A History of Fascism in France From the First World War to the National Front

CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title 2021 A History of Fascism in France explores the origins, development, and action of fascism and extreme right and fascist organisations in France since the First World War. Synthesizing decades of scholarship, it is the first book in any language to trace the full story of French fascism from the First World War to the modern National Front, via the interwar years, the Vichy regime and the collapse of the French Empire. Chris Millington unpicks why this extremist political phenomenon has, at times, found such fervent and widespread support among the French people. The book chronologically surveys fascism in France whilst contextualizing this within the broader European and colonial frameworks that are so significant to the subject. Concluding with a useful historiographical chapter that brings together all the previously explored aspects of fascism in France, A History of Fascism in France is a crucial volume for all students of European fascism and France in the 20th century.

Chris Millington is Senior Lecturer in Modern European History at Manchester Metropolitan University, UK. He is the author of Fighting for France: Violence in Interwar French Politics (2018), From Victory to Vichy: Veterans in Inter-war France (2012) and co-author, along with Brian Jenkins, of France and Fascism: February 1934 and the Dynamics of Political Crisis (2015).

Acknowledgments List of Abbreviations Introduction: What was Fascism? 1. Searching for a French Mussolini during the 1920s 2. Bloodshed in the City of Light: 6 February 1934 3. The Army of the Death's Head: The Croix de Feu 4. Fascism Defeated? The Parti Social Français and the Parti Populaire Français 5. Bombs, Bullets, and Bloody Murder: The Cagoule 6. National Revolution, 1940-1944 Epilogue: The National Front Appendix: The French Allergy to Fascism: A Historiographical Essay Bibliography