View source for Croix-de-Feu

{{distinguish|Cross burning}}
{{for multi|the Belgian military medal|Fire Cross 1914–1918|the 1989 American television miniseries|Cross of Fire}}
{{Infobox political party
| colorcode        = black
| leader           = [[François de La Rocque]]
| name             = Cross of Fire
| native_name      = {{langx|fr|Croix-de-Feu}}
| logo             = Croix de Feu.svg
| logo_size        = 200px
| foundation       = 11 November 1927
| dissolution      = 10 January 1936
| successor        = [[French Social Party]]
| headquarters     = Rue de Milan, [[Paris]]
| newspaper        = ''Le Flambeau''
| student_wing     = ''Groupes Universitaires''
| youth_wing       = {{nowrap|''Fils et Filles de Croix-de-Feu''}}
| wing1_title      = {{nowrap|Paramilitary wing}}
| wing1            = ''Volontaires Nationaux''
| womens_wing      = ''Sections Féminines''
| membership       = 15,000 (1936 {{estimation}})
| ideology         = [[French nationalism]]<br>[[Social corporatism]]<br>[[Proto-fascism]]
| position         = [[Right-wing politics|Right-wing]] to [[Far-right politics|far-right]]
| religion         = [[Roman Catholicism]]
| colours          = {{Color box|black|border=darkgray}} [[Black]]
| country          = France
}}
The '''Croix-de-Feu''' ({{IPA|fr|kʁwa də fø|lang}}, ''Cross of Fire'') was a [[nationalist]] [[France|French]] [[political party|league]] of the [[Interwar period]], led by [[François de La Rocque|Colonel François de la Rocque]] (1885–1946). After it was dissolved, as were all other leagues during the [[Popular Front (France)|Popular Front]] period (1936–38), La Rocque established the ''[[Parti social français]]'' (PSF) to replace it.
==Beginnings (1927–1930)==
The ''Croix-de-Feu'' (CF) were primarily a group of veterans of the [[World War I|First World War]], those who had been awarded the ''[[Croix de guerre 1914-1918 (France)|Croix de guerre 1914-1918]]''. The group was founded on 26 November 1927 by [[Maurice d'Hartoy]], who led it until 1929. The honorary presidency was awarded to writer [[Jacques Péricard]]. Also in 1929, the movement acquired its newspaper, ''[[Le Flambeau]]''. At its creation, the movement was subsidized by the wealthy perfumer [[François Coty]] and was hosted in the building of ''[[Le Figaro]]''.{{Cn|date=September 2021}}
It benefited from the [[Catholic Church]]'s 1926 proscription of the ''[[Action Française]]'', which prohibited Catholics from supporting the latter. Many [[conservative]] Catholics became members of the Croix-de-feu instead, including [[Jean Mermoz]] and the young [[François Mitterrand]].<ref>Concerning François Mitterrand, see [[Pierre Péan]], ''Une jeunesse française'', pp. 23 à 35: Mitterrand arrived in Paris in autumn 1934, and the National Volunteers (''Volontaires nationaux''), a sub-section of the CF, were dissolved in June 1936</ref>
Unlike the [[Unions latines]], which had promoted ''[[algérianité]]'' (Algerianness) and gained the support of French settlers, the CF adopted a new approach. European settlers in Algeria tended to support authoritarian and imperialist governments over [[French republicanism]]. They were [[anti-Semitic]] and [[xenophobic]]. Believing that Algerian Europeans were a new race, they saw themselves as "youthful, virile and brutal" and [[Metropolitan France]] as "degenerate, effeminate and weak". They often resorted to the use of force against Muslim and Jewish Algerians.<ref>{{cite book |last=Kalman |first=Samuel |title=French Colonial Fascism: The Extreme Right in Algeria 1919-1939 |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan |date=2013 |page=2}}</ref>
The Croix-de-feu had a massive [[propaganda]] campaign that won thousands of members in [[Constantine, Algeria|Constantine]] and [[Algiers]]. It proposed an alliance with local Muslims and attacked the left. Scholars see that as a tactic to funnel extreme and separatist frustrations caused by an economic disparity between European settlers and the local Algerian people. It used different propaganda in [[Oran]], more similar to [[Jules Molle]] and the Union's latines, because Oran had fewer Muslims and was more anti-Semitic.<ref>{{cite book |last=Kalman |first=Samuel |title=French Colonial Fascism: The Extreme Right in Algeria 1919-1939 |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan |date=2013 |page=56}}</ref>
== Under La Rocque (1930–1936) ==
{{refimprove section|date=April 2021}}
Under [[Lieutenant-Colonel]] [[François de La Rocque]], who took over in 1930, the Croix-de-Feu took its independence from François Coty and left the building of ''Le Figaro'' for rue de Milan. It organised popular demonstrations in reaction to the [[Stavisky Affair]] in the hope of overthrowing the Second ''[[Cartel des gauches]]'', a left-wing coalition government. La Rocque quickly became a hero of the [[far right]], which opposed the influences of [[socialism]] and "hidden [[Communism]]" but was sceptical about becoming [[counterrevolutionary]].
