In September, 1939, the war caught the French in a state of political uncertainty and intellectual confusion. Considered generally, they were poorly prepared for the terrible trial awaiting them. The approaching war was less a national war with clearly defined territorial or economic objectives than a great ideological crusade. Now, ideologically, it found the French divided and uncertain.

From the political point of view, the normal operation of the governmental processes of the Republic had not functioned since February 6, 1934, the date of the Riots with their Fascist tendencies; the great élan for moral and political as well as social reconstruction, which in June, 1936, had carried the political parties of the Left to power, combined as they were in the Popular Front, soon bogged down into impotence and ended finally in a lamentable failure.