PARIS - The communist, Ms Marie Claude Vaillant Couturier, a second World War Resistance figure who pioneered the way for women into French politics, has died, the Communist Party daily, L'Humanite, said this morning. She was 84.
A survivor of the Auschwitz and Ravensbruck Nazi death camps, Ms Vaillant Couturier, a former news photographer, won France's top award, the Legion of Honour. She was a member of parliament for the Communist Party for 25 years until 1973.