Albert London

Albert London (1884 - 1932) is a Journaliste and writer French.

“Our role is not to be for or against, it is to carry the feather in the wound. ” This maxim of Albert London summarizes well the ideal of this professional of the information which remains a reference for many French journalists. Since 1933, the Price Albert London reward best French journalists.

Biographical elements

Albert London is born in 1884 with Vichy. After the college, it leaves to Lyon in 1901 to work as an accountant, then decides to go to Paris in 1903. It there publishes its first collection of poems in 1904, and occasionally writes articles for newspapers of its area, before becoming corresponding Parisian Lyons newspaper Public Safety . This same year is born his/her Florise daughter. His/her partner, Marcelle (Marie) Laforest dies one year later. In 1906, it begins its career of parliamentary correspondent to the Matin . It is charged to listen to what it says in the corridors of the Palate-Bourbon, it to bring but he back does not sign his papers yet. When the war is declared in 1914, Albert London, reformed because of his precarious health and a weak constitution, becomes corresponding soldier for the newspaper with the Ministère of the War. War correspondent thereafter, it is sent to Rheims during the bombardment of the city, at the side of the photographer Moreau. The first great article of this bold observer tells the fire of the cathedral on September 19th 1914; it will be published two days afterwards.

Albert London wishes to leave in Orient but the drafting of the Matin refuses. The reports abroad for another daily newspaper, one start then the most read of in France: the Small Newspaper . In 1915, it goes to the south-east of Europe and tells the combat in Serbia, Greece, Turkey or in Albania. Wandering on the faces, he sees, looks at and transmits. On its return, it covers the end of the war in France. In 1919, for its reports on the Italy, Albert London is laid off Petit Newspaper on direct order of Clemenceau. Making its trade, it reports that “the Italians are very dissatisfied with the conditions of peace concoctée by Clemenceau, Lloyd George and Wilson”. He works from now on for the illustrated newspaper Excelsior , “popular newspaper of quality” which comes to seek it. In 1920, the journalist succeeds in entering in Soviet Union, described the mode Bolchevik incipient, painted the portaits of Lénine and Trotski and tells the sufferings of the Russian people. It is not at ease. “Albert London is deafened. Nauseated by what he discovers. It is not middle-class propaganda. That concerns the cranium stuffing hammered by stipendiées sheets. ”

In 1922, it goes in Asia. He tells the daily newspaper of the Japan and the madness of the China ( China in madness ). He reports also the actions of Nehru, Gandhi and Tagore in India. As of 1923, its notoriety does not cease growing and its reports start to be published in the form of books by Albin Michel, through Henri Béraud, another international reporter from now on directing arts person of the Parisian Petit . Albert London writes from now on for this newspaper and undertakes new investigations in France.

In 1923, it goes in Guyana to the Bagne of Cayenne. Describing the horrors of what he sees, its report causes of strong reactions in the opinion but also within the authorities.

“It should be said that we are mistaken in France. When somebody - of our knowledge sometimes - is sent to the forced labors, one says: it goes to Cayenne. The bagne is not any more in Cayenne, but with Saint-Laurent-of-Maroni the initially and the islands of the Hello then. I ask, while passing, that one débaptise these islands. It is not safety, over there, but the punishment. The law enables us to cut the head of the assassins, not to pay it to us. Cayenne is well however the capital of the bagne. (...) Lastly, me here with the camp; there, it is the bagne. The bagne is not a machine with punishment well defined, regulated, invariable. It is a misfortune factory which works without plan nor matrix. One would vainly seek there the gauge which is used to work the convict. It crushes them, it is all, and the pieces go where they can” ( With the bagne , 1923).

And the account continues: “One led me in the buildings. Initially I took a step behind. It is the innovation of the fact which suffocated me. I had never yet seen men out of cage per around fifty. They prepared for their night. That grouillait in the room. From five hours of the evening at five o'clock in the morning they are free - in their cage”.

Albert London denounces also a fact that one is often unaware of: “doubling”. “When a man is condemned from five to seven years of forced labors, this completed sorrow, it must remain the same number of years in Guyana. If he is condemned to more than seven years, it is the perpetual residence. How much sworn know that? The bagne starts with the release. As long as they are in the course of sorrow, they are nourished (badly), one lay down them (badly), one equips them (badly). Shining minimum when the continuation is looked at. Their five or seven years completed, one puts them at the door of the camp. ” We can imagine the continuation.

Its book is a gallery of portraits: Hespel, Beautiful-Friend, Ullmo, Duez, Dieudonné, Roussenq, Marcheras… the convicts are men! - even if in this place, they tend to become animals. In 1924, it continues its investigations into the forced labors and goes in North Africa where military bagnes accommodate condemned councils of war which do not finish of it a expier their very great fault ( Dante did not have anything considering ).

It is interested then in the Tour de France and denounces the pitiless one and intolerable physical requirement claimed with the cyclists in this “turn of suffering”, as well as the silly thing of the payment ( Convicts of the road and Tour de France, turn of suffering ).

