--------------------------------------------------------------------

H-DIPLO Roundtable Review of Julian Jackson's _France: The Dark Years
1940-1944_ (Oxford, 2001)

Roundtable Editor: Peter Jackson

Roundtable Participants: Jackie Clarke, Rod Kedward, Simon Kitson, Peter
Jackson

H-Diplo Roundtable Editor: Diane Labrosse

[Please note that all diacritics have been removed -- DL]

--------------------------------------------------------------------

The Republic at Bay? Defeatism and anti-Republicanism in France before the
Second World War


Peter Jackson
Department of International Politics
University of Wales, Aberystwyth


The best measure of the importance of any scholarly work is the extent to
which it challenges historians to pursue new avenues of research or to
re-examine their assumptions about familiar problems. Julian Jackson's
book does both.  It underlines the need for more primary research into the
role of defeatism, pacifism and anti-Communist hysteria in French
political and security culture before the Second World War.  It also
challenges historians to reconsider the strength of anti-republican and
anti-democratic sentiment in the French public sphere during the 1930s.
While I have some reservations with the conclusions Julian has drawn, his
arguments were of great help because they have forced me to clarify my
thinking on fundamental questions.  Hence, despite the disagreements that
I might express about this or that point, this essay is a tribute to the
overall quality of _France: the Dark Years_.

In this essay I will focus on the second key theme of Jackson's book: that
the history of wartime France must be understood in the longer term and
located within the context of French reactions to the challenges of the
Great War, modernity and economic crisis.  Few historians would disagree
with this fundamental point.  It is possible, however, that an excessive
focus on the long term can obscure the importance of event and
contingency.  A commendable resolve to trace the "pedigree of Vichy" has
arguably resulted in an exaggeration of both defeatism and opposition to
Republican democracy before the war.  It is true that the politics of the
Vichy regime did not appear out of nowhere in 1940.  But we should not
lose sight of the extraordinary political and social circumstances created
by the defeat of May-June 1940.

Many historians have an unspoken, perhaps even unconscious, aversion to
incorporating contingency into their analyses.  Most of us are now trained
to search instead for pre-existing social and economic structures, for
ideas and attitudes embedded in social and cultural practices or in
language, in order to explain complex phenomena such as defeat, resistance
and collaboration.  The overall aim, to place events in their proper
context, is what gives history its unique status within the human
sciences.  But it also leads us, at times, to misunderstand the importance
of contingency in human affairs.

Contingency must be taken into account, for example, in any analysis of
Battle of France.  The decision taken by the German leadership to change
their operational strategy and to attack through the Ardennes Forest in
Luxembourg and southern Belgium, was in no way preordained by existing
material or social structures.  Had the German high command stuck to its
initial plan, the weight of the German assault would have fallen almost
precisely where the Allied planners anticipated.  The military result
would then almost certainly have been very different from the swift and
brutal six week campaign of May-June 1940.  The Germans would probably
still have prevailed, but their victory would have taken much longer and
it would have been much more costly.  It would not have been a rout and
there would not have been a national exodus on the scale of that which
took place in June 1940.

Historians are well advised to be wary of excessive counterfactual
thinking.  At the same time, considering the defeat in this way does
remind us of the perils of determinism.  When one remembers that the
circumstances of the defeat might have been very different, it is possible
to view the political events of the summer of 1940 in a different light.
Otherwise put, greater importance could arguably be given to the traumatic
effects of the debacle on politics and society.  It was a tremendous shock
and left a scar on the national psyche that has been slow to heal.  And it
changed the character of French politics in fundamental ways.  This is why
we should be wary of analysing French society and politics during the
1930s through the lens of 1940.  We should instead consider the defeat as
a causal agent in its own right.  The military catastrophe, the exodus and
subsequent occupation of large portions of the country all caused a
profound crisis in French identity and created truly exceptional political
conditions which must be taken into account in any history of France
during the Second World War.

