{{Short description|French anarchist (1858–1942)}} {{About|the anarchist|the footballer|Sébastien Faure (footballer)}} {{Use dmy dates|date=May 2025}} {{Infobox philosopher | image = File:Faure Sebastien.jpg | name = Sébastien Faure | birth_date = {{birth date|1858|01|6|df=y}} | death_date = {{death date and age|1942|07|14|1858|01|6|df=y}} | birth_place = Loire, French Empire | death_place = Royan, Charente-Maritime, German-occupied France |era = 19th-/20th-century philosophy |region = Western philosophy |school_tradition = {{plainlist| * Anarcho-communism * Socialism * Anarchist synthesis }} | education = | occupation = | years_active = }} '''Sébastien Faure''' ({{IPA|fr|foʁ|lang}}; 6 January 1858 – 14 July 1942)<ref>{{Citation |last=Davranche |first=Jean Maitron, Guillaume |title=FAURE Sébastien, Auguste, Louis |date=2021-08-10 |url=https://maitron.fr/spip.php?article154431 |work=Dictionnaire des anarchistes |place=Paris |publisher=Maitron/Editions de l'Atelier |language=fr |access-date=2022-08-19}}</ref> was a French anarchist,<ref>{{cite book |last=Gay |first=Kathlyn |title=Encyclopedia of Political Anarchy |publisher=ABC-CLIO |location=Santa Barbara |year=1999 |isbn=0-87436-982-7 |page=73}}</ref> freethought and secularist activist and a principal proponent of the anarchist synthesis.<ref name="auto1">{{Cite web|url=https://www.anarkismo.net/article/15329|title=Especifismo and Synthesis/ Synthesism – Anarkismo|website=www.anarkismo.net}}</ref><ref name="auto">{{Cite web|url=http://www.acracia.org/Acracia/La_busqueda_de_la_unidad_anarquista.html|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20121031042738/http://www.acracia.org/Acracia/La_busqueda_de_la_unidad_anarquista.html|url-status=dead|title=Jason Garner. "La búsqueda de la unidad anarquista: la Federación Anarquista Ibérica antes de la II República."|archivedate=October 31, 2012}}</ref> {{Anarchism sidebar |People}}
thumb|Police photograph of Faure taken before 1918
== Biography ==
Before becoming a free-thinker, Faure was a seminarist. He engaged in politics as a socialist before turning to anarchism in 1888.{{citation needed|date=May 2025}}
In 1894, he was prosecuted in "The Trial of the thirty" ("Procès des trente"), but was acquitted. That same year, he became the guardian of Sidonie Vaillant after the execution of her father, Auguste Vaillant. In 1895, he cofounded ''"Le Libertaire"'' with Louise Michel, taking the name of the earlier journal by Joseph Déjacque. At the time of the Dreyfus affair, he was one of the leading supporters of Alfred Dreyfus. In 1904, he created a libertarian school, ''La Ruche'' ("The Hive"), close to Rambouillet, which closed in February 1917. In 1916, he launched the periodical ''"Ce qu'il faut dire"''. Faure also co-founded (with Volin) the anarchist synthesis, which was an influential form of conceiving anarchist federations.<ref name="auto1"/><ref name="auto"/>
Faure edited the {{lang|fr|'''{{vanchor|Encyclopédie anarchiste}}'''}}<!--boldface per WP:R#PLA--> ('''''Anarchist Encyclopedia'''''<!--boldface per WP:R#PLA-->), a dictionary of the philosophy and beliefs of anarchism, including its principles and tendencies, with contributions from about 100 others. Compiled between 1925 and 1934, the dictionary was published in installments for distribution by subscription. The final volume was 2,893 pages across four volumes. It was envisioned as the first part of a five-part encyclopedia project covering the biographies, historical events, and bibliography of anarchism, but this went unpublished. Contributors included Émile Armand, Luigi Bertoni, Pierre Besnard, Han Ryner, Augustin Souchy, Max Nettlau, Aristide Lapeyre, and Gérard de Lacaze-Duthiers.<ref name=Bianco>{{Cite book |chapter=L'Encyclopédie anarchiste | publisher = Atelier national de reproduction des thèses| last = Bianco| first = René| title = Un siècle de presse anarchiste d'expression française, 1880–1983: avant propos et sources| access-date = 2025-06-17| date = 1988| chapter-url = https://bianco.ficedl.info/article883.html |volume=3 |page=883}}</ref><ref name=Maitron>{{Cite web |title=FAURE Sébastien, Auguste, Louis [Dictionnaire des anarchistes] |url=https://maitron.fr/faure-sebastien-auguste-louis-dictionnaire-des-anarchistes/ |access-date=2025-06-13 |website=Le Maitron |lang=fr}}</ref>
=== Pedophilia === On 9 September 1903, Faure was caught molesting three young girls, but released as the parents did not press charges. On 19 November 1907, he was identified as the client of a 14-year old prostitute, but no action was taken.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web |date=2023-02-28 |title=1917–1921: And paedophilia brought down Sébastien Faure |url=https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/guillaume-davranche-1917-1921-and-paedophilia-brought-down-sebastien-faure |access-date=2023-04-27 |work=Alternative Libertaire |language=en |via=The Anarchist Library}}</ref>
