Olivier Dard is a French historian. Professor at the Sorbonne, he is a specialist in political history.
To discover
PODCAST - Listen to the club Le Club Le Figaro Idées with Eugénie Bastié
Doctor in history from Sciences Po, Jean Philippet is an independent researcher.
LE FIGARO. – February 6, 34 is remembered as the symbol of “French fever” and anti-parliamentarism. What really happened?
Olivier DARD and Jean PHILIPPET. –
February 6, 1934 was marked by a bloody riot whose epicenter was at Place de la Concorde, although it should be noted that the unrest covered a quarter of the area of Paris.
The riot left 19 dead, one from the police and the rest from demonstrators who came to denounce the "thieves" and the corruption of a Third Republic symbolized by the Stavisky affair or curious onlookers present at Concorde.
February 6 is a bout of fever.
However, it must be seen as a continuation of agitations and unrest dating back to the winter of 1932-1933 and which continued after the 6th with aftershocks, namely major mobilizations which took place on the 7th, 9th (the evening communists in Paris) and on the 12th with a general strike and demonstrations organized by the left in Paris and in the provinces.
February 6 is therefore the highlight of a sequence which includes 30 deaths, which explains the title of our book, “February 1934” and not “February 6”.
You twist your neck to the legend of an armed assault by French fascism wanting to overthrow the Republic...
This thesis, that of the left at the time, was complacently maintained.
Historiography, with Serge Berstein, had already twisted his neck.
We wanted to reconstruct as closely as possible the stages of the political crisis: press campaigns and demonstrations in January generated by the Stavisky affair which led to the departure of the president of the radical council Camille Chautemps;
then transfer-sanction of the prefect of police Jean Chiappe decided by the new president of the Council Édouard Daladier on February 3 and which relaunches the agitation and the agenda of the demonstrators.
By dissecting why and how we arrived at February 6, we emphasize that this event was in no way inevitable.
If leagues like Action Française, Jeunesses patriotes, Solidarité française, without forgetting the Croix de Feu, mobilized and used violence before February 6, they had no means to overthrow the Republic, even if even they would have wanted it.
Writing the history of February 6 also means highlighting the dysfunctions and violence of the police, demobilized by the ousting of Chiappe.
The examination of the injuries noted on the law enforcement representatives and the demonstrators shows that the former were not hit by bullets but by the throwing of various projectiles, punches and baton blows, unlike the latter. who were shot at (84 people were injured by bullets at La Concorde between 7:30 p.m. and midnight, 14 of whom died).
This date seems to represent the height of anti-parliamentarism. Why do you, on the contrary, make it the swan song of the league model?
February 6 is a high point in the long history of anti-parliamentarism in France.
The nationalist leagues have little interest in parliament.
But the leaguers and members of the National Union of Combatants (close to the right) and the Republican Association of Veterans linked to the Communist Party are not the only protagonists of February 6, even if they are the most visible.
The Paris municipal council and the leaders of the parliamentary right are also taking action.
André Tardieu or Pierre Laval have not forgotten how in July 1926 a National Union formula had brought Raymond Poincaré back to power and put an end to the Left Cartel.
The situation in 1934 is not comparable but it was a former President of the Republic, Gaston Doumergue, who took the reins of a government of national unity on the 7th. He was not the man of leagues even if they rally around it.
Having no political alternative to propose, except a very hypothetical reestablishment of the monarchy for Action Française, the leagues are the vanquished of February because they have little impact on the way out of the crisis and are assimilated by large sectors of the opinion to factious organizations that the left now intend to ban.
This observation of failure subsequently led certain leaders to transform their organization into a political party, like La Rocque who launched the French Social Party in 1936, which exceeded one million members.
Another legend according to you: February 6, 34 as the event at the origin of the Popular Front…
It was the Third International which was at the origin of the change of line of the communists which led to unity of action with the socialists and then the Popular Front.
This new line consolidates the position of Maurice Thorez and is accompanied in the summer of 1934 by the exclusion of his great rival Jacques Doriot who had expressed in January-February a desire for rapprochement with the socialists.
If February 34 is not at the origin of the Popular Front, it counts in the history of the left and in the development of their anti-fascist fight, fascism being symbolized by the leagues.
They were on the rise at the beginning of 1934, took to the streets and even organized demonstrations in the provinces on February 6.
Without much success, however.
The response from unions and left-wing parties is imposing, both in the provinces and in the Paris region.
It is carried out on different slogans but we see in a certain number of cities rapprochements between socialists, communists and even radicals.
This new and growing mobilization of the left deprives the leagues of their preponderance in the streets.
Vigor of protest movements, state reform, populism... Can we compare France in the 1930s to that of today?
The specter of the thirties hangs over our present.
With the agricultural mobilizations, we are experiencing another “winter of unease”.
In 2017-2018, the “yellow vests” showed the strength of a protest movement, however incapable of finding a political outlet.
As in the 1930s, today we see a deep distrust of elites and a flammable context.
But the political equations are very different.
The leagues no longer exist and the National Rally, if we want to see it as their heir, is in a different situation.
He plays a parliamentary card, has no intention of occupying the streets and, with the success of his leader in the presidential elections, is much less dependent on the right-wing governments which no longer have the weight they had in 1934.
Olivier Dard and Jean Philippet,
February 34. The confrontation
, Fayard History, January 2024, 746 pages,
€
34 Fayard