It goes then in the psychiatric asylums, there denounces the ill treatments, the abuses nerve sedatives or the deficiencies food and medical and recalls that “our duty is not to remove us from the insane one, but to remove the insane one from its madness” ( At insane the ).

In 1928, always for Small Parisian the , it travels of the Senegal to the Congo and discovers that the construction of the railways or the intolerable forestry developments causes an appalling number of dead among the African workers. “They are the negros of the negros. The Masters do not have any more the right to sell them. They exchange them. Especially they make them make wire. The slave does not buy himself any more, it reproduces. It is the incubator in residence. ” He concludes while rising against the Colonisation, person in charge of these crimes ( Ground of ebony ).

In 1929, whereas the Antisémitisme is very present in Europe, it goes in Palestine. It meets the Jewish community and fall vis-a-vis excluded people. He decides then for the creation of an Israeli State but doubt seriously of a possible agreement between Juifs and Arabs. “Demographic imbalance lets predict dark days: 700 000 Arabs against 150 000 Jews. ” ( the wandering Jew arrived )

He leaves then for the Balkans and inquires into the mechanisms of the Terrorisme of the Comitadjis, the nationalists Macedonians who dispute the division of their territory between the Bulgaria, the Serbia and the Greece ( Comitadjis ).

That will be its last report because he dies in the fire of the Georges Philippar , the boat which brought back it China in France. He seemed to have discovered a great scandal: “It is question of weapons, drug, interference Bolshevik in the Chinese businesses” brings back the biography of Assouline. But its report also burns in the fire. The doubt planes then on this fire: accident or attack? Always it is that the people to which he entrusted the contents of his discovery - the Lang-Villar couple - die in their turn in an air crash.

Critical elements

One seizes through this short biography some features of the personality of Albert London: a curious and restive man who observes the world and transmits his impressions as by having. All its reports question the margins of the world, the remote regions, the so central peripheries however. He dialogs with the small ones, the poor ones, the infamous ones. He invests the daily newspaper, painted portraits and paintings. Albert London fights through his writings against the injustices, the nonsenses and the inconsistencies of the capacity. He fights against silence while questioning and while informing.

Then, it is interesting to see that Albert London often uses the history to explain the topicality. In its reports on the psychiatric asylums, it reconsiders in many recoveries on article 64 of the Code of 1810 and the law of 1838. “To what can lead, administratively, the great misery of the insane criminals? ” wonders London. He answers ironically and seriously: “With light comedies. These light comedies have two authors. (...) One is called: article 64; the other: the law of 38. They are worth. If they equitably do not share the royalties, it is that one steals the other. Article 64 fact of profiting from a withdrawal of case or makes discharge the main character of the part, which always bears the name of “criminal lunatic”. At once, the law of 38 seizes the Mister. ” Finishing its report, he affirms: “The law of 38 does not have as a base the idea to look after and cure men reached of a mental disease, but the fear which these men inspire at the company. It is a law of boxroom. ” Moreover: “The law of 1838, by declaring the psychiatrist infallible and the Almighty, allows the arbitrary internments and facilitates the attempts of them. (...) Pennies the law of 1838, two thirds of the internees are not true lunatics. Inoffensive beings, one makes prisoners with the unlimited sorrow. ” It is important to quote the words of the observer to understand that beyond simple report, Albert London puts in charge the psychiatric institution. Its conclusions are relentless and without call. The intolerable one of asylums is explained directly through this law which governs the procedure of the internment of the mental lunatic. Albert London uses primarily the “insane” term, undoubtedly because this one does not return to the discursive character of the juridico-psychiatric capacity.

Albert London puts in scene situations, can use testimony in order to inform and of sensibliliser the opinion. London uses of a relevant discursive strategy by mixing the fact, the description with the irony. If Albert London always does not use it “I”, this one is constantly implicit by the very fact that it is put in scene in his reports. It does not hide its opinions and refuses the compromises. He answers for example the leader-writer of the Quotidien in 1923 which reproaches him for not being not in the line of the newspaper: “Sirs, you will learn with your costs which one to defer knows only one line, that of the railroad. ” (Flowers London, My father , 1934; city by Assouline.) Doesn't it practice in that a “radical journalism”? Who more is, his investigations which make scandals lead on several occasions to important concrete changes…

Its investigation in the French bagnes, in Guyana or North Africa, causes as well reactions as the authorities must give an opinion. A new governor is named in Guyana. If, on September 14th 1924, London writes in Small Parisian the that the bagne is removed, reality is in fact very other. Admittedly the dungeon is removed, the sorrows of cells are reduced, food is improved, of the wages are granted and the convicts are from now on separate according to the gravity of their sorrow. But it is not that in 1937 qu ' a “Order in Council rings the knell of the bagne” (Pierre Assouline, Albert London. Life and died of international reporter (1884-1932) , 1989). Albert London is there on the other hand for much. He also allows Dieudonné, condemned without proof to the bagne like member of the band to Bonnot, to protest his innocence by obtaining the revision of his lawsuit and his return in France. He will be pardoned. Indirectly also, it allows the improvement of the living conditions in asylums. Its violent investigations and its undeniable fame oblige the authorities to react,… to sometimes even reform.

Random links: