Editing Irredentism (section)

===[[File:FrenchIrredentism.png]] France===

Irredentism in France appeared in a prominent form following the French defeat in the Franco-Prussian War (1870-1871). Many in France wanted to restore the pre-1870 borders to France, which included the return of the region of Alsace-Lorraine and wished for revenge against [[File:Cball-GermanEmpire.png]] Germany for the defeat. One of the most prominent proponents of such revanchist attitudes was Georges Ernest Boulanger (1837-1891), a French military general who advocated for [[File:Irridentism.png]] Revanche (Revenge on Germany), the end of the "République des copains [[File:Klep.png]]" (destruction of the corrupt and inefficient parlementarism) and social politics [[File:Socauth.png]]. This ideology was known as '''Boulangisme''' and was a prominent force in French politics in the 1880s. Unlike more [[File:Tradcon.png]] [[Classical Conservatism|Traditionally-minded conservatives]] of France at the time, who appealed to the [[File:Arist.png]] [[Aristocracy]], Boulanger's appeal was [[File:Pop.png]] [[Populism|Populist]], with his charisma appealing to disparate groups from the left-wing [[File:Synd.png]] working class to the right-wing and Communards [[File:Catheo.png]] Catholics and [[File:Bonaparte.png]] Bonapartist. Although in the late 1880's it was feared that Boulanger would become a [[File:Strato.png]] military dictator, Boulanger was a weak leader who was unable to truly unite the broad support base or take advantage of the political turmoil of France at the time to install himself as the leader, so his movement ultimately failed.

Marxist historians described the Boulangist movement as a proto-fascist right-wing movement. Several scholars have presented Boulangism as a precursor of fascism, including Zeev Sternhel.This description is highly controversial, given that Boulangism ultimately possesses few of the criteria of fascism.

France's traditional right was composed of followers of the Catholic Church in France and customarily led by members of the French nobility whose ancestors had survived the Reign of Terror, but Boulanger's new movement was based on a mass populist appeal that was national, rather than merely religious or class-based. As Jacques Néré says, "Boulangism was first and foremost a popular movement of the extreme left". Irvine says he had some royalist support but that, "Boulangism is better understood as the coalescence of the fragmented forces of the Left." This interpretation is part of a consensus that the ideology of France's radical right was formed in part during the Dreyfus era by men, ironically, who had been Boulangist partisans of the Far Left a decade earlier.

Boulanger had the support of several former Communards from the Paris Commune and some supporters of Blanquism[[File:Blanqui.png]] (a faction within the Central Revolutionary Committee). This included men such as Victor Jaclard, Ernest Granger, and Henri Rochefort.