In my view Julian does not pay sufficient attention to these issues.  He
does acknowledge that "there was nothing predetermined" about the defeat
and that subsequent events "could not have occurred if France had not
suffered the trauma of the catastrophic defeat of 1940"(p. 113).  Yet the
analytical focus of the pre-war chapters of the book (entitled
"Anticipations") is consistently on the continuities between inter-war and
wartime France.  The impact of the defeat is not given the causal
importance that it deserves.  The argument is instead that the defeat
exposed "the prevalence of anti-liberal currents in French political
culture" (p. 24) as well as the "capitulation of French elites to
anti-Republican values".  The politics of Vichy, therefore, "had a long
pre-history" (pp. 43-4). Using Daniel Halevy[s concept of the "fin des
notables" as his starting point, Jackson argues that a substantial
proportion of the political and professional elites became disillusioned
with democracy and were seduced by the extremist politics of the
anti-Republican right.  Citing the recent work of Kevin Passmore, Robert
Soucy and others, he argues that French conservatives, responding to the
ideologically charged political atmosphere of the 1930s, were increasingly
attracted to the extremist politics on the far right of the political
spectrum.

At the same time, a younger generation of intellectuals and technocrats
was also losing faith in the political traditions of the Republic and
calling for different social and political practices.  Economists and
business elites in new organisations such as _Redressement francais_
preached the doctrine of modernisation while "non-conformist"
intellectuals rejected existing political practices as excessively
materialist and called for a more spiritual politics.  Plans to reorganise
economic, social and political life emerged from all over the political
spectrum, often influenced by corporatist critiques of capitalism.
Discontent with the political status quo was also expressed in the
formation of extra-parliamentary Leagues and in the widespread admiration
of Mussolini and his politics that was characteristic of commentary on the
far right.  There were calls for change even from within the mainstream
political parties.  The _Jeunes Equipes_ rejected the traditional
right-left divide in French politics.  Many joined the Radical Socialist
Party.  The key trait shared by these various movements was the conviction
that the liberal Republic had failed.  As successive attempts to reform
the political system failed, discontent with the political status quo
intensified.

My problem with all of this is that it tends to represent voices that were
on the margin of political discourse as much more indicative of mainstream
opinion than was actually the case.  There is no doubt that there was a
widespread discontent with the politics through most of the pre-war
decade.  But just how prevalent were anti-liberal and anti-Republican
values?  Just how widespread was the "suspicion, even visceral rejection,
of liberal democracy" that Jackson has identified?  The non-conformists
are a case in point.  Jackson disagrees with Raymond Aron's doubts as to
whether this heterogeneous collection of pundits and philosophers mattered
"outside the dining rooms of the Paris intelligentsia".  He argues that
the non-conformists "articulated a malaise" that extended well beyond
these narrow confines and stresses the fact that many played leading roles
in French cultural life in the decades that followed (pp. 59-61).  The
fact that many of these figures played an important role in the Vichy
government is considered crucial.

But this thesis is less than convincing when one takes into account the
contradictory nature of so much non-conformist thought.  As a group, the
non-conformists had little in common beyond their rejection of liberal
capitalism and the materialist politics that it produced.  The
non-conformists' opposition to republican politics was never very coherent
or consistent.  Indeed their conviction that individualistic capitalism is
incapable of developing a rationally organised society remains common
currency throughout most of continental Europe today.  It did not present
a threat either to the Republic or to democracy in France.

The same is true of the widespread calls for economic reorganisation and
the popularity of corporatist solutions to France[s political and economic
problems.  Many of the experts or technocrats who advocated these changes
later played prominent roles under Vichy.  Jackson argues that their
presence at Vichy was testimony to the decline of liberal democracy in
France.  But this is surely debatable.  As Jackson admits, most of these
officials were not committed opponents of democracy.  Most, moreover,
functioned primarily as technical experts rather than political advisors.
This is not to argue that they were apolitical, but instead that their
politics did were not incompatible with the Republic.  They would likely
have played prominent roles in French planning had the political
environment not been transformed by the defeat.  Indeed the tradition of
recruiting theoretically "apolitical" experts continued into the post-war
era, when French technocrats, many of whom had served in Vichy, devised
the architecture for the post-war economic recovery of the _trentes annees
glorieuses_.  The corporatist character of economic planning under Vichy
was not in itself incompatible with republican politics.  It constitutes
evidence of a dissatisfaction with liberal economics rather than liberal
democracy.

