Henry de Lesquen

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, as well as spreading racialist concepts built on anthropologist Carleton S. Coon's theories.[2]

Henry de Lesquen
Henry de Lesquen en 2014.
Born1 January 1949  (age 71)
Port-Lyautey, Morocco
NationalityFrench
OccupationOfficial, radio host and politician
Political partyMovement for France, Union of Democrats for the Republic 
ChildrenFrançois de Lesquen 
Websitehttp://lesquen.fr 
Position heldpresident (Radio Courtoisie, 2007–2017) 

Biography

Early life and education

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.[3]

De Lesquen entered Polytechnique in 1968, then earned a bachelor in economics and joined the École nationale d'administration (ENA) in 1974.[4]

Carrefour de l'Horloge
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,[5] 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.[6]

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.[6] The same year, he participated with Alain de Benoist in the French TV literary talk show Apostrophes about the Nouvelle Droite.[7] Since the years 1979-80, the Club de l'Horloge has distanced itself from GRECE, promoting instead an "economic liberalism strongly tainted with nationalism."[8]

Public career

From 1974 to 1978, De Lesquen has been in charge of the program bureau for the French highways at the Ministry of Equipment.[9] He became head of the bureau of energies, raw materials and chemistry at the Ministry of Finances from 1979 to 1983.[10] De Lesquen has been also a lecturer in economics at Sciences Po from 1978 to 1987.[10]

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.[11] 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.[10] In 2001, De Lesquen became a municipal councilor in Versailles,[12] where he spoke out against the city's public housing projects.

In 2007, he has been elected president of right-wing radio station Radio Courtoisie, from which he was ousted in 2017 after the controversies surrounding his presidential campaign.[13]

2017 presidential election


A swastika in clockwise motion on a detail of the reproduction of a 5th century BC bronze belt plaque from Vače, Slovenia.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".[14][15]

Logo of De Lesquin's National-Liberal party (left); emblem of the 2nd SS Panzer Division Das Reich (right). Akin to the Alt-Right, Henry de Lesquen uses political irony to promote his ideas in the public sphere.[16]

He was eventually sentenced to a 16,000-euro fine in January 2017 for incitement to racial hatred and holocaust denial.[17] In March 2017, De Lesquen withdrew his candidacy in favor of LR runner François Fillon,[18] against the "cosmopolitan oligarchy" and to "stand in the way of Macron".[19][20]

Online fame and influence

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").[21] He founded a political movement in 2018,[21] the National-Liberal party (PNL; French "Parti National-Libéral"), which aims at promoting national liberal ideas,[22][23] and restoring traditional French values and liberal economics[24] through ideological influence rather than elected office.

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.[16] Through his online videos, Lesquen participated in popularizing the concept of "remigration" in France[25] and spreading racialist theories built on anthropologist Carleton S. Coon's works.[2] 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".[26]

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".[27]

In March 2020, Lesquen stated "there is worse than coronavirus: judeovirus" at a meeting of the "Swiss Resistance" organization.[28][29][30]

Private life

Henry de Lesquen is a traditionalist Catholic.[31] He broke off relations with his daughter, Clélie, after she married a Jew.[32]

gollark: I don't think it's possible in general.
gollark: I don't know if I've ever actually smelt ozone. It doesn't sound like I'm missing out much though.
gollark: Marmite is great! I particularly enjoy marmite rice cakes, but there seem to be supply issues now.
gollark: It's a rust port of this (https://github.com/TomSmeets/FractalArt), going on my github once I finish writing documentation.
gollark: On a semihemirelated note, I finally fixed my port of FractalArt to Rust, so I can generate these nice pictures quite fast.

