From Deliberation to Demonstration
Political Rallies in France (1868-1939)
Description:... This book, at the crossroads of history and political science, reveals the transformation of political rallies in France from the last years of the Second Empire until the end of the Third Republic.
Originally designed by Republicans to teach citizenship and form political opinion through open debate, rallies gradually became a stage dedicated to the show of force, at the initiative of various emerging political formations. This distortion is apparent by the turn of the twentieth century, and became even more marked in the rallies between the two world wars.
Faced with this transformation, the government did not hesitate, in the second half of the 1930s, to invalidate the liberal credo that had endorsed the right of assembly since the installation of the Republic.
French participatory democracy has a history that this book helps to trace.
Show description