In September 1940, Henri Pichot’s retrospective verdict on the inter-war years rang true for many French. From the victory of November 1918 to the founding of the Vichy regime in July 1940, an acute sense of national crisis pervaded France. Hopes for political renewal after the Great War were dashed as unstable coalition governments came and went. The dire economic predicament of the 1930s compounded the seeming impotence of democratic government. With ‘decadent’ France apparently in terminal decline and the faith of many in the parliamentary Third Republic undermined, hundreds of thousands of citizens joined right-wing extra-parliamentary groups known as...

Following the Armistice, the return of soldiers, living and dead, presented a huge administrative challenge to the French authorities. Approximately 8 million men served during the war. By November 1918, more than 1.3 million men had been killed and 5 million remained under arms. The process of demobilisation lasted eighteen months. Though it was a remarkable feat to return this large quantity of men home in this short space of time, for soldiers and their families the experience of demobilisation often felt protracted. Demobilised by age rather than according to military unit, younger men saw their wartime ‘family’ shrink as...

In 1933, the failure of successive radical governments to find a solution to the deepening economic crisis sharpened hostility to the regime. When leading figures in the radical party were implicated in the schemes of the fraudster Alexandre Stavisky, the right-wing press and extra-parliamentary leagues sensed a scandal. They alleged that leading radicals, including Georges Pressard, the brother-in-law of premier Camille Chautemps, had repeatedly helped Stavisky escape justice. After his most recent swindle involving the Bayonne Municipal Pawnshop came to the attention of the police, Stavisky fled. At Chamonix on 9 January 1934, surrounded by police, he took his own...

In June 1934, police in Lille reported on the state of public opinion. Generally, the public was favourably disposed toward the new government but a nagging fear of further violence remained. Bloodshed in Paris in February had been followed by growing leaguer and left-wing agitation on the streets of France. The ‘atmosphere of battle’ had not yet dissipated. In particular, though, thelilloispolice commented on the public’s fear that the veterans could again take violent if not revolutionary action.¹ In the months following 6 February 1934, a new assertiveness permeated the veterans’ movement. The associations’ belief in their self-appointed...

‘We are not fascists’, wrote Roux-Desbreaux, an activist in the UNC’s Parisian section. His denial came in the wake of the section’s involvement in the violence of February 1934.¹ The UNC had come under attack from the left for its role in the resignation of the Daladier government and thus the association found itself drawn into the unprecedented political mobilisation that followed the riot. The highways of France became a staging ground for extra-parliamentary politics as groups across the political divide rallied their activists. On 12 February 1934, in response to the leagues’ ‘fascist’ coup, socialists and communists demonstrated in...

Inter-war France saw an extraordinary mobilisation of young men and women in associations designed to protect young people’s interests and give voice to their concerns. Certainly, youth organisations had existed before the Great War. The Association catholique de la jeunesse (ACJF) aimed to provide members with wholesome values, lifestyle advice and a sense of collective identity while the AF’scamelots du roibrought youthful anti-republicanism to the street.¹ Yet only after the war did young French men and women patronise youth groups in their thousands. Social and political youth associations represented a section of society that was only just becoming...

In June 1936, Léon Blum became the first socialist prime minister of France. For the first time, too, socialists took up ministerial posts alongside their radical coalition partners. Some things did not change. The communists refused ministerial participation, though they continued to support the coalition. The Popular Front took power at a tumultuous time. Since 6 February 1934, France had become increasingly divided between the combined forces of the left and the nationalist leagues. This division was increasingly expressed on the streets of France. More than 1,000 public ceremonies, gatherings and processions took place from February 1934 to May 1936....

On 10 April 1938, radical deputy Edouard Daladier became prime minister. He would remain in the post until 20 March 1940 and thus led France into the Second World War. Daladier’s government, like its predecessors, was formed under the Popular Front banner despite dissent within the coalition. The growing influence of the right wing of the radical party had ensured an ever more precarious existence for the alliance even before Daladier took up the premiership. By 1938, conservative radicals were pushing for the party to abandon the coalition and defend their middle-class supporters.¹ It initially appeared that the government would...