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| 1937 |
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| Roger Martin du Gard received the Nobel Prize for literature. He was most famous for his multivolume novel Les Thibaults (1922–40). | 1 |
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| Feb. 7 |
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| A new French defense plan created a ministry of defense, extended the Maginot Line, which had been constructed in the late 1920s, and nationalized the Schneider-Creusot arms factory. | 2 |
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| Feb. 13 |
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| Blum was obliged to announce a “breathing spell” in the work of social reform, in order to reassure capitalist groups and make possible the flotation of huge defense loans. | 3 |
| This pause divided the extreme Left from the rest of the coalition and sparked worker unrest (the Clichy massacre, March 16, 1937). In September and December 1937 and June 1938 strikes erupted that tested the glue of the Popular Front, which finally dissolved in October 1938. | 4 |
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| June 19 |
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| The Senate refused Blum's demands for emergency fiscal powers, whereupon the cabinet resigned. The government was reformed with Camille Chautemps (Radical Socialist) as premier and Blum as vice-premier. The new government secured the necessary powers and devoted itself to the Herculean task of financial reconstruction. At the same time the foreign minister, Yvon Delbos, embarked upon an extended visit to France's eastern allies (Dec.), without finding much prospect of active collaboration against Germany. | 5 |
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| Nov. 18 |
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| Discovery of a royalist plot against the republic. The Cagoulards (Hooded Ones) appear to have been a terrorist group within a larger revolutionary (Fascist) movement. Secret plans, fortified dugouts, and caches of weapons and munitions were discovered. | 6 |
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