The victory of the Popular Front, social and anti-fascist, “unique moment” in French historical past | EUROtoday

“It is not enough to say that the second round completes the victory. It gives it proportions and a meaning that no one almost dared to hope for. The triumph of the Popular Front is overwhelming.” It is with these phrases that Léon Blum, the long run president of the council, greets the victory of the coalition of left-wing forces on the entrance web page of the socialist newspaper “Le Populaire” on May 3, 1936. This “Popular Front” has simply obtained 386 seats out of 608 within the Chamber of Deputies, together with 147 for the SFIO. For the primary time, socialists, allied with radicals and communists, will rule the nation.

The fascist hazard

“It is a broad alliance which results from a long and slow process”, summarizes the historian Jean Vigreux, professor on the University of Burgundy, specialist within the left within the twentieth century. “What made this union possible was the shock wave of Adolf Hitler’s coming to power,” provides the creator of “Discovering the Popular Front” (Les éditions sociale). Two years in the past, an occasion modified issues. While France was in flip affected by the Great Depression, far-right leagues attacked the parliamentary system. On February 6, 1934, they demonstrated in entrance of the Chamber of Deputies. The gathering become a riot, leaving round fifteen lifeless and practically 1,500 injured.

“This was seen as a coup on the left and as an attack on democracy and the Republic. The implementation of the Nazi dictatorship in a few months at the same period in Germany raised awareness of the danger that fascism represents,” describes Jean Vigreux.

The left then decides to unite. In the times following this coup by the far-right leagues, communists and socialists marched along with the blessing of Moscow. In July, the 2 events signed an “anti-fascist action unity pact”. In June 1935, the novel occasion, positioned slightly on the middle proper, additionally made a rapprochement with the SFIO and the PC. On July 14, 1935, these three teams gathered collectively for the primary time, alongside different small events, unions and associations, throughout an illustration bringing collectively 500,000 individuals.

“They took an oath to remain united to defend threatened democratic freedoms, to bring peace to the world and to build a future for the world of work. In this sense, they drafted a program known as the Popular Front,” explains historian Danielle Tartakowsky, specialist in social and political historical past in France within the twentieth century. “Their program was organized around three themes: bread, peace and freedom. Their measures were intended to fight against the crisis and against the danger of war,” provides the creator of “Le Front populaire: La vie est à nous” (editions Gallimard).

A local weather of violence

The electoral marketing campaign is going down in a really heavy local weather, each from a nationwide and worldwide standpoint, as Nicolas Brisset, historian of financial thought on the University of the Côte d’Azur, factors out: “The institution of fascist and Nazi regimes respectively in Italy and Germany and the feeling of the rise in power of the far-right leagues are accompanied by a climate of violence. The figure of Léon Blum crystallizes this violence. Attacked because he is Jewish, because intellectual, but also for an allegedly weak and ‘effeminate’ appearance.

On February 13, 1936, the socialist deputy was the victim of an attempted lynching by a group of Camelots du roi, activists of the nationalist extreme right, who were waiting for the funeral procession of Jacques Bainville, a figure of Action Française. “There is really a bipolarization of political life which was nicely perceived on the time by the press. Already in 1935, the journal Vu headlined ‘National Front towards Popular Front’. The latter aroused immense hope for some, but additionally nice fears for others, with the concern of the communists”, provides historian Jean Vigreux.

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A big strike motion

This divide was accentuated with the strikes which started in the beginning of May 1936. For Nicolas Brisset, they weren’t “turned against the Popular Front”, however quite the opposite had been its “emanation”: “The starting point was the strike of May 1, 1936, chosen by the CGT as a great moment of support for the Popular Front. The employers reacted quite violently, by dismissing a certain number of strikers, which triggered others strikes.”

“These strikes of joy”, as they had been nicknamed, unfold virtually in every single place in France. There are as much as 2 million strikers. The quite a few pictures of those joyful manufacturing facility occupations have remained in our recollections: picnics, standard dances to the sound of the accordion, boxing matches, and even belotes video games.

