In European politics, any coalition of working-class and middle-class political parties united to defend democracy against an expected fascist assault.
The policy of a "united front" against fascism was announced at the communist Third International (1935); it was to include not only communists and socialists but also liberals, moderates, and even conservatives. Popular-front governments were formed in France and Spain in 1936, but the financial consequences of the reforms undertaken by the French government, under Léon Blum , proved its undoing, and the Spanish government was brought down by Francisco Franco in the Spanish Civil War .