T1'-IE UNIVERSITY l-lij R ARY
WASHING.TON & '-EE- UNIVERSJ.D
..
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WASHINGTON AND LEE UNIVERSITY
CONSTITUTIONAL PARALYSIS, THE FRENCH LEFT,
AND THE FlFTH _REPlf.BLIC.
AN HONORS THE5IS SUBMITTED TO
THE FACULTY OF THE DEPARTMENT OF POLITICS
BY
WADE ARNOLD FORSMAN
LEXINGTON, VIRGINIA
MAY 1980
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LEXINGTON. VA. 24415Q
TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION ••••• ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
1
Chapter
I.
POLITICAL ISSUES IN THE CONSTITUTION • •••••••••••••••••••••••
5
II.
PROTEST -- AGGRA VATOR OF PARALYSIS • •••••••••••••••••••••••••
12
III.
INHERITORS OF PRorEST
Communist Party•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
Socialist Party•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
23
35
IV.
THE ADMINISTRATION -- THE NEW POLICYMAKERS • •••••••••••••••••
53
v.
RESPONSE OF PROTEST -- THE COMMON PROGRAM • ••••••••••••••••••
CONCLUSION••••••• ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
85
BIBLIOGRAPHY••••• ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
87
INTRODUCTION
The problem to be addressed in this paper is the constitutional
paralysis present in the French Fifth Republic.
Constitutional paralysis
is defined here as the lack of consensus among nearly all major groups
concerning society's basic structural and institutional composition.
In most western industrial nations, political activities take
place within a given constitutional framework.
One would hardly expect
the average British Labourite to advocate abandoning his nation's constitution, nor is one likely to hear an American Democrat advocate a new
Constitutional Convention.
such consensus.
France, however, has not been blessed with
Traditionally, political battles have been fought without
any of the constitutional consensus enjoyed by such countries as the
United Kingdom and the United States.
Constitutional issue$ have, histori-
cally speaking, always pervaded the French political scene, as the Boulanger
and Dreyfuss affairs demonstrate.
Because of this paralysis, the French
+he.'1 have.
have had a high turnover rate in regimes; in this century alone, a MIi
had three republics and the Vichy government.
Constitutional paralysis
has been an integral part of France's political landscape.
The present regime, the Fifth Republic, is no exception.
Whether
one speaks of the cartel des non in 1962, the May 'events' in 1968, or
the ever-present issue of Article 16, the regime's political scene is
aglow with burning issues concerning• its basic structural and institutional
composition.
No wonder then that with every election there is the anxiety
that comes from the realization that not just the seats of power, but the
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very power structure itself is at stake.
In short, the historical
paralysis of the constitution, whatever form it may take, is still very
strong in the Fifth Republic.
This lack of consensus alone would pose a serious problem for any
leader.
Yet the regime's constitutional pamlysis is aggravated by
another inherently French tmits the tmdition of protest • .Briefly, the
French are the political opposite of the Germans a they question authority
in an almost paranoid manner, they disobey most any law whenever possible,
they resist organization, etc.
An understanding, therefore, of the
complexity of the problem of constitutional paralysis is not complete
without examining this tradition of protest.
France's tradition of protest is still present today in the form
of the political Left.
It is the parties of the Left which have inherited
and possess this penchant for protest 1n the Fifth Republic.
Consequently,
they attack the regime, preventing the termination of constitutional
paralysis and the establishment of consensus.
Thus, before one can have
a true appreciation for the regime's problem of constitutional paralysis
aggravated by the tradition of protest, one must have an appreciation for
the characteristics, organization, and history of the Leftist parties 1n
the Fifth Republic, the two major ones being the Communists and the
Socialists.
The attempt by the Fifth Republic's founders to devise a more ·
effective system of government, i.e., to avoid this paralysis, has led to
one especially interesting situation.
De Gaulle, it must be remembered,
assumed power in the wake of a regime totally devoid of any consensus.
He therefore attempted to modify, or at least avoid, this pa:ralysis, so
that the state would be able to function, by depoliticizing his new regime,
-3-
the Fifth Republic.
Henceforth, many issues which had previously been
horrendously handled by politicians would be handled by those away from
the chaotic, constitutionally paralyzed political arena -- the bureaucrats.
Clearly, de Gaulle, determined that France regain a measure of its former
glory, was not interested 1n such mundane but politically volatile issues
as the price of milk.
The slack had to be taken up somewhere, and it was
taken up by the bureaucracy.
Yet by removing accountability for many
volatile issues from the political arena to an arena outside the citizen's
reach -- a switch unsatisfactory to many Frenchmen -- de Gaulle only
helped to strengthen the protest tradition and thus prevented consensus
from developing under this regime.
Thus today even l'Adainistration is
under attack.
As stated above, an increasingly bureaucratized regime is unsatisfactory to many Frenchmen, and it is therefore under severe criticism.
In response to the alienation generated by the regime's administration
(admittedly, among other reasons), the Leftist Parties penned the Couon
Program.
In this light, the Common Program can be seen as a reflection of
the traditional sources of protest; almost all the criticisms levelled
against the Fifth Republic were coalesced 1n it.
was a new manifestation of the old paralysis.
In short, this document
Thus an acquaintance with
the Common Program -- its formation, its contents, and its colla.p se -- is
necessary for an understanding of the nature of the lack of constitutional
consensus.
All the subjects previously mentioned -- the protest tradition,
the inheritors of the protest tradition (the Left), the rise of the
bureaucracy, and the Common Program -- are addressed in this paper with
reference to and in illustration of the paralysis present 1n the regime
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actual.
What is not addressed he:re is a solution, for no one has yet come
up with one, not even the French themselves.
That does not mean that the
examination of the problem is fruitless; at least one can say afterward
that one has a better feel for the lack of constitutional consensus in
France.
-5-
POLTIICAL ISSUES IN THE CONSTITUTION
It is impossible to take the Constitution for granted,
No less than
under the Fourth Republic, constitutional questions are themselves matters
of controversy, and what ought to be purely political controversies have
been perpetually complicated by constitutional implications. 1 This is
exacerbated by the Fifth Republic's origins a it began its life as a
regime intended by all but a small number of convinced Gaullists to be
only temporary -- a "regime de salut public",2
Thus, there is an anxiety
among the political class that each election or referendWll might precipitate a major crisis,3
In short, the Fifth Republic, twenty years after
its formation, still lacks legitimacy.
There are two major areas of contention in the constitution.
The
first concerns the modification of the traditional relationship between
the Government and Parliament, the second concerns the role of the
President.
The first area of concern is the increased power accorded by the
Constitution to the Government to prevent Parliamentary harassment or
1Jack Hayward and Vincent Wright, "Presidential Supremacy and
the French General Elections of March 1973," Parliamentary Affairs 26
{Summer 1973) 1274.
2Dorothy Pickles, The Governaent and Politics. of France, Vol. II
(London, Methuen & Co. Ltd., 197J)aJ42.
)Jack Hayward and Vincent Wright, "Presidential Supremacy and
the French General Elections of March 1973," Parliamentary Affairs 26
(Summer 1973) 1274.
-6-
obstruction, snap defeats,4 and frequent challenges to its safety, whether
by votes of confidence or by votes that can be used to diminish confidence,
even without endangering the life of the Government.
Measures to streng-
then the Government vis-a-vis the National Assembly were on the whole
welcomed by ex-Ministers of the Fourth Republic who had been trying to
achieve a similar result during the last days of the regime.5 But the
1958 Constitution went very much farther than anything suggested, and the
transference of a number of subjects hitherto belonging to the lawmaking
field to that of Governmental decree-making was too much for many
pol 1tic ians.
And the number of those politicians who resent the Government's
expanded power is growing.
ments.
Consider the poll of the 1968 and 1973 Parlia-
Deputies in both Assemblies were asked their positions on three
Presidential powers of state,6
1 ) The power to dissolve the Assembly
2) The power to employ Article 16
J) The power to use the Army and Police.
A deputy who agreed that the President should have only nuaber one or
none of these three powers, and who wished to enhance the Assembly's
power was labelled a Parliamentarian.
A Deputy who reconciled the belief
for a strong executive with an increase in the role of the Assembly, and
who felt that the legislature's main problem is anachronistic rules was
4norothy Pickles, The Government and Politics of France, Vol. I
(London, Methuen & Co. Ltd., 1973)1 p. 14.
5Fran~ois Gogu.el, Alfred Grosser, La Politique en France, (Parisi
Colin, 1975)1 P• 172.
6Robert Jackson, Michael Atkinson, Kenneth D. Hart, "Constitutional
Conflict in France, Deputies' Attitudes Toward Executive-Legislative
Relations, " Comparative Poli tics 9 ( July 1977) 1 407.
-7-
labelled an Aocomodator.
Finally, a Deputy who agreed that the President
should have all those powers, that is, one who favored the status quo,
was labelled a President ialist.
Below is how each Assembly was divided.
EXECUTIVE POWERS?
1968
LEGISLATIVE
Low
High
Total
0.0%
(0)
Pres.
38.0%
(JO)
28.0%
(JO)
Parl.
12.7%
(10)
Aecom.
49 .4%
(39)
62.0%
(49)
12.7%
87.J%
(69)
Low
POwERS
High
Total
(10)
100.0%
(79)
EXECUTIVE POWERS
1973
LEGISLATIVE
Low
High
Total
0.0%
(0)
Pres.
20.5%
(16)
20.5%
(16)
Low
POwERS
High
Total
Pres. -- Presidential i st
Aecom. - Accomodator
Parl. -- Parliamentarian.
7Ib1d., P• 408.
Parl.
41.0%
(32)
Aecom.
JB.5%
79-5%
(62)
41.0%
(32)
59.0%
100%
(78)
(Jo)
(46)
-8-
Clearly, the trend in attitudes toward executive-legislative relations
is 11, rtt; indicative of a possible confrontation between the two levels
of government. 8
or\
The second criteria of controversy concerns the role of the President.
Under the Third Republic, the President was described by an eminent constitutional lawyer as a 'mute and powerless onlooker•, 9 and had at one
moment risked being, under the Fourth Republic, no more than •a clerk and
a postman•. 10
Under the Fifth Republic, he is accorded specific powers to
be exercised without a counter-·s ignature and can, under Article 16, assume
sole control of the Government in a declared state of emergency.
And he
alone is the effective judge both of the circumstances justifying his
declaration of a state of emergency and .,of the measures that he proposes
to take to deal with it ( though he is req.u ired to "consult" the constitutional
council).
The article is known to be one to which General de Gaulle, who
was haunted by the impotence of 'the State' under the two previous regimes,
attached particular importance. 11
This reserve power, together with the President's right to dissolve
the National Assembly, to accept or refuse a request, either by the Government or by the Deputies, to have a Bill submitted to a referendwa instead
of to Parliament, and with his election, from 1962 onwards, by the whole
electorate, provided a novel combination of quasi-presidential and tradi-
8 Ibid., p. 415 .
9Roger Pinto, El~ments de Droit Constitutionnel (Lille, Morel et
Corduant, 1952)1 P• 614.
iOibid., P• 615.
111eMonde, 5 June 1958, P• 1.
-9-
tional parliamentary government.
Indeed Maurice Duverger maintains
that this combination has existed in only three other democratic regimes.12
The two principles are not necessarily incompatible, however, and Maurice
Duverger was himself one of the most eloquent proponents of a system that
would combine the election of the President of the Republic by universal
suffrage with the responsibility of the Governaent to the National
Assembly.13 As it exists in France under the Fifth Republic, it is, he
says, characterized by the President's possession of powers that
exercise without the need for a counter-signature.
he can
The problem created
by this presidential power alongside the retention of Governmental
responsibility is, he recognizes, that of reconciling the two, 'which is
not easy~.
And as an illustration of the difficulty, he goes on to ask
exactly what the powers of the President are in his capacity of President
of the Conseil des Ministres,14
His role is certainly not purely formal, as is that of a Parliamentary Head of State, whose presidency of the Conseil des Ministres
remains symbolic and whose influence on its decisions is purely
moral. On the other hand, he cannot himself make decisions, as
does the President of the United States, whose Ministers must bow
to his will. Our system lies somewhere between the two. In most
cases, it is necessary for there to be agreement between President
and Ministers • •
But what if there is not? This problem of the 'executive dyarchy',
remained unresolved throughout the presidency of General de Gaulle,
12LeMonde, 26 November 1969, P• 1.
lJibid.
14 Ibid.
M.
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Pompidou gave his own description of the system in 1970, but without providing any more guidance on the consequences of disagreement between
President and Prime Minister.15
I think that our Constitution is half-way between a properly
presidential regime and a properly Parliamentary- regime. The
balance between the two -- which is moreover difficult -- has the
advantage of making our political system capable of firmness,
stability and at the same time of f l exibility. As Prime Minister,
I have heaxd General De Gaulle maintain that there was no dyarchy.
But on the whole, I think the system is not a lad one.
All of which l eaves one to conclude that, ultimately, the issue of
where executive power lies may have to be decided by a trial of strength.
There 1s certainly nothing in the text of the Constitution to prevent a
President less politically domineering than General de Gaulle or less
politically active than President Pompidou from adopting habits more consonant with earlier French Republican traditions.
seems to be doing just that.
Indeed, Giscard d'.Estaing
The Constitution of 1958 is flexible enough
to be adapted to either a weak or a strong President, provided only that
the issue of the division of functions between President and Prime Minister
does not become a matter of acute political controversy.
But as it stands,
and as it was applied during the first twenty years of the regime, nothing
in the Constitution could necessarily prevent a clash from developing
between a President determined to rule and a Prime Minister determined to
use his own powers under articles 20 and 21 to do the same.
15LeMonde , 2 July 1970, P• 1.
-11-
But again, what would happen 1n a conflict between H8tel Matignon
and Elysee? The President would have five options.
He could116
1)
dissolve the new Assembly and hold fresh elections. But this
would probably alienate the electorate and result 1n an even
bigger victory for the President's opposition.
2)
appoint a premier froa his opposition and aodify his own
stance.
J)
resign on the grounds that the electorate, in voting for a
majority opposed to his policies, had nullified the Presidential
mandate.
4)
appoint a minority government and leave it to the Assembly to
pass a vote of censure leading to new elections.
5)
(if it were a narrow loss for the President's coalition) t:ry to
•1nta1n a majority by wooing Deputies close to his coalition.
Giscard d'l!Btaing addressed this very question in his speech at
the Burgundian town of Verd.un-sur-le-Doubs in early February, 1978.
In
that speech the depth of his hostility for the Left, clearly more than the
Left had bargained for, narrowed the options list considerably.
His warning
that he could not stop the Left from illlpleaenting its political program 1n
the event of a combined Co1111unist-Socialist victory meant that he would not
try stitching together alternative coalitions.
It is also reasonable to
conclude that Giscard would not modify his views,17
All in all, Giscard's attitude towards a Leftist victory demonstrated
the passion and invective such a conflict could bring.
In short, the
Fifth Republic is faced with a wea.k ness in its Constitution that has the
very real potential for rendering disaster to France.
