Cross-of-fire

The association of the Cross-of-Fire or " Association of the combatants of before and of war wounded quoted for action of éclat" (1927-1936) was a league of French nationalist war veterans. It is directed by the colonel François of Rocque. Considered by its opponents and of the Anglo-Saxon historians, wrongly according to the majority of the current French historians, like an expression of a hexagonal Fascism, it is dissolved in 1936, giving to birth to the Parti social French (1936-1940), more party of mass French line.

Foundation and beginnings (1927-1931)

The " Association of the combatants of before and of war wounded quoted for action of éclat" the November 26th 1927 is founded by Maurice d' Hartoy to gather French war veterans decorated with the Military Cross for their bravery. The candidates with adhesion were to bring the formal evidence of their distinctions and merits military. The presidency of honor, honorary function, was entrusted to the writer and journalist Jacques Péricard. From 1929, a twin association, the Veterans, allowed the war veterans having spent at least six months with fire to come to enlarge the rows of Cross-of-Fire without inevitably to be decorated or wounded.

The creation of the movement answers at the origin with the desire to revive the spirit of fraternity of distinct and to repair an act considered to be ignominieux (the falls from the unknown soldier having been soiled at the time of a demonstration in August 1927). The historian specialist the French lines Rene Rémond evokes the will of " to gather best war veterans, in the memory and friendship, to train a knighthood of military courage, to throw the bases of a kind of new legion of honneur". The badge of the movement Cross-of-Fire is a death's-head superimposed on the Military Cross and its doctrines are summarized in the Proclamation Cross-of-Fire.

Association is lodged, with its creation, in the building of the Figaro by François Coty, perfumer and press baron, and counts roughly 500 members in 1928.

The main activities of the movement Cross-of-Fire are divided into three types: the meetings Patriotic S, processions of the memory during the ceremonies under the Triumphal arch and of the Pilgrimage S on the battle fields.

Evolution under François of Rocque (1931-1936)

Independence of the movement

End 1929, Maurice d' Hartoy is withdrawn and François of Rocque, recommended by the marshals Foch, Fayolle and Lyautey, is requested to take the direction of association. He becomes vice-president in 1930 about it, then general president in 1931. The direction of Rocque involves many changes within association, as well in its structure as ideologically, and constitutes a true turning in the existence of Cross-of-Fire. Founded like friendly of the memory, the movement becomes political and openly Nationaliste.

Rocque is the craftsman of the financial and political independence of Cross-of-Fire. It decides to leave the building of the Barber and organizes the transfer of the seat of association street of Milan, with Paris.

A nationalism voluntarily " modéré"

The language extremist which was involved sometimes in certain leaflets of the time of Hartoy is banished and leaves room to the spirit of " reconciliation nationale" around the three pillars " Work, Family, Patrie" , which will be the key idea of the movement. Cross-of-Fire thus remain faithful to the nationalist spirit, being thus opposed to the internationalism of the Communist party and the leagues of Extreme left, which will frequently come to disturb the processions. Rocque is also the project superintendent of the organic development of association. It organizes the Propagande in order to privilege the principles symbolized by the fighting fraternity of its members (equality, fidelity and respect) and transforms " Flambeau" , the monthly press agency of the movement, in weekly magazine.

The political ambition of association becomes extensive and is specified in the work of François of Rocque " Public" service; , appeared in November 1934. It proposes the need for brewing the classes (made existing within Cross-of-Fire) and for generalizing the model of co-operation between classes which prevailed during the Great War. Angular stone of the " mystic Cross-of-Feu" is thus the reform, as well institutional as social:

Right to watch of the workman on the business management.
organized Profession: co-operation of industries by type of activity and meeting of the workers by branches.
Minimum wage.
Paid vacations.
Extension of the popular leisures.
Vote of the women.
Reform of the processes of parliamentary work.

Towards a recruitment of mass

The political program and social of the movement is defined as from 1931. Cross-of-Fire propose the reclassification of the capacities in the constitution of IIIe République, in particular the reinforcement of National defense vis-a-vis the " danger allemand" (articles of Rocque in the Weekly Review and the Review of Paris), and the development of collaboration enters Capital and Labor. In order to create the base of a social action, it also leads a strategy of widening of recruitment to other categories of sympathizers by the creation of a network of associations:

Wire and Girls of Cross-of-Fire (December 1932).
the National Volunteers (October 1933), to which will belong François Mitterrand (of 1935 to 1936) and Jean Mermoz (member of the management committee in July 1935).
the national Regrouping around Cross-of-Fire (November 1933), brings together the sympathizers and readers of the Flambeau.
Female Sections (March 1934).
University Groups (February 1935).

