Missak Manouchian was an Armenian poet and communist activist. A survivor of the 1915–16 Armenian genocide, he moved to France from an orphanage in Lebanon in 1925. He was active in communist Armenian literary circles. During World War II, he became the military commissioner of FTP-MOI, a group consisting of European immigrants, including many Jews, in the Paris Region which carried out assassinations and bombings of Nazi targets. According to one author, the Manouchian group was the most active one of the French Resistance. Manouchian and many of his comrades were arrested in November 1943 and executed by the Nazis at Fort Mont-Valérien on 21 February 1944. He is considered a hero of the French Resistance and was entombed in the Panthéon in Paris.
Manouchian in the 1930s
The "Affiche Rouge" showing the group members and their "crimes", published by the Nazi and French police.
Portrait kept in the German Federal Archives and reproduced on the Affiche Rouge.
Rue du Groupe-Manouchian in the 20th arrondissement of Paris
Armenians in France are French citizens of Armenian ancestry. The French Armenian community is, by far, the largest in the European Union and the third largest in the world, after Russia and the United States.
The tomb of Leon V, the last Armenian king, at the Basilica of St Denis
The statue of Jean Althen in Avignon
Booklet of Papier d'Armenie
St. John the Baptist Cathedral in Paris