AHC: Fascist France in the 1920s

Challenge: Between the signing of the Treaty of Versailles on 28 June 1919 and the stock market crash in America's Wall Street on 24 October 1929 have France become Fascist.
 
I don't see that happening. Fascists can't take power without very serious economic troubles. If economy is OK and there is stable governments and democracy, extremist groups usually can't take power.
 
Just a clarification: By 'fascist' in the 1920's, do we mean the same thing happens in France as in Italy with Mussolini leading his blackschirts to Rome? At about the same time? With about the same not yet fully defined ideology?

Or do we mean France is governed by a right wing dictator and adopts openly repressive policies against everyone not conforming to their standards of race and morals like 1933's Germany?
 
Just a clarification: By 'fascist' in the 1920's, do we mean the same thing happens in France as in Italy with Mussolini leading his blackschirts to Rome? At about the same time? With about the same not yet fully defined ideology?

Or do we mean France is governed by a right wing dictator and adopts openly repressive policies against everyone not conforming to their standards of race and morals like 1933's Germany?

Fascist as in the former, with what happened in Italy with Mussolini and such happening in France.
 
I don't see that happening. Fascists can't take power without very serious economic troubles. If economy is OK and there is stable governments and democracy, extremist groups usually can't take power.

To my understanding,isn't the France highly unstable at this point with government's collapsing frequently?
 
To my understanding,isn't the France highly unstable at this point with government's collapsing frequently?

Yes, the government changed frequently. No, that does not mean it was politically or economically unstable.

There were fascist groups in France, but they were always a fringe group and didn't exist in any substantial form at all until the 1930s. During the 1920s, France was trying to make itself out as the dominant power in Europe. They had won the war, they got what they wanted out of Germany, they had no further aims other than maintaining peace- not exactly a good breeding ground for fascists.
 
If there was any point at which the Third Republic might have been overthrown, it would probably have been after the Ruhr crisis of 1923.

France has always been partial to the Great Man On Horseback and had the Ruhr occupation ended with a (greater) French humiliation, then combined with popular agitation against an ineffective regime, it's possible that someone like Marshal Foch could have been persuaded to assume a dictatorship something like Pilsudski's in Poland.

Admittedly, we'd be talking about an autocratic and authoritarian regime - more Franco's Spain or Peron's Argentina than a true ideologically fascist government - but I think that's about as close as it's possible to get.
 
Since Italy was also one of the WW1 victors, I wouldn't say this is impossible. Mussolini and his allies were talking about the "mutilated victory", as their irredentist claims were not reached after the war. So for a similar movement gaining strength in France - the obvious candidate being Charles Maurras' Action Francaise -, the Treaty of Versailles would have to be less harsh. If France doesn't get Alsace-Lorraine, that could turn into a propaganda issue for the far-right, possibly supported by war veterans.
 
Facsim in France didn't had much appeal. Fascist groups as Francisme, or later PPF had very small importance in pre-war France (and barely had even in Vichy France prior 1943).
Far-left and social conservatism (as La Roque's groups) had much more support, eventually.

Even during Vichy France, actual fascist were a small and really divided minority (PPF after 1938, where it began to be closer of a french fascism, had maybe 60 000 members and it didn't stop to decline afterwards).
It doesn't help that french far-right was extremly germanophobe (far more than left-wing actually).

What you had, from conservatives and far-right (although not entierly) was a support of fascism in Italy (as peoples in western democracies during Cold War supported dictatorships against communists, and even there you had nationalist support of Soviet Union for some groups).

Democratic and republican principles quite deeply rooted, because of a continuous and harsh policy since the 1880's; while in Germany, depsite knowing several advencies, the same principles weren't as present.

The "front friendship" never really evolved into a political esprit de corps as fascio, because (with other reasons) you didn't have in the french army the cult of special forces you had in Germany or Italy (in fact, it was really criticized). French "Croix-de-Feu" evolued into an earlier equivalent of gaullism (and while favourable to authoritarian mesures, and not too critic of nationalism; can't really be called fascist)

I could see a stronger Action Francaise, but it was clearly more an authoritarian nationalist than fascist* : besides it was a bit too much heteroclit to have a clear chance of success.
At the very "best" : you'll end with an equivalent of Vichy France without nazi influence. Meaning, no industrial take-over, with an actual army, with rampant anti-semitism (while not even shared by everyone in the nationalist french movement) but not at the point of Holocaust, and with far less homogenous political leadership (considering that Vichy wasn't a pinnacle of unified government already...)

*Even in nationalists movements as Action Française the tendency was more "It's probably fitting for their needs, but we don't want to make a copy/paste of what exist there, and rather search a french political and social model"
 
Since Italy was also one of the WW1 victors, I wouldn't say this is impossible. Mussolini and his allies were talking about the "mutilated victory", as their irredentist claims were not reached after the war. So for a similar movement gaining strength in France - the obvious candidate being Charles Maurras' Action Francaise -, the Treaty of Versailles would have to be less harsh. If France doesn't get Alsace-Lorraine, that could turn into a propaganda issue for the far-right, possibly supported by war veterans.
The Italians didn't get what they were promised. The French did and I don't see any real way to change that.
 
Fascism is basically a phenomenon that occurs when a country's traditional right becomes discredited, and the people attracted to that need an alternative political vehicle to express themselves. Its appearance implies the country has somehow become weakened and needs to be revived.

If not, the traditional right will always triumph.

There isn't much opportunity for French Fascists to take power. Any potential voters are already committed to established, respectable parties.

There's a reason an actual French fascist party didn't appear until after the Great Depression, and didn't increase in popularity until the defeat of France in 1940.

For such a party to form in the 1920s, France would need to suffer some sort of mass political trauma during the 1920s. I can't think of any obvious one.
 
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