It makes perfect sense if you think about:
>Incredibly strong tradition of political centralization including several coup d'etats
>Dominant military meddling in civic life
>Very weak and fragmented parliamentary system with strong extremist parties
>Economic crisis (in the 1930s)
>An external enemy to unite the country against (especially from 1933 onward)
>Three neighbors becoming fascistic and arming to the teeth
>Genuine and quite realistic fear of Bolshevik takeover
>Fascism becoming trendy as hell among French intellectuals; fuck, the country basically invented the movement
>Organized fascistic and populist-authoritarian parties ready to go at it
>Genuine and quite realistic fear of Bolshevik takeover
Except for the part about half of the political class being left wing, the socialist party being the strongest in the country and the communist party being right behind it.
>>290813
This was basically the situation in Germany. The SPD and KPD had clear plurality, had they joined forces. Prussia was also ruled by the left.
>An external enemy to unite the country against (especially from 1933 onward)
which was also fascist
>>290801
>>Three neighbors becoming fascistic and arming to the teeth
This was part of the reasons imo. Fascism was seen as an alien force, especially from the moment Hitler began to rule in Germany. The slogan after all was "mieux vaut Hitler que Leon Bloom", which has a very unpatriotic tune; you have to be a real traitor if you prefer a dirty Hun over your country man, even if he is a Jew and a leftie.
It was because the French aren't mindless emotionless drones who will obey authority under any circumstances like the Germans
>>290861
Could you translate?
>>290869
>implying Spaniards are
>implying friggin' ITALIANS are
>>290871
Better Hitler than Leon Blum
>>290886
Thanks m8.
>>290879
Both Spain and Italy got fucked for different reasons.
Mussolini didn't even have the support of 10% of the population when he did the march on Rome, but he gambled, the king gave in and made him dictator.
In Spain, Franco won a civil war. It's not as if people didn't try to stop him.
>>290850
>implying countries will get on because they are ruled by the same ideology
>>290801
>>Three neighbors becoming fascistic and arming to the teeth
Probably it.
Enemy went fascist so they didn't.
>>290801
if your really interested you can try these works OP, I haven't read them myself, but the gist of their descriptions is that the far right was too fragmented to contend for power. It also didn't have a wide enough base of support. There was also a long tradition of royalism that contended for support against the fascists. Maybe the parliamentary conservatives were more viable in France too?
Soucy, Robert. French Fascism: The First Wave, 1924–1933. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1986.
>Continued in French Fascism: The Second Wave, 1933–1939 (New Haven, CT: Yale university Press, 1995). Treating a wide variety of new right-wing movements, the author disputes the conventional notion that France was resistant to fascism, and that these movements were merely “nationalist” instead. Accents their conservative function, despite periodic anticapitalist rhetoric, and concludes that it was mostly tactics and style that distinguished them from parliamentary conservatism. But that, for critics, would be evidence that they should not be taken as “fascist” in the first place.
Weber, Eugen. Action Française: Royalism and Reaction in Twentieth-Century France. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1962.
>Detailed, definitive study of arguably the most important movement of the “New Right” in France during the first half of the 20th century. Shows that though its royalism and Catholicism were somewhat heterodox, it was still deeply traditionalist and, if anything, deeply anti-fascist, with fascism taken to be mass-based and collectivist, sowing disorder. Concludes that the movement’s unrealistic assumptions and contradictory ideas doomed it to political ineffectiveness. It exerted some influence at Vichy initially but was quickly marginalized.
>>294042
Passmore, Kevin. From Liberalism to Fascism: The Right in a French Province, 1928–1939. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1997.
>Through the prism of Lyon and its province, concerned with the overall contours and dynamic of the radical French right. Takes the Croix de Feu as the French version of fascism, though with significant indigenous features, including a democratic populist potential. It was especially the contingent circumstances of the Popular Front era that kept it from contending for power. Still, argues that though France produced a major fascist movement, the French Right was exceptionally fragmented.
http://bookzz.org/book/1098587/315b93
(this is the only free download I could find)
Jenkins, Brian, ed. France in the Era of Fascism: Essays on the French Authoritarian Right. New York: Berghahn, 2005.
