Introduction

Historians of the French Third Republic often write of the Guerre franco-française, an intellectual and ideological conflict waged against parliamentary democracy and its supporters from the 1880s onwards. This was never more apparent than during the interwar period, when public discourse betrayed an increasing frustration with the political, economic, and social status quo, a fact reflected in the innumerable projects designed by various figures to renovate a government system perceived to be decadent, tottering, and beyond repair. Groups from across the political spectrum derided the republican administration, portrayed as weak, immoral, corrupt, and unstable. In its place, they proposed to remake the nation and state in their own doctrinal image.1