French resistance hero Raymond Aubrac dies at 97

Born Raymond Samuel to a middle-class Jewish family in 1914, he became known as Raymond Aubrac because one of his noms de guerre during his resistance years.

Raymond's daughter, Elisabeth Aubrac, and his wife Lucie Aubrac with Ho Chi Minh, 1946 Paul Durand, photojournalist of Humanity daily/Wikimedia Commons Raymond Aubrac - a life in dates: 31 July 1914: Born Raymond Samuel in Vesoul, eastern France; 1934: Studies civil engineering in Paris, also attending the Communist Party-run Workers’ University; 1937: Attends the Massachussets Institute of Technology and Harvard University in the US, graduates; 1939: Marries Lucie Bernard in Strasbourg; 1940: Arrested by Germans, escapes with help of Lucie, joins resistance along with her using pseudonym Aubrac; 1941: Birth of son, Jean-Pierre, with Lucvie and Emmanuel d’Astier starts production of resistance paper and helps launch resistance movement, Libération; 1943: Arrested by collaborationist French police in Lyon, released, with Lucie helps four ressistants escape, arrested by Gestapo; 1943: Escapes from Montluc prions, Lyon, thanks to an operation organised by Lucie, who is pregnant, they go underground: 1944: Arrives in London with Lucie, who gives birth to daughter, Catherine, after liberation becomes commissaire de la République in Marseille, then takes charge of post-war mine clearance on national level; 1946 : Befriends Vietnamese Communist leader Ho Chi Minh, birth of second daughter, Babette; 1948: Sets up Berim civil engineering consultancy, at first working mainly with Communist-run local authorities, then in eastern Europe; 1956: Moves to Morocco to become technical adviser to the government; 1964: Becomes director of the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation in Rome; 1967: Goes to Hanoi after request by US government advisor, Henry Kissinger, to try to start negotiations to end Vietnam war; 1973: Works with UN secretary-general Kurt Waldheim on follow-up to Paris Vietnam war peace negotiations; 1975: Witnesses crowds fill streets of Hanoi as North Vietnamese troops enter Saigan; 2003: Backs appeal by well-known Jews in solidarity with the Palestinians; 14 March 2007: Death of Lucie Aubrac in Issy-les-Moulineaux, near Paris; 10 April 2012: Dies at the Val de Grâce hospital in Paris.

Committed left-wingers before the war, he and his wife Lucie were among the founders of Libération Sud, one of the first resistance networks set up after Philippe Pétain's government capitulated the Germans in 1940.

In 1943 he was captured by the Gestamp along Jean Moulin, who had been sent by Charles De Gaulle to try and unify the Communist-led resistance with more right-wing forces.

Moulin died under torture in Paris and his capture and death are still the subject of debate as to whether he was betrayed.

Lucie and a resistance commando freed Raymond and 13 other detainees in a daring ambush on a truck from Gestapo headquarters in Lyon, an operation that featured in two films, Lucie Aubrac and Boulevard des Hirondelles.

After liberation, Aubrac became the representative of the new government in Marseille, a task that he later said was hampered by his youth and clashes with the Socialist Party, which had identified him as a Communist fellow-traveller.

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He later used his Communist connections and his technical skills to set up a consultancy advising local councils and east European governments on development.

During that period he met Czech Communist Artur London, who was later imprisoned by his comrades, an event that Aubrac said shook his faith in Stalinism.

In 1946 he befriended Vietnamese Communist leader Ho Chi Minh, then leading the fight for independence from the French and later the war with the US and its puppet governments.

In the 1970s Aubrac served as go-between in tentative moves towards peace between Washington and Hanoi.

On BBC news - Raymond Aubrac: How I tricked the Gestapo Click on the picture to read the article and see the video

In later years he signed a number of appeals against Israel's behaviour in the occupied Palestinian territories and its attacks on Lebanon.

On the 60th anniversary of the publication of the programme of the resistance he signed a joint appeal with other historic figures calling on younger generations to "pass on the heritage of the resistance and its ideals of economic, social and cultural democracy, taht are still relevant today".