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

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.

Drawing on extensive research in national and departmental archives, as well as the movement's central and local press, Kennedy constructs a detailed history from the group's origins as a veterans association to its influence on post-war Gaullism. Encompassing the CF/PSF's development and activities, as well as their social, gender and geographical profiles, the work presents the reader with a wide-ranging analysis of La Rocque's organization in both its incarnations. An examination of the CF/PSF's ancillary formations highlights the rich associational life of the movement and its broad appeal to French other than hardened political activists and street fighters. Capitalizing on the riots of February 1934 and the fear that the growth of the Popular Front engendered in the bourgeoisie, these secondary associations allowed the CF/PSF to rapidly expand its membership and become the largest party on the right. In fact, it became the largest organized political movement in French history, with a membership greater than the Socialists and Communists combined.

Through these affiliates, the CF/PSF worked towards the development of a ‘counter-society’ in France that sought to influence many aspects of members’ lives. To this end, the work devotes some attention to the understudied issues of women and youth in both the CF and PSF. The role of women, La Rocque's ‘agents of social pacification and … national reconciliation’, is a particularly welcome inclusion although further research in this area is required (p. 101).

After the dissolution of the CF in June 1936, the PSF continued with the vision of a counter society and sought to expand its appeal beyond the ranks of the movement through cultural and leisure pursuits and even a trade union federation. Though the PSF attracted elements of the traditional Right, the large presence in its ranks of former CF militants and radicalized conservatives meant that La Rocque's party remained counter-revolutionary. Indeed the party was more explicit than its predecessor in its expressions of xenophobia, anti-Semitism and nationalism. Importantly, Kennedy argues that the PSF's promotion of anti-Semitism, xenophobia and French imperialism played a role in ‘… furthering such notions… [and] advancing receptiveness towards authoritarian nationalism…’ (p. 224), upon which the Vichy regime would build. The Colonel's apparent embrace of democratic political participation therefore marked a ‘shift in emphasis’ rather than a caesura in the movement (p. 182). Yet Kennedy is careful to stress that although the mass base appeared frustrated by the failure of traditional conservative milieux, the group could support the right at times and much depended on local circumstance and idiosyncrasies.

Reconciling France Against Democracy appreciates the importance of La Rocque and his followers in French interwar political culture and the ‘sea change’ to which they both ‘contributed’ and ‘reflected’ (p. 10). Students and scholars will wish to consult Kennedy's work, for it offers a detailed history that discusses intelligently and clearly the complexities of the CF/PSF, while shifting attention away from the debate on classification and onto the movement itself.