Abel Bonnard
Abel Bonnard 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.
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. 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 Germany.
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, he had escaped to Spain where Francisco Franco granted him political asylum. 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.
