“The Hollow Years”

After Hitler came to power in Germany in 1933, France remained unsettled for the rest of the decade. The nation was deeply divided on a wide array of issues, foreign and domestic, and was unable to develop a national consensus—and take effective action—on any matter.

There were pro-Fascist and anti-Fascist factions (and everything in between) in France in the 1930s. Public rallies and public displays of political muscle were the order of the day. Placards were everywhere. Elections were constant, the results generally inconclusive.

It was a decade that was to grow increasingly uneasy—in France, the 1930s are often referred to as “The Hollow Years”—and end in war in late summer 1939.