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The Sarthe departmental council announced the death of Solange Alexandre on November 9, with President Emmanuel Macron among those paying tribute in the days that followed. According to Le Parisien, the 104-year-old had been a prominent Resistance figure in the region who commanded a maquis and took part in the liberation of Touraine. In a social media post, Macron wrote, “Solange Alexandre has left us at 104 years old. At the head of a maquis of thirty men, Corlay fought the occupier and participated in the liberation of Touraine. She said she had only done her duty. Her duty was our freedom. France will not forget. Thank you.”
Born Solange Dubuisson on September 9, 1922 in Mamers, she grew up in a family deeply affected by the First World War, Le Figaro reported from her own memoirs. Her father had been wounded at the Chemin des Dames in 1917, and the German invasion of 1940 instilled in her what she described as hatred in her heart. She joined the Resistance in 1941 at age 18 after hearing General Charles de Gaulle’s appeal on a makeshift radio while fleeing during the exodus, beginning her service as a courier and spy under the code name Corlay.
Franceinfo noted that Alexandre was one of the rare women to direct maquisards, creating the Pas-de-Boeuf network in April 1944 near Ruillé-sur-Loir alongside companions including the Gadois brothers. The group, which grew to about 30 members including those refusing the compulsory labor service, escaped Allied airmen and foreign workers who had fled the Atlantic Wall, carried out sabotage operations and provided shelter. On August 8, 1944 she took part in derailing a German train on the Tours-Le Mans line carrying both troops and explosives, an action she later detailed in interviews.
Following the liberation, Alexandre was named head of social services for the French Forces of the Interior in the department and ended the war with the rank of lieutenant, according to historical records cited by local outlets including Ouest-France. She pursued a career as a teacher, returning from overseas postings to work in the Paris suburbs before settling back in the Sarthe region. Her experiences were compiled into the book “Solange s’engage dans la Résistance” drawn from a 2024 interview series with journalist Antoine Louvard.
Alexandre twice refused the Legion of Honour before finally accepting the distinction in 2024 at age 102, maintaining throughout her life that she had merely performed her duty, as quoted across reports from BBC and Franceinfo. Among her other recognitions were the Croix de Guerre, the French Resistance Medal which she said she valued most, and the Volunteer Combatant Cross. The town of Loir-en-Vallée made her a citizen of honour and named its main square after her in 2022.
In her later decades living at a retirement residence in Le Mans for 26 years, Alexandre remained active in sharing her story with school groups and supported the Association for the Right to Die with Dignity, Le Mans.maville.com reported. The Order of the Liberation’s Non Immemor project has identified only about 15 living holders of the Resistance medal as of 2026, placing her among the final direct participants able to recount the era. She expressed no regrets about her wartime choices, telling one interviewer, “Everything I did, I did for France.”
