The far-right () tradition in France finds its origins in the Third Republic with Boulangism and the Dreyfus affair. In the 1880s, General Georges Boulanger, called "General Revenge" (), championed demands for military revenge against Imperial Germany as retribution for the defeat and fall of the Second French Empire during the Franco-Prussian War (1870–1871). This stance, known as revanchism, began to exert a strong influence on French nationalism. Soon thereafter, the Dreyfus affair provided one of the political division lines of 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. A new right emerged, and nationalism was reappropriated by the far-right who turned it into a form of ethnic nationalism, blended with antisemitism, xenophobia, anti-Protestantism and anti-Masonry. 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. During the interwar period, the Action française and its youth militia, the Camelots du Roi, were very active. Far-right leagues organized riots.
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. Jean-Marie Le Pen founded the Front National (FN) party in 1972. At the 1986 legislative elections, the FN managed to obtain 35 seats, with 10% of the votes. Mark Frederiksen, a French Algeria activist, created in April 1966 a neo-Nazi group, the FANE (Fédération d'action nationaliste et européenne, Nationalist and European Federation of Action). However, in 1978, neo-Nazi members of the GNR-FANE broke again with the FN. 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.
Third Republic (1871–1914)
The French Third Republic (1871–1940) was established after France's defeat in the 1870 Franco-Prussian War and the subsequent Paris Commune of 1871. 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. The modern "far right", or radical right, formed as a distinct political current during the Dreyfus affair. However, it had some antecedents in earlier years of the Third Republic.
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.Robert Lynn Fuller, The Origins of the French Nationalist Movement, 1886–1914 (McFarland, 2012), p. 6. Across French society, there was also a common feeling of pride in the army and resentment about its defeat by the Germans. This defeat was blamed on the politicians who later became leaders of the Third Republic, and there were increasing antisemitic tendencies that accused Jewish politicians and officers of disloyalty to the nation.Zeev Sternhell, La Droite Révolutionaire, les origines françaises du fascisme, 1885–1914 (Paris: Ed. du Seuil, 1978) For the nationalists, the army was "the people armed", the truest representative of the nation, and any criticism of the army was seen as an attack on France itself.Robert Lynn Fuller, The Origins of the French Nationalist Movement, 1886–1914 (McFarland, 2012), p. 9. Thus, they rallied to "defend the army" when they felt it was under threat from internal enemies, such as first during the Boulanger affair and later during the Dreyfus affair. The political coalitions originally built to support the army during these affairs, provided the foundations for the 20th century radical right.Robert Lynn Fuller, The Origins of the French Nationalist Movement, 1886–1914 (McFarland, 2012)
The "Boulanger Affair", which culminated in 1889, championed the vague demands of the former Minister of War, General Georges Boulanger. Boulanger had earlier attracted popular support by ordering lenient treatment of strikers when the army was called upon to suppress strikes. He also rattled his saber against Germany, which pleased French patriots intent on taking revenge. But this alarmed the other ministers, who dropped Boulanger from the government. When his champions mounted an electoral campaign to have him elected to the Chamber of Deputies, the government reacted by forcing him out of the army. 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. Instead of facing trumped up charges, Boulanger fled to Belgium. His supporters, called "Boulangists", afterward nursed an intense grievance against the Republic and reunited during the Dreyfus affair to oppose the Republic and "back the army" once again.Fredric Seager, The Boulanger Affair, The Political Crossroads of France, 1886–1889 (Cornell University Press, 1969)William Irvine, The Boulanger Affair Reconsidered, Royalism, Boulagism, and the Origins of the Radical Right in France(Oxford University Press, 1989)Patrick Hutton The Cult of the Revolutionary Tradition: Blanquists in French Politics, 1864–1893 (U. of California Press, 1981)
Dreyfus affair and foundation of the Action française
In 1894, a Jewish officer, Alfred Dreyfus, was arrested on accusations of treason and sharing intelligence with the German Empire. The Dreyfus affair provided one of the political fault lines of France. Before the Dreyfus affair, Nationalism had been a left-wing and Republican ideology; after, it became a main trait of the right-wing and, moreover, of the far-right.Winock, Michel (dir.), Histoire de l'extrême droite en France (1993)
Émile Zola entered the political scene with his open letter "J'Accuse…!", followed by other writers, artists and scholars supporting him with a "Manifesto of the Intellectuals", helping to define the meaning of the term "intellectual", while the left and right were at loggerheads, mainly over the questions of militarism, nationalism, justice and human rights. Until then, nationalism was a Republican, left-wing ideology, related to the French Revolution and the Revolutionary Wars. It was a liberal nationalism, formulated by Ernest Renan's definition of the nation as a "daily plebiscite" and as formed by the subjective "will to live together". Related to "revanchism", the belligerent will to take revenge against Germany and retake control of Alsace-Lorraine, nationalism could then be sometimes opposed to imperialism. In the 1880s, a debate thus opposed those who opposed the "colonial lobby", such as radical Georges Clemenceau, who declared that colonialism diverted France from the "blue line of the Vosges" (referring to Alsace-Lorraine), socialist Jean Jaurès and nationalist Maurice Barrès, against Moderate Republican Jules Ferry, republican Léon Gambetta and Eugène Etienne, the president of the parliamentary colonial group.
