Concept

Le Faisceau

Summary
Le Faisceau (lə fɛso, The Fasces) was a short-lived French fascist political party. It was founded on 11 November 1925 as a far right league by Georges Valois. It was preceded by its newspaper, Le Nouveau Siècle, which had been founded as a weekly on February 26 but became a daily after the party's creation. Contributors to Le Nouveau Siècle originally included Valois, Jacques Arthuys, Philippe Barrès, Hubert Bourgin, Eugène Mathon, Henri Massis and Xavier Vallat. After the foundation of the party it was the object of bitter attacks from the Action Française, who considered it a potential rival, and most well-known names were intimidated. Arthuys, Barrès and Mathon were among those who remained. The Faisceau had borrowed its name from the Italian Fasci and the National Fascist Party (PNF), and also adopted their paramilitary style - with uniforms, staged ceremonies and parades; it also expressed admiration for Benito Mussolini. Even extensive investigations by the French police failed to reveal any links, official or unofficial with the PNF and Italy. Many of its ideas were ones already established in the French far right milieu, deriving mostly from the work of Maurice Barrès. Valois claimed that Barrès' Le Cocarde had been the first Fascist newspaper. They included a "national" state (i.e. for the benefit of all social classes, rather than the existing "bourgeois" state or the Marxist proletarian state) with a strong, authoritarian leader. Thus, its stated aims included a coup d'état and a dictatorship, although it never took any concrete steps towards achieving these ends. Nor was it clear who the dictator was to be - Valois himself did not indicate a willingness to occupy the position, and Maxime Weygand may have been the preferred candidate of some members of the Faisceau. The Faisceau ran into serious problems almost as soon as it was founded.
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