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Henry de Lesquen

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Henry de Lesquen
Henry de Lesquen (2017)
Born1 January 1949 Edit this on Wikidata
Port-Lyautey, Morocco
NationalityFrench
OccupationOfficial, radio host and politician
Political partyMovement for France, Union of Democrats for the Republic Edit this on Wikidata
ChildrenFrancois de Lesquen, Roland de Lesquen, Mahaut de Lesquen, Clélie de Lesquen-Jonas
Websitehttp://lesquen.fr Edit this on Wikidata
Position heldpresident (Radio Courtoisie, 2007–2017) Edit this on Wikidata

Henry de Lesquen (born 1 January 1949) is a French politician. A retired official and former radio host, de Lesquen has been the president of the Carrefour de l'Horloge, a national liberal think tank, since 1985.[1] A blogger and YouTuber since the 2010s, he has participated in popularising the concept of "remigration" in France.

Biography

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Early life and education

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Henry Bertrand Marie Armand de Lesquen du Plessis-Casso was born on 1 January 1949 in Port-Lyautey, Morocco, then a French protectorate, the son of Pierre de Lesquen du Plessis-Casso, a general of the French Army and Anne-Marie Huon de Kermadec. Both his father and mother were from noble Breton families. De Lesquen's maternal grand-mother, Camille Medina, was born Guatemalan and naturalized French.[2]

De Lesquen entered Polytechnique in 1968, then earned a bachelor in economics and joined the École nationale d'administration (ENA) in 1974.[3]

Carrefour de l'Horloge

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Main article: Carrefour de l'Horloge

With his friend from ENA Jean-Yves Le Gallou, de Lesquen founded the Club de l'Horloge in July 1974. Criticizing the meta-politics of Alain de Benoist's GRECE,[4] the Club de l'Horloge aimed at concrete results, favoring entryism inside the French mainstream right-wing parties of the period: the Rally for the Republic (RPR) and the Union for French Democracy.[5]

The book La Politique du vivant ("The Politics of living"), published in 1979 under the direction of de Lesquen, drew influence from GRECE theories on sociobiology, genetic determinism and social darwinism.[5] The same year, he participated with Alain de Benoist in the French TV literary talk show Apostrophes about the Nouvelle Droite.[6] Since the years 1979-80, the Club de l'Horloge has distanced itself from GRECE, promoting instead an "economic liberalism strongly tainted with nationalism."[7]

Public career

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From 1974 to 1978, de Lesquen has been in charge of the program bureau for the French highways at the Ministry of Equipment.[8] He became head of the bureau of energies, raw materials and chemistry at the Ministry of Finances from 1979 to 1983.[9] De Lesquen has been also a lecturer in economics at Sciences Po from 1978 to 1987.[9]

In 1984, he became deputy director of finances for the city of Paris. In this position, he refused in December 1986 to observe a minute's silence after the death of Malik Oussekine and, according to witnesses, left the room during the ceremony.[10] In 1987, he was nominated by mayor of Paris Jacques Chirac secretary-general of the Office Public d'Aménagement et de Construction (OPAC) and remained at this position until 1990; he had been accused of enacting unofficial ethnic quotas.[9] In 2001, de Lesquen became a municipal councilor in Versailles,[1] where he spoke out against the city's public housing projects.

In 2007, he was elected president of right-wing radio station Radio Courtoisie, from which he was ousted in 2017 after the controversies surrounding his presidential campaign.[11]

Positions

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2017 presidential election

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At the end of 2015, de Lesquen announced his candidacy to the 2017 presidential election. In the following months, he attracted media attention by making a number of provocative proposals, claiming that as president, he would destroy the Eiffel Tower; "burn" France's labour code, which he consider an obstacle to entrepreneurship and as stifling individual liberty, and annex Belgium and Luxembourg. De Lesquen also added that he would ban "negro music" from government-sponsored broadcasts—in his view the "music with a sexual rhythm, expression of the soul of the African people"; including hip-hop, metal and rock and roll, which he described as "white people's negro music, that appeals to the reptilian brain".[12][13]

He was eventually sentenced to a 16,000-euro fine in January 2017 for incitement to racial hatred and holocaust denial.[14] In March 2017, de Lesquen withdrew his candidacy in favor of LR runner François Fillon,[15] against the "cosmopolitan oligarchy" and to "stand in the way of Macron".[16][17]

Online fame and influence

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Lesquen runs a Youtube channel, totalling several million views, in which he expresses his political theories and has attracted a lot of young people who label themselves the Jeunesses Lesquenistes ("Lesquenist Youth").[18] He founded a political movement in 2018,[18] the National-Liberal Party (PNL; French "Parti National-Libéral"), which aims at promoting national liberal ideas,[19][20] and restoring traditional French values and liberal economics[21] through ideological influence rather than elected office.