One is also entitled to misgivings over Jackson's analysis of the strength
of anti-democratic sentiment within the parliamentary right.  His
conclusion is that "1940 was not so much the victory of "reaction" over
liberal conservatism as proof of how much the latter had already conceded
to the former" (p. 50).  To be sure, there were defections to the extreme
right from among this milieu.  But this was a common phenomenon across the
political spectrum.  The Communist Jacques Doriot and Socialists such as
Marcel Deat were only the most prominent left wing figures drawn to
authoritarian politics on the extreme right during this era.  And the
attitudes and opinions that Julian cites as representative of conservative
politics are very often those of marginal voices on the extreme right. The
extremist polemics of _Je suis partout_, _Action francaise_ and
_Gringoire_ are cited far more often than moderate newspapers and reviews
that had far larger circulation.  Jackson is by no means the only
historian who has succumbed to this tendency, which is characteristic of
most of the historical literature on this period.  Part of the problem is
that the opponents of republican democracy were articulate, voluble and
well-heeled.  They make more interesting reading and provide livelier
quotations. [1] But they can also provide a distorted picture of the true
character of political discourse in France between the wars.

Conversely, the analysis of the role and importance of the
extra-parliamentary leagues is both well-informed and judicious.  Jackson
is right to say that debates over the question of fascism in France are
important and should be taken seriously.  Central to this debate are the
politics of the Croix de Feu movement, led by Colonel de la Rocque, whose
membership swelled to over 300,000 in 1934.  Jackson argues that the Croix
de Feu was "an authoritarian-populist movement offering a major threat to
liberal politics".  The populist character of the Croix de Feu is beyond
question, as the authoritarian tendencies of its leadership.  But it is
perhaps an exaggeration to argue that its existence constitutes evidence
that democracy was teetering "on the brink" in France.  In the same vein,
Jackson probably goes too far in characterising the events of 6 February
1934 as a "crisis of the liberal state".  The problem is that disputes
over these issues can too easily degenerate into pedantic exchanges about
how one defines "fascism" and what one means by "crisis".  But it is worth
pointing out that Colonel de la Rocque's position on republican politics
was ambiguous enough to attract a wide variety of adherents, all of whom
were unhappy with French politics, but not all of whom were fascists or
even committed opponents of democracy.  Those who participated in the
demonstrations on the Place de la Concorde on 6 February were respondong
to a range of motivations.  Not all of them wanted to overthrow democracy.
Whatever the intentions of the minority who tried to storm the National
Assembly that evening, it is clear that there was no preconceived plan to
put an end the Republic.  Most of the demonstration consisted of
disorganised milling around on the right bank.

Simply put, there were fascists in France during the 1930s, but the true
influence of their politics, even on the right, remains open to debate.
The central point is that it is difficult to see a major threat to French
democracy from this quarter during the 1930s.  Perhaps the most compelling
illustration of this point is the ease with which the centre-left and left
mobilised a massive street presence in response to the perceived "fascist
challenge" of 6 February 1934. As Jackson points out, the overriding aims
of the Popular Front coalition that emerged out of this mobilisation was
"to strengthen democratic institutions and restore economic prosperity"
(p. 75).