16Yorick Blumenfeld, "French Elections, 1973," Editorial Research
Reports, Vol. I., (February 14, 1973)1 124.
1 7~onomist, 4 February 1978, p. 49.
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PROTEST -- AGGRA VATOR OF PARALYSIS
There are few other nations where protest movements have been so
frequent and so diverse in their origins, channels, and purposes, and so
similar 1n their manifestations, as France.
Who are the protesters? Thant are times 1n French history when
every social group and political organization seems to be protesting against
the status quo; 1n other periods, protest originates 1n a clearly limited
sector of society or politics.
If we took a long-term view of France
and established a chart of the principal protest movements, their universality would be striking.
If we look at French society as a whole, we find such moveaents
everywhere.
There are protest movements originating among the groups at the
bottom of the social hierarchy or of the hierarchy of a particular occupation, aimed at the groups exerting the powers of command. 1 Thus, there
have been movements among the worke1'S (the revolutionary syndicalism of
the early CGT), the peasants (the wave in 1961), the shopkeepers and
artisans (Poujadism and a new wave since 1969), and the small businessmen.
Technicians and industrial employees, university students (largely pet~-
1This and other ideas are taken from notes of "La Societe
Contemporaine " , French .540, Middlebury College, summer 1979.
-13-
bourgeois, or sons of grands bourgeois who were not good enough to join
the elite in the grand.es 6coles), younger (i.e., powerless) members of
several professions, and equally powerless students in the lycees all
joined in the great protest of May 1968.
Lyc,e students demonstrated
again, in Mary 1973, to protest the suppression of military deferments.
There are protest moveaents originating also within ruling groups. 2
Some appear within the political class, which has to be subdivided, in
turn, into its civilian branch and its Jlilitary branch.
We find protest
movements against the domestic status quo or France's international
position in the form of the Parti Socialiste Unifie' (PSU) and various
gauchiste groups today, along with the Communist party since its creation.
In 1972, students 1n the Ecole Nationale d'Ad.ainistration (ENA), the
incubator of the bureaucmtic elite, protested en masse against the
competitive system that reserved access to the grands corps to the ENA's
top graduates.
There were also spectacular expression of protest in the
French Army during the Algerian war, culminating in a revolt against de
Gaulle in Algeria in April, 1961.
The third element of the ruling groups,
the Church hierarchy and the intellectuals, has also been a source of
protest,3
the Church was a powerful force for protest in the early years
of the Third Republic and again at the time of the separation of Church
and State; as for the intellectuals, some groups among them -- at times
all of them -- have been sharply critical of French political and social
affairs.
2Ibid.
3Ibid.
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Protest movements are sometimes organized (whether by political
parties, interest groups, or conspiratorial groups like the Organisation
de l 'A~e s-e'cret in Algeria and France in 1961-62), sometimes not. 4
In the latter case, they appear either as sudden explosions ( the abortive
Putsch of April 1961 ), or as the expression of siJlllar attitudes held by
men acting within their professions (bankers and businessaen, writers and
journalists).
The 'events' of May 1968 combined both these ele•nts.
Gabriel Almond has commented on the ''poor boundary 11aintenance
between the society and the political system in France", he has emphasized
in particular the lack of a clear sepaxation between the functions of
interest groups and those of political parties.5 The "interpenetration°
of these two types of bodies appears 1n a nwaber of instances.
Some
Frenchmen carry their protest against the status quo into a party as well
as into an interest group.
Almond's remark ay be less applicable to the
majorit( side of French politics under the Fifth Republic, but he is right
about the opposition side1 6 in 1960-61, opposition to the Algerian war
was led by an essentially non-Communist left-wing coalition composed of
unions, a small party (the PSU), the National Students Union, study groups
( the Club Jean Moulin), and intellectuals.
In May-June 1968, especially
at the end of May, a shaky' conglomeration of left-wing parties, labor
unions, student groups and intellectuals tried to overthrow the long
Ga ullist reign.
4 Ibid.
5Ga.bdel Almond and James s. Colemn, The Politics of Develos1ng
Areas (Princeton, N.J. r Princeton University Press, 1960); pp. 37-3 •
6Mid.dlebury College Notes.
-15-
Within the political parties we find two structures particularly
adapted to the expression of protests
the small ideological sect, usually
dominated by intellectuals, which buys intellectual rigidity and purity
at the cost of extremism and isolation, and the authoritarian league,
which tries to enlist masses of people 1n quasi-mllitary fashion behind
much more ambiguous objectives,?
Within the interest groups, we find that protes.t affects all the
types of "interest articulation" distinguished by Almond. 8 It affects
institutional interest groups, such as the Army or the Churchs nonassociational groups, such as the occasional, usually short-lived, study groups
that criticize the status quo and try to propose alternatives, associational interest groups, such as the peasants• organizations, the French
labor movement , with its long history of resistance to any fora of
cooperation wit h business, and. the aultiple unions of students and teachers
in !968; and. anomic groups breaking into the political system from society,
such as Poujade's .
The
issues that give rise to protest have been of all sorts.
Some have been social issues concerning the status of given groups in
French society·; some have been national issues concerning the role of France
1n the world and the policy- to be followed by- the country toward other
nations.
French survival was the original issue around which Resistance
movements were formeds that was also the issue in the protest aonaent of
7stanley Hoffaan, Decline or Renewals France Since the 1930s,
(New Yorks Viking Press, 1974)1 P• 113,
8Gabriel Almond & James s. Coleman, The Politics of Developing
Nations. (Princeton, N.J., Princeton University Press, 1§60) 1 PP•
37-JB.
-16-
extreme right elements against 4e Gaulle ' s Algerian policy.
issues were heavily at stake in the Poujade movement.
Nat1Gnal
As mentioned in the
previous chapter, there have been constitutional issues concerning the
institutions which the nation ought to adopt.
Finally, philosophical issues
were at the heart of the intellectuals' protest against the 'conswaer society•
in recent years.
Intellectual protest aoveaents, such as that of the "left-
wing progress! ve intellectual" denounced by Raymond Aron or that of the
intellectuals opposed to the Algerian war, usually develop around a mixture
of all such issues.
The nationwide movement of May, 1968, did also.
How does protest occur in France? It llight appear that everything
is being lumped under the heading of protest, even soae kinds of expressions
of discontent that have little in couon.
However, it seems that whatever
the social milieu in which they originated, whatever the channels they
used or created, and whatever the issues involved, those aoveaents have
shared a common style.
The first feature of this style is its bellicosity.9 True, any
protest is first of all a refusal to accept a certain situation.
In this
respect Poujadists or the intellectuals who signed the 'Manifesto of the 121',
recognizing the right of young men to disobey the draft in the Algerian
war, are not different from American Populists.
But the style of protest
differs according to whether this original refusal is or is not followed
by something.
What characterizes almost all French protest moveaents is
their refusal to cooperate with the 'enemy' (i.e., the group responsible
for the measures or state of affairs against which the protest is lodged)
in order to produce a desired change.
9Middlebury College Notes.
-17-
At best (if t his is the right wom), the protest movement will
advocate a revolutionary substitution of a new order of things. 10 This
was the case with the French labor movement at the turn of the century and
with the French Communist Party in its early, militant years.
In a
confused but ao:re viol ent way, this seemed to be the case with the
terrorist organizations and army conspiracies that opposed de Gaulle's
Algerian policy.
And i n May 1968, there were many, often conflicting
calls for a new order, mnging from the Communists• belated appeal for a
new popular government t o varieties of student utopianism displayed in the
'liberated' halls of the Sorbonne.
At worst, and more frequently, the protest movement will simply try
to sabotage public poli cy and practice a negative "politique du pire,"
against which the movement fights. 11
The behavior of some eleaents of the
French Army after de Gaulle annowiced his policy of self-detendnation for
Algeria showed an inclination to oppose and block official policy in the
absence of any realistic alternative.
And in 1968 the determination of
various gauchiste s t udent organizations to exacerbate tensions in the
university, to sabotage reform and thus to •unveil' the repressiveness of
even liberal institut i ons, brought first chaos, and later protmoted turmoil
in and around Paris.
French protest is the rejection of reforms its purpose
is not so much to redress a wrong as to punish the wrongdoer. 12
lOibid.
11Ibid.
12Ibid.
- 18-
Another feature of French protest is what Hoffmann calls "totalisa",
and it applies to the ideological dimension adopted by practically any
protest movement. 13 Any French protest movement expresses its hostility
in terms that go far beyond the iu.ediate occasion of the protest and that
challenge or involve t he veey foundations of the social order, the political
order, or both.
Marxism CCl>lored •n;r of the attacks on the Algerian war
and still does on the Fifth Republic, which is broadened into a general
assault on French and foreign capitalism.
The nationalists of the 19.50s
not only protested against France's colonial retreats and her Jlinor role in
NATO, they often spoke as if there wexe a universal conspiracy to huailiate
France -- a conspiracy in which Couunist inspiration, Arab hostility, and
Anglo-Saxon malevol ence all played a part.
(L'Aurore, and many- RPF,
Poujad.ist, and other right-wing speakers and writers took this line.)14
A shopkeepers'
rebellion against harsher measures of tax control rapidly
became a call f or resistance against France's decline in the world and for
the summoning of a new States Generai. 15 A long if grudging practice of
'reformism' has not succeeded in erasing the be.sic hostility of the labor
movement to a syndicalisme de gestion, which would imply not so auch the
abandonment of its gri evances, as the explicit recognition of the
'capitalist' order of society.
The Couunists unions' tough bargaining
for quantitative advantages for the workers proceeds behind the banner of
anticapitalism and t he class struggle.
The non-Communist CFDT's dellB.Dd for
13stanley Hoffma,;1 Decline or Renewals France Since the 1930s.
(New Yorks Viking Press, 1974), p. 113.
14 Ibid., P• 116.
i5Ibid.
-19-
•workers' power• in the factories is presented as a springboard toward a
socialist new order, not as a step toward integrations it appeals to the
lingering memories of early antistate, :workshop-centered syndicalism
which Pierre-Joseph Pro~on wanted, 16 The skilled workers, employers,
and cadres of the Conf&deration Franpaise et Democratique du Travail (CFDT)
thus appear closer to the artisan elite of early French syndicalism than
to British or West German trade unionism; autogestion is certainly not
•participation' in the existing om.er, 17
One of the consequences of this •total' attitude is to reinforce
the intransigence that results from the negative character of the protest. 18
Another consequence is that protest battles are waged in moral terms, 19
the moralisa so characteristic of F.rench intellectuals pervades all French
protest 11ovements1 the French argue about principles, not about inte:rastsa
they appeal to notions of good and evil or to tmditional values.
Both the universality and the style of French protest result froa
the nature of French society and of France's political system.
The nature
of French society, as it existed froa the Revolution until recently,
created the conditions for many of the types of protest,
Society rested on a consensus that included the 'haute bourgeoisie,•
the lower aiddle classes (both independent opexators and civil servants or
employees), as well as the peasants, 20 This consensus tended to p:reserve
16Middlebury College Notes.
l?Ibid,
18
rbid,
1 9Ib1d,
20ibid.
-20-
largely preindust rial values and attitudes and to dilute or delay industrialization.
It excl uded the industrial proletariat and created a •Jor
psychological barrier between the workers and the rest of the population.
In particular, t he bourgeoisie insisted on applying 'bourgeois' staDdaX'ds
of social ascent (enrichissez-vous) to the workers and on treating thea
accoxding to the degree of loyalty they showed toward their eaployers -one of the many aspects of the fel3dal hangover among the bourgeoisie. 21
The social distance -- i.e., differences in income, education, way of life
-- between the workers and the bourgeois may have been far less than 1n
England,
but the intellectual distance (mutual acceptance and. behavior)
was greater, especially since it was increased by the contrast between the
bourgeois' t reatment of the workers and the bourgeois' coJlll\Ulity of values
with, JDY'Stical glorification of, and legal protection for the peasants. 22
The result was that the workers could not but adopt an attitude of protest
against the establi shed order and dream of revolution or revenge.
By
contrast with t he protest of most other groups, which usually express a
reaction of individual self-assertion or of defense of the 'free• individual
against evU forces, workers' protests expressed a sense of oomaunity, a
desire for collective ascent and redemption (in Ma.y 1968, this made any
genuine student-worker alliance difficult).
.But the numerical inferiority
of the workers also made their dreaa a rather hopeless ones here are the
roots of the aforeaentioned negativism, and totalisa.
Other f orms of protest can be explained by the nature of the French
political system.
2 1Ibid.
22 Ib1d.
The fundamental factor here was the lasting split in
-21-
French political thought following the Revolution, or rather the double
split. 2 3 To begin with, there was the opposition between those Frenchmen
who remained faithful to counter.revolutionary ideas alld those who accepted
the principle of governaent based on consent.
And 1n addition, there was
a division aaong the lattera between the liberals, who feared that any
systea of govermaent in which the 'will of the people' was not carefully
filtered and diluted would upset the stalemate society, to which they were
attached above allJ the deaocrats, who were also attached to it but whose
social conservatisa was less fear£ul and whose respect for traditional elites
was nils and the social refoJ.'llers who rejected the foraula of the stale•te
society altogether.
Because of the split 1n French political thought, and also because
of the instability of regiaes 1n the nineteenth century, the electolal. laws
and parliamentary- rules of 'the Third Bepublic, and France's econoaic and
social co11plexity, France developed a aultiple and heterogeneous party system..
The ver:y divisions on the French political scene and the resuJ.ting difficulty
in forming stable coalitions condemned the political system to iuobility
at important times.
Any group which felt that action was vital has tended
to organize a protest 11oveaent in order to break the existing deadlock.
This is wh7 it has seemed, at times, that all organizations are
engaged in protest of one kind or another, pulling a paralyzed state 1n
different directions.
Resulting froa the nonpragaatism and nonreformism
of a fragmented political system, protest groups seem the only alternative
-22-
to complete stagnation, but they also contribute to the systea's
weakness. 24
As long as the present authority- system lasts, protest wUl
persist.
As long as better ways of change are blocked, crisis reaaina
the best alarm bell.
Never was this better demonstrated than 1n 1968. 25
I
.\
24stanley Hoffman, Decline or Renewal, France Since the 1930s.
(New Yorka Viking Press, 19?4)1 P• 120.
2 5Ibid., P• 144.
-23-
INHERITORS OF PRar&ST
The Communist Party
The French Couunist Party, one inheritor of the protest tradition,
must be studied fi:rst not only because it constitutes the sole stable and
constantly powerful formation since 1945, nor because it occupies one of
the extremities of the political spectrua, but because the behavior of
the voters and the other parties, especially the other possessors of the
protest tradition, the Socialists, are to a large degree determined by the
PCF's existence, and because the PCF's presence gives a certain nuber of
features peculiar to F:cance. 1
Contrary to what happened in other countries, such as Germany,
Italy, and first of all Russia, the PCF was not born froa a ainority branch
of the Socialist Party.
In December 1920, at the Congress of Tours, it was
the majority of the SFIO which decided to ad.here to the Third International,
the Comintern, and to accept the 21 conditions that the Second Congress of
the International had just dra,wn up.
