OBITUARIES / PASSINGS / Maurice Druon

Maurice Druon, 90, a French author, fighter for France’s World War II Resistance movement and writer of one of its anthems, died of cardiovascular problems Tuesday in Paris, French authorities said. He was 90.

Druon served for more than four decades with the Academie Francaise, the state-sponsored body that oversees French language and usage. A winner of the Prix Goncourt, the country’s most prestigious literary prize, he also was a conservative government minister and recipient of numerous official honors.

Born in Paris on April 23, 1918, Druon joined the movement against France’s German occupiers in his mid-20s and co-wrote with his uncle Joseph Kessel “Le Chant des Partisans,” or “The Partisans’ Song.”

The song -- featuring the lyrics, “Friend, do you hear the black flight of the crows over our plains? Friend, do you hear the deaf cries of a country in chains? Partisans, workers, peasants! It is the alarm!” -- was quickly adopted by the resistance forces fighting the Nazi occupiers and remained in France’s collective memory after the war’s end.

After the conflict, he wrote historical novels including the “Rois Maudits,” or “Accursed Kings” series.