Lucie Aubrac | French Resistance hero, 94

Lucie Aubrac, 94, a hero of the French Resistance who helped free her husband from the Gestapo and whose life story became a hit film, died Wednesday at a hospital in the Paris suburb of Issy-les-Moulineaux, where she had spent the last two months, said her daughter, Catherine Vallade.

President Jacques Chirac called Mrs. Aubrac an "emblematic figure" and said "a light of the Resistance has gone out."

Born Lucie Bernard in the eastern city of Macon, Mrs. Aubrac was a history and geography teacher when she and her husband, engineer Raymond Samuel, helped create Liberation-Sud, or Liberation-South.

Liberation-South was one of the first networks set up by the Resistance, a French movement to continue warfare against Germany after France's 1940 defeat in World War II. It linked civilians and armed bands of partisans working secretly to oppose the Nazi occupation of France.

The couple adopted the nom de guerre Aubrac.

In 1943, she helped orchestrate her husband's escape from a Lyon prison after his arrest. She led the armed commando unit that rescued her husband and Resistance leader Jean Moulin during their transfer to another prison.

The couple and the first of their three children fled to London in February 1944.

She received the Legion of Honor, France's highest award, for her work in the Resistance.

After the war, Mrs. Aubrac became a vocal critic of French policy in Algeria and also defended immigrants' rights.

French director Claude Berri made the hit 1997 movie Lucie Aubrac, starring Carole Bouquet in the title role.

In 2000, she published The Resistance Explained to My Grandchildren. She is also the author of the 1984 book They'll Leave Exhilarated.

She is survived by her husband and three children. - AP