Roland Gaucher
Encyclopedia
Roland Gaucher was the pseudonym
of Roland Goguillot, a French far-right journalist
and politician. One of the main thinkers of the French far-right, he had participated in Marcel Déat
's fascist party Rassemblement National Populaire (RNP) under the Vichy regime. Sentenced to five years of prison for Collaborationism
after the war, he then engaged in a career of journalism, while continuing political activism. One of the co-founders of the National Front (FN) in October 1972, he became a Member of the European Parliament
(MEP) for the FN in 1986.
and Alexandre Hébert
, who would become one of the leaders of the social-democrat trade-union Force Ouvrière
(FO).
However, Gaucher shifted to the far-right during World War II
, joining Marcel Déat
's Rassemblement National Populaire (RNP) Fascist party in March 1942. He was responsible of the RNP's youth organisation, and of its Parisian section from May to November 1943. He criticized the Vichy regime for being too "moderate" and not executing enough persons. At the Liberation, he was in charge of deleting the archives of the National Populaire 's readers, which was the mouthpiece of the RNP. At the end of 1944, according to Marcel Déat's diary, he fled with Marshal Philippe Pétain
's men to Sigmaringen
in Germany.
after the war. After that, he took up a career in journalism, working in Robert Hersant's L'Auto-Journal
(Hersant had also been condemned for Collaborationism ), Les Ecrits de Paris, Est et Ouest and then as a reporter (grand reporter) for the far-right newspaper Minute
from 1965 to 1984.
In the meantime, he joined Georges Albertini's anti-Communist networks through the BEPI and Est and Ouest. He participated in Pierre Poujade
's movement. In the middle of the 1950s, he joined Jean-Louis Tixier-Vignancour
's Rassemblement national, becoming its secretary general. From 1959 to 1960 he was an employee of the ANFAN (Association National des Français d’Afrique du Nord, National Association of Frenchmen from North Africa), and in 1961 secretary of the AEIPI.
He was one of the co-founders of the National Front (FN) in October 1972, becoming a member of its directing committee. But Gaucher then participated in the split in 1974 leading to the creation of the Parti des forces nouvelles
(PFN), gathering radical activists who considered Jean-Marie Le Pen
to be too "moderate." There, he collaborated to the magazine Initiative nationale. Gaucher was a member of the central committee of the PFN in 1974, and then of the political bureau in 1976. He was the PFN's representant during the Eurodroite meeting in Paris on 28 June 1978, which gathered the Italian MSI, the Spanish Fuerza Nueva
and the Belgian Forces Nouvelles
along with the PFN for the 1979 European elections. In 1979, he quit the PFN along with François Brigneau to rejoin the FN, at the request of Jean-Pierre Stirbois
.
in 1986 under the banner of the FN, replacing Dominique Chaboche
, and was vice-president of the European delegation for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations
(ASEAN). He was also elected as regional counsellor of the Picardie
region (1986–1987) and then of the Franche-Comté
(1992–1998). He remained an active member of the FN from 1981 to 1993. He successfully sued Le Monde
and L'Est Républicain
for defamation in 1992, which accused him of being a former Waffen-SS
.
He founded in 1984 the FN's weekly National-Hebdo, of which he was chief editor until 1993. He also directed Le Crapouillot
, which he owned, from 1991 to 1994.
In 1993, he took his distances with Le Pen's FN, charging it of being too institutional. Revelations by the press on his past also had a role in this decision. Although he stop paying his membership to the FN in August 1994, he remained "apparenté FN" in the Franche-Comté regional council. He got closer at this time to other far-right structures, such as the Militant, led by his friend Jean Castrillo, and Jean-François Touzé's Alliance Populaire (Popular Alliance). He also collaborated articles to the Unité Radicale
's website in 2001-2002, a party close to the Third Position
's ideas, and took part to one of its meetings on 22 September 2001. He also wrote a few articles for Christian Bouchet
, leader of Unité Radicale, until 2005 and also for Philippe Randa.
