Female Social Action and Reorganization of French Right-Wing Policies: The Croix-de-feu Movement and the French Social Party (1934 – 1947)
This article explores the little-known contribution of the extreme right to the construction of the welfare state in France by analyzing the immense social welfare network established by the Croix-de-Feu and the French Social Party between 1934 and 1947. The social strategy that the movement first developed between 1934 and 1935 envisaged the political conquest of working-class districts via the implantation of highly needed social services in the destitute neighborhoods of the “red belt” around Paris and Lyon, a mission that was to be given to the movement’s many female social activists. By organizing their social services with a clear political goal in mind—the conquest of “communist” strongholds—the women’s social action groups strove to modify and enlarge the bases of political mobilization on the right via a quest for “social reconciliation” that would replace class hatred by a new spirit of collaboration. In so doing, they put in place a politicization of social work—and a socialization of policies—that would improve the welfare state which emerged after the war and the Libération.
Keywords
- France
- Alsace
- 20th century
- social policy
- gender
- extreme right