6 February 1934 crisis

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The 6 February 1934 crisis refers to an anti-parliamentarist street demonstration in Paris organized by far-right leagues that culminated in a riot on the Place de la Concorde, near the seat of the French National Assembly. It was one of the major political crises during the Third Republic (1871–1940), and it entered the popular consciousness, especially that of the socialists, as an attempt to organize a fascist coup d'état.

As a result of the actions of that day, several anti-fascist organisations were created, such as the Comité de vigilance des intellectuels antifascistes, in an attempt to thwart the rise of fascism in France. After World War II (1939–1945), several historians, among them Serge Bernstein, argued that, while some leagues had been indisputably pushing for a coup d'état, François de La Rocque, the leader of the important Croix-de-Feu league, had, in fact, turned in a progressive direction, toward a respect for constitutional order. However, if the lack of coordination among the fascist leagues undermined the idea of a fascist conspiracy, the fascist actions on 6 February were a very real attempt to overthrow the Cartel des gauches ("Leftist Coalition") government that had been elected in the 1932 elections.

Édouard Daladier, the leader of the Radical-Socialists (which was a moderately left-wing party), who was president of the national Council, had replaced Camille Chautemps's (radical-socialist) government on 27 January 1934 because of accusations of corruption (the Stavisky Affair, etc.) He himself was forced to resign less than two weeks later, on 7 February. Daladier, who had been a popular figure, was replaced by the conservative, Gaston Doumergue, as head of the government; this was the first time during the tenure of the Third Republic that a government fell because of pressures from the street.

The 1930s crisis and the Stavisky affair[edit]

France was affected in 1931, a bit later than other countries, by the 1929 Great Depression, which had been triggered by the Wall Street Crash of 1929 ("Black Thursday"). The economic and social crisis particularly affected the middle classes, traditional supporters of the Republic (in particular of the Radical-Socialist Party). Parliamentary instability followed, with five governments between May 1932 and January 1934, which fueled the anti-parliamentarist movement.

The latter took advantage also of a succession of political and financial scandals, such as the Marthe Hanau Affair (she had used her political supporters to attract, with her newspaper La Gazette du Franc, the savings of the petite bourgeoisie); the Oustric Affair (the criminal bankruptcy of banker Albert Oustric provoked the fall of André Tardieu's government in 1930, because of the involvement of his Minister of Justice in it); and, finally, the immediate cause of the 6 February 1934 demonstrations, the Stavisky Affair.

This new scandal, which involved Bayonne's Crédit municipal bank, exploded in December 1933. The embezzler Alexandre Stavisky, known as le beau Sasha ("the handsome Sasha") was linked to several radical deputies, including a minister of Camille Chautemps's government. The press later revealed that Stavisky had benefited from a 19-month postponement of his trial because the public prosecutor was Chautemps' brother-in-law. On 8 January 1934, Alexandre Stavisky was found dead. According to the police version, he had committed suicide, a conclusion that provoked general disbelief. According to the right wing, Camille Chautemps had had him assassinated in order to prevent him from revealing any secrets. The press then started a political campaign against alleged governmental corruption, while the far right demonstrated. At the end of the month, after the revelation of yet another scandal, Chautemps resigned. Édouard Daladier, another member of the radical party, succeeded him on 27 January 1934.

Since 9 January, thirteen demonstrations had already taken place in Paris. While the right wing was trying to use the affair to replace the left-wing majority elected during the 1932 elections, the far right took advantage of its traditional themes: antisemitism, xenophobia (Stavisky was a naturalized Ukrainian Jew), hostility toward Freemasonry (Camille Chautemps was a Masonic dignitary), and antiparliamentarism. As historian Serge Bernstein emphasized, the Stavisky Affair was exceptional neither in its seriousness nor in the personalities put on trial, but in the right wing's will to use the opportunity to make a left-wing government resign. In this aim, it could take advantage of the fact that the radical socialists did not have an absolute majority in the National Assembly and thus the government was weak.

However, it was the dismissal of the police prefect Jean Chiappe that ultimately provoked the massive demonstrations of 6 February. Jean Chiappe, who was openly right-wing, was very soft on far-right activism, which essentially took place in the streets (demonstrations, riots, attacks against the few left-wing students in the Quartier Latin by the monarchist Camelots du Roy, the youth organization of the Action Française, etc.). According to the left wing, Chiappe's dismissal was due to his involvement in the Stavisky Affair while the right wing denounced the result of negotiations with the radicals: the departure of Chiappe would have been exchanged against support for Daladier's new government.

