Carmelo Palma ‘s polemic against Matteo Salvini, reported in the tweet at the top of this article, offers an opportunity to recall a controversial figure in European history: Marcel Déat, a French politician who, from being a ‘pacifist’ socialist in the 1930s, ended up leading a collaborationist party in the service of the Nazi regime under German occupation. A path that illuminates the ambiguities of certain neutralism and the fragility of political positions (widespread throughout the constitutional arc: see below Pier Luigi Bersani‘s position) that, in the name of a misunderstood pragmatism, end up yielding to the worst forces in history.

Neo’ socialism and the pacifist illusion

Marcel Déat was born in 1894, militated for a long time in the SFIO (the French section of the Workers’ International) and distinguished himself as a refined intellectual, influenced by currents of thought that wanted to renew French socialism. After the Great War – fought as an officer and a decorated man – Déat adhered to a political line centred on the idea of a nationalist, technocratic socialism, increasingly distant from Marxist orthodoxy.
In the 1930s, when Hitler’s Germany was questioning the peace treaties and challenging the European order, Déat established himself as the voice of French pacifism. His stances against a conflict over the Sudetenland in 1938 or Danzig in 1939 reflected a widespread line among part of the French and British political elites: the illusion that pandering to Hitler could guarantee peace and stability. Déat, then still moving in the socialist orbit, represented that part of the left that was prepared to sacrifice principles and alliances in order to avert confrontation.

From rejection of war to collaborationism

The French defeat in 1940 marked a turning point for Déat. Instead of defending republican values, he joined the Vichy regime and founded his own party, the Rassemblement national populaire (RNP), which became one of the main collaborationist formations. He was not a comprimario: he was Minister of Labour in 1944 and a staunch supporter of collaboration with Nazi Germany, even militarily.
The former ‘pacifist’ who did not want to die for Danzig ended up supporting Hitler’s war machine and legitimising the worst betrayal of French democracy. After the Liberation he fled to Italy, protected by ecclesiastical circles, and died in Turin in 1955, in exile and in disgrace.

The political lesson of Déat

Recalling the parable of Marcel Déat is not an erudite exercise, but a warning. His story shows how façade pacifism, when it translates into renunciation of defending principles and freedom, can turn into the most ignoble of accommodations. Not dying ‘for Danzig’ meant, in reality, allowing Hitler to sweep across Europe: the temptation to yield to the blackmail of aggressive powers, to disguise as ‘realism’ what is in reality surrender, always opens the way to dishonour and defeat.

As Camus wrote in 1944, ‘to misname things is to add to the evil of the world‘. To call submission peace is the worst political deception. And that is precisely what Marcel Déat’s parable teaches us.