18 Facts About Bernard Charbonneau

Bernard Charbonneau was a French writer who wrote about twenty books and numerous articles, published in La Gueule Ouverte, Foi et Vie, La Republique des Pyrenees.

Bernard Charbonneau shared many of the personalist views of his friend of sixty years Jacques Ellul regarding technological progress, which both men regarded as a source of conformism and a threat to freedom.

Bernard Charbonneau obtained a baccalaureat in French literature and attended the University of Bordeaux to study history and geography.

Bernard Charbonneau embarked on a career of teaching at the age of twenty-four and obtained his teaching certificate in the following year.

Bernard Charbonneau accepted a teaching position in a higher education establishment in Lescar, near Pau, in the Pre-Pyrenees where he worked until his retirement.

Bernard Charbonneau enjoyed the proximity to nature and lived a spartan life near the Gaves de Pau then Oloron.

Bernard Charbonneau died in 1996 of liver cancer in the hospital of Saint Palais.

Bernard Charbonneau is buried on his property in "Le Boucau" in Saint-Pe-de-Leren.

In 2006, the personal archives of Bernard Charbonneau were transferred to the library of the Institut d'etudes politiques de Bordeaux.

Bernard Charbonneau started various discussion groups, some with Jacques Ellul who was his friend for his entire life, with the aim of talking and thinking about the changes resulting from scientific and technical progress.

If, unlike Ellul's, Bernard Charbonneau's work was not fully known to the public at the time, Ellul knew exactly how much he owed to Bernard Charbonneau.

Bernard Charbonneau was careful about not confining his group in pure theories but making it experience personalism in practice.

Bernard Charbonneau took his friends in long hikes in Galicia, the Canary Islands, in the Spanish Pyrenees as well as in the Aspe valley and in Saint-Pe-de-Leren.

Between 1940 and 1947, Bernard Charbonneau designed the structure of his work and wrote a voluminous book, entitled Par la force des choses, whose content announced the twenty or so books that would follow.

Bernard Charbonneau noted the problems resulting from ever more technocratic social, political and ecological spheres, from State propaganda and mass communication, from the move from fine art to entertainment and consumerism and from the liquidation of traditional farming, among other factors.

Bernard Charbonneau was not in a position to communicate his thoughts as a whole and therefore tried to expose it in details in separate books.

Bernard Charbonneau resumed the analysis of the industrial society that he had started before the war with a book named Pan se meurt but , failed to find an editor.

Bernard Charbonneau has published a large number of articles, most notably in La Gueule ouverte, La Republique des Pyrenees and Combat Nature.