The night of 6 February 1934[edit]

Forces present[edit]

Far-right anti-parliamentary leagues had been the main activists during the January 1934 demonstrations. Although these leagues were not a new phenomenon (the old Ligue des Patriotes ("Patriot League") had been founded by Paul Déroulède in 1882), they played an important role following World War I, in particular when the left wing was in power, as it had been since the 1932 legislative elections.

  • Action Française. Among the most important far-right leagues present on 6 February, the oldest one was the royalist Action Française. Founded in 1905 by Charles Maurras, it was composed of 60,000 members eager to overturn la gueuse, as they called the Republic, in order to restore the Capetian monarchy (which had been overthrown during the 1848 Revolution), but that the "legitimist" movement adamantly opposed. It was not until after World War II and the defeat of the Vichy regime that the legitimist far-right movement, one of the three French far-right traditions analyzed by historian René Rémond, finally became a really marginal grouping. The Action Française had as its youth group the Camelots du Roy, militants very active in the Quartier Latin against left-wing students (at that time, the right wing and the far right had a majority in the students' movement).
  • The Jeunesses Patriotes ("Patriot Youth") had been founded by Pierre Taittinger, deputy of Paris, in 1924. With 90,000 members, including 1,500 "elites" members, it claimed the legacy of the Ligue des Patriotes. The Jeunesses Patriotes had close link with right-wing politicians, and boasted several municipal councillors of the capital in their ranks.
  • The Croix-de-feu. The Croix-de-feu had been created in 1926 as a World War I veterans association. The most important league by membership numbers, it had extended its recruitment in 1931 to other categories of the population under Colonel de la Rocque's leadership. Like the other leagues, they also had "combat" and "self-defense" groups, called "dispos". Although many on the left wing accused it of having become a fascist movement, especially after the crisis, historians state that François de la Rocque's reluctance to participate in a coup d'état was a key reason for the failure of the riots to overthrow the Republic.
  • Veterans' associations. The veterans' associations which had taken part in the January demonstrations also took to the streets on 6 February. The most important, the Union nationale des combattants (UNC), directed by a Parisian municipal counsellor whose ideas were close to the right wing, counted 900,000 members. And showing the complexity of the situation and the general exasperation of the population, the Association républicaine des anciens combattants (ARAC), the unofficial French Communist Party (PCF) veterans' association, also called for its troops to demonstrate on 6 February, though with clearly different aims.

The riots[edit]

On the night of 6 February, the leagues, which had gathered in different places in Paris, all converged on Place de la Concorde, located in front of the National Assembly, but on the other side of the Seine river. The police and guards managed to defend the strategic bridge of the Concorde, despite being the target of all sorts of projectiles. Several rioters were armed, and the police forces fired on the crowd. Disturbances lasted until 2:30 AM. 16 people were killed and 2,000 injured, most of them members of the Action Française.

The far-right leagues had the most important role in the riots. Most of the Union nationale des combattants (UNC) veterans avoided the Place de la Concorde, creating some incidents near the Elysée palace, the president's residence. A few isolated members of the communist ARAC were also present; one public notice afterward proclaimed: "The Cartel [Cartel des gauches, the radical-socialist government] had the unarmed veterans who shouted "A bas les voleurs! Vive la France!" ("Down with the robbers, long live France!") killed."

While on the right side of the Seine (north, on the Place de la Concorde), the policemen's charges contained the rioters with difficulty, the Croix-de-feu had chosen to demonstrate in the south. The Palais Bourbon, seat of the National Assembly, is much more difficult to defend on this side, but the Croix-de-feu limited themselves to surrounding the building without any major incident before dispersing. Because of this attitude, they earned the pejorative nickname of Froides Queues in the far-right press. Contrary to the other leagues which were intent on overthrowing the Republic, it thus seemed that Colonel de la Rocque finally decided to respect the constitutional legality.

In the National Assembly, the right wing attempted to take advantage of the riots to push the Cartel des gauches government to resign. The left wing, however, rallied around president of the Council Édouard Daladier. The session was ended after blows were exchanged between left and right-wing deputies.

Consequences of the riots[edit]

Daladier's resignation and the formation of a National Union government[edit]

During the night, president of the Council Édouard Daladier took the first measures to obtain the re-establishment of public order. He did not exclude the possibility of declaring a state of emergency, although he finally decided against it. However, the next day the judiciary and the police resisted his directives. Moreover, most of his ministers and his party withdrew their support. Thus, Daladier finally chose to resign. This was the first time during the Third Republic that a government had to resign because of pressure from the streets.

The crisis was finally resolved with the formation of a new government under the direction of former president of the Republic (1924–31) Gaston Doumergue, a conservative whom the leagues seemed to accept. Qualified as a "National Union government", it included the most important figures of the parliamentary right wing, among whom André Tardieu, Louis Barthou and Louis Marin, although several radical socialists and Philippe Pétain, who was named minister of War, were also part of it. Pétain would later be the leader of the collaborationist Vichy regime during World War II.

