The Extreme Right in Interwar France: The Faisceau and the Croix de Feu.

Kennedy, Sean

The Extreme Right in Interwar France: The Faisceau and the Croix de Feu, by Samuel Kalman. Aldershot, Ashgate Publishing, 2008. x, 265 pp. $99.95 US (cloth).

In 1983 Zeev Sternhell sparked controversy when he argued in his influential book, Ni droite ni gauche, that the Vichy regime's infamous National Revolution had important long-term ideological roots in Third Republic France. His analysis was especially contentious because he characterized these ideological roots as fascist, asserted that they derived from a synthesis of leftist and rightist thought, and claimed that fascist ideas permeated French political culture by the 1930s. Samuel Kalman also explores the ideological antecedents of the National Revolution, but his work has a more specific focus and is more nuanced in its claims. Less concerned with assigning labels than with analyzing ideological differences within the far right, he provides a stimulating reconsideration of the doctrines of interwar French ultra-nationalism.

Kalman elucidates the doctrines of Georges Valois's Faisceau movement, which was active during the mid-to-late 1920s, as well as those of Francois de La Rocque's Croix de Feu and Parti Social Francais (PSF), which reached the peak of their influence a decade later. Rather than detailing the quotidian political manoeuvring of these groups, Kalman focuses upon their plans for reforming France's political system and economy along authoritarian lines, their views regarding the role of women, the family, and youth, and their attitudes towards Jews and foreigners. Whereas Sternhell emphasized the rise of an anti-democratic intellectual assault which culminated in the Vichy regime, Kalman stresses the friction between traditionalist Catholic impulses and technocratic, modernizing views within the right. These divisions, he concludes, prefigured the quarrels which took place between comparable factions within Marshal Philippe Petain's regime.

Of the two movements Kalman discusses, the Faisceau is less well-known. Founded in 1924 by Georges Valois, a dissident from the monarchist Action Francaise, the organization was short-lived and attracted at most 60,000 supporters. Nevertheless, Kalman shows, an analysis of its doctrine sheds light on the ideological complexities of the extreme right. Deeply affected by his experience in the First World War, Valois wanted to replace the decrepit Third Republic with a technocratic, modernizing state, and saw youth as a vigorous force for French renewal. Continuing in this activist, forward-looking vein, other Faisceau notables suggested that although women were first and foremost mothers, they should also have access to modern education and more career choices. Their desire to strengthen the French population also led Valois and some of his colleagues to endorse eugenics. Yet, a more "traditionalist" tendency also wielded considerable influence; its proponents believed the state should promote the cult of tradition, defined women's roles according to anti-modernist Catholic precepts, and promoted old-fashioned discipline and morals for France's youth. The two groups co-existed uneasily until Valois grew disillusioned and dissolved the movement in 1928. However, as Kalman notes, there were some convergences between the factions. For instance, the Faisceau helped to keep anti-immigrant sentiment and antisemitism alive at a rime when France was relatively tolerant of newcomers and its Jewish community.

The Croix de Feu and PSF were much larger than the Faisceau. The former had perhaps 500,000 members by the time it was dissolved by the Popular Front government in 1936, while the latter probably attracted twice as many adherents. There were also significant differences between the two movements' programs. In contrast to the Faisceau, the Croix de Feu/PSF explicitly rejected the fascist label, though it consistently attacked the Third Republic and desired a more authoritarian political system. La Rocque and his supporters also espoused pronatalism as opposed to eugenics, and their efforts to mobilize the young were far more impressive than those of the Faisceau. Yet, despite the premium La Rocque placed upon unity within the movement, there were, as with the Faisceau, significant debates over doctrine. In 1935, for example, La Rocque's conservative Catholic views on political and especially economic reform led him to clash with a group of young pro-modernizing technocrats who soon quit the movement. Kalman also differentiates between La Rocque's attitude toward Jews, which was exclusionary, but generally distinguished between the French-born and foreigners, and that of many Croix de Feu and PSF militants--notably those in Algeria--who did not make such distinctions and could be extremely belligerent. As with the Faisceau, the Croix de Feu/PSF's antisemitism was paralleled by hostility to foreigners; Kalman notes what while such views were generally on the rise during the 1930s, La Rocque and his followers nevertheless stood out in their promotion of xenophobia, anticipating the outlook of the Vichy regime.

One of the risks in writing a book on doctrine is that the analysis of programs can become detached from the social, cultural, and political context; Kalman addresses this challenge very successfully. Though the issue of how disputes over tactics, rather than programs, accentuated divisions within right-wing movements falls outside the scope of his book, he is careful to situate the Faisceau's and Croix de Feu/PSF's programs in relation to broader intellectual and political trends. In particular, he makes a strong case for the substantial continuities between the diverse visions emanating from these movements, and the ideological fissures which existed within Vichy. Thoroughly researched and gracefully written, this book makes a distinct and valuable contribution to the historiography of the French far right.

Sean Kennedy

University of New Brunswick