Anarchism in France dates from the 18th century.
Many
anarchists such as the Egalitarians
took part in the
French
Revolution. Thinker
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, who grew up
during the
Restoration was the
first self-described anarchist. French anarchists fought in the
Spanish Civil War as volunteers in
the
International
Brigades.
From the Second Republic to the Jura Federation
Anselme Bellegarrigue launched
one of the first anarchist
newspapers,
named
L'Anarchie, journal de l'ordre (
Anarchy, The
Newspaper of Order) during the
Second Republic in 1850. The term
libertaire (
libertarian) was coined by
Joseph Déjacque, who fled France after
the
December 1851 coup and would
create
Le Libertaire, the first
anarcho-communist newspaper in
the United States. Other anarchists of this period include
Ernest Cœurderoy, who took
exile after the 13 June, 1849 demonstration, and refused to return
to France after the 1859 amnesty.
After the creation of the
First
International, or International Workingmen's Association (IWA)
in London in 1864,
Mikhail Bakunin
made his first tentative of creation an
anti-authoritarian revolutionary
organization, the "International Revolutionary Brotherhood"
("Fraternité internationale révolutionnaire") or the Alliance
("l'Alliance"). He renewed this in 1868, creating the
"International Brothers" ("Frères internationaux") or "Alliance for
Democratic Socialism".
Following the 1871
Paris Commune, the
anarchist movement, as the whole of the
workers' movement, was decapitated and
deeply affected for years. Bakunin and other
federalists were excluded by
Karl Marx from the IWA at the
Hague Congress of 1872, and formed the
Jura federation, which met the next
year at the 1873 Saint-Imier Congress, where was created the
Anarchist St. Imier
International (1872-1877).
Peter Kropotkin published from Geneva
Le
Révolté in 1878. La Révolution Sociale, the
first anarchist newspaper since the Commune, began to be published
in 1880. The next year anarchists gathered at the
London Conference.
Émile Pouget founded in 1878 the
Père Peinard newspaper
and
Zo d'Axa published the
EnDehors in 1891.
The propaganda of the deed period and exile to Britain
Parts of the anarchist movement, based in Switzerland, started
theorizing
propaganda of the
deed. After
Auguste Vaillant's
assassination attempt, the "
Opportunist Republicans" voted in
1893 the first
anti-terrorist
laws, which were quickly denounced as
lois scélérates. These laws
severely restricted
freedom of
expression. The first one condemned apology of any felony or
crime as a felony itself, permitting widespread
censorship of the press. The second one
allowed to condemn any person directly or indirectly involved in a
propaganda of the deed act, even if no killing was
effectively carried on. The last one condemned any person or
newspaper using anarchist
propaganda
(and, by extension, socialist libertarians present or former
members of the International Workingmen's Association (IWA):
"1.
Either by provocation or by apology...
[anyone who has] encouraged one or several persons in
committing either a stealing, or the crimes of murder, looting or
arson...; 2.
Or has addressed a provocation to military from the
Army or the Navy, in the aim of diverting them from their military
duties and the obedience due to their chiefs... will be deferred
before courts and punished by a prison sentence of three months to
two years.
Thus,
free speech and encouraging
propaganda of the deed or
antimilitarism was severely restricted. Some
people were condemned to prison for rejoicing themselves of the
1894 assassination of French president
Sadi Carnot by the Italian
anarchist
Caserio. The term
of
lois scélérates has since entered popular language to
design any harsh or injust laws, in particular anti-terrorism
legislation which often broadly represses the whole of the social
movements.
The United Kingdom quickly became the last haven for political
refugees, in particular anarchists, who were all conflated with the
few who had engaged in bombings. Already, the First International
had been founded in London in 1871, where
Karl
Marx had taken refuge nearly twenty years before. But in the
1890s, the UK became a nest for anarchist colonies expelled from
the continent, in particular between 1892 and 1895, which marked
the height of the repression, with the "
Trial of the thirty" taking place in
1884.
Louise Michel, aka "the Red
Virgin",
Emile Pouget or
Charles Matato were the most famous of the
many, anonymous anarchists,
desertors or
simple criminals who had fled France and other European countries.
Many of them returned to France after President
Félix Faure's
amnesty in February 1895. A few hundreds persons
related to the anarchist movement would however remain in the UK
between 1880 and 1914. The right of asylum was a British tradition
since the
Reformation in the
16th century. However, it would progressively be eroded, and the
French immigrants were met with hostility. Several hate campaigns
would be issued in the British press in the 1890s against these
French exilees, relayed by riots and a "restrictionist" party which
advocated the end of liberality concerning freedom of movement, and
hostility towards French and international activists.
