François of Rocque

The count François of Rocque de Severac (1885 - 1946) was a French soldier (colonel) and politician, chair Cross-of-fire resulting from the war veterans of the Great War, then Parti social French, first party of mass French line, resistant founder of the Réseau Klan, off-set.

Officer of active and War veteran

Combatant during the Great War, it is in 1918, at the 33 years the age, youngest ordering French Army.

Patriot and traditionalist, the lieutenant-colonel of Rocque militates in favor of the Catholicisme social (created by Félicité Robert de Lamennais at the beginning on) and joined the Croix of Fire, founded by Maurice Hanot known as of Hartoy.

The adventure of the Cross of Fire (1931-1936)

The lieutenant-colonel François of Rocque directs the Croix of Fire of 1931 until their dissolution in June 1936 (see the article devoted to with the Croix of Fire for more precise details).

Rocque distinguishes the Croix from Fire of the others Ligues by its respect of republican legality (refusal to take part in violences of the February 6th, 1934), its rejection of the anti-semitism, a mystical and nonracist nationalism (in the same line as Charles Péguy and Charles de Gaulle). An example: it favorably considers the prospect for the United States d' Europe built gradually and democratically: " The union of the States of Europe thus seems to have to begin under the aspect from an agreement, of a combination of trade agreements. It would start kind by a simplifying mode of the reciprocal relations between the people and by a beginning of stability in the commercial exchanges. The the United States d' Europe could be only the widening of an economic agreement préliminaire." (Public service, Grasset, Paris 1934, page 171).

The founder of the Left Social French (1936-1940)

Rocque launched out then in the policy by melting the Parti social French, whose currency was taken again, without him to require his opinion, by Vichy: Work, Family, Fatherland . In its book " Public" service;. Rocque recommends a presidential regime, the " participation - association of the capital and the travail" and votes it women.

The day before the war, the Parti social French is the first party of France (more than one million members).

The " deferment of guerre" and the rejection of two totalitarianisms

The attitude of the colonel of Rocque during years 1938-1939 is distinguished from the ambient Pacifisme in a good part of the French political community, on the left like on the right. It estimates in particular that France, " in deferment of guerre" , must above all mobilize itself to be able to face Germany successfully.

Rocque very early rejected into a common refusal the two modes Soviet and Nazi. " Our ideal of freedom and defense of Christian civilization also pushes back the yoke hitlérien and tyranny moscovite." writes it in 1937-1938. It thus differs from most of the right-hand side which had ended up thinking that better " was worth; Rather Hitler that Staline".

Since 1937, that is to say two years in advance, it has a presentiment of, thanks to its grid of reading " chrétienne" of the policy, the Pact germano-Soviet of the summer 1939, which will surprise the whole world however. Rocque thus writes in the Small Newspaper of July 14th, 1937: " The German danger is, today, in the visible foreground. The Russian danger is especially of a moral nature. But one is complementary to the different one: one and the other can temporarily join against nous."

Vichy, Resistance and deportation (1940-1946)

The June 16th 1940, Rocque, director of the Small Newspaper, lance the first call to the " Résistance". When the Armistice occurs, Rocque recalls that this dramatic situation suspends the hostilities by no means and denounces collaboration with the Germany " no collaboration under the occupation". With regard to the Mode of Vichy, it specifies: “loyalty with regard to Pétain, but absolute reserve with regard to the Vichy government”.

So certain ideas of the mode of Vichy (most moderate) could approach as of his (corporatism, policy of youth and the sports, industrial relations policy, policy of the family, etc), François of Rocque rejected at the same time the dictatorship (which prevented it from being expressed freely), the principle of reforming France under enemy occupation, collaboration (judgment of STO, of the Milice, LVF) and more still Fascism and the Nazism in which he had seen for several years a resurgence of paganism.

Rocque ends up entering in Résistance as of August 1940 by collecting information, thus forming the Réseau Klan which will connect in May 1942 on the British Intelligence service via colonel Charandeau in Madrid (Réseau Alibi). The Network Klan, regarded as a sub-network of the Network Alibi, will be congratulated twice by the British Intelligence Service. It seems that at the request of the British, Rocque had, not to wake up the suspicions, to officially keep an outside benevolent attitude with regard to the Pétain marshal.

