His complicity with this organisation was discovered during the investigations ordered by Minister of the Interior Marx Dormoy and he was dismissed from the army in 1938 by order of the Minister of War Édouard Daladier.He was recalled to active service on the outbreak of the Second World War, but was arrested on the orders of Daladier on 22 March 1940 and imprisoned at Obernai.
He was replaced as head of LFC by Xavier Vallat and sent to French North Africa where his former chief, Marshal Weygand, had him arrested in May 1941.
He escaped and returned to France where he was arrested and later deported to Mauthausen Concentration Camp.He survived his imprisonment and after the war entered conventional politics.