Faisceau

**The Fasces** (French: *Le Faisceau*) is the first french political party who is referring of Italian Fascism. It was founded by very diverse personalities: veterans, a former syndicalist and former monarchists, who will join in the aftermath of a May 1925 coup that overthrew the parliamentary republican regime.

Because of the major dissensions between the leadership of the party (Valois and Arthuys) and the financiers (François Coty and Eugene Mathon) coupled with the internal opportunism of members of importance (Marcel Bucard etc ...) Georges Valois ended up leaving his own party which results in the breakdown of the organization.

Although the party is never exercised the power has not even pretended to do so; if we believe Valois's statements. The Fasces, greatly influenced the extreme right after 1925. Observers and political analysts inside (Valois himself) and outside (Gustave Hervé etc...) of the party and France (PC-SFIC and Comintern etc ...) will see in the Fasces the beginning of the *fascisation* of the French political parties and the new republican-plebiscitary regime.

## History of the Fasces

### Foundation of the Fasces

The Fasces was founded at the end of a meeting in the Salle Wagram, the 11 November, 1925 by Georges Valois, following a split with the French Action which they judged the archaic positions:

* The dogmatic conservatism of Charles Maurras and the ruling circle
* The refusal of further collaboration with the Military Committee of National Salvation and Preservation of the Empire that would not be in the words of Maurras "sufficiently anti-republican"

His management brought together Georges Valois, Jacques Arthuys (vice-president), Lieutenant André d'Humières (general delegate and head of the paramilitary organization), Philippe Barrès (propaganda delegate, son of Maurice Barrès) and Serge André (administrator ).

The year after its creation, the Fasces brings together nearly 25,000 "Blue Shirts".

### Organisation of the Fasces

The party consisted of four "Fasces":

* the "Combatants Legions ", bringing together veterans of the First World War and colonial wars, organized in companies, sections and groups;
* the "Fasces of Producers", made up of corporations;
* the "Youth Fasces" with the "Fascist Youths" and the "University Fasces";
* the "Civic Fasces".

The Fasces had a newspaper *Le Nouveau Siècle*, founded on 26 February 1925, as well as a uniform and rituals (paramilitary parades).

### Crisis and bursting of the Fasces

The Fasces was abandoned by the industrial employers of the North, including Eugene Mathon, worried about Valois's speeches in favor of the popular classes.

In spite of a considerable number of adherents, the party will burst in 1928 after serious internal dissensions.

Two main debates are at the origin of the dissolution of the Fasces:

1. Alignment with Italian fascism and the writings of Mussolini, whom Georges Valois (from both French Action circles and revolutionary syndicalists) considered revolutionary, but he considered that his movement no longer followed them.
2. The considerable gap between a revolutionary social will, sincere in Valois who then turned to the left, and the financing of the beam by anticommunist big capital like Francois Coty. Valois himself then said he was disappointed by the French Marshalism which is actually in a period of economic liberalism.
3. The constitution of an anti-Valois group within the party, led by Marcel Bucard supported by the main financiers.

## Ideology of the Fasces

This movement claimed a fascism inspired by the Italian model: it intended to synthesize nationalism and socialism, that is to say to establish a national dictatorship above all social classes, with a proclaimed leader by the veterans (supposed to represent a moral elite) and acclaimed by the crowd.

It was a question of combining an unparliamentary model, dominated by a strong executive, with a totally free syndicalism, this point nonetheless constituting a fundamental difference with Italian fascism.

The idea of ​​a political form dominated by a powerful executive power and personified by the head of state (necessarily a man of action) which would have the electoral base of the disappointed parliamentarism was already the project of the Boulangism in 1889.

Such ideas have enabled the Faisceau to recruit intellectuals attracted by the modern, young, non-conformist and revolutionary aspect of this French-style fascism, such as Philippe Lamour, Philippe Barrès and Paul Nizan.

The military regime then plebiscite intauré in France in 1925, will go in the direction of the ideology of Faisceeau, but the economic liberalism adotpé by the regime, the maintenance of a parliament and political actors of the former parliamentary republican regime in the new order, will greatly displease Valois.

Georges Valois will make the following comment in August 1931:

> "The military coup d'etat of May 1925, was the great joke done to the national camp. France received a leader, and it is true that it lacked one but the trade with the old plutocratic class, transformed a promise of national renewal in a reactionary republic "
>
>

On the external plane, the Fasces develops a Latinist doctrine.

By contrasting on one side a Latin, Catholic and authoritarian world against a Germanic, pagan and tribal world. This Germanic world would have only attacked the Lation world in a cicle constantly repeating itself. Finally a third Slavic and Asian world, invading the first two intermittently because of the alliance with one or the other. For Valois, Lenin's "Slavic" communism for a moment subjected Pan-Germanism, but inevitably the Germanic world regained its independence and went on to attack the Latin world. So by the constitution of an alliance between Latin nation, it will contain this future invasion.

Primarily competing with the French Action, the Fasces had drawn the enmity of this political movement and its master to think Charles Maurras, which to emphasize both the foreign origin of the doctrine of the beam and the poor esteem in which he kept his directors spelled systematically "Fesso" whenever he referred to it. In Italian, the word fesso is a vulgar term meaning roughly "dumb" or "stupid".

## After the Fasces

After the bursting of the Fasces in 1928, Georges Valois founded the revolutionary fascist party (PFR) on June 10, 1928. That will remain a small group. Among the members were: Charles-Albert (former anarchist turned neo-Jacobin), Jacques Arthuys. The PFR's main organ was *La Révolution fasciste* magazine, but also a more intellectual review *Les Cahiers Bleus*, in which Édouard Berth and Bertrand de Jouvenel wrote, each of which will have an important role in French fascism.

The (majority) members of the Fasces remained faithful to Marcel Bucard and the financier of the party, founds the French Combat Legion of the Francisque in 1928.

## Personalities related to the Fasces

* Georges Valois, former member of Action française, he continues in fascism after the Fasces.
* Jacques Arthuys, former member of the Action française and economist
* André d'Humières, veteran, pilot in the "Jeanne d'Arc" squadron.
* Philippe Barrès, son of the nationalist writer Maurice Barrès, joins the French Combat Legion of the Francisque.
* Serge André, oil industrialist.
* Marcel Bucard, former member of the Action française, he created the French Combat Legion of the Francisque.
* Hubert Bourgin, right-wing intellectual, former member of the League of Patriots.
* Dr. Thierry de Martel, son of the nationalist writer Gyp.
* Hubert Lagardelle, revolutionary syndicalist leader of the French Workers Party and the CGT, he is a friend of Mussolini.
* Marcel Delagrange, former PC-SFIC mayor of Périgueux, then senior official of the Fasces.
* Philippe Lamour, former member of the Radical Party. President of the "University Fasces".