I met him forty-five years ago, when, together with four other comrades, we settled in Paris to escape political repression in Italy.
At that time, we had very few international contacts. It was thanks to Gilbert, who had lived in Italy for a long time, that a few months earlier we met Jacques, Philippe, and Olivier: very young activists of the MNR (with no connection to the acronym later adopted by Mégret).
He was the leader of this movement, which would later become Trosième Voie.
Some of its activists welcomed us and offered their help. I first met him at the Librairie Française, then in a political office located near the Liège metro station, which at the time opened only during limited hours.
Behind his desk, in the way he received people and in his bearing, he vaguely recalled Mussolini at the “Covo” on Via Cernobbio in Milan.
For that matter, Jean-Gilles Malliarakis always profoundly admired Mussolini.
Understanding was not immediate, because he was reserved by nature and did not become familiar at first contact. Yet he did not hesitate to finance three issues of Terza Posizione, which we printed in Paris and then distributed in Italy.
Our political orientations—setting aside the specificities of our respective national contexts—were very close: for Europe, outside the two blocs, on a Third Way (or Third Position).
Every morning, he recorded a brief political bulletin on the bookstore’s—and the movement’s—answering machine, which invariably ended with these words: “Europe will rise from its grave!”
Then I left Paris. In 1987 or 1988, he launched one of the first attempts at European political coordination: the Group of 12 March, which, he recently explained to me, owes its name not to any historical reference but simply to the date of its first meeting. I participated in it.
Through ideological and personal affinity, I remained very close to several members of Trosième Voie (some already activists in MNR times, like Daniel Gazzola).
I had lost track of Jean-Gilles until I found him again when he was hosting a program on Radio Courtoisie; that was, I believe, around 2008.
Yet I had never stopped following his path: always passionate, wholehearted, dedicating himself body and soul.
He fought economic-social and trade-union battles, tenaciously pursuing a corporatist line. He also devoted himself to studying and writing historical works, meant to preserve an idea, to protect our society not only from itself but also from its external enemies.
I must admit that he saw farther than I did. As early as 2008, while I still believed in the good faith of the Russians, he maintained that they were working against us. It took me at least seven more years to understand that he was right.
Another subject for which fools unjustly mocked him or regarded him with condescension: his constant, thoroughly documented warning about the communist danger. It has not disappeared at all: it has simply changed form and has even conquered minds and consciences among “nationalists.”
I do not know whether he managed to complete his book on China, which he considered an even greater danger; but, as the consistent, wholehearted, passionate activist he always was, he told me a year ago that he hoped to see Europe reach an agreement with the Chinese so as not to submit to American blackmail.
In recent years, we saw each other regularly. He often came to speak—or simply to listen—at the dinners organized by the Friends of Daniel Gazzola, which we created after his sudden death in 2019.
Intelligent, cultivated, courageous both physically and morally, tenacious and full of irony, this European with a capital “E,” both Greek and French, a lover of Italy (he read perfectly and spoke Dante’s language very respectably, even reciting speeches of the Duce), Mediterranean in spirit yet sober, was extremely pleasant company.
Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, we had developed the habit of drinking, to the health of our detractors, a Coca-Cola. You all remember, I suppose, the frenzy that broke out then, when many believed the Kremlin’s—short-lived—propaganda claiming to wage war on the “Great American Satan.”
It was not so, it could not be so: the reality was very different.
Obviously, anyone who did not side with the Russians was supposedly paid by the CIA… therefore we were, too.
Time is an honest man, and it mocks those who lose their bearings. Today—exactly as we said from the start—the Russians are openly on the side of the Americans. Perhaps Coca-Cola, if they had a sense of irony, is what the others should start drinking. Among them, incidentally, I would like to know of even one, just one, who, like me, was the target of defamatory slander by American agents. But that would be asking too much.
We laughed heartily about it. Stupidity and slander always go hand in hand, and, in the end, being their target is almost a positive sign; taking offense at it is a lack of spirit.
We often called each other. He always asked for news of “Giorgia,” passionately admiring the work carried out these past three years by the Italian Prime Minister. A subscriber to several Italian newspapers, a fine connoisseur of Italy and of Italian neofascism—he always took pride in his fight for the liberation of Giorgio Freda, “the imprisoned publisher”—unlike the French nationalist public, ignorant of what is happening in Italy and of the work of this great woman, he knew what he was talking about. And that too—knowing what one is talking about—has become a rare quality, one that Jean-Gilles never lacked.
Our last call, 12 minutes and 31 seconds long (Big Brother in the smartphone…), dates to six days before his heart surgery, which did not seem to present any particular complications.
“The theme of Sparta—the subject of our ‘table colloquium’ next Monday in Paris—is particularly dear to me. I would like to speak, if I am not dead.”
It must have been a joke meant to ease the tension. And yet…
Now Jean-Gilles too has gone to stand guard among the luzeros, among the celestial lights; and it is from up there—or from deep within us—that he will continue to bless us with that touch of irony with which he always adorned and lightened his tenacity, his philosophy, his intelligence, and his knowledge, always at the service of a common cause, but without promiscuity, with both the distance and the commitment of one who seeks fusion and not confusion.
This great Greek, this Frenchman, this European, this comrade and friend will not be missed: he cannot be missing, for he remains present.