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Newspaper in France
La Libre Parole
or
La Libre Parole illustree
(
French
:
The Free Speech
) was a French
antisemitic
political
newspaper
founded in 1892 by
journalist
and
polemicist
Edouard Drumont
.
[1]
History
[
edit
]
Claiming to adhere to theses close to
socialism
,
La Libre Parole
is known for its denunciation of various
scandals
, including the
Panama scandal
, which owes its name to the publication of a file about it in Drumont's newspaper.
At the time of the
Dreyfus affair
,
La Libre Parole
enjoyed considerable success, becoming the principal organ for Parisian antisemitism. In the aftermath of major
Hubert-Joseph Henry
's suicide it sponsored a public subscription in favour of the widow in which the donors could express a wish. (A short sample: 0.5 francs "by a cook who would like to put the Jews in her ovens"; 5 francs "by a vicar who ardently wish to exterminate all Jews and Freemasons"; 1 franc "by a little vicar of
Poitou
who would be happy to sing with joy a
Requiem
for the last Jew left".)
[2]
Drumont and his collaborators claimed a link between
Jews
and
capitalism
, which shaped the
anti-capitalist
views of
La Libre Parole
.
Drumont left the management of the newspaper in 1898 when he made his entry in politics (elected as deputy of
Algiers
until 1902). Around 1908, wishing to sell
La Libre Parole
to
Leon Daudet
, Drumont tried to merge the newspaper with
L'Action francaise
, but the project failed.
Following the death of editor
Gaston Mery
in 1909,
[3]
Drumont sold
La Libre Parole
to Joseph Denais in October 1910, who appointed Henri Bazire as new editor-in-chief.
[4]
The paper became a Catholic organ, close to the
Popular Liberal Action
and never regained the level of success it had enjoyed with the belligerent style of Drumont. In January 1919, he published a statement by the
Marquis de l'Estourbeillon
in favour of the teaching of
Breton
in school.
Antisemitism in France declined during the 1920s, in part because the fact that so many Jews died fighting for France during World War I made it more difficult to accuse them of not being patriotic.
La Libre Parole
, which had once sold 300,000 copies per issue, closed in 1924.
[5]
Legacy
[
edit
]
The legacy of Drumont's daily newspaper was claimed by several ephemeral publications that reused the title
La Libre Parole
for
nationalist
and
xenophobic
organizations:
- La Libre parole
(1
er
no), later
La Libre parole republicaine
(
Paris
, 7 novembre 1926 – avril 1929).
- La Libre Parole de Paris
(later
Fontainebleau
) (1928-1929 [?]) represents itself in 1929 as being the continuation of Drumont's daily newspaper;
1930?1940s : the
Libre parole
of Henry Coston
[
edit
]
- La Libre parole
, "Monthly review", later "Anti-judeo-masonic review" (
Brunoy
later
Paris
, 1930–1936), edited by
Henry Coston
. In April 1935 it absorbed the biweekly
Le Porc-epic
(
The Porcupine
) and then appeared as
La Libre parole et le Porc-epic
. In October 1937, it was replaced by
Le Siecle nouveau
, a monthly magazine published by the National Office of Propaganda (
Vichy
). This
Libre parole
was published in parallel with the following:
- La Libre Parole
, "Independent nationalist body", monthly magazine (
Paris
, I-III, October 1930–1932), edited by
Henry Coston
. It also appeared in the same year under the name
La Libre parole politique et sociale
.
- It later became
La Libre parole populaire
, "Monthly publication continuing the work of Edouard Drumont" (
Paris
, I-II, 1933 – November 1934).
- It changed name again to
Libres paroles
, "Journal de propagande nationaliste" (
Paris
, December 1934–1935).
- Yet another change to
La Libre parole
"Journal hebdomadaire" (
Paris
, September 1935 – April 1939). In 1938, Coston officially took over the volume numbers of Drumont's
La Libre parole
.
- Algiers
deputy candidate Coston renamed his newspaper to
La Libre parole d'Alger
(later
Libre Parole nord-africaine d'Alger et du Nord de l'Afrique
), "Anti-jewish weekly of latin action" and sometimes
La Parole enchainee
(
Alger
, avril 1936 –
fevrier
1937 and a final issue in 1939). Henry Coston invoked, to justify the cessation of publication, the seizure of publications, leaflets, archives and documents in its offices.
[6]
- In 1940, the authorities of
Nazi occupied France
did not permit the newspaper to reappear. Coston used the title as a publishing label to publish, starting in 1943, the
Bulletin d'information anti-maconnique
(
Anti-masonic Information Bulletin
), and
Bulletin d'information sur la question juive
(
Information Bulletin on the Jewish Question
).
See also
[
edit
]
References
[
edit
]
- ^
Brustein, William (2003).
Roots of Hate: Anti-Semitism in Europe Before the Holocaust
. Cambridge University Press. pp. 119?120.
ISBN
0521774780
.
- ^
R. Girardet,
Le nationalisme francais. 1871-1914
ed. du Seuil, Paris 1983, pp. 179-181.
- ^
http://revel.unice.fr/revel/pdf.php?id=6&revue=loxias
[
dead link
]
- ^
Prochasson, Christophe (21 November 2013).
Les annees electriques (1880-1910): Suivi d'une chronologie culturelle detaillee de 1879 a 1911 etablie par Veronique Julia
(in French). La Decouverte.
ISBN
978-2-7071-7208-2
.
- ^
Jackson, Julian (2001).
France: The Dark Years, 1940-1944
. Oxford University Press. pp.
105
.
ISBN
0-19-820706-9
.
- ^
Andre Halimi
,
La delation sous l'occupation
,
le cherche midi
, p. 70-71