Date of birth:

May 22nd, 1907 (Angers, France)

Date of death:

October 24th, 1989 (Paris, France)

Nationality:

French (1870-present, Republic)

From 1927 to 1929, he did his military service in a company of aviation workers in Versailles. Freed from his military obligations, he enrolled in evening classes at the Ecole Boulle then at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Arts décoratifs in Paris.

In 1934 Eugène Petit was admitted to the CAPES of drawing and was appointed teacher at the Lycée Ampère in Lyon. In 1939, he was mobilized at the Bron-Lyon Aviation Park as reserve sergeant-chief.

He heard the Appeal of June 18 and, resolutely refusing defeat, decided to join the Resistance.

He made contact with his friend Antoine Avinin's "France Liberté" (future "Franc-Tireur") movement and began to manufacture false papers, photos, distribute leaflets and illegal newspapers. It also ensures the distribution of the newspaper Franc-Tireur in university circles.

Under the name of "Claudius", Eugène Petit replaced, in May 1942, Antoine Avinin, who had just been arrested, on the Steering Committee of "Franc-Tireur". He then took care of the transport of arms and information as well as contacts with the other movements, "Combat" and "Liberation" in the southern zone, "Lorraine" and "Resistance" in the northern zone.

In 1943 he created a clandestine photography laboratory to help Henri Gorce-Franklin, head of the Gallia network, to transmit to London the information collected by the United Resistance Movements (MUR). Member of the Steering Committee of the MUR, he represents "Franc-Tireur" on May 27, 1943 at the first meeting of the National Council of the Resistance (CNR) in Paris, under the chairmanship of Jean Moulin. He also liaises with the resistance movements of prisoners of war and also takes care of young people by working for the creation of the United Forces of Youth (FUJ).

On the night of October 16 to 17, 1943, from an airfield near Mâcon, he flew to London with General de Lattre de Tassigny and Jean Rosenthal, aboard a twin-engine Lockheed-Hudson.

He then sits in the Consultative Assembly of Algiers where he represents "Franc-Tireur" and chairs the group of representatives of the Resistance.

In 1945 he was president of the National Liberation Movement (MLN) and elected under this label to the Constituent Assembly.

After the war, he created the Democratic and Socialist Union of the Resistance (UDSR) and stood for legislative elections. He was deputy for the Loire from 1946 to 1955.

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• - Eugène CLAUDIUS-PETIT | L'Ordre de la Libération et son Musée