Émile Hugonnard

French carpenter-cabinetmaker and anarchist militant.

 

Émile Hugonnard was born in Lyon on 7 August 1859, the son of Claudine Berlioz and Jean-Baptiste Hugonnard.

He worked as a carpenter, cabinetmaker, and firefighter, and also became an anarchist. At the time, Hugonnard lived at 110 rue Sully in Lyon. In the early 1880s, he was a member of the Revolutionary Federation of the East, which brought together most of the region's anarchists, along with his two sisters, Louise and Marie Hugonnard.

On 15 October 1881, he was reported as attending a private meeting of the Federation held at the Salle de l’Élisée in the Guillotière district. The hall was 'decorated with twelve red flags and one black flag with white fringes'. This meeting, which he attended alongside Bordat, Henri Boriasse, and Joseph Bernard, was dedicated to the Tunisian question and drew approximately 350 people.

In 1882, during the Montceau-les-Mines troubles and following the Assommoir bombing, Hugonnard was arrested and imprisoned along with Gleizal, Pinoy, Giraudon, and twenty-five other companions.During the Trial of the 66, he was accused of belonging to the International, which had allegedly not disappeared and was then prohibited by the Dufaure Law of 1872.

In January 1883, when the court reached its decision regarding him, he was placed in the least responsible category of all those convicted.The judge relied specifically on the fact that he had represented the Lyon Revolutionary Federation at an anarchist conference held in Villefranche-sur-Saône, alongside companion Jean Baguet (known as Bayet).According to the authorities, he had been in the company of Émile Gautier, who was arrested before his eyes at the Vaise train station, and Hugonnard reportedly decided to take his place. His initial sentence was six months in prison, a fifty-franc fine, and five years' loss of civic rights.

Hugonnard was subsequently part of the appeal heard in March 1883 for the Trial of the 66.He denied having been a member of the Federation in question, but the judge maintained that his membership was proven by his involvement in certain titles of the first period of the Lyon anarchist press, such as Le Droit social, in which he was a shareholder. His sentence was therefore upheld.

The anarchist then moved to Switzerland with his family and settled in Geneva, where he worked as a carpenter at 12 rue des Gares. Around late 1883, he was reported as a member of a group called Les Justiciers, which included other co-defendants from the Trial of the 66, such as Philippe Sanlaville.

Having returned to Lyon in 1887 and settled at 7 rue Fournet, Hugonnard was a member of the Groupe de la Guillotière et des Brotteaux, which historian Rolf Dupuy describes as 'the most important of the Lyon anarchist groups created in early 1890'. In 1890, he also participated in the Geneva Congress led by several regional groups that established an International Federation of Proletarian Demands. Companion Octave Jahn was another notable delegate at this congress.

At the beginning of the Ère des attentats (1892–1894), Hugonnard was 'preventively arrested' before 1 May 1892. His sister Louise, who was also accused of criminal association against persons and property, was left free. He was released about a week later.

He died on 9 November 1903 in Lyon.