The French Third Republic lasted from its creation in 1870, after the defeat of the Second Empire during the Franco–Prussian War, until France’s defeat by Germany in 1940. Although it was permanently troubled by political unrest and apparent instability, its 70-year rule is in fact the longest of any French regime since the 1789 Revolution, and the Republic’s ability to withstand the shock of the First World War testifies to its strength. It was very much a parliamentary regime, with a president who never dared use even what few powers he constitutionally had. Originally intended only as a provisional government, a majority of the deputies in the first elected assembly were actually monarchists, the deep divisions in French society, exacerbated by a fragmented and irresponsible party system, prevented it from ever developing powerful political institutions. From the start a vital sector of the traditional French ruling class, the Catholic and aristocratic right wing, was excluded from real participation, partly because they still could not easily accept the original republican notions of the French Revolution. At the same time the parties of the centre, who formed most of the coalitions, were almost as hostile to the emerging working-class organizations.
As a result the republic was very much run by, and for, the middle classes and the peasantry, with the result that the frequently changing governments had neither the ability nor the incentive to help modernize what was probably one of the most backward economies in Europe. Scandal after scandal rocked the Republic, starting perhaps with the infamous Dreyfus case, which led to deep suspicion and conflict between the military and the republican forces at a time when France’s need to avenge its 1870 defeat was symbolically vital. Not until after the First World War were any efforts made to ameliorate the conditions of industrial workers, and even then the opposition to serious income tax by the supporters of the ruling centrist parties forced the governments into relying on state borrowing rather than more efficient means of raising revenue. The republic might have fallen earlier, under the combined threat of German-inspired fascist movements from the right and hostility from the developing and Moscow-inspired communist party on the left. It was saved, temporarily, by the formation of a popular front government in the late 1930s, resulting from a switch to a leftwards orientation by the Radical party. With the German invasion of 1940 the regime which had done so little for so many in France fell, largely because there was no reserve of legitimacy left to a state that had started almost by accident. Few were prepared to die for the protection of a small élite of politicians who had followed each other in and out of office, acting as little more than delegates for conservative entrenched interests in, largely rural, constituencies.
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