His true name Jules Bazile. Republican under the empire, exile after the Commune. Won to the marxisme, he published the newspaper The Egalité after his return to France (1876).
He founded next the French Workers Party , the first organization to claim to be Marxist inn France. The P. O. F. will be the one of the principal groups composing the socialist unification of 1905 that results in the creation of the Socialist Party.
In the socialist movement of the end of the XIX° century, he fought the participation of the P.O.F. in coalition governments with the bourgeoisie. Nevertheless, he rallied to the Sacred union in 1914 and became Minister of State. He became, of course, very hostile to the Russian revolution.