He was again caught on 28 September 1916 while molesting two young girls, but the police commissioner opted to use the case as blackmail to curb his pacifist activism amidst the First World War. It is also likely that he used his school La Ruche for his sexual predation, where he had taken in 20 to 30 orphaned children throughout its 13 years of operation. During the 1917 case, the anarchist Second Casteu wrote a letter reporting the testimony of his daughter-in-law Marguerite, who had lived at La Ruche, accusing Faure of molesting the children there.<ref name=":0" />
On 23 September 1917 he was caught sexually assaulting young girls in a Parisian flea market. Accused by multiple witnesses in the crowd, he evaded the police and was sentenced to two years of prison time for public indecency. Discovered and arrested in Marseille in January 1918, his sentence was reduced to six months following a retrial. Though he would claim to have been falsely persecuted, he was viewed with suspicion in anarchist circles and avoided political activity until December 1919. The case files for this conviction were not released to the public until 2018, which led to a comprehensive compilation of documents and testimonies published in 2021. This evidence disproved allegations of police manipulation and also revealed previously unknown earlier cases.<ref name=":0" />
On 15 March 1921 he was again arrested along with two accomplices, accused of sexually abusing two girls aged 11 and 12. Through the investigation it was revealed that he was known to local children as "Monsieur Fontaine", and had abused five more victims. He was again convicted of public indecency and sentenced to eight months in prison. He again claimed to have been falsely accused and was able to convince his contemporaries, and subsequent analyses of his life tended to dismiss the charges. After 1921, there are no further documented cases of sexual predation by Faure.<ref name=":0" />
==Bibliography==
He is recognized for his pedagogy and his qualities as a speaker, and is the author of several books: * ''The universal pain'' (1895) * ''My Communism'' (1921) * ''The Forces Of The Revolution'' (1921) * ''Religious imposture'' (1923) * ''Subversive remarks'' * ''Twelve Proofs of God's Inexistence'' (1908)
He was also the founder of the ''Anarchist Encyclopedia'',<ref>{{cite news |last1=Rodriguez |first1=Cecilia |title=Landmark Auction In Paris: Treasures From The Homes Of Yves Saint Laurent And Pierre Bergé |url=https://www.forbes.com/sites/ceciliarodriguez/2018/09/19/landmark-auction-in-paris-treasures-from-the-homes-of-yves-saint-laurent-and-pierre-berge |access-date=11 July 2022 |work=Forbes |date=19 September 2018 |language=en |quote=as well as Sebastian Faure's mythical 'Anarchist Encyclopedia.'}}</ref> as well as the namesake of the Sébastien Faure Century, the French-speaking contingent of the Durruti Column during the civil war in Spain.{{citation needed|date=May 2025}}
== Anarchist Synthesis == {{Anarcho-communism sidebar |People}}
The discussion about the Anarchist Synthesis arises in the context of the discussion on the Organisational Platform of the Libertarian Communists, written by the Dielo Truda group of Russian exiles in 1926.<ref name="auto1"/>
Two texts made as responses to the Platform, each proposing a different organizational model, became the basis for what is known as the organisation of synthesis, or simply "synthesism".<ref name="auto1"/> Volin published in 1924 a paper calling for "the anarchist synthesis" and was also the author of the article in Sébastien Faure's ''Encyclopedie Anarchiste'' on the same topic.<ref name="auto2">[http://www.infoshop.org/page/AnarchistFAQSectionJ3 "J.3.2 What are "synthesis" federations?"] in An Anarchist FAQ {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101007160139/http://www.infoshop.org/page/AnarchistFAQSectionJ3|date=2010-10-07}}</ref> The main purpose behind the synthesis was that the anarchist movement in most countries was divided into three main tendencies: communist anarchism, anarcho-syndicalism, and individualist anarchism<ref name="auto2"/> and so such an organization could contain anarchists of these three tendencies very well.{{citation needed|date=May 2025}}
The platformists wanted to push their ideas forward through organizing an international anarchist congress on 12 February 1927.<ref name="auto"/> Shortly later in the National Congress of the French Anarchist Union (UAF), the Dielo Truda Group achieved making their platform more popular and so they made the UAF change its name into Revolutionary Anarcho-Communist Union (UACR). Sébastien Faure led a faction within the UACR that decided to separate themselves from this organization and form outside it the Association of Federalist Anarchists (AFA), thinking that traditional anarchist ideas were being threatened by the Dielo Truda platform.