François de La Rocque | |
|---|---|
 De La Rocquec. 1930s | |
| President of theFrench Social Party | |
| In office 10 January 1936 – 10 July 1940 | |
| Preceded by | Party founded |
| Succeeded by | Party dissolved |
| Leader of theCroix-de-Feu | |
| In office 1930 – 10 January 1936 | |
| Preceded by | Maurice d'Hartoy |
| Succeeded by | Organization dissolved |
| Member of the National Council of theFrench State | |
| In office 23 January 1941 – September 1942 | |
| Head of State | Philippe Pétain |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 6 October 1885 (1885-10-06) Lorient, France |
| Died | 28 April 1946 (1946-04-29) (aged 60) Paris, France |
| Political party | French Social Party (1936–1940) |
| Education | École militaire de Saint-Cyr |
| Occupation |
|
| Military service | |
| Allegiance | French Third Republic |
| Branch/service | French Army |
| Years of service | 1907–1927 |
| Rank | Lieutenant colonel |
| Battles/wars | |
François de La Rocque (French:[fʁɑ̃swadəlaʁɔk]; 6 October 1885 – 28 April 1946) was a French soldier and politician who was the leader of the Frenchright-wing league theCroix de Feu from 1930 to 1936 before he formed the more moderate nationalistFrench Social Party (1936–1940), which has been described by several historians, such asRené Rémond andMichel Winock, as a precursor ofGaullism.[1][2][3]
La Rocque was born on 6 October 1885 inLorient, Brittany, the third son of a family fromHaute-Auvergne. His parents were GeneralRaymond de La Rocque, commander of the artillery defending the Lorient Naval Base, and Anne Sollier.
He enteredSaint Cyr Military Academy in 1905 in a class known as "Promotion la Dernière du Vieux Bahut". He graduated in 1907 and was posted toAlgeria and the edge of theSahara and in 1912 toLunéville. The next year, he was called toMorocco by GeneralHubert Lyautey. Despite the outbreak of theFirst 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, amajor 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 ofthe Somme to command abattalion.
After the First World War ended in 1918, he was assigned to the interallied staff of MarshalFerdinand Foch, but in 1921 he went toPoland with the French Military Mission under GeneralMaxime Weygand. In 1925, he was made chief of the Second Bureau in theRif War during MarshalPhilippe Pétain's campaign againstAbd el-Krim in Morocco. La Rocque resigned from theFrench Army in 1927 with the rank oflieutenant colonel.
La Rocque came from thepatriotic andsocial Catholic movement created byFélicité 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 fordisponibles – 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 theVolontaires nationaux group (National Volunteers). TheGreat Depression made La Rocque add to itsnationalist 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 the6 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 thePetit Palais. They were to converge on thePalais 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 onPlace 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 theThird Republic. The journalistAlexander Werth argued:
In June 1936 theCroix-de-Feu, along with all other French far-right leagues, was dissolved by thePopular Front government, and La Rocque then formed theFrench Social Party (Parti social français or PSF; 1936), which lasted until theGerman invasion of 1940. Until 1940, the PSF took an increasingly-moderate position to become the first French right-wing mass party, with 600,000 to 800,000 members between 1936 and 1940. Its programme was nationalist but not openly fascist. The French historiansPierre Milza andRené Rémond consider that the success of the moderate,Christian social and democratic PSF prevented the French middle class from falling intofascism.[5] Milza wrote "Populist and nationalist, the PSF is moreanti-parliamentarian than anti-republican". He reserved the term "fascism" forJacques Doriot'sFrench Popular Party (Parti populaire français, PPF), insisting on the latter party'santicommunism 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]
After theBattle of France, La Rocque accepted the terms of theJune 1940 Armistice "without restrictions" and reorganised the PSF which became theFrench Social Party (Parti social Français). La Rocque also accepted the "principle ofcollaboration", upheld by MarshalPhilippe Pétain in December 1940. However, at the same time, he was attacked by sectors of the far right, which claimed that he had founded his newspaper with funds from a "Jewish consortium". His attitude remained ambiguous, as he wrote an article inLe Petit Journal of 5 October 1940, concerning "The Jewish Question in Metropolitan France and North Africa" (La question juive en métropole et en Afrique du Nord).[7]H. R. Knickerbocker wrote in 1941 that thePetit Journal with La Rocque as editor "assumed a more courageously anti-German attitude after the armistice than did most other papers published under the control of the Vichy government".[8] On 23 January 1941, La Rocque was made a member of the National Council ofVichy France.[9] La Rocque approved the repeal of theCrémieux decrees, which had givenFrench citizenship to Jews inAlgeria, but he did not follow theVichy regime in its racist radicalization. He also condemned the ultracollaborationistLegion of French Volunteers Against Bolshevism.
La Rocque changed orientation in September 1942 by declaring, "Collaboration was incompatible with Occupation". He entered contact with theAlibi Network (Réseau Alibi), which tied to the BritishIntelligence service. He then formed theKlan Network (Réseau Klan)Resistance network with some members of the PSF. La Rocque rejected the laws on theSTO, which forced young Frenchmen to work in Germany, and he also threatened to expel any member of the PSF who joinedJoseph Darnand'sMilice or the LVF.
He was arrested inClermont-Ferrand on 9 March 1943 by theSIPO-SD German police, along with 152 high ranking PSF members in Paris, allegedly because he had been trying to convince Pétain to go to North Africa. He was deported first toJezeří Castle [fr;de;cs], now in the Czech Republic; then toItter Castle, Austria, where he found former President of the CouncilÉdouard Daladier and GeneralsMaurice Gamelin andMaxime Weygand. Ill, he was interned in March 1945 in a hospital inInnsbruck andwas 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 theNational Council of the Resistance (Conseil national de la Résistance, CNR), the unified organisation of the resistance. After being released, he was placed underhouse arrest[by whom?] and died on 28 April 1946.[how?]
TheParti 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:
Several historians consider that he paved the way to two leading parties of the post-war "republican Right", theChristian democraticPopular Republican Movement (MRP) and theGaullistUnion of Democrats for the Republic.[2][11]
{{cite book}}:ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)
Media related toFrançois de La Rocque at Wikimedia Commons