Maquis (World War II) du travail obligatoire, STO") in France at the beginning of 1943, thousands of young men fled and joined the Maquis. The British Special Operations Executive (SOE) helped the Maquis with supplies and agents. The American Office of Strategic Services (OSS) also began to send its own agents to France in cooperation with the SOE and the French BCRA agents, as part of Operation Jedburgh. The British government provided supplies and support to assist Charles de Gaulle to unify the Free French resistance movement. Prior to the inception of the maquis, small resistance groups were created in the occupied and unoccupied
Maquis (World War II) people in revolt against the S.T.O. This unification was due, in part, to Michel Brault, a Parisian lawyer, who headed the organization of the resisters in April 1943 and to the drafted circulars establishing the Maquis’s charter. "Within one month, 20,000 copies of the text—which did not exceed the size of a playing card—were distributed throughout the southern zone". Michel Brault, in a report sent to London on 14 February 1944, listed the various elements available for action to the Allies and described the Maquis as "youths who have rebelled against the S.T.O. as well as men of all ages