1944 in France

Events from the year 1944 in France.

Incumbents

Events

15 March – The National Council of the French Resistance approves the Resistance programme.
1 June – BBC transmits coded messages to underground resistance fighters in France warning that the invasion of Europe is imminent.
2 June – The provisional French government is established.
5 June
*More than 1000 British bombers drop 5000 tons of bombs on German gun batteries on the Normandy coast in preparation for D-Day.
*At 10:15 p.m. local time, the BBC transmits coded messages including the second line of the Paul Verlaine poem to the underground resistance indicating that the invasion of Europe is about to begin.
6 June
*Battle of Normandy begins – Operation Overlord, code named D-Day, commences with the landing of 155,000 Allied troops on the beaches of Normandy.
*Battle of Cherbourg begins.
7 June – Bayeux liberated by British troops.
9 June – Over 200 people are killed by 2nd SS Panzer Division ("Das Reich") in the Tulle massacre
10 June
*642 people are killed by 2nd SS Panzer Division ("Das Reich") in the Oradour-sur-Glane massacre.
*Battle of Carentan begins.
13 June – Battle of Bloody Gulch, near Carentan, United States forces victory.
14 June – Battle of Carentan ends with Allied victory.
26 June – American troops enter Cherbourg.
30 June – Battle of Cherbourg ends with the fall of the strategically valuable port to American forces.
9 July – British and Canadian forces capture Caen.
9 August – Ordonnance du 9 août 1944 relative au rétablissement de la légalité républicaine sur le territoire continental declares the Constitutional Law of 1940 issued by the Provisional Government void ab initio.
12 August – The world's first undersea oil pipeline is laid, between England and France in Operation Pluto.
15 August – Operation Dragoon lands Allies in southern France.
19 August – Liberation of Paris: The city rises against German occupation with the help of Allied troops.
20 August – American forces defeat German forces at Chambois. This victory closed the Falaise Gap.
24 August – Liberation of Paris: The Allies enter Paris, successfully completing Operation Overlord.
25 August
*German surrender of Paris: General Dietrich von Choltitz surrenders Paris to the Allies, in defiance of Hitler's orders to destroy it.
*Maillé massacre: 129 civilians are massacred by the Gestapo at Maillé, Indre-et-Loire.
*The Red Ball Express convoy system begins operation, supplying tons of materiel to Allied forces in France.
26 August
*Toulon liberated in Battle of Toulon (1944).
*Ordonnance instituting Indignité nationale.
28 August – Marseille liberated in Battle of Marseille.
8 September – Menton is liberated from Germany.
11 September – Northern and Southern France invasion forces link up near Dijon.
24 September – The U.S. Army 45th Infantry Division takes the strongly defended city of Epinal before crossing the Moselle River and entering the western foothills of the Vosges.
5 October – Royal Canadian Air Force pilots shoot down the first German jet fighter over France.
31 October – Mass murderer Marcel Petiot is apprehended in a Paris Métro station.
9 November – Collaborationist Georges Suarez becomes the first journalist executed during the épuration légale.
23 November – Liberation of Strasbourg.
19 December – Newspaper Le Monde first published in Paris.
Toymaker Jouef established.

Arts and literature

6 February – Première of Jean Anouilh's tragedy Antigone, at the Théâtre de l'Atelier in Nazi-occupied Paris.
May – Première of Jean-Paul Sartre's existentialist drama Huis Clos, at the Théâtre du Vieux-Colombier in Nazi-occupied Paris.

Births

January to June

17 January – Françoise Hardy, singer
26 January – Louis Gallois, businessman
10 February – Jean-Daniel Cadinot, film director and producer
25 February – François Cevert, motor racing driver
7 April – Jean-Pierre Brucato, soccer player
22 May – Henri Guédon, percussionist
25 May – Pierre Bachelet, singer songwriter
26 May – Laurent-Michel Vacher, philosopher, writer and journalist
22 June
* Pierre Goldman, left-wing intellectual, convicted of several robberies and assassinated
* Gérard Mourou, electrical engineer, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physics
24 June – Ticky Holgado, actor

July to December

6 July – Claude-Michel Schönberg, composer
12 July – Jean-François Jenny-Clark, double bass player
9 August – Patrick Depailler, motor racing driver
14 August – Jean-François Bizot, journalist and writer
2 September – Gilles Marchal, songwriter and singer
6 September – Christian Boltanski, photographer, sculptor and installation artist

Full date unknown

Jean-Jacques Le Chenadec, urban violence victim

Deaths

14 January – Eugène Louis Bouvier, entomologist and carcinologist
31 January – Jean Giraudoux, novelist, essayist, diplomat and playwright
4 February – Yvette Guilbert, singer and actress
24 February – Fanny Clar, journalist and writer
5 March – Max Jacob, poet, painter, writer and critic
22 March – Pierre Brossolette, journalist and Resistance fighter
30 April – Paul Poiret, fashion designer
20 May – Fraser Barron, New Zealand bomber pilot at Le Mans
6 July
* Andrée Borrel, French World War II heroine
* Sonia Olschanezky, German-born French Jewish World War II heroine
7 July – Georges Mandel, politician and Resistance leader
15 July – Joseph Sadi-Lecointe, aviator
31 July – Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, pilot and writer
1 August – Jean Prévost, writer, journalist and member of the Maquis
17 August – Paul Wormser, Olympic fencer
9 September – Robert Benoist, motor racing driver and war hero
11 September – Yolande Beekman, World War II heroine
13 September – Madeleine Damerment, World War II heroine
1 November – Lucien Cayeux, sedimentary petrographer
5 November – Alexis Carrel, surgeon and biologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
13 December- Wassily Kandinsky, artist
30 December – Romain Rolland, writer, Nobel Prize in Literature