>Includes seven essays, several published previously, though a few were revised for this volume. Includes contributions by Robert Soucy and Zeev Sternhell, prominent in denying the once-widespread claim that France had been immune to genuine fascism. Nicely framing the changing perspectives on this controversial issue, the editor seeks the middle ground: just as France was not immune, neither was it the major fount of fascism.
>>294046
I'll throw some british fascism in cause I see people posting on it sometimes:
Cronin, Mike, ed. The Failure of British Fascism: The Far Right and the Fight for Political Recognition. Basingstoke, UK: Macmillan, 1996.
>Nine new essays, including some by such experts on generic fascism as Roger Eatwell and Roger Griffin, as well as such specialists on British fascism as Martin Durham and Richard Thurlow. Covers the entire period from the 1920s to the 1990s. Seeks to challenge the conventional wisdom by featuring the impact fascism has had in Britain as opposed to its failures, so often taken as virtually inevitable, in light of British political traditions.
Gottlieb, Julie V., and Thomas P. Linehan, eds. The Culture of Fascism: Visions of the Far Right in Britain. London: I. B. Tauris, 2004.
>A collection of eleven original essays, edited by two of the leading figures in British fascist studies. Taking the political marginality of British fascism for granted, the authors in this collection assess the wider cultural sources and import of fascist impulses in Britain. Most treat the interwar period, but some range into the years since 1945. Topics range from masculinity and uniforms to theater and film. Provides a good introduction to recent debates in fascist studies in Britain.
http://bookzz.org/book/2512624/414cca
Linehan, Thomas. British Fascism, 1918–1939: Parties, Ideology and Culture. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 2000.
>Although the BUF proves central, offers a comprehensive treatment covering background as well as movements exerting various modes of influence prior to the formation of the BUF in 1932. Considers how interaction with fascists abroad reinforced indigenous tendencies. Attentive not only to politics, but also to the impact of fascism on culture, including the visual arts, especially as it entailed anti-Semitism and opposition to much of artistic modernism, taken as morbid and symptomatic of decline and decay.
>>294063
Pugh, Martin. “Hurrah for the Blackshirts!” Fascists and Fascism in Britain between the Wars. London: Jonathan Cape, 2005.
>An engaging study intended for the general reader, argues that when we turn from a specialized focus on this or that individual group, fascism appears more central to the overall narrative of interwar Britain than has generally been recognized. Insists that British fascism was involved in an ongoing exchange of ideas and personnel with the conservatives on the Right. Even as features indigenous sources, stresses the ongoing import of the Italian model, taken as a far stronger influence than Nazi Germany.
Thurlow, Richard C. Fascism in Modern Britain. Stroud, UK: Sutton, 2000.
>The author of the standard history of British fascism, published first in 1987, then in a revised edition in 1998, offers a briefer treatment here. In covering origins, emphasizes left-wing roots. Goes on to consider developments in the interwar period and into World War II. Devotes considerable space to continuities and to the role of fascism after 1945, with due attention to the problem of characterizing new forms of racial populism.
>>290844
>Prussia was also ruled by the left.
Care to elaborate?
>>294090
think he means the province of prussia within the weimar republic
>>290801
>very weak fascist organisations
>crisis was much weaker and happened later than what it did for USA and Germany
The left-wing coalition was pretty well organised and popular, also
>>290801
Former soldiers who lived through WWI had a huge moral and ethic weight in French mentality in the 20's and 30's.
Most of them were pacifists.
Because France won WW1, and also because it's not a nation founded on butthurt like Germany is.
>>290801
they didnt become fascist because they were the heart of the french revolution? and they struggled with holding down republican governments throughout the latter 19th and early 20th century?
because contrastingly Germany had a very rocky baby representative government wracked with political turmoil and economic ruin? because before that there was a history of absolute monarchy dominated by Prussians?
