Louis Pauwels

French journalist

Louis Pauwels (povɛls; 2 August 1920 – 28 January 1997) was a French journalist and writer. Born in Paris, France, he wrote in many monthly literary French magazines as early as 1946 (including Esprit and Variété) until the 1950s. He participated in the foundation of Travail et Culture (Work and Culture) in 1946 (intended to spread culture to the masses, and of which he was the secretary). In 1948, he joined the work groups of G. I. Gurdjieff for 15 months, until he became editor in chief of Combat in 1949 and editor of the newspaper Paris Presse. He directed (among others) the Bibliothèque Mondiale (Worldwide Library) (the precursor of "Livre de Poche" ["Pocket Books"]), Carrefour (Intersection), the monthly women's Marie Claire and the magazine Arts et Culture in 1952.

Louis Pauwels was a teacher at Athis Mons from 1939 to 1945. His degree, (licence de Lettres) was interrupted by the beginning of the Second World War. Pauwels met Jacques Bergier in 1954 while he was the literary director of Bibliothèque Mondiale (World Library). He wrote Le Matin des Magiciens (The Dawn of Magic or The Morning of the Magicians) in 1960, and in 1970 the interrupted continuation of "L'Homme Eternel" (The Eternal Man). Constantly with Bergier (as well as François Richaudeau), he founded the bi monthly magazine Planète in October 1961 (around 150 pages) that appeared until May 1968 (and would appear again that same year under the title le Nouveau Planète (the New Planet); 64 numbers in total between the two editions). Various studies were researched and published in a collection which the authors called "Encyclopédie Planète" (each volume containing around 250 pages, with around thirty volumes in all). The seventeen "Anthologies Planètes" dedicated to Jacques Sternberg grouped short texts by various authors on a given subject together. A great friend of Aimé Michel, the "Planète" was also dedicated to him. In the 1970s, he became friends with some members of GRECE. Pauwels wrote numerous articles for Le Journal du Dimanche (The Sunday Newspaper) from 1975 to 1976. In 1977, he directed the cultural services of Le Figaro, where he established the bases of the Le Figaro Magazine, which was launched in October 1978 as a weekly supplement to the newspaper Le Figaro. The intention of Robert Hersant was to create a counterweight to the influential Le Nouvel Observateur that he considered too left wing. Louis Pauwels was in charge of the new magazine. Louis Pauwels offered initially the position of chief editor to Alain de Benoist who declined it due to his editorial duties at Éléments and at the Éditions Copernic. Jean Claude Valla (politics and society) and Patrice de Plunkett (culture) thus became the first chief editors. Members of the GRECE including Alain de Benoist, Michel Marmin and Yves Chisten contributed to Le Figaro Magazine until the summer of 1979. After their departure, the tone of the magazine became more libertarian (on economics) while remaining socially conservative. Louis Pauwels remained at the head of the weekly until 1993. When students demonstrated against the Devaquet law on universities in 1986, Louis Pauwels penned his most famous editorial on the Mental AIDS that had hit French youth. He founded, with Gabriel Veraldi and Rémy Chauvin, la Fondation Marcel et Monique Odier de Psycho Physique in Geneva in 1992. Returning to his Catholic faith, he spoke against his past associated with Planète (Alain de Benoist thus dedicated his book Comment peut on être païen? (How Can One Be a Pagan?) to Pauwels in 1981 (ed. Albin Michel), a short while before his conversion in 1982 in Acapulco).