Action Française
Encyclopedia
Orléanist
The Orléanists were a French right-wing/center-right party which arose out of the French Revolution. It governed France 1830-1848 in the "July Monarchy" of king Louis Philippe. It is generally seen as a transitional period dominated by the bourgeoisie and the conservative Orleanist doctrine in...
) counter-revolutionary movement and periodical founded by Maurice Pujo
Maurice Pujo
Maurice Pujo was a French journalist and co-founder, with Henri Vaugeois in 1898, of the Comité d'Action Française, which subsequently became the nationalist and monarchist Action Française movement.His son, Pierre Pujo led Action Française until his death on 10 November 2007....
and Henri Vaugeois
Henri Vaugeois
Henri Vaugeois was a French far right politician and one of the founders of Action Française.Born in L'Aigle, Orne, Vaugeois settled in Coulommiers where he taught philosophy. Initially a republican liberal, Vaugeois even flirted with Marxism in his youth...
and whose principal ideologist was Charles Maurras
Charles Maurras
Charles-Marie-Photius Maurras was a French author, poet, and critic. He was a leader and principal thinker of Action Française, a political movement that was monarchist, anti-parliamentarist, and counter-revolutionary. Maurras' ideas greatly influenced National Catholicism and "nationalisme...
. Although it supported the Orleanist branch, according to historian René Rémond
René Rémond
-Biography:Born in Lons-le-Saunier, Rémond was the Secretary General of Jeunesses étudiantes Catholiques and a member of the International YCS Center of Documentation and Information in Paris, presently the International Secretariat of International Young Catholic Students The author of books on...
's categorization of French right-wing
Right-wing politics
In politics, Right, right-wing and rightist generally refer to support for a hierarchical society justified on the basis of an appeal to natural law or tradition. To varying degrees, the Right rejects the egalitarian objectives of left-wing politics, claiming that the imposition of equality is...
families, it would be closer to the legitimist branch, characterized by rejection of the 1789 French Revolution
French Revolution
The French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...
's ideals (while the Orleanist branch is, according to Rémond, a movement which supports economic liberalism
Economic liberalism
Economic liberalism is the ideological belief in giving all people economic freedom, and as such granting people with more basis to control their own lives and make their own mistakes. It is an economic philosophy that supports and promotes individual liberty and choice in economic matters and...
).
It was founded during the Dreyfus affair
Dreyfus Affair
The Dreyfus affair was a political scandal that divided France in the 1890s and the early 1900s. It involved the conviction for treason in November 1894 of Captain Alfred Dreyfus, a young French artillery officer of Alsatian Jewish descent...
, partly in reaction to the left-wing revitalization that materialized in defense of the army captain, famously launched by Emile Zola
Émile Zola
Émile François Zola was a French writer, the most important exemplar of the literary school of naturalism and an important contributor to the development of theatrical naturalism...
's J'accuse
J'accuse (letter)
"J'accuse" was an open letter published on January 13, 1898, in the newspaper L'Aurore by the influential writer Émile Zola.In the letter, Zola addressed President of France Félix Faure, and accused the government of anti-Semitism and the unlawful jailing of Alfred Dreyfus, a French Army General...
. Originally a nationalist
Nationalism
Nationalism is a political ideology that involves a strong identification of a group of individuals with a political entity defined in national terms, i.e. a nation. In the 'modernist' image of the nation, it is nationalism that creates national identity. There are various definitions for what...
organization that attracted figures such as Maurice Barrès
Maurice Barrès
Maurice Barrès was a French novelist, journalist, and socialist politician and agitator known for his nationalist and antisemitic views....
, it became monarchist under the influence of Charles Maurras, who followed the counter-revolutionary theorist, Joseph de Maistre
Joseph de Maistre
Joseph-Marie, comte de Maistre was a French-speaking Savoyard philosopher, writer, lawyer, and diplomat. He defended hierarchical societies and a monarchical State in the period immediately following the French Revolution...
. Until its dissolution at the end of the Second World War, the Action Française was a prominent proponent of far-right
Far right
Far-right, extreme right, hard right, radical right, and ultra-right are terms used to discuss the qualitative or quantitative position a group or person occupies within right-wing politics. Far-right politics may involve anti-immigration and anti-integration stances towards groups that are...
integral nationalism
Integralism
Integralism, or Integral nationalism, is an ideology according to which a nation is an organic unity. Integralism defends social differentiation and hierarchy with co-operation between social classes, transcending conflict between social and economic groups...
