Maurice Clavel
Encyclopedia
Maurice Clavel is a French
writer, journalist and philosopher
born on November 10, 1920 in Frontignan
(Hérault
, France) and who died on April 23, 1979 in Asquins
(Yonne
, France).
A brilliant pupil, he got into the prestigious École Normale Supérieure
in the Rue d'Ulm in Paris
. There he became acquainted with Trotskyist Jean-Toussaint Desanti and Maurassian Pierre Boutang
. The latter, having been appointed in the Secretariat of Public Instruction, invited him to serve by his side under Marshal Philippe Pétain
. Having just gotten his certificate of morale and sociology in Montpellier
, Maurice Clavel accepted but was soon disillusioned. While preparing a thesis on Kant
, he then joined the Résistance
(1942). As head the French Forces of the Interior
of Eure-et-Loir
, he took part in the liberation of Chartres
where he greeted General Charles de Gaulle
on the cathedral's forecourt.
At the Libération
, he denounced the blind epuration and tried to save the heads of Robert Brasillach
and Drieu La Rochelle. That did not prevent him from being a fervent activist in the Rally of the French People
(RPF) whose acerbic criticism of communism got him to be accused by the French Communist Party
(PCF) of being "Goebbel's voice". He then founded with Henri d'Astier de La Vigerie
and André Figueras a newspaper called L'Essor. Meanwhile he wrote plays directed by Jean Vilar
like Les Incendiaires (The Incendiaries) in 1947 or La Terrasse de midi (The Noon Terrace) in 1949. But those failed and, as he was torn apart after breaking his relationship with comedian Silvia Montfort, Clavel accepted a professor tenure in the Carnot high school in Dijon
.
Barely liked by his superiors, he soon got back to theatrical works when, in 1951, Jean Vilar appointed him as secretary-general of the Théâtre National Populaire
. But his new play Malsameda (1954) as well as his first novel
Une fille pour l'été (A Girl for the Summer, 1955) turned out to be failures too.
, he got involved with left-wing Gaullists
in the Democratic Union of Labour
in 1959.
Meanwhile he went back to teaching as philosophy professor in Camille Sée and Buffon high school in Paris, from 1960 to 1963.
With Emmanuel Berl
, he presented a daily radio programme Qui êtes-vous ? (Who are you?). But after the refusal by managers of the radio station to grant Jean Daniel
a right of reply about Algeria, he resigned. The following year, after publishing Le Temps de Chartres (The Times of Chartres), he ceased his regular contribution to Combat. However he kept supporting General De Gaulle's position on Algeria, who entrusted him to engage in a dialogue with Messali Hadj
.
But the year 1965 marked a fracture in his political and philosophical evolution. First, he regained faith
in the Catholic religion
, a conversion triggered by his reading of a book by Paul Cochois about Pierre de Bérulle
, the founder of the Oratorians congregation
. Later, the Ben Barka affair
in October of the same year led him to distance himself from De Gaulle. In an op-ed published in Le Monde
on June 15, 1966, he sanctioned his breaking with the General while announcing to the press his availability to follow the Ben Barka trial as a judicial commentator. Thus he was contacted by Hector de Galard to follow the affair for Le Nouvel Observateur
, starting in September 1966.
May 1968
radicalised his political involvement. Perceiving the events of May as a "uprise of life" from a youth weary of consumption society, he found the revolutionary unrest similar to a party and even wished to lead the demonstrators on May 13 to assault the Élysée Palace
. Within Le Nouvel Observateur, he supported the managers in the name of the need for a responsible management, the loneliness of columnists and individual responsibility. But outside he went to serve the most radical elements of the contestation leading him to leave his tenure as philosophy professor in Buffon highschool.
(to be continued)
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
writer, journalist and philosopher
Philosophy
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...
born on November 10, 1920 in Frontignan
Frontignan
Frontignan la Peyrade is a commune in the Hérault department in southern France.Frontignan is renowned for its AOC wine, the Muscat de Frontignan, a sweet wine made solely from the Muscat grape variety.-Sights:...
(Hérault
Hérault
Hérault is a department in the south of France named after the Hérault river.-History:Hérault is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on 4 March 1790...
, France) and who died on April 23, 1979 in Asquins
Asquins
Asquins is a commune in the Yonne department in Burgundy in north-central France....
(Yonne
Yonne
Yonne is a French department named after the Yonne River. It is one of the four constituent departments of Burgundy in eastern France and its prefecture is Auxerre. Its official number is 89....
, France).
Youth
Maurice Clavel was born on November 10, 1920 in a family headed by a father who was a pharmacist. This conservative milieu of small shopkeepers in Languedoc led him to be an activist in the French Popular Party (PPF) in his hometown of Frontignan.A brilliant pupil, he got into the prestigious École Normale Supérieure
École Normale Supérieure
The École normale supérieure is one of the most prestigious French grandes écoles...
in the Rue d'Ulm in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
. There he became acquainted with Trotskyist Jean-Toussaint Desanti and Maurassian Pierre Boutang
Pierre Boutang
Pierre Boutang was a French philosopher, poet and translator. He was also a political journalist, associated with the currents of Maurrasianism and Royalism.- Biography :...
