Nationalism, Anti-Semitism, and Fascism in France

358 Pages·1998·5.79 MB·English

by  Michel Winock

Nationalism, Anti-Semitism,
and Fascism in France
MICHEL WINOCK
Translated by
Jane Marie Todd
Stanford University Press
Stanford, California
1998
Stanford University Press
Stanford, California
© 1998 by the Board of Trustees of the
Leland Stanford Junior University
Originally published as Nationalisme,
antisémitisme et fascisme en France
in 1982 by Editions du Seuil.
Printed in the United States of America
Assistance for the translation was provided by the
French Ministry of Culture.
cip data appear at the back of the book
Contents
List of Tables vii
Introduction i
Part One. French Nationalism 3
1. Open Nationalism and Closed Nationalism 3
2. The Return of National Populism 27
3. French Anti-Americanism 34
Part Two. The Nationalist Imagination and Anti-Semitism 35
4. A Foretaste of Apocalypse: The Charity Bazaar Fire 39
5. Eternal Decadence 73
6. Diabolical Causality 81
7. Edouard Drumont and La France juive 8s
8. Joan of Arc and the Jews 103
9. The Dreyfus Affairs 111
10. The Left and the Jews 131
Part Three. Bonapartism and Fascism 139
11. The Bonapartist Temptation 163
12. Outlines of a French Fascism 177
13. French-Style Fascism, or Fascism Nowhere to Be Found? 193
14. Socialism and Fascism 206
vi Contents
Part Four. Figures and Moments 211
15. Boulanger, Providential Man 213
16. Jules Guérin of Fort Chabrol 229
17. Huysmans and Decadence 234
18. Georges Sorel: A “Fascist” on the Left? 239
19. Péguy: Prefascist or Insurgent? 243
20. Gustave Hervé: From Social War to War 249
21. A Fascist Parable: Drieu La Rochelle’s Gilles 234
22. The Céline Scandal 272
23. The Bernanos Case 288
24. De Gaulle, the Last Nationalist 301
Appendixes 319
Notes 323
Index 343
Tables
1. The Dreyfus Affair and Subsequent Reproductions 12g
2. Napoleon, Pétain, and de Gaulle 174

Introduction
this book, which might also have been called “The National Ego and Its
Ills” addresses three principal themes. First, there is the theme of nation­
alism—or rather, nationalisms, since the word can be defined in several
ways. I have emphasized the two types known to France: open national­
ism, stemming from the optimistic philosophy of the Enlightenment and
from memories of the Revolution (Michelet’s nationalism, but also Gen­
eral de Gaulle’s), and closed nationalism, based on a pessimistic vision of
historical evolution, the prevailing idea of decadence, and an obsession
with protecting, strengthening, and immunizing collective identity against
all agents of corruption, true or supposed, that threaten it.
Second, I have attempted to delve into that closed nationalism by
means of the imaginary order it has constructed for itself. Politics is con­
structed less on reason than on myths and mythologies. What camp could
claim to escape them? Might not the illusion of political rationalism be
the ultimate myth? Nevertheless, the demonology and hysteria of the far
right have gone beyond ordinary fictions: it is in the throes of a perma­
nent anti-Semitic frenzy. On this theme, I have reprinted studies that were
part of my Edouard Drumont et Cie (Seuil, 1982), complementing them
with new approaches to the problem.1
In addition, I felt it necessary to deal with two other categories of
France’s political history: Bonapartism and fascism, which are in league with
nationalism, and which have attracted new interest recently among
historiographers.
In a final section, these three themes are illustrated through particu­
lar case histories of politicians and writers who, in one way or another,
have marked the history of French nationalism with its variations and
contradictions.

PART ONE
French Nationalism