, which regarded the nation as an organic entity, a wedding of blood and soil
Blood and soil
Blood and Soil refers to an ideology that focuses on ethnicity based on two factors, descent and homeland/Heimat...
.
Ideology
The ideology of the Action Française was dominated by the thought of Charles MaurrasCharles Maurras
Charles-Marie-Photius Maurras was a French author, poet, and critic. He was a leader and principal thinker of Action Française, a political movement that was monarchist, anti-parliamentarist, and counter-revolutionary. Maurras' ideas greatly influenced National Catholicism and "nationalisme...
, following his adherence and his conversion of the movement's founders to monarchism
Monarchism
Monarchism is the advocacy of the establishment, preservation, or restoration of a monarchy as a form of government in a nation. A monarchist is an individual who supports this form of government out of principle, independent from the person, the Monarch.In this system, the Monarch may be the...
. The Action Française supported a restoration of the monarchy and, after the 1905 law on the separation of Church and State
1905 French law on the separation of Church and State
The 1905 French law on the Separation of the Churches and State was passed by the Chamber of Deputies on 9 December 1905. Enacted during the Third Republic, it established state secularism in France...
, the restoration of Roman Catholicism
Roman Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church, with over a billion members. Led by the Pope, it defines its mission as spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, administering the sacraments and exercising charity...
as the state religion, even though Maurras was an agnostic himself. It should not be considered that the movement intended to restore real power to the king, merely to set him up as a rallying point in distinction to the Third Republic of France which was considered corrupt and unworkable by many of its opponents, whom they hoped to come to their banner.
The movement advocated decentralization (a "federal monarchy"), with the restoration of pre-Revolutionary
French Revolution
The French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...
"liberties" to the ancient provinces of France (replaced during the Revolution by the departmental system). It aimed to achieve a restoration by means of a coup d'état
Coup d'état
A coup d'état state, literally: strike/blow of state)—also known as a coup, putsch, and overthrow—is the sudden, extrajudicial deposition of a government, usually by a small group of the existing state establishment—typically the military—to replace the deposed government with another body; either...
, probably involving a transitional authoritarian government.
The Action Française was not focused on denouncing one social or political group as the conspiratorial source of ills befalling France. Different groups of the French far right had especial animus against either the Jews, Huguenot
Huguenot
The Huguenots were members of the Protestant Reformed Church of France during the 16th and 17th centuries. Since the 17th century, people who formerly would have been called Huguenots have instead simply been called French Protestants, a title suggested by their German co-religionists, the...
s (French Protestants), or Freemasons. To these Maurras added unspecific foreigners residing in France, who had been outside of French law under the ancien regime, and to whom he invented a slur name derived from ancient Greek history: métèques
Metic
In ancient Greece, the term metic referred to a resident alien, one who did not have citizen rights in his or her Greek city-state of residence....
. These four groups of "internal foreigners" Maurras called les quatre états confédérés and were all considered to be part of "Anti-France". Of course he was also opposed to socialism
Socialism
Socialism is an economic system characterized by social ownership of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy; or a political philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to any one of, or a combination of, the following: cooperative enterprises,...
, and, after the 1917 October Revolution
October Revolution
The October Revolution , also known as the Great October Socialist Revolution , Red October, the October Uprising or the Bolshevik Revolution, was a political revolution and a part of the Russian Revolution of 1917...
, to communists, but antagonism against them did not have to be constructed or marshalled (although the Protestants and the Freemasons were traditional supporters of the Republic, pejoratively called la gueuse (the slut) by the AF, and were thus in general left-wing).
1898–1926
The AF movement published a review, the Bulletin de l'Action française, which subsequently became the Revue de l'Action Française and then, in 1908, a daily paper Action Française (first edition on 21 March 1908). It gained a large number of readers outside the movement, with a circulation of 30 000 copies, and made Maurras a significant figure in French politics, his influence extending far beyond the extreme right. The daily was edited by Léon DaudetLéon Daudet
Léon Daudet was a French journalist, writer, an active monarchist, and a member of the Académie Goncourt.-Move to the right:...
, son of the writer Alphonse Daudet
Alphonse Daudet
Alphonse Daudet was a French novelist. He was the father of Léon Daudet and Lucien Daudet.- Early life :Alphonse Daudet was born in Nîmes, France. His family, on both sides, belonged to the bourgeoisie. The father, Vincent Daudet, was a silk manufacturer — a man dogged through life by misfortune...
