ABSTRACT
Historical study of French fascism has begun to move away from this historiographical storm. Some of the most exciting recent research in the field has turned the spotlight on French fascism’s racist, gendered and violent vision of France. Disagreement over the strength and size of a French fascism is at the heart of one of the fiercest debates in modern French historiography. News of Italian Fascism made an impact in France only in 1921 when the Parisian dailies began to report on the movement from across the Alps. Fighting in meeting halls was common in interwar France. The staging of a political meeting gave groups the chance to promote their programmes and to demonstrate their strength through the sizes of the audiences, but meetings also provided an opportunity to attack opponents. Women, therefore, played a central role in the movement’s re-orientation away from paramilitarism and towards social work as a means to remake France.
