It has a wall in which are set sixteen bronze reliefs that represent in allegorical terms the different phases, places and participants in the struggle.

During World War II the Germans used Fort Mont-Valérien as a place where they executed members of the resistance and hostages.

[4] De Gaulle held a ceremony at Fort Mont-Valérien on 18 June 1945 with 200 Companions of the Liberation, honoring those killed during the war.

Accompanied by Admiral Georges Thierry d'Argenlieu he entered the casemate where the victims had awaited execution, then lit the eternal flame outside, the symbol of the Resistance.

[4] When he again became President of the French Republic after the May 1958 crisis in Algeria, General de Gaulle decided to create a memorial to Fighting France.

Félix Brunau, inspector general of public buildings and palaces, was charged with the task by presidential decree of 24 November 1958.

[3] The monument was erected against the southeast wall of the fort, near the clearing of the Fusillés, facing an esplanade covering over 10,000 square metres (110,000 sq ft).

[5] The monument consists of a wall of pink sandstone from the Vosges 150 metres (490 ft) long, on which are mounted sixteen bronze hauts-reliefs depicting, in allegorical form, different types of heroic combat.

A Cross of Lorraine 12 metres (39 ft) high stands in the center, in front of which the permanent flame of the resistance burns on a bronze structure.

On 20 September 2003 Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin inaugurated a monument to the memory of the fusillés, bearing the names of those members of the resistance and hostages who have been identified.

Henri Frenay was charged in 1945 with organizing the ceremony and selecting those to be buried to represent a broad spectrum of those engaged in the struggle.

[8] The fifteen included casualties in Italy and Egypt, members of the marine and the airforce, colonial troops from Morocco, Tunisia and Senegal, and the deported resistance fighters Renée Levy and Raymond Bigosse.

To the Jews the ceremony of 11 November 1945 symbolized that after their rejection during the Vichy era they had now been re-accepted as members of the French community.