Claude Bourdet (28 October 1909 – 20 March 1996) was a writer, journalist, polemist, and militant French politician.

Peronal life

Bourdet was a son of the dramatic author

Édouard Bourdet Édouard Bourdet (Saint-Germain-en-Laye, 26 October 1887 – Paris, 17 January 1945) was a 20th-century French playwright. He was married to the poet, Catherine Pozzi; their son was Claude Bourdet. Plays *1910: ''Le Rubicon'' *1912: ''La Cage ouv ...

and the poet Catherine Pozzi, was born and died in

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

, France. In 1935 he married

Ida Adamoff , country = , residence = , birth_date = , birth_place = Moscow, Russian Empire , death_date = , death_place ...

Education

He left the

Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (colloquially) , former_name = eidgenössische polytechnische Schule , image = ETHZ.JPG , image_size = , established = , type = Public , budget = CHF 1.896 billion (2021) , rector = Günther Dissertori , president = Joël Mesot , ac ...

with an engineering diploma in technical physics in 1933. After his military service in the Artillerie de Montagne, he was put in charge of a mission for the Economy Ministry, during the government of the Front populaire.

Life

He was very active in

French Resistance The French Resistance (french: La Résistance) was a collection of organisations that fought the German occupation of France during World War II, Nazi occupation of France and the Collaborationism, collaborationist Vichy France, Vichy régim ...

movements. He participated in the foundation of the resistance newspaper ''

Combat Combat ( French for ''fight'') is a purposeful violent conflict meant to physically harm or kill the opposition. Combat may be armed (using weapons) or unarmed ( not using weapons). Combat is sometimes resorted to as a method of self-defense, or ...

'' along with

Henri Frenay Henri Frenay Sandoval (1905–1988) was a French military officer and French Resistance member. He was born in Lyon, France, on 11 November 1905, into a Catholic family with a military tradition. He studied the Germanic languages at the Universit ...

, of which he was a member of the management committee, until the departure of Frenay to London and later Algeria in 1943, when he was made its representative. From 1942 he took part in the creation and development of the newspaper with the task of dividing the public administrations. In 1944, he was arrested by the

Gestapo The (), abbreviated Gestapo (; ), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe. The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of Prussia into one organi ...

and, after being imprisoned at Fresnes, he was deported to various concentration camps, including

Neuengamme Neuengamme was a network of Nazi concentration camps in Northern Germany that consisted of the main camp, Neuengamme, and more than 85 satellite camps. Established in 1938 near the village of Neuengamme in the Bergedorf district of Hamburg, th ...

Sachsenhausen Sachsenhausen () or Sachsenhausen-Oranienburg was a German Nazi concentration camp in Oranienburg, Germany, used from 1936 until April 1945, shortly before the defeat of Nazi Germany in May later that year. It mainly held political prisoners ...

, and

Buchenwald Buchenwald (; literally 'beech forest') was a Nazi concentration camp established on hill near Weimar, Germany, in July 1937. It was one of the first and the largest of the concentration camps within Germany's 1937 borders. Many actual or su ...

. After the war, he continued to write at ''Combat'', but his conflict with Henri Smadja, the owner of the newspaper, returned and he left the publication in 1950. In 1950, with the help of Gilles Martinet and

Roger Stéphane Roger Stéphane (19 August 1919 - 4 December 1994) was the name used by the French writer, Roger Worms. He originally selected it in September 1941 when he joined the "Combat" Resistance group. After the Liberation he became a literary critic, ...

, Bourdet formed ''L’Observateur'', which became ''L’Observateur Aujourd’hui'' in 1953, and then the ''France-Observateur'' in 1954. Claude Bourdet defended the union of the left and social justice. He supported the anti-colonial fight, denouncing repression in

Madagascar Madagascar (; mg, Madagasikara, ), officially the Republic of Madagascar ( mg, Repoblikan'i Madagasikara, links=no, ; french: République de Madagascar), is an island country in the Indian Ocean, approximately off the coast of East Africa ...

and torture in

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. In 1961, he investigated and denounced

Maurice Papon Maurice Papon (; 3 September 1910 – 17 February 2007) was a French civil servant who led the police in major prefectures from the 1930s to the 1960s, before he became a Gaullist politician. When he was secretary general for the police in B ...

, the prefect of the police force, in connection with the shootings of Algerian FLN demonstrators on 17 October of that year, in the

Paris massacre of 1961 The Paris massacre of 1961 occurred on 17 October 1961, during the Algerian War (1954–62). Under orders from the head of the Parisian police, Maurice Papon, the French National Police attacked a demonstration by 30,000 pro- National Liberation ...

. Bourdet's political militancy created tensions which led to a major rupture of the ''France-Observateur'' team in 1963, and his subsequent departure from the newspaper. He continued to publish articles in ''Témoignage chrétien'', ''Politique Hebdo'' or ''Politis'', and took part in the special numbers of the ''Nouvel Observateur''. In 1985, Bourdet was a member of the "Jury of Honor" that assessed whatever the film '' Des terroristes à la retraite'' should be aired in France or not. The "Jury of Honor" in its report stated “though it is highly desirable that a film inform French of all generations about the saga of the FTP-MOI, such a film nevertheless still remains to be made”. Bourdet called the film "racist and anti-Semitic".

Bibliography

*''Le Schisme Yougoslave'', 1950 (Editions de Minuit) *''Les Chemins de l'Unité'', 1964 (Maspero) *''A qui appartient Paris'', 1972 (Le Seuil) *''L'Aventure incertaine, de la résistance à la restauration'', 1975 (Stock) *''L’Europe truquée. Supranationaliste, pacte atlantique, force de frappe'', 1977 (Seghers) *''Mes batailles'', 1993 (In fine) *''L'Afrique, l’aventure d’Albarka, Jean Suret-Canal et Claude Bourdet'', 1973 (éd. du Burin-Martinsart)

Books

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bourdet, Claude 1909 births 1996 deaths Politicians from Paris Unified Socialist Party (France) politicians French Resistance members Companions of the Liberation World War II resistance press activists Buchenwald concentration camp survivors Sachsenhausen concentration camp survivors Neuengamme concentration camp survivors