alternatehistory.com

Although the circumstances in which the French people found themselves following the end of the First World War made the demise of democracy a likely outcome it would be wrong to consider that the rise of the Pétainregime in France was somehow preordained. The takeover of France by reactionary forces was drawn from lingering resentments found at the beginning of the Third Republic but also the contemporary global crisis.



The Great Depression was a global crisis but it had arrived in Europe via Germany. German dependence on American investments and loans had seen the country dragged into economic freefall with the Wall Street Crash almost as quickly as the Americans themselves. The French, like the Americans, had maintained an adherence to Gold Standard but in their case it had allowed them to weather the storm. This was because they had manipulated their currency to stabilise their economy, leaving the Franc undervalued in a deflationary shock. Although this had caused problems for the French worker prior to the crash in terms of higher prices and lower wages than their American or German counterparts it had left the French economy far more robust than any other capitalist power. France became seen as a safe haven for capital and the lifting of exchange controls had made it so that by 1932 a third of the global gold supply was held by France.


This financial stability allowed the French government to pursue state spending to prop up industry in a time where austerity measures were being implemented in all capitalist economies. This strategy did not prevent an increase in unemployment and an economic downturn within France following the German Civil War but the French economy remained the healthiest in Europe for a time. The recovery of first the German and then the American economies would unsettle this and as her economic rivals remerged, French protectionism began to grind the economy to a halt. The depression would only truly catch up to France in the midst of other powers beginning to recover.

Unemployment skyrocketed in a way the successive had previously assured the French people they were insulated from, the spending used to keep industries afloat had now vanished and in its place were severe cuts to social programs. Disillusionment with the republic was nothing new with French public life and though the French people were now suffering in a way that was common throughout Europe, the drastic solutions being proposed had already had the groundwork laid for them by the preceding decades of turmoil. Whilst the political tensions were heightened by the depression spread across Europe, in France they had already been simmering for a long while.

The French Third Republic was not beloved by its people. It was a regime borne of a bourgeois revolution and a stifled proletarian one, both having played out with the end of the Franco-Prussian War. Its main legislative organ was an assembly that by the interwar years was evenly divided between centrist, conservative, liberal and socialist parties. This led to countless governments being formed over the twenties and early thirties, none lasting particularly long.

The character of these coalitions was somewhat consistent, tending to be made up of centrist and conservative figures. and although the rise and fall of successive governments, some only lasting a few days, set-up an almost permanent instability within the French legislature. France was still able to function for as long as the economy remained healthy enough to avoid popular discontent but with economic turmoil came threats from familiar opponents to the bourgeois democracy the republic was built upon.

This legislative strife had already led to increased militancy on the left but it was divided by the time the crisis point came. The two primary left-wing parties at this time were the social democratic French Section of the Workers International (SFIO) and the Comintern-aligned French Communist Party (PCF) with both being at odds with one another.

The SFIO had been the primary party of the trade unions and the working class since the beginning of the twentieth century with its own Marxist origins. These had been put aside in the face of the First World War in a similar way to their German counterparts in the name of a more patriotic approach that saw them abandoning the class struggle to collaborate with French parties across the political spectrum in the name of victory.

The war had dragged on with the SFIO becoming increasingly disenfranchised. The bloodshed and destruction left the party shaken whilst different coalitions throughout saw them increasingly lose influence. Even in victory there was widespread disgust at what the war had wrought on the French nation. Many were left jaded with the patriotic effort and looked towards the ongoing revolution in Russia as an example for the French proletariat to follow. Indeed this was the view amongst the vast majority of party members, when it came to a decision on whether or not to join Lenin’s new Communist International almost two thirds voted to do so. The party leadership disagreed and amidst violent clashes the French Communist Party came into being, taking much of the party membership with it alongside the SFIO paper, L'Humanité.

The enmity that arose from this split had only grown in the prevailing years of economic and political instability throughout France. Whilst it had initially seemed the PCF might go the way of many left-wing splinters it would become a political force throughout the twenties, gaining seats in the legislative assembly and presence within the trade unions, particularly the railways and the burgeoning aircraft industry. This success came largely at the expense of the SFIO, leaving the working class divided in France.

The PCF grew stronger but also underwent the process of the ‘Stalinisation’ far more seamlessly than their German counterparts, indeed they joined in the condemnation of Hitler and the KPD after the German split with the Comintern in 1930. A reappraisal of Hitler followed in the wake of the United Front’s victory in the German civil war and their subsequent rise to power but the KPD were still seen as having missed rather than gained an opportunity for the total overthrow of capitalism by the PCF leadership. Any such cooperation with the SFIO was dismissed and the feeling was mutual with factions within both parties being purged for advocating for a similar approach.

