France’s Purveyors of Hatred

Book excerpt: This book examines the extreme right in France during the interwar period. It begins by describing the background of the French right before 1914 and then provides commentary and analysis of the broad range of the extra-parliamentary right in interwar France. Organisations such as Action Française and the militant ligues are examined as well as prominent extreme-right intellectuals such as Lucien Rebatet, Robert Brasillach and Pierre Drieu la Rochelle. The various forms of French anti-Semitism are assessed, and the book also situates the French extreme right within a broader context by assessing its impact on other European countries, including the UK. It concludes by exploring the complicated politics of wartime France where some extreme-right activists collaborated with the Nazis while others opposed them, and where few generalisations prove possible. This volume will be of great interest to scholars and students of French history, the extreme right and interwar politics.