Colonialism and the Making of French Fascism

Abstract This article traces the rise of a colonialist movement in France from the late 1920s to its important role in the insurrection of February 6, 1934. Comprising radical groups that sought to destroy French democracy, this movement's ideas were shaped in critical ways by colonial conquest. Focusing on the mental maps of two white colonial officers, Jean Ferrandi and François de La Rocque, this article examines how their experiences with colonial war were formative and influenced their actions after they left the military. The interwar radical right groups that Ferrandi and La Rocque led became vehicles to transpose colonialist ideas about violence and racialized hierarchies to metropolitan France. Declaring that France itself needed to be pacified, colonialists played a key role in the virulent assault on French democracy that historians have yet to fully appreciate.