Jean-Louis Tixier-Vignancour

Jean-Louis Tixier-Vignancour (12 October 1907 in Paris – 29 September 1989 in Paris) was a French lawyer and extreme right politician.

Early prominence

He was general-assistant secretary on Information for the État français (the Vichy government), and as such in charge of its censorship. As a member of the Chamber of Deputies for Basses-Pyrénées from 1936 to 1940, on 10 July 1940, he had voted in favour of giving the Cabinet presided by Marshal Philippe Pétain authority to draw up a new constitution, thereby effectively ending the French Third Republic and establishing Vichy France. He was elected in 1956 to the National Assembly for the two last years of the Fourth Republic. As the sole extreme right representative, he was not affiliated to any of the parliamentary groups. He was a candidate of liste républicaine d'action sociale et paysanne.

French Presidential Candidate

He was the candidate of the extreme right in the 1965 French presidential election, with Jean-Marie Le Pen and Jean-Pierre Stirbois as his campaign managers. He obtained 1,260,208 votes, for 5.2% of the total, giving him fourth place after De Gaulle, Mitterrand and Jean Lecanuet. In the second round, he supported François Mitterrand out of rencor against De Gaulle for having agreed to Algerian independence.

Legal and political activities

As a lawyer, he defended General Raoul Salan in 1962, Jean-Marie Bastien-Thiry in 1963, and a number of other OAS defendants. In June 1979, in the first universal suffrage election to European Parliament, he let the Euroright (Eurodroite) list, constituted by the Party of New Forces (PFN).

Quotation

• Tixier-Vignancour, that is Vichy, the Collaboration proud of itself, the Militia, the OAS. (Charles De Gaulle)

Bibliography

• Alexandre Croix, Tixier-Vignancour, ombres et lumières... Saint-Ouen : Éditions du Vieux Saint-Ouen, coll. « Les Cahiers contemporains », 1965. 320 pages. [Without ISBN] (Tixier-Vignancour, Shadows and Light)
• Louis-Ferdinand Céline, Lettres à Tixier : 44 lettres inédites à Me Tixier-Vignancour, texte établi et présenté par Frédéric Monnier. Paris : la Flûte de Pan, 1985. 143 pages. ISBN 2-903267-23-5. (Letters to Tixier: 44 unpublished letters to Me Tixier-Vignancour)