Lucien Neuwirth, the Gaullist politician responsible for the 1967 legalisation of the contraceptive pill in France, died Tuesday at the age of 89.

News of his death, from a lung infection, topped the morning news bulletins as commentators reflected on the impact of a landmark reform that was hugely controversial at the time.

Neuwirth, born in the industrial town of Saint Etienne on May 18, 1924, was also celebrated as one of the longest surviving heroes of the World War II Resistance, which he joined in 1940 at the age of 16.

For the final two years of the war, he served as part of the Free French Forces contingent in Britain’s elite Special Air Service (SAS), repeatedly parachuting behind enemy lines on daring reconnaissance missions and seeing action during the Battle of the Bulge in the Ardennes in 1944-45....