Lumsden
Banned
There were several right-wing movements in France (Frenchmen will have to excuse my mangling their language from herein, I have no idea how to reproduce acutes, graves and cedillas on a computer) which were amenable to the restoration of the monarchy [there are still today] and in the 1930s, the Ligues d'extrême droit were very powerful. The largest of these and the one I intend to use is the Action Francaise (an Orleanist-monarchist, integralist newspaper and movement founded during the Dreyfus Affair).
I think the crisis of the 6th February 1934 might have a possible divergence to bring the AF and its fellows into power. The leagues (none of them can be called parties - l'AF was and I think still is a newspaper and a movement with a youth organisation called the Camelots du Roi, the Street-hawkers of the King, as they sold the newspaper Action Francaise) assembled on the Place de la Concord. In OTL, the Croix-de-Feu, who took their places on the south side, merely surrounded the National Assembly. The press associated with the Leagues, in OTL, mocked them as the 'Froides Queues' afterwards.What if they had entered the National Assembly and a disturbance and a fight with the police turned into a real attempt at power? Does the idea hold water?
There are several difficulties - the first is that the various leagues are not especially united. There are several things that could make them more so - Communist Germany, which is a cliche, but I imagine there are others. Either that or Maurras can get a government together.
Second, Action Francaise was under Papal condemnation from 1928 until 1938. The import of this cannot possibly be underestimated. It was a disaster for l'AF. A member could not receive the Sacraments and its newspaper was placed on the Index of Forbidden Books at Rome. Maurras was no Catholic and viewed the Church merely as a means of 'social cohesion'.
I think it is this more than anything else that means there cannot be a royal restoration in France in 1934 as the sole movement that was of sufficient numbers to do so was incapacitated at the sole time it could have done so. It could not have governed France on account of the opposition of the clergy and the staunchly Catholic peasantry and aristocracy - the very men it hoped would support it. When H.H. Pius XII withdrew the interdict, the palmy days for the AF were over. I believe I've killed off my own timeline, but can you extricate it?
I think the crisis of the 6th February 1934 might have a possible divergence to bring the AF and its fellows into power. The leagues (none of them can be called parties - l'AF was and I think still is a newspaper and a movement with a youth organisation called the Camelots du Roi, the Street-hawkers of the King, as they sold the newspaper Action Francaise) assembled on the Place de la Concord. In OTL, the Croix-de-Feu, who took their places on the south side, merely surrounded the National Assembly. The press associated with the Leagues, in OTL, mocked them as the 'Froides Queues' afterwards.What if they had entered the National Assembly and a disturbance and a fight with the police turned into a real attempt at power? Does the idea hold water?
There are several difficulties - the first is that the various leagues are not especially united. There are several things that could make them more so - Communist Germany, which is a cliche, but I imagine there are others. Either that or Maurras can get a government together.
Second, Action Francaise was under Papal condemnation from 1928 until 1938. The import of this cannot possibly be underestimated. It was a disaster for l'AF. A member could not receive the Sacraments and its newspaper was placed on the Index of Forbidden Books at Rome. Maurras was no Catholic and viewed the Church merely as a means of 'social cohesion'.
I think it is this more than anything else that means there cannot be a royal restoration in France in 1934 as the sole movement that was of sufficient numbers to do so was incapacitated at the sole time it could have done so. It could not have governed France on account of the opposition of the clergy and the staunchly Catholic peasantry and aristocracy - the very men it hoped would support it. When H.H. Pius XII withdrew the interdict, the palmy days for the AF were over. I believe I've killed off my own timeline, but can you extricate it?
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