Logo of his National-liberal party

Using irony and provocative symbolism akin to the Alt-Right movement, the logo of his party imitates the Wolfsangel used by the 2nd SS Panzer Division Das Reich in WWII.[22] Through his online videos, Lesquen participated in popularizing the concept of "remigration" in France[23] and spreading racialist theories built on anthropologist Carleton S. Coon's works.[24] De Lesquen also introduced the word "candaule" as a French equivalent for the Alt-Right term "cuckservative". Similar to its American counterpart, the term is used as a distinction between the "true ring-wingers", who "oppose anti-racist laws" and "favor remigration", and the "losers of the right".[25]

Relations with the FN

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He described Marine Le Pen as "a leftist woman entertaining herself hearing negro music in nightclubs" and an "incult" and the National Rally as a "pederastic lupanar."[26][27]

Others

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At the end of 2018, he decided to support the "Yellow Vests", denouncing over-taxation and describing the movement as made up of "French people from French ancestors".[28]

He stated that slavery was a historical necessity due to the low economic and technological levels and that Black slaves were relatively well-treated.[29]

He described transsexual individuals as "perverts" and "mentally diseased" deserving psychiatry.[30]

In March 2020, Lesquen stated "there is worse than coronavirus: judeovirus" at a meeting of the "Swiss Resistance" organization.[31][32][33]

