
Madeleine took the nom de guerre ‘Rainer’, after her favourite poet, the German poet Rainer Maria Rilke. This was also her way of showing she was not at war with the German people or German ideas, but the Nazis, France Info Rainer Maria Rilke. Returning to Paris, Madeleine became extremely active in the Maquis (resistance). She was told that anyone fighting the Nazis in the city, had a life expectancy of just five months
Madeleine quickly built up a reputation for volunteering for the most dangerous missions. She was the expert at stealing guns from policemen and Nazi soldiers.
“Hundreds of young women like me were involved. We were the messengers, the intelligence gatherers, the repairers of the web. When the men fell or were captured, we got the news through, pulled the nets tight again. We carried documents, leaflets, sometimes arms. We walked miles; bikes were too precious, and the Metro was too dangerous.” At the same time as this Madeleine worked in a local hospital, training to be a midwife.
On June 10, 1944, the Nazis committed the appalling massacre at Oradour-Sur Glane, where 643 civilians were murdered. France was outraged. After the massacre Riffaud took a pivotal action that would define her legacy. She witnessed an incident in Paris that horrified her. A fellow Resistance member stole a gun from a German soldier. Thinking he was about to be shot, the German fell to his knees, crying and begging for his life. The Resistance fighter let him go.
One week later, the same German soldier saw the Resistance member in the street. He walked right up to him – and shot him dead. Madeleine was so enraged, she decided to take matters into her own hands. On July 23, 1944 she saw a Nazi officer standing on the Pont de Solferino in Paris, gazing into the river. There was a small boy loitering nearby, so she ushered the child away.
Then, she went up to the German officer and tapped him on the shoulder. When he turned around, Madeleine shot him twice in the head, killing him outright. She said it would have been cowardly to shoot him in the back – she had to do it face-to-face. “I had a job – and I was going to do it.” Madeleine nearly managed to escape on her bicycle, but a passing collaborator drove his car at the bike, knocking her to the ground. She was handcuffed and delivered to the Gestapo.
In later years, Madeleine was asked if she had any remorse about the murder. She said not. “It was right. I felt very calm, very pure.” She added, “He dropped like a stone. He didn’t suffer. It wasn’t done with hate – if anything, I was pained about having to do it.”
Madeleine was initially lucky. As it was Sunday, all the Gestapo torturers were on weekend leave. Instead, but she was beaten up by a couple of local policemen and then driven to prison.
Whilst in there, she helped deliver a baby to a Jewish woman. The prison guard was so infuriated by this act that he punched Madeleine. She was immediately driven back to Gestapo headquarters on the Rue des Saussaies.
The Gestapo repeatedly tortured Madeleine but could not break her silence. She had her jaw and nose broken, was waterboarded, and was subject to repeated electric shocks (because they left no marks). They also broke the arms and legs of a fourteen-year-old accomplice, right in front of her, telling Madeleine only she could stop his suffering. Finally, the Gestapo executed another man standing next to her.
Throughout all of this, she refused to give them any information about the resistance network. During her ordeal, Madeleine told herself, “I am not a victim. I am a resistante.”
Eventually, after a month of interrogation, they told her that she would be executed. She was sent to Ravensbruck concentration camp by train but managed to escape. However, Madeleine was quickly recaptured.
Madeleine was then transferred to Fresnes Prison. At this point, another female captive gave her a picture of St Therese of Lisieux. She kept it close to her. Although not religious, Madeleine later wondered whether the saint had protected her. Madeleine also began to write her own poems.
On the day of her execution, Madeleine was taken outside with other prisoners. They were all killed but she was not. She was taken back to her cell. Then, she was unexpectedly released. Madeleine didn’t realise the Red Cross had been working to save her life.
A prisoner exchange had been negotiated by Swedish consul, Raoul Nordling – and she was set free. Upon her release, she learned the Gestapo had just executed 23 members of a Resistance group nicknamed the Manouchians. Every one of them was her friend. Her anger was fuelled.
And upon her release, Riffaud returned immediately to the Resistance. On August 23, 1944—her 20th birthday—she led an assault on a German armored train in the Buttes-Chaumont tunnel, capturing over 80 enemy soldiers. Madeleine worked with just three fellow resistance fighters, under her command. They stopped the train by letting off fireworks, making the Germans think they were under attack from a bigger force. They needed to uncouple the train from the engine, but unfortunately didn’t have the know how.
Before the attack, Madeleine heard that a retired railway man lived nearby. She visited him to ask for his help. He was washing the dishes with his wife. Madeleine explained to him that uncoupling the train was very dangerous and he was putting his life at risk.
When the train stopped, the elderly gentleman crawled up the track, uncoupled the carriages – and then just walked off home. After capturing the prisoners, Madeleine realised it was her twentieth birthday. With her men, they celebrated by eating ham, jam and German sausage ‘liberated’ from the train.
Her bravery in this mission earned her the rank of lieutenant in the French Forces of the Interior, the youngest person to achieve this rank during the war.
