Lecoin, Louis

(1881-1971)

   anarchist

   A militant anarcho-syndicalist, Louis Lecoin was born in Saint-Amand-Montrond, Cher. Secretary of the Anarchist Union (1912), he worked on Libertaire, an anarchist newspaper. Profoundly pacifist, he published, in 1916, the tract "imposons la paix," which caused him to be imprisoned. He was one of the principal leaders in the campaign to free the Italian-American anarchists Nicolo Sacco and Bartolomeo vanzetti and fought in defense of Domingo Durruti, Nestor Makhno and Camillo Berneri, also anarchists, who were threatened with extradition. in 1936, he founded the Committee for Free Spain and, in 1939, published the tract "Paix immédiate," for which he was again imprisoned. in 1962, after a 23-day hunger strike, he won a vote for the statute on conscientious objection, then dedicated himself to the struggle for peace. Lecoin wrote a memoir, Le Cours d'une vie (1965).