French Socialism and the Popular Front

Abstract

While the Popular Front in France has been the subject of a steadily increasing volume of historical inquiry in recent years, the internal history of its major component party, the French Section of the Labour and Socialist International (SFIO), has until recently escaped detailed analysis.1 This is in one sense not surprising. Although the socialists were the dominant party in the government coalition of I936, the SFIO itself, qua party, had very little influence on the actions of the Blum government. In the formulation of all the major policy decisions of the government 'non-intervention' in the Spanish Civil War, the devaluation of the franc, the policy of retrenchment devised to cope with the monetary crisis, and finally, Blum's resignation in June I937 the directing bodies of the Socialist party were never consulted and rarely if ever informed before the government's action. Indeed, even the question of the possible reaction of the party to a fait accompli was apparently considered in only one of these decisions, Blum's resignation. This is not to say that the party did not react to all the governmental actions carried out in its name. On the contrary, the amplitude of that reaction, and its effects in terms of factional infighting, intra-party discipline, propaganda, and relations with the communists (the PCF), weakened the French