>>294172
>they were the heart of the french revolution
lel. and the heart of the first and second empires and the bourbon restoration. shitty argument tbqh
>>290801
Because they won the war despite the devastation. If it's Germany who won then France would turn fascist.
>>294171
Mostly this. Revanchism played a huge part in the rise of the authoritarian right-wing in both Germany and Italy. France didn't really have any territory it hadn't already claimed. They got Alsace-Lorraine (at least partially) after WW1.
because it's god's chosen country
>fascistic
Stop this
And stop 'nationalistic' etc. The 'ic' is redundant in 99% of cases
>>294352
np, if you speak french i've got french books on the subject too
>>294274
It's because almost all other Western European languages use the -ic when describing ideologies.
>>290801
If I remember correctly, the French far right was leaning more towards monarchism, which had little support after 60 years of Republicanism.
In the '30s there was a fascist terrorist organisation in France (Read it in French if you can):
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Cagoule
Some rumours were implicating French socialist president Mitterrand that he have had links to this group
>>290801
Because only shitty, losing countries become fascist.
France was doing pretty good during the early 20th century so they had no reason to become fascist.
>>294172
Actually the German Empire was a very liberal democracy by 1800s standards.
>>294486
Dobry, Michel, ed. Le mythe de l’allergie française au fascisme. Paris: Albin Michel, 2003.
>A set of essays seeking to counter the enduring notion that France had been exceptional in its immunity to fascism. Mostly new essays by French scholars, though also includes adaptations of earlier work by Robert Paxton and Zeev Sternhell, each of whom, from quite different angles, featured French culpability, thereby calling the immunity notion into question. The brief but excellent editor’s introduction suggests how to deepen the discussion, getting beyond the stale and sterile terms of the “immunity” debate.
Kéchichian, Albert. Les Croix- de-Feu à l’âge des fascismes: Travail, famille, patrie. Paris: Champ Vallon, 2006.
>Compelling argument for considering the Croix de Feu as traditionalist, not “fascist,” which, the author maintains, entails a totalitarian thrust, reflecting a sense of the need to go beyond existing institutions and values. Stresses the Croix de Feu’s sense of aristocratic honor, its desire to restore the national unity evident at the outset of World War I. Comparable to Franco in Spain and Salazar in Portugal in seeking to stabilize institutions and depoliticize society, but lack of realism overall.
Rémond, René. Les droites en France. Paris: Aubier Montaigne, 1982.
>Revised edition of a classic work, first published in France in 1954, and translated as The Right Wing in France: From 1815 to de Gaulle (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1966). Widely viewed as the key source of the notion that France had been relatively immune to genuine fascism, thanks especially to the persistence of three mentalities on the Right traceable to Bourbon monarchist traditionalism, Orleanist liberal conservatism, and Bonapartism, with its unique combination of authoritarianism and democracy.
>>294521
Sternhell, Zeev, Mario Sznajder, and Maia Asheri. The Birth of Fascist Ideology: From Cultural Rebellion to Political Revolution. Translated by David Maisel. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994.
>Published in French as Naissance de l’idéologie fasciste (Paris: Fayard, 1989) as a sequel to the author’s Neither Right nor Left: Fascist Ideology in France (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986; first French edition as Ni droite ni gauche: L’idéologie fasciste en France [Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1983]). Features French origins of fascist ideas, especially in the thinking of Georges Sorel and Charles Maurras, but goes on to contend that the fascist synthesis was more fully, and in one sense archetypally, developed in Italy. So the putative Italian embrace of French fascist ideology is the centerpiece.
http://bookzz.org/book/689901/b04610
Paxton, Robert O. Vichy France: Old Guard and New Order, 1940–1944. New York: W. W. Norton, 1975.