, and other contributors included the historian Jacques Bainville
Jacques Bainville
Jacques Bainville was a French historian and journalist. A staunch monarchist, he was a leading figure in Action Française...
, the critic Jules Lemaître
Jules Lemaître
François Élie Jules Lemaître , was a French critic and dramatist.He was born at Vennecy . He became a professor at the university of Grenoble, but was already well known for his literary criticism, and in 1884 he resigned his position to devote his time to literature...
and the economist Georges Valois
Georges Valois
Georges Valois was a French journalist and politician.-Life and career:Born in a working-class and peasant family, Georges Valois went to Singapore at the age of 17, returning to Paris in 1898. In his early years he was an Anarcho-syndicalist...
, who later left the movement to found the fascist
Fascism
Fascism is a radical authoritarian nationalist political ideology. Fascists seek to rejuvenate their nation based on commitment to the national community as an organic entity, in which individuals are bound together in national identity by suprapersonal connections of ancestry, culture, and blood...
Faisceau
Faisceau
Le Faisceau was a short-lived French Fascist political party. It was founded on November 11, 1925 as a far right league by Georges Valois. It was preceded by its newspaper, Le Nouveau Siècle - founded as a weekly on February 26, it became a daily after the party's creation.-Creation:Contributors...
.
The Camelots du Roy
Camelots du Roy
The Camelots du Roi were the youth organization of the Royalist Action française French integralist movement. Created on 16 November 1908, it was closely influenced by Charles Maurras' integralism doctrine of nationalism, and was quite popular between the two World Wars...
were recruited in 1908 to sell the paper, but they also served as the movement's youth paramilitary wing, regularly engaging in street violence with political opponents. In this period, the Action Française became a significant actor in French politics, in particular among the students of the Latin Quarter
Latin Quarter
Latin Quarter is a part of the 5th arrondissement in Paris.Latin Quarter may also refer to:* Latin Quarter , a British pop/rock band* Latin Quarter , a 1945 British film*Latin Quarter, Aarhus, part of Midtbyen, Aarhus C, Denmark...
. However, its rise caused some concern among the Roman Catholic hierarchy.
Papal condemnation and decline
In spite of the Action Françaises support for Roman Catholicism as state religion and the fact that the vast majority of its members were practising Catholics (indeed, they included significant numbers of clergy), some Catholics regarded it with distrust.Much of this was due to the influence of Maurras, an agnostic whose advocacy of Catholicism was due to his belief that it was a factor of social cohesion and stability and to its importance in French history. This rather utilitarian view of religion disturbed people who were often in agreement with many of Maurras's ideas. Its influence on young Catholics was also considered problematic. Thus, on 29 December 1926, Pope Pius XI
Pope Pius XI
Pope Pius XI , born Ambrogio Damiano Achille Ratti, was Pope from 6 February 1922, and sovereign of Vatican City from its creation as an independent state on 11 February 1929 until his death on 10 February 1939...
condemned the Action Française.
Several of Maurras's writings, including the newspaper
were placed on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum
Index Librorum Prohibitorum
The Index Librorum Prohibitorum was a list of publications prohibited by the Catholic Church. A first version was promulgated by Pope Paul IV in 1559, and a revised and somewhat relaxed form was authorized at the Council of Trent...
at the same time, on January 9, 1927, with Action Française being the first newspaper ever placed on the Roman Catholic Church's list of banned books This was a devastating blow to the movement. On 8 March 1927 the AF members were prohibited from receiving the sacraments. Many of its members left (two Catholics who were forced to look for a different path in politics and life were writers François Mauriac
François Mauriac
François Mauriac was a French author; member of the Académie française ; laureate of the Nobel Prize in Literature . He was awarded the Grand Cross of the Légion d'honneur .-Biography:...
and Georges Bernanos
Georges Bernanos
Georges Bernanos was a French author, and a soldier in World War I. Of Roman Catholic and monarchist leanings, he was a violent adversary to bourgeois thought and to what he identified as defeatism leading to France's defeat in 1940.-Biography:Bernanos was born at Paris, into a family of...
); and it entered a period of decline.
In 1939, following the Spanish Civil War
Spanish Civil War
The Spanish Civil WarAlso known as The Crusade among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War among Carlists, and The Rebellion or Uprising among Republicans. was a major conflict fought in Spain from 17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939...
and a revival of anti-communism
Anti-communism
Anti-communism is opposition to communism. Organized anti-communism developed in reaction to the rise of communism, especially after the 1917 October Revolution in Russia and the beginning of the Cold War in 1947.-Objections to communist theory:...
in the Catholic Church, Pope Pius XII
Pope Pius XII
The Venerable Pope Pius XII , born Eugenio Maria Giuseppe Giovanni Pacelli , reigned as Pope, head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of Vatican City State, from 2 March 1939 until his death in 1958....
decided to end the condemnation. Thereafter, the Action Française claimed that the condemnation was decided for political purposes.
