R. Triboulet, 99, resistance fighter in occupied France

PARIS -- Raymond Triboulet, a leading World War II resistance fighter who helped US, Canadian, and British troops invade France, died Friday. He was 99.

His death was announced by the family.

Mr. Triboulet was appointed by General Charles de Gaulle as sub-prefect in France, the first to get that top administrator's title in the newly liberated country just days after allied troops landed on the Normandy coast.

Liberated France at that time was a tiny sliver of Normandy carved out by invading troops, and Mr. Triboulet was based in the bomb-flattened city of Bayeux.

A law graduate, Mr. Triboulet joined the Those Who Resist branch of the anti-German resistance movement and took part in helping US, Canadian, British, and other troops to invade France.

After the war, he served as a minister in the governments of Michel Debre and Georges Pompidou from 1959 to 1966 and then became a member of the Council of Europe and the European Parliament.

He was responsible for the popular landings museum in the village of Arromanches on the Normandy coast, opened in 2000.

President Jacques Chirac, visiting yesterday in South America, said in a statement that Mr. Triboulet had been ``a great patriot and an indefatigable servant of the state."

``A great Frenchman, a Gaullist from its earliest days, and a dedicated European has left us," Chirac said.