The Circulaire Chautemps, 1933

The dearth of writing on the French peace movement of this century is a remarkable phenomenon, all the more so because during the interwar period one of Europe's most renowned pacifists was a Frenchman-Romain Rolland.' Until very recently French historiography has exhibited a curious allergy to the notion that France, like most other European nations of the years between the world wars, experienced its own indigenous variation on the common interwar theme called pacifism.2 One suspects that the legacy of Vichy-and all that that event conjures up in the French historical imagination-is largely responsible for this state of affairs. Jean Defrasne, for example, writes that the word has taken on pejorative connotations: is perversion. It is to peace what formalism is to form, simplism to simplicity, sentimentality to sentiment.3 Furthermore, in his view, played its role in the birth of the Vichy regime.4 French pacifism can be divided, broadly speaking, into two in

Conscientious objector · Political science · Spanish Civil War · Communism, Protests, Social Movements · French Historical and Cultural Studies · Historical Studies and Socio-cultural Analysis · Law · Philosophy

• French School Teachers Against Militarism, 1903‐18

  Open Access•Francis McCollum Feeley, Francis Feeley•Historian•1994

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