On 17 March 1943, Manouchian at age 36 participated in his first armed action, in Levallois-Perret.
The most famous of the FTP-MOI's members was Missak Manouchian, and the FTP-MOI is widely known from the Affiche rouge, a German propaganda poster displaying the members of the FTP-MOI after their arrest at the end of 1943, whose aim was to stigmatise the presence of foreigners and Jews among the French Resistance; a poem by Louis Aragon, set to music and sung by Léo Ferré, deals with this story.