Charles Maurras

Charles-Marie-Photius Maurras (; ; 20 April 1868 – 16 November 1952) was a French author, politician, poet, and critic. He was an organizer and principal philosopher of Action Française, a political movement that is monarchist, anti-parliamentarist, and counter-revolutionary. Maurras also held anti-communist, anti-Masonic, anti-Protestant, and anti-Semitic views, though he was highly critical of Nazism, referring to it as "stupidity". His ideas greatly influenced National Catholicism and integral nationalism, with a major tenet of his views being that "a true nationalist places his country above everything". Raised Catholic, Maurras went deaf and became an agnostic in his youth, but remained anti-secularist and politically supportive of the Church. His ideas were opposed by Pope Pius XI. An Orléanist, he began his career by writing literary criticism and became politically active during the Dreyfus affair. In 1926, Pius XI issued a controversial papal condemnation against Action Française, which was repealed by Pius XII in 1939. In 1936, after voicing death threats against Léon Blum, Maurras was sentenced to eight months in La Santé. While imprisoned, he received the support of Mother Agnes of Jesus (the elder sister of Thérèse of Lisieux), Henry Bordeaux, Pius XI, and 40 to 60,000 people. During World War II, Maurras was a supporter of Vichy France, believing that Free France was being manipulated by the Soviet Union. He wrote many anti-Semitic articles during its regime, but was opposed to Vichy's deportation of Jews. He explained his support for Vichy, writing that "As a royalist I never lost sight of the necessity of monarchy. But to invest the royal heir the heritage had to be saved." After its collapse, he was arrested and accused of complicity with the enemy. Following a political trial, he was convicted for incitement to murder, receiving Indignité nationale and a life sentence. In 1951, after falling ill, he was transferred to a hospital and later received a medical pardon. In his final days, he reverted to Catholicism and received the last rites shortly before his death. A political theorist and a major right-wing intellectual of 20th-century Europe, Maurras significantly influenced right-wing and far-right ideologies, anticipating some of the ideas of fascism.