Solidarité Française

Solidarité Française ("French Solidarity") was a French far right league founded in 1933 by perfume manufacturer François Coty and commanded by Major Jean Renaud, they dressed in blue shirts, black berets, and jackboots, and shouted the slogan "France for the French". While Marcel Bucard's "Francisme" imitated Italian fascism, "Solidarité française" imitated the Nazi party.

Coty, former owner of "Le Figaro", the sponsor of a newspaper which styled itself "L'Ami du peuple" after Jean-Paul Marat's (being nonetheless anti-republican), called himself the "French Duce". He had financed the syndicalist proto-fascist Georges Valois and his "Faisceau" in the 1920s, the Croix-de-Feu in the early 1930s, finally deciding to form his own faction.

The movement claimed a strength of 180,000 in 1932, with 80,000 in Paris; the Parisian police thought the number in Paris closer to 15,000. The small membership did not however isolate Coty's group: the Solidarité Française found itself integrated in the loose coalition of far right movements such as Action Française and Pierre Taittinger's Jeunesse Patriotes. In this context, Coty's financing found its importance, as "L'Ami du peuple" had a fairly large circulation.

The group gained notoriety during the far right rally and attempted coup d'état on 6 February 1934, in front of the Parliament seat in the Palais Bourbon. It was dissolved by a law adopted by the Popular Front government of Léon Blum in June 1936. Many members of "Solidarité Française" subsequently joined Jacques Doriot's fascist Parti Populaire Francais (PPF).

See also

*6 February 1934 crisis