Talk:Francs-tireurs

Merge
Shouldn't this be "Franc-tireur", that is, singular rather than plural?

Someone has created a Franc-tireur page; they should be combined. A D Monroe III 01:39, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Oy. There's also a Francs-Tireurs et Partisans page! A D Monroe III 01:52, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)


 * Still not merged! I think this one should be the title, and I'll add merge notices accordingly and see how people react. Let's give this at least a week for reaction. -- Jmabel | Talk 06:24, 30 November 2005 (UTC)


 * These are different things:
 * The "Francs-tireurs" were an organisation of paramilitary forces during the 1870 war
 * A "franc-tireur" is basically a sniper (with an emphasis on the sneaking and paramilitary nature... you would not say that a regular military sniper using a Hecate II is a "franc-tireur"). Ant such soldier from any side, organisation of time can be thus qualified (for instance a Serbian sniper in Sarajevo would be a "franc-tireur" all right). I think that this entry would be more relevant in the French wikipedia than here.
 * The FTP-MOI were a Communist terrorist/resistant organisation during the Second world war. Rama 08:54, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

I have merged "Franc-tireur" into this article because this article was bigger, but it might be desirable to put in a WP:RM to move this article to the singular. I have no strong opinion on this either way. --Philip Baird Shearer 12:11, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Recent anonymous addition
There was a recent anonymous addition that is probably mostly OK, but has some issues; in general, it could use citations; a few points should be singled out:


 * "The francs-tireurs were often vilified by the German armies and popular press…": certainly true, but a citation would be nice.
 * "…seemed to the Germans to have an unerring sense of the most vulnerable parts of the German armies in France…" not at all self-evident, rather sweeping, and really calls for a citation.
 * "The experiences of French guerilla attacks and of asymmetric warfare in general during the War had a profound effect on the German General Staff, resulting in the unusually harsh and severe occupation of areas conquered by Germany during World War I." The claim of causality here also calls strongly for citation. -- Jmabel | Talk 01:55, Apr 19, 2005 (UTC)
 * All this and more at The Franco-Prussian War - The German Invasion of France, Geoffrey Wawro. If you don't have access to the book, bits of it relating to francs-tireurs can be found here --61.88.82.134 05:48, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

FTP-MOI is part of the French Resistance
FTP-MOI is part of the French Resistance —This unsigned comment was added by 87.69.103.163 (talk • contribs) 28 March 2006.

Merged in from Talk:Franc-tireur
Copied from Talk:Franc-tireur when the pages were merged. --Philip Baird Shearer 12:11, 24 April 2006 (UTC)



I am not at all certain that this paragraph is correct:

"It is not correct to say that international law allows unlawful combatants to be arbitrarily executed or otherwise punished. Rather, such persons are not covered at all by the rules of war, and they should instead be tried as civilians."

Do you have a reference for this? I thought that fighters not covered by international law were "outside" both civilian and international law rules. It seems unlikely that such folks would get the "better" civilian protection if they were not entitled to the protection of international law. marvinfreeman


 * What do you mean by "better" civilian treatment? An armed person found shooting people would be considered a mass murderer as a civilian. Only if that person is a combatant following the laws of war will he be entitled to treatment as a prisoner of war, which implies the opposing belligrent may only intern the person for the duration of hostilities. /LK

By "better" I mean primarily the procedural safeguards mandated by the civilian law of their captors -- e.g. no unreasonable force during arrest, right to counsel, right to bail, some form of indictment and an opportunity to respond, a trial within a reasonable period of time, an impartial judge, etc.

Nonetheless, I think I see what you are driving at. The article might leave the impression that unlawful combatants can be punished in any way the captor chooses. That is not correct.

On the other hand, it is also incorrect to say that a franc-tireur must be tried as a civilian. The U.S. Supreme Court has not given unlawful combatants the right to a civilian trial.

Maybe we need to leave out anything about punishment and just say that a franc-tireur need not be treated as a POW? We could let someone else cope with the rights of an unlawful combatant.

As this article stands right now, the explanation/definition is decidedly circular. Someone who actually knows what this is should give a better explanation. Draco 03:40 Mar 23, 2003 (UTC)

"Francs-tireurs" conflict
Someone has created a Francs-tireurs page (plural rather than signular?); they should be combined. A D Monroe III 01:41, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Oy. There's also a Francs-Tireurs et Partisans page! All with the same info, sort of. Help, someone! A D Monroe III 18:32, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Communist prestige
I see that citation is requested for "the PCF's electoral success after World War II was, to a large extent, due to its prestige as a centre of resistance." I think this is clearly true, and Googling  easily finds many claims to this effect. The issue is what is citable. and look very promising, if someone has JSTOR access to follow these up.

"the party… had long derived much prestige from its deep association with the Resistance and the Resistance myth" from H-France Review tends to confirm what we say, but isn't exactly the same claim. By the way, both this last and the quotation from Maurice Buckmaster at seem to question whether this association of the communists with the resistance was really legitimate.

