The Assassination of Jacques Lemaigre Dubreuil

The Assassination of Jacques Lemaigre Dubreuil This is a fascinating study of a forgotten patriot—now ranked as a national hero in Morocco-who struggled to realise his vision for France and North Africa amidst the turmoil of mid-twentieth century social unrest, war, defeat and occupation, resistance and liberation, and postwar decolonization The French industrialist and political activist Jacques Lemaigre Dubreuil (1894–1955) was: • president of the Taxpayers’ Federation in the 1930s; • entrepreneur in wartime France and Africa; • organizer of the ‘Group of Five’ in Algiers which prepared for the Allied landings in North Africa (November 1942); • ‘inventor’ of General Henri Giraud as a candidate for the leadership of liberated North and West Africa; • negotiator of the Murphy-Giraud Agreements and the Anfa Memorandum with President Roosevelt (1942 and 1943); • political writer on the postwar future of France in Morocco; • the owner of the liberal newspaper Maroc-Presse. His assassination in Casablanca by French counter-terrorists in June 1955 was a ‘turning point’ event which pushed the French government to grant independence to Morocco. Was he a rabble-rouser, a demagogue, a betrayer of French interests at home and overseas or a reformer, a patriot, a hero of the anti-German resistance, and a champion of Franco-Moroccan solidarity? Written by a prize-winning author, this story is of great interest to students and researchers in modern French and Moroccan history, French Colonial history, African history, Islamic history and politics. William A.Hoisington, Jr is Professor Emeritus of Modern European and French Colonial History at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He has published widely, and is the author of two prize-winning books on the history of French imperialism in North Africa, The Casablanca Connection: French Colonial Policy, 1936–1943 and Lyautey and the French Conquest of Morocco. History and society in the Islamic world Edited by Anoushiravan Ehteshami University of Durham and George Joffé Centre for International Studies, Cambridge University ISSN: 1466–9390 Contemporary events in the Islamic world dominate the headlines and emphasize the crises of the Middle East and North Africa, yet the Islamic world is far larger and more varied than we realize. Current affairs there too mask the underlying trends and values that have, over time, created a fascinating and complex world. This new series is intended to reveal that other Islamic reality by looking at its history and society over the ages, as well as at the contemporary scene. It will also reach far further afield, bringing in Central Asia and the Far East as part of a cultural space sharing common values and beliefs but manifesting a vast diversity of experience and social order. French Military Rule in Morocco Colonialism and its consequences Moshe Gershovich Tribe and Society in Rural Morocco David M.Hart North Africa, Islam and the Mediterranean World From the Almoravids to the Algerian War Edited by Julia Clancy-Smith The Walled Arab City in Literature, Architecture and History The living Medina in the Maghrib Edited by Susan Slyomovics Tribalism and Rural Society in the Islamic World David M.Hart Technology, Tradition and Survival Aspects of material culture in the Middle East and Central Asia Richard Tapper and Keith McLachlan Lebanon The politics of frustration—the failed coup of 1961 Adel Beshara Britain and Morocco During the Embassy of John Drummond Hay Khalid Ben Srhir To the memory of Jean-Pierre Lemaigre Dubreuil Jacques Lemaigre Dubreuil (Collection Roger Viollet) Contents List of plates vii Acknowledgements viii Preface ix 1 Taxpayer revolt in France 1 2 France’s fall and the Vichy change 37 3 Defending French Africa 49 4 Working for Giraud 66 5 To die in Casablanca 80 Conclusion 111 Notes 113 Bibliography 138 Index 145 Plates Jacques Lemaigre Dubreuil v 1 ‘A la porte les exploiteurs,’ January–February 1936 19 2 ‘Contribuables!,’ 1936, 20 3 ‘Le désastre,’ July–August 1937 25 4 ‘Contribuable souviens-toi…,’ February 1938 29 5 ‘Les Pantins!,’ June 1938 30 6 ‘Une victoire des contribuables parisiens,’ January 1939 33 7 ‘Arrêtez les voleurs,’ October–November 1938 35 Acknowledgements I am grateful to the late Gordon Wright of Stanford University, a lucid interpreter of French history who could turn even the writing of a textbook into an art form, for first suggesting this project to me. And to my friends and colleagues who listened to and commented on parts of this text in its various stages of development over the years, especially the late William B.Cohen of Indiana University at Bloomington, French colonial historian ‘sans peur et sans reproche,’ and Arthur Layton Funk of the University of Florida at Gainesville, the only historian I know who in the course of his own work on France and America during the Second World War met and interviewed Lemaigre Dubreuil. Sharon Leigh