Private life

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Henry de Lesquen is a traditionalist Catholic.[34] He broke off relations with his daughter, Clélie, after she married a Jew.[35]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ a b "Henry de Lesquen" (in French). Stakeholders. Archived from the original on 29 May 2010. Retrieved 22 December 2010.
  2. ^ Marcenat, Marie-Aline (2012). Les Medina d'Amérique latine: histoire et généalogie (in French). MAM. ISBN 9782954207902.
  3. ^ Philippe Lamy. "Le Club de l'horloge (1974-2002) : évolution et mutation d'un laboratoire idéologique (thèse de doctorat en sociologie", Paris, université Paris-VIII, Paris, 2016, p. 256
  4. ^ "Carrefour de l'Horloge (CDH) — France Politique". www.france-politique.fr. Retrieved 4 August 2019.
  5. ^ a b McCulloch, Tom (1 August 2006). "The Nouvelle Droite in the 1980s and 1990s: Ideology and Entryism, the Relationship with the Front National". French Politics. 4 (2): 158–178. doi:10.1057/palgrave.fp.8200099. ISSN 1476-3427. S2CID 144813395. The Club was formed in 1974 by members of GRECE, notably Jean-Yves Le Gallou, Yvan Blot, and Henry de Lesquen [...] The founders were moved by political ambition and disillusionment with GRECE's long-term meta-political project for winning the battle of ideas and achieving the 'sudden metamorphosis' that would create fundamental political shift. The Club intended to force the pace and its members pursued careers in the RPR and UDF.
  6. ^ "La nouvelle droite organise sa riposte à une " campagne malhonnête "" (in French). 29 September 1979. Retrieved 4 August 2019.
  7. ^ Mathieu Laurent, Les Structures non-partisanes dans le champ politique (thèse de doctorat en science politique), université Paris-IV, 2011, p. 101.
  8. ^ "Ministère de l'Équipement" (PDF). gouv.fr (in French). Retrieved 19 April 2023.
  9. ^ a b c “Henry de Lesquen du Plessis Casso”, in Who's Who in France, 2013, p. 1384
  10. ^ Philippe Lamy. "Le Club de l'horloge (1974-2002) : évolution et mutation d'un laboratoire idéologique (thèse de doctorat en sociologie", Paris, université Paris-VIII, Paris, 2016, p. 615
  11. ^ "Fachosphère : Henry de Lesquen débarqué de Radio Courtoisie (enfin !)". Marianne (in French). 5 July 2017. Retrieved 4 August 2019.
  12. ^ "Présidentielle : Henry de Lesquen, ce candidat qui veut "bannir la musique nègre" et revenir au 19e siècle". L'Obs (in French). 12 April 2016. Retrieved 18 May 2022.
  13. ^ Albertini, Dominique. "Henry de Lesquen, au nom de la race". Libération (in French). Retrieved 18 May 2022.
  14. ^ "Henry de Lesquen condamné à 16 000 euros d'amende". LExpress.fr (in French). 25 January 2017. Retrieved 18 May 2022.
  15. ^ Le nouveau soutien (très encombrant) de François Fillon, LCI, 3 March 2017
  16. ^ "Le week-end où tout peut basculer pour François Fillon". Boursorama (in French). 3 March 2017. Retrieved 4 August 2019.
  17. ^ "Le nouveau soutien (très encombrant) de François Fillon". LCI (in French). 3 March 2017. Retrieved 4 August 2019.
  18. ^ a b Pagès, Arnaud; Topaloff, Anna (29 May 2018). "Le racisme n'est pas nécessairement haineux". Vice (in French). Retrieved 4 August 2019.
  19. ^ Philippe Lamy (sous la dir. de Claude Dargent), (thèse de doctorat en sociologie), Paris, université Paris-VIII, 2016, pp. 373-74.
  20. ^ ""Musique nègre", "racisme des Juifs", "coefficient de blancheur"... le procès surréaliste d'Henry de Lesquen". Les Inrocks (in French). Retrieved 4 August 2019.
  21. ^ Causeur.fr; Fouchecour, Clotilde de (2 June 2016). "Henry de Lesquen: le candidat de la mémoire (courte)". Causeur (in French). Retrieved 4 August 2019.
  22. ^ Lebourg, Nicolas (2018). "A l'extrême droite, quoi de nouveau ?". Nouveau Magazine Littéraire (in French). Retrieved 4 August 2019. Ce Parti National-Libéral pousse le goût de la « private joke » jusqu'à avoir un logotype où ses initiales évoquent la « rune du loup » utilisée jadis par la division Das Reich, et remise à la mode par les ultras ukrainiens.
  23. ^ "Les propos nauséabonds d'Henry de Lesquen, multirécidiviste de la haine". LExpress.fr (in French). 28 April 2016. Retrieved 4 August 2019.
  24. ^ Pagès, Arnaud (17 November 2016). "J'ai demandé à Henry de Lesquen s'il croyait vraiment à ses théories racistes délirantes". Vice (in French). Retrieved 5 August 2019.
  25. ^ "Que signifie le terme "candaule" que je vois régulièrement dans les messages de l'extrême droite ces derniers temps ? C'est une insulte j'imagine ?". Libération.fr (in French). 6 March 2018. Retrieved 4 August 2019.
  26. ^ "Fachos, intégristes, réacs... Cette extrême droite anti-Le Pen". L'Obs (in French). 1 May 2015. Retrieved 18 May 2022.
  27. ^ "Marine Le Pen sous le feu de l'extrême-droite française la plus dure". Challenges (in French). 12 May 2015. Retrieved 18 May 2022.
  28. ^ Lambert, Élise; Duguet, Margaux (2018). "Pourquoi l'ultradroite a-t-elle embrassé la cause des "gilets jaunes" ?". Franceinfo (in French). Retrieved 4 August 2019.
  29. ^ "Les " vérités " d'Henry de Lesquen sur l'esclavage". 97land (in French). 14 March 2016. Retrieved 18 May 2022.
  30. ^ "Condamnation d'Henry de Lesquen pour avoir qualifié les personnes " transgenres " de " vicieux " - Infractions de presse". www.legipresse.com. Retrieved 18 May 2022.
  31. ^ G. D. (3 August 2020). "Salle comble pour l'extrémiste Henry de Lesquen". 24Heures (in French). ISSN 1424-4039. Retrieved 19 April 2020.
  32. ^ Bentolila, Yossi (31 March 2020). "El virus del antisemitismo se convierte también en pandemia". Nuevo Mundo Israelita Digital (in Spanish). Retrieved 1 April 2020.
  33. ^ "International Scapegoating of Israel and Jews for Spreading COVID-19". Anti-Defamation League. Retrieved 1 April 2020.
  34. ^ Hausalter, Louis (22 October 2016). "Entre délires racistes et antisémites, l'ingérable Henry de Lesquen à Radio Courtoisie". Marianne (in French). Retrieved 20 April 2020.
  35. ^ Hadni, Dounia (28 June 2018). "Clélie de Lesquen, chemin de fière". Libération (in French). Retrieved 20 April 2020.
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