Étienne Monier

Étienne Monier (20 April 1889 – 21 April 1913), also known as Élie Monier and nicknamed Symentof, was a French anarchist and member of the infamous Bonnot Gang.

A police photo of Étienne Monier in 1912.

Life

Étienne Monier was born in a family of winegrowers in Estagel, in Pyrénées-Orientales, a small town with a strong anarchist tradition since the local population resisted to Napoléon III taking power in 1851.[1] Monier started by learning to become a gardener and a florist,[2] before deciding to move to Paris in 1909. At the end of 1910, refusing to fulfill his military service, he is forced to flee abroad. To be able to come back in France, he then uses the papers of an anarchist friend, Samuelis Simentoff, born in 1887 in Turkey. Back in Paris, he meets Victor Serge and Rirette Maitrejean and, later, Jules Bonnot, leading him to become a member of the Bonnot Gang.

On March 25, 1912, the gang, including Étienne Monier, stole a de Dion-Bouton automobile in the Forest of Sénart south of Paris by shooting the driver through the heart.[3] They drove into Chantilly north of Paris where they robbed the local branch of Société Générale Bank – shooting the bank's three cashiers. They escaped in their stolen automobile as two policemen tried to catch them, one on horseback and the other on a bicycle.

Étienne Monier then worked some time in Antoine Gauzy's shop in Ivry-sur-Seine. Gauzy gave shelter to Bonnot later, sent by Monier and not knowing clearly his real identity. When the police came to Gauzy's shop on 24 April 1912, Bonnot killed Louis Jouin, the vice-chief of the French police, and escaped. On that same day, Monier was arrested in Belleville, in Paris.

The trial of the Gang's survivors began on February 3, 1913. Monier was sentenced to death with André Soudy and Raymond Callemin. All three were guillotined on 21 April 1913.

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References
  1. Cárdenas, Fabricio (2014). 66 petites histoires du Pays Catalan [66 Little Stories of Catalan Country] (in French). Perpignan: Ultima Necat. ISBN 978-2-36771-006-8. OCLC 893847466.
  2. Janine Tissot, MONIER Etienne, Elie dit Symentof on janinetissot.fdaf.org
  3. Richard Parry: The Bonnot gang. Rebel Press, 1987, ISBN 978-0-946061-04-4, p. 115.
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