Françoise Dior
Françoise Dior | |
|---|---|
| Born | Template:Birth date France |
| Died | January 20, 1993 (aged 60) Neuilly-sur-Seine, France |
| Occupation | Socialite |
| Known for | Financial backing of neo-Nazi underground movements |
Marie Françoise Suzanne Dior (7 April 1932 – 20 January 1993) was a French socialite known for her financial backing of neo-Nazi underground movements. She was the niece of renowned fashion designer Christian Dior and Resistance member Catherine Dior, who publicly severed ties following Françoise's 1963 marriage to British neo-Nazi activist Colin Jordan. Additionally, she maintained a close association with Savitri Devi.
Early life and family
Born on 7 April 1932 to Madeline Leblanc and Raymond Dior, a leftist journalist and sibling to Christian and Catherine Dior. Raymond, who worked within the family enterprise in Paris, held sympathies toward the Communist International, much to the displeasure of his father, industrialist Maurice Dior. He contributed to the satirical publication Le Crapouillot and propagated a conspiracy theory attributing societal issues to 200 French industrial and financial families. Raymond was bisexual; some researchers speculate that Françoise’s biological father might have been Valentin de Balla, a Hungarian aristocrat.
Dior’s fascination with Nazism originated during the German occupation of France. Historian Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke notes her fondness for being complimented as "What a beautiful little Aryan girl" by an SS soldier in Paris. Initially a devoted royalist, she studied pre-Revolutionary France and came to interpret the French Revolution as a façade orchestrated by a global elite conspiracy designed to undermine the nation.
On 27 April 1955, Dior wed Count Robert-Henri de Caumont-la-Force, descended from Monaco's House of Grimaldi via Prince Honoré III; the couple had one daughter.
World Union of National Socialists
After growing disillusioned with traditional aristocracy and following a divorce in 1960, Dior engaged with British neo-Nazi circles after attending a Colin Jordan rally in 1962. She regularly visited the London base of Jordan’s National Socialist Movement (NSM) and developed a close relationship with Savitri Devi.
Leveraging her wealth and network, Dior facilitated the creation of the French branch of the World Union of National Socialists (WUNS), an Anglo-American neo-Nazi organization established by Jordan and George Lincoln Rockwell in 1962. In France, she led WUNS nationally and recruited former Waffen SS officer Claude Jeanne, who founded the West European Federation (FOE) in 1963—a WUNS affiliate covering France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Spain’s Basque region, and Romandy. Recruitment among ex-high-ranking Nazis and elites remained minimal; by its police-led disbandment in 1964, FOE comprised only 42 largely peripheral members.
Marriage to Colin Jordan
While Jordan was incarcerated in 1962 for paramilitary offenses, Dior briefly became engaged to NSM member John Tyndall in June 1963, which contributed to internal divisions within NSM. Upon Jordan’s release, she married him in October 1963. Their civil ceremony took place in Coventry amid protests, followed by a symbolic wedding at NSM headquarters featuring Nazi rituals that attracted significant media attention. Despite family objections—her aunt Catherine Dior condemned the publicity as harmful—Françoise openly affirmed her allegiance to Nazi ideology.
The marriage deteriorated rapidly; within three months they separated amid widespread media coverage. Dior criticized Jordan’s leadership capabilities but later reconciled when she acknowledged his skill in managing the faction-prone NSM.
Arrests
Dior maintained influence within London’s NSM. On 31 July 1965, she was implicated in an arson attack carried out by six NSM members targeting synagogues on Ilford and Lea Bridge Road. By that year, she also served as WUNS’s official representative in France. On 4 June 1965, she was sentenced in absentia to four months imprisonment for distributing neo-Nazi leaflets at the British embassy in Paris. Subsequently returning to France, she was arrested on 4 October 1966 in Nice related to this incident.
Released in February 1967, Dior eloped with Terence Cooper—whom she met through NSM—to Jersey. They later moved to Normandy before resurfacing in summer 1967 at a council house in Dagenham rented by Cooper’s family. Both had been expelled from NSM by this time. Charged with inciting NSM members to commit synagogue arsons, Dior received an eighteen-month sentence in January 1968 at Holloway Prison, where she earned the nickname "Nazi Nell." Jordan divorced her in October 1967 citing adultery with Cooper.
In 1969, Dior reached out to French neo-Nazi Mark Fredriksen and FANE to establish Front Uni Antisioniste ('Anti-Zionist United Front'), an antisemitic organization. A meeting on 6 February 1969 involving Dior, Fredriksen, Henry Coston, and Pierre Sidos sought to coordinate efforts against "Jewish influence and Zionist propaganda," but the initiative never came to fruition. In October 1970, Dior hosted Savitri Devi at her Normandy residence; Devi stayed for nine months working on her memoirs before returning to New Delhi in August 1971.
Later life and death
From August 1970 until July 1980, Dior lived with Cooper in Ducey, Normandy before their relationship ended. By the early 1980s, after an unsuccessful investment in a Paris nightclub led to financial difficulties, she sold her home in 1982.
She aligned herself with the mainstream right-wing Rally for the Republic (R.P.R.) and married Count Hubert de Mirleau in 1983. De Mirleau—affiliated with French ethnonationalist think tank GRECE and descending from an old noble lineage—joined the far-right Front National party in 1985.
Dior reportedly aided British fascist Martin Webster’s short-lived group Our Nation following his expulsion from the UK National Front in December 1983 by covering part of his legal fees.
She passed away from lung cancer on 20 January 1993 at Neuilly-sur-Seine's American Hospital at age sixty.
In his memoir Death by Dior (2013), Terry Cooper—her partner for thirteen years—alleged that Françoise engaged in incestuous relations with her daughter Christiane, who died by suicide in 1978. Cooper attributed Christiane’s death to psychological manipulation inflicted by Dior that led to her suicide.