The decisive vote was J, 028 to
1,022. 2 Among those conditions were strict subordination to the decisions
\.
of the International and the changing of its name.
Founded by Jean Jam-es,
L' Hwu.ni't$ remained the central organ of the party.
Four fifths of the
1Fran901s Borella, _Le~s___.___~~--ua_._s_da_ns
__l_a_Franc
__._e_d__'_a_u..._ourd
___,_h_ui_,
(Parisi aiitions du Seull, 1977
2Fran901s Goguel and Alfred Grosser, La politique en France (Parisa
Colin, 1975)s P• 98.
-24-
members accepted the change.
the SFIO.
The othem followed ~on Blua who recreated
Thus the PCF can claim to be the direct descendant of pre-war
socialism)
Since, according to the statutes of the Coaintern, "The proletariat
of all countries have found for the first tiae in the USSR a true homeland"
and since "the international proletariat has a duty to contribute to the
success of the edification of socialisa 1n the USSR and to defend it by
every aeans available against the attacks of the capitalist powers", the
PCF was faithfully married to the caprices of Soviet policy regardless of
the consequences.
For eX&llJ)le, in the elections of 1932, the first since
the Comintern iaposed ultragauchisa, that is to say, isolation and denunciation of the socialists as "social~ascists", 4 the PCF lost a quarter of its
adherents.
After the arrival of Hitler to power, this policy changed,
albeit little by little.
The PCF set the exaaple to the other aeabers of
the International by concluding 1n July 1934 a pact of unity with the
~•
After the Franco-Soviet pact of May 1935 caae the development of
the Popular Front with the Socialists and the Radicals.
In the Assembly
elections of April-May 1936, the Communists, with 1,4'70 1 000 votes, almost
doubled their previous totals and went from 10 seats to '72, thanks to the
\
second-ballot allia.nces1 the scru.tin uninoainal a deux tours played for
or against the Couunists depending on their relations with the other
parties.5
3Ib1d.
4 Maur1ce Duverger, Partis :politiques et classes sociales en France
(Parisi Colin, 1955)s P• 53.
5Howard Ma.chin and Vincent Wright, ''The French Left Under the Fifth
Republic, " Compara.t ive Poli tics 10 (October 19'7?) 1 38.
-2.5-
The Parti couuniste supported the go'Y8rnaent of Leon nu.a without
/
(
participating in it.
The Popular Front was already in shaables when the
Communists• approval of the German-Soviet Pact of 1939 ushered 1n a period
of isolation and secrecy,
It alse ushezed 1n denunciations by Couunists
of the "guerre iaperialiste ".
against the USSR in June, 1941.
These ended with the attack of Germany
The party then took part 1n the Resistance,
having already been well-versed 1n clandest1n, a.c tivit7,
At the Liberation,
Gene:cal de Gaulle had the ColllllWlists enter the govemaent where, after the
elections of October, 19+5, they obtained five million votes (26 percent),
and led the Ministries of Equipment, Comaerce, and Interior.
Maurice
Thorez, Minister of State, gave the order to his coarades upon his return
/
/
from the Soviet Union 1n 19441 "faire la guerra 1 creer une puissante araee
francaise 1 reoonstruire l'ind.uatrie, s'unir",
The period fro• 1944, to 1947 is particularly- illportant in under-
standing the situation of the PCF.
In the first place, its spectacular
rise is explained by the possibilities of infiltration that the Resistance
had given to it.
Secondly, the eoonoaic and social progress, •de at a
time when the Franeo-Soviet alliance bad been confiraed by a treaty and
when the Russian am.es had repulsed the Nazis, also could not be denied.
Thus 1n later years, the Party's permanent negativisa, its purely destructive will with which it struck at the u.s. or at GerJlally did not Jl&ke
sense to ■Ulions of French. 6 Instead they reMaber that the two great
moments of progress 1n social legislation 1n the twentieth century had
been in 1936 and 1945-46 and that the 11obllization of the PCF's energies
6Fra119ois Goguel and Alfred Grosser, Ia politique en Fmnce
(Parisi Colin, 1975)1 P• 98,
-26-
for reconstruction of France bad been extreaely effectiva.
F1nall.7 the
party itself to this day has guamed a deep nostalgia for the period
when it shared power.
On May 5,
1947, the PCF's ainisters were excluded froa . the Balladier
Government for violating ainisterial unity.
Later its delegates at the
Constitutional Asseably of the Coainfora ia Septeaber spoke proudly of
the successful reconstruction and. said. that an energetic recalling to
order of the party so that the~ could accept the division of the world
in two was necessary.
They also warned that this division gave to the
social aoveaents {including the Per) a penchant for violence without
precedent.? A chasm was thus again created. between the Couunists and
the other political organizations.
It deepened. when the coMunists
expressed s0J1e attitudes which were particularly shockinga branding Tito
a "Fascist", or comaendillg the repression 1n BUdapest.
The PCF cooled its
rhetoric a little when, on soae inter.national problems or do•stic problems,
a sentiment very strongly anticonunist surfaced 1n other groups.
The deStalinization of the USSR and the ataosphere of international
detente facilitated the work of the party, but the PCF did not seem to know
how to profit from it.
In spite of its mass of followers, the devotion
of its llilitants, the skill of a propaganda. -.chine which knew how to tie
the daily difficulties of the "little people" to the great worldwide problems
of the day, the PCF appeared to be une formation vielllie et scleros6e • .
Maurice Thorez had been Seczetary General since the Thirties and by 1964,
had been around for thirty years.
He occupied. this post until the
7Ronald Tiersk.y, French CoDunisa 1920-19?2 (New Yorka Colwabia
University Press, 1974)1 P• 16J.
-27-
Seventeenth Congress, 1n May 1964, when he was named President, an
honorific post which disappeared at his death several weeks later, July 11.
His successor to the General Secretariat was Waldeck-Rochet, born 1n 19()5.
Yet the party changed little.
The numerous internal purges (Marty-Tillon
1n 1952-53; Lecoeu:r in 19.54, Heffl in 19.56-57, Servin-Casanova in 1961),
the refusal or the incapacity to support a stimulating intellectual dialogue similar to the Italian Coamunist Party, and the rigidity of its
beliefs progressively weakened the ~•s vote-getting and aobllization
powers.
The arrival of de Gaulle to power made the ~ lose a good part
of its clientelea
from 5.1 and 5.5 aillion votes in 1951 and 19.56, it
declined to 3. 9 and 4 million votes in 1958 and 1962.
The PCF's resurgence 1n the legislative elections of March S, 1967
( the level of 5 million votes was crossed again) was especially due to the
.
5~~
fact that the party was beginning to depart from its tmditional b r
}
f
on the edges of the political spectrum.
11 •
The~• through speeches of its
leaders and informal agreements with other Leftist Parties at lower levels,
seemed to indicate a desire to return to the political Minatreaa.
It is
difficult to express exactly when this began, but suffice it to say that
there are three possible causes, distinct yet tied togethera
the evolution
of the party itself, the transformation of tbe iaap that kept it away froa
the electorate - a transformation due 1n large part to the policy of
"rapprochement" with the Soviet Union practiced by General de Gaulle -and the change in the attitude of other Leftist groups.
For example, in
November 1962, M. Mollet asked Socialist voters to vote Comaunist on the
second ballot, given the choice between the PCF and the Gaullista.
The
first formal accord between the SFIO and the PCF, a :regional accom, was
-28-
made January 5, 1965, for the municipal elections of the Seine area.
The
Presidential election of that year, with the presentation of a single
leftist oandida te, consider& bly accelerated the process. On December 21,
,,,,,,,,
1966, a common declaration between the PCF and the Federation de la Gauche
was published after several days of negotiations.
The elections of March,
1967, showed that Federation voters were generally accepting the FGOO
order to vote for the Couunists on the second ballot.
1968,
On February 24,
after several months of work, a type of couon platform was published
which emphasized the points of agreeaent, without hiding their differences.
The largest disagreement concerned the Middle Easts 196? bad been the year
of the Six Day War, and the PCF had taken a violently anti-Israel view,
while the Socialists by and large supported Is:cael.
The Arab-Israeli conflict could have hind.ered the~ 1n its dialogue
with other parties, but it did not.
)
of Czechoslovakia.
On April 22,
It was another story with the invasion
nt:..
/
.
1~8, L'Hwaanite wrote, "Five socialist
f
countries -- the USSR, Poland, the GDR, Hungary, and Bulgaria -- are ·1ntervening militarily in Czechoslovakia.
The PCF expresses its surprise and
disapproval'.', 8 That last phrase had been taken out of a decl~tion
published the day before by the Political Bureau.
For the first tiae in
its history, the PCF clearly dissociated itself from a Soviet action.
It
could have proved to be the beginning of a long process which would liberate
the PCF from an onerous handicap, but nothing ever came of it afterward.
In spite of the noise from intellectuals like Roger Garaudy, a meaber of
the Political Bureau, and Louis Aragon, a m.eaber of the Central Coaittee,
the Party's position was more and more disposed to silence,
81•Humanit6, 22 April 1968, P• 1.
L'HUll&Ilit(
-29-
quickly ceased coJ1JDenting on it, or even giviDg news about the events of
that "springtiae in Prague".
The destruction by the Soviet Union of a socialist systea which
was reclaiming its liberty gravely affected the dialogue between the Comaunists and other parties.9 Later, the crisis of May 1 68 showed all too painfully for couunists that the party had cut itself off froa the young
In May-June 1968, the party was forced to reveal its true self.
radicals.
This true self had two a.s pects.
On the one hand,
2Q!' s independence froa the party was disposed of I
the fiction of the
the double role of
Georges Siguy and of Henry Krasucki 1n being both of the union am of the
PCF's Political Bureau was an important eleaent in the evolution of the
crisis.
On the other hand,
the party which for nearly half a century had
clamored for revolution appeand to be fundaaentally hostile to revolutionary action.
Not only did the 2Q! try and succeed -- better than the
government -- 1n maintaining at least so• order aaidst the econoaic and
social chaos which beset France, but the Party welcoaed with a manifest
sigh of relief the announce•nt of the dissolution of the Asseablys the
Party was, it thought, going to be able to look for and obtain new voters,
who conformed more to its real aspimtions than the revolutionary conquest
of power. 10
Pamdoxically, the weakening du to the double shock of 1968 (the
invasion of Czechoslovakia am the party's behavior of .May/June in deceiving
young revolutionaries without preventing the electoral triwaph of Gaul.lie ■
9Fmn ois Goguel and Alfred Grosser, La Politique en France
7
(Parisi Colin, 1975)1 P• 101.
10Ronald Tiersky, French Comnm1sa 1920-1972 (New Yorka Columbia
University Press, 1974)1 P• 253.
-30-
was strongly felt by both the left and right of the Party-) -oontained the
elements of a new departure. 11 Solidly structured, the party was able to
welcome the •gauchistes' repelled by the weakness and the spontaneity or
the la ck of infiltration in the working place.
At the sue tiae 1 ts
behavior was able to serve as a strong concrete deaonstra tion of its
decisive support of majority deaocracy, which •de aore credi•ble an
overture towa:rd the Non-Couunist Left,
This overture, accoapanied by a change 1n style, was developed in
an alaost continuous fashion under the direction of a new leader.
On
February, 1970, at the 19th Congress, George Marchais becaae de facto
Secretary General and replaced an ailing Valdeck-Rochet.
Marchais was
named Secretary General de jure at the Twentieth Congress, 1n December
1972, his predecessor receiving the title of honorable President.
Marchais, a mechanic, born on June?, 1920, did not enter the party
until 1947, after having exercised oonsidemble responsibility in a CG'!'.
metallurgical local.
His rise was rapid I
Secretary of the _99! and deputy
member of the Central CoJIJllittee in 1956, meaber of the Central Colllli ttee and
of the Political Bureau in 1959, Secretary charged with organizing workers
in 1961,
His personality -- rather authoritarian -- and his aura as a hard
man did not seem to qualify hill particularly well for negotiation and
persuasion, so in 1969 the Party chose Jacques Duclos to carry their banner
in the Presidential election.
Nevertheless, Georges Marchais succeeded exceedingly well 1n steering
the party out of 1ts ghetto.
First there was the period of talks with the
11 Fran_s:o1s Goguel and Alfred Grosser, La politique en France (Parisa
Colin, 1975)1 p, 102,
-31-
Socialist Party transformed by Ala.in Savary. Then, after a brief period
of disdain, the PCF had talks 1n 1971, with the New Secretary of tbe PS,
,.,..~
Franrois Mitterrand, for the preparation of a Prograa/\COJIJIUD du gouvernement.
Signed June 27, 1972, this long docwaent, divided into four parts
/
/
/
(Vivre aiewc, changer la view, Deaocratiser l'econoaie, d.evelopper le
/
secteur public, pla.nifier le proe;ess 1 Deaocratiser les institutions,
/
/
.......
/
garantire et developper les 11bertes, Contribuer a la pa.ix et developper
la cooperation internationale), contained affiraations of principle as
well as very precise coJBJD.itaents whose costly illplementation already appeared
to be bringing out difficulties between the• in that period of economic
expansion.
But the Prograue comaun had the illm.ense advantage of sealing
an alliance which went beyond an electoral agreement and affiraed the shift
t~wams libemlism 1n the Party. 12 There will be aore on the Progra;~ouwi
later.
Although the Prograw couun is seen as a kind of sacred charter,
the Party let Fran9ois Mitterrand keep himself at arm's length from them
during the Presidential campaign of 1974. 13 Their goal in consigning themselves to the shadows was to help Mitterrand enlarge his oYerture not only
to other Socialists and leftist radicals (MRG), but to Gaullists disappointed
by the failure of Jacques Chaban-Delmas.
By itself,
such a docile attitude is not news.
The ~ had already
practiced in the course of the twenties, thirties and forties, 'lea diversea
12~ Macridis, ''The French CP's Many Fa.o es," Probleas of Couunisa
25 (May-June 1976)1 60.
1 3Jack Hayward and Vincent Wright, '"'Les Dewc Fmnce• and the French
Presidential Election of May 1974," Parliaaentary Affairs 27 (SWU1er 1974) a
P• 216.
-32-
tactiques possibles' 1 going it alone, joining the Popular Front, and
joining the National Front.14
Regaxding the party's inte:mal structure, the key is still democratic centralism.
The party-• s statutes sa.y·, "Discussion of all problems,
is free at all levels, provided it is based on principles accepted by
communists.
to all.
Once decisions are taken by the majority, they are applicable
The organization and activity of factions are prohibited • • • •
The leadership organs at different levels of the Party are elected deaocra tically by the Asse:ablies • • • and the Congress.
The decisions of the
upper levels are obligatory for the lower levels". 15 In practice, if
discussion which does not put in doubt couunist principles is freer than
before in the 21,163 cells existing in October, 1974, (of which 6,.512 were
in factories and schools, 9,340 were in localities and 5iJ11 were 1n rural
areas), the Congress has nevertheless kept the ritual assembling and taking
of meaningless votes.
