Jean Luchaire (21 July 1901 – 22 February 1946) was a French journalist and politician who became the head of the French
collaborationist
Wartime collaboration is cooperation with the enemy against one's country of citizenship in wartime, and in the words of historian Gerhard Hirschfeld, "is as old as war and the occupation of foreign territory".
The term ''collaborator'' dates to t ...
press in Paris during the German military occupation. Luchaire supported the ''
Révolution nationale
The ''Révolution nationale'' (, ''National Revolution'') was the official ideological program promoted by the Vichy regime (the “French State”) which had been established in July 1940 and led by Marshal Philippe Pétain. Pétain's regime wa ...
'' declared by the
French Government
The Government of France ( French: ''Gouvernement français''), officially the Government of the French Republic (''Gouvernement de la République française'' ), exercises executive power in France. It is composed of the Prime Minister, who ...
after it relocated to the spa town of Vichy in 1940.
Family
Jean Luchaire was born in
Siena
Siena ( , ; lat, Sena Iulia) is a city in Tuscany, Italy. It is the capital of the province of Siena.
The city is historically linked to commercial and banking activities, having been a major banking center until the 13th and 14th centuri ...
, Italy, a grand-nephew of historian
Achille Luchaire
Denis Jean Achille Luchaire (October 24, 1846November 14, 1908) was a French historian.
Biography
Luchaire was born in Paris. In 1879 he became a professor at Bordeaux and in 1889 professor of mediaeval history at the Sorbonne; in 1895 he becam ...
. He was married, with four children.
Inter-war years
Before
World War II
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 ...
Luchaire frequented the
French Chamber of Deputies
Chamber of Deputies (french: Chambre des députés) was a parliamentary body in France in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries:
* 1814–1848 during the Bourbon Restoration and the July Monarchy, the Chamber of Deputies was the lower house o ...
, where
Aristide Briand
Aristide Pierre Henri Briand (; 28 March 18627 March 1932) was a French statesman who served eleven terms as Prime Minister of France during the French Third Republic. He is mainly remembered for his focus on international issues and reconciliat ...
had begun a strong association with Luchaire, the latter's newspaper supported Briand's policy for a ''rapprochement'' with Germany (while it was still the
Weimar Republic
The Weimar Republic (german: link=no, Weimarer Republik ), officially named the German Reich, was the government of Germany from 1918 to 1933, during which it was a constitutional federal republic for the first time in history; hence it is al ...
). ''
Manchester Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
'' journalist
Robert Dell
The Ven. Robert Sydney Dell, MA (20 May 1922 – 19 January 2008) was Archdeacon of Derby from 1973 to 1992.
He was educated at Harrow County School for Boys, Emmanuel College, Cambridge and Ridley Hall, Cambridge. He was ordained in 1948.' ...
is on record as saying that Luchaire was "most frightfully corrupt", and in 1934 Foreign Minister
Louis Barthou
Jean Louis Barthou (; 25 August 1862 – 9 October 1934) was a French politician of the Third Republic who served as Prime Minister of France for eight months in 1913. In social policy, his time as prime minister saw the introduction (in Jul ...
related that Luchaire was receiving "quite incredible" subsidies for his newspaper ''Notre Temps'' (which Luchaire had founded in 1927), some 100,000 francs a month from
Joseph Paul-Boncour
Augustin Alfred Joseph Paul-Boncour (; 4 August 1873 – 28 March 1972) was a French politician and diplomat of the Third Republic. He was a member of the Republican-Socialist Party (PRS) and served as Prime Minister of France from December 193 ...
.
Jean Luchaire first met and became friends with
Otto Abetz
Heinrich Otto Abetz (26 March 1903 – 5 May 1958) was the German ambassador to Vichy France during the Second World War and a convicted war criminal. In July 1949 he was sentenced to twenty years' hard labour by a Paris military tribunal, he was ...
, a "francophile" (who later became
German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
**Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ger ...
Ambassador in Paris during
World War II
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 ...
), in 1930, when Abetz was still living in
Karlsruhe
Karlsruhe ( , , ; South Franconian: ''Kallsruh'') is the third-largest city of the German state (''Land'') of Baden-Württemberg after its capital of Stuttgart and Mannheim, and the 22nd-largest city in the nation, with 308,436 inhabitants. ...
. Abetz later married Luchaire's secretary, Suzanne. Luchaire was convinced that the appointment of Abetz as Ambassador to
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 ...
was a godsend to France and that, between them, he and Abetz could moderate the rigours of the German military occupation and prepare the ground for a happy Franco-German union. He suggested that, in effect, he was adapting his old Briandism to new conditions.
