La jeune France was founded in 1936 by André Jolivet along with composers Olivier Messiaen, Daniel Lesur and Yves Baudrier, who were attempting to re-establish a more human and less abstract form of composition.
It developed from the avant-garde chamber music society La spirale, formed by Jolivet, Messiaen, and Lesur the previous year.
However, Virgil Thomson describes the group as neo-impressionist rather than post- or neo-romantic: An addiction to religious subject matter, common all over post-war Europe, is no more significant in Messiaen than is orientalism with Jolivet or the classical humanism of Rosenthal (and Malipiero).
[2] The cultural/political organization Jeune France was founded by composer Pierre Schaeffer as part of the Révolution nationale initiative of the Vichy regime.
It also sponsored the creation of the short-lived artistic commune in Oppède (near Marseille) founded in 1940 by Bernard Zehrfuss.