Conservatism in France

Last updated August 16, 2024

Conservatism in France refers to the political philosophy and ideology of conservatism as it has developed in France. It is usually based on upholding French culture, social hierarchy, and tradition. It stresses nationalism and has historically been associated with monarchism. It originated as a reactionary and counter-revolutionary movement in the Restoration period following the French Revolution, and it has been a prominent ideology in France ever since.

History

French revolution

Early conservatism in France focused on the rejection of the secularism of the French Revolution, support for the role of the Catholic Church, and the restoration of the monarchy.^[1] After the first fall of Napoleon in 1814, the House of Bourbon returned to power in the Bourbon Restoration. Louis XVIII and Charles X, brothers of the executed King Louis XVI, successively mounted the throne and instituted a conservative government intended to restore the proprieties, if not all the institutions, of the Ancien Régime .^[2] The Ultra-royalists were members of the nobility who strongly supported Roman Catholicism as the state religion of France, the Bourbon monarchy, social hierarchy, and census suffrage against popular will and the interests of the bourgeoisie and their liberal and democratic tendencies.^[3]

Post-revolution

After the July Revolution of 1830, Louis Philippe I, a member of the more liberal Orléans branch of the House of Bourbon, proclaimed himself as King of the French. The Second French Empire saw an Imperial Bonapartist regime of Napoleon III from 1852 to 1870.^[4] The Bourbon monarchist cause was on the verge of victory in the 1870s, but then collapsed because the proposed king, Henri, Count of Chambord, refused to fly the tri-coloured flag.^[5]

The turn of the century saw the rise of Action Française —an ultraconservative, reactionary, nationalist, and royalist movement that advocated a restoration of the monarchy.^[6] Its ideology was dominated by the precepts of Charles Maurras, following his adherence and his conversion of the movement's founders to royalism.^[7] The movement supported a restoration of the House of Bourbon and, after the 1905 law on the separation of Church and State, the restoration of Roman Catholicism as the state religion—all as rallying points in distinction to the Third Republic of France, which was considered corrupt and atheistic by many of its opponents.^[8]

World Wars

Tensions between Christian rightists and secular leftists heightened in the 1890–1910 era, but moderated after the spirit of unity in fighting World War I.^[9]

An authoritarian form of conservatism characterised the Vichy regime of 1940–1944 under Marshal Philippe Pétain with heightened antisemitism, opposition to individualism, emphasis on family life, and national direction of the economy.^[10] Révolution nationale was the official ideology promoted by the regime, which despite its name was reactionary rather than revolutionary as the program opposed almost every change introduced by the French Revolution.^[11]

Post-war era

Conservatism has been the major political force in France since World War II, although the number of conservative groups and their lack of stability defy simple categorisation.^[12] Following the war, conservatives supported Gaullist groups and parties, espoused nationalism, and emphasised tradition, social order, and the regeneration of France.^[13] Unusually, post-war conservatism in France was formed around the personality of a leader—army general and aristocrat Charles de Gaulle who led the Free French Forces against Nazi Germany—and it did not draw on traditional French conservatism, but on the Bonapartist tradition.^[14]

Gaullism in France continues under The Republicans (formerly Union for a Popular Movement), a party previously led by Nicolas Sarkozy, who served as President of France from 2007 to 2012 and whose ideology is known as Sarkozysm.^[15]

Contemporary politics

In 2021, the French intellectual Éric Zemmour founded the nationalist party Reconquête, which has been described as a more rightist version of Marine Le Pen's National Rally.^[16]

Related Research Articles

Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy and ideology that seeks to promote and preserve traditional institutions, customs, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilisation in which it appears. In Western culture, depending on the particular nation, conservatives seek to promote and preserve a range of institutions, such as the nuclear family, organised religion, the military, the nation-state, property rights, rule of law, aristocracy, and monarchy. Conservatives tend to favour institutions and practices that enhance social order and historical continuity.

Right-wing politics is the range of political ideologies that view certain social orders and hierarchies as inevitable, natural, normal, or desirable, typically supporting this position based on natural law, economics, authority, property, religion, biology, or tradition. Hierarchy and inequality may be seen as natural results of traditional social differences or competition in market economies.

In political science, a reactionary or a reactionist is a person who holds political views that favor a return to the status quo ante—the previous political state of society—which the person believes possessed positive characteristics that are absent from contemporary society. As a descriptor term, reactionary derives from the ideological context of the left–right political spectrum. As an adjective, the word reactionary describes points of view and policies meant to restore a status quo ante.

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:

Charles-Marie-Photius Maurras was a French author, politician, poet, and critic. He was an organizer and principal philosopher of Action Française, a political movement that is monarchist, anti-parliamentarist, and counter-revolutionary. Maurras also held anti-communist, anti-Masonic, anti-Protestant, and antisemitic views, while being highly critical of Nazism, referring to it as "stupidity". His ideas greatly influenced National Catholicism and integral nationalism, led by his tenet that "a true nationalist places his country above everything".

Action Française is a French far-right monarchist and nationalist political movement. The name was also given to a journal associated with the movement.