Under la Rocque, the movement advocated a military effort against the "German danger" and supported [[corporatism]] and an alliance between capital and labour. It enlarged its base by creating several secondary associations, thus including non-veterans in its ranks. To counter the monarchist ''[[Action française]]'' and its slogan ''Politique d'abord!'' "Politics First!"), de la Rocque invented the motto ''Social d'abord!'' ("Social First!"). In his book, ''Le Service Public'' ("Public Service)", which was published in November 1934, he argued in favour of a reform of parliamentary procedures, cooperation between industries according to their branches of activities; a [[minimum wage]] and paid holidays; [[women's suffrage]] (also upheld by the monarchist Action française, which considered that women, often devout, would be more favourable to their conservative thesis) etc.{{citation needed|date=April 2021}}
The Croix de Feu was one of the right-wing groups that pushed anti-Semitic politics in 1935. Along with [[Volontaires Nationaux]] and others, the Croix de Feu used the political developments in [[Metropolitan France]] like the election of [[Léon Blum]], a Jewish Prime Minister, and the [[Popular Front (France)|Popular Front]] to inflame anti-Semitic sentiment in the colony. The 1936 elections saw the victory of anti-Semitic municipal governments, boycotts against Jewish business (heavily promoted by the [[Independent Radicals|Radical Party]] newspaper ''[[Le Republicain de Constantine]]'') and physical violence and attacks against Jews. The Croix de Feu acted in concert with other anti-Semitic parties, including the ''[[Rassemblement National d'Action Sociale]]'' led by [[Abbé Lambert]], ''[[Action française]]'' and ''[[French Popular Party|Parti Populaire français]]''. Membership in Croix de Feu grew from 2,500 in 1933 to 8,440 in 1935 and 15,000 in 1936.<ref name=Roberts832>{{cite journal |last1=Roberts |first1=Sophie B. |title=Anti-Semitism and municipal government in interwar French colonial Algeria |journal=The Journal of North African Studies |date=2012 |volume=17 |issue=5 |pages=830–831 |doi=10.1080/13629387.2012.723431 |s2cid=154836306 |url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13629387.2012.723431}}</ref>
The Croix-de-Feu did not participate in the 1932 demonstrations organised by the Action française and the far-right leagues ''[[Jeunesses Patriotes]]'' against the debt payment to the United States. The Croix-de-feu, however, took part in the massive [[6 February 1934 crisis|rally of 6 February 1934]], which led to the toppling of the Second ''[[Cartel des gauches]]'' (Left-Wing Coalition). Still, La Rocque refused to riot, although parts of the Croix-de-Feu disagreed with him. It had circled the [[Palais Bourbon]] and remained grouped several hundred metres away from the others rioting leagues. As one of the most essential paramilitary associations and because of its anti-Semitic position, the Croix-de-Feu and La Rocque were considered by the political left to be among the most dangerous imitators of Mussolini and Hitler.{{citation needed|date=April 2021}} However, as a result of La Rocque's actions during the riots, it subsequently lost prestige among the far-right before it was dissolved by the [[Popular Front (France)|Popular Front]] government on 18 June 1936.
== Parti Social Français (1936–1940) ==
{{main|French Social Party}}
La Rocque then formed the [[French Social Party]] (PSF) as a successor to the dissolved league. Moderate estimates place the membership for the PSF at 500,000 in the buildup to the [[Second World War]], which would make it the first French conservative mass party. Although its [[slogan]] ''Travail, Famille, Patrie'' ("Work, Family, Fatherland") was later used by [[Vichy France]] to replace the Republican slogan ''[[Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité]]'', the party remained eclectic. The party disappeared with the [[Fall of France]] without having had the opportunity to profit from its immense popularity.{{Cn|date=September 2021}}
== Second World War ==
{{see|Vichy France|Révolution nationale}}
During the [[occupation of France]], La Rocque joined the [[French Resistance]] but was the subject of considerable controversy immediately after the war.{{Cn|date=September 2021}}
== Political heritage ==
{{Conservatism in France|Organisations}}
The Parti Social Français was France's first major conservative party (1936–1940). He advocated a presidential regime to end the instability of the parliamentary regime, an economic system founded upon "organised professions" ([[corporatism]]) and social legislation inspired by [[Social Christianity]].
