Jean Moulin (June 20, 1899–July 8, 1943) was a high-profile member of the French Resistance during World War II. He is remembered today as an emblem of the Resistance primarily due to his courage and death at the hands of the Germans.

Before the war
In 1939 Moulin was appointed préfet of the Eure-et-Loir département. The Germans arrested him in June 1940 because he refused to sign a German document that falsely blamed Senegalese French Army troops for civilian massacres. In prison, he attempted suicide by cutting his throat with a piece of broken glass. This left him with a scar that he would often hide with a scarf — the image of Jean Moulin remembered nowadays.
In November 1940, the Vichy government ordered all préfets to dismiss left-wing elected mayors of towns and villages. When Moulin refused, he was himself removed from office. He then lived in Saint-Andiol (Bouches-du-Rhône), and joined the resistance. Moulin reached London in September 1941 under the name Joseph Jean Mercier, and met General Charles de Gaulle, who asked him to unify the various resistance groups. On January 1, 1942, he parachuted into the Alpilles. Under the codenames Rex and Max, he met with the leaders of the resistance groups:
In his work in the resistance, he was assisted by his private administrative assistant Laure Diebold.
In February 1943, Moulin went back to London, accompanied by Charles Delestraint, head of the new armée secrète group. He left on March 21, 1943 with orders to form the Conseil National de la Résistance (CNR), a difficult task since each resistance movement wanted to keep its independence. The first meeting of the CNR took place in Paris on May 27, 1943.
Jean Moulin was arrested June 21, 1943 in Caluire-et-Cuire (Rhône), in the home of Doctor Frédéric Dugoujon, where a meeting with most of the resistance leaders was taking place. Interrogated in Lyon by Klaus Barbie, head of the Gestapo there, and later in Paris, he never revealed anything to his captors. He eventually died under brutal torture near Metz, in the Paris-Berlin train which was taking him to a concentration camp.

Henri Frenay (Combat)
Emmanuel d'Astier (Libération)
Jean-Pierre Lévy (Francs-Tireur)
Pierre Villon (Front National, not to be confused with the present-day far-right French political party Front National)
Pierre Brossolette (Comité d'Action Socialiste) The Resistance