A passage at tends to bolster the statement. It's from a Marxist source, but not a CP source:

"In France, the pro-fascist Vichy regime was discredited. The French resistance movement was under the control of the Communist Party. Prior to the liberation of Paris by the Allies, the resistance movement liberated the greater part of France, including Paris. The liberation committees almost everywhere became organs of power. The CP was the main force behind this rising, and once Vichy had collapsed France was convulsed in a revolutionary wave. The Anglo-American armies were faced with a fait accompli."

"However, as soon as De Gaulle established a government he began to undermine the committees. Two representatives of the CP were rapidly drawn into the government, and despite their protests, De Gaulle signed a decree dissolving the militias. The General saw his task as to 'trim the Communists' claws', with the eager cooperation of Thorez, the General Secretary of the CP. Thorez came out for law and order and the disbanding of the militias and all 'irregular' groups. Given the leading role of the Stalinists, the militias liquidated themselves into the French 'grand army'."

Hope that helps; if someone has JSTOR access, I suspect they may find the statement more explicitly. I would consider our statement a perfectly valid synthesis of what I've just found, but I know that some people feel that WP:NOR does not allow even this degree of synthesis, so I'm keeping this to the talk page for now. - Jmabel | Talk 20:22, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

CFD to rename category
Category:Members of the FTP has been nominated for renaming. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the Categories for discussion page. Thank you. Cgingold (talk) 10:25, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Conflicting claims
''The 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica describes ... that the francs-tireurs ... "paralysed large detachments of the enemy, contested every step of his advance (as in the Loire campaign), and prevented him from gaining information, and that their soldierly qualities improved with experience."''

However, the francs-tireurs caused fewer than 1000 German casualties and ultimately played only a minor part of the Franco-Prussian War.' 

So which is it - did they paralyze large detachments of the enemy, as Britannica says, or did they play only a minor role, as the later unsourced paragraph claims? Wardog (talk) 13:49, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Belgian Participation
I made a recent edit and, in accordance with the reference I used, made sure to mention the activities of francs-tireurs in Belgium in 1914. The reference lead me to believe that not all franc-tireurs hailed from France but may have included French-speaking Belgians, or Walloons, as well. Belgium is not mentioned in any other part of the article so I just wanted to request that someone with more knowledge on the subject clarify the nationality of the fighters themselves. — Preceding unsigned comment added by BallistaBuffalo (talk • contribs) 03:07, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

Singular versus plural
Following a request to move this to the singular, franc-tireur, I meant to accept the request, but while preparing an explanation based on WP:SINGULAR, I discovered that the situation wasn't as clear as I expected. Exceptions include...the names of classes of objects (e.g. Arabic numerals or Bantu languages). Comparable articles, e.g. Soviet partisans and Belarusian partisans, have plural titles, and this is about the francs-tireurs as a group instead of the "institution" or concept of the franc-tireur, so I now think that it shouldn't be moved. Nyttend (talk) 05:23, 7 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Reference works list entries in the singular. So if we are presented with the option of writing either that an individual was a franc-tireur, (singular) or that he/she was a francs-tireurs, (plural) I would hope we would opt for the former. Eric talk 06:21, 7 January 2015 (UTC)
 * We would, just as we'd say that Ants Kaljurand was a Forest Brother (singular), but we're not going to move Forest Brothers to Forest Brother. We'd say that Attila's typical soldier was a Hun or a Goth, but I don't see us moving Huns or Goths to singular forms.  Nyttend (talk) 06:29, 7 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I'm aware of the widespread dysfunction on Wikipedia of having entry terms in their plural form. The shame of it is, the Hun and Goth entries should be in the singular, and would be in any serious reference work. For instance: Hun Goth. Shall we move Cat to Cats and Dog to Dogs? Eric talk 07:01, 7 January 2015 (UTC)
 * We are not the dictionary. See Britannica's entry on the Bielski partisans, for example.  This is clearly supported by our naming conventions, as I linked above, and for that reason it must not be moved without a discussion and the chance for outside input.  Nyttend (talk) 13:10, 7 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Well, I don't read WP:SINGULAR as calling for this article's entry to be in the plural. Though I don't have much hope for the outcome, do you know if there's a version of the move-over-redirect template that invites discussion?
 * And, FYI, note the wiki entries for countries surrounding France: Franc-tireur, Franc-tireur, Franc-tireur, Franc-tireur. Eric talk 17:16, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

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Guerrilla vs Partisan
I know the definitions are sometimes blurred, but shouldn't the two terms be distinguished. --105.4.6.9 (talk) 13:45, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

Useless IPA
It's easier to work out how this is pronounced from the French spelling than that IPA gibberish. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A01:4C8:1425:22AF:1:2:16F1:23F2 (talk) 19:47, 14 March 2021 (UTC)