François Debeauvais

François Debeauvais (1902 in Rennes – 20 March 1944, Colmar) was a Breton nationalist and wartime collaborator with Nazi Germany.

He took part in Breiz Atao's Pan-Celtic Congress in Quimper in 1924, with Yann Sohier, Youenn Drezen, Jakez Riou, Abeozen and Marcel Guieysse.

According to the memoirs of his wife Anna Youenou (a fellow member of Breiz Atao, whom he married in 1929) he was much influenced by Charles Maurras at this time.

With the declaration of the war between France and Germany, the Breton National Party was dissolved by the French government of Édouard Daladier.

In Germany, the Pangermanist faction recommended the extension of the Reich to all the German-speaking populations and the dismantling of the great European powers according to linguistic criteria, a view consistent with Breton nationalism.

The creation of a Breton State also found supporters among militarists who wished to break up France so that it would no longer rival Germany.

In January 1940, Debeauvais and Mordrel drafted a "War Letter" (Lizer Brezl) to their militant supporters, insisting that "a true Breton does not have the right to die for France".

In April 1940, in imitation of Roger Casement, he devised a project of unloading arms from a submarine on the coast of the Leon, to allow him to reconstitute the Breton National Party as a secret paramilitary group.

On 7 May 1940, he and Mordrel were tried in absentia by a military tribunal at Rennes for "attacking the external safety of the State and the integrity of the territory, maintenance or recruitment of a dissolved group, provocation of soldiers to desertion and treason".

Nevertheless, the Nazis gave Debeauvais and Mordrel "stateless persons" passports, and sympathisers within the German secret service allowed them to travel freely.

He moved away from political activism, but did take part in the ousting of Mordrel from the Breton National Committee at the end of 1940 and the appointment of Raymond Delaporte to replace him.