Henry Charbonneau

Henry Charbonneau (pseudonym: Henry Charneau) (12 December 1913 in Saint-Maixent-l'École, Deux-Sèvres – 2 January 1983 in La Roche-sur-Yon) was a French far right politician and writer.

The son of a soldier, Charbonneau initially came to political activism as a member of the Action Française before embarking on a varied career with a number of far right groups.[1] A close associate of Jean Filliol, he followed him into the Camelots du Roi militia group before, in 1930, becoming the co-editor of the journal La France Ouvrière with Henry Coston.[1] His next stop in 1932 was the Ligue des Contributables, one of the Far right leagues that, with its anti-tax message, pre-empted the later Poujadist movement.[1] He then became a supporter of Eugène Deloncle and in 1937 joined La Cagoule.[1]

Charbonneau dropped out of politics in 1939 when he enlisted in the 1st Regiment of Zouaves.[1] He returned to France in 1941 and joined Deloncle's Mouvement Social Révolutionnaire and soon became a member of the Filiol tendency that turned against Deloncle in 1942.[1] Losing interest in the group, he enlisted in Milice, which was commanded by his uncle by marriage Joseph Darnand and took over editing duties on their journal Combats.[1] The journal appeared weekly, initially in Vichy and then in Paris.[2] Despite this Charbonneau was not overly enthusiastic about the existence of the Milice, and encouraged members to enlist in the Waffen-SS and serve on then Eastern Front.[3] He fled to Germany in 1944 and from his base in Berlin he served the Nazi Party as a propagandist before fleeing first to Milan and finally to Switzerland from where he was extradited to France.[1]

Charbonneau spent a while in prison for collaborationism but returned to writing upon his release, with his material featuring in a number of far right journals.[4] In his later years he was a member of both Ordre Nouveau and Parti des forces nouvelles.[4]

References
  1. Philip Rees, Biographical Dictionary of the Extreme Right Since 1890, 1990, p. 58
  2. Eugen Weber, Action Française: Royalism and Reaction in Twentieth Century France, Stanford University Press, 1962, p. 451
  3. Robert Forbes, For Europe: The French Volunteers of the Waffen-SS, Helion & Company Limited, 2006, p. 187
  4. Rees, Biographical Dictionary of the Extreme Right, p. 59
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