Pacifism in France refers to pacifism, the opposition to war or violence, in France. French pacifism encompasses several historic and modern political movements, generally those that advocate against war and nuclear testing. The French pacifist movement first became prominent in 1889, and it grew in influence throughout the 20th century, although it was slightly hampered by the invasion of France during the Second World War. France is a founding member of the Inter-Parliamentary Union, which has 178 members and was founded in 1889. France is a member state of several organisations with stated pacifist goals, such as the United Nations, of which it is a founding nation, along with 51 other states. France is also home to several explicitly pacifist movements, such as the Mouvement de la Paix. However, pacifist organisations have faced a mixed reception. The French government has endorsed some movements, while suppressing others, with one of the most notable instances being the 1955 bombing of the ship Rainbow Warrior, operated by the organisation Greenpeace. The most prominent active organisations in France include Greenpeace and Pax Christi.
National service, or as it is called in France, service national universel, was abolished in the 1990s. The option of government service was made available for pacifists by the national service in the 1960s, under the presidency of Charles de Gaulle, after a hunger strike by Louis Lecoin, in continuation of the campaign he started in 1958. Organisations such as Amnesty International have criticised the French government for obfuscating the procedure through which pacifists can enroll in non-military national service. In 2025, the French government announced that it would begin voluntary military service by mid-2026. People have been able to apply since January 2026.
In 2026, France ranked 99th out of 163 on the annual Global Peace Index; in 2007, it ranked 34th.<ref> |name=b}}<ref name=":16"> This was due to increasing levels of violence, with one in ten people reporting having been victim of a violent crime.
History Pre-1914 Pacifism can be traced to early Christianity and its tenets of non-violence. For many early Christians, service to the state or the military was seen as unacceptable. Some have argued that oath(s) of allegiance were a particular point of contention. This can be demonstrated through the case of the Quakers, who in February 1791 began to petition the government for an exemption to military service and the taking of civic oaths.
The Quaker movement in France had its first meeting in 1785, with formal affiliation, centred in Congénies, being achieved between the English Quakers and the French Quakers in 1789. Significant figures, such as Voltaire, supported the Quaker movement, and, in a set of letters in 1734, called them "noble". While some authors, such as Matt Phillpott, write that before the British affiliation, French Quakers did not focus on "the military question", the Quakers are typically understood as a pacifist movement. As soon as the French Revolution of 1789 occurred, the French Quakers began to try and secure the same military exemption that they had held before the revolution. The Quakers believed they would be able to achieve this exemption due to Article 10 in the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, which stated: "No one may be disturbed on account of his opinions, even religious ones, as long as the manifestation of such opinions does not interfere with the established Law and Order". Gabriel Riqueti (or Mirabeau) responded to the petition by arguing that wars of offence were wrong, whilst wars of defence were the duty of citizens for a plethora of reasons, such as it being necessary for a peaceful state as well as a religious duty. Furthermore, legally, the "by law" exception in the clause allowed the government to say that by law, the Quakers were supposed to join the military as well as having to swear oaths. As a result, the Quakers ended up having to swear both oaths and fight in the French military.
Anti authoritarian thought was rife in Europe during the 1850s and 1860s, due to conferences such as the Congress on Artistic and Literary property, which took place in Brussels in 1858 and in Antwerp in 1861, and the International Student Congress in Liege in 1865. One of the early examples of pacifism was in 1866, in which Napoleon III stated that he had the intention of annexing Luxembourg, but, both internal and external public opinion was against this war. A manifesto calling a congress was released in June 1867, and it would meet in Geneva in the beginning of September as the League of Peace and Freedom, with a programme issued in July. The goal of the congress was to "determine the political and economic conditions of peace among the nations, and in particular to establish the United States of Europe". There were close to 10,000 attendees at the conference, including the French philosopher and writer Edgar Quinet. Some French delegates, such as Paul Dupont, argued that peace was a result of certain circumstances and that for it to be achieved, it was needed for all citizens to be in a class of workers. This was in line with the proposal of Giuseppe Garibaldi's proposal during the summit. Some at the conference argued that the concept of nationality should be abolished. The peace summit was not without problems, with the Marx ally Sigismud Ludwig Borkheim advocating for war on Russia in order to secure European peace.
The pacifist movement in France began to gain traction during the 1889 centennial celebration of the French Revolution. During the event, there were two conferences, with 92 members of parliament from nine different countries. In the first meeting, co-chaired by the English M.P William Randal Cremer, the Inter-Parliamentary Union was founded, which today encompasses 178 states. This was the first of 21 Universal Peace congresses that occurred prior to 1914.
