Immediately, the German authorities imposed a fusion between Marcel Déat's RNP and the far-rightSocial Revolutionary Movement (MSR) of Eugène Deloncle, an inheritor of the Cagoule terrorist group. The first committee of direction of the RNP-MSR was composed of two RNP members and three MSR members: Marcel Déat, Jean Fontenoy, Jean Van Ormelingen (alias Jean Vanor), Eugène Deloncle and Jean Goy.
However, the fusion between the RNP and the MSR was a failure, in part because Déat's RNP recruited mainly among former members of the French Left while the MSR was from the beginning located on the far-right of the political spectrum. The MSR conserved de facto its autonomy inside the RNP and was mainly charged of forming the RNP's security service. After the assassination attempt of Paul Collette against Pierre Laval, Marshal Philippe Pétain's Prime Minister and Marcel Déat on 27 August 1941, the latter accused the MSR of having attempted to eliminate him. Thereafter, the MSR was excluded from the RNP in October 1941, leading to the reorganization of the RNP (and exclusion of elements close to the MSR) until the first months of 1942.
On a tactic level, the RNP supported Pierre Laval and criticized the "Vichy reactionaries" and the PPF. Marcel Déat maintained close links with the German ambassador in Paris, Otto Abetz, whilst Doriot turned himself towards the SS. After Laval's return to government in April 1942 and the Nazi occupation of the Southern Zone in November 1942, Déat focused all his efforts on creating a single party of the Collaboration which would permit him to impose himself as its sole leader. In November 1942, the leaders of the RNP, Déat and Georges Albertini, met with MSR leaders such as Georges Soulès. Following this meeting, the RNP created the National Revolutionary Front (Front révolutionnaire national, FRN) which gathered the main collaborationist parties, apart from Doriot's PPF. The FRN thus included the RNP-Labour Social Front, the MSR, the Parti franciste, the Groupe Collaboration, the Jeunes de l'Europe nouvelle and the Comité d’action antibolchévique [fr] (Anti-Bolshevik Action Committee). Déat furthermore managed to gain to his side the secretary of the PPF, Jean Fossati, and named to the head of the FRN Henri Barbé, issued from the PPF. However, the FRN finally was a failure.
In March 1944, Déat was named Minister of Labour and of National Solidarity and took as assistants the RNP leaders (Georges Albertini, Georges Dumoulin, Ludovic Zoretti and Gabriel Lafaye) From then on, he focused more on his ministry tasks than on the organization of the RNP.
On 17 August 1944, Déat took refuge in Nazi Germany almost alone. In charge of the youth organisation of the RNP, Roland Gaucher would also accompany Pétain into exile in the Sigmaringen enclave.
Organisation of the RNP following October 1941
The RNP had at maximum 30,000 members.[4] According to the historian Robert Soucy, it had only 2,638 party members, of whom only 12.8 percent were industrial workers.[5]
Roland Gaucher (1919–2007), in charge of the RNP's youth organisation[8] and of the RNP Parisian section from May to November 1943[9] as well as future founder of the National Front in 1972
