Francois Duprat: Co-founder of the Front National

Jez Turner
Western Spring
April 1, 2014

Recently I made a trip, at the invitation of French Nationalists, to a cemetery in the Montmatre area of Paris to pay my respects at the grave and to the memory of a seminal figure on the European Identitarian scene. On this simple but elegant black marble tomb, there is no eulogy, no epitaph, but alongside a Celtic Cross and above the dates (26.10.1941 – 18.03.1978) – there is a name, ‘Francois Duprat’.

He is little known in the English speaking world, but on the Continent his works, his writings, and his life-example still inspire, as a current poster from the highly respected Spanish MSR reproduced here attests.

The immaculate Cemetery of Montmatre is a place where tourists are given a helpful leaflet to enable them to find graves belonging to the great and good. Duprat is not listed, but ask where he is buried at the entrance office and the security officials throw up their hands and retreat in panic. Mention his name to French Conservatives of the Cameron type and they cry out ‘the OAS!’ and run for cover, Liberals froth at the mouth, Socialists and Marxists fall into a worried silence and chew their fingernails.

Who then was Francois Duprat?

He was educated at the elite Lycee Louis-Le-Grand in Paris and the prestigious Sorbonne, where his political apprenticeship was served with Jeune Nation (Young Nation). Opposed to De Gaulle’s sell-out of the White French living in Algeria, (once the ‘French’ Government in Paris handed over Algeria to the Marxist FLN, the White French living in Algeria fled for their lives, within one week in 1962 over a million of them arrived in France with nothing but the clothes on their backs – and they were the lucky ones), he became involved with the OAS, (the Secret Army Organisation/Organisation Secrete Armee). The Algerian question is a complicated one, with the racial element often overlooked, but even Frenchmen who were not overly concerned about the Algerian situation saw it all as one more symptom of the rottenness and treachery of the French Establishment. The Secret Army originally established to keep Algeria French, thus became a rallying point to all those who believed their Government was in the hands of anti-French elements. Indeed, the OAS came very close to seizing power and becoming the new Government of France. Their plan to carry out a parachute drop on Paris by French Paratroopers and Foreign Legionnaires was foiled at the last moment. Assassination attempts on De Gaulle and his cronies were frequent – read Frederick Forsythe’s ‘Day of the Jackal’, Simon Murray’s ‘Legionnaire’ or see the film adaptation of Day of the Jackal starring Edward Fox to get a feeling for the atmosphere there at the time.

A true Nationalist is a Nationalist for all Nations, a true Identitarian a protector and promoter of all Identities. Following the fall of White Algeria, and a ruthless Government crackdown on the OAS, Duprat travelled abroad in a Francis Parker Yockey-style – liaising, networking and aiding Identitarian groups worldwide, establishing excellent relations with anti-Zionist Arab States and for a while becoming Director of Propaganda to Moishe Tshombe’s Radio Katanga.

On returning to France, appalled as he was at the way Marxist-Maoist-Stalinist street gangs ruled the cities smashing up Right wing meetings at will and generally terrifying Patriots into secrecy and silence, he helped form ‘Occident’. This was a group that popularised the use of the Celtic Cross as ‘a symbol of White Resistance to those who would see us extinct as a Race and Culture’.

This group was led by middle class young intellectuals who weren’t afraid ‘to get stuck in’. These middle class intellectuals thought of themselves as first and foremost Frenchmen and White men. No doubt a sociologist if asked to describe their behaviour from a class obsessed viewpoint would describe them as possessing a sense of civic responsibility, a noblesse oblige that meant they felt it was their duty to do all they could to save their Race and Nation from destruction. Whatever, thankfully they were above the often Anglo-Saxon petty-bourgeoise, middle-class, class-conscious, timid view of ‘respectablility at any cost’. This has meant that potential White Leaders go and join the Monday Club and spend all their time wining and dining. This is the sort of snobbishness that has abandoned the White Working Class Communities in Britain and left it without any effective leadership. It has also meant, paradoxically, that the British middle class have lost any right to respect and now are held in contempt by what is left of the White Working Class.

