François de La Rocque
François de La Rocque | |
|---|---|
 1930s photograph of de La Rocque | |
| Born | 6 October 1885 |
| Died | 28 April 1946 (aged 60) |
| Alma mater | Saint Cyr Military Academy |
| Occupation(s) | Soldier and politician |
| Title | Colonel |
François de La Rocque (French: Croix de Feu from 1930 to 1936 before he formed the more moderate nationalist French Social Party (1936–1940), which has been described by several historians, such as René Rémond and Michel Winock, as a precursor of Gaullism.[1][2][3]
Early life
La Rocque was born on 6 October 1885 in Lorient, Brittany, the third son of a family from Haute-Auvergne. His parents were General Raymond de La Rocque, commander of the artillery defending the Lorient Naval Base, and Anne Sollier.
He entered
First World War in 1914, La Roque remained there until 1916 as officer of native affairs, when he was gravely wounded and repatriated to France. Meanwhile, his older brother Raymond, a major in the army, had been killed in action in 1915. However, La Roque volunteered to fight on the Western Front and was sent to the trenches of the Somme to command a battalion
.
After the First World War ended in 1918, he was assigned to the interallied staff of Marshal
Abd el-Krim in Morocco. La Rocque resigned from the French Army in 1927 with the rank of lieutenant colonel
.
Croix-de-Feu and 6 February 1934
La Rocque came from the
Félicité Robert de Lamennais in the late 19th century. He then joined the Croix-de-Feu in 1929, two years after it had been formed, and took over it in 1930. He quickly transformed the veterans' league; created a paramilitary organisation (les dispos, short for disponibles – available); and formed a youth organization, the Sons and Daughters of the Croix-de-Feu (fils et filles de Croix-de-Feu). He also accepted anybody who accepted the league's ideology in the Volontaires nationaux group (National Volunteers). The Great Depression made La Rocque add to its nationalist
ideology a social program of defense of the national economy against foreign competition, protection of the French workforce, lower taxes, fighting speculation and criticisms of the state's influence on the economy. That was overall a vague program, and La Rocque stopped short of giving it the clearly antirepublican and fascist aspect that some National Volunteers demanded of him.
La Rocque concentrated on organizing military parades and was very proud of having taken over the Interior Ministry by two Croix-de-Feu columns on the eve of the
6 February 1934 riots. The Croix-de-Feu took part in the far-right demonstrations in Paris, with two groups, one on the rue de Bourgogne, the other near the Petit Palais. They were to converge on the Palais Bourbon, the seat of the National Assembly, but La Rocque ordered the disbandment of the demonstration around 8:45 p.m., when the other far-right leagues started rioting on Place de la Concorde in front of the Palais Bourbon. Only lieutenant-colonel de Puymaigre, a member of the Croix-de-Feu and also a Parisian municipal counsellor, attempted to force the police barrage. After the riots, the French far right and sections of the moderate right criticised him for not having attempted to overthrow the Third Republic. The journalist Alexander Werth
argued:
- "At that time the Croix-de-Feu, the Royalists, the Solidarité and the Jeunesses Patriotes had no more than a few thousand active members between them, and that they would have been incapable of a real armed uprising. What they reckoned on was the support of the Paris public as a whole; and the most that they could reasonably have aimed at was the resignation of the Daladier Government. When this happened, on 7 February, Colonel de la Rocque announced that 'the first objective had been attained.'" [4]
French Social Party
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In June 1936 the
anticommunism as an important trait of the new form of fascism.[6] However, that characterisation of the PSF has been questioned; for example, Robert Soucy has argued that the differences between the PSF and fascist movements in Italy and Germany were more superficial than their similarities and that La Rocque was "a dyed-in-the-wool fascist".[3][2]
Second World War
After the
Legion of French Volunteers Against Bolshevism
.
La Rocque changed orientation in September 1942 by declaring, "Collaboration was incompatible with Occupation". He entered contact with the
Intelligence service. He then formed the Klan Network (Réseau Klan) Resistance network with some members of the PSF. La Rocque rejected the laws on the STO, which forced young Frenchmen to work in Germany, and he also threatened to expel any member of the PSF who joined Joseph Darnand's Milice
or the LVF.
