Between Parliament and the people: the problem of representation in France, 1934–39

Abstract

SUMMARY As Pierre Rosanvallon has observed, one of the challenges for a democratic régime is the imagination of the people on whose sovereignty the régime is founded. This challenge was particularly acute for the Third Republic of France in the 1930s, when rival representations of the people—and of the popular will—were pitted against each other in theory and practice. Where was popular sovereignty located? In the crowd in the street and the workers on strike, or in the electorate and their official representatives, the parliamentary deputies? While these years have often been characterized as a struggle between democracy and fascism, Jessica Wardhaugh offers a new perspective on the period by adopting a comparative approach to the problem of popular representation and its attempted solution. Beginning with the riot of 6 February 1934 and the parliamentary and extra-parliamentary debates that followed, the article contends that in resolving the crisis of representation, the key question was not so much the choice between democracy and fascism as the definition of popular sovereignty in relation to street politics, parliamentary democracy and authoritarian leadership. A chronological and comparative analysis of left and right in the years 1934–39 reveals a progressive shift in the perceived solution to this problem from the people in the street to their parliamentary representatives, and subsequently from parliament to a national leader. It is thus possible to outline important areas of common preoccupation beneath the political polarization of these tumultuous years.