1895-1914
Le
Libertaire, a newspaper created by Sébastien Faure, one of the leading
supporters of Alfred
Dreyfus
, and Louise Michel,
alias "The Red Virgin", published its first issue on November 16,
1895. The
Confédération
générale du travail (CGT) trade-union was created in the same
year, from the fusion of the various "
Bourses du travail" (
Fernand Pelloutier), the unions and the
industries' federations. Dominated by
anarcho-syndicalists, the CGT adopted
the
Charte d'Amiens in 1906, a year
after the unification of the other socialist tendencies in the
SFIO
party (French Section of the
Second
International) led by
Jean
Jaurès and
Jules Guesde.
Only eight French delegates attended the
International
Anarchist Congress of Amsterdam in August 1907. According to
historian
Jean Maitron, the anarchist
movement in France was divided into those who rejected the sole
idea of organisation, and were therefore opposed to the very idea
of an international organisation, and those who put all their hopes
in
syndicalism, and thus "were occupied
elsewhere". Only eight French anarchists assisted the Congress,
among whom
Benoît Broutchoux,
Pierre Monatte and
René de Marmande.
A few tentatives of organisation followed the Congress, but all
were short-lived.
In the industrial North, anarchists from
Lille
, Armentières
, Denains, Lens
, Roubaix
and Tourcoing
decided to call for a Congress in December 1907,
and agreed upon the creation of a newspaper, Le Combat, which editorial board was to act
as the informal bureau of an officially non-existent
federation. Another federation was created in the
Seine
and the Seine-et-Oise
in June 1908.
However, at the approach of the
1910 legislative election,
an Anti-Parliamentary Committee was set up and, instead of
dissolving itself afterwards, became permanent under the name of
Alliance communiste anarchiste (Communist Anarchist Alliance). The
new organisation excluded any permanent members. Although this new
group also faced opposition from certain anarchists (including
Jean Grave), it was quickly replaced by a
new organization, the
Fédération
communiste (Communist Federation).
The Communist Federation was founded in June 1911 with 400 members,
all from the Parisian region. It quickly took the name of
Fédération anarcho-communiste (Anarcho-Communist Federation),
choosing
Louis Lecoin as secretary. The
Fédération
communiste révolutionnaire anarchiste, headed by
Sébastien Faure, succeeded to the FCA
in August 1913.
The French anarchist milieu also included many
individualists. Influenced by
Max Stirner's
egoism and the criminal/political exploits of
Clément Duval and
Marius Jacob, France became the birthplace of
illegalism, a controversial anarchist
ideology that openly embraced criminality.
Relations between individualist and communist anarchists remained
poor throughout the pre-war years. Following the 1913 trial of the
infamous
Bonnot Gang, the FCA condemned
individualism as bourgeois and more in keeping with capitalism than
communism. An article believed to have been written by Peter
Kropotkin, in the British anarchist paper
Freedom, argued that "Simple-minded
young comrades were often led away by the illegalists' apparent
anarchist logic; outsiders simply felt disgusted with anarchist
ideas and definitely stopped their ears to any propaganda."
After the assassination of
anti-militarist socialist leader
Jean Jaurès a few days before the beginning
of
World War I, and the subsequent
rallying of the
Second
International and the
workers'
movement to the war, even some anarchists supported the Sacred
Union (
Union Sacrée) government.
Jean Grave,
Peter Kropotkin and others published the
Manifesto of the
Sixteen supporting the
Triple
Entente against Germany. A clandestine issue of the
Libertaire was published on June 15, 1917.
From World War I to World War II
After the war, the
CGT
became more reformist, and anarchists progressively drifted out.
Formerly dominated by the anarcho-syndicalists, the CGT split into
a non-communist section and a communist
CGTU
after the 1920
Tours Congress which
marked the creation of the
French
Communist Party (PCF). A new weekly series of the
Libertaire was edited, and the anarchists announced the
imminent creation of an Anarchist Federation. A
Union Anarchiste (UA) group was constituted
in November 1919 against the
Bolsheviks,
and the first daily issue of the
Libertaire got out on
December 4, 1923.
Russian exiles, among them
Nestor
Makhno and
Piotr Arshinov,
founded in Paris the review
Dielo
Trouda (Дело Труда,
The Сause of Labour) in 1925.
Makhno co-wrote and co-published
The Organizational Platform of
the Libertarian
Communists, which put forward ideas on how anarchists
should organize based on the experiences of
revolutionary Ukraine
and the defeat at the hand of the Bolsheviks. The document was
initially rejected by most anarchists, but today has a wide
following. It remains controversial to this day, some (including,
at the time of publication,
Voline and
Malatesta) viewing its implications
as too rigid and hierarchical.