These elements would unite with other disparate leftist groups to form what would in time become a major force within the ‘Renaissance de l'espoir’ movement, the Popular Workers Party (PPT.) For the moment their relevance was minor, their influence being relegated to a handful of towns and a few suburbs with Paris. They would one day come to supplant the reactionary forces within France but at this moment it was the forces of reaction which in the ascendancy. With the left divided it was they who posed the true threat to the Third Republic.

Although the state of the French left was not dissimilar to that of Germany prior to 1930 the same could not be said for the forces of the right. The Third Republic had always been plagued by reactionaries who saw its inception as the defining moment of French decline. The nature of this varied widely and often hung on resentments based around major crises within the life of the republic, whether it was the Paris Commune, the republican secularisation campaigns against the Catholic church, or most infamously the Dreyfus Affair.

The Dreyfus Affair had been a scandal in which the French artillery officer Alfred Dreyfus had been convicted of spying for Germany. The evidence for Dreyfus’ conviction was weak however and the eventual reexamining of the case heightened divisions in France. Dreyfus’ Jewish background and the prejudice he had faced because of it won him sympathy in many liberal and left-wing circles, however it also gave rise to new antisemitic and reactionary forces across the society and increasingly within the French military. Dreyfus himself was eventually reconvicted but released upon his acceptance of his initial guilt, a messy compromise designed to settle the affair. Instead the divisions from the incident would only produce a lingering resentment.

The two primary movements within the French far-right were French Action (AF) who had arisen in reaction to the Dreyfus Affair. Predating the development of Italian fascism this group were embodied with the same beliefs that Mussolini would later impose on Italy; ultranationalism, militarism, and a fervent Catholicism which endured regardless of the Catholic Church officially proscribing the organisation. They were also monarchists, and though Mussolini would also support the monarchy in Italy, the AF saw a return of the monarchy as an instrument of national revival.

In these goals they were joined by the Patriot Youth (JP), a paramilitary league which framed itself as the continuation of the patriotic desire for revenge against Germany prior to the First World War and now saw themselves as patriotic defenders of the French people from any perceived threats. What they believed these to be were similar to the enemies of the AF and were willing to work alongside them in the joint aim of bringing down the republic’s parliamentary democracy. Both could rely on a broad range of support from sources which were not actively reactionary in their politics but willing to tolerate such movements both at home and abroad,

The strongest in number were the Cross of Fire (CF), another veterans league albeit one which at this point in time claimed to be non-political. All the same their tens of thousands of members were ready to join in something which could be framed as an anti-communist cause. Many French business leaders and industrialists maintained a similar perspective. In this they were joined by American and formerly German investors who missed the days of France being a financial safe haven. The Catholic church, who had been wary of the Third Republic’s existence ever since its inception, were willing to turn a blind eye. The Holy See had been actively at odds with France ever since the republican’s secularisation campaigns in the late nineteenth century.

However, not even the Pope could have called upon the same level of support as Philippe Pétain.

Marechal Pétain’s victory at Verdun in the First World War had made him a living legend and had granted him levels of popularity that few would-be dictators could dream of. In Petain the reactionary right had the leading figure that neither Hohenzollern nor von Schleicher were able to be. Though well into his seventies by 1934 he was happy to entertain notions that he would be the man to lead the nation towards the national rebirth his adherents on the right were calling for. In this the military were willing to follow him.

The Bastille Day celebrations of 1933 featured a parade of the French military through Paris as its highlight. The quintessentially republican holiday commemorated the storming of the Bastille fortress which signified the beginning of the French revolution. The military were sworn to protect the republic but they had long since grown wary of their democratic masters. The Dreyfus affair had alienated them from the French left and bred scepticism of the democracy they were supposed to uphold. Many officers of monarchist or religious backgrounds had found a home amongst the reactionary right. Many others were simply frustrated over the seeming inability of republican governments to deal with German rearmament whilst suppressing their own desires to professionalise the army. This fueled a feeling throughout much of the officer corps that the republic had to be dismantled for the good of France.


The reactionaries had the strength and cohesion needed in order to carry out their own vision for France but in Pétain they had the final, decisive, piece of the puzzle. Now all that was needed was a spark, one which a divided and disillusioned left could only react to when it came.



A fresh scandal would be the perfect opportunity.


~ John Penny, The Unpopular Front



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Sacré-Cœur, Paris, February 1934






The Sacred Heart basilica stood awkwardly over the capital, above it and beyond it. It had been built in opposition to a century of moral decline that had culminated in the dawning of the French Third Republic. It had stood in judgement of the French people ever since, a visual display of what the liberalism, socialism and secularism of the Third Republic had allowed to fester. It had stood over them in glory, offering an alternative. A path to renewed French strength through the one true faith.



The Third Republic was at last drawing to a close and Colonel Charles de Gaulle could think of no better site to announce it from. Marechal Pétain, the man all of France now looked to, had decided to call time upon it from this sacred site of all that was pure and holy in France.