Interwar revival
Despite the 1926 Papal condemnation, the Action Française remained popular during the interwar period, being one of the most important far right leagues, along with the Croix-de-FeuCroix-de-Feu
Croix-de-Feu was a French far right league of the Interwar period, led by Colonel François de la Rocque . After it was dissolved, as were all other far right leagues during the Popular Front period , de la Rocque replaced it with the Parti social français .- Beginnings :The Croix-de-Feu were...
and others. As increasing numbers of people in France (as in Europe as a whole) turned to authoritarian political movements, many turned to the Action Française. It thus continued to recruit members from the new generations, such as Robert Brasillach
Robert Brasillach
Robert Brasillach was a French author and journalist. Brasillach is best known as the editor of Je suis partout, a nationalist newspaper which came to advocate various fascist movements and supported Jacques Doriot...
(who would become an infamous collaborationist
Collaborationism
Collaborationism is cooperation with enemy forces against one's country. Legally, it may be considered as a form of treason. Collaborationism may be associated with criminal deeds in the service of the occupying power, which may include complicity with the occupying power in murder, persecutions,...
), Thierry Maulnier
Thierry Maulnier
Thierry Maulnier was a French journalist, essayist, dramatist, and literary critic.-Before 1940:...
, Lucien Rebatet
Lucien Rebatet
Lucien Rebatet was a French author, journalist and intellectual, an exponent of fascism and virulent antisemite.-Early life:...
, etc. It was marginally represented for a time in the Chamber of Deputies
Chamber of Deputies
Chamber of deputies is the name given to a legislative body such as the lower house of a bicameral legislature, or can refer to a unicameral legislature.-Description:...
, notably by Léon Daudet, elected in the right-wing Chambre bleue horizon (1919–1924).
However, with the rise of fascism and the creation of seemingly fascist leagues, added to the 1926 Papal condemnation, the royalist movement was also struck by various dissidence: Georges Valois
Georges Valois
Georges Valois was a French journalist and politician.-Life and career:Born in a working-class and peasant family, Georges Valois went to Singapore at the age of 17, returning to Paris in 1898. In his early years he was an Anarcho-syndicalist...
would create the fascist Faisceau
Faisceau
Le Faisceau was a short-lived French Fascist political party. It was founded on November 11, 1925 as a far right league by Georges Valois. It was preceded by its newspaper, Le Nouveau Siècle - founded as a weekly on February 26, it became a daily after the party's creation.-Creation:Contributors...
, Louis Dimier would split apart, while other members (Eugène Deloncle
Eugène Deloncle
Eugène Deloncle was a French engineer and Fascist leader, and the adoptive father of Jacques Corrèze....
, Gabriel Jeantet
Gabriel Jeantet
Gabriel Jeantet was a French far right activist, journalist and polemicist. Active before, during and after the Second World War, Jeantet's links to Francois Mitterrand became a source of controversy during the latter's Presidency...
, etc.) created the terrorist La Cagoule
La Cagoule
La Cagoule , officially called Comité secret d'action révolutionnaire , was a violent French fascist-leaning and anti-communist group, active in the 1930s, and designed to attempt the overthrow of the French Third Republic...
group.
The Action Française spearheaded the 6 February 1934 crisis
6 February 1934 crisis
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...
, which led to the fall of the second Cartel des gauches
Cartel des Gauches
The Cartel des gauches was the name of the governmental alliance between the Radical-Socialist Party and the socialist French Section of the Workers' International after World War I , which lasted until the end of the Popular Front . The Cartel des gauches twice won general elections, in 1924 and...
and to the replacement of Radical
Radical-Socialist Party (France)
The Radical Party , is a liberal and centrist political party in France. The Radicals are currently the fourth-largest party in the National Assembly, with 21 seats...
Édouard Daladier
Édouard Daladier
Édouard Daladier was a French Radical politician and the Prime Minister of France at the start of the Second World War.-Career:Daladier was born in Carpentras, Vaucluse. Later, he would become known to many as "the bull of Vaucluse" because of his thick neck and large shoulders and determined...
by conservative Gaston Doumergue
Gaston Doumergue
Pierre-Paul-Henri-Gaston Doumergue was a French politician of the Third Republic.Doumergue came from a Protestant family. Beginning as a Radical, he turned more towards the political right in his old age. He served as Prime Minister from 9 December 1913 to 2 June 1914...