. The latter, having been appointed in the Secretariat of Public Instruction, invited him to serve by his side under 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...
. Having just gotten his certificate of morale and sociology in Montpellier
Montpellier
-Neighbourhoods:Since 2001, Montpellier has been divided into seven official neighbourhoods, themselves divided into sub-neighbourhoods. Each of them possesses a neighbourhood council....
, Maurice Clavel accepted but was soon disillusioned. While preparing a thesis on Kant
KANT
KANT is a computer algebra system for mathematicians interested in algebraic number theory, performing sophisticated computations in algebraic number fields, in global function fields, and in local fields. KASH is the associated command line interface...
, he then joined the Résistance
Resistance
- Physics :* Electrical resistance, a measure of the degree to which an object opposes an electric current through it* Friction, the force that opposes motion** Drag , fluid or gas forces opposing motion and flow...
(1942). As head the French Forces of the Interior
French Forces of the Interior
The French Forces of the Interior refers to French resistance fighters in the later stages of World War II. Charles de Gaulle used it as a formal name for the resistance fighters. The change in designation of these groups to FFI occurred as France's status changed from that of an occupied nation...
of Eure-et-Loir
Eure-et-Loir
Eure-et-Loir is a French department, named after the Eure and Loir rivers.-History:Eure-et-Loir is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on March 4, 1790 pursuant to the Act of December 22, 1789...
, he took part in the liberation of Chartres
Chartres
Chartres is a commune and capital of the Eure-et-Loir department in northern France. It is located southwest of Paris.-Geography:Chartres is built on the left bank of the Eure River, on a hill crowned by its famous cathedral, the spires of which are a landmark in the surrounding country...
where he greeted General Charles de Gaulle
Charles de Gaulle
Charles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle was a French general and statesman who led the Free French Forces during World War II. He later founded the French Fifth Republic in 1958 and served as its first President from 1959 to 1969....
on the cathedral's forecourt.
At the Libération
Libération
Libération is a French daily newspaper founded in Paris by Jean-Paul Sartre and Serge July in 1973 in the wake of the protest movements of May 1968. Originally a leftist newspaper, it has undergone a number of shifts during the 1980s and 1990s...
, he denounced the blind epuration and tried to save the heads of Robert Brasillach
Robert Brasillach
Robert Brasillach was a French author and journalist. Brasillach is best known as the editor of Je suis partout, a nationalist newspaper which came to advocate various fascist movements and supported Jacques Doriot...
and Drieu La Rochelle. That did not prevent him from being a fervent activist in the Rally of the French People
Rally of the French People
The Rally of the French People was a French political party, led by Charles de Gaulle.-Foundation:...
(RPF) whose acerbic criticism of communism got him to be accused by the French Communist Party
French Communist Party
The French Communist Party is a political party in France which advocates the principles of communism.Although its electoral support has declined in recent decades, the PCF retains a large membership, behind only that of the Union for a Popular Movement , and considerable influence in French...
(PCF) of being "Goebbel's voice". He then founded with Henri d'Astier de La Vigerie
Henri d'Astier de la Vigerie
Henri d'Astier de La Vigerie was a French soldier, Résistance member, and conservative politician.-Life:Henri d'Astier was born in Villedieu-sur-Indre, a small village in the Indre département of central France...
and André Figueras a newspaper called L'Essor. Meanwhile he wrote plays directed by Jean Vilar
Jean Vilar
Jean Vilar was a French man of the theatre, who created in 1947 the Avignon theatre festival.After he gave up his literature studies, in 1932 he followed in Paris a course of philosophy of Alain and the theatre courses of Charles Dullin...
like Les Incendiaires (The Incendiaries) in 1947 or La Terrasse de midi (The Noon Terrace) in 1949. But those failed and, as he was torn apart after breaking his relationship with comedian Silvia Montfort, Clavel accepted a professor tenure in the Carnot high school in Dijon
Dijon
Dijon is a city in eastern France, the capital of the Côte-d'Or département and of the Burgundy region.Dijon is the historical capital of the region of Burgundy. Population : 151,576 within the city limits; 250,516 for the greater Dijon area....
.
Barely liked by his superiors, he soon got back to theatrical works when, in 1951, Jean Vilar appointed him as secretary-general of the Théâtre National Populaire
Théâtre National Populaire
The Théâtre National Populaire is a theatre now at Villeurbanne, France. It was founded in 1920 by Firmin Gémier in Paris. The theater's policy is to deliver quality entertainment accessible to the general public....
. But his new play Malsameda (1954) as well as his first novel
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
Une fille pour l'été (A Girl for the Summer, 1955) turned out to be failures too.
