Colonel Rémy

Gilbert Renault 6 August 1904 29 July 1984 known by the nom de guerre Colonel Rémy was a notable French secret agent active during the Second World War and was known under various pseudonyms such as Raymond JeanLuc Morin Watteau Roulier Beauce and Rémy Gilbert Renault was born in Vannes France the oldest child of a Catholic family of nine children His father was a professor of Philosophy and English and later the inspector general of an insurance company He went to the Collège StFrançoisXavier in Vannes and after his studies he went to the Rennes faculty His sisters were Maisie Renault and Madeleine Cestari A sympathizer of Action Française in the Catholic and chauvanist line he began his career at the Bank of France in 1924 In 1936 he began cinematic production and finances and made Jaccuse a new version of the Abel Gance film It was a resounding failure but the many connections that Renault made during this period were very useful during the Resistance With the armistice declared of June 18 1940 he refused to accept Marshal Philippe Pétain and went to London with one of his brothers on board a trawler which departed from Lorient He was one of the first men to adhere to the calls of General Charles de Gaulle and was entrusted by Colonel Passy the captain and chief of the Bureau Central de Renseignements et dAction to create an information network in France In August of that year he met with Louis de La Bardonnie and together they created the NotreDame Brotherhood which would become NDTCastille in 1944 Initially centred on the Atlantic coast it ended up covering much of occupied France and Belgium The network was one of the most important in the occupied zone and its information allowed many military successes as the attack on Bruneval and on SaintNazaire Convinced that it was necessary to mobilize all forces against the occupation he put the French Communist Party in touch with the exiled government of Free France in January 1943 Renault later admitted it was Pierre Brossolette who had put him in touch with political groups and trade unions Awarded the Ordre de la Libération on March 13 1942 he became a member of the executive committee of the Rally of the French People RPF from its creation in charge of trips and demonstrations He appeared in Carrefour on April 11 1950 in an article La justice et lopprobre Justice and the Opprobrium in which he preached the rehabilitation of Marshal Pétain A short time later he adhered to the Association in Defence of the Memory of Marshal Pétain ADMP Repudiated by de Gaulle he resigned from the RPF He settled in Portugal in 1954 but returned to France in 1958 to be placed at the disposal of de Gaulle Renault also became very active onwards in various associations including ultraconservative Catholic networks He died in Guingamp France in 1984 Renault wrote many works on his activities in the Resistance Under the name of Rémy one of his pseudonyms in clandestinity he published his Mémoires dun agent secret de la France libre et La Ligne de démarcation It was adapted to film as Line of Demarcation by Claude Chabrol in 1966 and they are regarded as important testimonies on the French Resistance Source Article Gilbert Renault from Wikipedia in English licensed under CCBYSA