. In foreign policy, Maurras and Bainville supported Pierre Laval
Pierre Laval
Pierre Laval was a French politician. He was four times President of the council of ministers of the Third Republic, twice consecutively. Following France's Armistice with Germany in 1940, he served twice in the Vichy Regime as head of government, signing orders permitting the deportation of...
's double alliance with Benito Mussolini
Benito Mussolini
Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini was an Italian politician who led the National Fascist Party and is credited with being one of the key figures in the creation of Fascism....
's Fascist Italy
Kingdom of Italy (1861–1946)
The Kingdom of Italy was a state forged in 1861 by the unification of Italy under the influence of the Kingdom of Sardinia, which was its legal predecessor state...
and with the United Kingdom in the Stresa Front
Stresa Front
The Stresa Front was an agreement made in Stresa, a town on the banks of Lake Maggiore in Italy, between French foreign minister Pierre Laval, British prime minister Ramsay MacDonald, and Italian prime minister Benito Mussolini on April 14, 1935...
(1935) on one side, and with the Soviet Union on the other side, against the common enemy Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
. The Action Française greeted Franco
Francisco Franco
Francisco Franco y Bahamonde was a Spanish general, dictator and head of state of Spain from October 1936 , and de facto regent of the nominally restored Kingdom of Spain from 1947 until his death in November, 1975...
's appearance with delight, and supported the self-proclaimed Caudillo
Caudillo
Caudillo is a Spanish word for "leader" and usually describes a political-military leader at the head of an authoritarian power. The term translates into English as leader or chief, or more pejoratively as warlord, dictator or strongman. Caudillo was the term used to refer to the charismatic...
during the Spanish Civil War
Spanish Civil War
The Spanish Civil WarAlso known as The Crusade among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War among Carlists, and The Rebellion or Uprising among Republicans. was a major conflict fought in Spain from 17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939...
(1936–39). But the extra-parliamentary agitation brought by the various far-right leagues, including the AF, led Pierre Laval
Pierre Laval
Pierre Laval was a French politician. He was four times President of the council of ministers of the Third Republic, twice consecutively. Following France's Armistice with Germany in 1940, he served twice in the Vichy Regime as head of government, signing orders permitting the deportation of...
's government to outlaw militias and paramilitary leagues, leading to the dissolution of the AF on 13 February 1936 — the others leagues were dissolved only in June 1936 by the Popular Front
Popular Front (France)
The Popular Front was an alliance of left-wing movements, including the French Communist Party , the French Section of the Workers' International and the Radical and Socialist Party, during the interwar period...
.
Marshal Philippe Pétain
Philippe Pétain
Henri Philippe Benoni Omer Joseph Pétain , generally known as Philippe Pétain or Marshal Pétain , was a French general who reached the distinction of Marshal of France, and was later Chief of State of Vichy France , from 1940 to 1944...
's proclamation of the Vichy regime and of the Révolution nationale
Révolution nationale
The Révolution nationale was the official ideological name under which the Vichy regime established by Marshal Philippe Pétain in July 1940 presented its program...
after the failure of the Battle of France
Battle of France
In the Second World War, the Battle of France was the German invasion of France and the Low Countries, beginning on 10 May 1940, which ended the Phoney War. The battle consisted of two main operations. In the first, Fall Gelb , German armoured units pushed through the Ardennes, to cut off and...
was acclaimed by Maurras as a "divine surprise", and he rallied the collaborationist regime. Royalist members hoped that Pétain would restore the monarchy, and the Action Françaises headquarters were moved from Paris to Vichy
Vichy
Vichy is a commune in the department of Allier in Auvergne in central France. It belongs to the historic province of Bourbonnais.It is known as a spa and resort town and was the de facto capital of Vichy France during the World War II Nazi German occupation from 1940 to 1944.The town's inhabitants...
. However, the AF members were split between supporting the counter-revolutionary regime and their nationalism
Nationalism
Nationalism is a political ideology that involves a strong identification of a group of individuals with a political entity defined in national terms, i.e. a nation. In the 'modernist' image of the nation, it is nationalism that creates national identity. There are various definitions for what...
