France honours six-year-old WWII hero

Marcel, known as Quin-quin, is seen as a hero for carrying messages under his shirt to leaders of the resistance against Nazi occupation during World War II.

Aixe-sur-Vienne: France paid tribute to a boy regarded as its youngest-ever resistance hero on Wednesday as part of the nationwide Armistice Day ceremonies in memory of those who died in World Wars I and II.

In a special ceremony, the name of Marcel Pinte, who was only six years old when he was accidentally shot by friendly fire, was inscribed on the war memorial of Aixe-sur-Vienne, just west of the central city of Limoges.

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Marcel, known as Quin-quin, is seen as a hero for carrying messages under his shirt to leaders of the resistance against Nazi occupation during World War II. He died, aged just six, on August 19, 1944, when a large deployment of resistance fighters arrived by parachute ahead of an expected battle around Aixe as Allied forces began to liberate France.

“People who pass by this monument to the dead will notice his name and particularly his age,” said a family member, Marc Pinte. In 1950, Marcel was posthumously awarded the rank of sergeant of the resistance.