Mitterand’s decades-long asso­ciate and finan­cial angel Rene Bous­quet (in fur coat)

Mit­terand in French Army: Wolf in sheep’s clothing?

COMMENT: As the global econ­omy reels from the Euro­zone debt cri­sis, it may be use­ful to pon­der a lit­tle known aspect of the back­ground of for­mer French pres­i­dent Fran­cois Mit­terand, the man who [offi­cially] insisted on the for­ma­tion of the com­mon Euro­pean currency.

As dis­cussed in Mis­cel­la­neous Archive Show M61, Mit­terand had a his­tory of par­tic­i­pa­tion in, and col­lab­o­ra­tion with, the French fas­cists who desta­bi­lized French democ­racy in the years before World War II and actively sub­verted the French mil­i­tary resis­tance to the Ger­man inva­sion of 1940. (The infor­ma­tion about Mit­terand is on side 1c.)

Mit­terand was asso­ci­ated with the Cagoule and Croix de Feu, French fas­cist orga­ni­za­tions that attempted to over­throw the French gov­ern­ment in 1938, much as U.S. fas­cists attempted to elim­i­nate Roo­sevelt in 1934. Under­min­ing the French defenses, these same ele­ments real­ized their goal when the invad­ing Ger­mans cre­ated the col­lab­o­ra­tionist Vichy gov­ern­ment.

Mitterand’s asso­ci­a­tion with French fas­cist Rene Bous­quet extended decades into the post­war period. Bous­quet helped finance Mitterand’s post­war polit­i­cal career. Details of Bousquet’s polit­i­cal career and Mitterand’s asso­ci­a­tion with him are cov­ered in detail below.

A num­ber of con­sid­er­a­tions sug­gest them­selves in this regard:

• Was Mit­terand actu­ally a dou­ble for the Axis dur­ing the war?
• Was Mitterand’s “escape” from a POW camp dur­ing the war a cover for his sub­se­quent infil­tra­tion of the French Resis­tance on behalf of the Ger­mans and Vichy?
• Was Mit­terand a deep-cover oper­a­tive for the Under­ground Reich in the post­war period?
• Was he a will­ing, con­scious fas­cist through­out, or [per­haps] sub­ject to polit­i­cal black­mail, manip­u­lated by the threat of reveal­ing his pre­war and wartime activities?
• Was Mitterand’s insis­tence on a com­mon Euro­pean cur­rency because of his fear of a re-unified Ger­many or because he was actu­ally aid­ing in the real­iza­tion of the strat­a­gem of Friedrich List, as envis­aged by the Third Reich? (For more detailed dis­cus­sion of this, see–among other pro­grams–FTR #746.)
  
• In light of the con­tin­ued post­war Ger­man dom­i­na­tion of the  French econ­omy, we might see Mitterand’s behav­ior as ful­fill­ment of pol­icy embraced by the French power elite–junior part­ners with their busi­ness asso­ciates in the Fed­eral Repub­lic. (This is dis­cussed at some length in sec­tions 28 through 31 in FTR #305. There is an excel­lent pre­sen­ta­tion of the inter­lock­ing of French and Ger­man cor­po­rate inter­ests in the steel indus­try and the posi­tion they mutu­ally occu­pied in the Inter­na­tional Steel Car­tel on pages 34–37 of James Stew­art Martin’s All Hon­or­able Men.)
  

Mitterand’s idol Mar­shall Petain (left) with his boss

In addi­tion to reflect­ing on Mitterand’s past, we will also high­light the endeav­ors of Robert Zoel­lick in the con­text of Ger­man reuni­fi­ca­tion. Zoel­lick recently con­firmed that Mit­terand insisted on the estab­lish­ment of a com­mon cur­rency as pre-condition for Ger­man  reuni­fi­ca­tion. Zoel­lick was a prin­ci­pal archi­tect of that reuni­fi­ca­tion, as well as a prob­a­ble oper­a­tive on behalf of the Under­ground Reich.

