Among the first recruits into the ‘army of shadows’ after the fall of France were members of the Church who were not only joining the armed resistance against the Nazis, but were disobeying the French bishops and their instruction to collaborate
Action Française – like its mirror opposite, the French Communist Party – demanded an unflinching commitment from its followers. It was a creature of the Third Republic – itself born out the wreckage of the country’s defeat in the Franco-Prussian War – and had been founded by Catholic royalists who had convinced themselves that Dreyfus was guilty.
In the running battle between anti-clericals and Catholics that divided the Third Republic for 70 years, the leading theorist of Action Française, Charles Maurras, preached a doctrine that was royalist, nationalist and anti-democratic. He saw Franco and Salazar as model statesmen and believed in anti-Semitism as a pillar of government policy. Eventually, in 1926, the Vatican put the movement’s newspaper on the Index and excommunicated its most prominent members, a sanction that lasted until 1939.
Although Maurras had once famously described Germany as “France’s enemy no. 1”, he embraced the collaboration with Germany following France’s defeat in the following year. Action Française itself remained an unconditional supporter of the head of state, Marshal Philippe Pétain, throughout the Occupation.
