The brain of Action Française, the royalist theorist who denied the republic itself in the name of integral nationalism
'It is the revenge of Dreyfus!', on hearing his life sentence in the court at Lyon, 27 January 1945
A poet and polemicist from Martigues in Provence, deaf from his youth, who led Action Française for half a century after the movement formed out of the Dreyfus affair. His 'integral nationalism' called for the restoration of the monarchy and the abolition of the parliamentary republic, and named Jews, Protestants, Freemasons and foreigners as the 'four confederate states' eating France from within. The movement survived the Vatican's condemnation of 1926, and in 1938 he was elected to the Académie Française. Through January 1934 his paper named 'the thieves' day after day, and on the morning of 6 February it called on its readers to come to the Chamber that evening. He welcomed Pétain's accession in 1940 as a 'divine surprise', backed Vichy, and denounced resisters and Jews in print throughout the occupation. In January 1945 he was sentenced to life imprisonment and national degradation for collusion with the enemy.
Career Timeline
- 1868–1890Born at Martigues; loses his hearing; begins writing in Paris
- 1899–1908Joins Action Française out of the Dreyfus affair; the daily is founded in 1908
- 1908–1939Theorist of integral nationalism, shaping the whole of the French far right
- 1926The Vatican condemns Action Française
- 1934.01–02Press offensive over the Stavisky affair; calls for the demonstration of 6 February
- 1938Elected to the Académie Française
- 1940–1944Backs Vichy; denounces resisters and Jews in print
- 1945.01Sentenced to life and national degradation for collusion with the enemy
- 1952Released in ill health and dies at Tours the same year