We should not lose sight of the fact that it is largely the advent of the euro itself that has brought about the finan­cial cri­sis  in Greece, Italy, Por­tu­gal and Spain.

“A Euro Power Play that Back­fired” by Oliver Mark Hartwich; Busi­ness Spec­ta­tor; 8/17/2011.

EXCERPT: To fully appre­ci­ate the sub­tle ironies of the euro cri­sis it takes a sense for his­tory. Europe’s com­mon cur­rency has prac­ti­cally achieved the very oppo­site of what its cre­ators orig­i­nally intended. Instead of fram­ing the Ger­mans in Europe, the cri­sis has ele­vated Ger­many to the continent’s new, albeit reluc­tant, hege­mon. For­mer French Pres­i­dent François Mit­ter­rand must be spin­ning in his grave.

Last Sun­day, the Asia Soci­ety hosted a din­ner for World Bank Pres­i­dent Robert Zoel­lick in Syd­ney. His warn­ings about a fur­ther esca­la­tion of the debt cri­sis were widely reported, and the high-calibre audi­ence cer­tainly appre­ci­ated his views on the state of emerg­ing mar­kets. How­ever, Zoel­lick also gave a fas­ci­nat­ing insight into the early his­tory of Euro­pean mon­e­tary union.

After the fall of the Berlin Wall in Novem­ber 1989, Zoel­lick was the lead US offi­cial in the ‘two-plus-four’ nego­ti­a­tions that pre­pared Germany’s re-unification in Octo­ber 1990 (so named after the two Ger­man states and the four allied forces – Britain, France, the Soviet Union and the US). He was thus inti­mately involved in the diplo­matic bal­anc­ing act of uni­fy­ing Ger­many while reas­sur­ing the British and the French that they had noth­ing to fear from this new and big­ger coun­try in the heart of Europe. For his achieve­ments, Zoel­lick was even made a Knight Com­man­der of the Ger­man order of merit, a very high award for a for­eign national. [Ital­ics are mine–D.E.]

British Prime Min­is­ter Mar­garet Thatcher was hor­ri­fied about the prospect of a united Ger­many. “We beat the Ger­mans twice, and now they’re back,” she allegedly told a meet­ing of Euro­pean lead­ers at the time. Thatcher even invited his­to­ri­ans to a sem­i­nar at Che­quers to dis­cuss the ques­tion of how dan­ger­ous the Ger­mans really were. Her trade min­is­ter, Nicholas Rid­ley, was forced to resign after he had com­pared Ger­man chan­cel­lor Hel­mut Kohl to Adolf Hitler in an inter­view with The Spec­ta­tor. . . .

. . . There had always been rumours that in the two-plus-four nego­ti­a­tions the French had demanded Ger­many to give up its beloved Deutschmark in return for a French ‘oui’ on uni­fi­ca­tion. More than once the dom­i­nance of the über-solid Deutschmark had caused the French and other Euro­pean nations pain. Forc­ing the Ger­mans to aban­don their cur­rency would surely be an appro­pri­ate way to weaken them so they could not become a threat to other nations, the French prob­a­bly thought.

The only prob­lem with this account of his­tory is that there is no solid evi­dence for it. When Der Spiegel news mag­a­zine reported these rumours once again last year, rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the old Kohl gov­ern­ment were quick to dis­pute that there had been any secret deals at the time. “There never was an agree­ment,” Ger­man trea­surer Wolf­gang Schäu­ble (who was home sec­re­tary at the time) boldly claimed. His pre­de­ces­sor Theo Waigel flatly denied any link between uni­fi­ca­tion and the euro.

Such pre­vi­ous denials made Robert Zoellick’s remarks at the Syd­ney din­ner all the more remark­able. Almost in pass­ing, and as if it was the most obvi­ous thing in the world, he explained his under­stand­ing of how Europe got its com­mon cur­rency. And his account con­firmed the rumours that it had a lot to do with Ger­man unification.