Toward the union of the left wing[edit]

Following 6 February, the left wing was convinced that a fascist conspiracy had taken place, and that it had been temporarily blocked. The importance of the antiparliamentarist activity of far-right leagues was undeniable. Some of them, such as the Francisque, had copied all of their characteristics from the Italian Fascio leagues which had marched on Rome in 1922, thus leading to the imposition of the fascist regime. Although historian Serge Bernstein has showed that Colonel de la Rocque had probably been convinced of the necessity of respecting constitutional legality, this was not true of all members of his Croix-de-feu movement, which also shared, at least superficially, some characteristics of the fascist leagues, in particular their militarism and fascination for parades.

On 9 February 1934, a socialist and communist counter-demonstration took place while Daladier was being replaced by conservative Gaston Doumergue. Nine people were killed during incidents with the police forces. On 12 February the CGT trade union (socialist and reformist at the time) and the CGTU (communist) decided to call for a one-day general strike, while the SFIO socialist party and the communist party decided to call for a separate demonstration. However, at the initiative of the popular base of these movements, the demonstrations finally united themselves into one. Thus, this day marked a first tentative union between the socialists and the communists. It had at its core the antifascism shared by both Marxist parties; a union had been opposed since the 1920 Tours Congress split, but this new rapprochement led to the 1936 Popular Front (consisting of radicals and socialists and supported without participation in the government by the Communist party). This antifascist union was in line with Stalin's directives to the Comintern, which had asked the European communist parties to ally with other left-wing parties, including social-democrats and socialists, in order to block the contagion of fascist and anti-communist regimes in Europe.

Furthermore, several antifascist organizations were created in the wake of the riots, such as the Comité de vigilance des intellectuels antifascistes (Watchfulness Committee of Antifascist Intellectuals, created in March 1934) which included philosopher Alain, ethnologist Paul Rivet and physicist Paul Langevin. The anarchist movement also took part in many antifascist actions.

The right wing's radicalization[edit]

Following the crisis, the parliamentary right also began to get closer to the counterrevolutionary far right. Several of its leaders would lose all trust in parliamentary institutions. Daniel Halévy, a French historian of Jewish descent, publicly declared that following 6 February 1934 he was now a "man of the extreme right". Although he personally abhorred Italian fascism or German national socialism, he went on to support the Pétain regime in Vichy.[1] The radicalization of the right wing would accelerate after the election of the Popular Front in 1936 and the Spanish Civil War (1936–39).

In the view of the far right, 6 February represented a failed opportunity to overthrow the Republic (la gueuse), which only presented itself again in 1940 following the étrange défaite (Marc Bloch) or "divine surprise" (Charles Maurras), that is the 1940 defeat during the Battle of France against Germany. This deception prompted several far-right members to radicalize themselves, turning toward fascism, national-socialism or the wartime Vichy regime.

Despite the fears of the left wing, the 6 February crisis was not a fascist conspiracy. The far-right leagues were not united enough and most of them lacked any specific objectives. However, their violent methods, their paramilitary appearances, their cult of leadership, etc., explained why they have often been associated with fascism. Beyond these appearances, however, and their will to see the parliamentary regime replaced by an authoritarian regime, historians René Rémond and Serge Bernstein do not consider that they had a real fascist project. Opposing this view, other historians, such as Michel Dobry or Zeev Sternhell, considered them as being fully fascist leagues. Brian Jenkins claimed it was pointless to look for a fascist essence in France and preferred to make comparisons which led, according to him, to a clear convergence between Italian fascism and the majority of the French leagues, in particular the Action Française (in other words, Jenkins considers fascism an Italian historic phenomenon, and though a fascist-like movement existed in France, it should not be called "fascist" as that name should be reserved for Benito Mussolini's movement).

See also[edit]


  1. ^ See, inter alia, Mark Hulliung Citizens and citoyens: republicans and liberals in America and France (2002) at p. 158

Further reading[edit]

  • Dobry, Michel. "February 1934 and the Discovery of French Society's Allergy to the 'Fascist Revolution." in Brian Jenkins, ed. France in the Era of Fascism: Essays on the French Authoritarian Right (Berghahn. 2005) pp 129-50
  • Jenkins, Brian. "The Six Fevrier 1934 and the 'Survival' of the French Republic," French History (2006) 20#3 pp 333-351.
  • Soucy, Robert, French Fascism: The Second Wave, 1933–1939. (Yale University Press, 1995)

In French[edit]

External links[edit]