The
Central Cou.1ttee ( 90 aembers and 25 deputies
after the Congress of 1972) and especially the Political Bureau (19 meabers)
and the Secretariat (the General Secretary and five other Secretaries), all
of whom remain supercilious and suspicious, still hold power which cannot
be contested. 16
14Fmn9ois Goguel and Alfred Grosser, La politique en FD.nee
(Parisi Colin, 1975)1 P• 102.
15Fran9ois Borella, Les
d 'aujourd' hui {Paris 1 &Utions
la France
•
16Fmncois Goguel and Alfred Grosser, La politique 1n Fmnce
(Parisi Colin; 1975)1 P• 102.
-33-
The Party has undergone a definite sociological tmnsforaation. 1?
It has remained largely a party of workers, but 1t is reinforced now by
engineers and managers, while the number of farmers and farm workem has
steadily declined.
It has of late been more open to women who compose
roughly one-thud of the party -- but there are only two women on the
Political Bureau.
Rejuvenated by a large nuaber of young people, it
continues to offer its members something ao:re than a aediua for political
action; it offers a kind of extended faa11.y, a group giving one a sense
of belonging and of protection against the ills of life.
Since 1934, the PCF has wanted to be rooted in a national and
republican tradition.
culture role.
Thus, there is a tendency to downplay this sub-
This tendency is also because it is nearly iapossible to
maintain it todays comaunication, notably that of television, does not
permit such isolation.
Finally, this tendency is because the PCF, being
totally opposed to the Maoist example iaitated 1n France by an intellectual
left-wing group, now believes that there exists "a rich culture of which
the proletariat has been deprived and should enjoy". 18 For exaaple, the
presence of !Jlpressionist Painting at the ~te de l 'HU11ani~ 1n Septeaber
19?4 marked the total rupture with the period of 'socialist realism• •19
Yet the PCF's signals reaain ambiguous.
Consider this passage
from Ia Nouvelle redaction des status.
17Philippe Broy-er, Didier Cassan, Olivier Da.Lage, "Les candidates
comaunistes aux elections legislatives de 1973 et 1978," Revue Francaise
de Science Politique 29 (avril 1979)1 213,
1~n~ois Goguel and Alf:red Grosser, La politique en France
(Paris I Colin, 19?5) a P• 104.
19Ib1d.
The Couunist Party is the party- of the working clasa in
France. It brings together workers, peasants, intellectual.a,
and all those who desire to act for the triuaph of the cause of
socialisa, of coaunisa.
Tbe Couunist Party has as its aoat iaportant goal_the
transforaation of capitalist society into a collectivist or
oouunist society.
The Co11J1unist Party believes that the liberation of the
French people froa the chains of exploitation d.e•nds the destruction of any fora of the dictatorship of capital and the conquest
of political power by the working class, 1n a tightly-knit
alliance with the peasantry and the enseable of the usses.20
Two interpretations, opposed to each other, bu.t not necessarily
incompatible are possibles
(1) the text veils the Party's real intentions
better than in the past, or (2) the text still contains magical words which
the Party itself no longer believes, just as the aocial-deaocmtic parties
of other cowitries have for a long tiae respectfully conserved their
Marxist terminology-.
For sure, the questions that these two interpretations
raise are asked in places other than France, notably in Portugal and Italy.
Nevertheless, what 1s specifically- Fi'ench is the dialogue between a assive
J-
but stagnant Couunist Party (it has remained around 10% of the vote) and
a socialist party still poorly structured, but potentially' aore than a
force of equilibrium for the Left.
20 Quoted in Ibid.
-35-
The Socialist Party
In the late 1960s, after the 'election de la peur', the F:rench
Socialists, the other inheritors of the protest tradition, began their
newest search for a mod.el political party.
but pragmatic.
Such a party would be socialist
It would be oriented towani industrial workers but hospit-
able to other social groups.
It would be in favor of drastic economic
changes but keep its commitment to traditional deaocratic principles.
It would subject itself to an infusion of new blood into the leadership
structure but not dispense with the counsel of old aentors who represented
continuity.
It would, finally, be equally receptive to collaboration with
other forces of the Left without being absorbed by them and losing its
uniqueness. 21
The first practical effort at the creation of such a party occurred
at a congress in Alfortville on May 4-6, 1969.
This congress was convoked
by the Comite directeur of the §!12., which had invited the party's regional
federations and other interested political formations.
There was uncertainty
whether the new party would indeed be socialist, whether it was actually
about to be established, and finally, whether the Alfortville group could
be
properly regarded as a constituent congress.
The optillistic contention
of Andre Laurens that the Socialist party was bom officially on May 6,
and that it was not merely the old SFIO wrapped in a new cloak, was lent
some substance by the fact that 1n the weeks preceding Alfortville a
number of departmental §!12. federations (such as that of Haute-de-Seine)
21 Pierre Joxe, Parti socialiste (Parisi EPI, 1973)1 p. 13.
-36-
had formally dissolved. 22 Secondly, despite the fact that moat of the
leaders of the 'vieille maison' (such as Defferre, Fuzier, Quilliot,
and Chandernagor) figured proainently in the debates, there were many
wh 1---tll.d
new faces of young persons I
t I recently joined the party.
Moreover, there
were numerous representatives of the Radical party, the £!!!_, the ~ •
several clubs, and even a few former members of the PSU.
Al together it
was a delegation claiming to represent aore than 87,000 members, as contrasted
to the old SFIO's last aembership of J0,000.
On the other hand, it could be plausibly argued that the gathering
was, with a few changes, essentially the saae old SFIO.
In the first
place, most of the CIR, as well as the UCGS and the Radicals, had at the
outset refused to participate in Alf ortville.
The Radicals still insisted
that the old Federa~ion was not quite dead and buried while the£!!!_ contested
the validity of the congress itself, arguing that a genuine constituent
body could meet only i f it consisted of delegates froa specially elected
departmental assemblies.
Secondly, the circuastances surrounding the selection of Gaston
Defferre as the new party's candidate for president of the Republic made
it seem as i f that party was little aore than the old SFIO 1n new clothes.
Defferre had announced that he wished to be a candidate.
In spite of Mollet•s
misgivings that Defferre would 11ake any future alliance with the Couunists
difficult if not iapossible, his candidacy had been approved by the
-
-
Comit:e directeur of the SFIO {without prior consultation with the FGOO or
22 Chr1stiane Hurtig, De la SFIO au nouveau parti socialiste
(Parisa Colin, 1970)1 P• 18.
-37-
the CIR). 23 Another naae that was proposed was that of Alain Savary,
a former aember of the SFIO who had quit the party in 1958 1n protest
against Mollet's decision to support de Gaulle and his regiae.
Stil~,
Mollet appeared to prefer Savary as a presidential candidate because his
outlook was reJliniscent of the genemlities embraced ao often by the old
SFIO.
Savary favored 'the restoration and the scrupulous defense of
public liberties', the building of a 'modern econoay' 1 the construction
of a 'just society,' which would overcoae the failures of capitalisa 1n
housing, educa.t ion and health1 the allocation of priorities for national
education; and the conduct of a foreign policy based upon iapartiality,
peace, and international cooperation. 24 This platfora was obviously considered ideologically acceptable socialisa, since Savary received the support
of certain old SFIO leaders, notably Fumier and Jaquet, who were against
revisionism.
Yet after considerable confusion, Deff'erre's candidacy --
which he graciously announced was utterly dependent upon the congress'
approval -- was endorsed by 2,032 out of the total J,370 votes. 25
Notwithstanding this sizeable •rgin, it could 1n no way be said
that Defferre was the best choice of the congress, that his candidacy was
conducive to the unity or electoral effectiveness of the non-Couunist
Left, or that it augured well for the new Socialist party.
The very
choice of Defferre widened the split within the non-Comaunist Left.
The
Defferrists, led by Chandernagor, Quilliot, and other old members of the
SFIO's Comite directeur, argued that a republican candidate the stature
23LeMonde, 6 May 1969, P• 1.
24 Ib1d.
251eMonde, J May 1969, P• 1.
-38-
of the mayor of Marseilles was necessary 1n order to obviate the danger
of being too closely identified with, or dependent upon, the PCF, a
party which had certainly not endeared itself to the electorate by its
position on the events 1n Czechoslovakia.
It was also argued that Defferre's
candidacy would make it easier for the non-Couunist Left to capture uny
moderate votes that aight otherwise go to Alain Poher, the acting president
of the Republic who had becoae the official candidate of the Deaocratic
Center party.
The anti-Defferrists, led .a t Alfortville by Fuzier, contended that
the new Socialist party would hara its image by opening itself too easily
to the Centers that such an opening would uke electoral collaboration with
the co-unists iapossible and would aake even a discourse with that party
difficult; and that it was absolutely necessary, 1f the Gaul.lists were
to be beaten, to have a oouon candidate for the entire Left as 1n 1965.
It was also argued that Defferre's conception of the presidency as a policymaking office was too close for coa:f'ort to that of the Gaullists.
The
anti-Defferrists and supporters of a co11J1on candidate for the Left included
Sa vary
(who, incidentally, shared Defferre 's idea of the pJ."esidency) 1 the
president ( Charles Hernu) and. aost of the other leaders of the Clli1 the
CGT and CFDT, the two most radical trade unions1 the SFIO Federation de
ti"
./
/
/
Deux-Sevresa the Federation· des grou:pes teaoignage chretiena Fran,ois
Mitterand, the leader of the now defunct .FGDS1 the UGCS1 and, of course,
the PSU.
The PCF and the PSU 1.uediately •de good their threats to noainate
their own candidates for the presidency.
The CIR, which objected both to
the premature establishaent of a new party and to the choice of Deffern
-39-
{which it had considered a fait accoapli engineered by the old establishaent
of the ~ ) held its own congress at S&int-Gratien, at which the aajor
event was a vigorous speech by Mitterrand defending his thesis of the need
for a couon candidate for the entire Left and attacking the exclusivist
activities of the congress at Alfortville.
A meeting hastily arxanged
between delegations of AlfortYille and Saint-Gratien to achieve a coapromise
(which could only ••n the withdrawal of Deffer.re's candidacy) was 1n
vain -- and all the CIR congress could do was to pass a resolution (by now
quite meaningless) expressing confidence in Mitterrand.
Thus despite Pierre Mauroy's optiaistic declaration that, as ot
May 6, "there no longer is an SFIO, an UCRG, or a £!!1," 26 there re•ined
the old tactical confusions and opportunistic behavior of the separate
formations and their leaders.
'Ibis was particularly true of the old. ~ •
Mollet (who had been relatively silent at Alfortville) now publicly
favored Defferre's candidacy, irrespective of his diaagreeMnt with the
mayor of Marseilles on his conception of .the -pre&idency.
Before Alfortville,
Mollet had refused to have any kind of entente with the Coaaunists1 now,
however, his position becaae aore •gauchisante •.
Thus Mollet indicated
that if there were to be a runoff between Poapidou and Duclos, Mollet
would advise Socialists to vote for the Couuniat. 27 This peculiar stand
by Mollet was perhaps aeant to weaken the appeal of the PCF1 to curry favor
with the Socialist party's allitant rank and file (and thus to regain his
leadership of the party )I or to undend.ne Defferre 's position.
Perhaps he
26 LeMonde, 6 May 1969, P• 1.
27Fran9ois Goguel and Alfred Grosser, La politique en France
(Parisi Colin, 1975)1 P• 108.
-40-
also needed to emphasize the new party's leftism 1n order to counterbalance Defferre's announc~aent in lllid-May- that, 1f elected president,
he would choose Mendes-France,
rather than a Socialist, as premier.
'
If
so, that tactic was surely nullified when Defferre hedged 1n answering
the question whom he would support in the case of a second-ballot contest
between Pompidou and Couunist leader Duclos.
Defferre persisted 1n his
refusal to believe that either candidate could obtain a majority.
However,
the party, being more pragmatic, indicated soaewhat preJ1aturely that 1f
Defferre failed to win on the first ballot or to get on the second ballot,
it would support Alain Poher.
Duclos immediately branded Defferre as
'Poher's water boy.• 28 The unity of the non-Couunist Left, and therefore
Defferre's potency as a candidate, were certainly not enhanced by the
fact that many federations of the old SFIO and uny local sections still
e)s
refused to ad.here to the new party. They considered Defferr-. nollina tion
null and void and hoped that a unitary candid.ate .of the entire Left
would be chosen at the last aoaent.
The first ballot of the Presidential election, on June 1, 1969,
was an absolute disaster for the Socialist party and its candidate, who
received slightly over 5 percent of the total vote and was thus effectively
eliminated from the second ballot.
Nor did the 'provisional executive
committee's' definite second-ballot endorsement of Poher help the party's
socialist image.
Pompidou's victory on June 15 was due in large measure to the
PCF's decision to abstain on the second ballot.
28LeMonde, 6 May 1969, P• 1.
It was also due to the
-41-
disorganization of the non-Couunist Left.
Charles Hernu, the leader of
the CIR, said a "If I were in Poapidou' s place, I would send a telegram to
those who had assembled at Alfortville, because it is due to thea, • • •
that he has been elected.
They had provoked the division of the Left.
They had thought that a centrist candidate would do better."29 Other,
more forward-looking leaders were ready to start anew.
While Mitterrand
announced his intention to undertake a tour of France to gather up all
Socialist groupings at grass-roots levels, the leaders of the old SFIO
and the organizers of the Alfortville congress decided to hold another,
and preswaably aore decisive, constituent congress.
That congress, held at Is~y-les-Moulineaux on July 11-13, definitely
established the organizational f:raaework of the new Socialist party (Parti
socialiste - PS).
One of the first decisions of the congress was to retain
the basic structure of the SFIO, with its National Congress, whose delegates
were chosen by constituent regional federation, its Permanent Bureau, and
its Comite" directeur.JO The congress elected a Coait~ d.irecteur of sixtyone individuals, about fifty of whoa had belonged to the~• and thirty/
three of whom were holdovers fro• the SFIO' s Coaite directeur.
Four
members came froa leftist clubs, two had been Radicals, and one had
belonged to the Q!!!.31
The position of secretary-general (now called 'first secretary•)
was retained, but it was understood that he was to be less a leader than
29LeMonde, 16 June 1969, P• 1.
JOLeMonde, 13 July 1969, P• 1.
31Dorothy Pickles, The Governaent and Politics of France, Vol. I
(London& Methuen, 1972)1 PP• 383-384.
-42-
a mouthpiece of a collective leadership reflecting the diversity of
elements within the new~•
The newly appointed first secretary, Alain
Savary, embodied that diversity.
Like so ma.ny other Socialists, he had
abandoned the SFIO in opposition to Mollet's acquiescence to the Gaullist
regime and had joined the PSU.
He subsequently led a leftist organization,
the Union des clubs pour le renouvelleaent de la gauche (UCRG), which
he brought into the newly formed PS.
There was some disagreeaent about whether Savary was 'Mollet's
man,' and about the extent to which the Mollet aura pervaded the reconstituted executive.
