Orléanist was a 19th-century French political label originally used by those who supported a constitutional monarchy expressed by the House of Orléans. Due to the radical political changes that occurred during that century in France, three different phases of Orléanism can be identified:
The Communards were members and supporters of the short-lived 1871 Paris Commune formed in the wake of the French defeat in the Franco-Prussian War.
Paul Déroulède was a French author and politician, one of the founders of the nationalist League of Patriots.
Georges Ernest Jean-Marie Boulanger, nicknamed Général Revanche, was a French general and politician. An enormously popular public figure during the second decade of the Third Republic, he won multiple elections. At the zenith of his popularity in January 1889, he was feared to be powerful enough to establish himself as dictator. His base of support was the working districts of Paris and other cities, plus rural traditionalist Catholics and royalists. He promoted an aggressive nationalism, known as revanchism, which opposed Germany and called for the defeat of the Franco-Prussian War (1870–71) to be avenged.
Victor Henri Rochefort, Marquis de Rochefort-Luçay was a French writer of vaudevilles and politician. He was born in Paris and died in Aix-les-Bains.
Jules François Alexandre Joffrin was a French politician.
The League of Patriots was a French far-right league, founded in 1882 by the nationalist poet Paul Déroulède, historian Henri Martin and politician Félix Faure. The Ligue began as a non-partisan nationalist league, supported among others by writer Victor Hugo, calling for 'revanche' against the German Empire. One of the original purposes of the Ligue was to offer pre-military training, allowing members to participate in gymnastics and rifle shooting.
Jules Vallès was a French journalist, author, and left-wing political activist.
Combat was a French newspaper created during the Second World War. It was founded in 1941 as a clandestine newspaper of the French Resistance.
The far-right tradition in France finds its origins in the Third Republic with Boulangism and the Dreyfus affair. The modern "far right" or radical right grew out of two separate events of 1889: the splitting off in the Socialist International of those who chose the nation and the culmination of the "Boulanger Affair", which championed the demands of the former Minister of War General Georges Boulanger. The Dreyfus Affair provided one of the political division lines of France. Nationalism, which had been before the Dreyfus Affair a left-wing and Republican ideology, turned after that to be a main trait of the right-wing and, moreover, of the far right. A new right emerged, and nationalism was reappropriated by the far right who turned it into a form of ethnic nationalism, itself blended with anti-Semitism, xenophobia, anti-Protestantism and anti-Masonry. The Action française, first founded as a review, was the matrix of a new type of counter-revolutionary right-wing, and continues to exist today. During the interwar period, the Action française (AF) and its youth militia, the Camelots du Roi, were very active. Far right leagues organized riots.
The Antisemitic League of France was founded in 1889 by journalist Edouard Drumont, with the support of other right-wing French antisemites such as Jacques de Biez, Albert Millot, and Marquis de Morès.
The Moderates or Moderate Republicans, pejoratively labeled Opportunist Republicans, were a French political group active in the late 19th century during the Third French Republic. The leaders of the group included Adolphe Thiers, Jules Ferry, Jules Grévy, Henri Wallon and René Waldeck-Rousseau.
Henri Petit (1899–1985) was a French journalist, collaborationist under the Vichy regime, and far-right activist.
Lucien Millevoye was a French journalist and right-wing politician, now best known for his relationship with the Irish revolutionary and muse of W.B. Yeats, Maud Gonne.
Jean Allemane was a French socialist politician, veteran of the Paris Commune of 1871, pioneer of syndicalism, leader of the Socialist-Revolutionary Workers' Party (POSR) and co-founder of the unified French Section of the Workers' International (SFIO) in 1905. He was a deputy in the National Assembly of the Third French Republic.
Ernest Granger was a French politician, a veteran of the Paris Commune of 1871, a Blanquist socialist and subsequently a Boulangist nationalist.
Newspapers have played a major role in French politics, economy and society since the 17th century.
Hippolyte-Prosper-Olivier "Lissa" Lissagaray was a literary animator and speaker, a Republican journalist and a French revolutionary socialist. He is known for his History of the Paris Commune of 1871, an event in which he participated.
Ernest Jean Roche was a French engraver and socialist politician. He was of working class origin, and became involved in trade union activity while young. He was a supporter of the revolutionary socialist Louis Auguste Blanqui. He was imprisoned for his role in a strike of coal miners in 1886. He was elected to the national legislature in 1889, holding office until 1906, and was reelected from 1910 to 1914. He always supported workers and people who were suppressed for their views or political activities. Later he moved towards antisemitism and a more nationalistic form of socialism.
Alfred Gaulier was a French journalist and politician. His father was a cavalry officer and he seemed destined for a military career. At the time of the coup that brought Napoleon III to power he was a sub-lieutenant in the infantry. He signed a document voting against the coup, and was forced to resign. After a difficult period, he found work as a journalist throughout the remainder of the Second French Empire and the early years of the French Third Republic. He was a radical republican, and was elected deputy for the Seine department from 1886 to 1889.
