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Stephane Hessel, Best-Selling French Author, Father Of The Occupy Movement, Dead At 95

LE MONDE, AFP, FRANCE 24, LIBERATION (France)

Worldcrunch

PARIS Stephane Hessel, the French best-selling author, Resistance figure and diplomat died last night at age 95.

He is mostly known however, for his rights activism – his tireless combat for the disenfranchised and illegal immigrants, writes France 24 and is considered the father of the Occupy movement.

His 32-page essay, Indignez-Vous! (Time for Outrage!), published in 2010, sold over 2.1 million copies in France and more than a 3.5 million copies worldwide, according to Le Monde. It was translated in 34 languages and has been lauded for inspiring the global Indignados and Occupy anti-austerity movements.

In an interview with the AFP in March 2012, Hessel said: “The amazing success is still a surprise for me, but it is explained by an historical moment. Societies are lost, asking themselves how to make it through and searching a meaning to the human adventure.”

Time for Outrage! urges youths to emulate the wartime spirit of resistance to the Nazis by rejecting the "insolent, selfish" power of money and markets and by defending the social "values of modern democracy."

“The reasons for outrage today maybe less clear than during Nazi times,” he wrote, “But look around and you will find them.”

Stephane Hesse on Occupy Wall Street:

Hessel was born to a Jewish family in Berlin in 1917, and moved to France when he was seven. His parents were Franz and Helen Hessel, who along with writer Henri-Pierre Roché inspired François Truffaut’s film, “Jules and Jim.”

He was naturalized French in 1939, as WWII was starting, and in 1941, he joined the Resistance movement spearheaded by Charles De Gaulle in London. In 1944 he captured by the Gestapo and deported to the Buchenwald concentration camp, where he was tortured but escaped death by exchanging his identity with a prisoner who had died of typhus.

After the war ended, he participated in editing the Universal Declaration of Human Rights with Eleanor Roosevelt and went on to hold various posts at the UN.

In 2011, Hessel was added by Foreign Policy magazine to its list of top global thinkers "for bringing the spirit of the French Resistance to a global society that has lost its heart."

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FOCUS: Russia-Ukraine War

What's Driving Chechen Fighters To The Frontlines Of Ukraine

Thousands of foreign soldiers are fighting alongside Ukraine. German daily Die Welt met a Chechen battalion to find out why they are fighting.

Photo of the Chechen Dzhokhar Dudayev Battalion in Ukraine

Chechen Dzhokhar Dudayev Battalion in Ukraine.

Alfred Hackensberger

KRAMATORSK — The house is full of soldiers. On the floor, there are wooden boxes filled with mountains of cartridges and ammunition belts for heavy machine guns. Dozens of hand grenades are lying around. Hanging on the wall are two anti-tank weapons.

Stay up-to-date with the latest on the Russia-Ukraine war, with our exclusive international coverage.

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"These are from Spain," says the commanding officer, introducing himself as Maga. "Short for Make America Great Again," he adds with a laugh.

Only 29 years old, Maga is in charge of the Dudayev Chechen battalion, which has taken up quarters somewhere on the outskirts of the city of Kramatorsk in eastern Ukraine.

The commander appears calm and confident in the midst of the hustle and bustle of final preparations for the new mission in Bakhmut, only about 30 kilometers away. The Ukrainian army command has ordered the Chechen special forces unit to reinforce the town in the Donbas, which has been embattled for months.

Bakhmut, which used to have 70,000 inhabitants, is to be kept at all costs. It is already surrounded on three sides by Russian troops and can only be reached via a paved road and several tracks through the terrain. Day after day, artillery shells rain down on Ukrainian positions and the Russian infantry keeps launching new attacks.

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