﻿ Why All of France Should Shiver When Demonstrators Shout:
'Jews Out' - World – Forward.com   Image: getty images  Eighty
years ago, on February 6, 1934, the French Republic had a near-
death experience. On that wintry evening, tens of thousands of
protestors, mostly young and mostly male, massed along the
boulevards of Paris.  Their aim was to bring down the
Republic—or, as they called it, “la gueuse” or whore. In the
eyes of contemporaries, they nearly succeeded: outside the
National Assembly, a pitched battle between the police and
demonstrators exploded and in the confusion of violent scrums
and police charges, shouts and gunshots, the fate of the
Republic seemed to hang in the balance.  Ultimately, the forces
of disorder were beaten back, but at great cost. When Parisians
woke the next day, they learned that more than a dozen
protestors had been killed and more than 1,000 wounded. Among
the casualties was the government of Edouard Daladier, which
resigned and replaced by a government of national unity.