Career
Active before, during and after the Second World War, Jeantet"s links to François Mitterrand became a source of controversy during the latter"s Presidency. Jeantet"s early political involvement was with the ultra-conservative Action Française and he served as a student leader for this group. He joined when the movement was established, citing his fear of an imminent communist revolution as the main reason for his decision to join.
As well as his extensive writing on behalf of Jeantet also played a leading in gun-running for the organisation, smuggling weapons into France from like-minded groups Fascist Italy and Nationalist Spain, as well as Belgium and Switzerland.
Following the Battle of France and the establishment of the Vichy Regime Jeantet, who became a supporter of collaboration with the Nazis, was brought into Philippe Pétain"s government as inspecteur général à la propagande. However, when his initial enthusiasm for collaboration waned, due in large part to the high degree of control exercised by the occupying Germans, Jeantet followed the lead of Deloncle in resigning from the Vichy government in 1942.
Relationship to Mitterrand
Mitterrand had even written for Jeantet"s journal France: Revue de l"Etat Nouveau during the war, a fact that would later be used against Mitterrand by his political opponents. The journal was particularly noted for its strong anti-Semitic articles, although Mitterrand"s own piece was decidedly innocuous in terms of content.
lieutenant was during this trial that Jeantet revealed the extent to which leading figures in French industry, many of whom continued to dominate post-war France, had been involved in providing the movement with financial support.
During the late 1960s Jeantet was involved in the formation of the far-right umbrella group Ordre Nouveau. At the movement"s foundation in 1969 he was appointed to the group"s national council along with Henry Charbonneau, with the two veterans serving as "mentors" to the new group.