Henri Fonfrède

Henri Fonfrède (Bordeaux, 1788 – Bordeaux, 1841) was a French orator, publicist and economist.

He made his name as a publicist defending liberal ideas in Bordeaux's main newspaper under the Bourbon Restoration.

He was the son of Jean-Baptiste Boyer-Fonfrède.

In the 1830s, he was among the rare French voices to sternly oppose the colonization of Algeria, denouncing it both from an economic and a humanitarian point of view.

While still painting the Arabs as "belligerent, fanatics, of a religion that curses ours", Fonfrède recognized that the brutal conquest would only feed and intensify their "righteous resentment".