Fascist who founded the Francist Movement with Mussolini’s money and was shot for collaboration
At 11 p.m. on 29 September 1933, at a ceremony at the Arc de Triomphe, he announced the founding of “a movement of revolutionary action whose aim is to conquer power”. “Our Francisme is to France what Fascism is to Italy,” he wrote
A seminarian when the First World War broke out, he was wounded three times and rose to captain. After Action Française and the National Catholic Federation he joined Georges Valois’s Faisceau in 1925 and ran its propaganda from 1926; breaking with Valois in 1927, he wrote for Coty’s L’Ami du peuple. In September 1933 he founded the Francist Movement on the model of Italian Fascism. Financed by Mussolini’s government, it took part in the demonstration of 6 February 1934 and was banned by the Popular Front government in 1936. After the ban he turned openly antisemitic, and in 1941 he refounded the Francist Party as a collaborationist force. Arrested in Italy in 1945, he was shot at the Fort de Châtillon in March 1946.
Activities and affiliations
- 1933–1944 Political and party leadership · Francisme
- 1925–1927 Political and party leadership · Faisceau
- 1914–1918 Military command · France state institutions
Career Timeline
- 1895.12.07Born at Saint-Clair-sur-Epte
- 1914–1918Mobilised as a seminarian; rises to captain, wounded three times
- 1924Defeated as a National Bloc candidate for the Chamber
- 1925–1927Joins the Faisceau; head of propaganda from 1926
- 1927–1933Runs the veterans’ page of L’Ami du peuple
- 1933.09.29Founds the Francist Movement
- 1934.02.06Takes part in the demonstration of 6 February
- 1934.12Attends the international fascist congress at Montreux
- 1936His movement is banned with the other leagues by the Popular Front government
- 1941–1944Refounds the Francist Party as a collaborationist force
- 1944.08Flees to Germany
- 1945.06Arrested at Merano and extradited to France
- 1946.02.21Sentenced to death by the Court of Justice of the Seine
- 1946.03Shot at the Fort de Châtillon