Installed on the head of a authorities made up of socialist and radical ministers supported by the Communist Party since June 6, the brand new president of the council Léon Blum hastens to reply, in keeping with Nicolas Brisset: “The strikes play a decisive role in the implementation of rapid measures, via the Matignon agreements. They are today part of French union memory, just like the words of Maurice Thorez (the boss of the PCF, Editor’s note) pronounced on June 11 1936: ‘You must know how to end a strike, as soon as satisfaction has been obtained'”.

In lower than two months, the forty-hour week, paid depart and collective agreements had been voted on. For Danielle Tartakowsky, these measures modified the world of labor, but additionally the lives of the French: “For the first time in the summer of 1936, men and women were paid while stopping work. They were able to go see the sea. They therefore felt the gains of this struggle deep within themselves in this ability to have time to themselves.”

Workers and workers weren’t the one ones to profit from this reform, the historian insists: “Agricultural workers also went on strike. A wheat office was created to support the prices paid to farmers. Farm families were also able to see their children who had become workers return thanks to country leave.” “It was a unique moment,” summarizes this Popular Front specialist.

Internal and exterior difficulties

But this nice standard victory was additionally marked by disillusionment. Jean Vigreux remembers, for instance, that this united left “did not go all the way to give women the right to vote.” The Popular Front was additionally “very quickly confronted with the Spanish War”, provides the historian. Even if Léon Blum supported the Republicans towards the Francoists, he finally determined to not intervene for concern of a breakup of the federal government coalition.

At the identical time, the federal government can also be going through financial difficulties, as Nicolas Brisset explains: “External constraint and capital flight, in a context of rising international perils, push us to favor military spending, to the detriment of the extension of the 1936 social program. This fuels disappointment within the worker and activist base.”

To reply to those challenges, Léon Blum requests full monetary powers that are refused to him. On June 21, 1937, one yr and two weeks after his inauguration, Léon Blum gave up his apron. Recalled to the presidency of the Council in March 1938, he didn’t final a month. The journey of the Popular Front led to November 1938 with the repression of a wave of strikes in response to the decree-laws taken by the federal government of the novel Daladier, calling into query social conquests.

Also learnAfter the decision for a brand new “Popular Front”, a glance again on the “immense hope” raised in 1936

“A major experience”

Despite the brevity of this journey, “the Popular Front laid the foundations not only of the social state, but of the thought according to which the state is legitimate to intervene in matters of social policies and the economy. The Popular Front has become a major experience opening the field of political possibilities, as was the New Deal”, estimates Nicolas Brisset. As proof, ten years later, on the finish of the Second World War, the National Council of the Resistance was largely impressed by his program.

In the many years that adopted, the Popular Front remained a compass for the left. Jean Vigreux remembers the fifth week of paid depart and retirement at 60 beneath the presidency of François Mitterrand or the 35 hours beneath the federal government of Lionel Jospin. “There is always this projection in relation to these social achievements and the possibility of changing people’s lives,” he summarizes.

More not too long ago, the Popular Front was invoked once more in the course of the early legislative elections in June 2024. The varied left-wing events got here collectively to kind a “New Popular Front”. The NFP got here first within the ballot, acquiring a relative majority within the nationwide meeting, however the President of the Republic Emmanuel Macron didn’t select to nominate considered one of his candidates to Matignon. “There was a missing figure and there were too many internal divisions,” notes Jean Vigreux.

One yr earlier than the subsequent presidential elections and whereas the far proper is within the lead within the polls, some on the left are as soon as once more calling for unity. In an editorial printed on the event of May 1, the newspaper La Marseillaise invitations “to find in history the keys to our future”: “The name of the Popular Front program, ‘Bread, peace, freedom’ is a manifesto against oppression and injustice and has not aged a bit as these scourges rage on our planet.”