History of far-right movements in France
French nationalism, which had been largely associated with left-wing and Republican ideologies before the Dreyfus affair, turned after that into a main trait of the right-wing and, moreover, of the far right.
The Action française (AF), first founded as a journal and later a political organization, was the matrix of a new type of counter-revolutionary right-wing, which continues to exist today.
After World War II, the Organisation armée secrète (OAS) was created in Madrid in 1961 by French military personnel opposed to the independence of Algeria.
During the 1980s, the National Front managed to gather, under Jean-Marie Le Pen's leadership, most rival far-right tendencies of France, following a succession of splits and alliances with other, minor parties, during the 1970s.
From 1894 to 1906, French society became deeply divided by the Dreyfus affair, a major political scandal that proved to be a turning point in the history of France.
Many French nationalists came to oppose the Third Republic soon after its founding, believing that it had adopted an "English" constitution by creating a strong parliament and a weak presidency; in place of this, nationalists favored a political system led by a strong ruler, originally a presidential republic, although some eventually came to support the idea of a restored monarchy.
Boulanger had earlier attracted popular support by ordering lenient treatment of strikers when the army was called upon to suppress strikes.
Violent agitation in Paris on the election night in 1889 convinced the government to prosecute Boulanger in order to remove him from the political scene.
Henceforth, the republicans' conception was, to the contrary, that only state secularism could peacefully bind together diverse religious and philosophical tendencies, and avoid any return to the Wars of Religion.
Action française was quite influential in the 1930s, in particular through its youth organization, the Camelots du Roi, founded in 1908, and which engaged in many street brawls.
Jean Ousset, Maurras' personal secretary, created the Catholic fundamentalist organization Cité catholique, which would include OAS members and founded a branch in Argentina in the 1960s.
Mostly anti-Semitic, they also represented a new right-wing tendency, sharing common traits such as anti-parliamentarism, militarism, nationalism, and often engaged in street brawls.
In 1933, the year Adolf Hitler gained power in Germany, perfumer François Coty founded Solidarité française and Marcel Bucard formed the Francisme, which was subsidised by Mussolini.
were excluded in November 1933 from the French Section of the Workers' International (SFIO, the socialist party) because of their revisionist stances and admiration for fascism.
Other important figures of the 1930s include Xavier Vallat, who would become General Commissioner for Jewish Affairs under Vichy, members of the Cagoule terrorist group (Eugène Deloncle, Eugène Schueller (the founder of L'Oréal cosmetic firm), Jacques Corrèze, Joseph Darnand, who later founded the Service d'ordre légionnaire militia during Vichy, etc.).
To obtain arms from fascist Italy, the group assassinated two Italian antifascists, the Rosselli brothers,[12][13] on June 9, 1937, and sabotaged aeroplanes clandestinely supplied by the French government to the Second Spanish Republic.
They also attempted a coup against the Popular Front government, elected in 1936, leading to arrests in 1937, ordered by Interior Minister Marx Dormoy, during which the police seized explosives and military weapons, including anti-tank guns.
[17][18] He was then part of the Spanish GAL death squad, and participated in the 1978 assassination of Argala, one of the ETA members who had killed Franco's Prime minister, Luis Carrero Blanco, in 1973.
Meanwhile, other far-right tendencies gathered in Alain de Benoist's Nouvelle Droite think-tank, heading a pro-European and neopagan line.
During the 1980s, the National Front managed to gather, under Jean-Marie Le Pen's leadership, most rival far-right tendencies of France, following a succession of splits and alliances with other, minor parties, during the 1970s.
This electoral failure prompted Roland Gaucher and François Brigneau to quit the party and join Le Pen's National Front.
The French far-right was divided in the 1981 presidential election, with both Pascal Gauchon (PFN) and Le Pen (FN) attempting, without success, to secure the 500 signatures from mayors necessary to stand as candidates.
Philippe de Villiers, the Catholic traditionalist candidate of the Movement for France (especially strong in the conservative Vendée region), was sixth, obtaining 2.23% of the vote.
These electoral defeats, which contrasted with the high score obtained at the 2002 presidential elections, caused financial problems for the FN, which was forced to sell its headquarters, the Paquebot, in Saint-Cloud.
[25] The latter had been condemned in January 2007 for Holocaust denial,[26] while Marine Le Pen attempted to follow a slicker strategy to give the FN a more "respectable" image.
Marine Le Pen may have lost in the second round, but nonetheless her defeat had a taste of victory: the score of 41.46% was the best showing ever for the RN or for a Far Right candidate.
[37] To this, President Emmanuel Macron dissolved the French Assembly and called for anticipated legislative elections on 30th and 3 July, acknowledging "that he wouldn't act as is nothing had happened.
On the night of June 9, following the announcement of new elections, Marion Maréchal called for a "coalition of the rights" in the hopes of forming a union between the RN, LR, Reconquête!
[41] On June 11, Éric Ciotti, the president of LR, announced during an interview on TF1 that he intended to form an alliance between his party and the RN, triggering The Republicans crisis.
[45] In response to the threat of a potential RN government, France's 4 major leftist parties, the PS, LFI, Les Écologistes and the PCF, announced a union of the lefts, forming the New Popular Front.
