France Rethinks Honor for Charles Maurras, Condemned as Anti-Semite
"Maurras, an anti-Semitic author of the far-right, has no place in the National Commemorations of 2018." The outrage spurred Ms. Nyssen on Sunday to order a revision of the book to excise any mention of Maurras, noting
that his presence was "likely to divide the French society." The controversy, which raised questions about why he had been included in the first place, reflected France’s ambivalent views toward its history of wartime collaboration and anti-Semitism.
" the minister, Françoise Nyssen, wrote in the foreword of the annual project
that celebrates notable events and figures. that To you who like French history, to you who like to see it revitalized, I warmly recommend you to read the 2018 edition of the National Commemorations,
On Sunday, the minister explained that the initial goal of including Maurras was to feature not only glorious events,
but also "the dark hours of France’s history." Born in 1868, Maurras was an influential writer, a leading figure of the nationalist movement Action Française and a theoretician of French nationalism.
The controversy in France surrounding the commemoration of his birth echoed a similar episode of public outrage in 2011,
when the same commemorations book planned to celebrate the birth of another anti-Semitic writer, Louis-Ferdinand Céline.
Michel Winock wrote that Even before his twentieth birthday, Charles Maurras describes
himself as a French obsessed with foreign invasion and Jewish presence,
The 2018 edition listed the 100th anniversary of the death of the poet Guillaume Apollinaire
and the 50th anniversary of the May 1968 protests that paralyzed France, among other events.