Gabriel Péri (Peri) (9 February 1902 — 15 December 1941) was a prominent French communist journalist and politician who was a member of the French Resistance. He was executed in German-occupied France during the Second World War.

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Péri was born in Toulon to a Corsican family. Forced to give up his studies at an early age, the First World War and the Russian Revolution had a profound effect on him and his involvement in revolutionary politics. He immersed himself in political activities, and wrote for newspapers in Aix-en-Provence and Marseille.^[1]

At the age of 22, Péri became departmental manager of foreign politics at l'Humanité. He was elected deputy to the French National Assembly for Argenteuil in 1932 and re-elected in 1936.

In the National Assembly, Péri distinguished himself as an expert in the field of diplomatic and international relations and was a strident antifascist. He denounced both Benito Mussolini's invasion of Ethiopia and France's non-intervention during the Spanish Civil War. Péri was also a prominent opponent of the Nazi regime in Germany.

On 21 January 1940, however, after the German-Soviet Pact, he was stripped of his mandate to the National Assembly, and on 3 April, he was sentenced to five years in military prison, fined and stripped of his civic and political rights for reconstituting a legally-dissolved organization.^[2] He went into hiding as a result.

The Fall of France in 1940 caused northern France to be placed under German occupation. Arrested by the French police on 18 May 1941, Péri was jailed at Fort Mont-Valérien, which was under the control of the German forces. He was executed there on 15 December with a group of 70 men. Albert Camus learned of Péri's execution while he was staying in Lyon,^[3] an event that he later said crystallised his own revolt against the Germans.

Many schools and streets have been named after Péri, as well as a Paris metro station and another in Lyon. Paul Éluard and Louis Aragon wrote poems in his tribute (titled "Gabriel Péri" and "Ballade de Celui Qui Chanta Dans les Supplices" ["Ballad to Him who Sings While Being Tortured"], respectively).