The Right in France from the Third Republic to Vichy

406 Pages·2013·1.963 MB·English

by  Kevin Passmore

THE RIGHT IN FRANCE FROM THE THIRD
REPUBLIC TO VICHY
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Th e Right in France from

the Th ird Republic to
Vichy

KEVIN PASSMORE
1
1
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© Kevin Passmore 2013
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First Edition published in 2013
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For Garthine
Acknowledgements
I f I remember correctly, I began writing this book some seventeen years ago. Already
in the late 1990s, the volume of scholarly work on conservatism and the right was
enormous, and since then it has increased dramatically. I have tried to keep up with it,
and a book like this is especially reliant on the work of others. Indeed, my debt to
some historians’ work goes beyond conventional acknowledgement in footnotes: the
work of Michel Dobry, Philippe Levillain, Gilles Le Béguec, Nicholas Roussellier,
François Monnet, and David Bensoussan, to name just some, has been especially
infl uential. Inevitably, I have sometimes disagreed with their interpretations, and to
avoid over-complication of the narrative I have not always made that explicit. As for
those whose research has received insuffi cient attention, I hope that they will under-
stand that one has to stop at some point—the necessity of doing so makes me all the
more conscious that this is a history of the right in the Th ird Republic and Vichy—
not the history.
Over the years, I have also received help from a great number of institutions,
scholars, librarians, archivists, and friends. I gratefully acknowledge fi nancial sup-
port from the Arts and Humanities Research Council (Research Leave Scheme,
AH/F003048/1), the British Academy (Small Personal Research Grants, 1995,
2003, 2007), and the Scouloudi Foundation in association with the Institute of
Historical Research (Research Awards, 2000, 2007). I have also received generous
fi nancial support from the School of History, Archaeology, and Religion at Cardiff
University, and special thanks are due to my colleagues in the History department,
who covered for me during periods of research leave.
I owe a debt to librarians and archivists at the Bibliothèque nationale de France
and Archives nationales. Th e late Monsieur Gilles de La Rocque kindly allowed me
to consult the Fonds La Rocque, and the donors of the Fonds Ribot and Fonds
Deschanel gave me permission to consult those papers, all held at the Archives
nationales.
I would like to thank Christopher Wheeler at Oxford University Press for his
patient support for this project from its inception, and Emma Barber for her
patient editorial work.
I would like to thank Orla Smyth, Chloé Faucillon, and Th omas Daum for
the hospitality they provided in Paris. I have learned much from my postgraduate
students at Cardiff , in particular Chris Millington, Mark Pitchford, and Joe
Starkey, and from presentations to several seminars at the École des hautes
etudes en sciences sociales in Paris. Ian Dennis drew the maps, and was as
patient as ever with my frequent alterations. A number of colleagues and friends
have read parts of the manuscript: Magali Della Sudda, Lloyd Bowen, Jackie
Clarke, Julian Jackson, Chris Millington, Mary Vincent, Garthine Walker, and
Julian Wright. Special thanks are due to Lloyd Bowen, Jackie Clarke, Karen
Adler, and Laura Downs. Over innumerable lunches and dinners, in Cardiff
Acknowledgements vii
and Paris, I have learned an enormous amount from them, and this book bears
the imprint of their ideas.
Lastly, I am enormously thankful to Joe and Emily Passmore for putting up with
the fi nancial drain resulting from frequent trips to France, and above all my wife,
Garthine Walker. She has followed this project from its inception, and is an
inspiration as a person, colleague, and historian.
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Contents
Abbreviations x
Maps xiii
1. Introduction 1
2. Moral Order (1870–1884) 1 8
3. From Conservatisme to Boulangism (1884–1889) 4 5
4. Th e Ralliement (1890–1898) 73
5. Nationalism (1898–1900) 1 01
6. Party Formation (1898–1906) 1 27
7. Organization (1906–1914) 1 51
8. Th e Union Sacrée (1914–1918) 1 80
9. Th e Bloc National (1919–1924) 2 06
10. Th e Revival of Activism (1924–1926) 2 34
11. Apogee and Crisis (1928–1932) 2 62
12. Fascism in France? (1934–1940) 2 91
13. Conservatives and the Popular Front (1936–1939) 3 19
14. From Republic to Vichy (1940–1944) 3 48
Further Reading 369
Index 373