After rapidly gaining members and staging large demonstrations, it soon achieved its goal of maintaining the status quo separation between church and state.

The anti-religious Cartel des Gauches (Left-wing coalition) won the 1924 French national elections and formed a government led by Édouard Herriot.

Under pressure to launch an anti-clerical program, Herriot closed the Vatican embassy and passed legislation enforcing secular education in Alsace-Lorraine.

[2] The movement had little concern with the form of government, which could be a monarchy or a republic, but considered that all the evils of modern society resulted from the absence of God.

[4] In the Federation's official bulletin, le Point de direction, Castelnau hammered home the importance of unity of all Catholics.

[7] The Cartel des Gauches was forced to reverse course in 1925, returning to the status quo in which France had an embassy in the Vatican, and Alsace-Lorraine had confessional schools, but where otherwise the church and state were rigidly separated.

The FNC lost authority due to Pope Pius XI's desire to keep Catholic Action completely free from politics and controlled by the church.

[11] The FNC was also at odds with the church over foreign policy, in favor of Benito Mussolini in Italy and hostile to Germany, while the Vatican supported the League of Nations.

As the 1930s progressed the church also began to throw its support behind the elected governments of the Third Republic, and advised the FNC to do the same rather than to promote a separate agenda.

[2] General Castelnau provided funding to other right-wing groups including Antoine Rédier's fascist Légion and Pierre Taittinger's Jeunesses Patriotes.

[16] Other leaders included Abbé Bergey, a deputy for Bordeaux and a compelling orator, and Philippe Henriot, a right-wing ant-communist and anti-republican.