As Zoel­lick told his audi­ence (that was prob­a­bly unaware of how con­tro­ver­sial these issues still are in Europe) it was very clear that Euro­pean mon­e­tary union resulted from French-German ten­sions before uni­fi­ca­tion and was meant to calm Mitterrand’s fears of an all-too-powerful Ger­many. Accord­ing to Zoel­lick, the euro cur­rency is a by-product of Ger­man uni­fi­ca­tion. As one of the key insid­ers in the two-plus-four nego­ti­a­tions, trusted and highly dec­o­rated by the Ger­mans, nobody would be bet­ter qual­i­fied to know the real story behind Euro­pean Mon­e­tary Union. Despite all offi­cial denials com­ing from the Ger­man gov­ern­ment until the present day, there are no good rea­sons not to believe Zoellick’s account of the events.

The great his­tor­i­cal irony of this story is, of course, that if the French had really planned to weaken the pow­ers of newly reunited Ger­many through mon­e­tary union, this attempt has now com­pletely back­fired. Sure, the Ger­mans will pay mas­sively for the sake of keep­ing the euro project alive (if they don’t pull out of mon­e­tary union once they realise this). But in strate­gic terms, Germany’s influ­ence has never been greater. As the con­ti­nent wants to bank on Germany’s AAA rat­ing, Berlin can now effec­tively dic­tate fis­cal pol­icy to Athens, Lis­bon and Rome – per­haps in the future to Paris, too. . .

. . . As it turns out, the euro is not only an unwork­able cur­rency. It actu­ally started as a French insur­ance pol­icy against Ger­man power. But even as an insur­ance pol­icy it has failed. Against their will, it has turned the Ger­mans into the new rulers of Europe. And it has con­signed France to be the weaker part­ner in the Franco-German relationship.

If Mit­ter­rand had known all this in advance, he would have insisted on Ger­many keep­ing the Deutschmark as the price for Ger­man unification. . . .

COMMENT: In addi­tion to infor­ma­tion pre­sented in Mis­cel­la­neous Archive Show M61, Mitterand’s rela­tion­ship with Rene Bous­quet is of great impor­tance in appre­ci­at­ing “the real Mitterand.”

“Mit­terand and the Far Right”; Wikipedia.

EXCERPT: . . . The most damming of all charges against Mit­ter­rand and his right wing con­nec­tions is prob­a­bly his long last­ing friend­ship with René Bous­quet, ex secré­taire général of the Vichy police. Charles de Gaulle said of Mit­ter­rand and Bous­quet “they are ghosts who come from the deep­est depths of the collaboration.“[24] Georges-Marc Ben­amou quotes Mit­ter­rand as say­ing of Bous­quet “his career shat­tered at the age of 35, it was dread­ful... Bous­quet suf­fered badly. Imag­ine the break, the career shot to pieces“[25] which shows Mit­ter­rand felt that Bous­quet was unde­servedly badly treated. In 1974, René Bous­quet gave finan­cial help to François Mit­ter­rand for his pres­i­den­tial cam­paign against Valéry Gis­card d’Estaing. In an inter­view with Pierre Favier et Michel Martin-Roland Mit­ter­rand claimed that he was not the only left wing politi­cian to ben­e­fit from Bousquet’s money, as René Bous­quet helped finance all the prin­ci­pal left wing politi­cians from the 1950s to the begin­ning of the 1970s, includ­ing Pierre Mendès France. Worse still after Mitterrand’s 1981 win René Bous­quet was received at the Élysée palace “to talk pol­i­tics”. In an inter­view with Pas­cale Fro­ment (René Bousquet’s biog­ra­pher) Mit­ter­rand declared “I lis­tened to him as a polit­i­cal com­men­ta­tor. He saw me as a con­tin­u­a­tion of his halted career.“[26] Only in 1986, when media crit­i­cism of Bous­quet began to gain in vol­ume, did Mit­ter­rand stop see­ing him and he did not com­ment on the mat­ter until the 1994 inter­view with Jean-Pierre Elkabach.[27] Lionel Jospin com­mented that he was lit­tle impressed by the President’s expla­na­tion say­ing “One would have liked a sim­pler and more trans­par­ent rise to power for the leader of the French left dur­ing the 70s and 80s. What I can’t under­stand is the con­tin­u­ing rela­tion­ship into the 80’s with the likes of Bous­quet who orga­nized the mass arrests of Jews“[28] and Charles Fiter­man also felt let down: “these rev­e­la­tions leave the uncom­fort­able impres­sion of hav­ing been deceived by the man. 50 years later we see no trace of regret nor crit­i­cal analy­sis, but a con­tin­u­a­tion of a com­pro­mis­ing rela­tion­ship which casts new light on events such as putting flow­ers on Pétain’s tomb. This seems to show a con­ti­nu­ity in the choices of a leader call­ing in favors from a net­work of friends.“[29] Pierre Moscovici, com­ment­ing on Pierre Péan’s book said ” What shocked me is his rub­bing shoul­ders with some­one who was instru­men­tal in state anti­semitism and the ‘final solu­tion’. We can’t tol­er­ate such tol­er­ance of evil, and for me René Bous­quet was absolute evil“[30] and the his­to­rian Pierre Miquel com­ment­ing on the TV inter­view said “the com­ments... of the Pres­i­dent of the Repub­lic are part of a dis­course from the right... on the sub­ject of the occupation“[31] . . .

