Jean Madiran, Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Date of Death
TweetJean Madiran
French political writer
Date of Birth: 
Place of Birth: Libourne, Nouvelle-Aquitaine, France
About Jean Madiran
- Jean Arfel (14 June 1920 – 31 July 2013), better known by his pen name Jean Madiran was a French far right nationalist and a traditionalist Catholic writer who was born in Libourne.
- He has also used the pen name Jean-Louis Lagor. During the German occupation of France, Madiran was the private secretary of Charles Maurras and was awarded the Order of the Francisque, the decoration, in the form of a stylised double-headed francisca, that was granted by Vichy France.
- He contributed to the newspaper Action Française.
- This was the organ of the movement of the same name and was published from 21 March 1908 to 24 August 1944. After the Second World War, he retired to Madiran in southwestern France (whence his pen name) and became noted as a journalist and essayist.
- In 1948, he published his first book, La Philosophie politique de saint Thomas (The Political Philosophy of Saint Thomas), under the pen name Jean-Louis Lagor and with a preface by Maurras. In 1956, Madiran and Louis Salleron co-founded Itinéraires, a review of Catholic themes which later became a leading organ for criticism of the reforms within the Catholic Church after the Second Vatican Council of 1962–65.Itinéraires originally appeared monthly, but after the 1988 Ecône Consecrations became quarterly.
- Madiran remained its editor until publication ceased in 1996.
- He was also one of the founders in 1982, of the daily newspaper Présent, of which he was editor in chief.
- This publication is associated with the Front National, but refused to take sides in the conflict between Jean-Marie Le Pen and Bruno Mégret, whereupon Le Pen called for it to be boycotted. In an article published in Itinéraires, Madiran declared: If we are asked to state what we are and what our position is, our answer must be understood.
- Our answer modifies François Brigneau's formula or rather completes and develops it in its full truth: "We are to the right of the far right." This does not mean that we despise indiscriminately everybody and everything that official jargon calls "the far right".
- Here again we reject the arbitrary left-wing attitude that inspires and imposes a classification at variance with the truth.
- In reality there is no extremism, right-wing or other, in wishing a society based on "Work-Family-Fatherland", "Serve God First".On 6 February 1995, the fiftieth anniversary of the execution, for collaboration with the German occupation, of Robert Brasillach, the poet, writer and journalist supporter of Action Française, Madiran, with François Brigneau and others, organised a meeting in Paris, at which Madiran declared: "Young people who are here this evening, we entrust to your hands the remembrance of the National Revolution, we entrust to you the remembrance of the France that awaits, hopes for and desires its liberation."
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