Marguerite Gonnet (13 October 1898 - 27 May 1996) was a member of the French Resistance during World War II. She was from the city of Grenoble in southeastern France. At age forty-four, married with nine children, she joined the resistance group Libération-sud. She became the head of the resistance cell in the department of Isère.[1] She was one of the only female heads of a resistance cell, along with Marie Reynoad.[2]
In April 1942, she was arrested by the Nazis for carrying illegal newspapers.[3] A German military prosecutor asked Gonnet why she had taken up arms against France's occupiers, to which she said, "Quite simply, Colonel, because the men had dropped them".[4] This quote was used by American author Sarah Rose as the epigraph of her 2019 book D-Day Girls.[5] Gonnet was sentenced to two years in prison, and her leadership role in the resistance was taken up by Jean Weber.[6]
She died in Paris on 27 May 1996 at the age of 97.[3] There is a street in Grenoble named after her.[3] In 2020, author Olivier Vallade published a book about Gonnet Marguerite Gonnet: Déterminée à Sortir de l’ombre (English: Marguerite Gonnet: Determined to Emerge from the Shadows).[2]