Henry de Lesquen (born 1 January 1949) is a French politician. A retired official and former radio host, de Lesquen has been the president of the Carrefour de l'Horloge, a

national liberal National liberalism is a variant of liberalism, combining liberal policies and issues with elements of nationalism. Historically, national liberalism has also been used in the same meaning as conservative liberalism (right-liberalism). A seri ...

think tank A think tank, or policy institute, is a research institute that performs research and advocacy concerning topics such as social policy, political strategy, economics, military, technology, and culture. Most think tanks are non-governmenta ...

, since 1985. A blogger and YouTuber since the 2010s, he has participated in popularising the concept of "

remigration Remigration, or re-immigration, sometimes euphemized as "repatriation", is a far-right political concept referring to the forced or promoted return of non-ethnically European immigrants, often including their descendants, back to their place of ra ...

" in France, as well as spreading racialist concepts built on anthropologist Carleton S. Coon's works.

Biography

Early life and education

Henry Bertrand Marie Armand de Lesquen du Plessis-Casso was born on 1 January 1949 in Port-Lyautey, Morocco, then a French protectorate, the son of Pierre de Lesquen du Plessis-Casso, a general of the

French Army The French Army, officially known as the Land Army (french: Armée de Terre, ), is the land-based and largest component of the French Armed Forces. It is responsible to the Government of France, along with the other components of the Armed Force ...

and Anne-Marie Huon de Kermadec. Both his father and mother were from noble

Breton Breton most often refers to: *anything associated with Brittany, and generally ** Breton people ** Breton language, a Southwestern Brittonic Celtic language of the Indo-European language family, spoken in Brittany ** Breton (horse), a breed **Ga ...

families. De Lesquen's maternal grand-mother, Camille Medina, was born Guatemalan and naturalized French. De Lesquen entered Polytechnique in 1968, then earned a bachelor in economics and joined the

École nationale d'administration The École nationale d'administration (generally referred to as ENA, en, National School of Administration) was a French ''grande école'', created in 1945 by President Charles de Gaulle and principal author of the 1958 Constitution Michel Deb ...

(ENA) in 1974.

Carrefour de l'Horloge

With his friend from ENA Jean-Yves Le Gallou, de Lesquen founded the

Club de l'Horloge The Carrefour de l'Horloge (literally ''The Clock Crossroad''), formerly Club de l'Horloge (1974–2015), is a French far-right national liberal think tank founded in 1974 and presided by Henry de Lesquen. The organization promotes an "integral n ...

in July 1974. Criticizing the meta-politics of

Alain de Benoist Alain de Benoist (; ; born 11 December 1943) – also known as Fabrice Laroche, Robert de Herte, David Barney, and other pen names – is a French journalist and political philosopher, a founding member of the Nouvelle Droite ("New Right"), and ...

GRECE The Groupement de Recherche et d'Études pour la Civilisation Européenne ("Research and Study Group for European Civilization"), better known as GRECE, is a French ethnonationalist think tank founded in 1968 to promote the ideas of the Nouvelle ...

, the Club de l'Horloge aimed at concrete results, favoring

entryism Entryism (also called entrism, enterism, or infiltration) is a political strategy in which an organisation or state encourages its members or supporters to join another, usually larger, organization in an attempt to expand influence and expand the ...

inside the French mainstream right-wing parties of the period: the Rally for the Republic (RPR) and the

Union for French Democracy The Union for French Democracy (french: Union pour la démocratie française, UDF) was a centre to centre-right political party in France. It was founded in 1978 as an electoral alliance to support President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing in order to ...

. The book ''La Politique du vivant'' ("The Politics of living"), published in 1979 under the direction of de Lesquen, drew influence from GRECE theories on

sociobiology Sociobiology is a field of biology that aims to examine and explain social behavior in terms of evolution. It draws from disciplines including psychology, ethology, anthropology, evolution, zoology, archaeology, and population genetics. Within ...

genetic determinism Biological determinism, also known as genetic determinism, is the belief that human behaviour is directly controlled by an individual's genes or some component of their physiology, generally at the expense of the role of the environment, whether ...

and

social darwinism Social Darwinism refers to various theories and societal practices that purport to apply biological concepts of natural selection and survival of the fittest to sociology, economics and politics, and which were largely defined by scholars in We ...