Gaucher also signed the call for "national reconciliation" between the FN and Bruno Mégret
's National Republican Movement
(MNR) in 2001.
Gaucher, who had once declared in one of his books being a member of the National Populist tendency of the FN, maintained links as much as with the Lefebvrists Catholics
than with the "Nationalist Revolutionaries". He was also for a time a member of the patronage committee of Alain de Benoist
's GRECE.
Pseudonym
A pseudonym is a name that a person assumes for a particular purpose and that differs from his or her original orthonym...
of Roland Goguillot, a French far-right journalist
Journalist
A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...
and politician. One of the main thinkers of the French far-right, he had participated in Marcel Déat
Marcel Déat
Marcel Déat was a French Socialist until 1933, when he initiated a spin-off from the French Section of the Workers' International along with other right-wing 'Neosocialists'. He then founded the collaborationist National Popular Rally during the Vichy regime...
's fascist party Rassemblement National Populaire (RNP) under the Vichy regime. Sentenced to five years of prison for Collaborationism
Collaborationism
Collaborationism is cooperation with enemy forces against one's country. Legally, it may be considered as a form of treason. Collaborationism may be associated with criminal deeds in the service of the occupying power, which may include complicity with the occupying power in murder, persecutions,...
after the war, he then engaged in a career of journalism, while continuing political activism. One of the co-founders of the National Front (FN) in October 1972, he became a Member of the European Parliament
Member of the European Parliament
A Member of the European Parliament is a person who has been elected to the European Parliament. The name of MEPs differ in different languages, with terms such as europarliamentarian or eurodeputy being common in Romance language-speaking areas.When the European Parliament was first established,...
(MEP) for the FN in 1986.
Early career
Roland Gaucher entered politics as a far-left activist, first as a member of the Trotskyist group Fédération des étudiants révolutionnaires (Federation of Revolutionary Students) and then of the Jeunesses socialistes ouvrières (Workers' Socialist Youth), where he met with Robert HersantRobert Hersant
Robert Hersant was a French newspaper magnate with right-wing political views.- Biography :Hersant was born in Vertou, Loire-Atlantique....
and Alexandre Hébert
Alexandre Hébert
Alexandre Hébert, 4 March 1921 / 16 January 2010, was a French activist, anarchist and trade unionist. He had a pivotal role in the accession of anarchists to the French trade-unions congress Confédération générale du travail - Force ouvrière...
, who would become one of the leaders of the social-democrat trade-union Force Ouvrière
Force Ouvrière
The General Confederation of Labor - Workers' Force is one of the five major union federations in France. In terms of following, it is the third behind the CGT and the CFDT....
(FO).
However, Gaucher shifted to the far-right during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, joining Marcel Déat
Marcel Déat
Marcel Déat was a French Socialist until 1933, when he initiated a spin-off from the French Section of the Workers' International along with other right-wing 'Neosocialists'. He then founded the collaborationist National Popular Rally during the Vichy regime...
's Rassemblement National Populaire (RNP) Fascist party in March 1942. He was responsible of the RNP's youth organisation, and of its Parisian section from May to November 1943. He criticized the Vichy regime for being too "moderate" and not executing enough persons. At the Liberation, he was in charge of deleting the archives of the National Populaire 's readers, which was the mouthpiece of the RNP. At the end of 1944, according to Marcel Déat's diary, he fled with Marshal Philippe Pétain
Philippe Pétain
Henri Philippe Benoni Omer Joseph Pétain , generally known as Philippe Pétain or Marshal Pétain , was a French general who reached the distinction of Marshal of France, and was later Chief of State of Vichy France , from 1940 to 1944...
's men to Sigmaringen
Sigmaringen
Sigmaringen is a town in southern Germany, in the state of Baden-Württemberg. Situated on the upper Danube, it is the capital of the Sigmaringen district....
in Germany.
