French Agrarian and Peasant Party
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The French Agrarian and Peasant Party (French: Parti agraire et paysan français, PAPF) was a French political party founded in 1927 during the French Third Republic by Gabriel Fleurent.[1]
The PAPF was founded on a corporatist, right-wing populist and agrarian program after Fleurent visited Eastern Europe, visited existing peasant based parties and was from the start aligned with their International Agrarian Bureau.[2] The party's first congress, held at Paris in January 1929.[3]
In 1932 they managed to elect one deputy to the National Assembly,[4] Louis Guillon of Vosges.[5]
It was initially politically eclectic,[6] but in 1934 it moved right and it joined the Front paysan with the activist and radically right wing Comités de défense paysanne and the conservative Union nationale des syndicats agricoles.[7] One sign of radicalization was at the height of the Stavisky Affair, proposing the death penalty by hanging for politicians found guilty of forgery or embezzlement.[8]
This move to the right in 1936 divided the PAPF into two factions, while both were right wing on the French political spectrum, the more Republican and centrist faction founded the Republican, Social and Agrarian Party led by the PAPF's sole deputy in the 1932 Assembly, Louis Guillon. The more right-wing element remained known as the PAPF and was led by Pierre Mathé (Côte-d'Or).[6]
In 1936 PAPF elected eleven deputies.[4]
The Front paysan itself fell apart in 1936 due to differences in political strategy.[9]
Post-war, a small Peasant Party briefly existed before in 1951 joining the liberal National Centre of Independents and Peasants (CNI), which exists to this day (though much weaker than in the past).
References
[edit]- ^ Bernet 1979, p. 29.
- ^ Bernet 1979, pp. 29–31.
- ^ "Le Premier Congrès National du Parti Paysan Français", in L'Express du Midi, January 27, 1929, p. 1
- ^ a b Paxton 1997, p. 38.
- ^ Bernet 1979, p. 32.
- ^ a b Passmore 2013, p. 287.
- ^ Ory 1975, p. 171.
- ^ Marius, "La justice expéditive", in Chantecler. Littéraire, Satirique, Humoristique, 99/1934, p. 2
- ^ Ory 1975, p. 176.
Sources
[edit]- Bernet, J (1979), "Un Compiégnois célèbre dans l'entre-deux-guerres : Fleurant Agricola, fondateur du Parti Agraire", Annales historiques compiégnoises modernes et contemporaines, No. 6 1979, retrieved 2024-11-22
- Ory, Pascal (1975), "Le dorgérisme, institution et discours d'une colère paysanne (1929-1939)", Revue d'Histoire Moderne et Contemporaine, 22 (2): 168–190, doi:10.3406/rhmc.1975.2416, retrieved 2024-11-13
- Passmore, Kevin (2013), "11 Apogee and Crisis (1928–1932)", The Right in France from the Third Republic to Vichy (online ed.), Oxford: Oxford Academic, doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199658206.003.0004, ISBN 9780191745034, retrieved 2024-11-26
- Paxton, Robert O. (1997-09-26), French Peasant Fascism : Henry Dorgeres' Greenshirts and the Crises of French Agriculture, 1929-1939, Oxford University Press, USA, ISBN 978-0-19-535474-4, retrieved 2024-11-13
