Pierre Sidos

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Collaboration and internment: 1939–1948

In 1943, then 16 years old (the minimum required age), Pierre Sidos joined the youth movement of the Parti Franciste, one of the main collaborationist movements under the Vichy regime. In January 1946, he was tried by a court in La Rochelle—along with his father, mother and his brother Jacques—convicted and received a 5-year jail sentence for his membership in the Parti Franciste. The conviction was reduced as Sidos was still a minor at the time of the events. His father François was sentenced to death, guilty of unlawful arrests of resisters organized with the Milice, and of his participation in the armed conflict with the Nazi forces against the Allies. Before his execution on 28 March 1946, François wrote a letter to his sons, urging them to avenge his "unjust death".

His brother Jacques was sentenced to 10 years in jail for his past in the Vichy intelligence services, his mother released with all charges dropped, and Pierre was sent in autumn 1946 to the Natzweiler-Struthof concentration camp in Alsace. The place, originally built by the Nazis in 1941, had been recently transformed by the French authorities to include elementary needs, such as central heating or electric lighting. The inmates—most of them former Nazi-collaborators—could even organize free-fights, running competitions or put on a play.

While serving his sentence, Pierre Sidos spent most of his time reading and running. He met Marcel Bibé, a former Bezen Perrot militant who initiated him in Celtic esoterism. Sidos then began to write about druidism and the Celtic Cross, which he described in his prison notes as the allegory of the "walking sun and universal life", a symbol he would later use in all the organizations he created: Jeune Nation, Occident and L'Œuvre Française.

In 1948, the French authorities made an offer to the inmates: their release against an enlistment in the Indochina War. Sidos refused the proposition, while hundreds of former Nazi collaborators were sent to fight within the French army in southeast Asia, diffusing Wehrmacht and SS songs they had learnt during their internment in Natzweiler-Struthof.

Leader: 1949–1958

Sidos nonetheless benefited from an early release on 4 August 1948. He quickly found a job and contacted another of his brothers, François. The latter, unlike most of the family, had joined the Free French Forces in 1942 and participated in Operation Dragoon along with the Allies in the summer of 1944. They were joined by their brother Jacques following his own release, and together they prepared the ground for the creation of Jeune Nation.

By 1949, the final structure of the organization had been designed and the group ready to be launched, but the Sidos brothers lacked money as far-right financial sponsors were not abundant in the immediate post-war. Pierre Sidos then decided to reach out to Jeanne Pajot, the wife of a rich industrialist. A Bonapartist and friend of Pierre Taittinger like his grandfather, she agreed to fund them and "La Jeune Nation"—as it was initially called—held its first presentation on 22 October 1949. Publicly unknown for several years, the movement experienced a sudden fame and a rise in membership after the return of military personnel from south-east Asia following the end of the First Indochina War on 20 July 1954.

Labeling themselves the "successors of those of 1934" and targeting young people in their recruitment, Jeune Nation was joined in 1956 by Dominique Venner, then 21, who would later oppose Sidos and mark a shift between his euro-nationalist doctrine and the "nostalgic neo-Petainists of Pierre Sidos." Although they were largely inspired by the ideologies of fascist Italy and Vichy France, Jeune Nation began to break with the collaborationist circles that had been protecting them since Sidos' prison time. As Gaullists and former resisters were joining their ranks during the Algerian war, Sidos furthermore banned any evocation of the period 1933–1945 among its militants, with only a few events like the commemorations of Robert Brasillach or 6 February 1934 allowed to take place.

The group was particularly known for their violent street attacks, especially on communists. On 9–10 October 1954, a commando raid led by Sidos carjacked a van transporting issues of the communist newspaper L’Humanité Dimanche, then destroyed them and assaulted the driver who died a few months later as a result of his injuries. Jeune Nation was dissolved on 15 May 1958 by an official decree of Jules Moch, then Minister of the Interior, two days after the putsch of Algiers and the beginning of the May 1958 crisis. The group had been suspected of a bomb attack that occurred on 6 February 1958 in the National Assembly.

Leader: 1968–2012

Sidos set up L'Œuvre Française in 1968 and declared himself "presidor for life" (French: présideur, a portmanteau of président and dictateur). Closer to Francoist Spain and the Portuguese Estado Novo than fascist regimes, L'Œuvre Française was antisemitic, neo-Pétainist and nationalist. Sidos then seemed to endorse a blend of Catholicism, pan-European nationalism and anti-Semitism, with some Third Position influence, as his ideology of choice. Designed as a cult of personality, the organization was labeled a sect or "Church of Sidology" by critics even at the far right, while its adherents highlighted the discipline and determination allowed by their organizational style.

He attempted to run in the 1969 French presidential election on this platform, seeking to stand as a nationalist and anti-Zionist candidate, but his candidacy was rejected by the Constitutional Council on a technical basis. It has been argued that there was a fear any judgement in Sidos' favour would have been considered a vindication of his collaborationist background in wider society. Le Soleil, organ of L'Œuvre Française, dismissed the Jewish origin of some members in the council, namely Gaston Palewski and René Cassin, as the reason for their refusal. In 1973, Sidos was the only candidate for L'Œuvre in the legislative election. Sidos was said to have met António Salazar for a short encounter in the 1960s, king Faisal of Saudi Arabia for a one-hour meeting on 28 April 1971 in Riyadh, as well as Juan Perón on 22 October of the following year in Madrid, and former SS colonel Otto Skorzeny in the same city. According to Sidos, Perón declared to him that "Paris [had] been the world capital of subversion since 1789."

By the 1980s he had come to moderate his own position and sought to build a wider alliance with other fringe right-wing movements, including monarchists, integrists and the supporters of Marcel Lefebvre. To this end he joined François Brigneau, Pierre Pujo and Jean Madiran in a commemoration service for the tenth anniversary of the occupation of Saint-Nicolas-du-Chardonnet by the Society of St. Pius X in 1987. Sidos subsequently sought co-operation with the Front National (FN) although at other times he would dismiss the party as too moderate. In 1996, he announced the rallying of L'Œuvre to the party, despite the opposition of his right hand man Yvan Benedetti.

After negotiations with Sidos, Jean-Marie Le Pen eventually allowed some L'Œuvre militants to integrate the FN in 2007. The party however later tightened its policy regarding the association, Marine Le Pen denouncing an "operation of entryism" to facilitate the seizure of power by her rival Bruno Gollnisch in the FN. Following Jean-Marie Le Pen's departure from the leadership in 2011, replaced by his daughter Marine, Sidos severed all ties with the party, telling far-right newspaper Rivarol that he did not feel a woman should have such an important position.

In 2012, at 85, he left the presidency of L'Œuvre Française, succeeded by Yvan Benedetti.

Pierre Sidos

Pierre Sidos

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Early life and WWII

Family: 1927–1938

Collaboration and internment: 1939–1948

Jeune Nation

Leader: 1949–1958

Escape and arrest: 1959–1962

L'Œuvre Française

Transition: 1963–1967

Leader: 1968–2012

Late life: 2013–2020

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