L'affrontement simulé des années 1930

Abstract

The feigned confrontation of the 1930s, Serge Berstein. The crisis of the 1930s called for new solutions. No French political force was able to propose any. As the conflicts between haves and have-nots became acute, they also took on unusual shapes. A religious war which never got farther than the realm of discourse was a substitute for a debate on management. The thinking on adaptation to new economic forms was buried in an ideological combat whose catch words were « democracy », « fascism » and « communism ». The Popular Front, a conflict about political models, was perhaps only a feigned confrontation with the real questions put aside, a war of words which would soon lead to action. The sorcerers' apprentices of the sham-word would then wage genuine civil war.