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After a cycle of commemoration related to the centenary of the First World War, the year 2020 could open a new commemorative session, this time related to the Second World conflict. In addition to commemorative and memorial events, it is important to keep on developing activities of a more scientific nature, especially as the number of symposia and study days devoted to the WWII period is now decreasing, even though new archival material is available and interest in the period remains high. The issuesthat remain little studied and deserve further research include that of the earlyforms of disobedience and acts of resistance. We keep on using the same testimoniesto illustrate how the Resistance was born in France, with all their surroundinguncertainties, especially when it comes to mentioning the precise dates of the firstinitiatives (leaflets distribution, clandestine publications) [1]. Inspite of the already existing works[2], theinitial phase of the Resistance, which has often been reduced to a form of"prehistory of the phenomenon", remains little studied by historianswith regard to the subsequent period, i.e the one during which a process ofstructuring and unification was implemented from 1942 onwards. This pioneeringResistance also continues to generate many preconceived ideas that have notnecessarily been subjected to scientific debate, namely the fact that the earlyResistance fighters were very few in number, often marginalized, very isolated,and above all, they were cast away from the rest of the society, whichpassively accepted the occupation.Since thedecree of December 2015 adopted by President Hollande, the opening of allarchives covering that period makes it possible to dig out these issues andstart studying them from scratch. Among the now fully accessible sources areall the so-called "repression" archives, i.e. police or gendarmeriereports, reports of the French Renseignements Généraux (Intelligence Services),judicial investigations concerning the Vichy regime [3], butalso the archives concerning German repression. Although these archivalcollections must be interpreted with care by researchers because of theirparticular nature, they nonetheless enable the identification of the precisedates of the first acts of resistance in a given territory which inevitably lefttraces (distribution of leaflets, graffiti, sabotage, etc.). Their use isessential for those who want to study the "Pioneer Resistance" in ascientific way, since it alleviates the lack of resources produced by theResistance fighters themselves for this period. Some local studies alreadyconducted on the basis of this kind of archive would tend to show that theactions of refusal and disobedience were more frequent and more precocious thanwhat is usually claimed, thus contradicting somewhat the image that has longprevailed since the work of Robert Paxton or Philippe Burrin, namely that of acountry that would have generally accepted its fate in 1940, withoutdemonstrating any form of opposition, or even "accommodated" thedefeat and the Occupation[4]. At the same time, there is a great variationin the situations according to the territories and their context (occupiedzone, southern zone, "annexed" territories) while the nature of theseactions often remain rather vague due to the absence of an organised Resistancesuch as the one that developed from 1941 and especially 1942 onwards.Thissymposium would therefore be intended to propose a series of works that wouldmake it possible to present, thanks to the use of these archives, the precisetraces of these first forms of resistance that developed during the firstmonths of the Occupation (summer 1940-beginning 1941). The papers proposedcould deal with the different forms of disobedience and resistance that mayhave developed from the summer and autumn of 1940 onwards, traces of which canbe found in the so-called "archives of repression", with the isolatedactions but also with the early organizational forms that were set up(networks, movements), with the reactions of public opinion, and with theadopted forms of repression. The proposed approaches can be developed from agiven territory (a department, a region), a type of organization or actions, aperson or a group of people who may have embodied this "PioneerResistance".In order todevelop a comparative approach to the resistance that developed against Germandomination in the rest of Europe, papers may also be presented on countriesother than France, provided that the scientific objectives of the symposium arerespected (limitation of the study to the period of the beginning of theoccupation and use of the archives of repression to grasp the forms taken bythe various national resistances envisaged). This comparative approach willmake it possible to highlight convergences but also a certain number ofdifferences concerning the forms taken by the Resistance at its beginnings andthe reaction adopted by the Germans depending both on the national politicalcontext and on the type of occupation imposed by the Reich.Scientific Advisory Board: Alya Aglan, Julien Blanc, Laurent Douzou,Gaël Eismann, Thomas Fontaine, Fabrice Grenard, Guillaume Piketty, SteffanPrauser, Jean Quellien, François RouquetDate: 02nd&#160; and 3rd December 2020 at the Caen MemorialOrganization: University of Caen (laboratory History, Territories andMemory - HisTeMé, ex CRHQ), Caen Memorial, Resistance Foundation. Proposals for papers (not exceeding one page), accompanied by a shortbibliographic review, should be sent before the 15th of June 2020 toGaël Eismann: geismann@free.fr and Fabrice Grenard:fabrice.grenard@fondationresistance.org. Organization: University of Caen (Laboratory History, Territories and Memory- HisTeMé, ex CRHQ), Caen Memorial, Resistance Foundation.  Scientific Advisory Board: Alya Aglan, Julien Blanc, Laurent Douzou, Gaël Eismann, Thomas Fontaine, Fabrice Grenard, Guillaume Piketty, Steffan Prauser, Jean Quellien, François Rouquet  Thanks to Celine Quint, Carré International, Université de Caen for the translation.