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If an aggressive, militaristic regime had taken political control of France between the world wars, would it have experienced similar economic and military success?

My understanding of 1930s Germany is that it was economically depressed, and was rejuvinated by the Nazi's burst of military spending. It was was a short sighted policy that was unsustainable and quickly resulted in collapse, but they in exchanged had a short window of military supremacy. They then used that military supremacy to conquer, plunder and loot all continental Europe. The constant war and continuous victories kept the population faithful. Overall, it was a system that kept the war machine going, but pissed off the rest of the world in the process and led to their demise.


France seems to be in an even better position to pull this off than Germany. A French-Hitler would have had all the opportunites in the Fascist playbook. External enemies in the form of upstart Germany, the same internal enemies of Communists and Jews as the Nazis, colonial wars to be unendingly fought. Additionally, France was not the international pariah Germany was, and had many strategic advantages. Allies, a blue water navy, etc.


But what are the grim economic realities? Was France so much worse off than Germany even after winning the first world war that it couldn't have hoped to compete in the next round? Or with hindsight, can we say that France missed an opportunity to establish that continental hegemony the Nazis always aspired to? I'm just wondering what kind of alternate history opportunities can be explored down this pathway.

EDIT: To be clear, I'm talking about France becoming fascist after its victory in WWI. Germany lost WWI and became fascist. Italy won WWI and became facist. OTL, France won WWI and stayed democratic, but I'm asking what if it became fascist, Italy-style.
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