Year XXXVIII, Number 3, November 2025

Théo Boucart

Member of the Editorial Committee of Fédéchoses.

Altiero Spinelli
Robert Belot, “Henri Frenay. Textes politiques et
fédéralistes (1944-1979)”, coll. « Textes politiques»,
Lyon, Presse fédéraliste, 2025, p. 293.

In his latest book published by Presse fédéraliste, historian Robert Belot offers an annotated compilation of texts – some of them entirely unpublished – by Henri Frenay. This body of work constitutes an invaluable source of information for understanding the intellectual and activist trajectory of the great figure of the French Resistance, a former Minister and a committed European federalist. Today largely overlooked, the figure of Henri Frenay (1905–1988) nonetheless left a profound mark on the political history of the Second World War and the first decades of the post-war period. Raised in a Catholic, conservative, and nationalist family, Frenay arguably experienced his most decisive encounter in the 1930s: that with anti-fascist activist Berty Albrecht. This meeting enabled him to better grasp developments taking place across the Rhine and to understand the threat posed by Nazism.

From this encounter stemmed his political and activist commitment: his involvement in Combat, the principal Resistance movement in France; his vision of a united Europe in which a defeated Germany would play a leading role in preventing any future desire for revenge; and his discovery of European federalist movements, which eventually led him to preside over the Union of European Federalists several times between 1949 and 1955. Until the introduction of direct universal suffrage for elections to the European Parliament in 1979, Henri Frenay remained an intellectual reference point in the process of European integration. His legacy was still sufficiently vivid for François Mitterrand – who had known him in the aftermath of the Second World War – to pay tribute to him at Les Invalides upon his death in 1988. Following a remarkable work on Henri Frenay’s youth and Resistance activities, Robert Belot now invites readers, through Henri Frenay. Political and Federalist Texts (1944–1979), to explore his post-Resistance career – one marked by both hope and disillusionment.

The Resistance as a Catalyst for Political Change

This latest work by Robert Belot opens with a series of texts that provide a nuanced understanding of Henri Frenay’s aspirations at the end of the war: namely, his desire for the Resistance to replace traditional political parties, without itself becoming a party. This idea – largely idealized – was met with skepticism. Léon Blum warned him of the indispensable role of political parties in a democracy, while Raymond Aron cautioned against the illusion of a “Resistance party.” These reservations were borne out by the growing divergences between communist, Gaullist, and “third way” currents – the non-communist left, of which Combat was the main movement.

The creation of the National Liberation Movement (MLN) in January 1944, alongside figures such as Albert Camus and François Mitterrand, allowed Henri Frenay to believe in the possibility of a unifying structure for the Resistance. However, distrust from the Communist Party, combined with what Robert Belot describes as the “ontological ambiguity of this ‘movement,’ neither party nor movement,” condemned the MLN to electoral insignificance. Frenay ultimately left its executive committee in April 1946. Other organizations co-founded by Frenay – the Democratic and Socialist Union of the Resistance and Socialism and Freedom (the latter scarcely mentioned by Frenay in his archives) – met with similar failures. The rejection of “revolutionary illusion” in the face of a return to pre-1939 normalcy, along with highly ambiguous political positioning, prevented these groups from securing a place within the political landscape.

Yet Henri Frenay was not entirely inexperienced in politics. Between September 1944 and November 1945, he served as Minister for Prisoners, Deportees, and Refugees in General de Gaulle’s government. Although this period is absent from the texts collected in the volume, it was deeply traumatic for Frenay, given both the immense scale of the task and the relentless hostility he faced from Communist forces. A reading of the texts reveals a gradual evolution in Frenay’s thinking toward an increased emphasis on the necessity of a united socialist Europe. This idea had never truly left him – given his writings during the years of the Resistance – but it had become more subdued in the immediate post-war period.

European Federalism: Sincere Activism and a Path to Political Redemption

Henri Frenay began from a foundational observation shared by European federalist movements: Europe was caught between two great powers – the United States and the Soviet Union – whose societal models (capitalism and collectivism) were incompatible with a European culture rooted in humanism. For Frenay, “only a European federation on a socialist basis, including Germany, can avert war.” The place of Germany – whose people he was careful to distinguish from Nazism – was a central motivation behind his federalist and pacifist commitment, as clearly demonstrated by his Appeal to the German People. The Franco- German partnership – France being, in his view, “the key to the European situation” – was thus the driving force behind the construction of an autonomous European geopolitical space, ultimately envisioned as the “Socialist United States of Europe.”

The European idea enabled Frenay to abandon the revolutionary radicalism that had characterized his earlier engagement. In 1947, he encountered the Union of European Federalists in Amsterdam and joined the organization at the Montreux Congress in August of that year. His letter to Marceau Pivert that same year marked a decisive turn toward federalism, subsequently reinforced by texts such as The Urgency of a European Federal Pact and the Project for an International Campaign in Favor of a European Constituent Assembly in the early 1950s.

Henri Frenay served as president of the UEF in 1948–1949 and briefly again in 1955. The failure of the European Defence Community (EDC) in 1954 dealt a severe blow to federalist hopes, despite the conviction in 1952 that a “Fiat federalista” (“and federalism came to be”) moment was within reach. Frenay then focused his efforts on the European Federalist Movement, the French section of the UEF, continuing to believe in a federal leap increasingly regarded as unrealistic. His correspondence with Jean Monnet nevertheless warned him of the largely illusory nature of popular enthusiasm for Europe, in contrast with the powerful symbolism of nation-state culture.

Texts from the late 1950s and early 1960s highlight another pivotal moment in French political history: the return of General de Gaulle to the political forefront. Despite having criticized de Gaulle during the debates over the EDC, Frenay supported his return to power, viewing him as a “bulwark of democracy.” Torn between European federalism and political Gaullism, Frenay was ultimately relegated to political marginality, leading to his resignation from the leadership of the European Federalist Movement in 1959. His opposition to de Gaulle’s constitutional project in 1962 did nothing to alter this outcome.

Robert Belot’s volume concludes with a text on European elections by direct universal suffrage – a rare victory for European federalists since the inception of the European project, and one that Henri Frenay welcomed, having always believed that it was at the European level that states could truly preserve their sovereignty.

The trajectory of a major figure in European federalism, a leading member of the Resistance and a former Minister: this is what Robert Belot offers through this annotated collection of texts, essential for understanding a significant chapter of contemporary history.