Post-war (1945-1980s)
Gaucher was sentenced to five years of prison for CollaborationismCollaborationism
Collaborationism is cooperation with enemy forces against one's country. Legally, it may be considered as a form of treason. Collaborationism may be associated with criminal deeds in the service of the occupying power, which may include complicity with the occupying power in murder, persecutions,...
after the war. After that, he took up a career in journalism, working in Robert Hersant's L'Auto-Journal
L'Auto-Journal
L'Auto-Journal is a bimonthly magazine created in 1950 by Robert Hersant and editor-in-chief Gilles Guérithault, devoted to automobiles. Notable journalists working for l'Auto-Journal were Roland Gaucher and Jean-Marie Balestre....
(Hersant had also been condemned for Collaborationism ), Les Ecrits de Paris, Est et Ouest and then as a reporter (grand reporter) for the far-right newspaper Minute
Minute
A minute is a unit of measurement of time or of angle. The minute is a unit of time equal to 1/60th of an hour or 60 seconds. In the UTC time scale, a minute on rare occasions has 59 or 61 seconds; see leap second. The minute is not an SI unit; however, it is accepted for use with SI units...
from 1965 to 1984.
In the meantime, he joined Georges Albertini's anti-Communist networks through the BEPI and Est and Ouest. He participated in Pierre Poujade
Pierre Poujade
Pierre Poujade was a French populist politician after whom the Poujadist movement was named.-Biography:Poujade was born in Saint-Céré, Lot, France, Europe. When he was only 8 years old, his father died, in 1928....
's movement. In the middle of the 1950s, he joined Jean-Louis Tixier-Vignancour
Jean-Louis Tixier-Vignancour
Jean-Louis Tixier-Vignancour was a lawyer and French nationalist politician. He was a candidate in the 1965 French presidential election when his campaign manager was Jean-Marie Le Pen. He won 1,260,208 votes, which was 5.2% of the total, giving him fourth place after De Gaulle, Mitterrand and...
's Rassemblement national, becoming its secretary general. From 1959 to 1960 he was an employee of the ANFAN (Association National des Français d’Afrique du Nord, National Association of Frenchmen from North Africa), and in 1961 secretary of the AEIPI.
He was one of the co-founders of the National Front (FN) in October 1972, becoming a member of its directing committee. But Gaucher then participated in the split in 1974 leading to the creation of the Parti des forces nouvelles
Parti des forces nouvelles
Parti des forces nouvelles or Party of New Forces was a French far right political party formed in November 1974 from the Comité faire front, a group of anti-Jean-Marie Le Pen dissidents who had split from the National Front .-Development:...
(PFN), gathering radical activists who considered Jean-Marie Le Pen
Jean-Marie Le Pen
Jean-Marie Le Pen is a French far right-wing and nationalist politician who is founder and former president of the Front National party. Le Pen has run for the French presidency five times, most notably in 2002, when in a surprise upset he came second, polling more votes in the first round than...
to be too "moderate." There, he collaborated to the magazine Initiative nationale. Gaucher was a member of the central committee of the PFN in 1974, and then of the political bureau in 1976. He was the PFN's representant during the Eurodroite meeting in Paris on 28 June 1978, which gathered the Italian MSI, the Spanish Fuerza Nueva
Fuerza Nueva
New Force was the name of a succession of far-right political parties in Spain founded by Blas Piñar, the son of one of the defenders of the Alcázar of Toledo and director of the Institute of Hispanic Culture during the Francoist period...
and the Belgian Forces Nouvelles
Forces nouvelles
Forces nouvelles can refer to:*Forces Nouvelles de Côte d'Ivoire: a political party coalition and one of the sides in the Ivorian Civil War...
along with the PFN for the 1979 European elections. In 1979, he quit the PFN along with François Brigneau to rejoin the FN, at the request of Jean-Pierre Stirbois
Jean-Pierre Stirbois
Jean-Pierre Stirbois was a French far-right politician, husband of Marie-France Stirbois. He has been associated with the first electoral breakthrough of the National Front, in Dreux in 1983....
