6 February 1934 Crisis - The 1930s Crisis and The Stavisky Affair

The 1930s Crisis and The Stavisky Affair

France was affected in 1931, a bit later than other countries, by the 1929 Great Depression, which had been triggered by the Wall Street Crash of 1929 ("Black Thursday"). The economic and social crisis particularly affected the middle classes, traditional supporters of the Republic (in particular of the Radical-Socialist Party). Parliamentary instability followed, with five governments between May 1932 and January 1934, which fueled the anti-parliamentarist movement.

The latter took advantage also of a succession of political and financial scandals, such as the Marthe Hanau Affair (she had used her political supporters to attract, with her newspaper La Gazette du Franc, the savings of the petite bourgeoisie); the Oustric Affair (the criminal bankruptcy of banker Albert Oustric provoked the fall of André Tardieu's government in 1930, because of the involvement of his Minister of Justice in it); and, finally, the immediate cause of the 6 February 1934 demonstrations, the Stavisky Affair.

This new scandal, which involved Bayonne's Crédit municipal bank, exploded in December 1933. The embezzler Alexandre Stavisky, known as le beau Sasha ("the handsome Sasha") was linked to several radical deputies, including a minister of Camille Chautemps's government. The press later revealed that Stavisky had benefited from a 19-month postponement of his trial because the public prosecutor was Chautemps' brother-in-law. On 8 January 1934, Alexandre Stavisky was found dead. According to the police version, he had committed suicide, a conclusion that provoked general disbelief. According to the right wing, Camille Chautemps had had him assassinated in order to prevent him from revealing any secrets. The press then started a political campaign against alleged governmental corruption, while the far right demonstrated. At the end of the month, after the revelation of yet another scandal, Chautemps resigned. Édouard Daladier, another member of the radical party, succeeded him on 27 January 1934.

Since 9 January, thirteen demonstrations had already taken place in Paris. While the right wing was trying to use the affair to replace the left-wing majority elected during the 1932 elections, the far right took advantage of its traditional themes: antisemitism, xenophobia (Stavisky was a naturalized Ukrainian Jew), hostility toward Freemasonry (Camille Chautemps was a Masonic dignitary), and antiparliamentarism. As historian Serge Bernstein emphasized, the Stavisky Affair was exceptional neither in its seriousness nor in the personalities put on trial, but in the right wing's will to use the opportunity to make a left-wing government resign. In this aim, it could take advantage of the fact that the radical socialists did not have an absolute majority in the National Assembly and thus the government was weak.

However, it was the dismissal of the police prefect Jean Chiappe that ultimately provoked the massive demonstrations of 6 February. Jean Chiappe, who was openly right-wing, was very soft on far-right activism, which essentially took place in the streets (demonstrations, riots, attacks against the few left-wing students in the Quartier Latin by the monarchist Camelots du Roy, the youth organization of the Action Française, etc.). According to the left wing, Chiappe's dismissal was due to his involvement in the Stavisky Affair while the right wing denounced the result of negotiations with the radicals: the departure of Chiappe would have been exchanged against support for Daladier's new government.