AH Challange: Post-War Bourbon Restoration.

You Challange, if you choose to accept it, with a POD no earlier than VE day, is to create the circumstanes that would make a Bourbon Restoration in France Possible. Bonus Points if it does not involve the death of any significant political figures (I.E De Gaulle).

Good Luck.
 
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Have France lose WW1 and fall into civil war. The Monarchists get the Bourbons back on the throne as the best stabilizing option.
 

Xen

Banned
This is damn near impossible as most French monarchists were labeled collaborators with the Vichy Government.

Also by Bourbonist I hope you mean Bourbon-Orleans, because as impossible as it is to get the Bourbon-Orleans dynasty cause as narrow as a chance as it has of being restored the Bourbons (Carlists or legitimists) has a snow balls chance in hell of being restored anytime after 1871.
 
This is damn near impossible as most French monarchists were labeled collaborators with the Vichy Government.

Also by Bourbonist I hope you mean Bourbon-Orleans, because as impossible as it is to get the Bourbon-Orleans dynasty cause as narrow as a chance as it has of being restored the Bourbons (Carlists or legitimists) has a snow balls chance in hell of being restored anytime after 1871.

Well, it is a challange afterall. :)
 
if you give 18 month, I can propose something fancy:

The basic idea is to use Giraud's monarchist feeling.

POD november 10th 1942: some random french garnison commender of armistice army in Southern Zone grows a pair of ball.

november 11th 1942: in reaction to operation Torch, Wermacht invades southern zone. in OTL, following the order of Vichy government garnisons surrendered with no fight so to speak, in TTL the said officer resists and repel the german forces in charge of handling his garnison. Due to misunderstanding German staff in Paris believe Vichy France is back in the war and decide a full-scale invasion of Southern France.

In Particulary Vichy is to be bombed. Aware oh this, Vichy government leaves Vichy in emergency. Given the stress and his old age Pétain has a stroke which will leave him incapacited for few weeks.

In parallel orleanists extrract Henri d'Orléans to Algier.

(As in OTL Giraud seize the Power in Algier)

november 1Xth: Henri d'Orléans arrives to Algier. The situation is even messier because noboby in AFN knows if Pétain is dead or not and Giraud has not legetimacy enough to seize the power for himself (in OTL he said he seize the power in the Pétain). So Henri d'Orléans being in Algier, Pétain being out of game. Giraud chooses Henri d'Orléans figurehead and become Henri VI of the French.

Then Henri VI proves himself not to be an ass and manages to plays Giraud and De Gaulle against each other to appear to be the reconciliator of the French and gains a lot of credit for it.

In Mainland France things go naughty with a long half-partisan war.

On the long term the allies do a bit better in TTL and by early 1945 the third Reich surrender.

In the Aftermath of the war republican system stays discredited and Henri is popular so the monarchy is restored. Basically the constitution written is the IIIrd republic's one with a king instead of a president.

And basically the monarchy avoid major scandal and stay until 2009.

If we want to be a bit wankish we have France managing to form a French Commonwealth and the King of the French is the king of some african ex-colonies and Algeria stays in French orbit
 

J.D.Ward

Donor
The best I can come up with is Louis Capet, a Bourbon prince born on VE day. This association with the start of a new era becomes part of his mystique later. He grows up to be an extremely popular, charismatic, and politically clever young man by his early twenties. He may or may not be technically first in the line of succession, but he is the public face of the house of Bourbon when the crisis of 1968 arrives. He is the same generation as the young revolutionaries, and has all the establishment contacts that come with his family background. A new slogan is heard on the streets, "Louis, Roi de France".

Could anyone familiar with the details of 1968 tell me how feasible this is?
 
Could anyone familiar with the details of 1968 tell me how feasible this is?

Let's see.

Trotsky-Maoist Anarchists ( the students activists ) and Stalinist Unions ( the workers activists - the PCF was still stalinist, in fact if not in name in 68 - ) backing the installation of a monarchy......

Cannot imagine any contradiction. Nope. Not one.

NB : France still used the Guillotine at that time.
 

J.D.Ward

Donor
What I had in mind was taken from the Bonapartes rather than the Bourbons: a claimant to the French throne with all the charisma and ability of Napoleon I, who is in the same position as Napoleon III in 1848.

I went for the earliest possible POD under the conditions of this challenge, and France's near-miss post-WWII revolution as the point where the effects become noticeable.

I take your point that Stalinists and Anarchists wouldn't intentionally support a Bourbon Restoration. Neither would the Jacobins have intended the creation of the French Empire. In times of revolution, a lot of unforeseen changes happen very quickly.
 
Let's see.

Trotsky-Maoist Anarchists ( the students activists ) and Stalinist Unions ( the workers activists - the PCF was still stalinist, in fact if not in name in 68 - ) backing the installation of a monarchy......

NB : France still used the Guillotine at that time.

Well there's a reason. If you're going to use a Guillotine then you need a suitable candidate to use it on - a modern version of the concept of a sacrificial king.

Cheers,
Nigel.
 
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