What the middle class must realise is that without the working class they are doomed – as the experience of the Whites in London shows. The only Whites left are yuppies, students and drifters – Whites without a White Community. Whites without children, employing non-whites to do the working class jobs, because all the working class Whites have fled. To put it another way, in the long-term, no class can exist on its own. Each class needs the other classes to survive. In other words, in the long term, all that matters is Race. A digression, but an important one as it points to why Continental Nationalist Movements are far more successful than British ones.

Respectability is all very well, but there is of course a higher form of respectability, above temporal considerations, the respect that comes from doing what is right, and it is called ‘Honour’. And the Cause of the survival of our Race and Culture is of the highest, indeed the supreme Honour. With this in mind, to be arrested for daring to defend a Patriotic meeting against anti-patriotic elements, is nothing to be ashamed of, on the contrary it should be a badge of honour. Think of the Three Musketeers leading a properly Nationalist EDL and you will get some idea of the force and ethos that Occident presented.

‘Those who cannot be named’ and who control the Establishments of our Western Democracies have always set up, funded, encouraged and used gangs of Communist street thugs to destroy and nip in the bud any emerging Nationalist movement that would or could pose an existential threat to their secret hegemony. In fact this is virtually the sole purpose of Communist groups and as long as such groups prove efficient in this function, their continued existence is guaranteed and the political police instruct the regular police to turn a blind eye.

Not so of course for so-called ‘far-right’ street groups.

France has a long history of banning any ‘right-wing street group’ that proves too effective at thwarting the role of the far-left groups, (the present French Government is set on this course), and Occident was VERY effective. They gave as good as they got, and better. Footage from the era shows Occident having meetings with several thousand in attendance, while outside several dozen motorcycle-helmeted young men armed with truncheons and clubs stand guard. There are also clips of gleeful Occident activists chasing rather shocked Maoist students (this is not the way it was supposed to be!), down the boulevards of Paris.

Occident was eventually banned by the establishment, but its successes and the confidence it engendered were a huge boost to the French Nationalist Movement. Duprat, an organiser extraordinaire, moved on to a succession of groups/roles including becoming a leader of Orde Nouveau, (New Order), editor of European Action and founder of the influential Historical Revisionist ‘European Notebooks – Our Europe’.

“We must never let our opponents have the monopoly of the historical representation of men, facts and ideas”.

He was adamant that the fight for the survival of European Civilization had to be fought on a number of different levels – cultural, social, intellectual, street level and party political – and that cooperation and the exchange of advice and ideas between organisations both within France and worldwide was essential if The Cause was to have a chance of winning. And it was with this in mind that in 1972, he along with Jean Marie Le Pen co-founded ‘The Front National’, (the name adopted from the, increasingly successful at that time, ’National Front’ in Britain).

The Front National – as the name suggests – has always been a broad church movement and Duprat, representing as he did the more hardline militant wing of the party was never afraid of stating truths unpalatable to the chattering classes.

“It is the Jews who have introduced abortion into our society. Yet what is the real purpose of abortion? It is to stop the French having children, to make the French Race extinct and to replace us with immigrants who have many children”, Duprat declared.

As the Front National grew in strength and influence throughout the 1970s, ‘the Enemies of Our Race’, decided to act and on 18th March 1978 a bomb exploded under the car that Duprat and his wife were travelling in. Duprat was killed, his wife Jeanine survived, but permanently lost the use of her legs. Two organisations ‘The Jewish Revolutionary Group’ and ‘The Jewish Remembrance Commando’ claimed responsibility for the assassination, though no one has ever been brought to justice.

A huge funeral service, with attendees from across the Patriotic, Monarchist and anti-Zionist spectrum, was held at the Traditional Catholic Society of St Pius the Tenth’s (SSPX) Church of St Nicholas du Chardonnet.

And on 18th March every year since then, if you go down to the Cemetery in Montmatre, you will see Jean Marie Le Pen laying flowers on the grave of the man he calls “A Martyr to the Cause of Freedom”. We can learn a lot from Jean Marie Le Pen and we can learn a lot from Francois Duprat.

[The following video gives one a clear impression of the atmosphere at an early 1970s meeting of Ordre Nouveau, and for French speakers, features an interview with Duprat at the point approximately 5:44 into the video.]