Popular Front

During the 1930s, European countries went through difficult social tensions and class struggle. France was a capitalist power; while 40 million French enjoyed political democracy many other governments were authoritarian. French conservative and liberal parties confronted sometimes and some socialist currents supported them. the great depression caused several consequences in the world. In France, capitalism and democracy were affected and dramatic changes appeared in politics.
After World War I, from 1920s to 1930s, France was governed by leftwing and rightwing governments. With the mobilization of many fascists and Royalists, the French government collapsed and the Prime Minister Edouard Daladier resigned and he was replaced by Gaston Doumergue (1934), whose regime was semi-dictatorial. The Communist Party reacted to the working class’ resistance by forming an Alliance with the Social Democrats and Radicals – a party of the lower middle social class (also called the “petit bourgeoisie”) – (also between the left-wing movements, such as the French Communist Party, the French Section of the Workers’ International) in the form of the Popular Front. This union represents consciousness of the people, the peak of Communism, and a time when leftists, liberals and ordinary people got together to organize labor unions, fight racism and end with fascism.
In the elections of 1936, the Popular Front won. It was the first time that the Socialists got more seats than the Radicals and the Socialist intellectual leader Léon Blum became the Prime Minister of France, apart from being the first Jew to hold the office. The Popular Front came to power with the command from its supporters of distributing wealth more fairly.
The Government did five main things, which can be shown in the Matignon Agreements: it created the right to strike (and there would be no retribution against strikers), collective bargaining, a law that ordered 12 days of paid Annual leaves for workers, a limited work time per week (up to 40 hours), raised salaries (15% for the lowest-paid workers, declining to 7% for the relatively well-paid), and specified that employers would recognize shop stewards. It also nationalized the Bank of France, the railroads and the armaments industry.

However, the Popular Front, failed its attempt to end with fascism, while the workers it had organized into unions were taken to fight and die in World War II, and at the same time in the Soviet Union, socialism turned into Communist totalitarianism. This is why the Popular Front represented a tragic defeat for the working class, not a victory.
A series of events blocked the accomplishments of this alliance. The communists did not cooperate much and criticized it in the parliament and the press, business people were afraid of the striking workers and their new economic weapon (strikes) because they had occupied their struck plants and before long, the nation was separated in the supporters and opponents of the Popular Front, but unfortunately, given to the uprising opposition, Blum had to resign in 1937 so the Popular Front was disintegrated.