Famous writers such as Maurice Druon and Joseph Kessel have said that it was at the Col de Banyuls, on leaving France, that the partisan song
For 11 sites, panels with commentary and illustrated with period photographs will complete the information for hikers taking these "paths". They pay tribute to the courage of the local population, who helped those fleeing the occupying forces (Resistance fighters, Jews, young STO draft dodgers joining the troops of Free France in Algiers...).
Among them were famous writers such as Maurice Druon and Joseph Kessel , who would later say that it was at the Col de Banyuls, on their way out of France, that the partisans' song was born .
One of the few surviving songs of the Resistance, it is still played at official ceremonies. "Le Chant des partisans", sometimes nicknamed " La Marseillaise de la Libération", has a very special history.
Anna Betoulinskaïa, better known by her pseudonym Anna Marly, was the author of the song. Anna was born in 1917, during the Russian Revolution, when her father was shot. In 1920, she left Russia for France with her mother and sister. Her governess, who had accompanied them during the exodus, gave her a guitar on her 13th birthday, an instrument she would never part with, and which would be of great importance throughout her life.

A few years later, she took the name Anna Marly to dance in the Ballets Russes. She then embarked on a career as a singer in the great Parisian cabarets. In May 1940, she left France and went to London in 1941, where she enlisted as a canteen-maid at the Carlton Gardens headquarters of the Free French Forces. It was here, in 1941, that she composed the guitar music for "La marche des partisans", based on Russian lyrics, which she also wrote. She also composed a song, "Les Partisans". Joseph Kessel and Maurice Druon based their unforgettable "Chant des Partisans" on this unchanged music and on her lyrics.
In 1943, the melody of "Chant des Partisans" was chosen as the theme tune for the TV program "Honneur et Patrie", whistled by Claude Dauphin, André Gillois and Maurice Druon. The tune was broadcast twice a day from May 7, 1943 to May 2, 1944 on the BBC. It became the anthem of the French Resistance and the sign of recognition in the maquis.
On June 17, 2000, Anna Marly performed "Le Chant des Partisans" at the Panthéon with the Chœurs de l'Armée Française on the eve of the 60th anniversary of General de Gaulle's June 18 appeal.
She died in 2006 in Alaska, her last place of residence.
Extract : article Victor Tribot Laspière
The little-known history of the Chant des partisans