Platformism, as Makhno's position came to be
known, advocated ideological unity, tactical unity, collective
action and discipline, and federalism.
Five hundred people
attended Makhno's 1934 funeral at the Père-Lachaise
.
In June 1926, "The Organisational Platform Project for a General
Union of Anarchists", best known under the name "Archinov's
Platform", was launched. Voline responded by publishing a
Synthesis project in his article "Le problème
organisationnel et l'idée de synthèse" ("The Organisational Problem
and the Idea of a Synthesis").
After the Orleans
Congress
(July 12-14, 1926), the Anarchist Union (UA) transformed itself
into the Communist Anarchist Union (UAC, Union anarchiste
communiste). The gap widened between proponents of
Platformism and those who followed Voline's Synthesis.
The
Congress of the Fédération autonome du Bâtiment (November 13-14,
1926 in Lyon
, created the
CGT-SR (Confédération Générale du
Travail-Syndicaliste Révolutionnaire) with help from members of the
Spanish Confederación Nacional
del Trabajo (CNT), which prompted the CGT's revolutionary
syndicalists to join it. Julien
Toublet became the new trade-union's secretary.
Le
Libertaire became again a weekly newspaper in 1926.
At the Orleans Congress of October 31 and November 1, 1927, the UAC
became Platformist. The minority of those whom followed Voline
split and create the
Association
des fédéralistes anarchistes (AFA) which diffused the Trait
d'union libertaire then La Voix Libertaire. Some Synthesists later
rejoined the UAC (in 1930), which took the initiative of a Congress
in 1934 to unite the anarchist movement on the basis of
anti-fascism. The Congress took place on 20 and
21 May, 1934, following the
February 6, 1934 far right
riots in Paris. All of the left-wing feared a fascist coup
d'état, and the anarchists were at the spearhead of the
anti-fascist movement. The AFA dissolved itself the same year, and
joined the new group, promptly renamed Union anarchiste. However, a
Fédération
communiste libertaire later created itself after a new split in
the UA.
Anarchists then participated in the
general strikes during the
Popular Front (1936-38) which led to
the
Matignon Accords (40
hours week, etc.). Headed by
Léon
Blum, the Popular Front did not intervene in the
Spanish civil war, because of the
Radicals' presence in the
government. Thus, Blum blocked the Brigades from crossing the
borders and sent ambulances to the Republicans, while
Hitler and
Mussolini were
sending men and weapons to
Franco.
In the same way, Blum refused to boycott the
1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, and to
support the
People's Olympiad in
Barcelona. Some anarchists became members of
International Antifascist
Solidarity (Solidarité internationale antifasciste), which
helped volunteers illegally cross the border, while others went to
Spain and joined the
Durruti Column's
French-speaking contingent,
The Sébastien Faure Century. A
Fédération
anarchiste de langue française (FAF) developed from a split in
the UA, and denounce the collusion between the French anarchists
with the Popular Front, as well as criticizing the
CNT-
FAI's participation
to the Republican government in Spain. The FAF edited
Terre
libre, in which Voline collaborated. Before
World War II, there are two organizations, the
Union anarchiste (UA), which had as its newspaper
Le
Libertaire, and the Fédération anarchiste française (FAF)
which had the
Terre libre newspaper. However, to the
contrary of the French Communist Party (PCF) which had organized a
clandestine network before the war
Edouard Daladier's government even had made
it illegal after the
Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact the
anarchist groups lacked any clandestine infrastructure in 1940.
Hence, as all other parties apart of the PCF, they quickly became
completely disorganized during and after the
Battle of France.
Under Vichy
After
Operation Barbarossa and the
Allies'
landing in North Africa
, Marshal
Philippe Pétain, head of the
new "French State" (Vichy regime) which
had replaced the French Third
Republic, saw "the bad wind approaching." ("le mauvais
vent s'approcher"). The
Resistance
began to start organizing itself in 1942-1943.
Meanwhile, the
French police, under the orders of
René Bousquet and his second in
command, Jean Leguay, systematically
added to the list of targets designed by the Gestapo
(communists, freemasons and Jews) the
anarchists.
On 19
July 1943, a clandestine meeting of anarchist activists took place
in Toulouse
; they spoke of the Fédération internationale
syndicaliste révolutionnaire. On January 15, 1944,
the new Fédération
anarchiste decided on a charter approved in Agen
on October
29-30, 1944. Decision was taken to publish clandestinely
Le Libertaire as to maintain relations; its first issue
was published in December 1944. After the Liberation, the newspaper
again became a bi-weekly, and on October 6-7, 1945, the Assises du
mouvement libertaire were held.
