Populism, paranoia, and the interwar press
Henri Béraud at Gringoire
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 18996008 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Jason Earle (Sarah Lawrence College, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2020 |
| Volume | 45 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 7-26 |
| Publication date | 2020-03-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Contemporary French Civilization (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0147-9156 • E-ISSN: 2044-396X |
| Publisher | Liverpool University Press (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.3828/cfc.2020.2 |
| OpenAlex | W3016119143 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 8 |
This article explores the conspiratorial rhetoric of the political writings of right-wing polemicist Henri Béraud in the 1930s. Beginning in 1934, Béraud served as chief political editorialist at the right-wing weekly Gringoire, where he adopted an antiparliamentarian and xenophobic platform, regularly publishing articles that accused various groups of secretly colluding with the elected governments of France to undermine the interests of the nation. My analysis foregrounds how his various conspiracy theories often invoke a populist rhetoric and logic, one that represents a heroic image of the people subjugated to the will of a corrupt and secret regime. Through repeated accusations of conspiracy, Béraud seeks to contribute to a larger crisis of representation that would undermine the legitimacy of the Third Republic. Moreover, I contend that the popular press plays a significant part in Béraud’s political project: by suggesting that Léon Blum and the Popular Front are part of a Jewish and internationalist plot attempting to muzzle the right-wing press, he poses Gringoire and other newspapers as symbolic extensions of his vision of an aggrieved people
Interwar period · Paranoia · Political science · Politics · Populism · Psychiatry · World War II · French Historical and Cultural Studies · French Literature and Criticism · Historical Studies and Socio-cultural Analysis · Law · Philosophy · Psychology · Religious studies
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |