Charles-Marie-Photius Maurras (; ; 20 April 1868 – 16 November 1952) was a French author, politician, poet, and critic. He was an organizer and principal philosopher of Action Française, a political movement that is monarchist, anti-parliamentarist, and counter-revolutionary. Maurras also held anti-communist, anti-Masonic, anti-Protestant, and anti-Semitic views, though he was highly critical of Nazism, referring to it as "stupidity". His ideas greatly influenced National Catholicism and integral nationalism, with a major tenet of his views being that "a true nationalist places his country above everything".
Raised Catholic, Maurras went deaf and became an agnostic in his youth, but remained anti-secularist and politically supportive of the Church. His ideas were opposed by Pope Pius XI. An Orléanist, he began his career by writing literary criticism and became politically active during the Dreyfus affair. In 1926, Pius XI issued a controversial papal condemnation against Action Française, which was repealed by Pius XII in 1939.
In 1936, after voicing death threats against Léon Blum, Maurras was sentenced to eight months in La Santé. While imprisoned, he received the support of Mother Agnes of Jesus (the elder sister of Thérèse of Lisieux), Henry Bordeaux, Pius XI, and 40 to 60,000 people. During World War II, Maurras was a supporter of Vichy France, believing that Free France was being manipulated by the Soviet Union. He wrote many anti-Semitic articles during its regime, but was opposed to Vichy's deportation of Jews. He explained his support for Vichy, writing that "As a royalist I never lost sight of the necessity of monarchy. But to invest the royal heir the heritage had to be saved." After its collapse, he was arrested and accused of complicity with the enemy. Following a political trial, he was convicted for incitement to murder, receiving Indignité nationale and a life sentence. In 1951, after falling ill, he was transferred to a hospital and later received a medical pardon. In his final days, he reverted to Catholicism and received the last rites shortly before his death.
A political theorist and a 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 Eliot, Hulme, Douglas, Evola, Schmitt, Heidegger, Bernanos, Mauriac, Thibon, Sorel, Déon, Laurent, Henri of Orléans, Kuehnelt-Leddihn, Maritain, de Oliveira, Sardinha, Pereyra, Althusser, Osma, Lanz, de Gaulle, Franco, Salazar, Duplessis, Coughlin, Degrelle, Petain, Perón, Ferrara, Bannon and Macron. To this day, Maurras proves to be a highly controversial figure. Critics have attacked Maurras for his anti-Semitic views and support of Vichy, calling him a "fascist icon." Conversely, supporters such as Georges Pompidou have praised him as a prophet. Others, including Emmanuel 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."
Biography
Before World War I
Maurras was born into a Provençal family, brought up by his mother and grandmother in a Catholic and monarchist environment. In his early teens, he became deaf. Like many other French politicians, he was affected greatly by France's defeat in the 1870 Franco-Prussian War. After the 1871 Commune of Paris and the 1879 defeat of Marshal MacMahon's Moral Order government, French society slowly found a consensus for the Republic, symbolized by the rallying of the monarchist Orleanists to the Republic. Maurras published his first article, at the age of 17 years, in the review Annales de philosophie chrétienne. He then collaborated on various reviews, including , La Revue bleue, La Gazette de France and La Revue encyclopédique, in which he praised Classicism and attacked Romanticism.