.
Career in the FN (1980s-1990s)
Roland Gaucher entered the European ParliamentEuropean Parliament
The European Parliament is the directly elected parliamentary institution of the European Union . Together with the Council of the European Union and the Commission, it exercises the legislative function of the EU and it has been described as one of the most powerful legislatures in the world...
in 1986 under the banner of the FN, replacing Dominique Chaboche
Dominique Chaboche
Dominique Chaboche was a French far-right wing politician and member of the European Parliament affiliated to the Front National....
, and was vice-president of the European delegation for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations
Association of Southeast Asian Nations
The Association of Southeast Asian Nations, commonly abbreviated ASEAN rarely ), is a geo-political and economic organization of ten countries located in Southeast Asia, which was formed on 8 August 1967 by Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand. Since then, membership has...
(ASEAN). He was also elected as regional counsellor of the Picardie
Picardie
Picardy is one of the 27 regions of France. It is located in the northern part of France.-History:The historical province of Picardy stretched from north of Noyon to Calais, via the whole of the Somme department and the north of the Aisne department...
region (1986–1987) and then of the Franche-Comté
Franche-Comté
Franche-Comté the former "Free County" of Burgundy, as distinct from the neighbouring Duchy, is an administrative region and a traditional province of eastern France...
(1992–1998). He remained an active member of the FN from 1981 to 1993. He successfully sued Le Monde
Le Monde
Le Monde is a French daily evening newspaper owned by La Vie-Le Monde Group and edited in Paris. It is one of two French newspapers of record, and has generally been well respected since its first edition under founder Hubert Beuve-Méry on 19 December 1944...
and L'Est Républicain
L'Est Républicain
L'Est Républicain is a daily regional French newspaper based in Nancy. As of 2003, its daily circulation was 206,970....
for defamation in 1992, which accused him of being a former Waffen-SS
Waffen-SS
The Waffen-SS was a multi-ethnic and multi-national military force of the Third Reich. It constituted the armed wing of the Schutzstaffel or SS, an organ of the Nazi Party. The Waffen-SS saw action throughout World War II and grew from three regiments to over 38 divisions, and served alongside...
.
He founded in 1984 the FN's weekly National-Hebdo, of which he was chief editor until 1993. He also directed Le Crapouillot
Le Crapouillot
Le Crapouillot was a French magazine started by Jean Galtier-Boissière as a satiric publication in France, during World War I. In the trenches during WWI, the affectionate term for le petit crapaud, "the little toad" was used by French soldiers, the poilus, to designate small...
, which he owned, from 1991 to 1994.
In 1993, he took his distances with Le Pen's FN, charging it of being too institutional. Revelations by the press on his past also had a role in this decision. Although he stop paying his membership to the FN in August 1994, he remained "apparenté FN" in the Franche-Comté regional council. He got closer at this time to other far-right structures, such as the Militant, led by his friend Jean Castrillo, and Jean-François Touzé's Alliance Populaire (Popular Alliance). He also collaborated articles to the Unité Radicale
Unité Radicale
Unité Radicale was a French far-right political group close to the Third Position and National Bolshevism thesis. It was founded in June 1998 from the merger of Groupe Union Défense and Nouvelle Résistance/Jeune Résistance/Union des Cercles Résistance, issued from Nouvelle Résistance, and dissolved...
's website in 2001-2002, a party close to the Third Position
Third Position
Third Position is a revolutionary nationalist political ideology that emphasizes its opposition to both communism and capitalism. Advocates of Third Position politics typically present themselves as "beyond left and right", instead claiming to syncretize radical ideas from both ends of the...
