Pierre-Antoine Cousteau

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Pierre-Antoine Cousteau (born March 18, 1906 in Saint-André-de-Cubzac - died December 17, 1958 in Paris) was a French far right polemicist and journalist. He was the brother of the famous explorer Jacques-Yves Cousteau.

Educated in the United States as well as the Lycée Louis-le-Grand, Cousteau served in the military before working as a meteorologist and for New York's Credit Alliance Corporation.[1] He then became a journalist for the left-wing Regards and was associated with pacifism and the Anti-Stalinist left.[1]

Cousteau abandoned his communism in the early 1930s, and was drawn to anti-Semitism and anti-democracy, writing for Coup de Patte and then Je suis partout, a journal of which he became editor in 1932.[1] In this role he was close to Pierre Gaxotte, who convinced him of fascism.

He went to Nazi Germany in 1936 with Robert Brasillach and Georges Blond and then Spain in 1938 with Brasillach and Maurice Bardèche. Whilst the trips helped to develop his fascism his attendance at the Nuremberg Rally of 1937 left him of the opinion that Nazism was impressive but not without its flaws.[1]

Cousteau was called back to the army in 1939 and captured in 1940, although Brasillach secured his release and he returned to Je suis partout, eventually succeeding Brasillach as political director in 1943.[1] A strong believer in collaboration he sought internment for the Jews and justified his stance by stating in 1943 that 'we are not opportunists. We remain just plain fascists'.[1] His other wartime roles included a spell as editor of Paris-Soir in 1941, service on the general secretariat of Milice from 1942 and a series of written works for a variety of journals, including Combats, the militant journal of Henry Charbonneau.[1]

In August 1944 he relocated to Bad Mergentheim where he helped run a French newspaper and radio station, before ultimately fleeing to Switzerland. Arrested at Innsbruck he was condemned to death in November 1946 before the sentence was commuted to life with hard labour.[1] Released under an amnesty in 1954 he went on to edit the extreme nationalist journal Rivarol, as well as contributing to Henry Coston's Lectures Françaises, Jeune Nation, Charivari, Dimanche-Matin and others. He was also associated with the minor Union des Intellectuels Indépendants movement.[1]

[edit] Publications

  • (1942) L'Amérique juive. Les Éditions de France. 
  • (1954) Hugothérapie ou comment l'esprit vient aux mal-pensants. Bourg: Éditions E.T.L.. 
  • (1957) Après le déluge, pamphlets. La Librairie Francaise. 
  • (1957) Les lois de l'hospitalité. La Librairie Francaise. 
  • (1959) En ce temps-là. La Librairie Francaise. 
  • (written Clairvaux Prison, January-December 1950). Text prepared by Robert Belot. (with the collaboration of Lucien Rebatet). (1999). Dialogue de vaincus. Paris: Berg International. 

[edit] Bibliography

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Philip Rees,. Biographical Dictionary of the Extreme Right Since 1890, p.72.