The Image of the Popular Front: The Masses and the Media in Interwar France

216 Pages·2007·3.139 MB·English

by  Simon Dell (auth.)

The Image of the Popular Front
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The Image of the
Popular Front
The Masses and the Media
in Interwar France
Simon Dell
© Simon Dell2007
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2007 978-0-230-00328-6
All rights reserved.No reproduction,copy or transmission of this
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Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published in 2007 by
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ISBN 978-1-349-28095-7 ISBN 978-0-230-28695-5 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/9780230286955
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A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Dell,Simon,1969–
The image of the Popular Front :the masses and the media in interwar
France / Simon Dell.
p.cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-349-28095-7 (cloth)
1.France – Politics and government – 1914–1940.2.Front populaire.
3.Socialism – France – History – 20th century.4.Press and politics –
France – History – 20th century I.Title.
DC396.D34 2007
944.081(cid:2)5—dc22 2006044835
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
16 15 14 13 12 11 10 09 08 07
The working men have no country.
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The Communist Manifesto, 1848
The communists…love their country.
Maurice Thorez, speech in the Chamber of Deputies, 1934
…factory workers are somehow rootless, exiled within the borders of
their own country.
Simone Weil, Experience of Factory Life, 1941–1942
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Contents
List of Illustrations ix
Acknowledgements xiii
Introduction: 6 February 1934 1
1 The Republican Imaginary: Hegemony
and its Reproduction 11
The contradiction of the people 13
The Jacobin Republic 18
The exercise of hegemony 20
The actors on the stage 23
The material organisation of hegemony 27
Information, opinion and entertainment 29
Techniques of communication 32
The press photograph and the reporter-photographer 36
2 ‘People of France’: The Image Created 44
The crisis of Jacobinism 45
The rearticulation of hegemony 48
Relations of equivalence 51
Communist and Jacobin 54
The call to the people 57
The inauguration of the Popular Front 61
The commemoration of 14 July 1935 64
The exemplary image 67
The viewers and the viewed 84
The Rassemblement continues 88
3 ‘Free Men’: The Image Contested 92
The occupation of power 92
The occupation of the factories 95
The domestication of the strikes 100
Useful pleasures 111
The end of the strikes 117
Knowing how to end 124
vii
viii Contents
4 ‘The Apocalypse of Fraternity’:
The Image Destroyed 128
French and Spanish struggles 130
The image of the militia 133
Disarticulation 138
Eye to eye 140
The International Brigades 142
The Apocalypse of fraternity 145
Epilogue: 30 November 1938 151
Notes 157
Bibliography 185
Index 197
List of Illustrations
Fig.1 Anon. (Credited: New York Times/Wide World),
‘The photographer needed a cool head to be
bowled over in the charge and still be able
to take a photo of this demonstrator…just
knocked down’, Marianne, No.70, 21 February
1934, p. 8. Photograph: Max Adcock. Copyright:
New York Times. Private Collection. xiv
Fig. 2 Anon. ‘France: A Moderate Country’, Vu,
No. 220, 1 June 1932, front cover. Photograph:
the author. Private Collection. 68
Fig. 3 Anon. ‘The German Enigma’, Vu, No. 213,
13 April 1932, front cover. Photograph
courtesy of Victoria and Albert Museum. 69
Fig. 4 Marc Réal, 14 juillet 1935, Comité national
du rassemblement populaire, Paris 1935,
front cover. Photograph: the author. Courtesy
of the Bibliothèque de l’Office Universitaire de
Recherche Socialiste, Paris. 71
Fig. 5 Marc Réal, ‘Symbols and slogans’,
14 juillet 1935, Comité national du
rassemblement populaire, Paris 1935,
inside front cover. Photograph: the author.
Courtesy of the Bibliothèque de l’Office
Universitaire de Recherche Socialiste, Paris. 73
Fig. 6 Marc Réal, ‘A day of enthusiasm’,
14 juillet 1935, Comité national du
rassemblement populaire, Paris 1935, unpaginated.
Photograph: the author. Courtesy of the
Bibliothèque de l’Office Universitaire de
Recherche Socialiste, Paris. 74
Fig. 7 Marc Réal, ‘From Bastille to Nation’, 14 juillet 1935,
Comité national du rassemblement populaire,
Paris 1935, unpaginated. Photograph: the author.
Courtesy of the Bibliothèque de l’Office
Universitaire de Recherche Socialiste, Paris. 78
ix