Jean-Baptiste Clément (31 May, 1836, Seine – 23 February, 1903, Paris) was a French chansonnier, journalist, socialist activist and communard. He is mostly known for his work Le Temps des cerises, which is strongly associated with the Paris Commune.
Clément was born in to the family of a wealthy miller.[1] He left his family as a teenager and became a metal worker. He soon began to become active in socialist circles as a journalist and became associated with prominent activists such as Jules Vallès. In 1867 he had to flee to Belgium, where he published Le Temps des cerises later on.[2] [3]
He returned to Paris and continued his activism against the Second French Empire which eventually got him arrested and imprisoned in the Sainte-Pélagie Prison. Clément was released after the Republican protests and abdication of Napoleon III. He became a member of the National Guard and participated in protests against the Government of National Defence.[4]
After the proclamation of the Paris Commune he was elected to the Commune Council and fought in the defense barricades during the semaine sanglante.
After the fall of the Commune he managed to flee Paris and through Belgium he settled in Britain for a short time. He was sentenced to death in absentia and during this period lived clandestinely with his family in Montfermeil. He returned to Paris of the general amnesty of 1880.[5]
Clément participated in the founding of the Revolutionary Socialist Workers' Party of Jean Allemane. He also a member of the Grand Orient de France.Jean-Baptiste Clément died on 23 February, 1903 in Paris aged 66.