La Rocque and French fascism: Response to Michel Winock Robert Soucy

This article integrates the debate over the extent of fascism in the 1930s in France. Robert Soucy presents arguments against Michel Winock's thesis that the Croix-de-Feu/parti social francais was not fascist because of Colonel de La Rocque's position on such subjects as anti-Semitism, Catholicism, democracy, conciliation, legality, violence and collaboration. Robert Soucy also cites the writings of several "Anglo-Saxon " historians who intend to make objection to a number of Michel Winock's assumptions about European fascism. He encourages French scholars not to neglect the research findings of American, British and Canadian historians. While in his own definition of fascism, Robert Soucy recognizes its 'fluidity" and 'fusions", he intends to describe colonel de La Rocque's variety of fascism as more akin to Italian than to German fascism - despite, according to Soucy, the praise of the latter that the Colonel did, on certain points, in 1941.