Plausibility Check: French neo-fascist movement in late 1960s/early 70s

Chris Oakley

Chris Oakley

Banned
Were there any circumstances under which the political climate in France during the late 1960s and early 1970s could have spawned a French neo-fascist movement similiar to the American Nazi Party that sprang up in the United States just as Vietnam was starting to heat up?
 
black angel

black angel

Chris Oakley said:
Oh yeah, I forgot Monsieur Le Pen. :eek: :D Oops.
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how could you forget a lovable face like that

jean-marie-le-pen.jpg
 

abc123

Banned
Chris Oakley said:
Were there any circumstances under which the political climate in France during the late 1960s and early 1970s could have spawned a French neo-fascist movement similiar to the American Nazi Party that sprang up in the United States just as Vietnam was starting to heat up?
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You are aware that Nazi Germany did attack and occupied France in WW2?:confused:
That a man who led a fight against Germans ( CDG ) was then a president of France?
 

Brian Roastbeef

Not to pile on, but it isn't like you were asking much in the first place...

Rockwell never released specific ANP membership figures, but contemporary newspaper accounts seldom estimated more than one hundred active members in the party. Most newspapers agreed with a British assessment when Rockwell died that the American Nazi Party "has no measurable political voice in the United States." Rockwell's following in New Hampshire was so small that he could not obtain a hundred signatures to qualify for a place on the 1964 New Hampshire presidential primary ballot.
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So, can we find a hundred or so in France willing to half-ass support somebody even crazier than Le Pen? Yeah, probably...
 
Alex Richards

Alex Richards

Donor
Brian Roastbeef said:
Not to pile on, but it isn't like you were asking much in the first place...



So, can we find a hundred or so in France willing to half-ass support somebody even crazier than Le Pen? Yeah, probably...
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Heck, take into account the population difference meaning that for a similar percentage of the population you need to divide that by five, and a couple of dozen nutters meeting in a bar every week to heil Hitler would probably be enough.
 

Ar Skoul

Well, as a French resident, I do not find the hypothesis so laughable. To begin with Le Pen father did not rise before the eighties. During the early seventies he was a non-entity.

The problem is that the seventies is either too late or too early. The very moment De Gaule got into power, the far right was essentially finished for a generation.

The fifties were another matter entirely. There was a strong populist movement led by Pierre Poujade (with Le Pen as MP:eek:) and a military only too willing to stage a coup over the Algerian war. In fact, they began one in OTL but De Gaule highjacked the whole thing to everybody's relief.

Remove De Gaule - say he has a heart attack in 1955 - and you could have a far right movement led by Poujade with Le Pen eventually a major figure. Alternatively, Operation Resurection could proceed as planned and France would end up with a military dictatorship led by Massu and Sallan (or even, god help us, Bigeard) and supported by radicalized Algerian settlers.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organisation_de_l%27arm%C3%A9e_secr%C3%A8te


Such a regime could have survived well into the seventies.

As for real nazis with Swastikas... such a party would be illegal.
 

Archibald

Banned
Simon said:
Well he probably just walked too near a banlieue and the wind blew some funny smoke into him. At least that would probably be his explanation. ;)
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No, no, this is the ordinary day Le Pen. And his daughter (and successor, long live nepotism !) Marine is no better - she looks like a smiling skull.
 

Atlantic Friend

Chris Oakley said:
Were there any circumstances under which the political climate in France during the late 1960s and early 1970s could have spawned a French neo-fascist movement similiar to the American Nazi Party that sprang up in the United States just as Vietnam was starting to heat up?
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Such movements did exist back then - at any given time in any given country, you probably have men leaning towards Fascism - so it doesn't require a stretch of imagination to have French Fascists in the 1960s/1970s, be them Vichy/Action Française nostalgics, or neo-Fascists thinking life in terms of organizational charts and cold numbers.

The National Front sprang into existence by managing to lump them under a single label, and to capitalize on everyday dissatisfaction (the young make too much noise, things were better when I was a kid, there are too many darkies and malarkies around, etc)
 

Arachnid

I think people are confusing the difference between the Authoritarian Right, which there was very easy to find in France in the 60's/70's, just walk into an officers mess and out and out Fascists.
A Franco style movement which combined the Army, the Catholic Church, militant anti-Communism, anti-Americanism, "traditional" values, and rural Conservatism plus a big disdain for democracy is very easy, in fact its OTL, just look up some of de Gaulle followers pre-withdrawal from Algeria and Sallan moronic plotters.
French Hitler admirers is a no-no.
 
Kome

Kome

Chris Oakley said:
similiar to the American Nazi Party that sprang up in the United States just as Vietnam was starting to heat up?
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Well if you want a parallel, when France's Vietnam was heating up....

Wait that didnt come out right....

When France's OTHER Vietnam (Algeria) was heating up, they got the OAS which might be considered Fascist by some. Or just Authoritarian Conservative by others. Depends on you POV.

Of course its a bit too early for the timeframe your looking for. Just thought they warranted a mention.
 
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Rickshaw

GTAmario said:
Whenr the memories of Nazi occupation are fresh? Hell no.
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You appear to have forgotten that many, perhaps even most French people supported the Vichy regime during WWII and it was basically a Fascist one. Don't fall into the romantic ideal that all Frenchmen resisted the Germans, there were a very significant number of willing collaborators.

Today it seems there are more who have claimed membership of the Resistance than there actually were members of that organisation.
 

GTAmario

Banned
No, but not all french were collaborators either. Most didn't like les Boches but didn't actively resist them either.
 
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