As an only child, Marcelle Lafont was brought up to be her father's successor, encouraged to pursue a rigorous education, not usual at the time for a young girl who was part of the Lyonnaise bourgeoisie.

Her mother Pauline Lafont was well educated, having graduated from the lycée Edgar Quinet, and was involved in running the family business.

[3][4][5]Marcelle Lafont passed her Baccalauréat in elementary mathematics and earning a licence ès sciences, a higher level secondary education qualification.

[6] As a qualified chemical engineer, Marcelle would have been able to start her career in the family business, but wanted to prove herself independently, and found employment at the Bertholus airography factory in Caluire.

[8] In 1935, her uncle Ernest Lafont became Minister of Health and Sports, and asked her to take care of child welfare in his cabinet.

She worked to improve conditions for factory workers and was active in organisations with educational or medical aims at a national level, including the Ligue d'Études et de Réformes de l'Enfance délinquante (League for the Study and Reform of Delinquent Children) and Guérir et Revivre (Healing and Living).

[1] In 1934, together with her mother, she hosted the women's programme L'heure de la femme on the Lyon radio station La-Doua, opened by her uncle Ernest Lafont.

Lazare Goujon's idea was to change the law on women's suffrage by proving that they were capable of taking on political responsibilities.

She was assigned to Home Front duties, specifically defence against aerial attacks and was deputy to the departmental director of the Rhône.

On 19 June 1939, on the cusp of the invasion of Lyon, she transported armed soldiers out of the city in her truck to prevent them from being taken prisoner.

She managed to infiltrate the Casernes de la Part-Dieu barracks in Lyon, which had been requisitioned by the Germans as a prison camp, to provide the men with food and medicine.

In November 1940, she joined the women's section of the Amitiés africaines drivers and supplied the prison camps and hospitals.

[12] She twice travelled to Germany without official papers to bring food and clothing to the kommandos (forced labour workers) in the Stuttgart region and to the Oflag XII-B prisoner of war camp in Mainz.

[12] While delivering supplies to the Charleville stalag, on 25 October 1941, she helped the non-commissioned officer Antoine Blanquez escape by hiding him in her truck to take him to Paris.

[13]From 23 August 1944 to the liberation of Lyon on 2 September 1944, the corps d'assistantes coloniales provided supplies to army units from the French colonies: around 500 men stationed in Villeurbanne, Décines, Saint-Fons and Vaulx-en-Velin.

He was a sports champion, a triple jumper, seconded from his infantry regiment, and was responsible for organising French participation in the 1936 Berlin Olympics.