He spoke now to an assembled crowd of tens of thousands.

A stage of sorts had been constructed in the hours beforehand, with a speaker system hooked up to allow the Marechal to project over the vast crowd gathered around the basilica. De Gaulle stood upon it with several other young officers, flanking the Marechal whilst doing their best to embody the military discipline France needed.


The Marechal had begun by addressing the French nation on the ill winds he had seen brewing at home and abroad. He spoke of how the time had come to dispense with the years of failure and intrigue that had darkened the post-war age. The time had come to act.


It had started with a scandal.


The affair was tempestuous by any measure. The defrauding of Parisian pawn shops via worthless financial bonds had been rather unique in defrauding both the richest and poorest in Parisian society.

The culprit behind the fraud, Serge Alexandrovich Stavisky had pulled off large cons before but had eventually found himself out of his depth with his one. To defraud the city he had involved many in the highest reaches of Parisian society in his schemes. Including former liberal cabinet ministers.

For the right this was made all the worse by Stavisky’s religious background and his foreign origins. When justice had caught up with him the previous month he had taken his own life but the scandal had burned through society regardless. Action Francaise had made great play of the scandal, framing it as both a Judeo-Bolshevik plot and a masonic conspiracy designed to undermine what little decency the French people had left.

De Gaulle did not care for Jews personally but even he had felt uncomfortable with some of the gnashing of teeth around the affair. The wave of unrest that had followed, the tens of thousands of indignant rioters in the centre of Paris had called for military intervention.

This was not extraordinary in French history, but rarely had the army been on the side of the rioters.

Quelling the riots had summoned the army to Paris, Marechal Petain had different plans however.

The Marechal had spoken briefly on the affair itself but he had quickly alluded back to the rot it was indicative of before declaring the path ahead. It was one he had already relayed to his subordinates at the war college when he had first made his plans clear.

De Gaulle had obeyed him and his presence had brought order to the mob in an unnatural fashion. The entry of the army into the city with Petain at its head had brought acclaim from those seeking a more definitive end to the republic via the scandal whereas those on the left of French politics had reacted with their own protests. It had been easy to put these down, ironically with the aid of those who had previously been the source of disruption.

The news that the government had fled the city in reaction to Petain’s entry into the city had received a mixed reaction from within the ranks of the war college. Those who had been eager to see the military take its proper place within French society as the defender of the nation from Communist subversion and previously unchecked German aggression had to contend with those wary of igniting a civil war. Most however, had been willing to follow the Marechal regardless of their personal doubts.

The conscripts had mostly done as they were told and the majority who hadn’t had chosen to desert. There were few signs of armed scuffles as of yet, though from his standpoint de Gaulle could see smoke plumes emanating from the banlieues. It appeared the revolutionaries had been less prepared for this turn of events than their German counterparts, there had been no signs of an armed uprising from them either. Indeed the only immediate danger came from Germany directly where de Gaulle feared desertions might leave France temporarily exposed, even in the name of strengthening her against the German threat.

Still for every deserter there had been a veteran willing to replace them, the popularity of Pétain was not merely down to Verdun after all. For many veterans of the world war Pétain had been their only true voice in a position of power and now many loyally came to his side. De Gaulle was certain that any attempted revolution, any German invasion, would be crushed. Not necessarily by guns but by the bonds that had been built in the trenches. The sort of fraternity he had sought ever since he was a young boy.

Pétain now spoke with this spirit and de Gaulle felt all his doubts drain away.

“It is no longer a question today of public opinion, often uneasy and badly informed,” he now stated,

“For you, the French people, it is simply a question of following me without mental reservation along the path of honor and national interest. If through our close discipline and our public spirit we can conduct ourselves in the same fashion as so many did at Verdun then France will surmount her enemies and preserve in the world her rank as a European and colonial power.”

This pronouncement brought more cheers from the crowd but even to those behind Petain it had suddenly become clear that his face had turned stern.

“Authority no longer emanates from below. The only authority is that which I entrust or delegate.”

If the crowd was shaken by that pronouncement, the Marechal did not give them a chance to consider it. That was now his right, after all.

After the promise of a return to order and glory once again Petain’s speech came to an end. He moved from the microphone as the audience was still displaying their acclaim, even whilst the fires on the outskirts of the capital worsened.

The Marechal stopped in front of de Gaulle before the assembled officers departed the rickety stage.

“If it is to be my last act on this earth I will see my country’s future secure. I know you believe these political aspirations to be my indulgences but they are hope of France and they are vibrant. And so, my friend, are you. We need a professional military and we need your theories underlying it. The Germans will already be trying to capitalise on this moment of temporary weakness. Together, we will ensure they are put down once and for all.”


For once, Charles de Gaulle felt lost for words but at last they came.



“Together, my Chief.”






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Order Reigns was one of many posters designed and produced anonymously by Atelier Populaire during Mai 68