Maurice Rollet


Maurice Rollet was a French poet, activist and medical doctor. He sometimes used the pseudonym François Le Cap.

Biography

In the 1960s he was a far right-wing activist who was involved with Jeune Nation, Europe-Action and supported the OAS, for which he was imprisoned. In 1968 he was one of the co-founders of the Nouvelle Droite organization GRECE and became its first president. According to Rollet, the organization was founded at his birthday party in Marseille on 29 January 1968, although this account has been contested.
In 1973 he co-founded the neopagan scouting organization Europe-Jeunesse with Jean-Claude Valla and Jean Mabire. Unlike some Nouvelle Droite activists who only adopted paganism as an intellectual position, Rollet saw it as an everyday attitude. He described what he called his "native faith" as an individual approach based on rootedness, harmony with the cosmos, the constant search for physical and moral aesthetics, tolerance and respect for the "Other". Rollet held contact with the World Congress of Ethnic Religions based in Vilnius.
His poetic works are marked by his neopaganism. Some of his lyrics have been set to music by the singer Docteur Merlin, and are featured on the album Soleil de Pierre. Rollet appeared as a film actor in The Rebel in 1980 and La Flambeuse in 1981.
He died on 21 January 2014.