.By his own choice Mollet occupied no foraal position in
the national offices of the PS, but there is little doubt that he continued
/
to function as an •eainence grise. '
Furtheraore, the fact that aoat of the
CIR and Radicals had boycotted the constituent congress and had decided
against adherence to the ·PS, made it easier for that party to confora to
Mollet's preferred image of it as a socialist rather than a socialdemocratic organization.
Actually the policy preferences of the PS could be described as
either socialist or social-deaocratic, depending upon one's taste for
semantic distinctions.
In its action prograa adopted in July 1969, the
PS did not go far beyond a recapitulation of its rejection of capitalism.
It repeated the traditional Socialist deaands for a aore redistributive
economic policy, the improveaent of the condition of the worker, the
construction of public housing, the expansion of worker participation in
factory management, and an increase in the power of parli&Jlent.
In sua,
these were not so much new policies as reaffirllations of the platfora
embraced earlier by the now defunct FGDS.
-43-
There was good r-.son for the ideological open-endednesa of the
PS, for despite its (officially claiaed) aeabership of 88,000 -- to soae
extent the consequence of the adhesion of additional leftist clubs -- the
PS could not be effective 1n future elections without allies.
:But which
allies? A Left-Center alliance of course presupposed a collabo:ration of
the working class and the petite bourgeoisie.
Such collaboration was now
theoretically possible 1n view of the claia of the PS that it included,
"without making distinctions aaong beliefs or religious philosophies, all
intellectuals and workers, all city or rural people who accept the ideals
of socialisa. 32
0
Unfortunately for the PS, a Left-Center alliance was
not feasible because part of the Deaocratic Center (led by Jacques Duhaael)
was being co-opted into the governaent majority of PJ:eaident Poapidou
while the part that reaained 1n opposition (led by Jean Lecanuet, a foraer
leader of the MRP) was too weak and troubled by indecision.
There were,
however, a number of Socialists who considered an alliance with the
Radicals.
In view of the dynaaic leadership of the Radical party under
Jean-Jacques Servan-Schreiber and in view of its prograa, "Ciel et·. Terre",
some Socialists in fact wondered whether the Radicals of 19?0 were aore
revolutionary than the Socialists of 1946, and whether the Radicals, "no
longer having a choice between risk and death," would wish to seek an
alliance with the ~.33
As a practical step in building a systea of alliances with progressive non-Socialists, Andre/ Chandemagor, an anti-Couunist deputy, established
32LeMonde, 11 June 19?0, P• 1.
JJLeMonde, 13 February 19?0, P• 1,
-44-
Demoera tie socialiste, which was not another party but rather an uabrella
group made up of interested Socialists, Radicals, and Deaocratic Centrists.
At the same time, the PS accepted Mitterrand's suggestion of continued
discussions with the Couunists.
Al though the POI\ favored close cooperation
and even hoped for a coDon platform, the PS was ao:re cautious at this
stage; it was interested mainly 1n a 'dialogue' and 'couon activities 1n
certain areas. ,34 Mitterrand, however, was concemed primarily with
tactics.
In an interview he declared that while theoretical discussions
were necessary, the aasses were not auch interested in thea.35
The need for an electoral alliance with the Couunists was based on
an optimistic assessaent of the strength of the PS.
Party lead.era calculated
that the growth in aeabership and the expanded appeal of the ~ would be
enough to insure that it would not be absorbed by -the Couunists.
Further-
more, they reasoned, since the Conunists had been able to capture no aore
than 23 percent of the popular vote since the end of World war II, they
should welcome cooperation with another party.
And the fact that only the
Socialists were capable of helping the Couunists out of their political
ghetto would almost insure that the PS would ultimately eaerge as the aost
important component of a united Left,
This thesis, which had been stead-
fastly advocated by Mitterrand, dominated the discussions at the PS
congress that aet in June, 1971, at Epinay-sur-Seine,
Its acceptance by
the congress coincided with Mitter.tand's transfer of the entire£!!, an
organization which had once been noted for its antico-unisa, into the
reconstituted Socialist party.
34LeMonde, 13 January 1970, P• 1 •
.351eMonde, 27 February 1970, P• 1.
Mittermnd was elected to replace Alain Savary as the first
secretary of the party.
The choice of Mitterrand was fortunate.
He
was viewed as a person who coabined a desire for a Popular Front with
convincing credentials as a moderate who knew how to adapt himself to
changing circumstances.
It 1s of course true that 1n his political
mobility Mitterrand. was a proven vote-getter, it will be recalled that 1n
the presidential elections of 1965 he had :received 45.5 percent of the
vote against General de Gaulle.
Mitterrand's assumption of the leadership did not aean that only
one tendency would henceforth be articulated.
In fact the~ was divided
into the following broad groups, (1) the old supporters of Mollet, who
fluctuated uneasily between hard.line socialism and anti-Comaunisa and
who were interested in preserving a role for the old-ti• leaders of the
SFIO; (2) the social-deaocratic and vociferously anti-Co~unist faction
organized around Gaston Defferre and Pierre Mauroys (3) the supporters of
Savary's leftist clubs, which were f'oraerly united 1n the UCRG1 (4) the
group organized around Jean Poperen, who had for aany years devoted his en
energies to uniting the Left, and for that purpose had established the
UGCS which professed to be aore leftist than the UCRGs and (5) the supporters
of Mitterrand, who were concerned more with a successful electoral strategy
than with dogma.36
/
Another faction within the PS was the Centre d'etudes 1 de recherches
et d'education socialistes (CERE5).
Established in June 1967, it described
itself as "reforaist revolutionnaire" and favored from the veey beginning
36wr1ght and Machin, "The French Socialist Party, Success and the
Problems of Success," Political Quarterly 46 (January 1975) a 45.
-46-
a refora of econollic structures, the :reconstitution of the Socialist
party primarily on the basis of a reliance on the working class, and
the establishment of a union of all left-wing aovements (including the
PCF) supported by a couon platfora.
/
This diversity was reflected in the PS Coaite directeur a its
expanded aembership of 81 included 23 Defferrists, 13 supporters of
Mitterrand, ten who were identified with Poperen, seven adherents of
CERES, a few who were still nostalgic about Mollet•s longtiae leadership,
and a miscellany of individuals who had their own unique approaches to
Marxisa.
/
The Condte directeur continued to have a bureau, which had
been expanded to 27 11e11bers and 14 national secretaries to assist the
first secretary.
The national convention, which was to meet every two
years and to appoint the executive officers, was selected, as before,
by the department federations, with the largest federations (Nord and
Bouches-du-Rh8ne) furnishing the largest nwaber of delegates.37
This complex democratic structure put the PS at a. disadvantage visa-vis the PCF, which retained its highly centralized and disciplined organization.
In order to overcome this disadvantage and maintain internal
unity, the PS national secretaries had to participate constantly in the
deliberations of the subnational party organizations.
The first secretary
had to attempt to arrest the tendencies of factions to recruit their own
members on local levels,
activities.
CERES was particularly noted for its independent
In the early 1970s CERES aanaged to found its own regional
federations and to implant itself in factories.
Its successful recruitaent
37George A. Codding, Jr, and WUliaa Safran, Ideology and Politics,
The Socialist Party of France (Boulder, Coloradoa Westview Press, 1979)1
P• 219,
-47-
of CFDT unionists, ex-PSU elements, 'la.ic progressivef' , and even
•revolutionary Christians•38 enabled it to aore than double its representation in the Comite' directeur by 1973 and to exert conside:rable
influence on the other executive organs of the party.
Although its independent local activites went not unusual, CERES
In the eyes of any, the 'leftisa' of CERES
was considered troublesoae.
and its belief in the class struggle were not fully credible since a
significant proportion of its leaders were middle-class technocrats and
intellectuals.
While the CERES faction controlled the Paris fedemtion
of the PS, Deffer.re controlled the Marseilles (Bouches-du-Rhone) section
even more tightly.
In fact Deffer.re, with his local patronage aDd. his
/
.
grassroots eouittees (coaites d'in~rits) 1n the aunicipal districts of
}'arseilles, frequently acted like a Tauany Hall boss.39 But although
Deffer.re supported Mitterrand's leadership, CDiS continued to fight
against it.
At the PS National Congress 1n G:renoble (June 1973), the:re were
/
intensive discussions about changing the method of electing the Coaite
directeur so that CERES' influence could be reduced.
Under the existing
method, each faction had been automtically represented (by at least one
person) in the party's executive organs if it had a ainiaua of five percent
of the delegates at a party congress.
Savary proposed that the Congress
itself deteraine the coaposition of the Coai,u; directeur, but to no
avail.
At the subsequent congress 1n Pau (January 1975), Mitterrand,
38Jean-Fran~ois BizoJ, 1"on Mercader, et Patrice van &trsel, Au
rt, des socialistes I lo ee 11bre da.n s les courants d' un
nd
1
Parisi Grasset, 1975 1 P• 338.
.
39 Ibid., PP• 180-184.
-48-
whose support had increased dra•tically, responded to the challenge of
CERES.
Mitterrand juxtaposed his own aias to CERES' notions concerning
a 'revivified Marxism' as follows,
I want to build the organization of the party so that it will
end up opening itself to the working class s so that it will be
financially sounds so that it will be able at the proper tiae
to respond to ill-advised governaent measures. At the saae
tiae one must continue to build a clear theory, an original
vision of socialisa.40
Mitterrand was interested above all 1n developing the~ into an
effective electoral machine, and therefore he viewed as counterproductive
l .
CERES' insistence on remaining a distinct faction within the party.
He
succeeded in getting anti-CERB5 progra1D11&tic resolutions passed by 68
percent of the delegates. 41 At the saae time, by expanding the Comit(
directeur to 130 members, the CERl5 component was reduced to an insignificant minoritys it responded by quitting the secretariat for the next
two years.
The ideological diversity of the PS and its inherent factionaJ.i~•
is a reflection of the changed composition of party meabership.
The new
Socialist party, in eight years of existence, has been transforaed froa an
ailing regional party to the aost powerful party in France today.
Further, it is the only pa.rty that can truthfully clai.Ja .to be 'interclassis te ' • Consider the data.
40Quoted in Ibid., P• 14.
41 Francois Mitterrand, Parti socialiste (Parisi Marabuto, 1977)1
I
-49-
Age Groups,!!! The Socialist Party and in the General Population42
PS
Age of
Active Mea.
Active
Pop. (2)
7.7
6.4%
10.9
18.6%
12.6
17.2
25.5
Adult Pop.
(1)
5.7%
16-25
25-30
30-40
9.8
21.4
22.9
40-50
50-60
60-65
65 and over
16.1
12.6
11.3
19.~
17.3
12.8
7.2
18.o
23.8
21.1
17.9
23.0
15.5
6.1
3.1
14.o
Sociology of Socialist Party Followers43
Actives 76.8%
Active non-salaried&
19.3
Farmers••••••••••••••••••••••••• 8,7
Eaployers ••••••••••••••••••••••• 1.0
Artisans, T:mdesmen ••••••••••••• 7.7
Professionals••••••••••••••••••• 1.8
Active salarieda
Upper-level managers••••••••••• 12.4
Middle-level managers•••••••••• 13.2
Employees•••••••••••••••••••••• 13.3
Workers•••••••••••••••••••••••• 14.4
other workers and employees•••• 2.6
Various officials•••••••••••••• 1.1
Police, customs, army-, other ••• 0.5
Inactive 1 23.2
Retired•••••••••••••••••••••••• 16.8
Students••••••••••••••••••••••• 2.4
Without profession••••••••••••• 3.8
other•••••••••••••••••••••••••• 0.2
42 Patrick Hardouin, "Sociologie du parti socialiste," Revue Fmncaise
de Science Politique 28 (avril 1978)1 299.
4 3Ibid., P• 232.
-50-
Non-salaried in PS and 1n the Population44
%Total
Active
-
~ Population
PS
Active salaried••••••••••••••••••••• 57.5
Active non-salaried••••••••••••••••• 19,3
8,7
Farmers••••••••••••••••••••••
1.0
Employers ••••••••••••••••••••
7,7
Artisans, Tradesmen••••••••••
1.8
Professionals••••••••••••••••
78.6 (1)
20.4
9,2
1.3
8.6
0,7
(1) Including unemployed 1,8%
Eaucators45
%Total
Active
%Population
PS
3.0
Total••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 12.8
Professors•••••••••••••••••••••••••• 6.1
5.3
Teachers••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
Directors and Ass't Directors•••••••
1.3
1.2
1.8
Upper-level Management46
%Total
PS
B)lgineers ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
A4'dnistrative upper-level management••••••••••
Oiler upper-level management•••••••••••••••••••
44 Ibid,,
P• 234.
4 5Ibid.,
P• 236.
46 Ib1d,,
P• 237.
1.8
2.4
1,1
%Active
Population
1.2
2.8
0.3
-51-
Middle-level Kanagement4 7
%Total
PS
~ Active
Population
Total ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
Technicians••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
Administrative raiddle-level manage11ent •••••• , ••
Other middle-level aanageaent ••••••••••••••••••
Workers and Employees4 8
~ Total
PS
~ Active
Population
- Total
f§.
% Active
Population
Workers and employees••••••••••••••••••••••••••
Employees••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
Workers••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
Governaent Workers49
Total Government Workers•••••••••••••••••••••••
ENA••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
22.8
12,8
Other••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
1O.O
Evolution of the Socialist Electorate in France 5O
For each departaent, in percentage of votes, the progression or regression
of socialist tallies between the legislative election of 1966 (before
May 68 and the creation of the new E§_) and the last legi·s latin eleetion
4 7rbid,,
P• 238.
48Ib1d, • P• 239.
49Ibid.,
P• 240,
5oAlbert duRoy, "Qui est Socialiste en France," L'Express, 14 avril
1979, p. 78.
-.52-
in March 78. The Socialists have •de their gaine principally in the
West, the Bast and 1n the Rhone-Alps area. It has stagnated or declined
in its traditional strongholds 1n the North and the Midi.
V?. :1 ( iSe + 4.7 %
/ · '\ ne-:~ D+ 3 2 %
/' . t+'
al-
1
Yv~!ines
+ 5.B%
Jrne
9, -%
Essonne
t i2 .8 %
de - 10 et au-dela
de - 2a - 10
de +2a - 2
de+10H2
<:le + 10 et au-deia
-
.
-
----· ----- ·- - - --
·- --
Truly, the Socialist Party is a Party rich 1n internal contradictions,
-53-
ADMINISTRATION -- LE MAL FRANCAIS
"Future revolutions will doubtless be directed against the
administration and not against the political system. 111
There is little
doubt that the institution in France that today bears the brunt of attacks
coming from the entire :range of the political, economic, and social
spectrum, (said another way, universal sources of protest), is the French
administration -- the state bl11'eauc:racy that, since the early part of the
nineteenth century, has been charged with directing most of the state's
affairs.
Today, there is growing agreeaent that the excessive and
nefarious role that the bu:rea.u cracy plays 1n French life aust be curbed. 2
The scorn, criticism and vilification usually heaped on the
politicians and the political parties have been turned towards the bureaucracy, which is accused of overcentralization, of technocratic power and
arrogance, of bureaucratic high-handedness and inefficiency, of inefficient
management of the state's affairs, and of constituting a closed and a
ruling class -- all these accuaations being couon to groups that have
little else in coJDJllon.
