L’afer Bloch (1931): un escàndol de corrupció transnacional durant l’albada republicana?

In November 1931, the newspaper La Publicitat uncovered an alleged corruption case that would have implicated republican and socialist politicians from the Generalitat de Catalunya and the city councils of Barcelona and Toulouse, as well as the French swindler Lazare Bloch. Thereby, the so-called Bloch affair blew up, a politico-financial scandal that filled some Catalan, Spanish, and French press for a few days. Through various newspaper, police, diplomatic and parliamentary sources, this article, firstly, will analyse the discourses on political corruption and public morality set off by the Bloch affair, especially within the republican political culture. Secondly, the article will also examine how the affair was perceived, transferred, and adapted in Spain and France. This exercise will allow us to demonstrate that the legitimation of the nascent Second Spanish Republic was based on the application of a specific moralizing project of politics. Likewise, it will be possible to observe how the scandal was adapted to the political struggles of both sides of the Pyrenees, with shared transnational elements.