Protesters pose with their makeshift weapons during a lull in the Stavisky riots of February, 1934.

(Courtesy
UPI/Corbis-Bettmann)

shift was occurring in still more threatening form. Weary of incompetent leadership, French
conservatives were eyeing with growing admiration the fascist experiments beyond their
borders.
And soas had happened in 1926 and as was to happen once again in 1938 the
French Left, after two years in power and with two years of its electoral mandate still to run,
found itself bankrupt both financially and ideologically, and was thus obliged to hand over power
to the conservatives. But the conservatives' attempt to repeat the financial miracle of 1926 did
not succeed. The old ex-president whom they hoisted into of. fice, Gaston Doumergue, was far
from being a Poincar, and his government failed to produce the anticipated national revival.
Even the presence of the hero of Verdun, Marshal Ptain, as minister of defense, could not give
it the proper patriotic flavor. Doumergue succeeded only in restoring a minimum of order in the
national finances. When the old prime minister stepped down in November, to be succeeded by
the dapper Pierretienne Flandin, the country was well on its way back to politics as usual.
When Laval replaced him the following June, all thought of national regeneration had long since
vanished.
In the last half of 1935, under the rule of Pierre Laval, France touched its lowest point of
the interwar period. In foreign affairs, Laval inaugurated an uninspiring policy of appeasement.
In the economic sphere, the government had nothing better to offer than retrenchment, salary
reductions, and a pedantic adherence to the gold standard. The
206 The Great Depression, 19291935