Jean-Pierre Lévy (resistance leader)

After meeting with Jean Moulin he agreed to help co-ordinate resistance movements in France and went on to join the directorate of the Mouvements unis de la Résistance (MUR).

Lévy left France in April 1943 to meet resistance leaders and Charles de Gaulle in London and Algiers.

Lévy remained committed to the cause of resistance fighters and was a member of the council of the Order of Liberation and the founding vice-president of Revivre.

Lévy became the movement's leader and organised it into sections for intelligence, parachuting and fighting and established social services for local residents.

[2] In his early thirties, Lévy was young for a resistance leader in France and was 24 years junior to his sub-ordinate Marc Bloch.

According to Levy's memoir, the Free French intelligence service Bureau Central de Renseignements et d'Action experimented with dyeing his hair grey to give him a more mature look.

Lévy secured weapons drops from the British intelligence services to support Franc-Tireur sabotage raids against German and Vichy forces in late 1942.

[2] Lévy and Moulin joined the directorate of the Mouvements unis de la Résistance (MUR), in early 1943, which consolidated Franc-Tireur with Libération-sud and Combat.

[2] Lévy escaped France by air on 15 April alongside Emmanuel d'Astier de La Vigerie, after two unsuccessful attempts.

[2][4] He met with resistance leaders in London and Algiers and became a key member of a substantial group of Jewish socialists around de Gaulle.

[4][7] After training in parachuting at Wilmslow, Cheshire, Levy and d'Astier returned to Lyon by Westland Lysander aircraft on 25 July 1943.

[7][2] He was appointed president of the advisory committee to study medical and social aspects of the education of children in 1976 and served in that role until 1980.

He joined the central committee of International League Against Racism and Anti-Semitism in 1971 and from 1979 was administrator of the Center of Contemporary Jewish Documentation.