Afera Stavisky'ego

Stavisky affair - one of the biggest affair of the French government circles in January 1934. Affair

The affair was associated with Serge Alexandre Stavisky (born November 20, 1886, 8 January 1934), a Jewish immigrant from Russian Ukraine. In the Parisian criminal world he was a minor fraudster and hoaxer, known under the pseudonym "le beau Sasha" ("beautiful sasha"). In the years 1918-1928 he often stayed in French prisons. Soon after, he founded the "Alex" jewelery company in Orléans, and then headed the Land and Public Works Society, which was officially supported by the authorities. He pledged huge loans at Crédit municipal bank in Bayonne, whereby many of the shareholders lost money. The press began to write that such financial operations could not be done without the support of powerful patrons in the parliament, the government and the media. In fact, S. A. Stavisky had a lot of knowledge in the ruling circles and in the finance world. He remained in close contact with Prime Minister Camille Chautemps and the ministers of his government.

In the first days of January 1934, the truth about the financial machinations of S. A. Stavisky came to light. The authorities issued an arrest warrant for him, but after the policemen entered his home in Chamonix on January 8, he committed suicide with a shotgun from his revolver. The opposition press has blamed rulers for the fact that S. A. Stavisky was shot dead, which was to the benefit of many influential people. She then launched a political campaign against government corruption, which repeatedly took place at the street demonstrations of the far right. Consequences

The crisis led to the resignation of Prime Minister C. Chautemps's cabinet, replaced on 27 January by his party colleague Edouard Daladier. One of his first decisions was to remove the prefect of the Paris police Jean Chiappe, who openly admired the right-wing sympathies. This was the direct cause of the outbreak of large demonstrations by organizations and groups of right-wing extremists called Crisis on February 4, 1934. Epilogue

In 1935, a trial was launched against 20 people involved in the Stavisky affair, including two deputies and one general. All were convicted a year later.

In 1974 French director Alain Resnais filmed a feature film entitled " Stavisky with Jean-Paul Belmondo in the lead role.

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