According to Dalil Boubakeur, interviewed by Abd al-Haqq Guiderdoni in a 2004 documentary on Guénon, "General de Gaulle was a personal admirer of Guénonian thought."
This is the first I've heard of it, but Boubakeur is not the sort of person to make baseless claims. De Gaulle certainly knew, and by all accounts valued, Henri Hartung, who was a Traditionalist and might have introduced him to Guénon.
Boubakeur is the rector of the Grand Mosque of Paris, and in 2003 was elected president of the Conseil français du culte musulman, the body created by the French state to represent France's Muslims. His re-election to this post in 2005 was controversial, and according to some he now has more supporters in the French government than among the Muslims he is meant to represent. Even so, on the basis of the size of France's Muslim population (something like 6 million), Boubakeur remains technically the leading Muslim in the European Union.
In Guiderdoni's documentary, Boubakeur (b 1940) describes himself as a "disciple" of Guénon, and then corrects himself "because he [Guénon] did not like the word 'disciple.'" He remembers long discussions with Michel Valsan (d 1974), the former disciple of Frithjof Schuon who established an independent and orthodox Alawiyya in Paris, and with other French Traditionalists of the period.
Not as remarkable as de Gaulle, perhaps, but still remarkable.
This is the first I've heard of it, but Boubakeur is not the sort of person to make baseless claims. De Gaulle certainly knew, and by all accounts valued, Henri Hartung, who was a Traditionalist and might have introduced him to Guénon.
Boubakeur is the rector of the Grand Mosque of Paris, and in 2003 was elected president of the Conseil français du culte musulman, the body created by the French state to represent France's Muslims. His re-election to this post in 2005 was controversial, and according to some he now has more supporters in the French government than among the Muslims he is meant to represent. Even so, on the basis of the size of France's Muslim population (something like 6 million), Boubakeur remains technically the leading Muslim in the European Union.In Guiderdoni's documentary, Boubakeur (b 1940) describes himself as a "disciple" of Guénon, and then corrects himself "because he [Guénon] did not like the word 'disciple.'" He remembers long discussions with Michel Valsan (d 1974), the former disciple of Frithjof Schuon who established an independent and orthodox Alawiyya in Paris, and with other French Traditionalists of the period.
Not as remarkable as de Gaulle, perhaps, but still remarkable.
3 comments:
See later post (December 18, 2007),
General de Gaulle not a Traditionalist
Another short audio clip of Michel Valsan:
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xppkaj_video-michel-valsan_creation
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