Franc-Tireur (movement)

'Free Shooter') was a French Resistance movement of centrist political orientation and the smallest of the three founding member-organisations of the Mouvements Unis de la Résistance in 1943.

The movement gained traction when the leadership was assumed in spring 1941 by Jean-Pierre Lévy, a demobilised artillery lieutenant and a refugee Alsatian businessmen with extensive middle-class contacts in the south.

Franc-Tireur was also the name of the movement's principal clandestine newspaper, which continued publishing issues from December 1941 to 1957 by which point the editorial team had changed several times.

Under the guidance of Jean Moulin, the movement merged in early 1943 with the left-wing Libération-sud and the right-wing Combat to form the non-communist Resistance bloc Mouvements Unis de la Résistance (MUR).

[2] The revolutionary rhetoric adopted by the group (as seen e.g. in the title of its magazine Le Père Duchesne [fr]) contrasted with its moderate socialist programme.