Hoisington encouraged me to keep on this research trail despite the interruptions of other writing projects and we will never forget the generous hospitality of the Lemaigre Dubreuil family in Paris, Rabat, and Casablanca. Finally, I am ever and always indebted to my three daughters for their unflagging interest in and enthusiasm for my work. I dedicate this book to the memory of Jean-Pierre Lemaigre Dubreuil who made his father’ s papers available to me and by so doing introduced me to the contours of the political life of a passionate and determined individual. The author and publishers would like to thank the following for permission to reprint material previously published in article form: The University of Chicago Press for ‘The Struggle for Economic Influence in Southeastern Europe: The French Failure in Romania, 1940,’ Journal of Modern History, 43, 3 (September 1971); Alfred University for ‘Toward the Sixth of February: Taxpayer Protest in France, 1928–1934,’ Historical Reflections/ Réflexions historiques, 3, 1 (Summer 1976); Sage Publications Ltd for ‘Commerce and Conflict: French Businessmen in Morocco, 1952–55,’ Journal of Contemporary History, 9, 2 (1974); L’Express and Chantal Blondeau for permission to reproduce the cover of L’Express (June 18, 1955); and Roger Viollet for permission to reprint the late-1930s photograph of Jacques Lemaigre Dubreuil used as the frontispiece. Every effort has been made to contact copyright holders for their permission to reprint material in this book. The publishers would be grateful to hear from any copyright holder who is not here acknowledged and will undertake to rectify any errors or omissions in future editions of this book. Preface ‘Et comme toujours ce sont les meilleurs qui tombent, et le pays vient de perdre un grand Français.’ ‘It is always the finest who fall, and once again our country has lost a great Frenchman.’ Alphonse Juin, Maréchal de France ‘Les Français du Maroc et les Marocains peuvent également s’ enorgueillir du nom de Jacques Lemaigre Dubreuil C’est beaucoup, pour sceller l’amitié de deux peuples, que d’avoir les mêmes martyrs.’ ‘The Frenchmen of Morocco and the Moroccans themselves can take equal pride in the name of Jacques Lemaigre Dubreuil. To seal a friendship between two peoples it is important to have the same martyrs.’ François Mauriac, de l'Académie Française The assassination of Jacques Lemaigre Dubreuil in Casablanca in June 1955 was a turning point in modern Moroccan history, speeding up the process of colonial independence much as the murder of Dr Émile Mauchamp in Marrakech almost 50 years earlier had triggered quite the opposite action—the French occupation of Oujda which was the prelude to the French protectorate of 1912.1 Matters Moroccan occupy a large part of this text, but so do matters French and North African. This explains the title of my book. Jacques Lemaigre Dubreuil presided over the vegetable-oil firm of Georges Lesieur et ses Fils of Dunkirk (‘L’Huile Lesieur transforme les plats les plus simples en régals délicieux,’ 1938). In the 1930s he headed the Taxpayers’ Federation, a noisy citizen anti-tax group, was an elected member of the Bank of France, and owned the Paris newspaper, Le Jour-Écho de Paris. During the Second World War he transferred Lesieur factories from devastated and German-occupied France to French Africa (Algiers, Casablanca, Dakar) and conspired with American diplomatic agents to prepare for the Allied landings in North Africa in November 1942, ‘inventing’ General Henri Giraud as a rival to the austere, uncompromising Charles de Gaulle along the way. After the war he made Casablanca his North African headquarters and worked to resolve the political disputes that put France and the Sultan of Morocco at odds. Until his death, his newspaper articles in Le Monde (and his purchase of the Casablanca daily Maroc-Presse) made him a leader of French ‘liberals’ determined to end Moroccan ‘terrorism’ (and the French ‘counter-terrorism’ that paralleled it) which accompanied the forced exile of Sultan Sidi Mohammed Ben Youssef in August 1953 and to create a new FrancoMoroccan partnership. x Someone once called Lemaigre Dubreuil a ‘born conspirator’ and his life has elements that would fit a spy novel or a screen thriller.2 He walked the streets of wartime Casablanca while Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman were practicing their lines for Casablanca (1942) on a Hollywood sound stage. And Alfred Hitchcock filmed his 1956 classic The Man Who Knew Too Much in Marrakech the month before Lemaigre Dubreuil died in a hail of machine-gun bullets.3 Was he a rabble-rouser, a demagogue, a betrayer of French interests at home and overseas or a reformer, a patriot, a hero of the resistance, and a champion of Moroccan independence? Chapter 1 introduces the French taxpayer movement of the 1930s, then centers on Lemaigre Dubreuil’s presidency of the Taxpayers’ Federation between 1935 and 1940.

Load more