However, in the midst of the Dreyfus affair, a new right emerged, and nationalism was appropriated by the far right who turned it into a form of ethnic nationalism, itself blended with antisemitism, xenophobia, anti-Protestantism and anti-Masonry. Charles Maurras (1868–1952), founder of "integralism" (or "integral nationalism"), created the term "Anti-France" to stigmatize "internal foreigners", or the "four confederate states of Protestants, Jews, Freemasons and foreigners" (his actual word for the latter being the far less polite métèques). A few years later, Maurras would join the monarchist Action française, created by Maurice Pujo and Henri Vaugeois in 1898. Maurras, who was an agnostic, spearheaded a monarchist and Catholic revival. He pragmatically conceived of religion as an ideology useful to unify the nation. Most French Catholics were conservatives, a trait that continues today. On the other hand, most Protestants, Jews and atheists belonged to the left. 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. Furthermore, Catholic priests were seen as a major reactionary force by the republicans, among whom anti-clericalism became common. The Ferry laws on public education had been a first step for the Republic in rooting out the clerics' influence: they would be completed by the 1905 law on the separation of Church and State.
Action française, first founded as a review, was the matrix of a new type of counter-revolutionary right-wing, and continues to exist today. 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. The Camelots du Roi included such figures as Catholic writer Georges Bernanos and Jean de Barrau, member of the directing committee of the National Federation, and particular secretary of the duc d'Orléans (1869–1926), the son of the Orléanist count of Paris (1838–1894) and hence Orléanist heir to the throne of France. Many members of the OAS terrorist group during the Algerian War (1954–1962) were part of the monarchist movement. 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.
Apart from the Action française, several far-right leagues were created during the Dreyfus affair. Mostly antisemitic, they also represented a new right-wing tendency, sharing common traits such as anti-parliamentarism, militarism, nationalism, and often engaged in street brawls. Thus, the nationalist poet Paul Déroulède created in 1882 the antisemitic Ligue des patriotes (League of Patriots), which at first focused on advocating 'revanche' (revenge) for the French defeat during the Franco-Prussian War. Along with Jules Guérin, the journalist Edouard Drumont created the Antisemitic League of France in 1889. Also anti-Masonic, the League became at the start of the 20th century the , a name chosen in reaction against the Masonic lodge of the Grand Orient de France.
Between the wars During the interwar period, the Action française (AF) and its youth militia, the Camelots du Roi, were very active in Paris.Eugen Weber, Action Française: Royalism and Reaction in Twentieth Century France (1962). Apart from the AF, various far-right leagues were formed and opposed both Cartel des gauches (Coalition of the left) governments. Pierre Taittinger thus formed the Jeunesses Patriotes in 1924, which imitated the style of the Fascists, although it remained a more traditional authoritarian movement. The following year, Georges Valois created Le Faisceau, heavily inspired by Benito Mussolini's Fascism. 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. Another important league was François de la Rocque's Croix de Feu, which formed the base for the Parti Social Français (PSF), the first mass party of the French right-wing. Mussolini was much more popular in right-wing circles than Hitler due to the negative reaction many French conservatives had to Hitler's repression of dissident German conservatives and Catholics in 1933 and 1934.Robert J. Soucy, "French press reactions to Hitler's first two years in power". Contemporary European History 7.1 (1998): 21–38.