See also

References
  1. "Henry de Lesquen" (in French). Stakeholders. Archived from the original on 29 May 2010. Retrieved 22 December 2010.
  2. Pagès, Arnaud (2016-11-17). "J'ai demandé à Henry de Lesquen s'il croyait vraiment à ses théories racistes délirantes". Vice (in French). Retrieved 2019-08-05.
  3. Marcenat, Marie-Aline (2012). Les Medina d'Amérique latine: histoire et généalogie (in French). MAM. ISBN 9782954207902.
  4. 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
  5. "Carrefour de l'Horloge (CDH) — France Politique". www.france-politique.fr. Retrieved 2019-08-04.
  6. McCulloch, Tom (2006-08-01). "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. 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.
  7. "La nouvelle droite organise sa riposte à une " campagne malhonnête "" (in French). 1979-09-29. Retrieved 2019-08-04.
  8. Mathieu Laurent, Les Structures non-partisanes dans le champ politique (thèse de doctorat en science politique), université Paris-IV, 2011, p. 101.
  9. http://www.histoire-dac.developpement-durable.gouv.fr/structure/pdf/1976.pdf
  10. “Henry de Lesquen du Plessis Casso”, in Who's Who in France, 2013, p. 1384
  11. 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
  12. "Henry de Lesquen" (in French). Stakeholders. Archived from the original on 29 May 2010. Retrieved 22 December 2010.
  13. "Fachosphère : Henry de Lesquen débarqué de Radio Courtoisie (enfin !)". Marianne (in French). 2017-07-05. Retrieved 2019-08-04.
  14. Présidentielle : Henry de Lesquen, ce candidat qui veut « bannir la musique nègre » et revenir au 19ème siècle, L'Obs, 12 April 2016
  15. Henry de Lesquen, au nom de la race, Libération, 26 April 2016
  16. Lebourg, Nicolas (2018). "A l'extrême droite, quoi de nouveau ?". Nouveau Magazine Littéraire (in French). Retrieved 2019-08-04. 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.
  17. Henry de Lesquen condamné à 16 000 euros d'amende, L'Express, 25 January 2017
  18. Le nouveau soutien (très encombrant) de François Fillon, LCI, 3 March 2017
  19. "Le week-end où tout peut basculer pour François Fillon". Boursorama (in French). 2017-03-03. Retrieved 2019-08-04.
  20. "Le nouveau soutien (très encombrant) de François Fillon". LCI (in French). Retrieved 2019-08-04.
  21. Pagès, Arnaud; Topaloff, Anna (2018-05-29). "Le racisme n'est pas nécessairement haineux". Vice (in French). Retrieved 2019-08-04.
  22. Philippe Lamy (sous la dir. de Claude Dargent), (thèse de doctorat en sociologie), Paris, université Paris-VIII, 2016, pp. 373-74.
  23. ""Musique nègre", "racisme des Juifs", "coefficient de blancheur"... le procès surréaliste d'Henry de Lesquen". Les Inrocks (in French). Retrieved 2019-08-04.
  24. Causeur.fr; Fouchecour, Clotilde de (2016-06-02). "Henry de Lesquen: le candidat de la mémoire (courte)". Causeur (in French). Retrieved 2019-08-04.
  25. "Les propos nauséabonds d'Henry de Lesquen, multirécidiviste de la haine". LExpress.fr (in French). 2016-04-28. Retrieved 2019-08-04.
  26. "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). 2018-03-06. Retrieved 2019-08-04.
  27. Lambert, Élise; Duguet, Margaux (2018). "Pourquoi l'ultradroite a-t-elle embrassé la cause des "gilets jaunes" ?". Franceinfo (in French). Retrieved 2019-08-04.
  28. G. D. (2020-08-03). "Salle comble pour l'extrémiste Henry de Lesquen". 24Heures (in French). ISSN 1424-4039. Retrieved 2020-04-19.
  29. Bentolila, Yossi (31 March 2020). "El virus del antisemitismo se convierte también en pandemia". Nuevo Mundo Israelita Digital (in Spanish). Retrieved 1 April 2020.
  30. "International Scapegoating of Israel and Jews for Spreading COVID-19". Anti-Defamation League. Retrieved 1 April 2020.
  31. Hausalter, Louis (2016-10-22). "Entre délires racistes et antisémites, l'ingérable Henry de Lesquen à Radio Courtoisie". Marianne (in French). Retrieved 2020-04-20.
  32. Hadni, Dounia (2018-06-28). "Clélie de Lesquen, chemin de fière". Libération (in French). Retrieved 2020-04-20.
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