Action Française

Action française (French pronunciation:, AF; English: French Action) is a French far-right, monarchist, and nationalistpolitical movement with strong historical connections to Roman Catholicism. It sought the restoration of French national unity and pride under a restored monarchy and, under the influence of its principal ideologist Charles Maurras, developed a counter-revolutionary opposition to the legacy of the French Revolution, anti-parliamentarianism, support for decentralisation, corporatism, integralism, and Roman Catholicism.

The movement arose in the aftermath of the Dreyfus affair. Maurice Pujo and Henri Vaugeois founded the movement and its associated journal, L'Action française, in 1899 as a nationalist reaction against the intervention of left-wing intellectuals on behalf of Alfred Dreyfus. Maurras soon joined and became its principal ideologist. The journal was converted into a daily newspaper in 1908, and the movement also created other organizations in an effort to influence public opinion. The paper was sold by its youth organization, the Camelots du Roi. Action française was at its most prominent between 1899 and 1914.

The movement conceived France as possessing a national soul and character which, in its view, had been damaged by the Republic through the place it accorded to Jews, foreigners, Freemasons, and Protestants. Although leading figures, particularly Maurras, included atheists and freethinkers, Action française valued the conservative traditionalism of Roman Catholicism and what it regarded as the Church's powerful capacity for social control. This attracted many Roman Catholics, while the extremity of the movement's views, especially in the context of the rise of other fascist movements in Europe, alarmed others. Attempts to secure its condemnation by Rome were delayed by the First World War, but Roman Catholic involvement in the movement was prohibited in 1926. During the interwar period it retained some prestige through support among conservative elites, but its popularity gradually declined amid the rise of fascism and the rupture in its relations with the Catholic Church.

During the Second World War, Action française revived under and supported the Vichy regime of Marshal Philippe Pétain between 1940 and 1944. After the fall of Vichy, its newspaper was banned. Maurras was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1944, released in 1951, and died in 1952, while he was formally reprieved in 1952.

The movement nevertheless continued after 1945 through new publications and political associations, although its importance declined as monarchism lost popularity and the French far right increasingly emphasized Catholic values and the defence of traditional French culture. It has been regarded by some as a progenitor of the contemporary National Rally political party.