Joseph Déjacque was a French early anarcho-communist poet, philosopher and writer. He coined the term "libertarian" for himself in a political sense in a letter written in 1857, criticizing Pierre-Joseph Proudhon for his sexist views on women, his support of individual ownership of the product of labor and of a market economy. He also published an essay in 1858, titled "On 'Exchange'", in which he wrote that, "it is not the product of his or her labor that the worker has a right to, but to the satisfaction of their needs, whatever may be their nature."
Anarchism in France can trace its roots to thinker Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, who grew up during the Restoration and was the first self-described anarchist. French anarchists fought in the Spanish Civil War as volunteers in the International Brigades. According to journalist Brian Doherty, "The number of people who subscribed to the anarchist movement's many publications was in the tens of thousands in France alone."
Émile Pouget was a French anarcho-communist, who adopted tactics close to those of anarcho-syndicalism. He was vice-secretary of the General Confederation of Labour from 1901 to 1908.
Individualist anarchism in Europe proceeded from the roots laid by William Godwin and soon expanded and diversified through Europe, incorporating influences from individualist anarchism in the United States. Individualist anarchism is a tradition of thought within the anarchist movement that emphasize the individual and his or her will over external determinants such as groups, society, traditions, and ideological systems. While most American individualist anarchists advocate mutualism, a libertarian socialist form of market socialism, or a free-market socialist form of classical economics, European individualist anarchists are pluralists who advocate anarchism without adjectives and synthesis anarchism, ranging from anarcho-communist to mutualist economic types.
Anarcho-naturism, also referred to as anarchist naturism and naturist anarchism, appeared in the late 19th century as the union of anarchist and naturist philosophies. In many of the alternative communities established in Britain in the early 1900s, "nudism, anarchism, vegetarianism and free love were accepted as part of a politically radical way of life". In the 1920s, the inhabitants of the anarchist community at Whiteway, near Stroud in Gloucestershire, "shocked the conservative residents of the area with their shameless nudity". Mainly, it had importance within individualist anarchist circles in Spain, France, Portugal and Cuba.
Henri Zisly was a French individualist anarchist and naturist. He participated alongside Henri Beylie and Émile Gravelle in many journals such as La Nouvelle Humanité and La Vie Naturelle, which promoted anarchist-naturism.
Émile Gravelle (1855–1920) was a French individualist anarchist and naturist activist, writer and painter. He published the review L'État Naturel (1894–1898) and collaborated with Henri Zisly and Henri Beylie on La Nouvelle Humanité, Le Naturien (1898), Le Sauvage (1898–1899), L'Ordre Naturel (1905), and La Vie Naturelle (1907–1914). His ideas were important in individualist anarchist circles in France as well as Spain, where Federico Urales promoted the ideas of Gravelle and Zisly in La Revista Blanca (1898–1905).
Sophia Zaïkowska was a French writer and activist, individualist anarchist of Polish descent, nutritionist and early promoter of veganism.
Georges Louis François Yvetot was a French typographer, anarcho-syndicalist and anti-militarist. He was secretary general of the Fédération des Bourses de travail and deputy secretary general of the Confédération générale du travail in the period leading up to World War I (1914–18). He kept a low profile during the war, and in 1918 was dismissed from the CGT leadership. After the war he contributed to many anarchist journals. He died in poverty during World War II (1939–45).
The Association internationale antimilitariste was a pacifist association founded in Amsterdam in 1904 that was dedicated to fighting militarism. Although technically open to all political views, it was dominated by anarchists. The members agreed that the workers should revolt if war were declared, but disagreed on whether soldiers should desert. They were subjected to police surveillance and arrests. By 1908 the association had few remaining members.
Émile Janvion was a French teacher, an anarcho-syndicalist leader, a founder of the Confédération générale du travail (CGT) and a leader of the anti-militarist movement. He came to hold national syndicalist views that prefigured fascism. He was anti-Semitic, hostile to freemasonry, hostile to the republic and flirted with monarchism. However his main goal was the nationalization of the land and of the means of production.
René de Marmande was a French journalist and anarchist.
Amédée Dunois was a French lawyer, journalist and politician.
Victor Célestin Méric was the pseudonym of Henri Coudon, a French journalist and libertarian author. He contributed to various anarchist journals before World War I (1914–18). Despite being a pacifist, he served in the army during the war. Afterwards he joined the French Communist Party, but was expelled in 1923 for his pacifist convictions. He wrote a number of books, both fiction and non-fiction, and founded the Ligue internationale des combattants de la paix.
Maria Suceso Portales Casamar was an Extremaduran anarcho-feminist.
Maurice Laissant Began his career working for the French national railway company before taking a job as a sales representative. He became progressively more widely known as a militant anarchist individualist, free thinker and pacifist. He was a co-founder in 1953 of the newly regrouped Paris based Anarchist Federation.
Georges Vincey was a French metal worker and militant anarchist. In October 1954 he became the first administrator of the newly reinvented Monde libertaire, a monthly publication produced on behalf of the Paris based Anarchist Federation.
Le Libertaire is a Francophone anarchist newspaper established in New York City in June 1858 by the exiled anarchist Joseph Déjacque. It appeared at slightly irregular intervals until February 1861. The title reappeared in Algiers in 1892 and was then produced in Brussels between 1893 and 1894.
Georges Fontenis was a school teacher who worked in Tours. He is more widely remembered on account of his political involvement, especially during the 1950s and 1960s.
Anarchism spread into Belgium as Communards took refuge in Brussels with the fall of the Paris Commune. Most Belgian members in the First International joined the anarchist Jura Federation after the socialist schism. Belgian anarchists also organized the 1886 Walloon uprising, the Libertarian Communist Group, and several Bruxellois newspapers at the turn of the century. Apart from new publications, the movement dissipated through the internecine antimilitarism in the interwar period. Several groups emerged mid-century for social justice and anti-fascism.
