France is a semi-presidential representative democratic republic, in which the President of France is head of state and the Prime Minister of France is the head of government, and there is a pluriform, multi-party system.Executive power is exercised by the government. Legislative power is vested in the government, Senate and National Assembly. The judiciary is independent of the executive and the legislature.
Left and Right in France and main political parties
Since the 1789 French Revolution, the political spectrum in France has obeyed the left-right distinction. However, due to the historical association of the term droite "right" with monarchism, conservative or right-wing parties have tended to avoid officially describing themselves as representing the "right wing".
The Left
Further information: History of the Left in France
· At the beginning of the 20th century, the French Left divided itself into :
· The Anarchists, who were more in active in trade unions (they controlled the CGT from 1906 to 1909).
· Revolutionaries: the SFIO founded by Jean Jaurès, Jules Guesde etc.
· Reformists: the Republican, Radical and Radical-Socialist Party and non-SFIO socialists.
After World War I
· Unlike those in Spain, the Anarchists lost popularity and significance due to the nationalism brought about by World War I and lost theCGT majority. They joined the CGT-U and later created the CGT-SR.
· The SFIO split in the 1920 Tours Congress, where a majority of SFIO members created the French Section of the Communist International(the future PCF)
· The SFIC, which quickly turned into a pro-Stalinist and isolated party (with no alliances), lost many of its original members, and changed only in 1934 (after a fascist attack to the Parliament on February 6, 1934) when it integrated the Popular Front.
· The minority of the SFIO who refused to join the Comintern retained the name and, led by Léon Blum, gradually regained ground from the Communists.
· The Radical Party, which inherited of the tradition of the French Left and of Radical Republicanism (sharing left-wing traits such as anti-clericalism), progressively moved more and more to the mainstream center, being one of the main governing parties between the two World Wars.
The Left was in power during:
· The Cartel des gauches (coalition between the Radicals and the SFIO, who not participate in the government), from 1924 to 1926.
· From 1932 to the 6 February 1934 crisis (Radicals and independent socialists).
· Under the Popular Front (Radicals, SFIO, PCF) in 1936 to 1938 under Socialist Léon Blum and then Radical Camille Chautemps.
After World War II
The Old Left
· The anarchist movements.
· The PCF remained an important force (around 28% in elections) despite it being in perpetual opposition after May 1947. From 1956 to the end of the 1970s it was interested in the ideas of "eurocommunism".
· The SFIO declined from 23.5% in 1946 to 15% in 1956 and increased only in 1967 (19,0%). It was in government from 1946 to 1951 and 1956-1958. It was transformed in 1971 (congrès d'Épinay) in the Parti Socialiste by reunion of various socialists "clubs", the SFIO,...
· After 1959, both parties were in opposition until 1981. They had formed a coalition (with the Party Radical de Gauche) called the "Union de la Gauche" between 1972 to 1978.
The New Left (or Second Left)
The Old Left was contested on its left by the New Left parties including the
· Cornelius Castoriadis's Socialisme ou Barbarie from 1948 to 1965
· Advocates of new social movements (including Michel Foucault, Gilles Deleuze, Pierre Bourdieu)
· Arlette Laguiller's Workers' Struggle
· The Revolutionary Communist League
· Others components of the New Left included the environmentalists (who would eventually found The Greens in 1982)
· However, the emblem of the New Left was the Unified Socialist Party, or PSU.
· The Moderate Centre-Left
· The Radical Party, despite some ambiguities (support to Pierre Mendès-France's center-left Republican Front during the 1956 legislative elections), finally embraced economic liberalism and slid to the center-right. But in 1972, left-wing Radicals split to form the Left Radical Party.
· After the end of the Cold War
· In 1993, Jean-Pierre Chevènement left the PS to form the Citizen and Republican Movement (MRC), a left-wing eurosceptic party attached to the tradition of republicanism and universalism (secularism, equal opportunities, opposition to multiculturalism).
· In 1994, communist and socialist dissidents created the Convention for a Progressive Alternative, a party with a eco-socialist platform, and they have 1 deputy, 8 mayors, and some councillors. They remain present in the Haute-Vienne and Val-de-Marne.
· In the 1990s and 2000s, some parties continued the inheritance of the PSU like Les Alternatifs, or ANPAG.
· The New Anticapitalist Party is founded in an attempt to unify the fractured movements of the French radical Left, and attract new activists drawing on the relative combined strength of far-left parties in presidential elections in 2002, where they achieved 10.44% of the vote, and 2007 (7.07%).
The Right
Further information: Liberalism and Radicalism in France and History of the far-right in France
The right-wing has been divided into three broad families by historian René Rémond.
Legitimists
Counter-revolutionaries who opposed all change since the French Revolution. Today, they are located on the far-right of the French political spectrum.
These included:
· The ultra-royalists during the Bourbon Restoration
· The Action française monarchist movement
· The supporters of the Vichy regime's Révolution nationale
· The activists of the OAS during the Algerian War (1954–1962)
· Most components of Jean-Marie Le Pen's National Front
· Philippe de Villiers' conservative Movement for France
Orleanists
Orleanists had rallied the Republic at the end of the 19th century and advocated economic liberalism (referred to in French simply aslibéralisme). Today, they are broadly classified as centre-right or centrist parties.
These included:
· The right-wing of the Radical Party
· The Democratic and Socialist Union of the Resistance
· The Christian-democratic Popular Republican Movement (MRP)
· Valéry Giscard d'Estaing's Independent Republicans
· The Union for a French Democracy
Today, a large majority of the politicians of Nicolas Sarkozy's ruling Union for a Popular Movement can be classified in this family.
Bonapartists
These included:
· Charles de Gaulle's various parties: first the Rally of the French People,
· then the Union of Democrats for the Republic
· But also Boulangisme or Poujadisme
Today
The Gaullist UDR was then transformed by Jacques Chirac in the Rally for the Republic (RPR) in 1976, a neo-Gaullist party which embraced economic liberalism.
In 2002 the RPR became the Union for the Presidential Majority and then the Union for a Popular Movement in an attempt to unify the French conservatives together with a minority of the Union for French Democracy (UDF).
In 2007, a section of the remaining UDF, headed by François Bayrou, refused to align themselves on Nicolas Sarkozy and created theMoDem in an attempt to make space for a center-right party.
In conclusion, Jean-Marie Le Pen managed to unify most of the French far-right in the National Front, created in 1972 in the aftermaths of theAlgerian War, which succeeded in gaining influence starting in the 1980s.
Residual monarchists movements, inheritors of Charles Maurras' Action française, also managed to survive, although many of them joined Le Pen's FN in the 1980s. Some neo-fascists who considered Le Pen to be too moderate broke away in 1974 to form the Parti des forces nouvelles, which maintained close links to the far-right students' union Groupe Union Défense.
Another important theoretical influence in the far-right appeared in the 1980s with Alain de Benoist's Nouvelle Droite movement, organized into the GRECE.
Despite Le Pen's success in the 2002 presidential election, his party has been weakened by Bruno Mégret's spin-out, leading to the creation of the National Republican Movement, as well as by the concurrence of Philippe de Villiers' Movement for France, and also by the internal struggles concerning Le Pen's forthcoming succession.
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