Christian Bouchet
{{Use dmy dates|date=January 2023}}
{{short description|French far-right journalist and politician}}
{{Infobox person
| name = Christian Bouchet
| image = CBouchet (cropped).JPG
| caption = Bouchet in 2012
| birth_date = {{Birth date and age|1955|1|17|df=yes}}
| birth_place = Angers, Maine-et-Loire, France
| death_date =
| death_place =
| occupation = Journalist, politician
| years_active =
| known_for =
| notable_works =
}}
{{National Bolshevism|all}}
Christian Bouchet ({{IPA|fr|kʁistjɑ̃ buʃɛ}}; born 17 January 1955) is a French far-right journalist and politician.
Biography
Coming from a far-right family with monarchist and Organisation armée secrète links, in 1970 Bouchet joined the monarchist group Restauration nationale, and, in 1971, a member of Nouvelle Action française which was a split (called in France a "Mao-maurrassien" group) of the former.[http://www.voxnr.com/cc/d_entretiens/EpkAulplyZGZKjIPEg.shtml Biographical interview] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070928064101/http://www.voxnr.com/cc/d_entretiens/EpkAulplyZGZKjIPEg.shtml |date=28 September 2007 }}
In 1973, he served in the Organisation lutte du peuple, a nationalist revolutionary splitter group of the far-right movement Ordre Nouveau intended to defend the nationalist movements of the Third World, particularly the Arab states opposed to Zionism and what they perceived as American imperialism. He subsequently became a member of François Duprat's Groupes nationalistes révolutionnaires and of the {{Interlanguage link|Revolutionary Nationalist Movement (France)|lt = Revolutionary Nationalist Movement|fr|Mouvement nationaliste révolutionnaire}} (Mouvement nationaliste révolutionnaire) of Jean-Gilles Malliarakis[http://www.voxnr.com/cc/d_entretiens/EpkAulplyZGZKjIPEg.shtml Biographical interview] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070928064101/http://www.voxnr.com/cc/d_entretiens/EpkAulplyZGZKjIPEg.shtml |date=28 September 2007 }} After a spell in the Troisième Voie he set up Nouvelle Résistance in 1991, whilst also refounding the European Liberation Front.Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, Hitler's Priestess This group was absorbed by Unité Radicale in 1998. He then went on to lead the study group Réseau Radical which emphasised anti-Zionism[http://www.tau.ac.il/Anti-Semitism/asw2006/france.htm 'France'] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121119110652/http://www.tau.ac.il/Anti-Semitism/asw2006/france.htm |date=19 November 2012 }} from the Stephen Roth Institute and after that the association Les Nôtres. He also led the 'radical' tendency within the National Republican Movement and has sat on its national council. Bouchet, who was an exponent of the Third Position until 1990, was later influenced by Aleksandr Dugin and advocated National Bolshevism and then Eurasianism.
After declaring that he had broken with his former activism, he joined the Front National in 2008 and became a local branch leader from October 2010 to May 2011 and from March 2013 onwards.{{Cite web |url=http://fn-loire-atlantique.fr/?page_id=147 |title=List of the FN branch leaders in Loire-Atlantique |access-date=25 August 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160326084010/http://fn-loire-atlantique.fr/?page_id=147 |archive-date=26 March 2016 |url-status = dead }} He has been a Front National candidate in every election since 2008 and in 2013, the Front National chose him to lead its list for the municipal elections in Nantes (the 6th town of France).{{Cite web |url=http://fn-loire-atlantique.fr/?p=3138 |title=Christian Bouchet investi tête de liste du Front National à Nantes |access-date=25 August 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130906115349/http://fn-loire-atlantique.fr/?p=3138 |archive-date=6 September 2013 |url-status=dead }}[http://www.nationspresse.info/christian-bouchet-investi-tete-de-liste-du-front-national-a-nantes-pour-les-municipales-de-2014/ Christian Bouchet investi tête de liste du Front National à Nantes] {{webarchive |url=https://archive.today/20130623112313/http://www.nationspresse.info/christian-bouchet-investi-tete-de-liste-du-front-national-a-nantes-pour-les-municipales-de-2014/ |date=23 June 2013 }} He is the father of Gauthier Bouchet, the FN municipal councillor of Saint-Nazaire.
He published journals like Lutte de Peuple and Résistance which focused on ultra-nationalist and anti-Zionist themes. He owned the publishing house Ars magna and Avatar which published volumes of Savitri Devi, Jean-François Thiriart, Francis Parker Yockey, Gabriele d'Annunzio, Aleksandr Dugin and others.{{Cite web |url=http://www.voxnr.com/cc/d_france/EkAlkkZVVAoWgDmjxT.shtml |title="Je suis un des animateurs des Éditions Ars magna ainsi qu'éditeur-associé aux Éditions Avatar". |access-date=25 August 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120525113802/http://www.voxnr.com/cc/d_france/EkAlkkZVVAoWgDmjxT.shtml |archive-date=25 May 2012 |url-status=dead }}
In the original edition of his book Hitler's Priestess, Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke wrote that Bouchet has been associated with Nazi mysticism and that, whilst spending a year in India, he met Savitri Devi to study Kali Yuga and her ideas about Adolf Hitler as an Avatar.Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, Hitler's Priestess, p. 216 These claims did not however appear in the French language edition of the same work.Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, Savitri Devi, la prêtresse d'Hitler, Akribeia, 2000. In the postscript to the book Le national-socialisme et la tradition indienne, Bouchet claimed that Goodrick-Clarkes's allegations were false, that he had met Savitri Devi only once and considered her to be a crank, and that he has no personal interest in Nazi mysticism.Savitri Devi Mukherji, Le national-socialisme et la tradition indienne, Avatar, 2004. Bouchet, who claims he is not an Islamophobe, has advocated a closer link between European nationalist groups and Muslim traditionalists.[http://www.thecivicplatform.com/2007/10/28/french-intellectual-christian-bouchet-on-why-the-nationalist-right-should-welcome-islam/#more-4667 'French intellectual Christian Bouchet on why the nationalist Right should welcome Islam']
Christian Bouchet wrote a doctoral thesis in anthropology in the University Paris Diderot on Aleister Crowley and has written many books about extremist involvement in politics and religion.[http://www.sudoc.abes.fr//DB=2.1/SET=1/TTL=1/REL?PPN=070007519 Books of Christian Bouchet in catalogue SUDOC] [http://www.worldcat.org/wcidentities/lccn-n2006-37600 Books of Christian Bouchet in catalogue Worldcat]
References
{{Reflist}}
External links
{{cc}}
- [http://www.voxnr.fr/ VoxNR] website created by Christian Bouchet
- [http://data.bnf.fr/13622122/christian_bouchet/ Bouchet's written works]
- [https://web.archive.org/web/20070928064101/http://www.voxnr.com/cc/d_entretiens/EpkAulplyZGZKjIPEg.shtml Interview with Bouchet]
{{French far right}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bouchet, Christian}}
Category:Pan-European nationalism
Category:National Rally politicians