Hubert Lagardelle

Hubert Lagardelle (born July 8, 1874 in the Haute-Garonne department , † September 20, 1958 in Paris ) was a French politician and economist. He started as a revolutionary syndicalist , as a socialist, then moved to the right until he worked as a minister in the Vichy regime .

The syndicalist stage

Hubert Lagardelle was of middle-class origin. After studying law, ending with a thesis on trade unionism, Lagardelle began to work as a publicist and to be politically active. He joined the socialist movement, where he was influenced by Pierre-Joseph Proudhon , Karl Marx and Georges Sorel . From 1896 he was a member of the Parti ouvrier français (French Workers' Party), which existed until 1902. In 1905 he joined the SFIO ( Section française de l'Internationale ouvrière , German: French Section of the Workers' International).

In 1895 Lagardelle founded the magazine La Jeunesse socialiste (The Socialist Youth) in Toulouse , then in 1899 the Le Mouvement socialiste (The Socialist Movement), which existed until 1914 , a theoretical organ first of socialism, then of revolutionary syndicalism. He contributed significantly to the development of this ideology - especially until 1908.

In the socialist organizations, as well as in the Confédération générale du travail (CGT, General Trade Union Confederation), Lagardelle advocated militant actions, specifically campaigning for the general strike. Here he was the left opponent of Jean Jaurès . There were disputes among other things at the Congress of Nancy in 1907 .

The fascist stage

During his time as a socialist, Lagardelle met Benito Mussolini and became his friend. After the World War he went the same way as this one. In 1926 he joined the Faisceau party (the bundle of rods, symbol of fascism) founded by Georges Valois . This was France's first fascist party, but it only existed until 1928.

From 1932 Lagardelle worked at the embassy in Rome. He supported Henry de Jouvenel , ambassador there until 1934, in an unsuccessful attempt to forge a Franco-Italian alliance against the German striving for supremacy.

After the armistice in 1940 he became one of the theorists of the National Revolution . After he had already worked as State Secretary for Labor in the Vichy government , he became Minister of Labor in the new government of Pierre Laval on April 18, 1942 . In this function Lagardelle tried to include the still existing workers' organizations (especially lower levels of the CGT) in the system. However, this was rejected by both the representatives of corporatism and the trade unionists, so he remained isolated. On November 21, 1943 he resigned from this office and was replaced by Jean Bichelonne .

As the successor to René Chateau , Lagardelle became editor of the journal La France socialiste in January 1944 , later renamed La France au travail , which tried to collect “leftists” who collaborated with the occupiers .

For his work during the occupation he was sentenced to life-long forced labor on July 17, 1946 (pardoned to prison on July 31, 1946), to indignité nationale (national unworthiness) and to the confiscation of his property. After his release in 1947, he was no longer politically active.

Works

• Hubert Lagardelle: Le Parti socialiste et la Confédération Générale du Travail . Rivière, Paris 1908.

• Hubert Lagardelle: Mission à Rome . Plon, 1955.

literature

• Christine Bouneau: Hubert Lagardelle. Un bourgeois révolutionnaire et son époque, 1874-1958 . EUREDIT, 2005, ISBN 978-2-84564-028-3 .

• Pol Vandromme: L'extrême droite dans l'entre deux guerres . La Francité, Nivelles 1971, ISBN 2-86714-295-4 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} The source names August 8, 1874 as his birthday, probably erroneously: (summarized) court judgment from 1946 ( Memento of July 3, 2009 in the Internet Archive ).
2. ↑ http://rulers.org/frgovt2.html List of French ministers etc.