The Fourth Republic (1945-1958)
The
Fédération
anarchiste (FA) was founded in Paris on December 2, 1945, and
elected
George Fontenis as its first
secretary the next year. It was composed of a majority of activists
from the former FA (which supported Voline's Synthesis) and some
members of the former Union anarchiste, which supported the CNT-FAI
support to the Republican government during the Spanish Civil War,
as well as some young Resistants. A youth organization of the FA
(the Jeunesses libertaires) was also created. Apart of some
individualist anarchists grouped behind
E.
Armand, who published
l’Unique
and
L’EnDehors, and some pacifists
(Louvet and Maille who published
A contre-courant), the
French anarchists were thus united in the FA. Furthermore, a
confederate structure was created to coordinate publications with
Louvet and
Ce qu’il faut dire newspaper, the
anarcho-syndicalist minority of the reunited CGT (gathered into the
Fédération
syndicaliste française (FSF), they represented the 'Action
syndicaliste' current inside the CGT), and
Le Libertaire
newspaper. The FSF finally transformed itself into the actual
Confédération
nationale du travail (CNT) on December 6, 1946, adopting the
Paris charter and publishing
Le Combat Syndicaliste.
The
Confédération
nationale du travail (CNT, or National Confederation of Labour)
was founded in 1946 by Spanish anarcho-syndicalists in exile with
former members of the CGT-SR. The CNT later split into the
CNT-Vignoles and the CNT-AIT, which is the French section of the
IWA.
The anarchists started the 1947 insurrectionary strikes at the
Renault factories, crushed by Interior
Minister socialist
Jules Moch, whom
created for the occasion the
Compagnies
Républicaines de Sécurité (CRS) riot-police. Because of the
CNT’s inner divisions, some FA activists decided to participate to
the creation of the reformist
CGT-FO, issued
from a split within the communist dominated CGT.
The FA participated to the International Anarchist Congress of
Puteaux in 1949, which gathered structured
organizations as well as autonomous groups and individuals (from
Germany, USA, Bolivia, Cuba, Argentina, Peru and elsewhere). Some
communist anarchists organized themselves early in 1950 in a
fraction, named Organisation pensée bataille (OPB) which had as aim
to impose a single political stance and centralize the
organization.
The GAAP (Groupes anarchistes d’action prolétarienne) were created
on February 24-25, 1951, in Italy by former members of the FAI
excluded at the congress of Ancône. The same year, the FA decides,
on a proposition from the Louise Michel group animated by
Maurice Joyeux, to substitute individual vote
to the group vote. The adopted positions gain federalist status,
but are not imposed to individuals. Individualists opposed to this
motion failed to block it. "Haute fréquence", a
surrealist manifest was published in
Le
Libertaire on July 6, 1951. Some surrealists started working
with the FA. Furthermore, the Mouvement indépendant des auberges de
jeunesse (MIAJ, Independent Movement of Youth Hostels) was created
at the end of 1951.
The June 1952 Bordeaux Congress of the FA clearly adopted a
communist libertarian orientation, leading to a first split in
October. The latter regrouped in
l'Entente anarchiste, bulletin
de relation, d'information, de coordination, et d'étude
organisationnelle du mouvement anarchiste, which first issue
is dated October 30, 1952. The Entente gathered Georges Vincey,
Tessier, Louis Louvet, André Prudhommeaux, but also Raymond
Beaulaton and Fernand Robert, two strange individuals who would
turn far right during the Algerian war.
Le Libertaire published on June 5, 1952 a letter from
Albert Camus concerning Gaston Leval’s
study of “Bakunin and ‘L’Homme révolté”
The FA transformed itself into the Fédération communiste libertaire
(FCL) after the 1953 Congress in Paris, while an article in
Le
Libertaire indicated the end of the cooperation with the
surrealists. The FCL regrouped between 130 to 160 activists. The
Entente anarchiste dissolved itself and joined the new FCL, forcing
Maurice Joyeux to compromise with the individual anarchists of the
Entente. The new decision making process was founded on
unanimity: each person has a right of veto on the
orientations of the federation. The FCL published the same year the
Manifeste du communisme libertaire.