Historians now consider that he paved the way for the French Christian democratic parties: the postwar [[Popular Republican Movement]] (MRP) and the Gaullist [[Rally for France]]. The historian William D. Irvine stated:
:One of the very few things historians of fascism in France can agree upon is that the Croix de Feu and its successor the Parti Social Francais (PSF) are irrelevant to their subject.<ref>William D. Irvine, "Fascism in France and the Strange Case of the Croix de Feu." ''Journal of Modern History'' 63.2 (1991): 271-295. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/2938485 online]</ref>
== Continuing debate==
Historians have argued that the Croix-de-Feu were a distinctly-French variant of the European [[fascist]] movement. If the uniformed rightist "[[far-right leagues|Leagues]]" of the 1930s did not develop into classical Fascism, it was because they represented a shading from conservative right-wing nationalism to extremist fascism, in membership and ideology, distinctive to French inter-war society.<ref>{{cite journal
| author = Passmore, Kevin
| year = 1995
| title = Boy Scouting for Grown-Ups? Paramilitarism in the Croix de Feu and the Parti Social Francais
| journal = French Historical Studies
| volume = 19
| issue = 2
| pages = 527–557
| doi = 10.2307/286787
| jstor = 286787
}} The title takes exception to René Rémond's dismissing of the Leagues as "adults' enthusiastic feeling for reliving their childhood by participating in a kind of boy scout game". Rémond, 1968, p. 290.</ref><ref>{{cite journal
| author = Soucy, Robert J.
| year = 1991
| title = French Fascism and the Croix de Feu: A Dissenting Interpretation
| journal = Journal of Contemporary History
| volume = 26
| issue = 1
| pages = 159–188
| doi = 10.1177/002200949102600108
| s2cid = 154884811
}}</ref>
Most contemporary [[French historians]] ([[René Rémond]], [[Pierre Milza]] and François Sirinelli in particular) do not classify the 1930s "leagues" as a native "French Fascism", particularly the Croix-de-Feu. The organisation is described by Rémond as completely secretive about its aims with an ideology kept "as vague as possible."<ref>1968, p. 290</ref> Rémond, the most famous and influential of these postwar historians, distinguishes "Reaction" and the far right from "revolutionary" [[fascism]] as an import into France which had few takers. In the 1968 third edition of "''La droite en France''", his major work<ref>first published in 1954 and primarily concerned with the traditions of Bonapartist and royalist "Reaction",</ref> he defines fascism in Europe as a <blockquote>revolt of the ''declassés'', a movement of those on half-pay, civilian and military. Everywhere it came to power through social upheavals.... Although with a handful of fascists [in 1930s France], there was a minority of reactionaries and a great majority of conservatives.</blockquote>Amongst these he places much smaller groups like the [[Faisceau]], a tiny minority compared with the Croix-de-Feu, whose membership peaked at over a million.<ref>(p.293,294. For the Faisceau, p. 277. For his focused examination of the Croix de Feu, see pp.285-297, passim. of "The Right in France", University of Pennsylvania Press, 1971 printing, {{ISBN|0-8122-7490-3}}</ref>
The Israeli historian [[Zeev Sternhell]], on the other hand, has argued for the existence of a native French fascism and for groups like the [[Cercle Proudhon]] of the mid-to-late 1910s being among the more important ideological breeding grounds of the movement. He, however, does not include the Croix de Feu in that category: <blockquote>The 'centrist' right always had its own shock troops that served its own purposes, and took good care that they did not become confused with the fascists.<ref>1983/86, p.103</ref> </blockquote>Sternhell, interested in the Fascism as a "anti-material revision of Marxism" or an anti-capitalist, cultish, [[corporatist]] extreme nationalism,<ref>one restatement of this comes in pp. 101-108</ref> points out that groups like the [[Jeunesses Patriotes]], the revived [[Ligue des Patriotes]] and the Croix de Feu were derided by French fascists at the time. Fascist leaders in France saw themselves as destroyers of the old order, above politics, and rejecting the corruption of capitalism. To them the Leagues were a bulwark of this corrupt regime. [[Robert Brasillach]] called them "old cuckolds of the right, these eternal deceived husbands of politics.." and claimed that "the enemies of national restoration are not only on the left but first and foremost on the right.l".<ref>cited by Sternhell, 1983/86, p. 225 Neither Right nor Left: Fascist Ideology in France, Princeton University Press, California (1986 translation of 1983 French work) {{ISBN|0-691-00629-6}}</ref>
The American journalist [[John Gunther]] in 1940 described La Rocque as a "French Fascist No. 1, the chief potential French [[March on Rome|March-on-Romer]]" but added that he was "a rather pallid Fascist", did not attempt to seize power during the 6 February riots and peacefully complied with the government's ban of the Croix de Feu.<ref name="gunther1940">{{cite book | url=https://archive.org/stream/in.ernet.dli.2015.149663/2015.149663.Inside-Europe#page/n225/mode/2up | title=Inside Europe | publisher=Harper & Brothers | author=Gunther, John | year=1940 | pages=204–206}}</ref> Other scholars, such as [[Robert Soucy]] and [[William D. Irvine]], argue that the La Rocque and the Croix de Feu were in fact fascist and a particularly "French" fascism. La Rocque, however, if tempted by a paramilitary aesthetic and initially advocating [[collaboration]] with the Germans during the Second World War, finally came out against the more radical supporters of [[Nazi Germany]].