During the Liberation of Paris, Madeleine fought the enemy in the Place de la Republique. She was part of a group attacking an SS barracks based there. An American soldier took a photo of her sitting on a tank as it drove through the streets nearby, with her black hair flowing behind her. It was published in the American papers with the title ‘The Girl Who Saved Paris’.
Consequently, Madeleine was seen as a symbol of French heroism. (It was an image shown again in a documentary about the liberation of the city, directed by Pierre Hurel).
Madeleine remembered the city’s liberation fondly. She said everyone got involved, whether they were children or the elderly. “You can’t know how wonderful it was to finally battle in the daylight.”
However, 1500 Parisians died in the attempt to free their city. Madeleine continued fighting until the Nazis had been forced out of France. She wanted to fight on until Berlin but was unable to do so. France was still a very patriarchal society (women still did not have the vote) and she was underage.
To fight abroad, she had to get her father’s permission – and he refused. “I did not have permission to do that, I was told. That was a shock.” “I was a minor. I didn’t have my parents’ consent. I was a girl!” Her father’s reaction was understandable. Her parents had listened to BBC radio broadcasts throughout the war and on one occasion had heard the wireless announce that Madeleine had been killed.
They were stunned and delighted to get her back – they were not going to run the risk of losing her again. At the same time, her tuberculosis recurred. The Maquis told Madeleine they could no longer have her in their ranks for fear of spreading the disease.
Her father made Madeleine put her gun in a drawer and ordered her never to touch it again. After the war, Madeleine suffered from depression for a while. She tried to join the French Army but was told she was too young, still being under twenty-one.
She tried to kill herself by taking an overdose, but when this did not work, she vowed never to speak about her wartime experiences. “I was alive but destroyed. I wanted to die. If anyone even touched me, I couldn’t bear it.” Nevertheless, she was awarded the Croix de Guerre, presented by President De Gaulle.
She made a telling statement about the partisans’ role in combating an occupation force that applies to today’s fights for liberation: “The essential was not to give in. When you resisted, you were already a victor. You had already won.” (New York Times, Nov. 23)
Madeleine was subsequently befriended by surrealist poet Paul Eluard, who introduced her to a group of artists based in Paris that included Louis Aragon and Pablo Picasso.
Madeleine later said that she felt Eluard, “Had saved my life.” “They stopped me from doing myself in, because a lot of Resistance fighters killed themselves after the war.”
Madeleine was persuaded to publish her first poetry collection entitled, ‘Le Poing Ferme’ (The Closed Fist). Picasso drew the front cover for the collection. She always believed he was a little bit in love with her.
Years later, an art critic analysed the portrait. “He saw a woman who was still a girl and yet who did not laugh or sparkle like a girl, for she was living with the shadow of what she had so recently experienced in the cells of the Gestapo. Picasso drew the heavy eyelids of a woman who couldn’t forget.”
Picasso drawing of Madeleine, 1945
She also started working as a journalist for the newspaper ‘Ce Soir’, run by Aragon. At this time, Madeleine married Pierre Daix, a young communist who had been imprisoned in Mauthausen concentration camp during the war.
The marriage did not last long. “We were both broken.” However, they did have a daughter named Fabienne. Her baby was taken away from her after just twelve days, for fear of it getting TB. However, Fabienne contracted Madeleine’s tuberculosis and died whilst still very young.
In Paris, Madeleine met Ho Chi Minh, president of the Provisional Government of Vietnam. She was absolutely inspired by him.
In 1951, Madeleine met Vietnamese poet Nguyen Dinh Thi at an international youth conference for peace held in Berlin. They fell in love – but he was married with two children. Soon afterwards, his wife died, so Madeleine moved to Vietnam to live with him. They were married.
Vietnam was just tumbling into civil war (often called the War of Independence). By now, Madeleine was working for the communist newspaper ‘L’Humanite’ – despite claiming to have never read either Marx or Engels. She became their war correspondent.
Madeleine managed to link up with the Viet Minh, who were the country’s independence fighters. She produced a documentary film entitled ‘Dans le Maquis du Sud-Vietnam.’ She said, “A people who oppress another can never be a free people.”
After four years, Ho Chi Minh, passed a law which banned mixed marriages. Madeliene was thrown out of Vietnam and returned to France, although she maintained a long-distance relationship with Nguyen Dinh Thi for over fifty years. Years later, she wrote a poem about him. ‘I hold your shadow in my arms.’
When the Algerian War broke out, Madeleine was sent to cover the conflict by her newspaper. The Algerian War of Independence (1954-62) was one of the bloodiest post-1945 liberation struggles. Characterised by civilian massacres and the widespread use of torture, it led to the death and displacement of two million people. It was also the first major conflict since the Spanish Civil War to mobilize a generation of writers and artists to protest against the conduct of the war, most notably in Frantz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth and Gillo Pontecorvo’s The Battle of Algiers.
In 1960 many of France’s leading writers and intellectuals – including Simon de Beauvoir, Jean-Paul Sartre, André Breton, Pierre Boulez, François Truffaut and Marguerite Duras – signed Le Manifeste des 121, calling on the French government to renounce the use of torture in Algeria.