The French Second Republic, officially the French Republic, was the second republican government of France. It existed from 1848 until its dissolution in 1852.

The Legitimists are royalists who adhere to the rights of dynastic succession to the French crown of the descendants of the eldest branch of the Bourbon dynasty, which was overthrown in the 1830 July Revolution. They reject the claim of the July Monarchy of 1830–1848 which placed Louis Philippe, Duke of Orléans, head of the Orléans cadet branch of the Bourbon dynasty, on the throne until he too was dethroned and driven with his family into exile.

During the Bourbon Restoration (1814–1830) and the July Monarchy (1830–1848), the Doctrinals were a group of French royalists who hoped to reconcile the monarchy with the French Revolution and power with liberty. Headed by Royer-Collard, these liberal royalists were in favor of a constitutional monarchy, but with a heavily restricted census suffrage—Louis XVIII, who had been restored to the throne, had granted a Charter to the French with a Chamber of Peers and a Chamber of Deputies elected under tight electoral laws. The Doctrinaires were a centrist, as well as a conservative-liberal group, but at that time, liberal was considered to be the mainstream political left, so the group was considered a centre-left group.

Integral nationalism is a type of nationalism that originated in 19th-century France, was theorized by Charles Maurras and mainly expressed in the ultra-royalist circles of the Action Française. The doctrine is also called Maurrassisme.

The 6 February 1934 crisis was an anti-parliamentarist street demonstration in Paris organized by multiple far-rightist leagues that culminated in a riot on the Place de la Concorde, near the building used for the French National Assembly. The police shot and killed 17 people, nine of whom were far-right protesters. It was one of the major political crises during the Third Republic (1870–1940). Leftist Frenchmen claimed it was an attempt to organize a fascist coup d'état. According to historian Joel Colton, "The consensus among scholars is that there was no concerted or unified design to seize power and that the leagues lacked the coherence, unity, or leadership to accomplish such an end."

The far-right tradition in France finds its origins in the Third Republic with Boulangism and the Dreyfus affair. In the 1880s, General Georges Boulanger, called "General Revenge", championed demands for military revenge against Imperial Germany as retribution for the defeat and fall of the Second French Empire during the Franco-Prussian War (1870–71). This stance, known as revanchism, began to exert a strong influence on French nationalism. Soon thereafter, the Dreyfus affair provided one of the political division lines of France. French nationalism, which had been largely associated with left-wing and Republican ideologies before the Dreyfus affair, turned after that into 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, blended with anti-Semitism, xenophobia, anti-Protestantism and anti-Masonry. The Action française (AF), first founded as a journal and later a political organization, was the matrix of a new type of counter-revolutionary right-wing, which continues to exist today. During the interwar period, the Action française and its youth militia, the Camelots du Roi, were very active. Far right leagues organized riots.

The Croix-de-Feu was a nationalist French league of the Interwar period, led by Colonel François de la Rocque (1885–1946). After it was dissolved, as were all other leagues during the Popular Front period (1936–38), La Rocque established the Parti social français (PSF) to replace it.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pierre Sidos</span> French nationalist activist (1927–2020)

Pierre Sidos was a French far right nationalist, neo-Pétainist, and antisemitic activist. One of the main figures of post-WWII nationalism in France, Sidos was the founder and leader of the nationalist organizations Jeune Nation (1949–1958) and L'Œuvre Française (1968–2013).

Maurrassisme is a political doctrine originated by Charles Maurras (1868–1952), most closely associated with the Action française movement. Maurassisme advocates absolute integral nationalism, monarchism, corporatism, national syndicalism, and opposition to democracy, liberalism, capitalism, and communism.

Monarchism in France is the advocacy of restoring the monarchy in France, which was abolished after the 1870 defeat by Prussia, arguably before that in 1848 with the establishment of the French Second Republic. The French monarchist movements are roughly divided today in three groups:

The Legitimists for the royal House of Bourbon,
the Orléanists for the cadet branch of the House of Orléans, and
the Bonapartists for the imperial House of Bonaparte

National syndicalism is a far-right adaptation of syndicalism to suit the broader agenda of integral nationalism. National syndicalism developed in France in the early 20th century, and then spread to Italy, Spain, and Portugal.

A counter-revolutionary or an anti-revolutionary is anyone who opposes or resists a revolution, particularly one who acts after a revolution in order to try to overturn it or reverse its course, in full or in part. The adjective "counter-revolutionary" pertains to movements that would restore the state of affairs, or the principles, that prevailed during a prerevolutionary era.

The Bonapartist Party was the name given to a political party which participated in the May 1815 French legislative election, but was disbanded following the Second Bourbon Restoration. Following the 1851 French coup d'état led by soon to be Napoleon III, the party was reformed and participated in four elections until being reduced to a minor party after the fall of Napoleon III in 1870. The party once again became major contender during the 1876 elections, and remained a major contender until the 1885 election. Following the 1885 election, the party was merged into the Conservative Rally alliance in 1889 when it was finally disbanded.

