Resistance fighter;

Raymond Aubrac, who has died aged 97, was one of the last major figures of the French Resistance.

Born Raymond Samuel into a Jewish family in Vesoul, Haute-Saône, Mr Aubrac and his wife, Lucie, joined the French Resistance in 1940. They took the pseudonym Aubrac to escape Nazi persecution. He helped set up Liberation-Sud (Liberation South) – one of the first networks of the Resistance against the Nazi occupation of France.

An engineer, he studied in France and the US, and was involved in left-wing politics before the war. He and Lucie, who died in 2007 at the age of 94, formed Liberation Sud in Lyon in 1940.

In June 1943, Mr Aubrac was captured alongside Charles de Gaulle’s Resistance chief Jean Moulin in a Gestapo raid near Lyon. Mr Moulin was interrogated extensively in Lyon by Klaus Barbie, head of the Gestapo in the city, before being transported to Paris. He died in transit to Germany.

It has been suggested, principally in a biography by Patrick Marnham, that Mr Moulin was betrayed by the Aubracs. He made the case that Communists such as the Aubracs did at times betray non-Communists such as Mr Moulin to the Gestapo and that Mr Aubrac was linked to harsh actions during the purge of collaborators after the war.

Mr Aubrac, whose parents died in Auschwitz, escaped in October 1943 when Lucie, then pregnant, and a group of fighters ambushed a truck carrying Resistance members, including Mr Aubrac and Mr Moulin, from Gestapo headquarters in Lyon. It became one of the most celebrated Resistance exploits of the Second World War and the theme of two films – Lucie Aubrac and Boulevard des Hirondelles.

The couple escaped to London where they joined Charles de Gaulle’s administration in exile. A daughter, Catherine, was born in February 1944 and became Mr de Gaulle’s goddaughter.

Returning to France after the war, Mr Aubrac was appointed a commissioner for the new government in Marseille, where he oversaw demining and reconstruction.

He later founded an institute to promote trade with Communist countries and served in international roles, including head of the UN’s Rome-based Food and Agricultural Organisation from 1964 to 1975.

He was a close friend of Vietnamese Communist leader Ho Chi Minh, who was godfather to the Aubracs’ daughter Elizabette, and acted as a messenger between the US and Vietnamese governments in the early 1970s.

He is survived by three children – son Jean-Pierre Aubrac and daughters Catherine Vallade and Elisabeth Helfer Aubrac – and numerous grandchildren and great-grandchildren.