Vichy years
Pierre Laval
Pierre Jean Marie Laval (; 28 June 1883 – 15 October 1945) was a French politician. During the Third Republic, he served as Prime Minister of France from 27 January 1931 to 20 February 1932 and 7 June 1935 to 24 January 1936. He again occu ...
, aware of Luchaire's friendly relations with Abetz, sent him to Paris in July 1940 to re-establish contact with him. Luchaire consistently maintained that he represented a certain respectable "rightist" anti-British French political tradition. He founded a further newspaper, the evening daily ''
Les Nouveaux Temps'', in 1940, and subsequently became the President of the Association de la presse parisienne (Association of the Parisian Press) in 1941 and presided the Corporation nationale de la presse française (National Corporation of French Press). During
the occupation
''The Occupation'' is a single-player adventure video game developed by White Paper Games and released on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Microsoft Windows on 5 March 2019. The game takes place in a single government building, in real-time over fou ...
, however, it was claimed that Luchaire was disseminating Nazi propaganda, fulminating against England, America,
de Gaulle
Charles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle (; ; (commonly abbreviated as CDG) 22 November 18909 November 1970) was a French army officer and statesman who led Free France against Nazi Germany in World War II and chaired the Provisional Government ...
, the
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
,
Bolshevism
Bolshevism (from Bolshevik) is a revolutionary socialist current of Soviet Marxist–Leninist political thought and political regime associated with the formation of a rigidly centralized, cohesive and disciplined party of social revolution, fo ...
and the
Maquis
Maquis may refer to:
Resistance groups
* Maquis (World War II), predominantly rural guerrilla bands of the French Resistance
* Spanish Maquis, guerrillas who fought against Francoist Spain in the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War
* The network ...
. By the end of 1943 he advocated a "real" collaborationist government, Laval being, in his opinion, "inadequate". During the occupation, as editor of ''Nouveaux Temps'', he drew a salary of 100,000 francs a month, besides 'extras', lived in great luxury, lunched at the Tour d'Argent and according to his daughter Corinne, even started keeping expensive mistresses, which he had not done in the past.
In 1944, Luchaire called on the Germans to "exterminate" the
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 ...
, and his newspapers wrote violent anti-British and anti-American articles after the
Normandy landings
The Normandy landings were the landing operations and associated airborne operations on Tuesday, 6 June 1944 of the Allied invasion of Normandy in Operation Overlord during World War II. Codenamed Operation Neptune and often referred to as ...
. He was appointed Minister of Information in the French government-in-exile, after the Germans forcibly removed it from Vichy to the
Sigmaringen enclave
The Sigmaringen enclave was the exiled remnant of France's Nazi-sympathizing Vichy government which fled to Germany during the Liberation of France near the end of World War II in order to avoid capture by the advancing Allied forces. ...
, 1944–5, where, apparently, he continued to be optimistic. He fled to Italy in 1945, but was later arrested and returned to France. He was tried by a tribunal consisting of broad Left appointees, even communist members of the resistance, and executed.
Luchaire's daughter
Corinne had become a film actress in the 1930s. Following her father's "joke trial", she regarded him as a martyr, "who had never wanted to harm anyone, who was sincere, and who never thought unkindly of any man."
[Luchaire, Corinne, ''Ma Drole de vie'', Paris, 1948, p.238.] In 1945, she also was sentenced to ten years of
dégradation nationale
The ''dégradation nationale'' ("National demotion") was a sentence introduced in France after the Liberation of France. It was applied during the ''épuration légale'' ("legal purge") which followed the fall of the Vichy regime.
The ''dégrad ...
. She died of
tuberculosis
Tuberculosis (TB) is an infectious disease usually caused by '' Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but it can also affect other parts of the body. Most infections show no symptoms, in ...
in 1950.
References
*
Politique Pour Tous :: Jean LUCHAIRE
Bibliography
* Cédric Meletta, ''Jean Luchaire. l'enfant perdu des années sombres, '', Paris, Perrin, 2013, 450 p.
* Martin Mauthner, ''Otto Abetz and His Paris Acolytes - French Writers Who Flirted with Fascism, 1930–1945''. Sussex Academic Press, 2016, ()
{{DEFAULTSORT:Luchaire, Jean
1901 births
1946 deaths
Politicians from Siena
Nazi collaborators shot at the Fort de Châtillon
Executed Italian people
French male non-fiction writers
French politicians convicted of crimes
20th-century French journalists
20th-century French male writers
Italian emigrants to France