Under the direction of Rocque, the movement Cross-of-Fire and its beam of associations relationships see their numerical importance growing: 500 members in 1928,60 000 at the end of 1933,150 000 in the months which followed the manifestation of the February 6th, 1934 and 400.000 at the end of 1935. Cross-of-Fire then represent a powerful movement of mass and are posed as a referee parties, without wanting for the moment to take part in the elections.

Social works

The lieutenant-colonel of Rocque also diversifies the activities of the beam of associations by privileging the social activities:

Colony of the children Cross-of-Fire (1930).
Support service and placement in Paris region reserved to the members (1931).
Social movement of Cross-of-Fire (1934): intervention near the victims of various catastrophes and actions of benevolence of proximity (soup, material mutual aid)
Service of Preparation and Sporting Education, known as SPES (1936): fact of taking part children disinherited in sports activities.
Work and Loisirs: association with social and artistic vocation directed by the mother of Jean Mermoz.

Dissolution (1936)

The Crosses of fire and the French Social movement, in spite of a deferment of the Council of State, are dissolved by decree taken in the Council of Ministers the June 18th 1936, pursuant to the law of the January 10th 1936 on the groups of combat and private militia, under the government of the Popular front, and thus undergo the same fate as the majority of the leagues of Extreme-right-hand side reactionaries or fascisantes, whose Rocque rejected activism and the anti-républicanisme systematic one.

Obviously, the dissolution of Cross-of-Fire comes, on the one hand, of the fear caused by the capacity of the movement to mobilize many and organized crowd and, on the other hand, of its social action programme, very near to that of the Popular front, thus threatening it to charm many militants to him among the working class.

Ashes of the MSF will be born the Parti social French or PSF.

DEBATEs on Cross-of-Fire

Importance of the debate

The question of the membership of Cross-of-Fire to the leagues of extreme-right-hand side is thorny and Rene Rémond qualifies even the case of “showpiece of the controversy on the Fascisme in France” (ibidem, edition of 1982). Indeed, if Cross-of-Fire are a nationalist and paramilitary league, since they have certain secondary attributes of them (except the principal ones, namely the weapons and the uniforms): strict discipline, strongly centralized movement, secret deliberations, service of order (the Dispos), they are distinguished radically from the movements of extreme-right-hand side antiparlementarists by posting several times their legalism and their independence.

Determining differences with Fascism

The refusal to be combined with the extreme-right-hand side

To counter the slogan of the French Action, “Policy initially! ”, worked out by Charles Maurras, Rocque makes adopt with its movement the currency initially “Social! ”.

In December 1932, they refuse to join the demonstrations ultranationalists diligentées by the French Action and the patriotic Jeunesses against the payment of the debt contracted near the the United States.

At the time of the consecutive manifestations of the February 6th 1934 with the Business Stavisky, the colonel of Rocque refuses to attack the Parliament whereas it has the sufficient numerical force to do it. It is located however at the edge of the Seine with its forces, to only a few hundred meters of the engagements.

The other leagues also dedicate Rocque with the gémonies, speaking readily about treason, and did not take off when Cross-of-Fire refuse to adhere to the Front National (leagues), made up at the end of February 1934, or to take part in the elections of 1936 to fight against the Popular front (this refusal causes the departure of several militants in 1935, called " maréchaux" , which rejoingnent the PF of Doriot in 1936).

The judgment of totalitarianism and the anti-semitism

Rocque passes to its opponents for the incarnation of French Fascism, in spite of a hostility to the Antisémitisme and the Nazisme: its defense of the French nation preceded for him owe any other type of ideas, especially if they came from abroad. However, a virulent anti-semitism could develop within the sections of the French Social Party, in particular in Alsace and the Moselle and Algeria. According to many sources, in particular Rene Rémond and the authors of the parliamentary report on the DPS (left III, page 14), this charge, still relayed nowadays by those which affirm that a French Fascism existed in the Thirties, is false. The movement Cross-of-Fire would never have been driven by a fascistic besides ideology and Rocque denounced the religion of State, the Racisme and the class struggle like the main obstacles with the so much desired “national reconciliation” (speech of May 23rd, 1936).

