Britain 'masterminded French resistance'
France is only belatedly accepting the extent to which Britain masterminded its wartime resistance operations, according to one of Winston Churchill's last remaining French secret agents.
Captain Robert (Bob) Maloubier was an agent of the French section of the Special Operations Executive, or SOE. Churchill's "secret army" was created to "set Europe ablaze" by encouraging and facilitating espionage and sabotage behind enemy lines during the Second World War.
Mr Maloubier, then only 20, took part in a string of daring missions in occupied France as a weapons trainer and demolitions expert, helping blow up a power station, a steel plant, and a submarine tender as well as preparing the ground for D-Day.
He gives his first full-blown account of his wartime operations in "Winston Churchill's Secret Agent", released in France today.
"The French are a bit jingoistic; they think they freed themselves all alone. One always hears about the French resistance," Mr Maloubier, 88, told the Daily Telegraph. "The influence of the SOE, experts who came over to train the French, has had very little coverage in France....