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epa02211556 An undated handout photograph released by ECPAD on 19 June 2010 shows General Marcel Bigeard (2nd R) in Dien Bien Phu during the Indochina war. One of Frances most decorated veterans, who led troops in the French Resistance, in World War II and in wars in Algeria and Indochina, died in Toul, France, 18 June 2010. He was 94. Bigeard, who was wounded in battle five times and escaped from prisoner-of-war camps three times, achieved legendary status in France. Nicknamed 'the Heroic Bigeard' by Charles de Gaulle, he participated in battles against the Nazis and against rebels in the French colonies of Indochina and Algeria. In 1954, he parachuted with his battalion into the besieged French base of Dien Bien Phu, in Indochina, and fought the Vietminh, the Vietnamese Communist and nationalist forces, until Frances defeat in 1954. Born in Toul in 1916, Marcel Bigeard joined the French Army in 1939. He was captured by the Germans in June 1940, but escaped a year later to join the colonial infantry in Senegal. In 1944 he parachuted into France to lead an underground Resistance group. He served in the army until 1974, retiring as a four-star general before being appointed deputy defense minister under President Valéry Giscard dEstaing and later, a legislator in Frances lower house of Parliament. EPA/ECPAD / HANDOUT HANDOUT --- EDITORIAL USE ONLY EDITORIAL USE ONLY/NO SALES