User:Sayerslle/Maurice Clavel

Maurice Clavel was a French writer, journalist and philosopher born 10 November 1920 in Frontignan (Hérault) and died  23 April 1979 in Asquins (Yonne).

Biography

Youth

Born 10 November 1920, Maurice Clavel came from a family whose head was a chemist. In this environment of small Languedoc tradesmen, anchored to the right, he was active in the PPF in his hometown of Frontignan.

A brilliant student, he entered the École Normale Supérieure. There he met both the communist Jean-Toussaint Desanti and the Maurrassien Pierre Boutang. It was Boutang who, appointed to the Secretariat of Public Education invited him to come and serve with him at the side of Marshal Pétain. Having obtained his certificate of moral philosophy and sociology in Montpellier, Clavel agreed but soon lost his illusions. While preparing a thesis on Emmanuel Kant he joined the French Resistance in 1942. At the head of the French Forces of the Interior in Eure et Loir, he participated in the liberation of Chartres where he welcomed General de Gaulle on the forecourt of the cathedral.

At the Liberation he denounced the blind purification and tried to save the lives of Robert Brasillach and Pierre Drieu La Rochelle. He is not less a fervent militant of the RPF, whose acerbic criticism of the communist regimes earns his being accused by the PCF of being the voice of Goebbels.