No longer is it possible to maintain, as does
Albert Lanza., that the deund for administrative reform is a tbeae of the
1Charles Debl:asch, L'Adainistration au pouvoira fonctionnai%9s et
EQ_litiques dans la ye Republique (Paris a Colin, 1969) a P• 9.
2
Ezra N. Suleiman, ''The French Bureaucracy and its Studentaa
Toward the Desanctification of the State," World Politics 23 (October
1970) I 122.
political opposition.3
It is, today, a theae that both the governaent
and the opposition atteapt to exploit.
Even min1sters of the Fifth Republic have not hesitated to
criticize the adllinistration.
Albin Chalandon, the Minister of Equipment
and Housing 1n 1970, mde nuaerous attacks on the adainistra.tion as a
whole and on the adll1nistration of his own llinistr.r 1n particular.
4
"France is stifled," he said, "by the excessive hold of the state."
The severe criticism directed at the adainistration by Couve de Murville at
the tiae he was Prime Minister is yet another exaaple.
In a speech before
the AlUIIIli Association of the Ecole N&tionale d'Adainistn.tion, he
delivered a scathing attack on the insensitivity of the French a.dainistration and on its basically undeaocratic character.5 Gone perhaps are the
days when the leading politicians of the countl.'7 told the students of this
school that they we~, as Geneml de Gaulle called thea, ..an elite in every
6
s~h I
respect, an intellectual elite, a moral elite, " or that their • 1 11 was
"a wheel in a mechanism, the aechanisa of French Deaocxacy ...7 Far be it
from any Prime Minister or President of the Republic to praise the adllinistration today.
/
Only a few months after he entered the Elysee, Georges
Poapidou denounced before a solemn session .of the Cow: des Coaptes .-what
he called the "administmtiw labyrinths."8
3Albert Lanza, Les projets de re'tol.'l\e adainistrative en France de
1919 ~ nos jours (Parisi Colin, 1968)1 p. 160.
41eMonde, 10 January 1970, p. 1 •
5LeMonde, 9-10 February 1969, P• 1.
6 Ezra N. Suleiman, ''The French Bureaucracy and its Studentsa Tow&%'d.
the Desanctification of the State," World Politics 23 (October 1970)1 122.
?Ibid., P• 123.
8LeMonde, 26 September 1969, p. 1.
-55-
Four arguments have been advanced by Vincent Wright to support
the claim that the Fifth Republic is an 'administrative state•a9
(1)
The power of the Executive has been increased and government
has been more stable, 110:re efficient, more coherent. As a
corollary, the power of Parliaaent, the political parties
and the pressure groups has diminished. In these circuastances the civil service has greater liberty of maneuver,
being free from traditional controls.
(2)
The regime has shown a constant· interest in reform of the
administration, and has carried out a large number of :reforms.
(3)
The civil service has permeated all levels of decisionmaking, private and public.
(4)
There has been an increasing 'politicization' of the civil
service which is increasingly identified with the Gaullists.
Each point may be examined 1n turna
(1)
Increase in the Power of the Executive
One of the constantly reiterated intentions of the founders . of
the Fifth Republic was to •restore the authority of the State', an authorappo.ren fly
i ty which had r I
regime,
..,. been dangerously underained during the previous
For de Gaulle and his supporters, the •gaaes, delights and poisons'
of the system, so beloved by the intriguing and petty-minded politicians
of the despised Fourth Republic, had discredited the State 1n the eyes of
its own citizenry and had belittled the reputation of France 1n the eyes
of the rest of the world.
The true interests of Fms:ice had been surrendered
9 vincent Wright, "Politics and Adainistration Under the French
Fifth Republic," Political Studies 22 (March 1974)1 44.
to the pursuit of the divisive aias of the parties, entrenched in an
all too power£ul Parliament.
,/
/
,/
he
Le regime des partis and le regime d'Assemblee were among t
fashionable, simplistic, misleading -- and aore pleasant -- labels
attached to the Fourth Republic.
For the Gaullists, it was but 'a :regime
of weakness, incoherence, division, confusion and chaos' (Dubre). 10
Under the Fifth Republic, a nwaber of aeasures were taken to put an end to
the •crisis of authority• which had afflicted previous regimes, for
example, the army was slowly and painfully brought back under the control
of Paris, and the police were reorganized.
More iaportant, however, were
the steps taken to strengthen the executive branch of governaenta the
means employed were constitutional, extraconstitutional, or, when the
need arose, flagrantly unconstitutional.
The powers of the President of
the Republic and of the Govemment were increased, although the relationship
between the two was left constitutionally ambivalent, and the power {and
powers) of Parliament was drastically reduced.
Aaong the aore iaportant
constitutional innovations were Article 34, which severely :xestricts
parliamentary intervention in legislating, and Article 38, which enables
the government to ask Parliament by oxdonnance, for a limited period, in
areas which normally fall within the realm of law-•king•
other important
measures were outlined 1n the Constitutions governmental controls over the
budget were tightened, the financial powers of the Parliament curtailed,
the parliamentary comaissions weakened, parliamentary sessions were shortened,
the Government was given greater control of the parliamentary timetable,
10Quoted in Ibid., P• 45.
-57-
the right of Deputies to propose amendments was •de subject to governmental approval, the Govemment was accorded the right to ask for a
'blocked vote• on the whole or part of a bill and could insist that
Parliament debate the Governaent•s bill.
In short, by a whole series of
means, parliamentary· control over the Executive was seriously curtailed.
The Govemment has used, and frequently abused, all of its new constitutional rights, and the President has invented new ones by his own interpretations of the Constitution.
The combination of a relatively tight
constitutional corset, the ·existence of a disciplined parliamentary
majority, an Executive insensitive to parliaaentary feelings, and a
largely compliant Constitutional Council have led to a situation of
undoubted Executive pri•cy.
The framers of the new Constitution also sought deliberately to
put an end to the confusion des pouvoirs which cha mcterized the previous
regime, by separating the Executive from the legisla.t i ve bmnch of government.
This confusion des pouvoirs, they believed, served only to jeopardize
the unity, cohesion and discipline of France.
As delegates of their parties,
members of the Government would be reflecting the divisions of the nation.
Any constitutional arrangeaent which left the political parties 1n powerful
positions could only detract from the effective pursuit of successful and
coherent domestic and foreign policies.
As the French Executive is now much less restricted than during
the Fourth Republic, the civil service has gained scope for action, for it
is less dependent on the prevailing political situation.
The growth of effec-
tive presidential government and greater ainisterial stability also ensures
more coherence in policiesa civil servants now know that they can plan auch
-58-
further ahead.
It is also contended that much less interference in
Government legislation has probably benefited the civil servants more
than their political masters.
As Williams and Harrison note, "Civil
servants are now unworried by parliamentary questions, intrusive private
members bills or awkwanl de be. tes in an Asseably which meets less than
half a year.
Measures they draft which would have once been ignored,
mangled or rejected by the Asseably have now a better chance of passing
Parliament unscathed or of bypassing it altogether by decree". 11 Legislation concerning such varied matters as social security, currency
reform, Paris and the Paris Region, and the stabilization plan (1961)
have all been initiated and drafted within the adJlinistration without
ministerial interference.
Professor Ridley adds1 "• •• the technocrats
have played a leading role in a host of decisions which were not at the
time the subject of strong political controversy or where sectional
interests were not sufficiently aobilized.
In the long run, these decisions
may well prove to have been of greater importance than the •jor 'political'
decisions in shaping French society (econollic planning, industrial planning,
industrial expansion, :regional developaent, reforms 1n the educational
system, promotion of scientific research, etc.)."12
11 P.M. Williaas and w. Harrison, Politics and Society in de Gaulle's
Republic (Londona Long•n Co., 1971)1 p. 243.
12r.F. Ridley, "French Technocracy and Comparative Governaent,"
Political Studies 14 (February 1966)1 39.
-59-
(2)
The Preoccupation of the Regiae ~ Administrative Reform
/
At the beginning of the Fifth Republic, Michel Debre continually
emphasized that reform of the administmtion was the necessary complement
to political and constitutional reform.
Fundamental to his thought was
the need to render decision-making less 'political', a dirty word 1n the
vocabulary of the early Gaullists.
In his first speech as Pri.Jle Minister,
c
to Parliament, he insisted on the need to 'depoliticiae the vital problems•
and asserted that •the depoliticizat1on of the essential policies of the
nation is a major impemtive. , 13
The regille appeared intent on administrative reform, and proVided
itself with 'the 1nstrumen1;8 of change'.
The MinistJ,y of Administrative
Reform, established 1n 1963, was supported by older bodies such as the
/
A
A
Comite central d'enquete sur le cout et le rendeaent des 5erv1ces publics
/
and the Mission permanente de la. reforme administmtive.
New bodies were
created in the economic, regional and communal spheres, all bearing witness
to the regiae 's desire for greater adainistrative coordination,
The
DATAR, the various missions (Languedoc-Rousslllon is the best known
example), the couunaute's urbaines, the districts.
Among the reforms carried out during the Fifth Republic are the
creation of new ministries {E.quip•nt and Social Affairs in 196?), the
reorganization of the major ministries (Finance, bli.ucation, Defense, Labor,
Health) and their local field services, the appointaent of General Secre-
1Jv1ncent Wright, "Politics and Administmtion Under the French
Fifth Republic," Political Studies 22 {March 19?4)1 4?.
-60-
taries in certain Ministries {&i.ucation and Foreign Affairs, for exaaple)
a minor reform of the Conseil d'Etat {less drastic than many Gaul.lists
hoped and many members of the Consell feared), the 'harmonization' of
administrative areas, the sweeping reforms of the Paris area, the regional
reforms of 1960, 1964, and 1972, the controversial :reforms of the prefectoral ad.m.inistration, the changes in the powers, financing and methods of
electing local councils, and the repeated attempts to induce coDunal
regrouping,
(J)
The Civil Service Has Permeated All Levels of Decision-Making,
Private and Public.
The intervention of the State 1n the life of the nation has taken on
excessive proportions, the growth of the •concerted econoQ', of 'indicative
planning', the increasing hold of the State over econoaic investlll8nt, the
g,:owing influence of bodies such as the Comaissariat au Plan, the caisse des
de°pots et consignations, the DATAR, the nationalized industries and more
recently the societes d'econoaie mixte, all have involved the growing
influence of civil servants in the econoJRic life of the nation,
At the
./
national level, there are now some 500 Conseils, 1,200 coaites and 3,000
couissions, the instruments of ad.ainistrative pluralisa, which bring
together civil servants and representatives of the econollic and social
interest groups.
In spite of attempts by successive Governaents to mtion-
alize these bodies, they are actually becoaing more nwnerous.
'Pantouflage', a process by whieh top-ranking civil servants transfer
into important and lucrative posts in the private sector, ensures that
even private industry is marked by 'la pi£sence des fonctionnaires',
The
-61-
mobility of members of the 'grand.es ecolea' (particularly the Ecole
Polytechnique and the Ecole Nationale d'Adllinistration) is matched only
by the seeming omnipresence of members of the Consell d'Etat or the
ubiquity of the Inspecteurs des finances.
Nowhere are the invading tendencies of the civil servants aore
evidence than in their •colonization• of numerous key posts which lie on
the borderline of politics and administrations the General Secretariat
of the Elys,e, the cabinet of the Prime Minister and more genexally the
ministerial cabinets.
Ministerial cabinets were composed, generally, of the personal
friends and political allies of the Minister, recruited to support him 1n
the event of a conflict with the adllinistration.
During the Fourth Republic,
there was a growing tendency to choose civil servants, although party
pressures might, on occasions, put a. brake on this tendency.
Under the
Fifth Republic, the tendency has accelerateda civil servants now compose
90 percent of the membership of the cabinets.
(4)
The Increasing 'Politicization• of the Civil Service.
The presence of civil servants 1n the political institutions of the
country is certainly aore marked under the Fifth Republic than under
previous regimes.
Their colonization of the Jl.inisterial cabinets is only
one factor which worries the critics.
The civil servant's presence in a
cabinet does not necessarily mean that he is already· 'politicized', but it
does mean that he is in danger of becoming so.
The increasing 'politicization' of the adllinistration •Y be aore
clearly seen in the number of civil servants who were candidates at
general elections and who were elected. 14
Civil servants or ex-civil servants standing in general elections
(excluding members of the armed forces and the teaching profession)
Judges
Grands corps
others
Cabinets
1956
1958
1962
1967
6
5
68
1
114
94
68
6
6
109
72
8
11
48
109
5
Civil s&J:'V8llts or ex-civil servants elected Deputies
(excluding meabers of the araed forces and the teaching profession)
1956
Judges
Grands corps
others
Cabinets
3
16
16
1958
1962
2
2
31
40
11
53
12
196?
8
3
It should be noted also that the tables refer to the profession being
exercised at the time of election and do ·not include those people who had
been, at some stage in their careers, in the civil service.
At the level of local politics, too, the influence of civil servants
(especially of Paris based civil servants) is quite astonishing.
Among the
38,000 mayors of France there are aany representatives of all the grands
corps and personnel of all the Ministries.
What has struck critical opinion aost, however, is the increasing
identification of the civil service with the Gaul.lists.
The list of the
-6J-
Prime Ministers of the Fifth Republic is significant 1n this respects
Debra and Pompidou had both been aeabers of the Conseil d' Et.at, ChabanDelmas and Couve de Murville started their careers in the Inspection des
finances, while Messmer had been a colonial administrator.
Equally
revealing was de Gaulle's early choice of Ministers from outside Parliament
and from the civil service.
Just over half the Ministers of the Fifth
Republic have been ex-civil servants; in Pompidou•s first ministry, civil
servants held the key portfolios of Algerian Affairs, Justice, Foreign
Affairs, Defense, &iucation and Labor.
It was sometimes difficult to know
where the civil service started and where the government ended.
The
influence of ex-civil servants was still very marked in the Governaent
formed by Messmer in 19721 of thirty Ministers and Secretaries of State,
fifteen {and not the least) had spent part of their careers in a cabinet,
and six of these were the products of ENA.
At the parliamentary level, the identification of the civil service
with the Gaullists is also striking• in the 1962 elections, 22 of the 44
higher civil servants elected to Parliament belonged to the Gaullist party
and only six to the parties of the Left.
Of the fourteen other civil
servants elected Deputies, seven were candidates of the UNR.
In the 1967
elections, of the 53 civil servants elected, 29 belonged to the~• six
were Independent Republicans, and three belonged to the PDM (a total of 38
Gaullists and sympathizers).
Only thirteen belonged to the Federation of
the Left and none was a Couunist.
A study of the elections of 1968 and
1973 reinforce the impression already gained.15
15 vincent Wright, "Politics and Administration Under the French
Fifth Republic," Political Studies 22 (March 1974) a 49.
-64-
In conclusion, through the increased power of the executive and
the corresponding decreased power of the legislative branch, the permeation
by the bureaucracy of offices of government heretofore political 1n character, the regime's preoccupation with administrative reform, and the
increasingly blatant politicization of the bureaucracy, the Fifth Republic
has become aore efficient.
