‘Sans Distinction de Nationalité’? The French Communist Party,Immigrants and Unemployment in the 1930s

The 1930s economic depression may have been worldwide, but the French experience was unique in a number of ways, notably in its prevalent and broad consensus of anti-immigrant ‘explanations’ and ‘solutions’ to unemployment. With the aid of Ministry of Interior and Labour files, Communist Party and trade union minutes and the literature of the movements of the unemployed, this article seeks to examine one aspect of this experience: the attitude of communist-led movements of the unemployed to xenophobia and joblessness. Generally, this area has been neglected by French historians, but it provides interesting insights into PCF strategy and the experience of depression. Communists were isolated in refuting anti-immigrant responses to unemployment. Their Committees of the Unemployed made efforts to combat the xenophobic response to the economic crisis. However, the communists’ attitude was not as straightforward as has been assumed and the Party’s strategic reorientations led to more muted arguments as the decade progressed.