Parties and Democracy in France: Parties Under Presidentialism by David S Bell

Author:David S Bell [Bell, David S]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781138732315
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Published: 2018-06-08T00:00:00+00:00

Radical Party Politics

Formed in 1901, more as an organization for preventing split tickets and the dispersal of the Republican vote than a modern political party, the two contemporary Radical parties (Radicals and Radical Socialists) are the direct descendant of this old current in French politics. It was once a distinctive 'Liberal Party'. It expressed its own version of 'republicanism' and militantly promoted secular humanism in schooling and free public life, defended parliamentary sovereignty, civil liberties, human rights, market and property, as well as the extension of adult male suffrage. Radicalism was then, at its origins (but no longer is), anti-clerical and uniquely close to Freemasonry.

This Radical Party anti-state individualist outlook was captured by the philosopher Alain whose 'cracker barrel' apophthegms ('propos') still have some contemporary resonance. Alain was not, of course, the official ideologist of the Radical Party and was more in tune with the Belle Epoque than industrial France, but the 'propos' capture the individualism of Radical supporters. However, after the Third Republic and especially under the Fifth Republic, Radicalism has struggled to find a distinctive voice. A poll commissioned by the party in 1990 showed that 60 per cent of respondents did not have any clear image of the Radical Party, and of those who did, most often saw Radicalism as a 'spirit'. This 'spirit' was identified by 16 per cent as 'republicanism', by 12 per cent as secularity (laïcisme), and by 10 per cent as tolerance. However, although voters identified Radicalism with tolerance, humanism and common sense, only 5 per cent thought that 'secularity' and 'republicanism' were relevant to contemporary France. Radical Party politicians themselves placed the emphasis on secularism. Activists, on the other hand, stressed Europe above all and gave priority to social 'solidarity', which the voters did not identify with Radicalism. Their problem was like other western European Liberal parties, that their causes were widely espoused and in consequence they struggled to make a distinctive mark in the late twentieth century.

Radicals were the dominant party of the Third Republic and they were a key party in the Fourth Republic's shifting alliances. The party was always troubled by the rise of the Marxist left in France and never adopted a coherent position, preferring to tack with the winds than to determine a set course which would risk terminally splitting the party. There were two occasions on which it looked as if it might become a modern party: the Mendès France interlude in 1955-57 and the Servan-Schreiber takeover in 1971. Mendès France tried to capitalize on the success of his 1954-55 government by organizing a social reform 'Mendésiste' movement based on the Radical Party but he was opposed by the other great figure of Radical politics, the cautiously conservative Edgar Faure. Mendès failed to pick up enough support in the 1956 elections to form a new government. In 1957, Mendès was defeated and he left the party in 1959 (de Tarr 1993).

Radicals supported the return of the General to power in 1958, but then they represented the 'ferments of dispersion' in France which de Gaulle deplored.

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