Maurice Laissant (11 March 1909 – 29 September 1991) Began his career working for the French national railway company before taking a job as a sales representative.
In 1955 he hit the headlines when he was convicted for printing a poster condemning the war in Indo-China and the writer Albert Camus publicly came to his defence.
In 1946 he started to work with Louis Louvet on the anti-militarist weekly publication, "Ce qu'il faut dire" ("What needs to be said") [fr].
In 1956, together with Maurice Joyeux, he joined the editorial committee of Le Monde libertaire, the Federation's (by now monthly) magazine.
[14] In June 1957, at their congress in Nantes, Laisant was appointed Secretary General of the Anarchist Federation, a post he would continue to hold till 1975.
With various other groups out of sympathy with this trend, he launched a new edition of Le Libertaire, publication of which had lapsed a few years earlier.