's ideas, and took part to one of its meetings on 22 September 2001. He also wrote a few articles for Christian Bouchet
Christian Bouchet
Christian Bouchet is a French far right journalist and politician. An exponent of the Third Position, with sympathies to National Bolshevism....
, leader of Unité Radicale, until 2005 and also for Philippe Randa.
Gaucher also signed the call for "national reconciliation" between the FN and Bruno Mégret
Bruno Mégret
Bruno Mégret is a French Far-right politician. He is the leader of the Mouvement National Républicain political party, but retired in 2008 from political action.-Youth and studies:...
's National Republican Movement
National Republican Movement
The National Republican Movement is a French nationalist political party, created by Bruno Mégret with former Club de l'Horloge alumni, Yvan Blot and Jean-Yves Le Gallou, as a split from Jean-Marie Le Pen's National Front on January 24, 1999.Although political observers have considered the MNR to...
(MNR) in 2001.
Gaucher, who had once declared in one of his books being a member of the National Populist tendency of the FN, maintained links as much as with the Lefebvrists Catholics
Marcel Lefebvre
Marcel François Marie Joseph Lefebvre was a French Roman Catholic archbishop. Following a career as an Apostolic Delegate for West Africa and Superior General of the Holy Ghost Fathers, he took the lead in opposing the changes within the Church associated with the Second Vatican Council.In 1970,...
than with the "Nationalist Revolutionaries". He was also for a time a member of the patronage committee of Alain de Benoist
Alain de Benoist
Alain de Benoist is a French academic, philosopher, a founder of the Nouvelle Droite and head of the French think tank GRECE. Benoist is a critic of liberalism, free markets and egalitarianism.-Biography:...
's GRECE.
Works
- L'Opposition en URSS 1917-1967, Albin Michel, 1967.
- Histoire secrète du Parti communiste français, Albin Michel, 1975.
- Les Terroristes, Famot, 1976.
- Monseigneur LefebvreMarcel LefebvreMarcel François Marie Joseph Lefebvre was a French Roman Catholic archbishop. Following a career as an Apostolic Delegate for West Africa and Superior General of the Holy Ghost Fathers, he took the lead in opposing the changes within the Church associated with the Second Vatican Council.In 1970,...
, combat pour l'Église, Paris, Éditions Albatros, 1976. - Les Finances de l'église de France, Albin Michel, 1981.
- Le Réseau Curiel ou la subversion humanitaire, Jean Picollec, 1981.
- Les Nationalistes en France, tome 1 : La Traversée du désert (1945-1983), Publications Roland Gaucher, 1995.
- Les Nationalistes en France, tome 2 : La montée du FN, 1983-1997, Jean Picollec, 1997, 448 p.
- Les Manipulateurs de la culture, Deterna, 1998.
- (in collaboration with Philippe Randa), Les "Antisémites" de gauche, Deterna, 1998.
- (in collaboration with Philippe Randa), Rescapés de l'ÉpurationÉpuration légaleThe Épuration légale was the wave of official trials that followed the Liberation of France and the fall of the Vichy Regime...
tome 1: Tome 1, Le journal de guerre de Marcel DéatMarcel DéatMarcel Déat was a French Socialist until 1933, when he initiated a spin-off from the French Section of the Workers' International along with other right-wing 'Neosocialists'. He then founded the collaborationist National Popular Rally during the Vichy regime...
Paris : Dualpha, 2002-2004. ISSN 16227476 - (in collaboration with Philippe Randa), Rescapés de l'ÉpurationÉpuration légaleThe Épuration légale was the wave of official trials that followed the Liberation of France and the fall of the Vichy Regime...
tome 2: Les réseaux de Georges Albertini Paris : Dualpha, 2002-2004. ISSN 16227476
See also
- History of the far-right in France
- Politics of FrancePolitics of FranceFrance is a semi-presidential representative democratic republic, in which the President of France is head of state and the Prime Minister of France is the head of government, and there is a pluriform, multi-party system. Executive power is exercised by the government. Legislative power is...