Groupe Marat was created in 1997 by former resistance members of the Main-d'oeuvre immigrée (Immigrant Labor) in Provence, many of whom had been members of the Marat company of the Francs-tireurs et partisans de la Main-d'oeuvre immigrée (FTP-MOI, Snipers and Partisans of Immigrant Labor). Their goal in 1997 was to memorialize the participation of foreigners in the French Resistance. They collected testimony and evidence documenting the contributions of foreigners to the French Resistance and of soldiers from the colonial empire. They assembled a rare collection of French resistance leaflets, documents, and publications. They also worked to unfreeze pensions of veterans of the French army veterans from former French colonies.
Main-d'œuvre immigrée (MOI, Immigrant Labor) was created by the French Communist Party for foreigners and immigrants living in France. After World War I, France received a high volume of immigrants seeking work and refugees fleeing discrimination and dictatorships. The refugee groups included a strong communist component. The French Communist Party welcomed the communists among the immigrants and refugees under the term Main d’œuvre étrangère in 1926, which was changed to Main-d'œuvre immigrée in 1932. The MOI became a clandestine organization at the outbreak of war. Its communist ties to the Soviet Union and the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact led it to take a peaceful stance on the occupation until Germany invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941.
The MOI’s resistance activities included several components. MOI’s underground printing center on rue Neuve-Sainte-Catherine included a mimeograph machine and several typewriters. Starting in 1944, the MOI had increasing access to printing houses and was often asked to print documents from other organizations. The Francs-tireurs and Partisans (FTP-MOI) participated in urban guerrilla warfare. The Marat company of the FTP-MOI was created in 1942 under the direction of the National Front for the liberation of France. Its wartime archives include many documents from the FTP-MOI, the French Communist Party, and the National Front. Subversive groups such as Travail Allemand (German Labor), Travail Italien (Italian Labor), and Travail Allogène (Foreign Labor) who infiltrated the Wehrmacht, the Italian army, and foreign troops forced into the German military and encouraged soldiers to desert. The MOI also edited leaflets in Polish and Czech to encourage Osttruppen and Volksdeutsche to desert. The Jewish section of the MOI created the Mouvement national contre le racism (MNR, National Movement against Racism), a rescue network for Jews threatened with deportation. Jewish communist organizations created the Union des Juifs pour la résistance et l’entraide (UJRE, Union of Jews for Resistance and Mutual Help), which recognized the urgency of rescue and increasing numbers of Jews sought to go into hiding.
