2020/03/01 by Paul Jankowski · 1 citation
Arts and Humanities · #Cultural Identity and Heritage #French Historical and Cultural Studies #Historical Studies and Socio-cultural Analysis
paper · doi:10.3828/cfc.2020.6
openalex publication_date 2020/03/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2025/11/06
A succession of historians, many of them British or American, have understood the riot outside the Chamber of Deputies in Paris on 6 February 1934 in European terms. Initially tending to associate it with the rise of fascist movements in the interwar years, they have tended more recently to include its actors in the more extended family of authoritarian, antiparliamentary nationalism. By contrast, the contemporary press largely presented it as a French affair, confined to the hexagon and its politics. The right-wing press struggled to don a revolutionary or cocardier mantle, celebrating the people in arms against the scoundrels of the Cartel. That of the left, even when it spoke vaguely of fascist plot or attempted coup d’état, ascribed the riot to the Boulangist or Caesarist aspirations of its leaders, and launched appeals to defend the Republic and its values. Understandably enough when the event appeared unique, and when the rallying around common national themes and symbols allowed the birth of the Popular Front, the Franco-French frame appears in hindsight to shut out too many transnational dimensions of the February 1934 crisis. Whether reflecting fascist aspirations or not, the riot and its aftermath reflected some emerging European and even global patterns of political expression that historians have done well to recapture.