The Philippe Daudet Affair, named after Philippe Daudet (1909–1923), was a French legal filing and subsequent controversy following the suicide of Philippe Daudet at age 14. The initial investigation into Philippe's death concluded he had committed suicide via gunshot, following plans to carry out anarchist attacks against the French government and other high-profile individuals. Philippe was the son of Action française founder Léon Daudet, who successfully petitioned to the court to investigate Philippe's death, whilst rejecting the results of the initial investigation. Léon instead claimed there was a grander conspiracy against himself and his family. Léon mobilized Action française and the Daudet family, both claiming that anarchist groups, French police, and the French government had conspired in his son's death. The case and its appeals were concluded in 1925, with the official ruling being that there was no evidence of murder or conspiracy.
The case received significant media coverage, with French newspapers promoting Léon Daudet's claims of political assassination. This event occurred during the same time as the Germaine Berton trial, where Berton, a French anarchist, had admitted to but was subsequently acquitted of the assassination Action française member Marius Plateau. Léon Daudet was later jailed after he called for violence against multiple French politicians for their perceived mishandling of both cases.
Background
Philippe Daudet was the son of Léon Daudet and his second wife, Marthe Allard. Born in 1909, his father Léon Daudet was a journalist, political figure, and member of the royalist movement Action française. Philippe had a history of running away from home. On November 20, 1923, a 14-year-old Philippe fled from his parental home in Paris, taking a train to Le Havre and stealing money from his parents to pay for a boat trip to Canada. When the sum of money was insufficient for the boat ride, Philippe returned to Paris under false name, meeting and receiving shelter from Georges Vidal, administrator of the anarchist newspaper Le Libertaire. Here Phillippe would confide his sympathy for anarchism and informed Vidal he intended to commit attacks against Raymond Poincaré (then President of France), Alexandre Millerand (then Prime Minister of France), or even against his father. Vidal attempted to dissuade him from carrying out attacks, later kicking Philippe out of his lodging, and writing Philippe off as a "madman or agent provocateur". Another anarchist activist took Phillippe in during this time, stating that Daudet told stories, "typical of the exaggeration of adolescence ", in particular "that his father beat him, punished him too severely, hated him, that he [Philippe] hated him and all the bourgeoisie he had fled, now that he wanted to take revenge on everyone by committing a dazzling crime", but Philippe did not receive any further aid in his planned attacks. Whilst running away, Philippe met the explorer Louis-Frédéric Rouquette , and allegedly purchased a revolver. He then wrote three letters to his parents, one to his mother, writing "For a long time I was an anarchist, without daring to say so" and two additional letters announcing his suicide. None of the three letters were sent, having been discovered after his death.