Raphaël Alibert

Raphaël Alibert (17 February 1887, Saint-Laurent, Lot – 5 June 1963, Paris) was a French politician.

Raphael Alibert was an ardent Roman Catholic convert and someone with strong royalist ideas. One of the most intense followers of Charles Maurras, Alibert was elected to the Chamber of Deputies for the Action Française party. In October 1939 he and Henry Lémery had visited Maréchal Petain to discuss in private the make-up of a possible ministry with him.

In the French government's new Cabinet formed on 16 June 1940 he was appointed Under-Secretary of State to the Prime Minister, now Pétain. He was one of the opposition within the Cabinet to removing the government to North Africa after the Armistice with Germany, and it is said that he was instrumental in preventing the departure by President Albert Lebrun and Camille Chautemps on 20 June 1940, although General Weygand, also opposed to a move, had already urged Lebrun to remain until the evening. In the event only 30 deputies and just one senator departed.

Alibert was responsible for Exposé des motifs, his document forming the basis for the Révolution Nationale, a proposition which the Chamber and Senate adopted on the 9 July 1940. Contrary to post-war opinions, Otto Abetz, the German Ambassador in Paris, saw clearly that "nothing could have been further from fascism, whether of the Italian or German variety, than the Revolution Nationale". Abetz felt instead that the government at Vichy believed in "reactionary, hierarchical principals" and that its "nationalism was dangerous to the European concept of the New Order". The following day Pétain signed three 'Constitutional Acts' drafted by Alibert. the first announced that he himself was taking over the functions of the 'French State', in other words that he was becoming 'Head of State'. The second gave the Head of State complete and overall power, both executive and legislative. The third adjourned the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate sine die; they could only be reconvened by Order of the Head of State. Laval remarked that Pétain had been granted more powers than Louis XIV. Pétain, however, maintained that he never wished to assume the mantle of a Caesar, and that he only wanted to serve until a Peace Treaty with Germany had been signed and he could retire.

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