Maquis (also: maquisards) is a collective term for members of the French resistance movement (French Resistance) fighting the German occupation in 1940–1944 in mainly rural areas. Originally, the Maquis units were composed of people—both women and men—who fled to the countryside or to the mountains, thus protecting themselves against conscription to the STO organization in the Vichy state but also against forced labor for the German occupier in French territories. or before deportation to forced labor to the Third Reich. Over time, volunteers also joined the Maquis, seeking armed struggle with the Germans. The Maquis units conducted typical guerrilla warfare, committing acts of sabotage or fighting and organizing ambushes on small German units. Units of this type fought especially intensively in Brittany, southern France, and the area called Limousin. It is worth adding that the Maquis also helped to escape to Great Britain or hid Allied airmen and Jews from the occupiers. The Maquis troops played a role in the Operation Overlord and Dragon operations, that is, in the Western Allied landings in northern and southern France.
The first organizations that belonged to the French Resistance, also known as the Resistance Movement for short (fr. La Resistance), began to emerge as early as 1940, and therefore very shortly after the defeat of France in the same year's campaign. Their main goal was to fight mainly the Germans and, to a lesser extent, the Italian occupier. Institutions of the Vichy collaborating with Germany also fought. Until 1944, there were many organizations of the Resistance Movement in France, including the French Hope, the Special Organization, and the Civil and Military Organization. However, there is also a clear trend for these scattered and often conflicting organizations to submit to the Committee of Free France, and in February 1944 they established the French Internal Forces (Friar Forces Francaises de l'Interieur), which was strictly military in nature, and any political disputes have been set aside. The French Internal Forces included both communist and right-wing troops. The main activities of this organization were to directly or indirectly support the Allied invasion of Normandy and, later, the Allied forces liberating France. It is worth adding that La Resistance in the fall of 1943 had a population of several thousand people. It did not take on a truly mass character until the summer of 1944.