TheFrancist Movement (French:Mouvement franciste, MF) was a Frenchfascist andanti-semiticleague created byMarcel Bucard in September 1933 that edited the newspaperLe Francisme. Mouvement franciste reached a membership of 10,000 and was financed by theItalian dictator,Benito Mussolini. Its members were deemed thefrancistes orChemises bleues (Blueshirts) and gave theRoman salute (aparamilitary character that was mirrored in France byFrançois Coty'sSolidarité Française).

Francist Movement Mouvement franciste
President	Marcel Bucard
Founded	1933; 92 years ago (1933)
Banned	1944; 81 years ago (1944)
Preceded by	Le Faisceau[1]
Headquarters	Vichy, France
Newspaper	Le Francisme
Paramilitary wing	Blueshirts
Membership	10,000 (1933est.)
Ideology	Francism French nationalism Fascism[2] Antisemitism Fascist corporatism
Political position	Far-right
Colours	Blue Red Gold
Party flag
Politics of France Political parties Elections

It took part in theParis protests of 6 February 1934, during which the entirefar right (fromAction Française toCroix-de-Feu) protested the implications of theStavisky Affair and possibly attempted to toppleÉdouard Daladier's government. It incorporated the Solidarité française after Coty's death later in the same year.

All of the movements that participated in the 6 February riots were outlawed in 1936, whenLéon Blum'sPopular Front government passed new legislation on the matter. After a failed attempt in 1938, the movement was refounded as a political party (Parti franciste) in 1941, after Francehad been overrun byNazi Germany.

Together withJacques Doriot'sParti Populaire Français andMarcel Déat'sRassemblement National Populaire, thefrancistes were the maincollaborators of theNazi occupiers andVichy France. The Parti Franciste did not survive the end ofWorld War II, and was consideredtreasonous. Bucard was executed as a collaborator after the war.

Francisme was created in August–September 1933 by Marcel Bucard, a former seminarian and war hero, who had already participated in a number of nationalist andproto-fascist movements:French Action,Faisceau,French Solidarity andCroix de Feu. The official creation takes place on 29 September 1933 at 11 pm, during a ceremony organized at theArc de Triomphe inParis. Marcel Bucard whilst delivering a speech at the ceremony stated that he wanted: "(...) to found a movement of revolutionary action whose aim is to conquer power" and "to stop the race to the abyss".^[3]

The movement was heavily inspired by Mussolini'sNational Fascist Party and received significant funding and support from the Italian fascist movement; Bucard wrote, "Our Francism is to France what Fascism is to Italy".

During the Occupation, the Franciste Movement was relaunched and along withJacques Doriot'sFrench Popular Party (PPF) andMarcel Déat'sNational Popular Rally (RNP) is one of the most notable political movement to collaborate with the occupying German authorities.

On May 5, 1941, Marcel Bucard and Paul Guiraud (associate of philosophy, son ofJean Guiraud, editor-in-chief of La Croix ) relaunched Francisme. Paul Guiraud attempted to give the movement a more "socialist" look. Similarly, Bucard defended theGeneral Confederation of Labour (dissolved during the occupation) and criticized theVichy regime's Labor Charter, which he considered not socialist enough.^[4]

Like the other collaboration movements, the movement failed to become a mass movement. At its peak (summer 1943), according to historian duo Lambert-Le Marec it had some 5,500 members (4,000 in the provinces and 1,500 in the Paris region) or, according to other sources, a maximum of 8,000 members.^[5] The newspaper Le Franciste reached a maximum circulation during the war of 20,000 copies.

In 1943, it participated in a collaborationist front, dominated by the National Popular Rally, in an attempt to unify with other fascist movements. Like the other parties, the Franciste Movement was heavilycollaborationist (creation of the Task Forces to fight against resistance was one such example). Many of its members participated in anti-Semitic and anti-communist operations, and members joined theMilice, which actively targeted theFrench Resistance.^[6] It was particularly well established in the departments ofSeine-et-Oise andMorbihan, where local people were involved in incidents of violence.

On July 4, 1944, two policemen were killed by Bucard's bodyguards during an altercation after he robbed a Jewish jewelry store. Bucard was imprisoned, but released on July 29, just in time to flee to Germany on August 12 with the other Francists as theAllies invaded France inOperation Overlord. Bucard was finally arrested, tried, and sentenced to death on February 21, 1946, and shot on March 19 atFort Chatillon, near Paris. Facing a firing squad, he refused to wear a blindfold and shouted, "Qui vive? La France!" before it fired. His family were denied a request that his body be deposited in the family vault; he was buried in the Parisian cemetery ofThiais, now in the department ofVal-de-Marne.

• John BinghamDefining French fascism, finding fascists in France Canadian Journal of History (Dec. 1994)
• Stanley PayneA history of fascism, London, University College of London Press, 1995, pp.pp. 400–401.