Abel Bonnard

Abel Nonnard OLH CG AF
Minister of National Education
In office 25 February 1942 – 20 August 1944
Prime Minister	François Darlan Pierre Laval
Preceded by	Jérôme Carcopino
Succeeded by	René Capitant
Member of the Paris Municipal Council
In office 16 December 1942 – 20 August 1944
Constituency	16th arrondissement
Member of the National Council
In office 24 January 1941 – 20 August 1944
Appointed by	Philippe Pétain
Constituency	At-large
Personal details
Born	(1883-12-19)19 December 1883 Poitiers, Vienne, France
Died	Madrid, Spain
Political party	French Popular Party (1937–1941) Groupe Collaboration (1941–1944)
Alma mater	University of Paris
Profession	Writer Journalist
Abel Bonnard Period 20th century Genre Autobiography, essay, novel Literary movement Symbolism Notable awards Concours général (1900) GPLAF (1924)

Abel Bonnard (19 December 1883 – 31 May 1968) was a French poet, novelist and politician.

Biography

Born in Poitiers, Vienne, his early education was in Marseilles with secondary studies at the Lycée Louis-le-Grand in Paris. A student of literature, he was a graduate of the École du Louvre and a member of the École Française de Rome.

Politically, a follower of Charles Maurras, his views evolved towards fascism in the 1930s. Bonnard was one of the ministers of National Education under the Vichy regime (1942–44). The political satirist Jean Galtier-Boissière gave him the nickname "la Gestapette", a portmanteau of Gestapo and tapette, the latter French slang for a homosexual. The name, along with the homosexual inclinations it implied, became well known. He was a member of the committee of the Groupe Collaboration, an organisation that aimed to encourage closer cultural ties between France and her German occupiers.

Bonnard was one of only a few members expelled from the Académie française after World War II for collaboration with Germany. Bonnard was condemned in absentia to death during the épuration légale period for wartime activities. However, Francisco Franco granted him political asylum in Spain. In 1960, he returned to France to face retrial for his crimes. He received a symbolic sentence of 10 years banishment to be counted from 1945, but dissatisfied with the verdict of guilty, he chose to return to Spain where he lived out the remainder of his life.

Works

• 1906: Les Familiers (poetry)
• 1908: Les Royautés (poetry)
• 1908: Les Histoires
• 1913: La Vie et l’Amour (novel)
• 1914: Le Palais Palmacamini
• 1919: La France et ses Morts (illustrated by François-Louis Schmied; poetry)
• 1924: En Chine (1920-1921)
• 1926: Éloge de l’Ignorance
• 1926: La Vie Amoureuse d’Henri Beyle
• 1927: Au Maroc (illustrated by Jean Berque)
• 1927: L’Enfance
• 1928: L’Amitié
• 1928: L’Argent
• 1928: Le Solitaire du toit
• 1928: Supplément à De l'Amour de Stendhal
• 1929: Océan et Brésil
• 1929: Saint François d’Assise
• 1931: Rome
• 1936: Le Drame du Présent: Les Modérés
• 1937: Savoir aimer
• 1937: Navarre et Vieille-Castille
• 1937: Les Bêtes, nos Amies
• 1938: Le Bouquet du Monde
• 1939: L’Amour et l’Amitié
• 1941: Pensées dans l’action
• 1941: Des jeunes gens ou une jeunesse?
• 1948: Benjamín Palencia
• 1965: Le Prince de Ligne (illustrated by Hubert Clerget)
• 1987: Berlin, Hitler et moi: inédits politiques
• 1992: Ce monde et moi (selection of aphorisms, posthumous)
• 2008: Écrits politiques

Translated into English

• 1926: In China, 1920-1921 (translated by Veronica Lucas)
• 1930: Saint Francis of Assisi (translated by Florence Simmonds)
• 1933: The Art of Friendship (translated by Perlie P. Fallon)

Further reading

• Chaigne, Louis (1953). Vies et Œuvres d'écrivains, Vol. 2. Paris: F. Lanore.

External links

• Works by Abel Bonnard at Hathi Trust
• (French) L'Académie française