Lessons from Spain: The Spanish Civil War as propaganda in the radical right-wing French press, 1936-1939

No single subject covered in the French press proved so divisive in the late 1930s as the Spanish Civil War. In 1937 the radical right-wing daily La Liberte was purchased by Jacques Doriot, leader of the essentially fascist Parti Populaire Francais, who disseminated party propaganda through pro-Nationalist coverage of the Spanish crisis. In highly biased accounts of atrocities committed by the "Marxist hordes" of the Spanish Republic, La Liberte emphasized the blessings of a stable regime under a decisive leader (Franco). Weak, "overly democratic" coalition governments such as the Spanish Frente Popularand its apparent close relation, the French Front Populaire, were described as tools of Stalinism and the enemies of justice, order, and personal liberty.