One is tempted to go even further and to argue that the existence of
widely dissenting political views is a testament to the fact that
democracy was alive and well in France at this time.  It is when dissent
is silenced and opposing views are crushed that democracy is in danger. It
is important to bear in mind that, through to the outbreak of war,
democracy remained more firmly entrenched in France than it ever been
either across the Rhine or beyond the Alps.  This is not to excuse or to
play down the racism and xenophobia that continued to exist and to
manifest themselves in important ways.  Nor should the suppression of the
French communists in the autumn of 1939 be ignored.  It is merely to
underline the need to remember the political context in Europe during this
troubled period.

In sum, there are grounds to doubt that mainstream conservative politics
were as anti-Republican or as anti-democratic as Jackson suggests.  A more
compelling interpretation of the death of the Third Republic would
attribute more importance to the extraordinary circumstances of June-July
1940.  The defeat created new space in French politics that was swiftly
occupied by opponents of parliamentary democracy that had previously
operated on the margins of French political life.

If the mainstream right was not fundamentally anti-democratic, it was
certainly anti-Communist.  Nor can one dispute Julian's argument that fear
of communism was exacerbated by the experience of the Popular Front
between 1936 and 1938.  But how important was fear of communism and
revolution in France during the 1930s?  Along with scholars such as
Charles Micaud, Jean-Jacques Becker and Serge Berstein, Julian Jackson
argues that anti-Communism was the most important political force in
pre-war France. [2] This is the theme of the chapter entitled "Class War /
Civil War" which begins with the assertion that the events of 6 February
1934 "marked the beginning of a French civil war lasting until 1944". This
civil war was "first and foremost a class war" in which the right came to
place class identity before national identity (p. 66).  From the
perspective of foreign policy, the most important result of this "class
war" was the rise of a "conservative neo-pacifism" among the formerly
nationalist and anti-German right.  Conservative neo-pacifists, according
to Jackson, came to view the communist movement inside France as a bigger
threat than the external problem of Nazi Germany.  War became linked
inextricably with revolution.  Jackson goes even further to argue that the
politics of the Popular Front "caused a recomposition of the left and
paved the way for an entirely new political constellation determined by
anti-Communism" (p. 79).  By 1938 "Radicals and Socialists, who had in
1936 believed fascism to be the enemy, now saw the Communists as no less
dangerous - if not indeed worse" (p. 80).

This is surely overdrawn.  It is true that there were bitter quarrels
between Communists and their Radical and Socialist "partners" within the
Popular Front.  It is also true that key Radicals such as Edouard
Daladier, Camille Chautemps and Albert Sarraut loathed the Communist Party
(PCF).  In fact there was open warfare between Daladier and the Communist
members of the Chamber Army Commission almost from the beginning of his
tenure as Popular Front defence minister.  Finally, there is no doubt that
ideological antipathy was an important factor in the strong Radical
opposition to a military alliance with the Soviet Union.  But there is
really no evidence that these officials ever truly considered the PCF a
greater threat than Nazi Germany.  There is an abundance of evidence,
conversely, that the Radical members of the Popular Front government were
deeply preoccupied with the Nazi menace.  Perhaps the most telling
indication of perceptions at this juncture is the unprecedented scale of
the rearmament programme introduced by the coalition (and implemented by
Radical service ministers).  For the vast majority of Radicals throughout
the pre-war years, the French Communists were irritants rather than
threats to France's national existence.  It was the signature of the
Nazi-Soviet Pact in late August 1939 that transformed this perception of
the communist problem.

The same cannot be said for most right wing politicians.  And yet one
should still be wary of exaggerating the impact of anti-Communism on
right-wing politics.  But just how many conservative politicians actually
came to consider Communism a bigger problem than German domination of
Europe? Part of the problem with this line of argument is that it
exaggerates the extent to which French opinion ever embraced rapprochement
and cooperation with Germany.  Jackson's conclusion is that the politics
of Franco-German conciliation ("Briandism") were "the ideological frame of
reference for an entire generation".  Suspicion of Germany, he argues, was
confined to "some carping voices on the right" (p. 84).  It is difficult
to accept this depiction of conservative sentiment however.  While it is
true that Franco-German conciliation had always enjoyed some support on
the right, there is absolutely no doubt that, in general, conservative
politics remained nationalist and deeply suspicious of Germany right
through the 1930s.  Any systematic reading of the parliamentary debates in
the Journal Officiel illustrates this fundamental point.  Throughout the
inter-war period the French right opposed disarmament, complained loudly
and at length about all German violations of the Treaty of Versailles and
mocked the left for its naive approach to dealing with the German problem.