<ref>"Tras la victoria de los plataformistas en el Congreso de París de 1929, una sección de los que consideraron que las ideas tradicionales del anarquismo estaban siendo atacadas se separó de la UACR para formar la Asociación de los Federalistas Anarquistas a comienzos de 192821. La principal figura de la AFA fue Sébastien Faure que, como respuesta a la Plataforma, expuso sus propuestas para un movimiento anarquista unificado en La síntesis anarquista, que apareció primero como un suplemento del informe de la AFA de febrero de 1928 titulado Le Trait d'Union Libertaire"[http://www.acracia.org/Acracia/La_busqueda_de_la_unidad_anarquista.html Jason Garner. "La búsqueda de la unidad anarquista: la Federación Anarquista Ibérica antes de la II República."] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121031042738/http://www.acracia.org/Acracia/La_busqueda_de_la_unidad_anarquista.html |date=2012-10-31 }}</ref> Shortly later in his text "Anarchist synthesis" he exposes the view that "these currents were not contradictory but complementary, each having a role within anarchism: anarcho-syndicalism as the strength of the mass organisations and the best way for the practice of anarchism; libertarian communism as a proposed future society based on the distribution of the fruits of labour according to the needs of each one; anarcho-individualism as a negation of oppression and affirming the individual right to development of the individual, seeking to please them in every way."<ref name="auto1"/> Sebastian Faure had strong contacts in Spain and so his proposal had more impact with Spanish anarchists than the Dielo Truda platform even though individualist anarchist influence in Spain was less strong than it was in France. The main goal there was reconciling anarcho-communism with anarcho-syndicalism.<ref>"Debido a sus contactos e influencia con el movimiento del exilio español, la propuesta de Faure arraigó más en los círculos españoles que la Plataforma, y fue publicada en las prensas libertarias tanto en España como en Bélgica25. En esencia, Faure intentaba reunir a la familia anarquista sin imponer la rígida estructura que proponía la Plataforma, y en España se aceptó así. Opuesta a la situación de Francia, en España la influencia del anarquismo individualista no fue un motivo serio de ruptura. Aunque las ideas de ciertos individualistas como Han Ryner y Émile Armand tuvieron cierto impacto sobre el anarquismo español, afectaron sólo a aspectos como el sexo y el amor libre."[http://www.acracia.org/Acracia/La_busqueda_de_la_unidad_anarquista.html Jason Garner. "La búsqueda de la unidad anarquista: la Federación Anarquista Ibérica antes de la II República."] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121031042738/http://www.acracia.org/Acracia/La_busqueda_de_la_unidad_anarquista.html |date=2012-10-31 }}</ref>
== Selected works == * [https://www.revoltlib.com/?id=3279 The Anarchist Synthesis (1927)] * [https://www.revoltlib.com/anarchism/revolutionary-forces/view.php Revolutionary Forces (1921)] * [https://www.revoltlib.com/anarchism/twelve-proofs-of-the-inexistence-of-god/view.php Twelve Proofs of the Inexistence of God]
== See also == * Anarchism in France
== References == {{reflist}}
==External links== {{Commons category|Sébastien Faure}} {{Wikisource|Author:Sébastien Faure|Sébastien Faure}} * [https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/faure/index.htm Articles by Sébastien Faure on Marxists.org] * [https://web.archive.org/web/20060219235717/http://recollectionbooks.com/bleed/Encyclopedia/FaureSebastien.htm Sébastien Faure page] at the Daily Bleed's Anarchist Encyclopedia. * The anarchist encyclopedia [https://archive.org/details/EncyclopedieAnarchisteTome1 Volume 1] [https://archive.org/details/EncyclopedieAnarchisteTome2 Volume 2] [https://archive.org/details/EncyclopedieAnarchisteTome3 Volume 3] [https://archive.org/details/EncyclopedieAnarchisteTome4 Volume 4] * [http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/bright/faure/faurearchive.html Faure Archive] at the Anarchy Archives. * [http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/bright/faure/revforces.html The Revolutionary Forces by Sebastien Faure] * [https://www.revoltlib.com/people/sebastien-faure/view.php Sébastien Faure French Freethinker, Secularist, and Proponent of Synthesis Anarchism, at RevoltLib.com] * [http://landrucimetieres.fr/spip/spip.php?article3391 ROYAN (17) : cimetière des Tilleuls – Cimetières de France et d'ailleurs] * [https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/guillaume-davranche-1917-1921-and-paedophilia-brought-down-sebastien-faure 1917–1921: And paedophilia brought down Sébastien Faure]
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Faure, Sebastien}} Category:1858 births Category:1942 deaths Category:19th-century atheists Category:20th-century anarchists Category:20th-century atheists Category:Anarcho-communists Category:Freethought writers Category:French anarchists Category:French atheism activists Category:French magazine founders Category:French people convicted of child sexual abuse Category:French socialists Category:Incidents of violence against girls Category:Politicians from Saint-Étienne Category:Anarchist synthesis Category:Violence against women in France