Madeleine was appalled at witnessing French paratroopers treating Algerian civilians with immense cruelty. Even worse, she learned captured fighters were being taken to Paris, where they were being tortured in the very same rooms that she had suffered so much at the hands of the Gestapo. She stated how could this be being done in the name of the country she had fought for and loved so much?
Whilst in Algeria, the car in which Madeleine was travelling, was ambushed when a truck was driven into it. She instinctively put up her right arm to save herself. Madeleine received serious injuries. Her hands were badly damaged, and she lost a finger. She had a head injury and lost the sight in one eye – and the vision in the other was seriously impaired.
She had one last major newspaper assignment. Madeleine returned to Vietnam to follow the war with the Americans. She joined up with the Viet Cong and reported from the frontline – giving her newspaper an unusual perspective on the conflict.
It was reported at the time that the Americans were bombing hospitals and schools. The US Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara, denied this. Madeleine took hundreds of photographs, providing evidence that proved this destruction was happening. She wrote that the French in Algeria, and the Americans in Vietnam, were behaving in the same way that the Germans had done in France.
Madeleine was exposed to Agent Orange/Dioxin during the Vietnam War after she walked through southern Vietnamese fields on which the US military sprayed the poisonous chemical. She said that at the time, she, as well as Vietnamese people and soldiers, did not know that the defoliant was capable of causing so much pain and anguish.
Her two books - Dans les acquis de Vietcong (In the Vietcong Underground), published in 1965, and Au Nord du Vietnam, écrit sous les bombes (In North Việt Nam: Written Under the Bombs), 1967, made a significant impact on the world.
The first earned the 1966 award from the International Organisation of Journalists. Not only did she support and stand by the Vietnamese people during their past struggle for national liberation, but she also remained unwavering in her commitment to them in national construction.
However, Madeleine’s health was restricting her capabilities. She returned to Paris and gave up journalism, and became a nursing assistant in a hospital and became an active campaigner for improving the pay and working conditions of carers in the city of Paris writing a bestselling expose of the drudgery of care assistants in Parisian hospitals .called, ‘Les Linges de la Nuit’, which sold a million copies.
Fifty years later, she reiterated the same criticisms. After spending twenty-four hours alone on a stretcher in the emergency room, she addressed an open letter to the director of the AP-HP (Paris Public Hospitals) in 2022. “They thought I was too old to be worth treating? […] Raymond Aubrac asked me to be a voice of the Resistance – so I will be. I still have some strength left, I want to give it away.”
The ordeals she endured in 1944 and her repeated brushes with death over the years profoundly affected her. To cope with this pain, she underwent various treatments in the postwar years, and then, much later, psychoanalysis, which had a partly didactic dimension.
In 1994, a museum curator found the poems Madeleine had written whilst in prison. He persuaded her to write a memoir so that the poetry could be put into context. This meant breaking her silence of fifty years. The book was called ‘On l’appelait Rainer’.
Madeleine would continue to be be actively engaged in the activities of the France-Việt Nam Friendship Association, and supported Vietnamese Agent Orange/dioxin victims, assisted marginalised communities in remote areas of Việt Nam, and encouraged the Vietnamese people in their development and global integration.
Consequently the Vietnamese State and Government awarded her the first-class Order of Resistance in 1984.This was followed by her being made Chevalier de la Legion d’honneur in 2001 (this was upgraded further in 2013, when she received the ‘Ordre National du Marite’).
Nguyen Dinh Thi died in 2003. Madeleine lived alone in her central Paris flat, where she gradually lost her eyesight. It was a fifth-floor apartment with no lift, so she was unable to go outside. She kept exotic birds because she loved to hear them sing. She was also a chain smoker who loved an occasional gin. Madeleine admitted she had not had a very happy later life – full of agony and suffering. A friend had said of her, “Madeleine wants to take on the suffering of all the crises of the world.”
In old age in one of her final interviews, Madeleine was once again asked about the assassination. “Killing someone is a terrible thing to do. It is never good to kill anyone, even an enemy. You should know that.” She also said, “There is a spirit of resistance. You have it or you don’t. I had it throughout my life.”
On her one hundredth birthday in August 2024, Madeleine was visited by the Vietnamese Ambassador to France. Madeleine died in her flat, three months later on 6 November, 2024 after a century of resilience and resistance.
The large turnout at her funeral reflected the deep affection and support for her courage, resilience, and passionate involvement in supporting the struggles for justice by the Vietnamese people and other oppressed peoples around the world.
The book 'Resistance Heroism and the End of Empire' by Keren Chiaroni explores the life of Madeleine Riffaud, and her contributions to historical narratives of rebellion in France. It examines significant events in French history through Riffaud's experiences and reflects on the choices individuals face when their beliefs conflict with state authority. The work aims to engage with contemporary discussions on national identity and the role of individual action in a global context.
Long live the memory of Madeleine Riffaud, a true internationalist and inspiring woman.
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