I think the Action Francaise are a dead end. They made lots of noise, and had some cool uniforms, but they had no real basis of support.
Nor should this surprise us; royalism was dead by the 1920s.
But they were one of the major far-right leagues of the interwar years and only really stepped into the fringe sidelines of French politics after WW2. It enjoyed plenty of support from the nobility, the rich & urban poor, the bourgeoisie, country people and the Catholic clergy. Although after WW1, they began to loose portions of their support to the newer far-right groups, they still remained a very strong influence.
Indeed, the AF's influence could be seen more than any other far-right league's, in the creation of the Vichy regime and its National Revolution ideology, many of whose leaders were former AF members.
And when you say Royalism was dead by the 20's maybe you mean the mainstream royalist groups like mainstream Legitimism, Orleanism and Bonapartism as the AF was very much separate from these mainstream monarchist groupings and belonged more to the thriving far-right leagues. Firstly, the AF was reactionary where the mainstream monarchists were merely conservative. Secondly, aside from the new reactionary Integralist ideology that came with the AF's restored monarchy, the AF was very distinct from the traditional monarchist movements in one very significant respect; as the mainstream monarchists in France rejected political action and had such an apathy for it, which is what no doubt caused their decline, the AF favored an offensive political strategy that put them ahead any other monarchist movement and in league with the rest of the far-right, an active policy of counterrevolution, epitomized by their slogan "
Politique d'abord!" or "Politics first!". That is why as the Legitimist, Oreanist and Bonapartist movements were all but "dead" in the 20's, the AF was alive and thriving.
Also, you must remember that the AF's monarchism was not born out of any loyalty to the House of Orleans, the AF was monarchist because of very pragmatic reasons, it believed in the need for strong hierarchical leadership which only a traditional monarch could be the head of.
Agreed I think the movement that would rise the the fore front would be a a right wing facist Catholic party of some kind, monarchists are a dead movement in France after WWI. Instead of being really racial supremacists they'll instead be religious supremacists going after anything thats not seen as Catholic thus not being truly French.
You don't know it but you've just described the Action francaise. The AF was as much Catholic as it was monarchist, favoring the return of Catholicism as the state religion. But they were Catholic not because they were faithful Catholics but for the same reason they were monarchists, they believed that a single state religion would be the only way to maintain order and they believed in a strong heirarchical leadership and saw the Church's heirarchical structure as the perfect model for which to mold the rest of France.
The AF was not at all racist as Maurras rejected the popular "scientific racism" of the time in favor of the much simpler "state antisemitism" and criticized Hitler's racial policies. Their prejudice was grounded on religion, which is the reason Protestants and Freemasons, even if they were pure blooded Frenchmen were persecuted just as heavily as Jews. These three, Jews, Protestants and Freemasons were joined by a fourth group in Maurras' "Anti-France", the
meteques or foreigners, which simply meant anyone in France who did not agree with the AF, either for political or ideological reaons, who therefore existed outside of France and who therefore, were not French.
In stark difference with the racial policies of Germany where German society was open to Britons, Dutch, Scandinavians, Americans, etc, because they were seen as being "fellow Aryans", the AF's basis for prejudice was much simpler and more static, people were persecuted simply for being "not French".