French Fascism and Modernization

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It is only relatively recently that the fascist phenomenon in France1 has been subjected to a closer examination. There were a variety of reasons for this. Fascism in France, when set beside fascist movements in other countries, particularly those which eventually attained power, never became a political factor of any great significance. The plethora of small groups which went to make up French fascism never succeeded in settling their differences and merging into one larger, unified movement. The reasons for their failure to do so have likewise never yet been thoroughly investigated; the common, somewhat glib explanation has been that there was no charismatic figure available to act as leader.2 The fascists never, not even during the Vichy period, penetrated beyond the vestibule of power.3 The comparative neglect of the whole complex of right-wing extremism in France (after Ernst Nolte had freed fascism from the context of comparative theories of totalitarianism and reinstated it as a phenomenon in its own right4) was partly due to the fact that scholars initially chose to devote their attention to fascist seizures of power and systems of rule rather than to fascist movements or groups that never rose to power. Nevertheless, there is no denying that during 1930s concepts such as 'fascism' and 'anti-fascism' were recurrent leitmotifs of the political debate in France. Even after 1945, writers and intellectuals like Bardeche and Celine continued more or less openly to espouse fascism or fascist ideas.5 More particularly, there can be no doubt that such movements as Valois' 'Faisceau', in the 1920s, or the PPF of Jacques Doriot and the right-wing Croix de Feu of Colonel de la Rocque, in the 1930s, were for a time definitely of more than just peripheral importance. The last ten years, however, have seen an increasing number of