Charles Maurras

Charles-Marie-Photius Maurras (; ; 20 April 1868 – 16 November 1952) was a French author, politician, poet and critic. He was an organiser and principal philosopher of ''Action Française'', a political movement that was monarchist, corporatist and counter-revolutionary. Maurras also held anti-capitalist, anti-communist, anti-liberal, anti-Masonic, anti-Nazi, anti-Protestant and antisemitic views. His ideas greatly influenced National Catholicism and integral nationalism, and led to the political doctrine of ''Maurrassisme''.

Raised Roman Catholic, Maurras went deaf and became an agnostic in his youth, but remained anti-secularist and politically supportive of the Catholic Church. An Orléanist, he began his career by writing literary criticism and became politically active as a leading anti-Dreyfusard. In 1926 Pope Pius XI issued a controversial papal condemnation of ''Action Française'', which was swiftly repealed by Pope Pius XII in 1939. Maurras was elected to the Académie Française in 1938, and later expelled in 1945.

In 1936, after voicing death threats against the socialist politician Léon Blum, Maurras was sentenced to eight months in La Santé. While imprisoned he received the support of Marie-Pauline Martin, Henry Bordeaux, Pius XI and up to 60,000 sympathetic citizens. During the Second World War Maurras opposed Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, but supported Vichy France, believing that Free France was a puppet state of the Soviet Union. He explained his support for Vichy, writing: "As a royalist I never lost sight of the necessity of monarchy. But to enthrone the royal heir, the heritage had to be saved." After Vichy's collapse he was arrested and accused of complicity with the enemy. Following a political trial he was convicted of incitement to murder, and received ''Indignité nationale'' and a life sentence. In 1951, after falling ill, he was transferred to a hospital and subsequently received a medical pardon. In his final days he reverted to Catholicism and received the last rites shortly before his death.

As a political theorist and major right-wing intellectual of 20th-century Europe, Maurras significantly influenced right-wing and far-right ideologies, anticipating some of the ideas of fascism. He has been described as the most important French conservative intellectual, and has directly influenced a large number of politicians, theorists, and writers on both the left and right, including Louis Althusser, Steve Bannon, Georges Bernanos, Louis Billot, Antoine Blondin, Juan Carulla, Charles Coughlin, Léon Degrelle, Pedro Descoqs, Michel Déon, C. H. Douglas, Georges Dumézil, Maurice Duplessis, T. S. Eliot, Julius Evola, Christopher Ferrara, Fransisco Franco, Charles de Gaulle, Martin Heidegger, Henri, Count of Paris, T. E. Hulme, Rodolfo Irazusta, Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn, Jacques Lacan, Jacques Laurent, Emmanuel Macron, Jacques Maritain, Thierry Maulnier, Antonio Maura, François Mauriac, Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira, José de la Riva-Agüero y Osma, Carlos Pereyra, Juan Perón, Philippe Pétain, Raymond Poincaré, Victor Pradera Larumbe, António de Oliveira Salazar, António Sardinha, Carl Schmitt, Georges Sorel, Gustave Thibon, Laureano Vallenilla Lanz, and Éric Zemmour.

Maurras' legacy has remained controversial to this day. Critics have derided him as a "fascist icon", while supporters, including Georges Pompidou, have praised him as a prophet. Others, including Macron, have taken a nuanced approach, with Macron stating: "I fight all the antisemitic ideas of Maurras, but I find it absurd to say that Maurras must no longer exist."

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