Table of Contents for The Invention of Terrorism in France, 1904-1939
Introduction: Cultures of Terrorism
This chapter establishes the approach of the book and the idea of "cultures of terrorism," defined as the frameworks of values and qualities that informed common beliefs about the nature, operation, and goals of terrorism and its perpetrators. The chapter considers definitions of terrorism as a starting point from which to explore historical understandings of the phenomenon. It surveys the engagement of historians with terrorism generally, and with the features of terrorism in France that figure in the book, thus establishing the historical and historiographical context of the work.
1.Made in Russia: Emerging Perceptions of Terrorism Before the Great War
This chapter explores how the word "terrorism" came to be associated with substate political violence, developing from its origins as a label for a system of government during the French Revolution to its later attachment to Russian revolutionary opposition. The notion of terrorism in France acquired a foreign character, and the "alien" nature of terrorist violence ran throughout press reports and editorials. The presence of a Russian exile community in Paris, among whom police sporadically uncovered terrorists and bomb makers, further colored understandings of terrorism as a non-French—and an "unFrench"—tactic. By 1914, the word still lacked a settled meaning and could be deployed in several ways, yet its nature as a foreign tactic was unmistakable.
2.The Anarchist and the Tiger: Emile Cottin and the Shooting of Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau, February 1919
This chapter examines anarchist Emile Cottin's attempt to assassinate Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau in February 1919. Clemenceau survived the attack, but the incident raised questions about the apparent "foreign" influence in French politics. Long-standing associations between Russia and "terrorism" acquired a new element—Soviet communism. Such depictions harbingered the political civil war that would later engulf France. The chapter reconstructs the attack and the police investigation, before bringing Cottin's personal life under analysis. Journalists and investigators strove to understand how, why, and when the young attacker had committed himself to a cause for which he was prepared to kill. His "conversion" to anarchism stands comparison with modern debates over radicalization and deradicalization.
3.The Giant Assassin: Paul Gorguloff and the Killing of President Paul Doumer, May 1932
The chapter concerns the May 1932 assassination of President of the French Republic Paul Doumer by the Russian Paul Gorguloff. It marked a subtle change in perceptions of terrorism: the phenomenon now came to be grounded in fears inherent to the post-war period, notably French vulnerability to attacks apparently directed from foreign capitals. Yet the assassination laid bare, too, anxieties over uncontrolled immigration, matters of "insanity," and criminal responsibility. In fact, Gorguloff's trial to a great extent focused on his mental health. When much seems at stake in the twenty-first century in proving the madness of the lone actor terrorist, for the political factions in interwar France who sought to use Gorguloff against their enemies, the Russian could not be a terrorist and insane.
4.Killing a King: The Assassination of King Alexander I of Yugoslavia, October 1934
This chapter investigates the killing of Alexander I Karadjordjević, King of Yugoslavia, in Marseille in October 1934. The chapter addresses French representations of terrorism and the terrorist in the immediate aftermath of the outrage. Much like in 1932, terrorists were understood as foreigners, and the xenophobia of the 1930s provided an available discourse through which to represent the assassin's act. Yet the political crisis in France and the growing climate of international tension forged a perceived link between terrorism, domestic politics, and foreign extremist ideologies. The ideological war raging in 1930s France and Europe began to condition new perceptions of terrorism as the work of foreign agents and undesirables, given succor, funding, and arms by hostile states who threatened to overturn the international order.
5.Bombings, Piracy, and Kidnapping: Terrorism in France During 1937
This chapter looks at multiple incidents of violence, that were understood as "terrorist" during 1937. It analyzes bombings and attempted bombings committed in the southeast of the country that prompted anxiety about French involvement in the war in Spain. Established ideas of the foreignness—or "unFrenchness"—of terrorism were deployed, yet added to these was a new fear that France was now the target of terrorism. During eleven days in September 1937, the bombing of two buildings in Paris, the attempted theft of a Spanish submarine from Brest, and the abduction of a White Russian general in Paris gave the impression that terrorists operated freely in the country. The representations constructed around these terrorist episodes—evident in the investigations that the press ran parallel to those of the police—entrenched concerns about immigration and national security. These concerns culminated in calls to combat vigorously the threat from within.
Conclusion: Terror in the Dark Years, 1940–1944
This chapter looks at wartime perceptions of terrorism. To some extent, wartime perceptions drew on those of the interwar years. For the Etat Français and its resistance opponents, terrorism originated from foreign lands, whether Moscow, London, or Berlin. Nevertheless, in the context of the early 1940s, if neither side could deny the French origins of perpetrators, each cast doubt on the veracity of terrorists' "Frenchness," defined according to one's assumed political commitment. The ultimate victory of the resistance helped to solidify a culture of terrorism in which Republicans associated terrorist violence with opposition to France, defined as the embodiment of universal democratic values. The longevity of the Republican project since 1944 and its encounters with successive manifestations of terrorism have ensured that this broad understanding of terrorism as a phenomenon residing at the intersection of matters of national security and national identity, immigration, citizenship, and "Frenchness" remains.