Atlas / Organisations / Popular Front
Popular Front
1935–1939 · France, Spain, Chile · Coalition · Coalition · coding confidence medium
Each axis runs from −10 to +10, with zero a genuine mixed or balanced position rather than an absence of opinion. A score describes a stated position and a governing record; it is not a judgement of merit. What each score means →
Core principles
An alliance of communists, socialists and liberals to stop fascism by defending the existing republic.
Economic model
Paid holidays, forty-hour week, collective bargaining, selective nationalisation.
Organisation of powers
Parliamentary republic defended against paramilitary and military overthrow.
Reading note
A tactical formation, not an ideology; included here because its members occupy very different coordinates.
Check a claim about Popular Front. The interactive atlas measures the distance between any two organisations across all six axes and shows which ones carry the disagreement.
Open in the atlasThe evidence for every score
All six cells are sourced. A rationale explains what the score is measuring and each artefact is something a third party can check without taking anyone's word for it.
EC · Economic organisation · scored −06
Coded −6: paid holidays, the forty-hour week and selective nationalisation.
- Documented act or statuteThe Matignon agreements of June 1936 granted collective bargaining and wage rises within a week.
CU · Social and cultural order · scored −05
Coded −5: secular republican against clerical and paramilitary leagues.
- Documented act or statuteThe far-right leagues were dissolved by decree in June 1936.
AU · Organisation of power · scored −03
Coded −3: defence of the existing republic against overthrow.
- Documented act or statuteThe coalition was formed after the February 1934 riots at the Chamber of Deputies.
SC · Scale of decision · scored +03
Coded +3: national legislation through an existing parliamentary state.
- Documented act or statuteThe Bank of France was brought under state control in 1936.
ID · Rule of membership · scored −06
Coded −6: anti-fascist and internationalist in framing.
- Documented act or statuteThe coalition admitted refugees from Germany, Italy and later Spain.
CH · Method and tempo · scored −02
Coded −2: an electoral alliance, not an insurrectionary one.
- Documented act or statuteFormed to win the 1936 election and governed constitutionally until it fell apart in 1938.
Nearest organisations by measured distance
Straight-line separation across all six axes, out of a maximum of 49.0. Proximity means similarity of stated position, not endorsement and not resemblance in outcome.
- Eurocommunism3.0
- Syriza3.3
- Workers' Party3.5
- Democratic Socialism (Jamaica)3.7
- Nehruvian Socialism3.9
- Die Linke4.1
Countries
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Scores are revised on evidence, so a citation should carry the version it refers to. Version 4.3.1 is current; the revision log records every change.
Free to quote and reproduce with attribution. This is a synthesis rather than a peer-reviewed dataset — where an authoritative figure is needed, cite the Chapel Hill Expert Survey, the Manifesto Project or V-Dem.