He participated in one of the most famous resistance operations of World War II. President Emmanuel Macron on Saturday paid tribute to the “courage” of Edmond Matier, a resistance fighter who died Tuesday at the age of 96 while fighting in the Claires Maquis in the Alps during World War II.
Edmond Moutier, born in the Marne in 1926, took part in the defense of this symbolic high point of resistance, despite the recent questioning of the extent of the fighting there.
“He is one of the final figures of the Claires epic,” Elysée said in a press release, “paying homage to the memory of these dark silhouettes under the white snow and the tricolor flag, greeting the head of state.
124 people were killed or shot during the fighting
Edmond Mathier, successful in the evacuation, returned to the Marne before becoming a liaison officer with the legendary General George Patton’s 5th US Army. After the war, he became an oenologist, which led him to the management of Mott & Santon in America and Australia.
On March 31, 2019, Emmanuel Macron, with former President Nicolas Sarkozy, commemorated the 75th anniversary of the battle on the Clares Plateau.
From January to the end of March 1944, 465 guerrillas gathered there to receive parachute drops of weapons from the Allies. Attacked by the German army and Vichy militia on 26 March, 124 of them were killed in action or shot, nine went missing and 16 died in exile.
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