Even during and after the Popular Front period the vast majority of
mainstream conservatives supported the politics of national defence.  In
the Chamber and Senate army, navy and air commissions there was relentless
pressure for increased spending on armaments right through these years.
There was intense disagreement about how best to rearm, with the right
predictably opposed to nationalisation, but there was virtually no
disagreement on the need to rearm.  The same is true in debates over
foreign policy and national defence in the Chamber.  The right
consistently portrayed the left as bumbling and irresponsible when it came
to national defence.  Their argument was not that France should adopt a
pacifist policy, but instead that only conservative politicians with a
proven record of patriotism could be relied upon to protect French
interests against the German menace.

There are two central problems with arguments that "conservative
neo-pacifism" became the dominate position for right wing attitudes
towards foreign policy.  The first is that a false dichotomy has been
established between anti-Communism and suspicion of Germany.  Even Julian
falls into this trap when he argues that the conservatives who voted
against ratification of the Mutual Assistance Pact with the USSR in 1936
did so because "their fear of Germany [was] now outweighed by suspicion of
the Soviet Union and alarm about communism within France" (p. 90).  This
is based on the assumption that being anti-Soviet meant being pro-German.
This was by no means the case.  A look at the debates in the Chamber
leaves no doubt that the vast majority of conservative deputies did not
see their choices in these terms.  They wanted neither a pro-Soviet nor a
pro-German foreign policy.  Throughout the remainder of the decade they
remained unwilling to accept the necessity of choosing between these two
perceived evils.  This does not make them either pro-German or defeatist.

The attitude of the army general staff is perhaps the best illustration of
conservative attitudes towards the problems of the Soviet Union and the
PCF.  The politics of the army were thoroughly conservative.  Throughout
the pre-war decade, with a number of important exceptions, the army staff
remained profoundly suspicious of the Soviets and opposed transforming the
1935 mutual assistance agreement into a full-blown alliance.  At the same
time, however, the general staff focused overwhelmingly on the German
threat.  Despite the fact that the intelligence services consistently
provided detailed (if often exaggerated) reports on Comintern and
PCF-inspired subversion in both the armed forces and the defence industry,
the army remained obsessed with the German threat and devoted the
overwhelming majority of resources, in terms of military planning, weapons
procurement and intelligence work, to dealing with this threat.  Yet, it
was not until late 1938 (at the very earliest) that key military officials
began to accept the need for a real military alliance with the Soviets. As
the German threat emerged and took shape in the years leading up to the
crisis over Czechoslovakia, the majority of opinion within the military
remained steadfastly opposed to such a course of action.  The point is
that this did not make France's soldiers "conservative neo-pacifists".
They remained convinced that war with Germany was inevitable and became
more determined than ever to campaign for rearmament and for a revival of
the military alliance with Britain.  This is why it is so difficult to
accept Julian's judgement that "In theory, anti-Communism also implied
rapprochement with Germany" (p. 100).