: after 1942, and in particular in 1943, some members, such as Henri d'Astier de la Vigerie
Henri d'Astier de la Vigerie
Henri d'Astier de La Vigerie was a French soldier, Résistance member, and conservative politician.-Life:Henri d'Astier was born in Villedieu-sur-Indre, a small village in the Indre département of central France...
, Pierre Guillain de Bénouville or Honoré d'Estienne d'Orves joined the Resistance
French Resistance
The French Resistance is the name used to denote the collection of French resistance movements that fought against the Nazi German occupation of France and against the collaborationist Vichy régime during World War II...
or escaped to join the Free French Forces
Free French Forces
The Free French Forces were French partisans in World War II who decided to continue fighting against the forces of the Axis powers after the surrender of France and subsequent German occupation and, in the case of Vichy France, collaboration with the Germans.-Definition:In many sources, Free...
. Others actively collaborated, while Maurras supported the Vichy government, but theoretically opposed Pétain's collaboration with the Germans. After the Liberation, he was condemned to life imprisonment in 1944, though he was reprieved in 1952. The Action Française was dissolved in 1944.
Since World War II
The Action Française reformed itself in 1947, under the influence of Maurice PujoMaurice Pujo
Maurice Pujo was a French journalist and co-founder, with Henri Vaugeois in 1898, of the Comité d'Action Française, which subsequently became the nationalist and monarchist Action Française movement.His son, Pierre Pujo led Action Française until his death on 10 November 2007....
who created the newspaper (AF) and the counter-revolutionary movement, "" ("National Restoration"). After Maurras's death in 1952, two rival newspapers, and Pierre Boutang
Pierre Boutang
Pierre Boutang was a French philosopher, poet and translator. He was also a political journalist, associated with the currents of Maurrasianism and Royalism.- Biography :...
's revived the Maurassian legacy, until the demise of in 1967.
In 1971, a breakaway movement, the "" was formed by Bertrand Renouvin
Bertrand Renouvin
Bertrand Renouvin, born in Paris, is the founder and president of French political movement Nouvelle Action Royaliste, a monarchist group which aims at restoring constitutional monarchy in France. One may say his orientation is now close to the original Gaullism which originated from the...
, Georges-Paul Wagner
Georges-Paul Wagner
Georges-Paul Wagner was a French lawyer, monarchist and deputy of the far-right National Front .He was first an activist of the Action française monarchist movement, and then participated in 1971 to the creation of the Nouvelle Action française along with Bertrand Renouvin...
and others. It subsequently became the Nouvelle Action Royaliste
Nouvelle Action Royaliste
The Nouvelle Action Royaliste , is a monarchist political movement marked by a will to found a constitutional monarchy in France.-History:...
(NAR), which supported the Orleanist heir (although in his 1968 reprinting of his study on the three French right-wing families, René Rémond
René Rémond
-Biography:Born in Lons-le-Saunier, Rémond was the Secretary General of Jeunesses étudiantes Catholiques and a member of the International YCS Center of Documentation and Information in Paris, presently the International Secretariat of International Young Catholic Students The author of books on...
still classified it in the legitimist movement because of its counter-revolutionary ideology). The movement called to support François Mitterrand
François Mitterrand
François Maurice Adrien Marie Mitterrand was the 21st President of the French Republic and ex officio Co-Prince of Andorra, serving from 1981 until 1995. He is the longest-serving President of France and, as leader of the Socialist Party, the only figure from the left so far elected President...
in the 1981 presidential election
French presidential election, 1981
The French presidential election of 1981 took place on 10 May 1981, giving the presidency of France to François Mitterrand, the first Socialist president of the Fifth Republic....
, instead of supporting Jacques Chirac
Jacques Chirac
Jacques René Chirac is a French politician who served as President of France from 1995 to 2007. He previously served as Prime Minister of France from 1974 to 1976 and from 1986 to 1988 , and as Mayor of Paris from 1977 to 1995.After completing his studies of the DEA's degree at the...
's "neo-Gaullism" movement (the Gaullists
Gaullism
Gaullism is a French political ideology based on the thought and action of Resistance leader then president Charles de Gaulle.-Foreign policy:...
are classed by René Rémond as Bonapartist
Bonapartist
In French political history, Bonapartism has two meanings. In a strict sense, this term refers to people who aimed to restore the French Empire under the House of Bonaparte, the Corsican family of Napoleon Bonaparte and his nephew Louis...
s) or Valéry Giscard d'Estaing
Valéry Giscard d'Estaing
Valéry Marie René Georges Giscard d'Estaing is a French centre-right politician who was President of the French Republic from 1974 until 1981...