>Much important work on Vichy has been done in English, but this pioneering and highly influential work, first published in 1972, remains indispensable. More concerned with moral culpability than with the question of fascism. Finds the dynamic largely indigenous, with decisions not forced by the Germans. Vichy not a mere caretaker, but activist, seeking to remake France, repudiating the whole republican tradition. But concludes that, though Vichy entailed several phases, making generalization is difficult; it was more traditionalist than fascist.
>>294521
Danke schön
>>294533
Antliff, Mark. Avant-Garde Fascism: The Mobilization of Myth, Art, and Culture in France, 1909–1939. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2007.
>Features the malleable legacy of Georges Sorel and several disparate interwar movements to treat the attraction of Italian Fascism to French intellectuals and artists. Shows the centrality not only of violence and myth, but also of architecture and visual culture. Although this study’s understanding of the Italian situation is sometimes limited, it makes clear that Italian Fascist themes could be borrowed selectively and combined with other cultural components in ways that defy conventional categories.
http://bookzz.org/book/1101429/c933c6
Orlow, Dietrich. The Lure of Fascism in Western Europe: German Nazis, Dutch and French Fascists, 1933–1939. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009.
>Treats the interaction between Nazi Germany and Dutch fascists, on the one hand, and French fascists, on the other. Seeks a new angle on the study of generic fascism as entailing an eagerness to interact across national borders in light of a shared sense of the scope for innovative, postliberal, and anti-Marxist political response. Good in reconstructing what dissatisfied sectors saw in fascism, and even specifically in Nazism, at the time.
>>294534
no german works on french fascism sadly lel
>>294494
They number in the triple digit area
>>294592
yeah there is a critique of his work actually, but i hadn't posted it cause i didn't think hed be as biased as you say
Roberts, David D. “How Not to Think about Fascism and Ideology, Intellectual Antecedents and Historical Meaning.” In Historicism and Fascism in Modern Italy. Edited by David D. Roberts, 173–200. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2007.
>First published in Journal of Contemporary History 35 (2000): 185–211. A critique of Zeev Sternhell’s influential account of fascist ideology. Argues that Sternhell overemphasizes French sources and imputes them to Italy arbitrarily—thus missing the basis of key Italian strands and homogenizing them unduly at the same time. Goes on to argue that uncritical acceptance of Sternhell’s categories has impeded the deeper encounter with fascist thinking that understanding requires. See also pp. 18–20 in the volume’s introduction.
http://bookzz.org/book/2352392/6a5402
Good bread.
Also does anyone else think that the French version of secularism (laïcité) and the idea of state education contributed to the strength of the Republic? This obviously did not exist in Spain and in Italy.
>>294810
>Also does anyone else think that the French version of secularism (laïcité) and the idea of state education contributed to the strength of the Republic? This obviously did not exist in Spain and in Italy.
During the Third Republic the school teachers weren't nicknamed "the Black Hussards of the Republic" for nothing.
I'd even say that stamping out regional languages and indentities during that period, as callous as it sounds, explains why France is lacking the powerful independentist and autonomist movements that Spain and Italy have.
>>294825
>the Black Hussards of the Republic
Hahaha holy fuck. French people are based.
>>290801
Frog here.
While what you say is true, you forget, or maybe didn't learn that there was a very strong (libertarian/libertaire) left wing movement in France since the work of Proudhon and Bakunin which took the form of anarcho-syndicalism.
Fascism just couldn't plant roots with this climate, not to mention that Action Française was a failed movement.
>>294830
The Republicans were conscious that the Third Republic was basically an accident so they wanted to secure and consolidate it. For that they made education "free, compulsory and laic".
School teachers had the duty to enshrine the Republic in the minds of their students and instill a sense of national unity.
>>294849
Syndicalism was pretty strong in Spain too. I think in most Latin countries as well (including Latin America).
>>294854
French schools were a bastions of authoritarianism, they still do until this day (although to a much smaller extent obviously). A French schoolmaster around the fin de siecle would make his British counterpart look like a kitten. This is why the 1968 revolt was directed primarily at the pedagogic and academic establishment: it was seen as a vestige of tradition and authority which needed to be destroyed in the name of democracy.