The term pacifism was coined by the French peace campaigner Émile Arnaud and adopted by other peace activists at the tenth Universal Peace Congress, held in Glasgow in 1901. During the event, a resolution was passed, stating that the congress desired that persistent efforts be made for people to follow "the great moral law" and become anti-war and anti-militarist.
The French peace movement rapidly expanded, and by 1913, it included 28 different peace organisations. In the view of Roger Chickering, the rise of these organisations can be attributed to the Dreyfus affair.
The French socialist leader and pacifist Jean Jaurès was assassinated by a nationalist just before the beginning of the First World War. He was a French member of parliament and had campaigned to stop the war from happening.
During the First World War
Many pacifists, such as Quakers, became medics and non-combatants during the First World War. In France, there was compulsory military service between 20 and 23, and people were reservists until they were 30. Until 45, French men could be territorials. As conscientious objection was illegal, many pacifists were forced to join the army.
Interwar period
After the First World War, pacifism became a bipartisan movement. The French economist Jacques Fontanel has argued that this led to disarmament in France, which subsequently yielded appeasement with Germany without rearmament. The most significant process in appeasement was the Munich Agreement, which allowed Germany to take over the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia, under the pretext that the region's inhabitants were German speakers. Many public figures in Czechoslovakia felt that they had been betrayed, first by France, then by Britain. The Munich Agreement also greatly damaged Czechoslovakia's defences, as the bulk of the were in the Sudetenland.
Veterans comprised a significant section of French society, accounting for 5.85 million people, or 45% of the male population, in 1930. According to Antoine Prost, one in six Frenchmen belonged to a veterans' movement in the 1920s. Furthermore, one in four families had experienced a casualty as a direct result of the First World War. The writer and activist Émilie Carles described her idealogical conversion to pacifism in her book A Life of Her Own: The Transformation of a Countrywoman in Twentieth-Century France, after her brother returned from the Western Front in 1916.
Although intellectuals had supported France during the First World War, during the interwar period, they were the driving force behind pacifism.Jean-François Sirinelli, « La France de l'entre-deux-guerres : un trend pacifiste », dans Maurice Vaïsse, Le pacifisme en Europe des années 1920 aux années 1950, Bruxelles, Bruylant, 1993, p.43–50 In 1925, a petition for the revision of the Treaty of Versailles collected the signatures of over 100 French personalities.Victor Margueritte, Vers la paix : appel aux consciences, Paris, Delpeuch, 1925
Prior to the First World War, the police had focused on suppressing pacifist sentiment in the Parisian intelligentsia. By the end of the First World War, the appeal of pacifism had spread to farmers and workers, far removed from the "high society" that the police frequently monitored.
During the post-war period, French intellectuals played a significant role in pacifism. It appeared in literature, cinema, and music. The writer Romain Rolland published the "Déclaration de l'indépendance de l'Esprit" in the newspaper L'Humanité in 1919, to propose pacifist principles to the intellectuals of the time, enabling France to play a role in the process of European unity around peace.
Some intellectuals, such as the philosopher Han Ryner, supported conscientious objection in their writing, though the concept did not become widely known within France until the 1920s. The phrase objecteur de conscience (conscientious objector) entered French dictionaries in 1933. The historian Norman Ingram has argued that despite this, the word would have been commonly used earlier by many in society. Some books on the topic of conscientious objection were published as early as the 1920s. Even with public awareness, conscientious objectors were not recognised by the French state for several decades, however, and thus had little to no recourse; recognition of conscientious objection was only codified in 1963.
In the 1920s, there were groups active in France that supported conscientious objection, such as War Resisters' International and the International Fellowship of Reconciliation.
The Catholic peace activist Marc Sangnier organised the Bierville conference in 1926, which was supported by the Church. The event, which was attended by bishops from Ârras, Chalons, Monaco, and Versailles, involved a trip to WWI battlefields.
Some individuals opposed conscription on religious grounds, such as Henri Roser, a pastor and head of the French branch of the International Fellowship of Reconciliation. For his stance, he was imprisoned.
Some historians, such as Omer Bartov and Antoine Proost, believe the damage caused by the war created circumstances in France during the 1920s and 1930s that were ripe for pacifism.
The historian Sandi E. Cooper has argued that the First World War created interest among feminist groups in improving social issues such as school curricula and building playgrounds. This, she has argued, differs from other anti-militarist movements, which focused on more political issues, such as revolution and socialism.
During the Second World War
The French had a weak military immediately prior to the Second World War due to appeasement, which had led to disarmament in France. During and after the war, there was a level of discontentment and anger towards pacifism, which many perceived to have caused the nation's fall.
Little information is known about pacifist movements during the German occupation. For example, the Red Cross has no archives from 1940 to 1946.
1945–2000