==See also==
*[[Far right leagues]]: these groups, in which the Croix-de-Feu are normally included, range from the 1890s-1930s, and range ideologically from Republican Nationalists, to [[Monarchist]] to [[Fascist]].
**[[Camelots du Roi]] ("Paperboys of the King"), the Youth Militia arm of [[Action Française]].
**[[Antisemitic League of France|Ligue antisémitique de France]] ("Anti-semitic League of France")
**[[Mouvement Franciste]] "French Nationalist Movement"
*[[Parti Populaire Français]] (PPF, "French Popular Party")
*[[Rassemblement National Populaire]] (RNP, "National Popular Rally")
*[[Rally of the Republican Lefts|Rassemblement des gauches républicaines]] (RGR, "Rally of the Left Wing Republicans") A post - 1945 organisation which traces its ideology to the Croix-de-Feu.
*[[Nationalist Foreign Volunteers]]
==References==
{{reflist}}
==Further reading==
* Campbell, Caroline. '' Political Belief in France, 1927-1945: Gender, Empire, and Fascism in the Croix de Feu and Parti Social Francais'' (2015) [https://www.amazon.com/Political-Belief-France-1927-1945-Fran%C3%AF%C2%BF%C2%BDais/dp/0807160970/ excerpt]; also [https://www.h-france.net/vol17reviews/vol17no43tumblety.pdf online review]
* Campbell, Caroline. "The Colonial Roots of Political Violence in France: The Croix de Feu, the Popular Front and the Riots of 22 March 1936 in Morocco." in ''Political Violence and Democracy in Western Europe, 1918–1940'' (Palgrave Macmillan, London, 2015) pp. 127-143.
* Demiaux, Victor. [https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/croix_de_feu/ Croix de Feu], in: [https://web.archive.org/web/20191230080030/https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/home.html 1914-1918-online. International Encyclopedia of the First World War].
* Irvine, William D. "Fascism in France and the Strange Case of the Croix de Feu." ''Journal of Modern History'' 63.2 (1991): 271-295. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/2938485 online]
* Jenkins, Brian, and Chris Millington, eds. ''France and Fascism: February 1934 and the Dynamics of Political Crisis'' (2015) [https://www.amazon.com/France-Fascism-February-Political-Routledge/dp/1138860336/ excerpt]
* Passmore, Kevin (1995). "Boy Scouting for Grown-Ups? Paramilitarism in the Croix de Feu and the Parti Social Francais". ''French Historical Studies'' 19#2: 527–557. doi:10.2307/286787.
* Soucy, Robert J. "French Fascism and the Croix de Feu: A Dissenting Interpretation". ''Journal of Contemporary History''. (1991). 26#1: 159–188. doi:10.1177/002200949102600108.
{{French far right}}
{{Authority control}}
[[Category:French far right leagues]]
[[Category:Far-right political parties in France]]
[[Category:Political parties established in 1927]]
[[Category:1927 establishments in France]]
[[Category:1940 disestablishments in France]]
[[Category:Political parties disestablished in 1940]]
[[Category:Proto-fascists]]
[[Category:Antisemitism in French Algeria]]
[[Category:Politics of French Algeria]]