Émile Armand

1872-1963

Émile Armand , pseudonym of Ernest-Lucien Juin Armand, was an influential French individualist anarchist at the beginning of the 20th century and also a dedicated free love/polyamory, intentional community, and pacifist/antimilitarist writer, propagandist and activist. He wrote for and edited the anarchist publications L'Ère nouvelle (1901–1911), L'Anarchie, L'En-Dehors (1922–1939) and L'Unique (1945–1953).

Armand was born in Paris on 26 March 1872. He was a son of a participant of the Paris Commune. At first, he embraced Christianity through the Salvation Army then became an atheist. Around 1895–1896, Armand discovered anarchism through coming into contact with the magazine Les Temps nouveaux which was edited by Jean Grave. Later, he wrote articles under the pseudonyms of Junius and in the magazine Le Libertaire of Sébastien Faure. Important influences in his writing were Leo Tolstoy, Benjamin Tucker, Walt Whitman and Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Armand later collaborated in other anarchist and pacifist journals such as La Misère, L'Universel and Le Cri de révolte. In 1901, he established with Marie Kugel (his companion until 1906) the journal L'Ère nouvelle, which initially adhered to Christian anarchism, later embraced anarcho-communism and in 1911 finally adhered to individualist anarchism. He founded Ligue antimilitariste in 1902 with Albert Libertad and George Mathias Paraf-Javal, another intransigent individualist. These principles he sought to apply within the social experimental spaces, events and communes that anarchist groups in the France of the time called milieux libres.

Source: Wikipedia.org