Reconciling France Against Democracy: The Croix de Feu and the Parti Social Francais, 1927-1945

Abstract

Sean Kennedy's study of Colonel François de La Rocque's Croix de Feu (CF) and its successor the Parti Social Français (PSF) begins with Edouard Daladier's dismissive and rather unflattering first impression of the Colonel and the threat he posed to the Republic. Writing in 1944 the former French premier's judgement appeared vindicated: La Rocque had indeed failed to take power. However, in the summer of 1936, when La Rocque counted half a million followers across a diverse movement that included war veterans (the group's original clientele), the post-war generation, women and influential industrial and political sympathizers, few would have been as quick to deride the CF's apparent challenge to the Third Republic. Scholarship in the field has tended to centre on whether or not the movement can be classified as Fascist, and this debate (and lack of consensus) has somewhat hindered analysis of the movement itself. It is to Kennedy's credit that while devoting some attention to this problem, the work does not allow the issue of categorization to obscure what is a detailed examination. Kennedy believes that the CF is best understood as authoritarian rather than Fascist, yet this classification does not imply moderation in the group's ideology or tactics. The national reconciliation, to which the title refers, would ‘… pre-figure a France guided by its authoritarian nationalist principles’ (p. 13). The work highlights the varied provenance and motivations of members, yet few joined with the defence of democracy in mind.