François of Rocque is stopped by the German police force on March 9th, 1943, like, in the two days which follow, 152 leaders of the Parti social French. According to Jacques Nobécourt, " Until the end of its freedom, Rocque remained convinced that it had the duty to inform Pétain on mislayings in which its entourage involved. It ends up obtaining three from them go at the beginning of March 1943. Forty-eight hours later, it was stopped by Gestapo of Clermont-Ferrand, at the same time as a hundred frameworks of the PSF in all France." For certain historians, this arrest would come from the attempts made by the colonel of Rocque to convince the Pétain marshal to leave for North Africa.

Decree and off-set in 1943 in Czechoslovakia then in Austria, where it with the surprise to find Albert Lebrun, Edouard Daladier, Paul Reynaud, Jean Borotra, Leon Jouhaux. He manages to flee the internment in Concentration camp after an surgical operation and returns in liaison with American parachutists.

He returns to released France the May 9th 1945 and sees himself placed in administrative internment until the December 31st 1945 in order to move away it from the political matters, in particular of the negotiations of the National council of Resistance. The commission of checking of the administrative internments claims its release, but the government does not take account of this opinion. At its exit of administrative Internement it is assigned with residence and dies a few months later the April 28th 1946 of the continuations of several years of detention and an surgical operation. Its close relations however could create a social Republican party of the French reconciliation which evokes the late PSF.

The François lieutenant-colonel of Rocque was decorated on a purely posthumous basis, in 1961, of the medal of the deportees and lives himself to allot the chart of resistant, which had been refused to him of alive sound. De Gaulle wanted " then; to repair a low register injustice" according to its own terms. At the conclusion of his military career, François of Rocque had 12 quotations.

Polemics on the colonel of Rocque

In the years 1930, the colonel of Rocque became for the public opinion of left, the symbol of the French fascist. This image perduré, even if the large majority of the historians (the French school, but not certain American such Robert Soucy) regard it as an historical error.

The image of " fasciste" of Rocque rested primarily on the following features:

the Croix of Fire were at the beginning very nationalist and this bad reputation will remain to them near their adversaries. But the attitude of Rocque gradually expurgé the Croix of Fire their elements extreme, until the flirt of the PSF with the radical party (center) at the end of the years 1930. By the moderate attitude of Rocque, Croix of Fire then PSF regularly purged their elements extremists.
Rocque supported an unparliamentary line, in favor of a presidential regime, which, in the spirit of the republicans of left, was enough to make it pass for a fascist (the same thing arrived at Gaulle in 1947 or 1958).
PSF had become the first right party of mass, which was suspect with the eyes of its opponents.
the complex attitude of Rocque vis-a-vis the mode of Vichy (near to that of the Marshal of Lattre or François Mitterrand, for example) was misunderstood in 1945 when the things were to be all white or all black.

The image from which the colonel of Rocque will suffer a long time is also due to the insults and the calumnies come as much from the extreme-left that extreme-right-hand side.

hardest was finally the extreme-right-hand side, which never forgave with Rocque to have refused to support a catch of the House of Commons the February 6th, 1934 (one treats the Cross-of-fire of " then; cold-queues"), to have refused to join the nationalist coalitions (Face of freedom, etc) in the years 1930, to have refused to join the mode of Vichy and Collaboration (Rocque was treated d'" enjuivé").

Opinion on Rocque

the historian Jean-Christmas Jeanneney: " The left at the time having designated opposite it the man of the Crosses fire and the PSF like a major adversary, it, in the heat of the confrontations, had caricatured it until making the leader of a French Fascism of it. That this deformation was in that is to say a historical fact is undeniable. But with the first degree, the label was erroneous, therefore abusive to qualify a man that, among the lines, distinguished its fidelity with the social Christianisme, which did not think of crossing Rubicon and which, under Vichy, was finally off-set by Allemands"

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