 They could afford the fees for the Lycée Schoelcher, at the time the most prestigious high school in Martinique, where Fanon came to admire one of the school's teachers, poet and writer Aimé Césaire.Fanon left Martinique in 1943, when he was 18 years old, in order to join the Free French forces.After France fell to the Nazis in 1940, Vichy French naval troops were blockaded on Martinique.