François Brigneau
[2] He shared a cell with Robert Brasillach shortly before the latter's execution and became an impassioned defender of Vichy France (a client state of Nazi Germany in World War 2) following his release.[1] Brigneau also wrote fiction and as a crime novelist won the Grand Prix de Littérature Policière in 1954 for his novel La Beauté qui meurt.[1] Brigneau however soon clashed with Jean-Marie Le Pen, who he felt was too personally ambitious, and in June 1973 he split from the FN to become part of the dissident Faire Front group.[1] He spent several years within the PFN as a member of its political bureau before resigning in 1981 after reassessing his position on Le Pen, whom he came to view as a "Breton genius" and an "inspired prophet".[1] Around this time he also broke off his association with Minute, moving to Le Présent, a Catholic integrist journal to which he contributed anti-Semitic articles under the pseudonym Mathilde Cruz.