[2] Starting in 1940, under the German military administration in occupied France during World War II, Minot took more than a thousand photos of daily life in Paris, which was formally prohibited by the Kommandantur authorities.

[2][4] When Minot was arrested, many of his photos and materials were seized by the French police, and the photographic works of his unique genre went unknown for several decades.

[3] Before the discovery of his wartime photography, a single photo attributed to an "M. Minot" was published by Printemps in a booklet in 1965, commemorating the department store's centenary.

[6] In 2020, another batch of 117 photos saved by Renée Damien, a colleague of Minot, were published in a book by Albert Hude titled Paris humilié, 1940-1941, Chronique photographique inédite en 101 clichés.

In August 2024, the newspaper published a series of five articles by Philippe Broussard detailing the results of the investigation and identifying Minot as the photographer, surmising that he may have had accomplices.

These photos show Paris and her closest suburbs between 1940 and 1942, particularly German soldiers in the capital, buildings and deserted streets, civilians queuing for rations, military equipment, propaganda leaflets, and anti-German inscriptions.