Serge Ravanel

Serge Ravanel (; 12 May 1920 – 27 April 2009), born Serge Asher, was an engineer and author who became a prominent French Resistance fighter during World War II. He also operated under the alias Charles Guillemot.

Biography Asher was born in Paris, France on 12 May 1920. He was born to a wealthy family, of Jewish ancestry, his father was an engineer, and his mother was a Czech fashion journalist, who had settled in Paris for work. His stepfather was an export trader who worked in Africa.

Asher was educated at the Lycée Louis-le-Grand before going on to study polytechnics at École Polytechnique becoming an polyethnic engineer himself. He also began organizing other students into resistance and would become a key figure in the Resistance's work to liberate Lyon. He would adopt the alias Serge Ravanel, based on an alpine mountaineer, while working with them, a name that he would keep for the rest of his life.

By November 1943 Ravanel was serving as the national head of the Mouvements Unis de la Résistance in the southern zone. He worked closely with Raymond Aubrac and Maurice Kriegel-Valrimont in Toulouse, directing so many attacks that the city would be described as 'Toulouse la rouge.' Despite receiving this promotion, Ravanel criticized the resistance group Corps Franc de la Montagne Noire on political grounds, opposing them due to his communist leanings. Ultimately Ravanel would recall his meeting with de Gaulle as humiliating, claiming it was a political stunt to reign in FFI officers while celebrating career ones, with de Gaulle questioning Ravanel's personal right to wear the ribbon of the Order of Liberation which Ravanel claimed had been awarded him earlier.

Another bone of contention for de Gaulle was the high regard with which Ravanel held the Spanish maquisards who had led the liberation of Toulouse and other southern departments. Ravanel stated:

Ravanel resigned from the army in 1950.

Legacy Ravanel authored L'Esprit de Résistance, a biographical work describing his experience as a member of the French Resistance, which was published in 1995.