Jean Suret-Canale (27 April 1921 – 23 June 2007) was a French historian of Africa, Marxist theoretician, political activist, and World War II French Resistance fighter. Suret-Canale was born to father Victor Suret-Canale (1883–1958), an engraver educated at École nationale supérieure des arts décoratifs, and Thérèse Suret-Canale, a German painter educated first in Germany and then at the Académie Julian in Paris. Back in France, Suret-Canale found a teaching post in Laval, Mayenne and pursued his political writing while keeping active in the Communist party.