The 6 February 1934 crisis was an anti-parliamentarist street demonstration in Paris organized by multiple far-right leagues that culminated in a riot on the Place de la Concorde, near the seat of the French National Assembly. The police shot and killed 15 demonstrators. It was one of the major political crises during the Third Republic (18701940). Frenchmen on the left feared it was an attempt to organize a fascist coup d'tat. According to historian Joel Colton, "The consensus among scholars is that there was no concerted or unified design to seize power and that the leagues lacked the coherence, unity, or leadership to accomplish such an end."As a result of the actions of that day, several anti-fascist organisations were created, such as the Comit de vigilance des intellectuels antifascistes, in an attempt to thwart the rise of fascism in France. After World War II, several historians, among them Serge Berstein, argued that while some leagues had been indisputably pushing for a coup, Franois de La Rocque had, in fact, turned in a liberal direction, toward a respect for constitutional order. However, if the lack of coordination among the fascist leagues undermined the idea of a fascist conspiracy, the fascist actions on 6 February were an uncoordinated but violent attempt to overthrow the Cartel des gauches government elected in 1932.douard Daladier, who was president of the Council of Ministers, replaced Camille Chautemps on 27 January 1934 because of accusations of corruption (including the Stavisky Affair). Daladier, who had been a popular figure, was nonetheless forced to resign on 7 February. He was replaced by the conservative Gaston Doumergue as head of the government; this was the first time during the tenure of the Third Republic a government fell because of pressures from the street.



The far-right leagues (French: ligues d'extrême droite) were several French far-right movements opposed to parliamentarism, which mainly dedicated themselves to military parades, street brawls, demonstrations and riots. The term ligue was often used in the 1930s to distinguish these political movements from parliamentary parties. After having appeared first at the end of the 19th century, during the Dreyfus affair, they became common in the 1920s and 1930s, and famously participated in the 6 February 1934 crisis and riots which overthrew the second Cartel des gauches, i.e. the center-left coalition government led by Édouard Daladier.For a long time, the French left wing had been convinced that these riots had been an attempted coup d'état against the French Republic. Although contemporary historians have shown that, despite the riots and the ensuing collapse of the governing left wing, there had been no organized plans to overthrow Daladier's Radical-Socialist government, this widespread belief led to the creation of the anti-fascist movement in France, and later to the dissolving of these leagues in 1936 by the leftist Popular Front government headed by Léon Blum.