>>294860
Yes libertarians lost in spain mainly because of the commie backstabbing and France non intervention. Orwell was in International Brigades and wrote a book about his experience, you should definitely read it if you are interested in Spain civil war.
I don't know, maybe because nearly every French generation since clovis had to fight fucking wars. Maybe they just got tired of fighting. I can't think of a country which waged more wars than France. Even now they have military campaigns in africa and shit. France has litterally been in nearly constant war since it exists.
>>294870
Problem is the alternative solution which was institutional pedagogy / Freinet pedagogy, never took place, so the educational system is basically decaying since it's basically the same, but with knowledge level going lower and teacher authority disappearing.
>>294937
Post WW1 pacifism was a factor yes, eg: Chamberlain wanted to avoid war by all costs.
>>294937
I was just thinking the same thing. As much as Prussians/Germans get shit for their militarism (rightly so), the French are the real belligerent assholes of Europe.
>>294975
>Problem is the alternative solution which was institutional pedagogy / Freinet pedagogy, never took place, so the educational system is basically decaying since it's basically the same, but with knowledge level going lower and teacher authority disappearing.
And then you have crazy stuff like young students [spoiler]of certain ethnic descent[/spoiler] physically assaulting their teachers in the banlieues, since they're still considered authority figures and identified with the Republic but lack the actual authority.
>>294976
I look at French chronology and I see wars, campaigns every 20 years or so, sometimes less, and when there is no war there is civil wars, wars during wars, wars during civil wars, civil wars during wars. These people have a fucking problem. People can't explain why France demography slowed down before other countries and why it didn't have that demographic boom like other western countries? Well, sending your youth die every generation is probably not good for population growth.
>>290801
Because France had more of a democratic tradition than Germany or Italy did. They'd been a republic for decades and that worked reasonably well.
The French fascists did do comparatively well mind, but they could never win control.
>>295010
Demography is actually less of a problem in France. The low birthrate meme is applicable mainly to Germany and Northern Europe (as well as Italy, of all places).
I feel that the real problem in contemporary France doesn't arise from any particular objective political and economic circumstances circumstances but from a subjective sense of relative decline. In other words, going from a millennium of independence and assertive dominance, from Charlemagne to the Resistance, to merely a big cog in the EU machine, is more difficult than going from a mid-size country without any particularly ballsy aspirations to a smaller cog.
>>294870
>This is why the 1968 revolt was directed primarily at the pedagogic and academic establishment:
the hypocrite degenerates 68tards are just as much authoritative as what they denounce.
>>295050
About the demography, I was talking about the historical low demography of France, particularly during the industrial revolution when their pop didn't increase much compared to the UK, Germany and all, with high pop growth. Today is a bit different.
>>295050
>I feel that the real problem in contemporary France doesn't arise from any particular objective political and economic circumstances circumstances but from a subjective sense of relative decline.
Author of this article thinks the same:
http://www.economist.com/news/christmas-specials/21591749-bleak-chic
Because they didn't lose 14-18. French revanchisme is a sight to behold, see 1871.
>>290801
the point is that you cannot have explicit authority beyond the national education of the republic and the military service. the military service has been dismantled already. so remains the national education which is supposed to give good little republicans at the end. it does not work and never ever worked at all.
plus the there is no praxis of the human rights, due to the human rights themselves. people are not meant to adhere to them beyond paying taxes, which is good since the Republic has been a scam since its inception. to think that some structure will change people because its proponents do not like how people behave is quite demagogue, but to sell it as a objective universalism freeing people is the dumbest move.
human rights have failed and it feels good. today those little humanists try to incorporate the ''religious phenomenon'' as they put into their fantasied universalism and it will failed, since it never worked.
>>295154
I think /pol/ should be banned globally and only allowed in France. They're the only ones who can pull this shit authentically and not make it sound like angry adolescents.
>>295154
Despite that the Republic has been proven to be resilient
Why couldn't your stronk fascists defeat those "little humanists"?
