Roland Gaucher
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2008-06-19T19:52:53Z
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/* Post-war (1945-1980s) */
'''Roland Gaucher''' (13 April 1919 - 27 July 2007) was the [[pseudonym]] of Roland Goguillot, a [[French far-right]] [[journalist]] and [[French politics|politician]]. One of the main thinker of the French far-right, he had participated to [[Marcel Déat]]'s [[Rassemblement National Populaire]] (RNP) fascist party under the [[Vichy regime]]. Sentenced to five years of prison for [[Collaborationism]] after the war, he then engaged in a career of journalism, while continuing political activism. One of the co-founder of the [[National Front (France)|National Front]] (FN) in October 1972, he became a [[Member of the European Parliament]] (MEP) for the FN in 1986.
== Early career ==
Roland Gaucher entered politics as a [[French left|far-left activist]], first as a member of the [[Trotskyist]] group ''[[Fédération des étudiants révolutionnaires]]'' (Federation of Revolutionary Students) and then of the ''[[Jeunesses socialistes ouvrières]]'' (Workers' Socialist Youth), where he met with [[Robert Hersant]] and [[Alexandre Hébert]], who would become one of the leader of the social-democrat trade-union ''[[Force Ouvrière]]'' (FO) <ref name=Liberation> "Le FN perd son cofondateur, Roland Gaucher", in ''[[Libération]]'', 2 August 2007 [http://www.liberation.fr/actualite/politiques/270267.FR.php read on-line] {{fr icon}}</ref>.
However, Gaucher shifted to the far-right during [[World War II]], joining [[Marcel Déat]]'s ''[[Rassemblement National Populaire]]'' (RNP) [[Fascist]] party in March 1942 <ref name=Monde> [http://www.lemonde.fr/web/article/0,1-0@2-3382,36-940991@51-941064,0.html Roland Gaucher (obituary)], ''[[Le Monde]]'', 1st of August 2007 {{fr icon}}</ref>. He was responsible of the RNP's youth organisation <ref name=Monde/>, and of its Parisian section from May to November 1943 <ref name=Reflex> [http://reflexes.samizdat.net/spip.php?article317 "Ils" avaient un Kamarade !], ''[[REFLEXes]]'', 11 August 2007 {{fr icon}}</ref>. He criticized the [[Vichy regime]] for being too "moderate" and not executing enough persons <ref name=Monde/>. At the Liberation, he was in charge of deleting the archives of the ''National Populaire'' 's readers, which was the mouthpiece of the RNP <ref name=Monde/>. At the end of 1944, according to Marcel Déat's diary, he fled with [[Marshall Pétain]]'s men to [[Sigmaringen]] in Germany <ref name=Monde/>.
== Post-war (1945-1980s) ==
Gaucher was sentenced to five years of prison for [[Collaborationism]] after the war <ref name=Monde/>. After that, he took up the journalism career, working in Robert Hersant's ''[[L'Auto-Journal]]'' (Hersant had also been condemned for Collaborationism <ref name=Reflex/>), ''[[Les Ecrits de Paris]]'' <ref name=Reflex/>, ''[[Est et Ouest]]'' and then as a [[reporter]] (''grand reporter'') in the far-right newspaper ''[[Minute]]'' from 1965 to 1984 <ref name=Monde/>.
In the meanwhile, he joined [[Georges Albertini]]'s [[anti-Communist]] networks through the [[BEPI]] and ''[[Est and Ouest]]'' <ref name=Reflex/>. He participated to [[Pierre Poujade]]'s movement <ref name=Voltaire> [http://www.reseauvoltaire.net/article5701.html Biography] on the [[Voltaire Network]]'s website, 15 September 1997 {{fr icon}}</ref>. At the middle of the 1950s, he joined [[Jean-Louis Tixier-Vignancour]]'s ''[[Rassemblement national]]'', becoming its secretary general <ref name=Reflex/>. From 1959 to 1960 he was an employee of the [[ANFAN]] (''Association National des Français d’Afrique du Nord'', National Association of Frenchmen from North Africa), and in 1961 secretary of the [[AEIPI]].
He was one of the co-founders of the [[National Front (France)|National Front]] (FN) in October 1972, becoming a member of its directing committee <ref name=Reflex/>. But Gaucher then participated to the spin-off in 1974 leading to the creation of the ''[[Parti des forces nouvelles]]'' (PFN), gathering radical activists who considered [[Jean-Marie Le Pen]] to be too "moderate." There, he collaborated to the magazine ''Initiative nationale''. Gaucher was a member of the central committee of the PFN in 1974, and then of the political bureau in 1976. He was the PFN's representant during the [[Eurodroite]] meeting in Paris on 28 June 1978, which gathered the Italian [[Italian Social Movement-National Right|MSI]], the Spanish ''[[Fuerza Nueva]]'' and the Belgian ''[[Forces Nouvelles]]'' along with the PFN for the [[European elections, 1979|1979 European elections]] <ref name=Reflex/>. In 1979, he quitted the PFN along with [[François Brigneau]] to join again the FN, at the request of [[Jean-Pierre Stirbois]] <ref name=Reflex/><ref name=Monde/>.