. The same year, he participated with Alain de Benoist in the French TV literary talk show ''

Apostrophes The apostrophe ( or ) is a punctuation mark, and sometimes a diacritical mark, in languages that use the Latin alphabet and some other alphabets. In English, the apostrophe is used for two basic purposes: * The marking of the omission of one o ...

'' about the

Nouvelle Droite The Nouvelle Droite (; en, "New Right"), sometimes shortened to the initialism ND, is a far-right political movement which emerged in France during the late 1960s. The Nouvelle Droite is at the origin of the wider European New Right (ENR). Vario ...

. Since the years 1979-80, the

has distanced itself from GRECE, promoting instead an "

economic liberalism Economic liberalism is a political and economic ideology that supports a market economy based on individualism and private property in the means of production. Adam Smith is considered one of the primary initial writers on economic liberali ...

strongly tainted with

nationalism Nationalism is an idea and movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the state. As a movement, nationalism tends to promote the interests of a particular nation (as in a group of people), Smith, Anthony. ''Nationalism: The ...

Public career

From 1974 to 1978, de Lesquen has been in charge of the program bureau for the French highways at the Ministry of Equipment. He became head of the bureau of energies, raw materials and chemistry at the Ministry of Finances from 1979 to 1983.“Henry de Lesquen du Plessis Casso”, in Who's Who in France, 2013, p. 1384 De Lesquen has been also a lecturer in economics at Sciences Po from 1978 to 1987. In 1984, he became deputy director of finances for the city of

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, 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), ma ...

. In this position, he refused in December 1986 to observe a minute's silence after the

death of Malik Oussekine Malik Oussekine (1964 – 6 December 1986) was a French-Algerian student. He had been walking near student protests in Paris opposing university reforms (the so-called " Devaquet Law") and proposed immigration restrictions. Though uninvolved i ...

and, according to witnesses, left the room during the ceremony. In 1987, he was nominated by mayor of Paris Jacques Chirac secretary-general of the ''Office Public d'Aménagement et de Construction'' (OPAC) and remained at this position until 1990; he had been accused of enacting unofficial ethnic quotas. In 2001, de Lesquen became a municipal councilor in

Versailles The Palace of Versailles ( ; french: Château de Versailles ) is a former royal residence built by King Louis XIV located in Versailles, about west of Paris, France. The palace is owned by the French Republic and since 1995 has been managed, ...

, where he spoke out against the city's

public housing Public housing is a form of housing tenure in which the property is usually owned by a government authority, either central or local. Although the common goal of public housing is to provide affordable housing, the details, terminology, def ...

projects. In 2007, he was elected president of right-wing radio station Radio Courtoisie, from which he was ousted in 2017 after the controversies surrounding his presidential campaign.

Positions

2017 presidential election

At the end of 2015, de Lesquen announced his candidacy to the 2017 presidential election. In the following months, he attracted media attention by making a number of provocative proposals, claiming that as president, he would destroy the

Eiffel Tower The Eiffel Tower ( ; french: links=yes, tour Eiffel ) is a wrought-iron lattice tower on the Champ de Mars in Paris, France. It is named after the engineer Gustave Eiffel, whose company designed and built the tower. Locally nicknamed "' ...

; "burn" France's labour code, which he consider an obstacle to entrepreneurship and as stifling individual liberty, and annex

Belgium Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to th ...

and

Luxembourg Luxembourg ( ; lb, Lëtzebuerg ; french: link=no, Luxembourg; german: link=no, Luxemburg), officially the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, ; french: link=no, Grand-Duché de Luxembourg ; german: link=no, Großherzogtum Luxemburg is a small lan ...

. De Lesquen also added that he would ban "negro music" from government-sponsored broadcasts—in his view the "music with a sexual rhythm, expression of the soul of the African people"; including hip-hop,

metal A metal (from Greek μέταλλον ''métallon'', "mine, quarry, metal") is a material that, when freshly prepared, polished, or fractured, shows a lustrous appearance, and conducts electricity and heat relatively well. Metals are typicall ...

and

rock and roll Rock and roll (often written as rock & roll, rock 'n' roll, or rock 'n roll) is a genre of popular music that evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s. It originated from African-American music such as jazz, rhythm a ...

