Life

A metallurgical worker, at 15 he joined the Young Socialists. Attending the Third International, he naturally opted for the Communist Party, at the split of the Congress of Tours

Tours Congress

The Tours Congress was the 18th National Congress of the French Section of the Workers' International, or SFIO, which took place in Tours on 25—30 December 1920...

.

In 1926, he was promoted to secretary general of the Young Communists.

In 1928, he was a member of the executive of the Third International

Comintern

The Communist International, abbreviated as Comintern, also known as the Third International, was an international communist organization initiated in Moscow during March 1919...

.

In 1929, he replaced Pierre Sémard

Pierre Semard

Pierre Semard was a trade unionist, secretary general of the federation of railway-workers and leader of the French Communist Party . He was shot in prison by the Germans in 1942, and is buried at the Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris...

 as head of the PCF, in a team which also included Maurice Thorez

Maurice Thorez

thumb|A Soviet stamp depicting Maurice Thorez.Maurice Thorez was a French politician and longtime leader of the French Communist Party from 1930 until his death. He also served as vice premier of France from 1946 to 1947....

 and Pierre Célor

Pierre Célor

Pierre Célor was a member of the French Communist Party from 1923, becoming one of the four secretaries of its Central Committee in 1929, beside Maurice Thorez and Henri Barbé. However, he fell into disgrace after the Comintern and in 1942 he joined the Parti populaire français of Jacques Doriot...

.

In 1931, he was questioned in the course of a meeting of the BP (Bureau Politique), attended by the Moscow representative, Dmitry Manuilsky

Dmitry Manuilsky

Dmitriy Manuilsky, or Dmytro Zakharovych Manuilsky was an important Bolshevik. He was the son of an Orthodox priest from a Ukrainian village. After secondary school he enrolled in the University of St...

. Ejected from the BP (and replaced by Thorez), he took a long stay in Moscow.

In 1934, he and Jacques Doriot

Jacques Doriot

Jacques Doriot was a French politician prior to and during World War II. He began as a Communist but then turned Fascist.-Early life and politics:...

 founded the French Popular Party (PPF).

Under the occupation, he joined the National Popular Rally

National Popular Rally

The National Popular Rally was one of the main Collaborationist parties under the Vichy regime of World War II. It was created in February 1941 by Marcel Déat and was heavily inspired by Fascism.- February-October 1941: the RNP-MNR period :...

 (RNP) under Marcel Déat

Marcel Déat

Marcel Déat was a French Socialist until 1933, when he initiated a spin-off from the French Section of the Workers' International along with other right-wing 'Neosocialists'. He then founded the collaborationist National Popular Rally during the Vichy regime...

. Condemned to forced labour in 1944, he was released at the end of 1949, and participated in the anti-communist magazine Est & Ouest. In 1959, he converted to Catholicism and was baptised. Until his death in 1966, he regularly collaborated in the monthly Catholic review Itinéraires founded by Jean Madiran

Jean Madiran

Jean Arfel , better known by his pen name Jean Madiran is a French nationalist and a traditionalist Catholic writer. He has also used the pen name Jean-Louis Lagor....

in 1956.

Sources

• Philippe Robrieux, Histoire intérieure du parti communiste, T1 and T4, Fayard