Roger Holeindre

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Roger Holeindre
Roger Holeindre

Roger Holeindre (Corrano, Corsica, March 21, 1929, nicknamed Popeye by his supporters [1]) is a French politician, vice-president of the National Front (FN) far-right party. He is a representant of the “national-conservative” tendency, opposed to the “nationalist revolutionaries” [2] (closer to Third Position ideologies). Holeindre was part of the “TSM” current (Tous sauf Mégret, Anybody But Mégret), along with Samuel Maréchal, Marine Le Pen, Jean-Claude Martinez, and the Catholic current represented by Bernard Antony and Bruno Gollnisch, as well as Martine Lehideux [3]. Holleindre is the president of the Cercle national des combattants, a veterans associations close to the FN [4].

[edit] Life and activism

In 1989, he wrote À tous ceux qui n'ont rien compris ("To those who haven't understood a thing") in which he claims having stolen two machine guns from the Germans in August 1944. During this alleged operation, a friend of his would have been killed. Nevertheless, he never joined any Resistance organisation [5].

A volunteer for the Indochina War and then the Algerian War, he joined the Organisation armée secrète (OAS), a right-wing terrorist movement opposed to the 1962 Evian Accords which granted independence to Algeria. Holeindre also founded the FAF (Front pour l’Algérie Française, Front for French Algeria) [6]. He met with Bruno Gollnisch in this period [7]. After being given a prison sentence for his involvement with the OAS, he worked as a reporter for Paris-Match, while in the same time counselling young Occident far-right activists.

In January 1968, Holeindre founded the Front uni de soutien au Sud-Viêt-Nam (United Front in Support of South Vietnam) and supported the US war effort [8]. Occident actively participated to this Front. Holeindre also maintained contacts with the direction of the WACL (World Anticommunist League), supported by the Taiwanese authorities [9]. Présent, a newspaper close to the FN, then published the congratulations telegram sent to Holeindre after his election as deputy in 1986 by the President of the WACL and President of the National Assembly of Taiwan, Ku Chen Kang [9] [10].

Roger Holeindre then became member of the political bureau of the National Front, created in 1972 by Jean-Marie Le Pen, along with François Brigneau [11]. When the “nationalist revolutionary” tendency of the French far-right founded, in 1972, the Front national pour l’unité française (FNUF, National Front for French Unity, original name of the FN), they opened it to their rivals of the “national-conservative” tendency. Thus, Jean-Marie Le Pen, Roger Holeindre and Pierre Durand (a former Poujadist) sieged at the side of the “nationalists” François Brigneau, Alain Robert, Pierre Bousquet (former Waffen-SS) [12], Jean Vallette d'Osia (former resistant who later testified in favor of the revisionist Pierre Vial [13]), and Rolande Birgy (former resistant[14][verification needed]). After the first split, at the end of 1973 (leading to the creation of the PFN), François Duprat continued to represent the “nationalist” tendency inside the FN [15].

He was deputy of the Seine Saint Denis region in 1986-88, and then became vice-president of the party. He also presides the Cercle national des combattants (National veterant circle), a veteran association close to the FN. He supported Le Pen against Bruno Mégret's attempt to seize control of the FN, and claims to follow Jean-Pierre Stirbois's nationalist and solidarist current.

The split between Mégret and Le Pen started at the July 16, 1997 meeting near Strasbourg, during which Roger Holeindre started the hostilities, by stating that the FN should return to a more paternalist approach of immigration issues (in the French colonial tradition) and criticized “ideological racialism” theories, targeting the Nouvelle Droite supporters and former members of the Club de l’Horloge [3].

[edit] References

  1. ^ Jean-Marie Le Pen's speech (September 26th 1998)
  2. ^ E. Lecoeur, Dictionnaire de l’extrême-droite, Larousse 2007, p.215
  3. ^ a b Erwan Lecoeur, 2007, pp.263-264
  4. ^ Roger Holeindre's website
  5. ^ Roger Holeindre, À tous ceux qui n'ont rien compris, Robert Laffont, 1989
  6. ^ E. Lecoeur, op.cit., p.53
  7. ^ E. Lecoeur, op.cit., p.165
  8. ^ E. Lecoeur, 2007, pp.232-233
  9. ^ a b René Monzat, Enquêtes sur la droite extrême, Le Monde-éditions, Paris, 1992, p.107
  10. ^ Monzat quotes Présent, 11 April 1986
  11. ^ E. Lecoeur, 2007, p.35
  12. ^ Lecoeur, 2007, p.214
  13. ^ Constant Paisant : le FN veut annexer un symbole antifasciste, L'Humanité, 26 November, 1997 (French)
  14. ^ Yad Vashem website
  15. ^ Lecoeur, p.214

[edit] Bibliography

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