(1897-1980)
Louis Darquier de Pellepoix was a French politician born in 1897 in Cahors.
After a aimless and troubled youth, he joined the “Croix-de-Feu,” a far-right organization, and in the 1930s, he became a member of “Action française,” a nationalist and royalist political movement.
When Léon Blum came to power, he distinguished himself through his virulent anti-Semitism.
In early 1937, he founded the “Rassemblement antijuif de France” and launched the newspaper *L’Antijuif*.
During a rally that year, he declared: “We must urgently resolve the Jewish problem, either through expulsion or through massacre.”
An early supporter of Nazi Germany, he actively collaborated with the occupying forces, advocated for stripping Jews of their French citizenship, and was appointed in 1942 by Pierre Laval, a rabid anti-Semite, to head the General Commissariat for Jewish Affairs (CGQJ), replacing Xavier Vallat, who was considered too moderate.
Darquier was directly involved in numerous criminal anti-Jewish measures, including the “Vél’ d’Hiv’ roundup.”
In December 1947, he was sentenced in absentia to death, stripped of his civil rights, and had his property confiscated.
In 1978, from his home in Spain, he cynically denied the reality of the Shoah: “I’ll tell you exactly what happened. People were gassed at Auschwitz. Yes, that’s true. But they were gassed to kill lice” (statement to the French newspaper *L’Express*).
He died undisturbed in 1980 in Franco’s Spain, where he had found refuge, like many other Nazi collaborators.
Reference:
Joly, Laurent, *Louis Darquier de Pellepoix and French Anti-Semitism*, Berg International, 2002
