French Civil War in 1946?

Urcea

I'm watching a few videos on the French Resistance on YouTube and several (particularly Lindybeige) seems to be of the opinion that the French were so fractal and so willing to fight opposing political cells that, had the Allies continued to arm the Maquis, there would have been a potential civil war following the end of the Second World War. Obviously, IOTL, this didn't happen, but there was continual political uncertainty and the Fourth Republic was as problematic as the third.

Is this possible? What potential outcomes/scenarios would unfold if so?
 

The Red

Given that so many political opposites were willing to unite against de Gaulle, it’s hard to see them choosing to shoot each other.
 

riggerrob

POD June 1944, better German leadership (e.g. Rommel stays healthy) combines with numerous WALLIED losses (e.g. Market Garden) sees the liberation drag for an entire year with numerous French cities bombed into rubble and millions of casualties to ruin French Resistance morale and cohesion. DeGaulle is discredited for the slow pace of liberation and is side-lined.
Communist resistance cells retain control of several French provinces after VE Day.
 

David T

Not going to happen. The only people who could start a civil war were the Communists--and Stalin was dead-set against this (not that Thorez probably needed much persuading from him, anyway). Insurrections in places where the US and UK had occupying forces and the USSR did not were simply out of the question, so far as Stalin was concerned. The PCF was the very opposite of an insurrectionist party--it told workers in 1945-6 that their highest class duty was to win "the battle for production."
https://books.google.com/books?id=smFOSvcqnDkC&pg=PA106
 
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