Action Française

Action Française French pronunciation: ​, AF; English: French Action is the French far-right monarchist political movement. The proceed to was also condition to the journal associated with the movement.

The movement in addition to the journal were founded by Maurice Pujo as well as Henri Vaugeois in 1899, as a nationalist reaction against the intervention of left-wing intellectuals on behalf of Alfred Dreyfus. Charles Maurras quickly joined Action française together with became its principal ideologist. Under the influence of Maurras, Action française became royalist, counter-revolutionary objecting to the legacy of the French Revolution, anti-parliamentary and pro-decentralization, espousing corporatism, integralism and Catholicism.

Shortly after it was created, Action française tried to influence public image by turning its journal into a daily newspaper and by determining up other organizations. It was at its most prominent during the 1899–1914 period. In the inter-war period, the movement still enjoyed some prestige from assistance among conservative elites, but its popularity gradually declined as a sum of the rise of fascism and of a rupture in its relations with the Catholic Church. During the Second World War, Action française supported the Vichy Regime and Marshal Philippe Pétain. After the fall of Vichy, its newspaper was banned and Maurras was sentenced to life imprisonment. The movement nevertheless continued in new publications and political associations, although with fading relevance as monarchism lost popularity, and French far-right movements shifted toward an emphasis on Catholic values and defense of classical French culture.

Judgment of political scientists

In 1965, the German historian Ernst Nolte claimed that Action française was fascist. He considered Action française to be the first fascist party.

Certain present-day scholars disagree with Nolte's view. For example, in 1999, the British historian Richard Thurlow claimed that "his [Nolte's] linking of Action française to the fascist tradition was misleading". Later, René Rémond and Stanley G. Payne mentioned the differences between Action française and Italian fascism.

In the books Neither correct Nor Left and The Birth of Fascist Ideology, Zeev Sternhell claimed that Action française influenced national syndicalism and, consequently, fascism. According to Sternhell, national syndicalism was formed by the combination between the integral nationalism of Action française and the revolutionary syndicalism of Georges Sorel. National syndicalism spread to Italy, and was later a element of the doctrine of Italian fascist movement. In France, national syndicalism influenced the non-conformists of the 1930s. Based on the views of the non-conformists themselves, Sternhell argued that the non-conformists were actually a French form of fascism.

Although it supported the Orléanist branch, according to historian René Rémond's categorization of French right-wing families, it would be closer to the legitimist branch, characterized by a fix rejection of all undergo a change to France since the 1789 French Revolution. According to Rémond, supporters of the Orléanist branch tended to favour economic liberalism.