== Career in the FN (1980s-1990s) ==
Roland Gaucher entered the [[European Parliament]] in [[1986]] under the banner of the FN, replacing [[Dominique Chaboche]]<ref>R. Gaucher, ''La Montée du Front national 1983-1997'', Picollec, 1997, p.39</ref>, and was vice-president of the European delegation for the [[Association of Southeast Asian Nations]] (ASEAN)<ref>[http://www.europarl.europa.eu/members/archive/term2/view.do;jsessionid=D5D3BB8158CA19E47C65A9828B5B4EC9.node1?language=EN&id=1667 Notice] on the [[European Parliament]]'s website {{en icon}}</ref>. He was also elected as [[Regional councils of France|regional counsellor]] of the [[Picardie]] region (1986-1987) and then of the [[Franche-Comté]] (1992-1998). He remained an active member of the FN from 1981 to 1993. He successfully sued ''[[Le Monde]]'' and ''[[L'Est Républicain]]'' for defamation in 1992, which accused him of being a former [[Waffen-SS]].<ref>''La Montée du Front national 1983-1997'', ''op.cit.'' p.415</ref>
He founded in 1984 the FN's weekly ''[[National-Hebdo]]'', of which he was [[chief editor]] until 1993 <ref name=Monde/>. He also directed ''[[Le Crapouillot]]'', which he owned, from 1991 to 1994 <ref name=Monde/><ref name=Reflex/>.
In 1993, he took his distances with Le Pen's FN, charging it of being too institutional <ref name=Monde/>. Revelations by the press on his past also had a role in this decision <ref name=Reflex/>. Although he stop paying his membership to the FN in August 1994, he remained "''apparenté FN''" in the Franche-Comté regional council <ref name=Reflex/>. He got closer at this time to other far-right structures, such as the ''[[Militant (newspaper)|Militant]]'', led by his friend [[Jean Castrillo]], and [[Jean-François Touzé]]'s ''[[Alliance Populaire]]'' (Popular Alliance) <ref name=Reflex/>. He also collaborated articles to the ''[[Unité Radicale]]'' 's website in 2001-2002, a party close to the [[Third Position]]'s ideas, and took part to one of its meetings on 22 September 2001 <ref name=Reflex/>. He also wrote a few articles for [[Christian Bouchet]], leader of Unité Radicale, until 2005 and also for [[Philippe Randa]] <ref name=Reflex/>.
Gaucher also signed the call for "national reconciliation" between the FN and [[Bruno Mégret]]'s [[National Republican Movement]] (MNR) in 2001 <ref name=Reflex/>.
Gaucher, who had once declared in one of his books being a member of the [[National Populist]] tendency of the FN, maintained links as much as with the [[Marcel Lefebvre|Lefebvrists Catholics]] than with the "Nationalist Revolutionaries" <ref name=Reflex/>. He was also for a time a member of the patronage committee of [[Alain de Benoist]]'s [[GRECE]] <ref name=Reflex/>.
== Works ==
* ''L'Opposition en URSS 1917-1967'', [[Albin Michel]], 1967.
* ''Histoire secrète du Parti communiste français'', Albin Michel, 1975.
* ''Les Terroristes'', Famot, 1976.
* ''[[Marcel Lefebvre|Monseigneur Lefebvre]], combat pour l'Église'', Paris, Éditions Albatros, 1976.
* ''Les Finances de l'église de France'', Albin Michel, 1981.
* ''Le Réseau Curiel ou la subversion humanitaire'', [[Jean Picollec]], 1981.
* ''Les Nationalistes en France, tome 1 : La Traversée du désert (1945-1983)'', Publications Roland Gaucher, 1995.
* ''Les Nationalistes en France, tome 2 : La montée du FN, 1983-1997'', Jean Picollec, 1997, 448 p.
* ''Les Manipulateurs de la culture'', Deterna, 1998.
* (in collaboration with [[Philippe Randa]]), ''Les "Antisémites" de gauche'', Deterna, 1998.
* (in collaboration with [[Philippe Randa]]), ''Rescapés de l'[[Épuration légale|Épuration]] tome 1: Tome 1, Le journal de guerre de [[Marcel Déat]]'' Paris : Dualpha, 2002-2004. ISSN 16227476
* (in collaboration with [[Philippe Randa]]), ''Rescapés de l'[[Épuration légale|Épuration]] tome 2: Les réseaux de [[Georges Albertini]]'' Paris : Dualpha, 2002-2004. ISSN 16227476
== References ==
{{reflist}}
== See also ==
*[[History of the far-right in France]]
*[[Politics of France]]
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gaucher, Roland}}
[[Category:1919 births]]
[[Category:2007 deaths]]
[[Category:Members of the National Front (France)]]
[[Category:French collaborationists]]
[[fr:Roland Gaucher]]