Manifesto of the 121
The Manifesto of the 121 (French: Manifeste des 121, full title: Déclaration sur le droit à l’insoumission dans la guerre d’Algérie or Declaration on the right of insubordination in the Algerian War) was an open letter signed by 121 intellectuals and published on 6 September 1960 in the magazine Vérité-Liberté.[1] It called on the French government, then headed by the Gaullist Michel Debré, and public opinion to recognise the Algerian War as a legitimate struggle for independence, denouncing the use of torture by the French army, and calling for French conscientious objectors to the conflict to be respected by the authorities.
The Declaration was drafted by Dionys Mascolo, Maurice Blanchot and . It stated that the cause of the Algerians was the cause of all free men, and that the struggle was striking a decisive blow to the cause of colonialism. The vast majority of the signatories belonged to the French Left. The signatories included figures from a variety of political and cultural movements, such as Marxism, existentialism, and a number of figures associated with the Nouveau Roman and New Wave literary and cinematic trends.
List of signatories[]
- Arthur Adamov, writer
- Robert Antelme, writer and former deportee in the Buchenwald concentration camp
- , journalist
- Robert Barrat
- Simone de Beauvoir, philosopher and feminist
- , philosopher and journalist (close to the personalists)
- Robert Benayoun, film-maker and film critic
- Michèle Bernstein, situationist
- Maurice Blanchot, writer
- Roger Blin, actor and dramaturgist
- Raymond Borde
- Jean-Louis Bory, writer, journalist and film critic
- Jacques-Laurent Bost, journalist
- Pierre Boulez, composer
- André Breton, surrealist
- Georges Condominas, anthropologist
- Alain Cuny, actor
- Hubert Damisch, philosopher
- Guy Debord, situationist
- Marguerite Duras, writer
- Charles Estienne
- Louis-René des Forêts, writer
- , poet
- Jacques Gernet, sinologist
- Louis Gernet, philologist and sociologist
- Edouard Glissant, writer
- Daniel Guérin, historian
- Édouard Jaguer, poet and art critic
- Gérard Jarlot
- Robert Jaulin, ethnologist
- Claude Lanzmann, film-maker
- , painter and film maker
- Henri Lefebvre, sociologist
- Michel Leiris, writer and ethnologist
- Paul Lévy, mathematician
- , publisher of Les Éditions de Minuit
- Eric Losfeld
- Robert Louzon
- , poet
- André Mandouze, academic
- Maud Mannoni, psycho-analyst
- Jean Martin, actor
- Dionys Mascolo, writer
- François Maspero, editor of Maspero Ed.
- André Masson, painter
- Pierre de Massot, writer and journalist
- Théodore Monod, naturalist and explorer
- Georges Mounin
- Maurice Nadeau, publisher
- Georges Navel
- Claude Ollier, writer (Nouveau Roman)
- , writer, journalist and art critic
- , writer
- André Pieyre de Mandiargues, writer
- , painter
- Bernard Pingaud
- , writer
- Jean-Bertrand Pontalis, philosopher and psychoanalyst
- , ethnologist
- Madeleine Rebérioux, historian
- Denise René, art gallerist
- Alain Resnais, film-maker
- Jean-François Revel, journalist
- Alain Robbe-Grillet, writer (Nouveau Roman)
- Christiane Rochefort, writer
- Alfred Rosmer, trade-unionist
- , ethnomusicologist
- Claude Roy, writer
- Françoise Sagan, writer
- Marc Saint-Saëns, tapestrist
- Nathalie Sarraute, writer
- Jean-Paul Sartre, philosopher
- Claude Sautet, scenarist and film-maker
- Catherine Sauvage, singer and actress
- Laurent Schwartz, mathematician
- , journalist and writer
- Louis Seguin, engineer and industrialist
- Geneviève Serreau, actress
- Simone Signoret, actress
- , painter and writer
- Claude Simon, writer
- François Truffaut, film-maker
- Vercors, writer
- Jean-Pierre Vernant, historian
- Pierre Vidal-Naquet, historian
- , painter and sculptor
- Ylipe
- René Zazzo, psychologist
See also[]
References[]
- ^ David L. Schalk (1991). War and the Ivory Tower: Algeria and Vietnam. Oxford University Press. p. 99. ISBN 978-0-19-506807-8.
External links[]
- Political history of France
- Political manifestos
- Algerian War
- 1960 in France
- 1960 in politics
- Works originally published in French magazines
- 1960 documents