Jean-Pierre Lévy

Jean-Pierre Lévy (28 May 1911 – 15 December 1996) was a French Jewish industrialist and Second World War resistance leader. He worked in the textile industry before being called up as a reserve officer ahead of the war. After the fall of France Lévy joined the resistance and in 1941 co-founded the Franc-Tireur movement. He led the organisation and edited its newspaper. After meeting with Jean Moulin he agreed to help co-ordinate resistance movements in France and went on to join the directorate of the Mouvements unis de la Résistance (MUR). Lévy left France in April 1943 to meet resistance leaders and Charles de Gaulle in London and Algiers. He returned in July and was arrested in October. Lévy was freed by a MUR raid and joined the National Council of the Resistance. He was present at the August 1944 liberation of Paris.

After the war Levy held several business roles in the textile and coal industries and for Renault. He was president of the HEC Paris business school and administrator of the National Forests Office. Lévy remained committed to the cause of resistance fighters and was a member of the council of the Order of Liberation and the founding vice-president of Revivre. He went on to be administrator of SOS Children's Villages in France and the Center of Contemporary Jewish Documentation. Lévy also served on the central committee of the International League Against Racism and Anti-Semitism.

Early life Lévy, who was Jewish, was born in Strasbourg, Alsace, on 28 May 1911.

Lévy's father was a merchant and had his son educated at Strasbourg's Institute of Commercial Education.

In January 1942 Lévy met with Jean Moulin at Avignon. Moulin had been tasked by Free French leader Charles de Gaulle with coordinating French resistance movements. Lévy agreed with this goal and played an important role in negotiating co-ordination agreements with other organisations. Lévy secured weapons drops from the British intelligence services to support Franc-Tireur sabotage raids against German and Vichy forces in late 1942. He met with resistance leaders in London and Algiers and became a key member of a group of Jewish socialists close to de Gaulle.

Post-war

After the liberation of France Lévy returned to industry. From 1944 to 1946 he was a commissioner at the Professional Office for Leather Industries and afterwards was director of a number of textile and leather businesses until 1970. Lévy served as a General Inspector of Industry in 1956 and from 1957 to 1964 was administrator of the Auvergne basin coal mines. From 1965 until 1971 he was administrator of the national authority for Renault factories and from 1968 to 1972 of the National Forests Office. From 1970 Lévy served as an extraordinary state councillor. He was appointed president of an advisory committee to study the medical and social aspects of the education of children in 1976 and served in that role until 1980.

Lévy supported former resistance fighters, being a member of the council of the Order of Liberation and founding vice-president of Revivre, an organisation that worked to assist the orphans of fighters. He was administrator of the Committee of Social Works of the Resistance from 1947 and president from 1972. Lévy was appointed vice-president of the Resistance Action Committee in 1954 and from 1967 was administrator of SOS Children's Villages in France. He joined the central committee of the International League Against Racism and Anti-Semitism in 1971; from 1979 was the administrator of the Center of Contemporary Jewish Documentation and from 1976 to 1980 he was a member of the steering committee of the League for Human and Citizen's Rights. Lévy was appointed a grand officer of the Ordre national du Mérite, officer of the Order of Agricultural Merit, commander of the and commander of the .

Lévy died in Paris on 15 December 1996. His memoirs (Memoires D'Un Franc-Tireur. Itineraire D'Un Resistant (1940-1944) "Memoirs of a Franc-tireur: Journey of a resistance fighter (1940-1944)" ) were published posthumously in Paris in 1998.