COMMENT: In light of Mitterand’s long-standing, pro­found rela­tion­ship with Bous­quet, more detail about Bousquet’s wartime activ­i­ties is instructive.

“Rene Bous­quet”; Wikipedia.

EXCERPT: . . . . On 2 July 1942, Bous­quet and Carl Oberg pre­pared the arrests known as the Vel’ d’Hiv Roundup (Rafle du Vel’ d’Hiv). Bous­quet per­son­ally can­celed orders pro­tect­ing some cat­e­gories of peo­ple from arrests, notably chil­dren under 18 and par­ents with chil­dren under 5. After the arrests, some bish­ops and car­di­nals protested; Bous­quet threat­ened to can­cel tax priv­i­leges for Catholic schools.

Under the pre­text of not sep­a­rat­ing fam­i­lies, Pierre Laval ordered that Jew­ish chil­dren under 16 be included in depor­ta­tion con­voys, thus sur­pass­ing the require­ments of the Nazis. Bous­quet obliged, per­son­ally set­tling that chil­dren under 2 years also be included. Chil­dren were actu­ally deported sep­a­rately from their parents.

In Jan­u­ary 1943, he organ­ised with Carl Oberg a mas­sive raid in Mar­seille, known as the Bat­tle of Mar­seille. Dur­ing this repres­sive oper­a­tion, the French police assisted the Ger­man police, in par­tic­u­lar in the expul­sion of 30,000 peo­ple from the Old Port, and the sub­se­quent destruc­tion of this neigh­bor­hood, con­sid­ered as too dan­ger­ous and as a “ter­ror­ist nest” by the Ger­man police, because of its wind­ing, small streets. Bous­quet eagerly offered his ser­vices dur­ing this oper­a­tion. The French police con­trolled the iden­tity of 40,000 peo­ple, and the oper­a­tion suc­ceeded in send­ing 2,000 Mar­seillese to the exter­mi­na­tion camps. The oper­a­tion also encom­passed the expul­sion of an entire neigh­bor­hood (30,000 per­sons) before its destruc­tion. For this occa­sion, SS Carl Oberg, in charge of the Ger­man Police in France, made the trip from Paris, and trans­mit­ted to Bous­quet orders directly received from Himm­ler. It is a notable case of the French police’s will­ing col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Nazis.[1]

In April 1943, Bous­quet met with Hein­rich Himm­ler. Himm­ler declared him­self “impressed by Bousquet’s per­son­al­ity”, men­tion­ing him as a “pre­cious col­lab­o­ra­tor in the frame­work of police col­lab­o­ra­tion”. . . .