Max Bonnafous (21 January 1900 – 16 October 1975) was a French sociologist who was Minister of Agriculture and Supplies from 1942 to 1944 in the
Vichy government
Vichy France (french: Régime de Vichy; 10 July 1940 – 9 August 1944), officially the French State ('), was the fascist French state headed by Marshal Philippe Pétain during World War II. Officially independent, but with half of its terr ...
.
Early years
Max Bonnafous was born on 21 January 1900 in
Bordeaux
Bordeaux ( , ; Gascon oc, Bordèu ; eu, Bordele; it, Bordò; es, Burdeos) is a port city on the river Garonne in the Gironde department, Southwestern France. It is the capital of the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region, as well as the prefect ...
, Gironde.
He graduated from the
École Normale Supérieure
École may refer to:
* an elementary school in the French educational stages normally followed by secondary education establishments (collège and lycée)
* École (river), a tributary of the Seine flowing in région Île-de-France
* École, S ...
in 1920, studied at the
French Academy in Rome
The French Academy in Rome (french: Académie de France à Rome) is an Academy located in the Villa Medici, within the Villa Borghese, on the Pincio (Pincian Hill) in Rome, Italy.
History
The Academy was founded at the Palazzo Capranica in ...
, and passed the ''
agrégation'' in philosophy in 1924.
He joined the
French Section of the Workers' International (SFIO).
He made substantial contributions to the ''Année sociologique, nouvelle série'', which first appeared in 1925.
He became a professor at the ''
lycée'' in
Constantinople
la, Constantinopolis ota, قسطنطينيه
, alternate_name = Byzantion (earlier Greek name), Nova Roma ("New Rome"), Miklagard/Miklagarth (Old Norse), Tsargrad ( Slavic), Qustantiniya ( Arabic), Basileuousa ("Queen of Cities"), Megalopolis ( ...
.
Bonnafous planned a thesis on suicide.
He published ''Le Suicide à Constantinople: Etude statique et essai d'interprétation sociologique'' in 1927.
Bonnafous was appointed to the chair of sociology in the
University of Bordeaux
The University of Bordeaux (French: ''Université de Bordeaux'') is a Lists of universities in France, public university based in Nouvelle-Aquitaine in Southern France, southwestern France.
It has several campuses in the cities and towns of Bor ...
in 1930, and held this position until 1940 but did not produce significant work on the subject.
In 1929 Bonnafous undertook to edit the selected works of the socialist leader
Jean Jaurès
Auguste Marie Joseph Jean Léon Jaurès (3 September 185931 July 1914), commonly referred to as Jean Jaurès (; oc, Joan Jaurés ), was a French Socialist leader. Initially a Moderate Republican, he later became one of the first social dem ...
(1859–1914) in about twenty volumes.
He chose to organize the material around six themes: socialism, pacifism, anti-clericalism, political battles, economic and social questions, and the world and men.
The first volume was published in May 1931, and nine volumes appeared before 1939.
The outbreak of
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 opposing ...
(1939–45) interrupted the work, and his files were scattered during the German occupation of France.
He said that afterwards he did not have the courage or the opportunity to reassemble them.
In October 1933 Bonnafous published ''Néo-socialisme ? ordre, autorité, nation'' in which he contributed the preface and commentary to important speeches by
Marcel Déat
Marcel Déat (7 March 1894 – 5 January 1955) was a French politician. Initially a socialist and a member of the French Section of the Workers' International (SFIO), he led a breakaway group of right-wing ' Neosocialists' out of the SFIO in 1933 ...
,
Adrien Marquet
Adrien Marquet (6 October 1884 – 3 February 1955) was a Socialism, socialist mayor of Bordeaux who turned to the far right.
Career
Marquet was born in Bordeaux and became its socialist mayor in 1925. In 1933, he was expelled from the French ...
and Barthélémy Montagnon at the Congress of Paris.
They argued that Socialists must focus on defeating fascism, and to do so must gain the support of the middle classes and eliminate unemployment.
Strong national states were necessary to control and direct the economy.
Socialists must study and learn from the "intermediary regimes" of economic and social organization being tried in Italy, Germany, Russia and America, which were neither purely Socialist or purely Capitalist.
Forty deputies were expelled from the SFIO at a special congress of the Socialist Party on 5 November 1933, most because they refused to accept the ban on participation in cabinets led by Radicals. Bonnafous,
Marcel Déat
Marcel Déat (7 March 1894 – 5 January 1955) was a French politician. Initially a socialist and a member of the French Section of the Workers' International (SFIO), he led a breakaway group of right-wing ' Neosocialists' out of the SFIO in 1933 ...
,
Adrien Marquet
Adrien Marquet (6 October 1884 – 3 February 1955) was a Socialism, socialist mayor of Bordeaux who turned to the far right.
Career
Marquet was born in Bordeaux and became its socialist mayor in 1925. In 1933, he was expelled from the French ...
, Barthélémy Montagnon and others were among the
Neo-Socialists who were expelled.
Their slogan "Order, Authority, Nation" was repugnant to the Socialist leader
Léon Blum.
Bonnafous served as cabinet secretary to government ministers in 1934 and 1938.
World War II
When the war broke out in 1939 Bonnafous, in Bordeaux, was one of the five sociology professors in France.
In 1940 he chose to collaborate with the Vichy regime.
Bonnafous was cabinet secretary to the Minister of the Interior in 1940.
He was then appointed a prefect.
Bonnafous was Secretary of State for Agriculture and Supplies from 18 April 1942 to 11 September 1942 in the 2nd cabinet of
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 occ ...
.
He was
Minister and Secretary of State for Agriculture and Supplies from 11 September 1942 to 6 January 1944 in the same cabinet.
His wife, Hélène Sérieux-Bonnafous, was a psychiatrist.
On 4 December 1942 his secretariat allocated a significant increase in rations to the inmates of lunatic asylums.
Bonnafous tried to speed up the creation of the
Peasant Corporation, which would unite rural producers in France and give them the apparatus of self-government.
The body that was eventually established in 1943 no longer had broad support among the peasants and was too late to make any real change.
Later career
After the Liberation of France Bonnafous was condemned to national disgrace, but was soon pardoned due to his service to the Resistance.
However, he retired from political life.
He had an affair with the actress
Gaby Morlay
Gaby Morlay (born Blanche Pauline Fumoleau; 8 June 1893 – 4 July 1964) was a film actress from France. (1893–1964) during the war, and as a result the actress was investigated for collaboration with the Nazis after the liberation.
Later Bonnafous married Morlay, who continued to play important roles in the 1940s and 1950s.
Max Bonnafous died at the age of 75 on 16 October 1975 in
Nice
Nice ( , ; Niçard dialect, Niçard: , classical norm, or , nonstandard, ; it, Nizza ; lij, Nissa; grc, Νίκαια; la, Nicaea) is the prefecture of the Alpes-Maritimes departments of France, department in France. The Nice urban unit, agg ...
, Alpes-Maritimes.
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Bonnafous, Max
1900 births
1975 deaths
Politicians from Bordeaux
People of Vichy France
French Ministers of Agriculture