André Debray, the banker in charge of financing the Resistance

Last update: Jan 30, 2025
Created by the BNP Paribas Historical Archives
Created by the BNP Paribas Historical Archives

The history of our bank was built through the actions of personalities who were at the heart of an international economic, social and financial reality. André Debray is one of these leading figures. A trainee at the Banque de Paris et des Pays-Bas in 1927, he became director there in 1944. A remarkable development that reveals an exceptional path.

Under the pseudonym “Bossuet”, he also heads the Financial Committee of the Resistance, whose meetings he organizes in his office at 3 rue d’Antin, in an occupied Paris. For his actions, he was awarded the Knight’s Cross of the Legion of Honour, the Medal of the French Resistance with rosette and the 1939-1945 Cross of War with Palm.
At the Liberation, he continued his career as a director but was also a senator from the Fourth Republic, representing the Mouvement républicain populaire. He works to ensure that Paribas is not nationalized and thus can maintain its international business vocation.

From the ACJF to the Resistance

The son of a businessman, André Debray was born in Paris in 1905 in a large family of nine children (he himself will have seven). After high school at the Collège Sainte-Croix de Neuilly, André Debray obtained his law degree from the Faculty of Paris. In May 1927, he joined the Banque de Paris et des Pays-Bas (future Paribas) as a trainee.

He was also active in pre-war Catholic associations, notably the Association catholique de la jeunesse française (ACJF). This association comprises five youth movements: Jeunesse ouvrière chrétienne, Jeunesse étudiante chrétienne, Jeunesse maritime chrétienne, Jeunesse agricole catholique et Jeunesse Indépendante Chrétienne. André Debray was president of the ACJF between 1933 and 1935.

He met Georges Bidault, André Colin and François de Menthon, who later found himself in the Resistance and after the war with the Mouvement républicain populaire (MRP) a French Democratic-Christian and centrist political party.

After the 1940 debacle, he was a member of a resistance group founded in Seine-et-Marne with his former regimental comrades and friends of the ACJF. From 1941, with his position in the bank, he provided economic and industrial information to London. In 1998, Bulletin No. 78 of the Amicale du MRP draws on André Debray’s official file to give us some examples of his actions: he provides in particular a detailed note on the manufacture of locomotives in France and Germany (chain-linked manufacturing). Subsequently, it gives precise indications on the defensive organization of the Normandy coast and the V1 launch ramp installations.

He was also in contact with Georges Bidault, who joined the Conseil national de la Résistance (CNR) in May 1943.

André Debray was thus involved in the search for a solution to finance the Resistance, as the number of tickets dropped out was insufficient!

He joined the Conseil national de la Résistance later as finance commissioner under the pseudonym of Jouarre.

The expertise of banker Debray in the service of the Resistance

André Debray joined the executive ranks of the bank in 1938. The minutes of the Annual General Meetings allow us to trace his career development. The minutes of 14 April 1942 tell us of his appointment as Deputy Director of the Bank, along with Jacques Allier and Jean Cabet, other illustrious characters in the Bank.
As early as 1942, he became deputy director: a quick promotion justified by his merit and the services he rendered informed us of the minutes of the Assemblée générale ordinaire of 8 April 1943.
It was in 1944 that he was appointed Director: here again, the AGO minutes of 30 May 1945 states that the promotion of Mr DEBRAY was amply justified by the brilliant qualities which he demonstrated in the various posts which were successively entrusted to him.
Considerations that follow-up events confirm.

When André Debray heads the Resistance Financial Committee

A Financial Committee (COFI) was set up in February 1944 at the Banque de Paris et des Pays-Bas. It was necessary to have the right to borrow on behalf of the Free French Government. In order to exercise this right, it was also necessary to set up a body capable of instilling confidence in the lenders and having sufficiently varied relations to reach all the financial circles likely to subscribe. It was to carry out these tasks that COFI was set up, explains François Bloch-Lainé, a senior civil servant and leading figure in the Resistance, in the Revue des Deux Mondes in 1950.

André Debray is Chairman of COFI and uses his office at Paribas headquarters to hold underground meetings. The committee includes René Courtin, Michel Debré, Jacques Chaban-Delmas and Jacques Soulas. This small group had the idea of issuing a loan to finance the Resistance.

The later and journalist Jean Dannenmuler also testified of that period in Bulletin No. 77 of the Amicale du MRP: A loan was undoubtedly one of the Resistance’s most extraordinary adventures, because if it is difficult to mount a clandestine operation without serious risk by mixing more than three people in trust, it was necessary to widen the circle considerably in order to launch the loan.
And Jean Dannenmuler specifies : Georges Bidault gave this adventure to one of his close friends, André Debray, former president of the Association catholique de la jeunesse française. A man as quiet as he was bold, always smiling, always friendly. He gave the impression of great rigour, boundless kindness, unyielding determination. He built trust.
It was also Georges Bidault who gave André Debray the pseudonym ‘Bossuet’ (referring to his brother bishop of Meaux). An important detail when we know that Bossuet will be the the signature name of the banking operations that will finance the Resistance.

« L’aigle a attrapé 15 petits lapins »

It was through an account set up at the Bank of Algiers in 1940 that operations were possible. François Bloch-Lainé explains. still in Bulletin n° 77: Algiers was asked by radio to have an account opened by the Treasury with the Banque de l’Algérie for the benefit of “Bossuet” […] On this account, Bossuet drew cheques or ordered transfers.
The warning message on the London radio is: “l’aigle a attrapé 15 petits lapins” (The eagle has caught 15 small rabbits), as the first loan amounted to 15 million Francs.

