Henry Frenay was born in Lyon, France, on 11 November 1905,[2] into a Catholic family with a military tradition, and staunch right-wing and anti-communist beliefs.

Frenay would later say of his youth, "without knowing, I belonged to a French right-wing, traditionalist, poor, patriotic and paternalistic tradition.” His father was a soldier, who was awarded the Legion of Honour in 1912 and served in the First World War, by the end of which he had reached the rank of lieutenant colonel.

He managed to escape from a POW camp in Alsace on 27 June 1940, and reached the Zone libre on 15 July, heading to Marseille, where he quickly became aware of the severity of France's situation.

In July 1941, Frenay met with former Prefect Jean Moulin, who had been dismissed by the Vichy Regime in November 1940 due to his Radical, republican ideals and sought to find out the size of the internal resistance movements in France on the orders of General de Gaulle.

[1][3] In January 1942, Frenay met with Moulin again following the latter's return from London, where he had been charged with unifying the French Resistance and rallying it to de Gaulle.

In the Zone Libre, Frenay sought to take military control of the French Resistance, when the three largest movements in the Zone (Francs-Tireurs et Partisans, Libération-sud and Combat) merged, which led to discussions with de Gaulle and Moulin, subsequently leading to the forming of the Conseil National de la Résistance, which, despite his leading involvement, Frenay distrusted and generally kept his own group, Combat, as separate from as possible.

In 1934, Frenay met and fell in love with Berty Albrecht, a Protestant feminist and anti-fascist, twelve years his senior and married, albeit separated from her husband.

Albrecht was eventually captured by SS Officer Klaus Barbie in 1943, in a trap likely intended to draw out Frenay, and became a martyr of the resistance, committing suicide to avoid revealing information under torture.

Then President, and former resistant, François Mitterrand issued a eulogy following Frenay's death, and across France streets have been named after him, including a square in Paris in the 12th arrondissement.