Antoine Avinin

Antoine Louis Avinin (26 January 1902 – 29 October 1962) [aliases Albert Arnaud, Albert Anceau, Albert Audin, Talbert] was a French businessman, resistance fighter and politician.

Biography He was born in Lyon. His parents owned a food trading business in Cantal. He went to boarding school with the Marist fathers of Notre-Dame de Bellegarde college in Neuville-sur-Saône. He completed first part of his baccalaureat before entering employment as a bank clerk and a chemist's assistant. He began national military service with the 7e bataillon de chasseurs alpins in Bourg-Saint-Maurice. He trained as an officer at the Saint-Maixent officer cadet course, leaving as a second lieutenant in 1922, after which his mother bought him a small factory in Villeurbanne, Lyon, where he began a clothing factory with a business partner.

He became an activist in the Ligue de la jeune République, a Christian democratic movement concerned with social action which succeeded Marc Sangnier's Le Sillon. He remained a reserve officer and as such was mobilized at the outbreak of World War II, commanding a company as a lieutenant in the 6e bataillon de chasseurs alpins at Heyrieux, Isère.

For his wartime actions in charge of Région R4, he was awarded the Ordre de la Libération on August 7, 1945. That year, he also became involved in active politics, becoming a deputy for the Seine region as part of the Union démocratique et socialiste de la Résistance. The following year, he was elected a senator for the Rassemblement des gauches républicaines representing the French residing in Indochina and sat on the Conseil de la République from 1946 to 1952.

He died in Massiac in 1962 and was buried in the local cemetery.