He was arrested in
was freed by US soldiers on 8 May 1945. He returned to France on 9 May and was placed under administrative internment, allegedly to keep him away from political negotiations, especially from the National Council of the Resistance (Conseil national de la Résistance, CNR), the unified organisation of the resistance. After being released, he was placed under house arrest[by whom?] and died on 28 April 1946.[how?
]
Political heritage
The
Parti Social Français (PSF) of François de La Rocque has been described as the first right-wing mass party in France (1936–1940).[2][10]
He advocated:
- a presidential regimeto end the instability of the parliamentary regime.
- an economic system founded upon "organised professions" (corporatism).
- social legislation inspired by Social Christianity.
Several historians consider that he paved the way to two leading parties of the post-war "republican Right", the
Christian democratic Popular Republican Movement (MRP) and the Gaullist Union of Democrats for the Republic.[2][11]
See also
References
- ^ René Rémond, Les Droites en France (first ed. Aubier-Montaigne, 1968)
- ^ . Retrieved 19 May 2019.
- ^ ISBN 978-1-57181-537-8. Retrieved 19 May 2019.
- ^ Alexander Werth and D. W. Brogan, The Twilight of France, 1933-1940, (1942) p 16 online
- ^ John Bingham, "Defining French fascism, finding fascists in France" in Canadian Journal of History 29.3 (1994): 525-544.
- ^ Pierre Milza, La France des années 30, Armand Colin, 1988, p.132
- ^ Biography of François de La ROCQUE (in French)
- ISBN 9781417992775.
- ^ "Journal officiel de la République française. Lois et décrets". Gallica. 24 January 1941. Retrieved 13 August 2023.
- Histoire@Politique(in French). Retrieved 19 May 2019.
- ISBN 9782757418536. Retrieved 19 May 2019.
Bibliography
- François de la Rocque, Pour la conférence du désarmement. La Sécurité française, Impr. De Chaix, 1932.
- François de la Rocque, Service public, Grasset, 1934.
- François de la Rocque, Le Mouvement Croix de feu au secours de l'agriculture française, Mouvement Croix de feu, 1935.
- François de la Rocque, Pourquoi j'ai adhéré au Parti social français, Société d'éditions et d'abonnements, Paris, décembre 1936.
- Mouvement social français de Croix-de-Feu, Pourquoi nous sommes devenus Croix de Feu (manifeste), Siège des groupes, Clermont, 1937.
- François de la Rocque, Union, esprit, famille, discours prononcé par La Rocque au Vél'd'hiv, Paris, 28 janvier 1938, Impr. Commerciale, 1938.
- François de la Rocque, Paix ou guerre (discours prononcé au Conseil national du P.S.F., suivi de l'ordre du jour voté au Conseil ; Paris, 22 avril 1939), S.E.D.A., Paris, 1939.
- François de la Rocque, Discours, Parti social français. Ier Congrès national agricole. 17-18 février 1939., SEDA, 1939.
- François de la Rocque, Disciplines d'action, Editions du Petit Journal, Clermont-Ferrand, 1941.
- François de la Rocque, Au service de l'avenir, réflexions en montagne, Société d'édition et d'abonnement, 1949.
- Amis de la Rocque (ALR), Pour mémoire : La Rocque, les Croix de feu et le Parti social français, Association des amis de La Rocque, Paris, 1985.
- Amis de La Rocque (ALR), Bulletin de l'association.
Studies
- Kevin Passmore, From liberalism to fascism : the right in a French province, 1928-1939, Cambridge university press, 1997.
- Jacques Nobécourt, Le Colonel de la Rocque, ou les pièges du nationalisme chrétien, Fayard, Paris, 1996.
- Michel Winock, Le siècle des intellectuels, Seuil, 1999.
External links
Media related to François de La Rocque at Wikimedia Commons- Biography of François de La ROCQUE (in French)
- Newspaper clippings about François de La Rocque in the 20th Century Press Archives of the ZBW
