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| 1936, Jan. 22 |
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| Downfall of the Pierre Laval government, which was thoroughly discredited by its half-and-half attitude toward Italy during the Ethiopian crisis and further suspected of supporting the reactionary currents. There followed a cabinet under Albert Sarraut which was nothing more than a stopgap. | 1 |
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| March |
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| The CGT and CFTU merged, with leadership remaining mainly in the hands of the CGT. | 2 |
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| May 3 |
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| The parliamentary elections gave the Popular Front a majority in the Chamber of Deputies. | 3 |
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| June 5 |
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| FIRST POPULAR FRONT MINISTRY, under Léon Blum, leader of the Socialist Party. The cabinet was composed of Radical Socialists and Socialists, and enjoyed the support of the Communists. A great wave of sit-down strikes (300,000 workers out) accompanied this important change (resolved by the Matignon Agreements on June 7–8) and led at once to the introduction of a far-reaching program of social reform: establishment of the 40-hour week (June 12); reorganization and ultimately nationalization of the Bank of France; nationalization of the munitions industry (July 17); compulsory arbitration of labor disputes, vacations with pay, and so forth. These measures, hailed by the workers as marking the dawn of a new era, at once aroused the hostility of the employing classes. Rapidly rising costs of production brought with them rising prices. The franc began to sink steadily, and capital started to flee the country in large amounts. To the increasing financial difficulties was added the enhanced tension in international affairs following the German reoccupation of the Rhineland, the Italian victory in Ethiopia, the collapse of the League system (on which France had depended so much), and the outbreak of civil war in Spain. The government was obliged to expend huge sums on further rearmament and, after Belgium's resumption of neutrality, to undertake the fortification of the Belgian frontier. In the Spanish affair Blum felt impelled to follow the British lead and adopt a policy of nonintervention. Anglo-French relations had grown so cool as a result of Laval's Italian policy that Blum looked upon revival of close relations as worth any cost. | 4 |
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| June 30 |
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| The government suppressed Fascist groups. Most of these groups responded by re-forming as political parties. The Croix de feu, for example, became the Parti social français (PSF). Jacques Doriot also founded the Parti populaire français. An attempt was made later in 1937 to create an electoral front called the Front de la liberté, but the PSF refused to join. | 5 |
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| Oct. 2 |
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| A bill devaluing the franc, but not definitely fixing its gold content, was finally passed. Cooperation of Great Britain and the United States averted violent fluctuations in the foreign exchanges. | 6 |
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