From 1955 to 1965
From 1955, Clavel started his career as a journalist writing in Combat. Protesting, among other thing, against the invasion of Hungary by Soviet tanks in 1956 and the use of torture in AlgeriaTorture during the Algerian War
Elements of the French Armed Forces as well as of the opposing Algerian National Liberation Front made use of torture during the Algerian War of Independence , creating an ongoing public controversy. Pierre Vidal-Naquet estimates that there were "possibly hundreds of thousands of instances of...
, he got involved with left-wing Gaullists
Gaullism
Gaullism is a French political ideology based on the thought and action of Resistance leader then president Charles de Gaulle.-Foreign policy:...
in the Democratic Union of Labour
Gaullist Party
In France, the Gaullist Party is usually used to refer to the largest party professing to be Gaullist. Gaullism claimed to transcend the left/right rift...
in 1959.
Meanwhile he went back to teaching as philosophy professor in Camille Sée and Buffon high school in Paris, from 1960 to 1963.
With Emmanuel Berl
Emmanuel Berl
Emmanuel Berl was a French journalist, historian and essayist. He was born at Le Vésinet in the modern département of Yvelines, and is buried in the Montparnasse Cemetery, Paris. In 1937 he married the singer, composer and film actress Mireille Hartuch; she had nicknamed him "Théodore"...
, he presented a daily radio programme Qui êtes-vous ? (Who are you?). But after the refusal by managers of the radio station to grant Jean Daniel
Jean Daniel
Jean Daniel, is an Algerian-born French-Jewish journalist and author. He is the founder and executive editor of Le Nouvel Observateur weekly.Daniel is a Jewish humanist in the venerable tradition of the French Left...
a right of reply about Algeria, he resigned. The following year, after publishing Le Temps de Chartres (The Times of Chartres), he ceased his regular contribution to Combat. However he kept supporting General De Gaulle's position on Algeria, who entrusted him to engage in a dialogue with Messali Hadj
Messali Hadj
Ahmed Ben Messali Hadj was an Algerian nationalist politician dedicated to the independence of his homeland from France...
.
But the year 1965 marked a fracture in his political and philosophical evolution. First, he regained faith
Faith
Faith is confidence or trust in a person or thing, or a belief that is not based on proof. In religion, faith is a belief in a transcendent reality, a religious teacher, a set of teachings or a Supreme Being. Generally speaking, it is offered as a means by which the truth of the proposition,...
in the Catholic religion
Catholicism
Catholicism is a broad term for the body of the Catholic faith, its theologies and doctrines, its liturgical, ethical, spiritual, and behavioral characteristics, as well as a religious people as a whole....
, a conversion triggered by his reading of a book by Paul Cochois about Pierre de Bérulle
Pierre de Bérulle
Pierre de Bérulle was a French cardinal and statesman, one of the most important mystics of the 17th century in France, and founder of the French school of spirituality, who could count among his friends and disciples St. Vincent de Paul and St...
, the founder of the Oratorians congregation
Oratory of Saint Philip Neri
The Oratory of Saint Philip Neri is a congregation of Catholic priests and lay-brothers who live together in a community bound together by no formal vows but only with the bond of charity. They are commonly referred to as Oratorians...
. Later, the Ben Barka affair
Mehdi Ben Barka
Mehdi Ben Barka was a Moroccan politician, head of the left-wing National Union of Popular Forces and secretary of the Tricontinental Conference...
in October of the same year led him to distance himself from De Gaulle. In an op-ed published in 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...
on June 15, 1966, he sanctioned his breaking with the General while announcing to the press his availability to follow the Ben Barka trial as a judicial commentator. Thus he was contacted by Hector de Galard to follow the affair for Le Nouvel Observateur
Le Nouvel Observateur
Le Nouvel Observateur is a weekly French newsmagazine. Based in Paris, it is the most prominent French general information magazine in terms of audience and circulation ....
, starting in September 1966.
After 1965
Clavel started his contribution to Le Nouvel Observateur with virulent articles against the power, denouncing among others "the sharks and the gudgeons" (October 19, 1966). The following year he contributed to the newspaper's TV column while keeping writing in Combat and publishing novels such as La Pourpre de Judée (The Crimson of Judea) or Les Délices du genre humain (The Delights of Mankind, 1967).May 1968
May 1968
The May 1968 protest refers to a particular period in French history. It was historically significant for being the first wildcat general strike ever, and for being the largest general strike ever, bringing the economy of an advanced industrial country to a virtual standstill. It commenced with a...
radicalised his political involvement. Perceiving the events of May as a "uprise of life" from a youth weary of consumption society, he found the revolutionary unrest similar to a party and even wished to lead the demonstrators on May 13 to assault the Élysée Palace
Élysée Palace
The Élysée Palace is the official residence of the President of the French Republic, containing his office, and is where the Council of Ministers meets. It is located near the Champs-Élysées in Paris....
. Within Le Nouvel Observateur, he supported the managers in the name of the need for a responsible management, the loneliness of columnists and individual responsibility. But outside he went to serve the most radical elements of the contestation leading him to leave his tenure as philosophy professor in Buffon highschool.
(to be continued)