| Robert Poulet | |
|---|---|
| Born | 4 September 1893 Liège, Belgium |
| Died | 6 October 1989 (aged 96) Marly-le-Roi, Belgium |
| Nationality | Belgium |
| Occupation | journalist, literary critic, writer |
Robert Poulet (4 September 1893 - 6 October 1989) was a Belgian writer, literary critic and journalist. Politically he was a Maurras-inspired integral nationalist who became associated with a collaborationist newspaper during the occupation of Belgium by Nazi Germany.
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Educated at the Faculté des Mines in his hometown, Poulet served in the First World War and before taking odd jobs in Belgium and France.[1] He began writing for a number of literary reviews in the 1920s and published his first novel, the surrealist Handji, in 1931.[2] He became a part of the 'Groupe du Lundi' that built up around Franz Hellens which attacked the regional novels prevalent in France at the time and instead endorsed magic realism.[3] As a literary critic he became noted for his rejection of female authors, dismissing them as midinettes en diable.[4]
Poulet was involved in politics during the early 1930s when he was a member of the corporatist study group Réaction.[5] Although not altogether enamoured of Nazism he became the 'political director' of Le Nouveau Journal, a collaborationist paper launched by Paul Colin in October 1940.[5] A strong supporter of Belgian independence, he was heavily influenced by Charles Maurras and the Action Française and by 1941 was in agreement with Raymond de Becker that a corporatist, authoritarian party of state should be created. His idea was soon abandoned however when the Nazis decide to instead back Léon Degrelle and Rexism, a philosophy to which Poulet was opposed.[6]
Despite all of this Poulet never opposed the Nazis and frequently wrote in support of them during his time at Le Nouveau Journal.[7] He also praised them in their war against the Soviet Union due to his own strict anti-communism.[8] He was sentenced to death in October 1945 for collaboration but, after serving six years imprisonment, ostensibly on 'death row', he was released and allowed to return to France.[9]
Following his move to France he published a number of autobiographical novels in which he sought to justify his war-time collaboration as merely trying to safeguard the monarchy and Belgian independence. He would also act as a reader at Éditions Denoël and Plon, as well as writing for the far right journal Rivarol, the Catholic paper Présent and Ecrits de Paris, amongst other publications.[10] He was a close friend and supporter of Robert Faurisson and joined him in advocating Holocaust denial.[11] Despite his controversial opinions Poulet maintained a life-long friendship with the famed cartoonist Hergé, who had worked for Poulet during the war, until the Tintin creator's death in 1983.[11] Poulet's autobiography, Ce n'est pas un vie, appeared in 1976.