A second problem is that, when analysing right-wing attitudes towards
foreign policy, too much attention is paid to the difficult summer of 1938
and not enough to the period before and after the Munich Crisis.  It was
at Munich that France abandoned Czechoslovakia, its lone ally in central
Europe.  During the crisis the French nation was confronted with the very
real prospect of a war for which it was neither materially nor
psychologically prepared.  Indeed the Czechoslovak crisis marked the high
point of collective anxiety over the prospect of war during the entire
inter-war period.  During the increasingly feverish weeks leading up to
the Munich Crisis, in an effort to refute all arguments for a policy of
firmness in the face of German threats, the centrist and mainstream
conservative press consistently linked the danger of war with the danger
of revolution.  They were able to do so because, although there was
opposition to the appeasement of Germany from both left and right, the
only coherent political group that took a clearly defined position against
further concessions was the PCF.  It was entirely predictable, therefore,
the majority of politicians and pundits rounded on the communists,
demonising them as war mongers who desired conflict in order to further
their revolutionary aims.  Within the _Munichois_ camp, the alleged danger
of revolution was elided with widespread horror at the prospect of another
war and used as a trump in arguments against war with Germany in support
of Czechoslovakia.

Significantly, these months mark the only period where this linkage was
prominent in mainstream political discourse.  Before and after Munich the
centre and the parliamentary conservatives tended to make distinctions
between the problems of communism on the one hand and Nazi aggression on
the other.  One is therefore entitled to conclude that fear of war, rather
than fear of communism, was the crucial factor motivating opposition to a
warlike policy during the Czechoslovak crisis.  The premier Edouard
Daladier is a case in point.  Daladier despised the French communists. But
his chief preoccupations were the inferiority of the French air force in
relation to German _Luftwaffe_ and especially the crushing responsibility
of taking the decision to fight another general European war.

The course of French politics and foreign policy in the final months of
peace bears out this analysis.  There is little or no evidence that
anti-Communism was a predominant factor in either official or public
perceptions.  Antipathy for Bolshevism did not prevent the Daladier
government from embarking on a policy of resistance to further German
aggression in spring and summer 1939. Nor did it prevent the majority of
French opinion from opposing further concessions to Hitler in a series of
opinion polls during the ten months of peace.  Suspicion of the USSR did
not lead automatically to support for appeasement.  This is why two of the
most ferociously anti-Communist political groups on the right, the
_Federation Republicaine_ and de la Rocque's _Parti Social Francais_,
could approve of the policy of firmness and rejected further capitulation
to Nazi demands.  Nor, significantly, did fear of revolution rule out
energetic efforts to negotiate a full-blown alliance with the USSR during
the final months of peace. Significantly, among the most strident
advocates of a Soviet alliance was the inveterately anti-Communist army
general staff, which had been calling for the construction of a viable
"eastern barrier" to German expansion since the previous December.  Nor,
finally, did fear of revolution prevent the decision for war that was
taken in late August.

All of this is not to say that anti-Communism was not a factor in both
domestic politics and foreign policy.  It is instead to point out that its
role should not be exaggerated.  At the end of the day, the vast majority
of French opinion, even on the right, wanted neither communist revolution
nor German domination, but hoped instead to avoid having to choose between
them.

The final set of arguments with which I would like to take issue in this
fine book concerns the vexed questions of pacifism and defeatism in France
during the pre-war years.  Jackson argues that on the eve of war "French
politics were riddled with defeatism" (p.118).  The primary evidence cited
for this is the support for pacifism across the political spectrum in
general and the rise of "conservative neo-pacifism" in particular.  The
central problem with this argument is that it is based on an implicit
elision of pacifism and defeatism.  All opposition to war is represented
as both "pacifist" and also somehow "defeatist".  This arises partly
because, as Julian admits, French "pacifism" was at this juncture a very
broad Church.  The suffering of the Great War ensured that various
conceptions of pacifism occupied a prominent place in almost all
constructions of French identity.  Many, if not most, French citizens
would have described themselves as opposed to war and therefore pacifist.
It is therefore essential to distinguish between "integral pacifists" and
"conditional pacifists".  The former were against war under any
circumstances, the latter were willing to accept war only if it was clear
there was no other option to safeguard the existence of the nation. [3]
The varied character of French pacifism between the wars explains why not
all pacifists approved of Munich, and why not all those who approved of
Munich were pacifists.

