National Popular Rally

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National Popular Rally
Rassemblement national populaire
Party flag

The National Popular Rally (French: Rassemblement national populaire, RNP, 1941–1944) was a French political party and one of the main collaborationist parties under the Vichy regime of World War II.

Created in February 1941 by former members of the

neosocialist tendency and led by Marcel Déat, the party was heavily influenced by fascism
and saw the circumstances of the occupation as an opportunity to revolutionize France.

February–October 1941: the RNP-MNR period

Francisme and Pierre Clémenti's French National-Collectivist Party
.

Immediately, the

Social Revolutionary Movement (MSR) of Eugène Deloncle, an inheritor of the Cagoule terrorist group. The first committee of direction of the RNP-MSR was composed of two RNP members and three MSR members: Marcel Déat, Jean Fontenoy, Jean Van Ormelingen (alias Jean Vanor), Eugène Deloncle and Jean Goy
.

However, the fusion between the RNP and the MSR was a failure, in part because Déat's RNP recruited mainly among former members of the French Left while the MSR was from the beginning located on the far-right of the political spectrum. The MSR conserved de facto its autonomy inside the RNP and was mainly charged of forming the RNP's security service. After the assassination attempt of Paul Collette against Pierre Laval, Marshal Philippe Pétain's Prime Minister and Marcel Déat on 27 August 1941, the latter accused the MSR of having attempted to eliminate him. Thereafter, the MSR was excluded from the RNP in October 1941, leading to the reorganization of the RNP (and exclusion of elements close to the MSR) until the first months of 1942.

The RNP without the MSR (after October 1941)

The ideology of the RNP was clearly of a

Action française
monarchist movement.

On a tactic level, the RNP supported Pierre Laval and criticized the "Vichy reactionaries" and the PPF. Marcel Déat maintained close links with the German ambassador in Paris,

Georges Soulès. Following this meeting, the RNP created the National Revolutionary Front (Front révolutionnaire national, FRN) which gathered the main collaborationist parties, apart from Doriot's PPF. The FRN thus included the RNP-Labour Social Front, the MSR, the Parti franciste, the Groupe Collaboration, the Jeunes de l'Europe nouvelle and the Comité d’action antibolchévique [fr] (Anti-Bolshevik Action Committee). Déat furthermore managed to gain to his side the secretary of the PPF, Jean Fossati, and named to the head of the FRN Henri Barbé
, issued from the PPF. However, the FRN finally was a failure.

In March 1944, Déat was named Minister of Labour and of National Solidarity and took as assistants the RNP leaders (Georges Albertini, Georges Dumoulin, Ludovic Zoretti and Gabriel Lafaye) From then on, he focused more on his ministry tasks than on the organization of the RNP.

On 17 August 1944, Déat took refuge in Nazi Germany almost alone. In charge of the youth organisation of the RNP, Roland Gaucher would also accompany Pétain into exile in the Sigmaringen enclave.

Organisation of the RNP following October 1941

The RNP had at maximum 30,000 members.[4] According to the historian Robert Soucy, it had only 2,638 party members, of whom only 12.8 percent were industrial workers.[5]

Its mouthpiece, directed by Roland Gaucher, was Le National Populaire, but the party was also supported by Déat's daily, L'Œuvre.

The youth organisation (

National Front
in 1972) and eight other personalities.

Primary members of the RNP (after October 1941)

RNP members: Jean Fontenoy, Eugène Deloncle, Marcel Déat, Jean Goy and Jean Van Ormelingen.

The RNP was directed by a permanent commission of 15 members. According to a February 1943 list, these included:

Expelled personalities

Other RNP personalities

See also

Sources

  • Pierre-Philippe Lambert and Le Marec. Organisation Mouvements et unités de l'État français Vichy 1940-1944. Paris. Éditions Grancher. 1992.
  • Pascal Ory. Les Collaborateurs 1940-1945. Paris: Le Seuil. 1976.
  • Reinhold Brender. Marcel Déat und das Rassemblement National Populaire, Ed. Oldenbourg. Munich. 1992.

References

  1. ^ Les Collaborateurs. Le Seuil. 1976. p. 331.
  2. ^ Dominique Venner (2007). Histoire de la Collaboration. Pygmalion. p. 578.
  3. ^ Pascal Ory. Les collaborateurs.
  4. ^ Le Marec-Lambert.
  5. New York Review of Books
    . Volume 43. Number 13. 8 August 1996 (in English).
  6. ^ "Archived copy". www2.cndp.fr. Archived from the original on 20 July 2011. Retrieved 6 June 2022.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  7. Sciences-Po
    (p. 4) (in English).
  8. ^ "Roland Gaucher (obituary)". Le Monde. 1 August 2007 (in French).
  9. ^ "Ils" avaient un Kamarade !" Archived 3 November 2007 at the Wayback Machine. REFLEXes. 11 August 2007 (in French).

External links

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