The FCL published its 'workers’ program' in 1954, which was heavily
inspired by the CGT’s revendications. The
Internationale comuniste
libertaire (
ICL), which groups the Italian
GAAP, the Spanish
Ruta and the
Mouvement libertaire
nord-africain (MLNA, North African Libertarian Movement), was
founded to replace the
Anarchist
International, deemed too reformist. The ICL, however, had only
a short life period. The same year, the FCL criticized the
"bolchevik" orientation of the federation infiltrated by the secret
OPB. The first issue of the monthly
Monde libertaire, the news organ of
the FA which would be published until 1977, came out in October
1954. On August 15-20, 1954, the Ve intercontinental plenum of the
CNT took place.
On November 1, 1954, the
Toussaint
rouge (Red All Saints day) marked the beginning of the
Algerian War of Independence
(1954-62). The FCL supported the Algerian people’s struggle, making
it a target of state repression.
Gaston Leval quit the FA in 1955 to
create the
Cahiers du socialisme libertaire. Several
groups quit the FCL in December 1955, disagreeing with the decision
to present "revolutionary candidates" to the legislative elections.
This scission gave rise to the creation of the GAAR (Groupes
anarchistes d’action révolutionnaire) who published until 1970 the
Noir et Rouge newspaper. The GAAR claimed to be the
"expression of the communist anarchist tendency of the libertarian
movement". They adopted the platform, that is tactical and
ideological unity, collective responsibility and support to the
National Liberation
Front.
The Fédération communiste libertaire (FCL) defined its "critical
support" to the Algerian people’s struggle: anti-colonialism,
support to progressive factions of Algerian resistance, and work as
to make the fall of colonialism a revolutionary transformation of
society. The FCL carried explosives and weapons for the
MLNA. A member of the FCL, Pierre Morain, was condemned
to prison in 1955, being the first French person to be incarcerated
for his solidarity with the Algerian cause.
Regrouping behind Robert and Beaulaton, some activists of the
former Entente anarchiste quit the FA and created on November 25,
1956 in Bruxelles the AOA (Alliance ouvrière anarchiste), which
edited
L’Anarchie and would drift to the far-right during
the Algerian war.
At the January 1956 legislative elections in Paris, the FCL
presented some candidates and obtained some very scarce votes.
State repression got worse, trials,
censorship and seizing of the
Libertaire
newspapers became current. Some FCL activists (George Fontenis,
Philippe, Morain and others) entered clandestinity to avoid prison,
and the
Libertaire ceased to be edited in July 1956. The
MNLA, linked to the FCL, dissolved after harsh repression. The last
FCL activists were arrested in 1957.
The Fifth Republic (1958) and May 1968
The
Situationist
International was one, influence in the 1950s. Anarchists
participated in the riots and strikes of May 1968, and then in the
autonomist movement. They were also
largely present in
new social
movements, as well as in
prisoners' movement such as the
Groupe information
prisons (GIP) founded by
Michel
Foucault and
Daniel Defert. In the
1980s, they became involved in the struggle against expulsion of
illegal aliens.
An uprising and general strike of students and workers in May 1968
in Paris (and subsequently spreading to the rest of the country)
was led in part by some anarchists, including
Daniel Cohn-Bendit.
Notable individuals
See also Category:French
anarchists.
List of French libertarian organisations
References
- "1. Soit par provocation, soit par apologie [...] incité
une ou plusieurs personnes à commettre soit un vol, soit les crimes
de meurtre, de pillage, d’incendie [...] ; 2. Ou adressé une
provocation à des militaires des armées de terre et de mer, dans le
but de les détourner de leurs devoirs militaires et de l’obéissance
qu’ils doivent à leurs chefs [...] serait déféré aux tribunaux de
police correctionnelle et puni d’un emprisonnement de trois mois à
deux ans."
- Project of a doctoral thesis, continuing work
on "French Anarchists in England, 1880-1905", including a large
French & English bibliography, with archives and contemporary
newspapers.
- Jean
Maitron, Le mouvement anarchiste en France, tome I,
Tel Gallimard
(François Maspero, 1975),
pp.443-445
- Jean
Maitron, 1975, tome I, p.446
- Jean
Maitron, 1975, tome I, p.448
- Maurice
Rajsfus, La police de Vichy, Les forces de l'ordre
françaises au service de la Gestapo 1940-1944, Le Cherche
Midi, 1995 ISBN 2-86274-358-5
Bibliography
- Berry, David. A history of the French anarchist movement,
1917 to 1945 Greenwood Press, 2002, new edition AK Press,
2009.
- Maitron, Jean. Histoire du
mouvement anarchiste en France (1880-1914) (first ed., SUDEL,
Paris, 1951, 744 p.; Reedition in two volumes by François Maspero, Paris, 1975, and
reedition Gallimard)
External links
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