Maxime Blocq-Mascart (17 November 1894 – 14 July 1965) was a French banker, economist and lobbyist who became a leader of the French Resistance during World War II (1939–45). He had antisemitic sympathies. He headed the conservative Organisation civile et militaire (OCM) in the later part of the war. After the war he was involved in various organizations to assist resistance members and families who had been disrupted by deportations. He supported eugenic approaches to revive the falling birthrate. He was a Conseller d'Etat from 1951 to 1962.
Early years
Maxime Blocq-Mascart was born in Paris on 17 November 1894 to an old banking family from Lorraine. He would himself become a banker. He was orphaned when a child, and was adopted by his uncle, a marine officer. During World War I (1914–18) he joined the army on 2 September 1914 and was assigned to the 10th engineering regiment. On 18 March 1915 he was transferred to the 13th artillery regiment as a sergeant. In 1916 he was transferred to the 1st aviation group in Dijon, and in August 1917 graduated as a military pilot from the Avord school and was assigned to the 231 squadron. He was discharged in September 1919.
Inter-war period
Blocq-Mascart returned to Paris and studied at the Ecole libre des sciences politiques. He worked in various banks and industrial companies, worked for the Paris Chamber of Commerce and then was head economist for a Paris-based industrial group. He was both economic consultant and lobbyist. At the start of World War II (1939–45) he was also general secretary of the Europe nouvelle (New Europe) review and vice-president of the Confédération des Travailleurs Intellectuels (CTI, Confederation of Intellectual Workers). Blocq-Mascart was a founder of the Service Social des Travailleurs Intellectuels.
World War II
On 30 October 1939 Blocq-Mascart was assigned to the Mareil-sur-Mauldre chemical works. After the fall of France he was discharged in August 1940. He returned to Paris and formed a resistance unit with his friends from the CTI. In December 1940 this unit merged with the Mouvement des classes moyennes. The latter group was headed by the industrialist Jacques Arthuys and the professional officers Colonels Alfred Heurtaux and Alfred Touny. In the spring of 1941 the movement became the Organisation civile et militaire (OCM). The OCM was a group of anti-Vichy officers and professionals, particularly strong in Paris and the northern industrial regions. Arthuys led the movement and was assisted by Roger Souchère as Chief of Staff, Jean Mayer in charge of the first and third Bureaus, Touny for the 2nd Bureau, and Blocq-Mascart for Civil matters. The OCM drew its recruits from senior industrialists, civil servants and professionals. The first priorities were collection of intelligence and organization of fighting units. The group also published Cahiers that discussed the post-war economy and politics, which gave it the reputation of being elitist and technocratic.
Blocq-Mascart was made head of the OCM civil office and a member of the OCM executive. He supported giving the OCM a political program and assisted with a project for constitutional and administrative reform that recommended a presidential system. Blocq-Mascart and Pierre Lefaucheux developed the OCM doctrine and program, and presumably expressed the view of many businessmen in their constitution project and in their studies in the Cahiers de l'OCM, although these views may not have been shared by all members. In 1941 Blocq-Mascart made contact with Jean Cavaillès of Libération-Nord and with the clandestine Communist Party. Arthuys and Heurtaux were arrested at the end of 1941, and Blocq-Mascart and Touny took over leadership of the OCM. The OCM had several thousand members by 1942.
In 1942 Blocq-Mascart published a 50-page discussion of the "problem of minorities" in the OCM Cahiers. In it he traced the historical roots of antisemitism and its development in prewar in France, taking a position that could be taken as justification for the view. He identified the Jews as a group that caused "ongoing controversies". He concluded that members of national minorities or non-Christian background should be banned from various occupations and places of residence unless they could prove they had been assimilated for several generations. He did not mention recent legislation against the Jews by the Vichy or Nazi regimes. Although some Resistance leaders denounced the article, it reflected the views of most French people at the time.