Ultraconservatism refers to extreme conservative views in politics or religious practice. In modern politics, ultraconservative usually refers to conservatives of the far-right on the political spectrum, comprising groups or individuals who are located to the right of those willing to temporarily agree with political moderates, and continuing further right to include fringe parties.

References

↑ Woodwards, E. L. (1963). Three Studies In European Conservatism: Metternich, Guizot, The Catholic Church In The Nineteenth Century. Archon Books. ISBN 9780714615295.
↑ Fawcett, Edmund (2020). Conservatism: The Fight for a Tradition. Princeton University Press. pp. 20–21. ISBN 978-0-691-17410-5.
↑ Ultraroyalist. Dictionary of Politics and Government, 2004, p. 250.
↑ Heywood, Andrew (2017). Political Ideologies: An Introduction. Palgrave Macmillan. p. 75. ISBN 978-1-137-60604-4.
↑ Roger Price (2005). A Concise History of France. Cambridge UP. p. 225. ISBN 978-0-521-84480-2.
↑ Judaken, Jonathan (2005). "Action Française". In Richard S. Levy (ed.). Antisemitism: A Historical Encyclopedia of Prejudice and Persecution. ABC-CLIO. p. 1. ISBN 978-1-85109-439-4.
↑ Biographical notice on Maurras on the Académie française's website (in French)
↑ Mayeur, Jean-Marie (1987). The Third Republic from Its Origins to the Great War, 1871–1914. Cambridge University Press. p. 298.
↑ Larkin, Maurice (2002). Religion, Politics and Preferment in France since 1890: La Belle Epoque and its Legacy. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521522706.
↑ Hoffmann, Stanley (1974). "The Vichy Circle of French Conservatives". Decline or Renewal? : France since 1930s. Viking Press. pp. 3–25. ISBN 0670262358.
↑ René Rémond (1982). Les droites en France. Aubier.
↑ Viereck, Peter (2005). Conservatism Revisited: The Revolt Against Ideology. Transaction Publishers. p. 205. ISBN 978-0-7658-0576-8.
↑ Richard Vinen, "The Parti républicain de la Liberté and the Reconstruction of French Conservatism, 1944–1951", French History (1993) 7#2 pp. 183–204
↑ Ware, Alan (1996). Political Parties and Party Systems. Oxford University Press. p. 32. ISBN 978-0-19-878076-2.
↑ Hauss, Charles (2008). Comparative Politics: Domestic Responses to Global Challenges. Cengage Learning. p. 116. ISBN 978-0-495-50109-1.
↑ "Eric Zemmour: Meet the right-wing TV pundit set to shake up France's presidential race". euronews.com. October 13, 2021. Retrieved October 30, 2021.

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[1] Woodwards, E. L. (1963). Three Studies In European Conservatism: Metternich, Guizot, The Catholic Church In The Nineteenth Century. Archon Books. ISBN 9780714615295.

[2] Fawcett, Edmund (2020). Conservatism: The Fight for a Tradition. Princeton University Press. pp. 20–21. ISBN 978-0-691-17410-5.

[3] Ultraroyalist. Dictionary of Politics and Government, 2004, p. 250.

[4] Heywood, Andrew (2017). Political Ideologies: An Introduction. Palgrave Macmillan. p. 75. ISBN 978-1-137-60604-4.

[5] Roger Price (2005). A Concise History of France. Cambridge UP. p. 225. ISBN 978-0-521-84480-2.

[6] Judaken, Jonathan (2005). "Action Française". In Richard S. Levy (ed.). Antisemitism: A Historical Encyclopedia of Prejudice and Persecution. ABC-CLIO. p. 1. ISBN 978-1-85109-439-4.

[7] Biographical notice on Maurras on the Académie française's website (in French)

[8] Mayeur, Jean-Marie (1987). The Third Republic from Its Origins to the Great War, 1871–1914. Cambridge University Press. p. 298.

[9] Larkin, Maurice (2002). Religion, Politics and Preferment in France since 1890: La Belle Epoque and its Legacy. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521522706.

[10] Hoffmann, Stanley (1974). "The Vichy Circle of French Conservatives". Decline or Renewal? : France since 1930s. Viking Press. pp. 3–25. ISBN 0670262358.

[11] René Rémond (1982). Les droites en France. Aubier.

[12] Viereck, Peter (2005). Conservatism Revisited: The Revolt Against Ideology. Transaction Publishers. p. 205. ISBN 978-0-7658-0576-8.

[13] Richard Vinen, "The Parti républicain de la Liberté and the Reconstruction of French Conservatism, 1944–1951", French History (1993) 7#2 pp. 183–204

[14] Ware, Alan (1996). Political Parties and Party Systems. Oxford University Press. p. 32. ISBN 978-0-19-878076-2.

[15] Hauss, Charles (2008). Comparative Politics: Domestic Responses to Global Challenges. Cengage Learning. p. 116. ISBN 978-0-495-50109-1.

[16] "Eric Zemmour: Meet the right-wing TV pundit set to shake up France's presidential race". euronews.com. October 13, 2021. Retrieved October 30, 2021.

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