Fascism in France: A Historiographical Development Since 1945

Abstract

In 1954, Rene Remond analysed French fascism as a marginal phenomenon and underlined its foreign origins. His interpretation became dominant until the 1970s–1980s and the emergence of new interpretations underpinned by foreign historians such as Zeev Sternhell. He argued that fascist ideology was born in France between the 1880s and 1914, and that there was a strong fascist tendency in French society during the 1930–1945 period. Sternhell’s works caused much debate and contributed to stimulate the research on French radical right. From that time, these works are growing within the field of a transnational approach. In this conceptual framework, several historians demonstrated the existence, besides fascist organizations, of a process of fascitization of the minds during the 1930s which affected some intellectuals, journalists and political militants belonging to right or left. Although French fascism was a minor phenomenon, it wasn’t a marginal one. A fascist political culture was emerging and growing.