's "Orleanist
Orléanist
The Orléanists were a French right-wing/center-right party which arose out of the French Revolution. It governed France 1830-1848 in the "July Monarchy" of king Louis Philippe. It is generally seen as a transitional period dominated by the bourgeoisie and the conservative Orleanist doctrine in...
" movement (because of his support of economic liberalism
Economic liberalism
Economic liberalism is the ideological belief in giving all people economic freedom, and as such granting people with more basis to control their own lives and make their own mistakes. It is an economic philosophy that supports and promotes individual liberty and choice in economic matters and...
).
In the beginning of the 1980s, various AF figures, such as Georges-Paul Wagner
Georges-Paul Wagner
Georges-Paul Wagner was a French lawyer, monarchist and deputy of the far-right National Front .He was first an activist of the Action française monarchist movement, and then participated in 1971 to the creation of the Nouvelle Action française along with Bertrand Renouvin...
or Philippe Colombani joined the ranks of Jean-Marie Le Pen
Jean-Marie Le Pen
Jean-Marie Le Pen is a French far right-wing and nationalist politician who is founder and former president of the Front National party. Le Pen has run for the French presidency five times, most notably in 2002, when in a surprise upset he came second, polling more votes in the first round than...
's National Front (FN). Until the 1999 breakaway of the National Republican Movement
National Republican Movement
The National Republican Movement is a French nationalist political party, created by Bruno Mégret with former Club de l'Horloge alumni, Yvan Blot and Jean-Yves Le Gallou, as a split from Jean-Marie Le Pen's National Front on January 24, 1999.Although political observers have considered the MNR to...
(MNR) led by Bruno Mégret
Bruno Mégret
Bruno Mégret is a French Far-right politician. He is the leader of the Mouvement National Républicain political party, but retired in 2008 from political action.-Youth and studies:...
, Jean-Marie Le Pen's success was partly explained by his unification of the various far right families (such as Traditionalist Catholics, royalists, neofascists, etc.) which share few ideals apart from a distrust of liberal democracy
Liberal democracy
Liberal democracy, also known as constitutional democracy, is a common form of representative democracy. According to the principles of liberal democracy, elections should be free and fair, and the political process should be competitive...
and a staunch anti-communism
Anti-communism
Anti-communism is opposition to communism. Organized anti-communism developed in reaction to the rise of communism, especially after the 1917 October Revolution in Russia and the beginning of the Cold War in 1947.-Objections to communist theory:...
.
The AF movement still exists as the monarchist and anti-European Union
European Union
The European Union is an economic and political union of 27 independent member states which are located primarily in Europe. The EU traces its origins from the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Economic Community , formed by six countries in 1958...
"" and publishes a magazine called . Its leader was Pierre Pujo
Pierre Pujo
Pierre Pujo was the leader of the leading French monarchist group Action Française until his death on 10 November 2007...
(Maurice Pujo's son), who died in Paris on 10 November 2007. The student movement, called , has approximately 15 local delegations (in places such as Paris, Normandy, Rennes, Bordeaux, and Forez) and a newspaper, . Its President is Oliver Perceval.
The AF movement is member of the International Monarchist League
International Monarchist League
The International Monarchist League is an organisation dedicated to the preservation and promotion of the monarchical system of government and the principle of monarchy worldwide...
.
Judgment of political scientists
In the 1960s, political scientist Ernst NolteErnst Nolte
Ernst Nolte is a German historian and philosopher. Nolte’s major interest is the comparative studies of Fascism and Communism. He is Professor Emeritus of Modern History at the Free University of Berlin, where he taught from 1973 to 1991. He was previously a Professor at the University of Marburg...
considered the Action Française to be the first fascist party, and the most manipulative and duplicitous of fascist parties. But his view-point is generally considered extreme, and the movement is not considered as historically important as the fascist groups which gained power, while many others argue that AF was in fact a reactionary movement.
More recently, Israeli historian Zeev Sternhell
Zeev Sternhell
Zeev Sternhell is an Israeli historian and one of the world's leading experts on Fascism. Sternhell headed the Department of Political Science at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and writes for Haaretz newspaper.-Biography:...
has cited the group, along with its predecessor Boulangism
Georges Boulanger
Georges Ernest Jean-Marie Boulanger was a French general and reactionary politician. At the apogee of his popularity in January 1889 many republicans including Georges Clemenceau feared the threat of a coup d'état by Boulanger and the establishment of a dictatorship.- Early life and career :Born...
and Georges Valois
Georges Valois
Georges Valois was a French journalist and politician.-Life and career:Born in a working-class and peasant family, Georges Valois went to Singapore at the age of 17, returning to Paris in 1898. In his early years he was an Anarcho-syndicalist...