Henri Michel, a historian and specialist in the Second World War, adds in his book Une histoire de la Résistance en France (1940-1944) on pages 95 and 96: the movement of funds was made by means of cheques, the heel of which remained […] in the hands of André Debray dit Bossuet. The depositor received the central part signed Bossuet, indicating the names and amounts; the other end of the cheque was sent to the Bank of Algiers. No address appeared on the title, the first names alone and the date of birth were used to check identity. As a further security measure, in the place for the number there was a figure in parentheses, beside the apparent figure which allowed the authentication of the security and constituted a secret control key.
The cheques were bearer and therefore simple to cash.

The value of the “Bossuet” signature was such that it traded on the Paris Stock Exchange market and the prices of the so-called “Bossuet” loan had soared. Although initially the dangerous nature of the operation had limited the number of underwriters, the number of clients increased with the advance of the allies on French territory.

At the Liberation, all the lenders found their money. André Debray (alias Bossuet, Bourdaloue, Fénelon, as Jeanne Patrimonio points out in his interview with André Debray of June 13, 1946, held at the National Archives) had kept a strict accounting of these cheques. Together with Treasury bills, this amounted to 600 million francs.

At the time, Léa Vallana, her assistant at Paribas, assists him in his activities. Which also won her the Resistance Medal.

The Germans never got up to them when the Kommandantur had its quarters at the Opéra, as we are told in Bulletin No. 22 of the Paribas veterans’ association: during the French uprising, between 10 and 25 August 1944, the gates of 3 rue d’Antin remained closed. But not the actions of several employees. André Debray is one of those who regularly go there to distribute and retrieve information. But he is also a lieutenant in the Resistance forces who participates in battles. He was wounded in the attack on the Tuileries on 25 August 1944 by a shrapnel of tank shells, which punctured his eardrum and left ear.

André Debray’s commitments after the war

After the war, everything had to be rebuilt: France, the Bank, trade relations. At the end of 1944, Georges Bidault founded the Mouvement républicain populaire (MRP), a centrist Christian-Democratic party. Its aim is to unite Catholics, socialists and hardliners in a single party. He asked his friend
to join him in this movement. At the same time, political will was growing everywhere in Europe: nationalization. In France, the provisional government plans to nationalize not only industries but also banks, including merchant banks. French industry and commerce must rise and regain an important international position, and merchant banks perceive nationalization as a brake on this momentum and enter into negotiations to maintain their independence. Jean Reyre (also director of the bank) and André Debray will lead the negotiations for Paribas.

Robert Bordaz (former Government Commissioner at the Banque de Paris et des Pays-Bas from 1946 to 1951) testified in a 1995 interview with the Association pour l’histoire de BNP Paribas (oral archives). He confirmed that Debray and Reyre were very busy seeing people to avoid nationalization; they had the most important contacts. He said of André Debray that he was very kind, that he was a fairly cheerful and pleasant boy, who was obviously very well placed to fight against the nationalisation of the Bank, to which he was very hostile.

The bank’s management is thus mobilised to ensure that the repercussions of this nationalisation are studied and even anticipated. This was the case for companies in which Paribas was a majority shareholder, such as the Société norvégienne de l’azote, or for the bank’s subsidiaries abroad. On 26 April 1946, after long months of negotiations, the government finally abandoned its plan to nationalize Paribas.

Choosing André Debray as the MRP representative for the first elections to the Council of the Republic on 19 December 1946 was obvious. Elected by the National Assembly, he sits on the Committee on Economic Affairs and the Committee on National Defense.

In 1947 he took part in the bill on mission expenses and allowances for the duties of mayors and their deputies, and in the bill on the distribution of industrial products, as rapporteur for the Committee on Economic Affairs.

His political life lasted only two years and his health forced him to stop his activities in this field.

The scope of his actions extends internationally

André Debray is still Director of the Banque de Paris et des Pays-Bas. Its activities are increasing and so is his recognition. For example at the 36th meeting of the Board of Directors on 17 October 1946, Louis Wibratte, then President of Paribas, congratulated him on the resistance medal with rosette that he had just received. In the same year, he became Director of the Banque des Pays de l’Europe centrale.
In 1947, he became a director of Crédit Foncier Franco-Canadien and joined the Paris Advisory Committee on behalf of Paribas at the Banque nationale du Mexique. Moreover, it was with the approval of the Minister of Finance, Robert Schuman, that he became Director of the Banque d’État du Maroc. He is in complete agreement with the Director-General, Jean Reyre, whose determination to make Paribas a major international business bank is in line with the policy laid down by Horace Finaly in 1919. Under the 1948 agreement between France and Poland, he remains in touch with the new Minister of Finance to organize compensation for French industries and goods affected by the Polish Nationalization Act of 1946.

André Debray died in Paris in 1954.

And those who were close or distant to his friends, regret not only the man he was, but also the extraordinary personality that was his, and of which, before it was too late, I would like to try to set out a few features here. Over the years, we will see more clearly the quiet but prominent place he has occupied in the history of the last twenty years, and where, as sometimes happens, sudden death immobilizes him. [.] What he said, he completely dominated him. He said so clearly. He showed it irresistibly. When he stopped talking, he felt that he knew where the real one was, where the fake one was, and that the dividing line was now free of cracks.

Georges Hourdin – journalist and chief editor

Souvenirs sur André Debray – Le Monde, 16 juin 1954

Georges Hourdin added that on the occasion of one of their discussions, while the debate on the actions carried out around nationalization in 1945 was criticized, André Debray told him: We must remain true to what we did there. It’s just a matter of decency.

This article benefited from the expertise of Thierry Marchand.
To read his latest historical book:

Résistance et espionnage – Les pionniers du Service de renseignement de l’armée de l’air en Normandie


Find other remarkable figures:

Did you enjoy this story ?

This selection of articles might also interest you!