Highlighting the history of French radio astronomy. 2: The solar eclipse observations of 1949-1954

During the 1940s and early 1950s radio astronomers from a number of nations used observations of total and partial solar eclipses to investigate the positions of radio-emitting regions and to determine the distribution of radio emission across the solar disk. Between 1949 and 1954 French radio astronomers from the Ecole Normale Supérieure and the Institute of Astrophysics between them mounted four successful eclipse expeditions to Africa and northern Europe. This short paper lists the personnel involved, discusses their instrumentation, describes the observations made, and evaluates the significance of these observations in an international context