But to understand the complex nature of French attitudes towards war at
this stage it is also necessary to make a clear conceptual distinction
between fear of war and defeatism.  [4] Many who feared the consequences
of another war were not convinced that France would lose, nor were they
opposed to war under any circumstances.  Their reluctance to accept the
imminence of war stemmed from anxiety over what another war would mean.
But this is not the same thing as defeatism.  All the evidence we have
from opinion polls, discourse in the Chamber, the records of the
parliamentary commissions and the mainstream press indicates that the vast
majority of both elite and popular opinion overcame this anxiety and came
to accept the risk of war by the spring and summer of 1939.

This transformation is probably the most important factor in the evolution
of French policy from appeasement to resistance during this period.  But
there is insufficient appreciation of its importance in _France: the Dark
Years_.  While Julian acknowledges that opinion polls showed "a less
massive approval" for the Munich Accords "than might have been expected",
the change in public mood is not integrated into his analysis of France on
the eve of war.  The focus instead remains fixed on a relatively tiny
minority of bona fide defeatists who remained politically active, people
like Pierre Etienne Flandin or the rabidly anti-Semitic and xenophobic
voices of the extreme right in _Je suis partout_, _Gringoire_ or
_Candide_.  It is very difficult to see how this milieu could be
considered representative of the majority of elite and popular opinion.
There were defeatists in France on the eve of war.  But it is surely
misleading to conclude that France was "riddled" with defeatism.  I would
be inclined to go further and to argue that it was no more defeatist in
1939-1940 than it had been in 1916, 1917 or 1918.  The difference of
course, was defeat on the battlefield, a defeat that became a rout and
ended in national humiliation.

To sum up, this is an uncommonly rich book that is based on formidable
erudition.  Julian is certainly right to focus on the longer term context
to the French experience of war.  At the same time, there is a clear need
for further research into French society and politics during the pre-war
years.  Recent scholarship has focused overwhelmingly on nearly every
aspect of French social, cultural and political life during the Second
World War, but comparatively little work has been done on the 1930s. [5]
If this essay has demonstrated anything, it is that there remain important
and unresolved questions about the state of France before the outbreak of
war.  Further research into these issues, deploying the methodological
innovations that have been developed during the boom in Vichy studies, is
sure to enhance our understanding of both the pre-war and wartime periods.
In this sense, Julian Jackson has done historians of France a great
service in writing this book.  It is up to the rest of us to take up the
challenge, to reconsider our basic assumptions about this period, and to
try to write history that is as clear, accessible and thoughtful as that
on offer in _France: the Dark Years_.


Notes:

[1] Characteristic of this problem is the first and probably still most
widely cited study of right wing opinion during this era is Charles
Micaud, _The French Right and Nazi Germany_, 1933-1939, (New York, 1942).
It is important to remember that this book was published in the heated
aftermath of the fall of France in 1942 and that this context must have
influenced both the evidence used and the conclusions drawn by Micaud. For
a contrasting picture of right wing politics see R. Remond, _Les droites
en France de 1815 a nos jours_ , (Paris, 1982).

[2] Micaud, _The French Right and Nazi Germany_; JJ Becker and S.
Berstein, _Histoire de l'anticommunisme en France_, (Paris, 1987).

[3] See, on this question, N. Ingram, _The Politics of Dissent: pacifism
in France, 1919-1939_, (Oxford, 1991) and .P. Blondi, _La melee des
pacifists_, (Paris, 2000)

[4] I owe this idea to a series of illuminating conversations I have had
with my doctoral supervisee Daniel Hucker, who is preparing a PhD
dissertation on elite perceptions of public opinion in France in
1938-1939, and with Talbot Imlay, of the Universit de Laval.

[5] There are, of course, important exceptions.  Of particular interest in
this context are research monographs that range across the divide between
the pre-war and wartime periods by scholars such as Pierre Laborie,
Richard Vinen, Simon Kitson and, of course, this book.

Humanities & Social
Sciences Online

Copyright © 1995-2006 - Contact Us
RSS | Validate: XHTML | CSS