In the process, however, it has reaoved account-
ability for its actions, angering 1118.ny people.
This unwillingness to
accept an administrative state is a major factor in the regime's inability
to achieve constitutional consensus.
The next chapter will deal with the
most important way this unwillingness has been recently 11&nifested.
-65-
RESPONSE OF PROTEST -- THE COMMON PROGRAM
Despite their obvious differences with the~• virtually all
Socialists were unhappy with the existing forms of capitalism and were
committed to altering the system of economic relations by stand.am democratic methods.
tion,
However, several approaches to socialism were in conten-
A small faction {concentrated primarily within groups belonging to
the CGT and to CERES) favored a Soviet-style wholesale abolition of the
capitalist system through a comprehensive nationalization policy.
Others
(found especially within the leadership of the CFI11' and among individuals
formerly associated with the PSU) preferred the more gradualist approach
of factory self-management {autogestion).
Most Socialists were interested
only in fighting what they considered to be the overconcentration of
economic power and, beyond that, in promoting the transformation of
capitalism from within {as the Swedes had been doing rather successfully)
by a redistributive policy aimed at achieving as much equality as possible
without a drastic and sudden abolition of the capitalist system.
The PS platform, Changer la vie, 1 presented by Mitterrand and adopted
in 1972, was an attempt to combine all of these approaches.
of over 240 pages was hardly revolutionary.
This document
Mitterrand's introduction
contained the usual references to "ending the exploitation of aan by man,"
the fight against monopoly capital, and the need to Eke French society
1Parti socialiste,
er la Vie I Pr ramme de
parti socialiste (Paris a Flammarian, 1972 •
ouvemement du
-66-
more egalitarian, both in terms of income and opportunity.
The program
was remarkable for its detailed attention to ainiaWI wages, sliding
scales, the retum to the 40-hour work week, the support of farmers'
incomes, aid to shopkeepers and artisans, tax reforms, the abolition of
the death penalty, the democratization of the process and content of planning, the establishment of local democracy, the nationalization of certain
enterprises, as well as steps to be taken "in the direction of factory
self-management." There was, in ad.dition, a demand for the return to the
electoral system based on proportional representation that had been 1n
effect during the Fourth Republic.
Finally, the PS program called for the
replacement of the prefects by general council presidents as provincial
chief executives.
Since the PCF accepted most of this progma, it could fora the
basis of a joint platform with the PS.
Furthermore, the Couunists seeaed
to have come around to accepting at least iaplicitly the position of the PS,
as contained in its prograa, that "the defense of liberties is compatible
only with democratic institutions." The PCF had already given up its view
of elections as "treason"a after the 'May Events,' the 'doaestication • of
the PCF had evolved even further with the appearance of nW1erous publications
by Couunist politicians and intellectuals •postulating new approaches.
The culmination of this development was the appeaxance of the 1971 PCF
program, 2 1n which there were no references to the dictatorship of the
proletariat; which favored the achievement of socialist goals by parliamentary means; and which seemed to accept free elections, free speech, and
2Parti communiste francais, Changer de caps progrme pour un
gouvernement democratique d'union populaire (Parisa Bllition Sociales, 1972).
interparty competition.
In this program, the PCF also publicly coamitted
itself to the acceptance of the principle that, once in power, it would be
willing to step aside peacefully if it lost an election.
These developments
produced a softening of popular antagonisms toward the Couunists, and
made a Socialist rapprochement with them less risky.
And since by 1972
PS membership was already close to 100,000, the PS could finally deal with
the PCF from a position of relative strength.
On June 27,
1972, the two parties signed a Common Program) This
document, which took several months to fashion, was on the surface a compromise between the CoJIDlunist and Socialist party platforms.
Most of its 150
pages read like a typical social democratic platfora, calling for the extension of social benefits, the strengthening of trade-union rights, the
gradual elimination of parochial schools, the abolition of the death penalty,
the repeal of Article 16 of the constitution, and the return to proportional
representation.
The E.QE,'s acceptance of civil liberties -- which was to
be reaffirmed three years later at the party's twenty-second congress when
it issued a "declaration on liberties" -- was aatched by the Socialists•
acceptance of autogestion of factory workers and the nationalization of
industries.
The PS benefited directly from the first of its coapromises.
Since autogestion had been a major concern of the PSU and the CF.or, its
acceptance by the PS led these two groups to associate themselves with the
PS and support Mitterrand in subsequent parliamentary and presidential.
elections.
This developaent also led to the partial integration of the
3Partis coamuniste et socialiste, Pro ue couun de ouverneaent du
partie communiste et du parti socialiste Parisa alitions Sociales, 1972.
-68-
leadership of the CFDT into the decision-making structure of the~ and
culminated two years later in the PSU leadership and a large proportion of
its membership joining the PS.
In spite of the Co11J1on Program, the Socialists and Couunists still
disagreed on several major points.
First of all, though the
m in prin-
ciple favored the nationalization of the ver., largest, monopolistic enterprises, it could not go along with the Couunists' mo:re far-reaching
designs.
Secondly, both parties agreed on raising the ainimua wages of
the lowest paid industrial workers, but the PS preferred to narrow the
differential between the highest and lowest wages somewhat less than the
PCF.
The Socialists' more 110derate stand was to aake it easier for the Left
Radical movement (the Mouveaent des radicaui de gauche - MRG), which contained a significant petit-bourgeois element and which opposed nationalization, to join the leftist alliance. 4
There were certain other issues on which the two parties we1'e
divided.
For instance, the ~ held a generally favorable view regarding
the prospects of European integration, while the Couunists resembled the
Gaullists in harboring suspicions about the Couon Market.
On the Middle
East dispute the PS, which included many supporters of Israel, tended to
be neutral, while the Communists, again like the Gaullists, held one-sided
pro-Arab views.
As the parliaaentary elections approached, such disagree-
ments were deliberately underemphasized.
In addition the PS and~ agreed
4The MRG's joining led to an updated prograa, Prograw couun du
ouvemement~rti socialiste
rti couuniste, et mouvement des radicaux
de gauche Parisa Flamrion, 1973 •
on certain ad hoc elaborations of the CoJDJRon Prograaa specific housing units
to be built per annum, specific ainimum wages, and a lowered retireaent age
for men and women.
The Left made impressive gains 1n the parliamentary elections that
took place on March 4 and 11, 1973.
The Socialists in particular had
succeeded in appealing to centrist voters who were frustrated with Pompidou's
policy immobilism and insufficiently convinced of the reformist zeal of the
Reformateur movement, a new alliance of the Democratic Center and Radical
parties.
The PS even made inroads in a number of traditionally Ga ullist
areas, e.g., Lorraine and Westem France, where it received ei8ht percent
moxe votes than 1n the previous parliamentar.y elections.
Conversely the ~
lost votes in Southem France, where electors were fearful of the consequences of Socialist collaboration with the Couunists.
In any case the
PS together with its Left-Badical ally received 20.4 percent of the popular
vote (as compared to the Couunist share of 21.3 percent) on the first
ballot, and 25.1 percent of the second ballot votes (compared to 21.3
percent for the PCF). 5 The Socialists sent 94 deputies to parliament, and
the Left-Radical ally, nine (compared to 73 Couunists), thus nearly
doubling their representation.
It is clear that the PS benefited from the
agreement among the Common Program parties that the leftist candidate who
had the weaker first-ballot performance would withdraw in favor of the
stronger on the seond ballot.
(See table, below)
5LeMonde, 6 Ma:rch 1973, P• 1.
-70-
LE'GISLATIVE ELEarIONS MARCH 't, 1973, FIRST BA'LIJYf'
#
Communist and related•••••••••••• 5,026,417
Extreme left (PSU) •••••••••••••••
776,717
UGSD ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 4,523,399
Other Left•••••••••••••••••••••••
649,855
Union des Republioains de /
Progres et Divers Majorite ••••••• 9,00J,452
Reformers•••••••••••••••••••••••• 2,965,947
Various Right••••••••••••••••••••
660,186
21.2
3.3
19.2
2.7
J8.1
12.6
2.8
NATIONAL ASSEMBLY ELECTED
Communist•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 73
Socia1ist and MRG •••••••••••••••••••••• 103
Social Democratic Reforaers •••••••••••• J4
Centrist Union••••••••••••••••••••••••• JO
UDR • ••• •. • ••• • • •• •. • • •. • • •. • •.• • • • • • • • • • 183
RI••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 55
Non-aligned•••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 12
The leadership of Mitterrand had proved decisive.
He was duly
rewarded for his performance when he was overwhellllingly re-elected a.s first
secretary of the party at the PS congress in Grenoble (June 1973).
Mitter-
rand's leadership and the unity of the Left alliance continued to hold
when, as a consequence of Pompidou•s death on April 2, 1974, France was
plunged into a presidential campaign.
Unlike the situation 1n previous
presidential elections, there was no competition for the party's standard
bearers
Mittermnd was selected almost unanimously as the candidate of
his own party and endorsed without difficulty by the MRG and the PCF.
6Fran9ois Goguel, Alfred Grosser, La politique en France (Parisa
Colin, 1975)1 P• 260.
-71-
Mitterrand went into the election caapaign with several advantages.
The petroleum crisis that followed in the wake of' the October 1973
Mideast War had caused severe economic problems for France.
The restless-
ness of workers over the loss of' real incoae had given rise to wildcat strikes,
and Pompidou,
already 111, had appeared to be irresolute and confused about
what policies to pursue.
In addition the opponents of' the IA9f't were divided,
with the Gaullists and the centrists each putting up their own candidates,
Cha ban-Delaas and Giscard d'Estaing, respectively.
To face his opponent without difficulty on the second ballot,
Mitterrand had to make a good showing on the first ballot.
In order to
draw first-ballot votes away f'roa Giscard in particular, whoa the DeJDOcratic
Centrists and Radicals were inclined to support, Mitterrand avoided saying
too much about the prospects of' nationalization or the future of the
French co-itaent to the Western alliance 1n the event of' his victory.
Instead he emphasized the Lef't's concem for the workers and the poor.
Mitterrand reiterated the Lef't's well-known position on institutions, a
reinvigoration of parliament and a corresponding reduction of presidential
prerogatives.
At the same time, to reassure uncouitted and suspicious
voters, he promised that he (rather than the premier) would select the
cabinet -- thus endorsing the Gaullist view of presidential powers -- and
that, if elected, he would not give certain delicate portfolios to
Communists. 7
?Howard ·R. Penniman, ed., France at the Polls a The Presidential
Election of 1974 (Washington, D.C.a American Enterprise Institute, 1975)1
p.
53.
-72-
On the first ballot Mitter.rand received the largest nwaber of votes
in what was essentially a three-cornered races
he obtained 4).4 percent
against Gisca:rd's 32.8 percent and Chaban'a 14.8 percent (with the rest
of the vote divided aaong nine other candidates).
This reaul t was not quite
good enough for the Left, which had hoped to get at least 45 percent.
Mitterrand (and to a lesser extent Comaunist leader Marchais), 1n an
attempt to draw a few crucial left-wing Gaullist voters to the leftist
alliance and weaken Giscard.'s second-ballot chances, emphasized Giacard's
conservative and business-oriented political background, and even briefly
endorsed the Gaullists• exaggerated nationalista. 8 But this tactic proved
fruitless, the Gaullists overwhelaingly flocked to Giscam'a support,
with the result that Mitterrand (with 49.3 percent of the popular vote
against Giscard's 50.7 percent) once again failed to bring the Left to
power.
PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, MAY 5 and 19, 19749
First Round
F:can9ois Mitterrand.•••••••••••••••••••
Valery Giscard d'&3taing ••••••••••••••
Jacques Chal:an-Delmas •••••••••••••••••
Jean Royer••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
Arlette Iaguiller •••••••••••••••••••••
# Votes
~
10,863,402
43.J
32.9
14.6
a,2s,~e56
3,646,209
808,885
591,339
J.2
2.J
Second Round
Val(ry Giscard d •Eataing ••••••••••••••
Fran9ois Mitterrand•••••••••••••••••••
1J,082,0o6
12,737,607
8
LeMonde, 15, 16, 17 May 1974, P• 1.
9Franrois Goguel, Alfred Grosser, La politique en FD.nee (Parisi
Colin, 1975)1 PP• 260-261.
-73-
The presidency of Giscard, apart froa constituting a severe blow
to the hopes of the Left, proved to be embarrassing for another reasons
the preemption of much of the Socialists• program.
There was a consider-
able revival of the power of parliament as that body was increasingly
consulted on social and econoaic legislation,
In the spring of 1974, the
PS introduced some forty bills calling for the lowering of the voting age
to 18, the raising of the lllinillWR wage, the granting of equal pay for men
and women, the liberalization of abortion laws, and the exemption of the
aged from medical-care payments,
Such reforms, and others, were enacted
during the following three yeal.'8 not as Socialist legislation but largely
as a result of the governaent•s own bills, for which the Giscardian
deputies took aost of the credit. 10 As a result of Giscard's politics
of reformism, a number of progressive Centrists and Hadicals who might have
been drawn to the Socialists were instead being attracted to Giscam.isa,
Although certain .Radicals {such as Servan-Schreiber) would have preferred
an understanding with the Socialists, such an option was for the time
being foreclosed by the continuation of the Couon Program alliance.
Nevertheless, the Parti sooialiste continued to strengthen itself.
By 1975 the party aembership, swelled by the influx of fo:raer ~ aeabers,
foraer Deaocratic Centrists and even renegade Couunists, bad reached
11
4
10,000,
and by mid-1977, 164 ,ooo.
The federations of Bouches-du-Rhone,
A
Nord, and Pas-de-Calais accounted for about one-fourth of the total member-
10ror examples of legislative activity in the spring of 1977, see
Journal officiel, May 27 (pollution control)1 June 29 (increase in pensions)1
and July 6 (employment of young people),
11 Fran9ois Mitterrand, ed., Les socialistes (Parisa Flash-Actualite-
Marabout, 1977)1 P• 42,
-74-
ship.
A large proportion of !:Q. and~ members had over the years been
Socialist supporters; in addition the CFDT leadership was solidly in the
Socialist camp, and an increasing nWlber of CGT members switched their
loyalties from the PCF to the PS,
of assiduous recruiting,
Much of this achievement was the result
By early 1977 the PS had established some 900
sections 1n factories. 12 The party publications were now addressing them-
,,,
selves to a diversity of social sectors, they included the journal L'Unite,
which contained features on agriculture, the couunes, women, and youtha
Le Poing et la Rose,
a monthly dealing with party matters, La Nouvelle
Revue Socialiste, containing articles on ideology1 Socialisae et lmtreprise,
intended for employers and industrial unagersa and L'Universite Socialiste,
(published under the auspices of the Cercle Jean Jaures) for students.
Throughout 1977 aost public-opinion polls predicted that the Left
would dominate the Assembly by a two or three percent margin. 13 Unfortunately the unity of the left had already' begun to erode.
Disputes between
the two major parties of the leftist alliance, pri•rily over the nature of
the Common Program, had in fact occurred a short time after the pl'8sident1al elections, but were not then considered serious.