Discusses between French and foreign historians

In spite of these elements, certain historians, such as Zeev Sternhell or Robert Soucy, continue in their writings to categorize the Crosses of Fire like the example of a French fascistic mobility.

The polemic on the Crosses of Fire is in the middle of the controversy between French historians (Rene Rémond, Michel Winock or Pierre Milza at the head) and foreign historians (Zeev Sternhell, Nolte):

the first challenge the existence of a " Fascism français" other that minor,
the seconds consider that France is the ideological country of birth of Fascism at the 19th century (leagues anti-supporters of Dreyfus) and that it is quite naturally that during the Thirties the leagues took this aspect. The fact that they did not reach the depending capacity for the latter of a “accident of the history”: France being according to them the cradle of Fascism (Bonapartism).

In answer to Zeev Sternhell, Pierre Milza affirms that: “Rocque and its friends drive out on the grounds of the radical party and make an effort, by posting an anticommunism of shock and a anticapitalism less timid than it had been it hitherto in the Cross-of-Fire medium, to attract with him disappointed Popular front. This combat on two faces was worth with Rocque to be regarded by the left as the fascist number one - what certainly it did not deserve but was the starting point of a tough legend - to draw up against him the conservative right and moderated, which it had served well but what worried from now on its electoral ambitions, finally to make figure with the eyes of the true enemies of the mode, fascists and monarchists, of renegade and saver of parliamentarism honni. That will not prevent the Parti social French (PSF), assagi and rejoined with the democratic principle of the elections, to become during the two years which precede release by the war - with a manpower which must turn around the million members and its tight network of sections and federations - the first great modern French line formation. ” . According to Milza, it is not so much the not-accession with the capacity of the leagues which would be a possible accident of the history but well the rise fallen through by the release of the war of the PSF (i.e. of a legal party, created within a republican institutional framework) towards the parliamentary capacity.

See too

Left social French
League extreme-right-hand side

External bonds

Sources

Rene Rémond, line in France , Sapwood-Montaigne, 1968.
Jacques Nobécourt, the Colonel of Rocque, or traps of Christian nationalism , Beech, Paris, 1996.
Rene Rémond, " The sovereign Republic - history of the political life in France of 1879 with 1939-" , Beech, 2002
Michel Winock, the century of the intellectuals , Threshold, 1999.
Michel Winock: " Rocque and Crosses of Feu" , in " Twentieth siècle" , Presses of the National Foundation of Political sciences, April-June 2006, number 90
David Shapira: " Kaplan Jacob, a pilot rabbi of the 20th century, " Editions Albin Michel, 2007

Direct sources

François of Rocque, For the conference of disarmament. French Safety , Impr. De Chaix, 1932.
François of Rocque, Public service , Grasset, 1934.
François of Rocque, the Movement Cross of fire to the help of French agriculture , Movement Cross of fire, 1935.
François of Rocque, Why I adhered to the social Party French , Société of editions and subscriptions, Paris, December 1936.
French Social movement of Cross-of-Fire, Why we became Cross-of-Fire (proclamation), Siège of the groups, Clermont, 1937.
François of Rocque, Union, spirit, family, speech made by Rocque in Vél' of hiv, Paris, January 28th, 1938 , Impr. Commercial, 1938.
Paul Creyssel, Rocque against Tardieu , F. Sorlot, Paris, February 1939.
François of Rocque, Peace or war (speech made at the National council of the PSF, follow-up of about a day voted with the Council; Paris, April 22nd, 1939), S.E.D.A., Paris, 1939.
François of Rocque, Speech, French social Party. Agricultural Ier National congress. 17 February 18th, 1939. , SEDA, 1939.
François of Rocque, Disciplines of action , Editions of the Small Newspaper, Clermont-Ferrand, 1941.
François of Rocque, With the service of the future, reflections in mountain , Company of edition and subscription, 1949.
Cross-of-Fire, the Plot communo-Socialist, insurrection armed in the unit with action , Grasset, 1935.
of Rocque, For memory: Rocque, Crosses of fire and the social Party French , Association of the friends of Rocque, Paris, 1985.

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