French Fascism: The First Wave, 1924-1933

French Fascism: The First Wave, 1924-1933 by Soucy, Robert. hardcover edition. ISBN: 9780300034882.

French fascism in the period before World War II has generally been characterized as insignificant, as a hodge-podge of ill-digested ideas, and as socially and economically radical and fundamentally at odds with conservatism. Robert Soucy challenges those interpretations, arguing in this provocative book that France did, have a large and important fascist movement, that it included major groups such as the Leunesses Patriotes, the Croix de Peu, the Faisceau, and the Action Francaise, that its doctrine had a certain degree of intellectual clarity, and, finally, that its "leftist" rhetoric was superficial—that French fascism was essentially part of a middle-class backlash to Marxism and was far more conservative than it was left-wing. Drawing on French police reports only recently made available to scholars, Soucy examines French fascist movements of the late 1920s and reveals new information about the social and economic leanings of those who joined and those who financed them (including representatives of several major French textile, petroleum, electricity, railroad, and banking firms). According to Soucy, on issues of taxation, govemrnent spending, property rights, class conflict, religion, education, and foreign policy, French fascism was overwhelmingly conservative. Circumstances drew the fascists and the conservatives together, just as some fascists were willing to compromise with parliamentary conservatism when events turned against them, some conservatives were willing to support fascism when the French Left threatened their interests.