fire civil servants. This would be political suicide for the government, but the Estates General should block alternatives like inflation, repudiation or bankruptcy, and should be prepared to take over control from parliament. Arthuys' published Les combattants in 1925, a book in which he described how the combatants in the war had been transformed by their experience from simple patriots into warriors. He argued that since the war the leftists had exposed the country to many dangers. The veterans, who should have seized power soon after the war, should now reverse this situation. Arthuys contrasted the heroism and endurance of the veterans to the "mediocre and the cowards who make up democratic governments". On 26 February 1925 Valois, Arthuys and others launched Le Nouveau siècle, a newspaper that was supported by some industrialists and that expressed the views of their right-wing group. Arthuys was assisted as editor by the experienced conservative journalists Jacques Roujon and Léopold Marcellin. The official editorial staff was Valois, Arthuys, Philippe Barrès and Hubert Bourgin of the Ligue des Patriotes. The journal tried to reach a broad audience, and as a result was dull. It constantly struggled financially. Fascist leader In April 1925 Valois founded Les Légions pour la politique de la victoire, a veterans' organization with Arthuys as nominal president. On 11 November 1925 this became the Faisceau des Combattants et des Producteurs (Collective of Combatants and Producers). The Faisceau was the first French political party that supported Benito Mussolini's ideas. The party was joined by Hubert Lagardelle, founder of Le Mouvement socialiste, and Marcel Bucard, later to be founder of the Mouvement Franciste. They advocated a system based on Italian Fascism and led by the veterans. Valois and Arthuys saw fascism as a pan-European movement, taking different forms in different countries, that would replace the old liberal and bourgeois order with a modern state that would mobilize industry with "a policy of high wages and large profits." Valois and Arthuys criticized the royalist Action Française for its passive attitude. Violence often broke out between the Faisceau and rival groups on both the left and the right. Just before Christmas 1925 a meeting of the Jeunesses fascistes, the university section of the Faisceau, was violently interrupted by Camelots du Roi, members of "combat groups" of the Action Française. Arthuys met Le Corbusier in March 1927 and soon after proposed that he should be minister of