[1][2] A prefect in the Aveyron (1937–1939) and Eure-et-Loir (1939–1940) departments, he is remembered today as one of the main heroes of the French Resistance and for his efforts to unify it under Charles de Gaulle.

After his proposal of marriage to Jeanette Auran was rejected, Moulin, then aged 27, married a 19-year-old professional singer, Marguerite Cerruti, in the town of Betton-Bettonet in September 1926.

[10] In 1932, Pierre Cot, a Radical-Socialist politician, named Moulin his second in command or chef adjoint when he was serving as Foreign Minister under Paul Doumer's presidency.

In 1933, Moulin was appointed sous-préfet of Thonon-les-Bains, parallel to his function of head of Cot's cabinet in the Air Ministry under President Albert Lebrun.

In the first half of April, Moulin was appointed to the Seine préfecture and, on 1 July, he took his place as secretary general in Somme, in Amiens.

A more commonly-accepted version of events is that he used his position in the French air ministry to deliver planes to the Spanish Republican forces.

After war against Germany was declared, he asked multiple times to be demoted because "[his] place is not at the rear, at the head of a rural departement".

The minister forced him to return to Chartres, where the War quickly made its way to him in the form of German air strikes and columns of distressed and sometimes wounded refugees.

[14] Moulin was arrested by the Germans on 17 June 1940 because he refused to sign a false declaration that three Senegalese tirailleurs had committed atrocities, killing civilians in La Taye.

[15][16] Beaten and imprisoned because he refused to comply, Moulin attempted suicide by cutting his own throat with a piece of broken glass.

He then began writing his diary, First Battle, in which he relates his resistance against the Nazis in Chartres, which was later published at the Liberation and prefaced by de Gaulle.

Having decided not to collaborate, Moulin left Chartres for his parents' home town, Saint-Andiol, Bouches-du-Rhône, and joined the French Resistance, specifically, the organisation Free France.

[20] Under the name Joseph Jean Mercier, he went to Marseille, where he met other résistants, including Henri Frenay and Antoine Sachs.

He gave Moulin the assignment of co-ordinating and unifying the various Resistance groups, a difficult mission that would take time and effort to accomplish.

The next month, Moulin returned to London, accompanied by Charles Delestraint, who led the new Armée secrète, which grouped together the MUR's military wings.

Because he was known as a left-wing republican, he also succeeded in obtaining the cooperation of the Communist resistance groups, which had been reluctant to accept de Gaulle as their leader.

The meeting was attended by representatives of eight resistance movements, two major labour unions and the six most important political parties of the Third Republic.

This show of unity consolidated the position of de Gaulle vis-à-vis the allied forces, who were considering a plan to administer post-War France themselves.

René Hardy (alias Didot), a member of the resistance movement Combat and a specialist in railroads, was also present for reasons that are not clear and in what appears to have been a breach of good security practice.

The last time he was seen alive he was still in a coma, his head swollen and yellow from bruising and wrapped in bandages, according to the description given by Christian Pineau, fellow prisoner and member of the Resistance.

[27][28][29][30][31] There is some uncertainty surrounding the exact circumstances of Moulin's death, including about the view that he died while being transported by train to Germany.

[36] Vergès failed in his effort to acquit Barbie but succeeded in creating a vast industry of various conspiracy theories, many very fanciful, about who betrayed Moulin.

[37] Leading historians, such as Henri Noguères and Jean-Pierre Azéma, rejected Vergès's conspiracy theories under which Barbie was somehow less culpable than the supposed traitors who tipped him off.

The British intelligence officer Peter Wright, in his 1987 book Spy Catcher, wrote that Pierre Cot was an "active Russian agent" and called his protégé Moulin a "dedicated Communist".

[40] Benfredj's book was published with an introduction with Jacques Soustelle, the archaeologist of Mexico and wartime Gaullist whose commitment to Algérie française had made him a bitter enemy of de Gaulle by 1959.

He alleges that communists at times betrayed non-communists to the Gestapo and that Aubrac was linked to harsh actions during the purge of collaborators after the war.

[42] To counteract the accusations levelled at Moulin, Daniel Cordier, his personal secretary during the war, wrote a biography of his former leader.

[43] On 2 April 1998, following a civil suit launched by the Aubracs, a Paris court fined Chauvy and his publisher, Albin Michel, for "public defamation".

[46] Ashes that are thought to be those of Jean Moulin were buried in Le Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris and later transferred to the Panthéon on 19 December 1964.