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See Also

See Also in
Notorious Lives

François Darlan

Joseph Darnand

Francisco Franco

Adolf Hitler

Pierre Laval

Philippe Pétain.

Great Lives from History: Notorious Lives

Jacques Doriot

by Shawncey Webb

French Fascist

Cause of notoriety: Doriot, a French Fascist who hated the Bolsheviks’ influence in Europe, collaborated with the Germans occupying France in World War II.

Active: 1936-1945

Locale: France

Early Life

Jacques Doriot (zhahk doh-ree-oh) was born in Bresles, Oise, France, on September 26, 1898. His father was a blacksmith. Doriot moved to the Paris suburb of Saint-Denis and worked there as a metalworker and as a mechanic. By 1916 he was committed to advancing Socialist politics and became a member of the French Socialist party the Section Française de l’Internationale (SFIO). In 1917, he joined the French army and participated in World War I combat. He was taken prisoner and remained in a prison camp until the war ended in 1918. Upon his release, he returned to France and received the Croix de Guerre for his wartime service.

Political Career

In 1920, Doriot became a member of the Parti Communiste Français (PCF), in whose activities he played a very prominent role. In 1922, he became a member of the presidium of the executive committee of the Comintern. The following year, he accepted the position of secretary general of the French Federation of Young Communists. Also in 1923, he participated in a protest against the French occupation of Germany’s Ruhr Valley. After writing a number of pamphlets espousing violence as a means of protest, he was sent to prison. While incarcerated, however, he was elected by the suburb of Saint-Denis to serve in the French chamber of deputies. His election resulted in his release from prison in 1924. In 1931, he was elected mayor of Saint-Denis. He held this office for several years and also continued to represent Saint-Denis in the chamber of deputies, where he was by now one of the major Communist leaders.

In 1934, Doriot was expelled from the Communist Party, as his ideology clearly differed from that of the party’s mainstream. Doriot was in favor of an alliance with the Socialists and other leftist parties, while the main Communist leadership was shifting toward fascism under the leadership of Maurice Thorez and the Komintern. Doriot was also highly opposed to the parties’ susceptibility to Soviet influence. In May of 1936, Thorez, with Leon Blum and Roger Salengro, led the Front Populaire, a coalition of leftist parties, to victory in the elections. This same year, Doriot, who vehemently opposed the Front Populaire, created a new party, Le Parti Populaire Français (PPF). The PPF’s organization and structure closely resembled that of the Fascist Party, and its membership comprised both Communists and Fascists.

Personally, Doriot had been shifting ideologically from communism to fascism. As the Front Populaire shifted away from fascism and came to advocate coalition with the Socialists—which was Doriot’s original position—he evolved ideologically in exactly the opposite direction. By 1936, having renounced his former communist beliefs and alliance, Doriot was a strong supporter of Adolf Hitler and fascism. He also established a newspaper, La Liberté, to disseminate the PPF’s political views. Increasingly attracted to fascism, Doriot visited Spain and was a supporter of Francisco Franco during the Spanish Civil War. Doriot became friends with John Amery, a British Fascist, and traveled with him in Austria, Italy, and Germany.

After Germany’s defeat of France in 1940, Doriot advocated collaboration and supported Philippe Pétain’s Vichy government and the German occupation of northern France. Doriot lived for a while in Vichy France but was soon back in Paris, where he participated in anti-Bolshevik broadcasts on Radio Paris. In 1941, he and a fellow collaborator, Marcel Déat, founded the Légion des Volontaires Français (LVF). The organization, whose complete name was actually the Légion des Volontaires Français Contre le Bolchévisme, was a military division of the Wehrmacht. The French volunteers who joined the unit fought on the Russian front in the ranks of the German army and wore German uniforms. Doriot fought with the LVF and participated in the German invasion of Russia in June, 1941. When the LVF was no longer a viable fighting force after it suffered heavy losses, Doriot fought as a member of the German army and received the Iron Cross in December, 1943. When the Vichy government fell in 1944, Doriot fled to Germany with fellow collaborators Joseph Darnand and Déat. The three served the exiled Vichy government at Sigmaringen. Doriot was killed in an air raid on February 22, 1945, near Mengen, Germany.

Impact

Jacques Doriot played an extremely active and important role in French politics from 1920 to his death in 1945. From a working-class milieu, he was typical of many of the early Socialists who became affiliated with the Communist movement in France. Doriot, however, was atypical in his strong opposition to Russian influence and his sincere belief that the defeat of Bolshevism would unite Europe. He saw in fascism and in the German state the means to eradicate the Russian influence in France and in Europe as a whole. Doriot and his political activity before and during World War II elucidate an aspect of wartime collaboration based on ideological belief which is often not taken into account by those who study the French collaboration with the German invaders. Doriot’s career is representative of the importance of political theory in French culture and of the confusion and instability that plagued French politics during the first half of the twentieth century.

Further Reading

1 

Allardyce, G. “The Political Transition of Jacques Doriot.” Journal of Contemporary History 1, no. 1(1966): 56-74. Discusses in detail how and why Doriot left the Communist Party and became a Fascist.

2 

Arnold, Edward J. The Development of the Radical Right in France, from Boulanger to Le Pen. Basingstroke, England: Macmillan, 2000. Traces Fascism in France from 1887 to 1998. Discusses Doriot’s role in its development.

3 

Morgan, Philip. Fascism in Europe, 1919-1945. London: Routledge, 2002. Good coverage of Fascism in Italy and Germany. Contains a useful bibliography.

4 

Payne, Stanley G. A History of Fascism, 1914-1945. London: UCL, 1995. Defines Fascism and treats Doriot’s efforts to establish the LVF. Presents the Fascist movement in a historical framework.

Citation Types

MLA 9th
Webb, Shawncey. "Jacques Doriot." Great Lives from History: Notorious Lives, edited by Carl L. Bankston III, Salem Press, 2007. Salem Online, online.salempress.com/articleDetails.do?articleName=GLN_1170.
APA 7th
Webb, S. (2007). Jacques Doriot. In C. L. Bankston III (Ed.), Great Lives from History: Notorious Lives. Salem Press. online.salempress.com.
CMOS 17th
Webb, Shawncey. "Jacques Doriot." Edited by Carl L. Bankston III. Great Lives from History: Notorious Lives. Hackensack: Salem Press, 2007. Accessed March 21, 2026. online.salempress.com.