, which he described as "white people's negro music, that appeals to the reptilian brain". He was eventually sentenced to a 16,000-euro fine in January 2017 for incitement to racial hatred and

holocaust denial Holocaust denial is an antisemitic conspiracy theory that falsely asserts that the Nazi genocide of Jews, known as the Holocaust, is a myth, fabrication, or exaggeration. Holocaust deniers make one or more of the following false statements: ...

. In March 2017, de Lesquen withdrew his candidacy in favor of LR runner

François Fillon François Charles Armand Fillon (; born 4 March 1954) is a retired French politician who served as Prime Minister of France from 2007 to 2012 under President Nicolas Sarkozy. He was the nominee of the Republicans (previously known as the Union ...

, against the "cosmopolitan oligarchy" and to "stand in the way of Macron".

Online fame and influence

Lesquen runs a Youtube channel, totalling several million views, in which he expresses his political theories and has attracted a lot of young people who label themselves the ''Jeunesses Lesquenistes'' ("Lesquenist Youth"). He founded a political movement in 2018, the National-Liberal Party (PNL; French "Parti National-Libéral"), which aims at promoting

ideas, and restoring traditional French values and liberal economics through ideological influence rather than elected office. Using irony and provocative symbolism akin to the Alt-Right movement, the logo of his party imitates the ''

Wolfsangel (, translation "wolf's hook") or () is a heraldic charge from Germany and eastern France, which was inspired by medieval European wolf traps that consisted of a Z-shaped metal hook (called the ''Wolfsangel'', or the ''Crampon'' in French) th ...

'' used by the 2nd SS Panzer Division ''Das Reich'' in

WWII World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. Through his online videos, Lesquen participated in popularizing the concept of "

" in France and spreading racialist theories built on anthropologist Carleton S. Coon's works. De Lesquen also introduced the word " candaule" as a French equivalent for the Alt-Right term "

cuckservative "Cuckservative" is a pejorative formed as a portmanteau of "cuck", an abbreviation of the word "cuckold", and the political designation "conservative". It has become a derogatory label used by white nationalists and the alt-right in the United St ...

". Similar to its American counterpart, the term is used as a distinction between the "true ring-wingers", who "oppose anti-racist laws" and "favor

", and the "losers of the right".

Relations with the FN

He described Marine Le Pen as "a leftist woman entertaining herself hearing negro music in nightclubs" and an "incult" and the National Rally as a "pederastic lupanar."

Others

At the end of 2018, he decided to support the " Yellow Vests", denouncing over-taxation and describing the movement as made up of "French people from French ancestors". He stated that

slavery Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perf ...

was a historical necessity due to the low economic and technological levels and that Black slaves were relatively well-treated. He described

transsexual Transsexual people experience a gender identity that is inconsistent with their assigned sex, and desire to permanently transition to the sex or gender with which they identify, usually seeking medical assistance (including sex reassignmen ...

indnividuals as "perverts" and "mentally diseased" deserving psychiatry. In March 2020, Lesquen stated "there is worse than coronavirus: judeovirus" at a meeting of the "Swiss Resistance" organization.

Private life

Henry de Lesquen is a

traditionalist Catholic Traditionalist Catholicism is the set of beliefs, practices, customs, traditions, liturgical forms, devotions, and presentations of Catholic teaching that existed in the Catholic Church before the liberal reforms of the Second Vatican Council ( ...

. He broke off relations with his daughter, Clélie, after she married a Jew.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Lesquen, Henry De 1949 births Carrefour de l'horloge people École nationale d'administration alumni École Polytechnique alumni Academic staff of Sciences Po Far-right politicians in France French civil servants French Holocaust deniers French people of Breton descent Living people New Right (Europe) People from Kenitra People from Versailles Rally for the Republic politicians French bloggers Male bloggers French YouTubers Scientific racism Rattachism National liberalism Proslavery activists