The Jeanson network () was a group of French

leftwing Left-wing politics describes the range of political ideologies that support and seek to achieve social equality and egalitarianism, often in opposition to social hierarchy either as a whole or of certain social hierarchies. Left-wing politi ...

militants led by Francis Jeanson who helped Algerian National Liberation Front agents operating in the French metropolitan territory during the

Algerian War The Algerian War (also known as the Algerian Revolution or the Algerian War of Independence) ''; '' (and sometimes in Algeria as the ''War of 1 November'') was an armed conflict between France and the Algerian National Liberation Front (Algeri ...

. They were mainly involved in carrying money and papers for the Algerians and were sometimes called "the suitcase carriers" (''les porteurs de valises''), a notion from the French resistance movement during World War II. The communist

anticolonialist Decolonization is the undoing of colonialism, the latter being the process whereby imperial nations establish and dominate foreign territories, often overseas. The meanings and applications of the term are disputed. Some scholars of decolon ...

activist Activism consists of efforts to promote, impede, direct or intervene in social, political, economic or environmental reform with the desire to make changes in society toward a perceived common good. Forms of activism range from mandate build ...

Henri Curiel Henri Curiel (13 September 1914 – 4 May 1978) was a left-wing political activist in Egypt and France. Born in Egypt, Curiel led the communist Democratic Movement for National Liberation until he was expelled from the country in 1950. Settling ...

participated in the network, as did the forger Adolfo Kaminsky. The philosopher

Jean-Paul Sartre Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre (, ; ; 21 June 1905 – 15 April 1980) was a French philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and literary criticism, literary critic, considered a leading figure in 20th ...

and writer

Simone de Beauvoir Simone Lucie Ernestine Marie Bertrand de Beauvoir (, ; ; 9 January 1908 – 14 April 1986) was a French existentialist philosopher, writer, social theorist, and feminist activist. Though she did not consider herself a philosopher, nor was she ...

were supportive of the Jeanson network. Photojournalist and author

Dominique Darbois Dominique Darbois (5 April 1925 – 6 September 2014) was a French photojournalist and author, noted for her humanist studies of diverse locales, artifacts, children, and colonized peoples. Darbois was born in Paris and during the Second World War ...

was another intellectual in Jeanson's network.Mémoires de la guerre d'Algérie Par Martin Evens ; Page 74

Notable suitcase carriers

* Francis Jeanson *

Jacques Vergès Jacques Vergès (; 5 March 1925 – 15 August 2013) was a French-Algerian lawyer of Vietnamese origin and anti-colonial activist. Vergès began as a fighter in the French Resistance during World War II, under Charles de Gaulle's Free French forc ...

* Hélène Cuenat

References

Military units and factions of the Algerian War Contemporary French history Rebel groups in Algeria {{France-hist-stub

Notable suitcase carriers

See also

References