History
February 6, 1934: a far-right riot shakes the Republic in Paris
An attempted fascist coup for some, a tragedy for patriots for others, February 6, 1934 was a deadly day, the political consequences of which were extraordinary, in the short and medium term. Today it remains the symbol of the fragility of the parliamentary regime and the harbinger of the rise of an authoritarian temptation which will find its full measure in collaboration.
Clashes between rioters and police on the evening of February 6, 1934, Place de la Concorde, in Paris. © History through images., Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
By: Olivier Favier Follow
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At the beginning of 1934, France felt, with delay and less force than neighboring countries, the economic crisis that the collapse of the Wall Street Stock Exchange, five years earlier, had repercussions on a large part of the continent. European. In January 1933, its shocks helped sweep away the Weimar Republic and put Adolf Hitler in power.
In France, the crisis is weakening a parliamentary regime criticized for its instability – there have been no fewer than five governments in two years. The Communist Party, which follows the
“class against class”
line published by
Moscow
, sees all other parties as instruments of the bourgeoisie. The far right relies on the resentment of veterans of the Great War and the rise in unemployment.
An extreme right obsessed with the “Jewish and Freemason conspiracy”
On January 28, a famous crook, Alexandre Stavisky, opportunistically killed himself when the police came to arrest him. In his misdeeds, he implicated senior police and justice officials, including the brother-in-law of the President of the Council, Camille Chautemps, who was forced to resign. Alexandre Stavisky is a Ukrainian Jew, Camille Chautemps a Freemason. This is the perfect opportunity for the far right to cry conspiracy.
The first political gesture of the new President of the Council, Édouard Daladier, renowned for his probity, is to dismiss one of the most powerful figures in the republic: the Paris police prefect, Jean Chiappe, from whom he has just obtained that he dissuades the National Union of Fighters from joining the protests of the far-right leagues. At that time, in a city with a sulphurous revolutionary past, the Paris police prefect was a powerful man, at the head of a quarter of the country's law enforcement agencies.
The far-right leagues have found their martyrs. Jean Chiappe refuses an envied position in the colonies and runs to take refuge with his partner's daughter, whose husband is none other than the director of
Gringoire
, a right-wing weekly which will last its last years ten years later, under the collaboration. The far-right press is unleashed and calls for a demonstration on February 6. Posters calling for a rally are posted throughout Paris. The UNC reverses its decision. Other much more violent groups are calling to join Concorde.
An unprecedented bloodbath since the Commune
The new prefect has no experience in maintaining order. His baptism of fire promises to be brutal and his subordinates are not used to acting without instructions. If we remove the fences that protect the trees around the Place de la Concorde, as well as some paving stones, the Tuileries garden remains open, providing an excellent promontory for the crowd to send projectiles at the police. The prefect will be filmed on site the same evening, with a lost look and a cigarette on his lips, visibly overwhelmed.
The processions converge on the scene, each on their own. Only veterans of the Croix-de-Feu have chosen the left bank and can approach the Chamber of Deputies without having to cross the Seine. Their leader, Colonel de La Rocque, is a legalist. He orders a retreat at the first shots. For the other groups, however, joined by looters and rioters who have come to strike out against the police, pushing back agents and mobile gendarmes to gain access to the center of power becomes the only watchword.
From the beginning of the evening, the first deaths were counted. There will be eighteen of them, a Republican Guard, royalist activists from Action Française, nationalists from Jeunesses patriotes and Solidarité nationale, and still others without affiliation. Among them, there is a chambermaid hit by a stray bullet in a window of the Crillon hotel. The police fired in abundance, while on two occasions the barrier set up on the bridge threatened to give way in front of the crowd.
The rediscovered unity of the left: a first step towards the “Popular Front”
Never had a riot caused so much bloodshed in Paris since the Commune in 1871. It was not until
October 17, 1961
that police repression became more deadly - certainly, on a completely different scale and without being able to then call into question an attack on “
state security
”. On February 6, 1934, we also found among the rioters activists from the Republican Association of Veterans, close to the Communist Party, shoulder to shoulder with the far right, even as they demanded "immediate arrest.
" by Chiappe
.
Calm is not regained until around 3 a.m. In the meantime, Édouard Daladier obtained confidence for his government. He nevertheless resigned the next day. This is the first time under the Third Republic that a President of the Council gave in to a crowd. It was replaced by a so-called government of national unity, where Marshal Pétain rose to the rank of Secretary of State. On March 9 and 12, the left is in the streets, there are new deaths. “
The reaction will not pass
”, cries the socialist Léon Blum, who calls for unity, a first step towards what will become the Popular Front two years later.
Many on the left saw in this day of February 6 an echo of the march on Rome, which brought fascism to power in Italy in 1922. The context was however very different, much more spontaneous, without the call or the support of a parliamentary group ready to govern. On the far right, the event also takes on the dimensions of a founding myth. And it is as such that he was officially commemorated on February 6, 1944 by the Vichy Secretary of State for Information and Propaganda, Philippe Henriot.
Our selection on the subject
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1936-1938: social gains against a backdrop of war, illustrated by Willy Ronis
Short History: the cinema of the Popular Front
1918: the hope of a new world
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