' syndicalist
Syndicalism
Syndicalism is a type of economic system proposed as a replacement for capitalism and an alternative to state socialism, which uses federations of collectivised trade unions or industrial unions...
Cercle Proudhon
Cercle Proudhon
The Cercle Proudhon was a political group founded in France on December 16, 1911 by George Valois and Édouard Berth. It was to include such people as French writer Pierre Drieu La Rochelle.-History:...
, as a major, direct intellectual influence on fascism.
According to historian René Rémond
René Rémond
-Biography:Born in Lons-le-Saunier, Rémond was the Secretary General of Jeunesses étudiantes Catholiques and a member of the International YCS Center of Documentation and Information in Paris, presently the International Secretariat of International Young Catholic Students The author of books on...
's famous classification of French right-wing families, the Action Française belongs to the legitimist counterrevolutionary
Counterrevolutionary
A counter-revolutionary is anyone who opposes a revolution, particularly those who act after a revolution to try to overturn or reverse it, in full or in part...
movement, which rejects all deformations in the French political regime since the French Revolution
French Revolution
The French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...
of 1789.
Fictional accounts
In Harry TurtledoveHarry Turtledove
Harry Norman Turtledove is an American novelist, who has produced works in several genres including alternate history, historical fiction, fantasy and science fiction.- Life :...
's American Empire
American Empire (Harry Turtledove)
The American Empire series is a trilogy of alternate history novels by Harry Turtledove. It follows How Few Remain and the Great War trilogy, and is part of the Southern Victory Series...
alternative history books, the Action Française becomes a popular movement in France following the nation's defeat in the Great War. By the early 1930s, it has placed France under the rule of King Charles XI, and spends the decade re-arming for a rematch with Germany. After Kaiser Wilhelm
Kaiser Wilhelm
Kaiser Wilhelm is a common reference to two German emperors:* Wilhelm I, German Emperor , King of Prussia; became the first Kaiser of a united Germany...
's death in 1941, Action Française declares war on Germany, but its offensive by early 1942 has stalled at the Rhine and outside Hamburg. In 1944 Paris is then destroyed by a German nuclear weapon. It's unclear what happened to the organisation after this.
See also
- 6 February 1934 crisis6 February 1934 crisisThe 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...
- Anti-parliamentarism
- French Third RepublicFrench Third RepublicThe French Third Republic was the republican government of France from 1870, when the Second French Empire collapsed due to the French defeat in the Franco-Prussian War, to 1940, when France was overrun by Nazi Germany during World War II, resulting in the German and Italian occupations of France...
(1870–1940) - Hussards (literary movement)Hussards (literary movement)The Hussards was a French literary movement in the 1950s which opposed Existentialism and the figure of the politically engaged intellectual as personified by Jean-Paul Sartre.-Origins:...
, a movement created in the 1950s in reaction against existentialismExistentialismExistentialism is a term applied to a school of 19th- and 20th-century philosophers who, despite profound doctrinal differences, shared the belief that philosophical thinking begins with the human subject—not merely the thinking subject, but the acting, feeling, living human individual...
and close to the AF - MonarchismMonarchismMonarchism is the advocacy of the establishment, preservation, or restoration of a monarchy as a form of government in a nation. A monarchist is an individual who supports this form of government out of principle, independent from the person, the Monarch.In this system, the Monarch may be the...
- Nouvelle Action RoyalisteNouvelle Action RoyalisteThe Nouvelle Action Royaliste , is a monarchist political movement marked by a will to found a constitutional monarchy in France.-History:...
Further reading
- Weber, EugenEugen WeberEugen Joseph Weber was a Romanian-born American historian with a special focus on Western Civilization and the Western Tradition....
Action Française; Royalism And Reaction In Twentieth-Century France, Stanford, California, Stanford University Press, 1962. - Nolte, ErnstErnst NolteErnst Nolte is a German historian and philosopher. Nolte’s major interest is the comparative studies of Fascism and Communism. He is Professor Emeritus of Modern History at the Free University of Berlin, where he taught from 1973 to 1991. He was previously a Professor at the University of Marburg...
The Three Faces Of Fascism : Action Française, Italian Fascism, National Socialism, translated from the German by Leila Vennewitz, London : Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1965.