Aimé Lepercq

Aimé Marie Antoine Lepercq (2 September 1889 – 9 November 1944) was a French soldier, industrialist and political figure.

Early life and education

Born in Collonges-au-Mont-d'Or (now part of the Metropolis of Lyon), as the eldest of nine children, he graduated from the École Polytechnique in 1911, and then the École des Mines.^[1]

Lepercq fought in World War I, in which he was wounded three times and decorated for valor five times, becoming Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur in 1915 and receiving the British Armed Forces Military Cross. After the war, he worked as an administrator of industrial properties for the Škoda company in Czechoslovakia.^[2]

On the outbreak of World War II, Lepercq fought in the artillery during the battle of France, and continued to fight despite orders to no longer do so, until the actual Compiègne armistice of June, 1940. After a brief internment by the Germans, he returned to civil life as an industrial administrator, but was fired in 1943 for speaking out against the collaborationist administration and the Vichy regime, regarding the Service du travail obligatoire and deportations of Frenchmen to German labor camps.

Consequently, he became an active member of the French Resistance, commanding the Forces françaises de l'intérieur (FFI) in Île-de-France. Arrested again in 1944, he was set free due to the German authorities' failure to investigate, he took part in the Liberation of Paris (August of the same year), leading the FFI's attack on the Hôtel de Ville. For his role in the Resistance actions, he was made a Compagnon de la Libération; he was twice recipient of the Croix de Guerre, for his valor in both World Wars.

He was selected by Charles de Gaulle as Minister of Finance,^[3] but died soon after in a car accident near Lille, and was replaced by René Pleven.^[4] He is buried in Cimetière des Batignolles.

^ Carcopino, Jérôme (1944). "Un « empereur » maure inconnu d'après une inscription latine récemment découverte dans l'Aurès". Revue des Études Anciennes. 46 (1): 94–120. doi:10.3406/rea.1944.3276. ISSN 0035-2004.
^ Ehrmann, Henry Walter (2015). Organized Business in France. Princeton University Press. p. 97. ISBN 9781400878321.
^ Woloch, Isser (2019). The Postwar Moment: Progressive Forces in Britain, France, and the United States After World War II. Yale University Press. p. 178. ISBN 9780300124354.
^ Hitchcock, William I. (2000). France Restored: Cold War Diplomacy and the Quest for Leadership in Europe, 1944-1954. University of North Carolina Press. p. 27. ISBN 9780807866801.