The last member of an immigrant group who fought the Nazis for the French Resistance has died aged 101.

Arsène Tchakarian escaped a Nazi crackdown in which 22 of the group’s fighters were shot by the German occupation forces in Paris in 1944.

He was awarded France’s highest honour.

President Emmanuel Macron tweeted that Tchakarian, an ethnic Armenian, was “a hero of the Resistance and tireless witness whose voice resonated strongly to the very end”.

Tchakarian only became a French citizen in 1958. He was granted several medals for gallantry, including the prestigious Legion of Honour in 2012.

Tchakarian carried out attacks alongside Jews and other immigrant guerrillas against the Nazis.

His group was led by a fellow Armenian, Missak Manouchian, who was among those shot by firing squad in February 1944.

Both Tchakarian and Manouchian were communists, like many of the partisans who resisted the Nazi occupation of Europe.

The collaborationist French Vichy regime issued a “red poster” in February 1944 after the execution of Manouchian and his comrades, intended to convince the public that the fighters were just a foreign criminal gang.