I know a little about Action Francaise, Vichy and the OS movement after the war, but can someone give me a run-down of the movement, continuities in characters/goals between these three periods, and high ebbs/low ebbs of fascism. Book recommendations also greatly appreciated.
The Weber book about the Action Française is good, as is the Davies book mentioned. I would also suggest René Rémond's classic book because it furnishes a lot of background information about twentieth-century right-wing ideologies in France. You could also check out books by Zeev Sternhell, as they address the synthesis of the far-left and far-right that occurred in France, from the nationalism of the Action Française to revolutionary syndicalism and non-Marxist socialism.
While this is a subject that I'm working on convering slowly, something I came across in my Amazon searching is *The Extreme Right in France, 1789 to present" by Peter Davies. I hope this works for you as a specialty read.
The classics on the interwar period are Robert Soucy's two volume French Fascism, which detail several movements (including those led by Tattinger and Coty). Soucy is engaging with the arguments of Sternhell (and Ernst Nolte) about the origins of fascism in the Terror of the French Revolution (and the links between Sorel and syndicalism in the late 19th c/ early 20th c). Soucy gives an analysis of smaller movements that were rooted in the particular personalities of leaders rather than specific shared ideologies (I am more familiar with the First Wave work). A good supplement to that is Robert Paxton's French Peasant Fascism, which offers a different interpretation of French echoes of fascism as born out of very localized conflicts (and often against organized labor with the advent of the Popular Front). More recent work by Caroline Campbell notes that while historians have tended to think of fascism as a masculine response, French women found a role to play in these movements as well. The collection The French Right Between the Wars contextualizes a number of critical events (Stavisky Affair, the Natalist movement, the Cartel des gauches, and the Popular Front) and places fascist (or fascistoid depending on your interpretation) responses in conversation with conservative responses.
Recommendations:
Robert Soucy, French Fascism: The First Wave Robert Paxton, French Peasant Fascism Caroline Campbell, Political Belief in France Kalman and Kennedy, eds., The French Right Between the Wars.