1n volume and acerbity 1n the spring of 1977,
They gained steadily
however, and continued up to
the parliamentary elections a year later.
As we have seen, the Couon Prograa had included references to
nationalization and wage equalization but had omitted both specific details
and a timetable for their implementation.
Now that a Left victory was
12Howard Machin and Vincent Wright, "The French Left Under the Fifth
Republic," Comparative Politics 10 (October 1977)1 58.
13Robert Schneider, "Le Face a Face Barre-Mitterrand," L'Express,
9-15 mai 1977, P• 104.
-75-
within reach, the PCF insisted that these policies be clearly defined.
The Common Program had named only nine firas as candidates for takeovera
but now the Communists were insisting that more than a thousand firms be
nationalized, including domestic and foreign subsidiaries.
The Socialists
were reluctantly prepared to nationalize about a hundred companies,
including the main deposit banks, as well as about a dozen industrial
giants (among them large steel and automobile firas).
The Couon Program
had proposed differential forms of nationalization, not all of them amounting to complete takeovers by the government.
Thus, full nationalization
was envisaged for some giant firms with insufficient private capital (e.g.,
the Dassault aircraft manufacturing fira) or under foreign control (e.g.,
Honeywell~Bull), while for other sectors (e.g., certain steel firms), the
government was to become memly the majority stockholder.
The CoDunists,
however, preferred outright nationalization.
The PSF and PS also disagreed on means of 1ndemnif1cationa the
Communists wished to base the amount of indemnification on the value of
shares during the three years prior to nationalization, while the Socialists
wished the sum to be determined by the fair market price.
Furtheraore,
the PCF favored the spreading of ideJDnification payments over a twentyyear period, while the PS preferred an exchange of shares with stockholders.
Another point of contention was the management of the nationalized firmsa
the PS insisted that aptitude and expertise be the chief criteria in the
selection of managers, while the PCF favored their selection by the trade
unions (hoping thereby to increase the power of CGT, still the strongest
union and still heavily controlled by Communists). 14
14Georges Mamy and Franz-Olivier Giesbert, "Les quatorze dossiers du
15 septembre," Le Nouvel Observator, 29 ao~t - 4 septembre, 1977, PP• 24-25.
-76-
The two parties also disagreed on the matter of redistribution.
The PCF favored a reduction of the existing income gap of 1110 between the
lowest and the highest decile of wage earners to a 115 ratio, while the
PS preferred a 1 s8 ration.
Both parties demanded a raise of minimum
wages, but the Socialists• figures, which represented a compromise between
the positions of the CFDT and the MRG, were somewhat lower than those of the
Communists.
Furthermore, the Communists insisted on a specific timetable
for the implementation of the Left's platform that the Socialists were
unable to accept.
A further difference of opinion revolved around the electoral system.
All three parties of the Left favored a return to proportional representation, at least for Assembly and Senate elections, as well as for elections
to the councils of larger aunicipalities.
The ~ and its ally, the MRG,
however, wished to exempt the smaller couunities from this reform for the
simple reason that these parties were in a better position than the PCF
to make alliances with centrist parties in such couunities, 15
An additional disagreement involved foreign policy.
The Couon
Program had included a demand for the phasing out of the independent
French nuclear force {force de frappe).
While the PS held fast to that
plank, the PCF now embraced the Gaullist position of favoring the maintenance of such a force -- not because the Communists had coae to believe in
its defense efficacy, but in order to demonstrate their continuing hostility
to Atlanticism,
Similarly, the PS was inclined to favor a system of direct
151,eMonde, 11 August 1977, P• 1,
-77-
popular elections to the European Economic Couunity•s parliament, while
the Coaaunists, essentially hostile to European integration, were unenthusiastic.
There were differences of opinion on other aatters as well.
The
PCF demanded a number of cabinet seats 1n the event of a Leftist victory.
While Mitterrand was not opposed to such demands, he still carefully
refrained from specifying the portfolios to be assigned to the Conunists.
However, it was generally understood that the PCF would not be given such
sensitive ainistries as interior {which controls the police), justice,
defense, or foreign affairs.
In addition the fQ!:. demanded the right to
veto any policy that might be proaoted by Mitterrand once he assumed the
premiership, but Mitterrand refused to have his hands tied.
Mitterrand was pressured by the CERm wing of his party (and by
certain elements of the CGT) to be aore forthcoming in his concessions.
{CERES did not agree with eveey Cou.unist deaand, but it was concerned with
maintaining the unity of the Left at almost any cost.)
At the same time,
the moderates 1n his own party and his allies from the Left Radicals felt
that he had already conceded too much.
Several meetings between the two parties were held to try to narrow
the gap.
The PCF's list of firms to be nationalized was reduced to 729,
and the PS's list was expanded to 227.
The PS also tried to defuse the
conflict over the nuclear strike force by suggesting that a referendum be
held on this matter after the elections.
All attempts at coaproaise failed, and at the end of Septeaber
further discussion ceased.
The PCF stepped up its campaign of vituperation
against the Socialists, who were accused of playing a centrist game and of
-78-
neglecting the interests of the :masses. 16 The~ responded 1n kind.
In an
article in LeMonde, a member of the party's bureau suggested that the
Communists had no right to berate the PS, or to speak for the French,
since the PCF represented only 20 percent of the total electorate, less
than half of the pro-Left electorate, and not even the entire working
class.
Moreover, he argued, the~ showed a disquieting conception of
multi pa rt ism and an intolerance of diversities of opinion.
Finally, he
reminded the PCF that whereas it arrived at its positions without internal
debates, the PS made its decisions on the basis of intensive discussions. 17
....
The hardened position of the PCF vis-a-vis the f§_ had auch less to
do with prograuatic considerations than with the realization that the
PS had emerged as the senior partner in the Left alliance.
Public opinion
polls throughout 1977 had shown that the Socialist party was the choice of
30 to 33 percent of the electorate, as against 20 percent for the PCF.
It is probably true that the PS's increased popularity derived from its
tactical advantagei its ability to play the role of a mediator between the
extreme Left and the progressively inclined centrists.
This was illustrated
by the fact that for at least a year the leadership of the Radical party and
the Democratic Centrists (the Centre des de°mocrates sociaux) had suggested
an alliance with the Socialists if only they would break with the Communists.
The acceptability of the~ was also illustrated by the decision of the
MRG not to compete with Socialists in over 200 constituencies 1n the
forthcoming parliamentary elections.
16L'Huaaniti, 28 September 1977, p.1
1 7LeMonde, 18 August 1977, p. 1.
-79-
There is some reason to believe that by provoking the rift with
the Socialists, the PCF hoped to exploit whatever dissatisfaction existed
with the leadership of Mitterrand,
An IFOP po1118 had shown that only 52
percent of Socialist voters were completely satisified with Mitterrand's
leadership, while 15 percent were sensitive to arguments that the Socialist
leader had been insufficiently concerned with the plight of the working
class.
While Mitterrand and the PS continued to be coJBlllitted to socialist
economic goals, they were equally committed to the continuation of parliamentary methods,
They were not entirely convinced that the~ had been
fully converted to such methods, or that it had deStalinized itself
completely. 19 On the contrary, the PCF had been heavily criticizing
Helmut Schmidt and Ja•es C&llaghan, the Socialist prime ainisters of
Germany and Britain with whoa Mitterrand maintained good relations, but
avoided criticism of the repressive regimes of Czechoslovakia and other
Eastern European countries.
The Socialists also feal.'ed that a programmatic
convergence too close to the PCF Jlight alienate many of the newly acquired
members of their party.
,Ts
The PCF for......._, part was not only worried about the Socialists•
commitment to implementing the CoJlllllon Program, but also about whether the
support of Mitterrand by the Communists would pay them sufficiently in
terms of office.
The fear that Mitterrand would cast thea off as allies
1n favor of Democratic Centrists was based on the fact that Mitterrand
181e Figaro, 24 October 1977, P• 1,
191eMonde, 5 October 1977, P• 1.
-80-
had unabashedly labelled him.self a reformist Social Democrat who "would
not hesitate to sacrifice the union of the Left" if freedom were
threatened. 20
Thexe were additional grounds for the Communists• suspicions.
A poll conducted in the autumn of 1977 had revealed that only 29 percent
of Socialist voters hoped for a postelection coalition with the PCF.
The other preferences were as follows, a Socialist-Left Radical coalition,
27 percent; a Socialist-Centrist alignment, 16 percent; and Socialist
participation in a Gaullist-Giscardian-Centrist government, 24 percent. 21
Communist suspicion was also based on the social-democratic rhetoric
emanating with increasing volubility from the Deaocratic Centrists and
Giscardians and on the network of close personal relations between Socialist
and Centrist politicians that had been built up since the days of the Fourth
Republic.
Such relationships had been particularly important on local
levels, with the result that Socialist-Couunist electoral agreements arrived
at nationally had been translated with doubtful effectiveness locally.
Nevertheless, in most of the smaller couunities, the PS had little difficulty in reaffirming its agreeaent with the PCF conceming second-ballot
withdrawals, in the foreknowledge that the Socialist candidate would
almost invariably do better on the first ballot than the Communist one.
At a congress eight years earlier, the Socialist party had specifically rejected alliances with "forces representing capitalisa," or the
20
Jean-Franqois BizoJ, Len Mercadet, and Patrick van ~rsel, Au
rti des Socialists, lo ee libre dans lea courants d'un mnd rti,
Paris a Grasset, 1975 1 p.
•
21 soFRES poll cited in I.a__ Nouvel Observateur, 16 January 1975,
PP•
32-JJ.
-81-
quest for "centrist combinations". 22
Nevertheless, 1n practice such
alliances were never foreclosed at the local level.
As Defferre put it,
"there is no Common Program for municipalities."23 On this matter Defferre
reflected the attitude of the national leadership_-.:of the PS.
In 1973 -- a
year after the signing of the Common Program -- Couunist leader Marchais
had critically noted the continued tendency of Socialists to cooperate with
centrists locally.
/
Claude Estier, a member of the Comite directeur, had
responded with the assertion that "the ambition of the Socialist party to
develop its audience ••• xis not incompatible with its will to the unity
of the Left. 1124 The misunderstandings between Socialists and Communists
engendered by such an attitude soaetimes had interesting consequences.
At
Heims, for instance, where the Left had gained control of the city council
1n March 1977, Socialist councilmen refused to vote for the budget subaitted
by the Communist mayor, charging that he had been using his office to favor
his Communist comrades over Socialists 1n the distribution of local offices.
Nevertheless, during the parliamentary election caapaign, Mitterrand
remained publicly committed to his party's electoral (i.e., second-ballot
withdrawal) agreement with the PCF.
Marchais however refused to 111ake such
a commitment until after the first ballot.
The results of the first round of the parliamentary elections, which
took place on March 12, 1978, were a severe disappointment for the entire
Left.
P• 267
Together its three parties gamered only 45.3 percent of the
22 Jean Poperen, L'Unite de la gauche, 1965-73 (Parisi Fayard, 1975)1
23LeMonde, 28 October 1975, P• 1.
24LeMonde, 29 May 1973, P• 1.
-82-
popular vote, as against 46.5 percent for the Gaullist and the Giscardian
electoral alliance, the Union pour la D6mocratie Francaise (UDF).
The
outcome of the second ballot a week later was even less encouraginga the
Left received 49,3 percent of the vote against 50.7 percent for the majority
parties,
The result in terms of the allocation of parliamentary seats was
worse stills
200 for the Left to 287 for the Majority.
FIRST BALLOT LEGISLATIVE ELEaI'IONS MARCH 12. 25
Parties supporting Common Programme
Votes
Percentage
Socialists••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
Communists••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
Left Radicals •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
6,451,151
22.6
5,870,402
20.6
603,~~2
5
45.3
TOTAL
12,925,
2.1
Majority Parties
6,462,462
6,128,849
others ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
684,9~
TOTAL
13,276,2
RPR •••• • •••• , • • •, • •,, • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
UDF • , •••••••••••••• •. • •••••• • •• , ••• , ••••••• ,
22.6
21.5
2,4
~
Composition
RPR ••••••••••••••••• • •• 1 • • 1 143
UDF • , • , ••••••• , , • •••• •. •.,, 108
Socialists ••••••••••••••••• 102
Communists••••••••••••••••• 86
It is not clear why the PS and. its Left-Radical ally gained only
nine seats compared to the PCF's twelve,
It is possible that the PCF
sabotaged the success of Socialist candidates 1n some constitutencies by
25"National Assembly Elections," Keesing's Contemporary Archives,
24 November 1978, P• 29322.
-83-
'sitting out' the second ballots it is equally possible that centrist
voters, whose support lllight have gone to the Socialists, punished them for
having made an alliance with the Communists.
Still, the PS emerged with
104 parliamentary seats, 18 more than the CoDunists, and could look
forward with certainty to the support of the ten Left-Radical deputies.
Moreover, the elections confirmed that, with 28 percent of the total second.ballot vote, the Socialist party had become the most popular party in
France.
Perhaps the PS might have done better had its disagreements with
the PCF been resolved at the last moment; perhaps it was p::cecisely these
disagreements that swelled the vote for the PS because many voters had
become convinced of the party's colllDlitment to a policy of responsibility
and moderation.
As of mid-1978, the iaplications of the elections for the political
future of Mitterrand were still not clear.
According to a poll conducted
immediately after the elections, the blaae for the Left's defeat was attributed largely to CoJRllunist leader Marchaiss yet the continuation of
Mitterrand's leadership and the direction of the E§. may re•in in doubt for
some time.
-84-
APPENDIX
THE COMMON PROGRAM26
"The Miniawa Threshold"
"From the beginning of the legislative session," it reads 1n the
Couon Program, "a minimum threshold of nationalization will be realized."
In the bank and financial sector, the PS and PCF are concerned with
the total sector, that is to says
-tf'!'he total of business banks, and deposit banks.
-tf'!'he financial establishments who sell credit, mortgages, and
credit-leasing.
ifThe large private insurance companies, except the mutual ones.
In industry, the ainimum threshold of the public sector's extension
into the private domain will be achieved in the following sectorsa
ifTotally nationalized• widerground resources, arms, aerospace and
aeronautical industries, electronic and computer industries, cheaical
industries.
groups,
The Government will proceed in the na.t ionaliza tion of the following
*Dassault, Toussel-Uclaf, Rhone-Poulenc, ITT-France, Thomson-Brandt,
Honeywell-Bull, Pechiney Ugine Kuhl•nn, Saint-Gobain-Pont-a-Mousson,
Compagnie generale d'electricite.
The Govemment will take a major portion of the shares of the followings
*In steel and oil (Usinor, Vallourec, Wendel-Sidelor, Schneider,
Compagnie francaise des petroles-CFR-Total).
*In air and maritime transportation, the treatment and distribution
of water, the financing of telecommunications, superhighway concession stands.
Number of employees 1n nationalized fimsa 650,000 (8% of labor force).
26APPENDIX.
avril 1977, P• 82.
"Programme couuna le seuil 11ini11wa," Li Point, 25
-85-
CONCLUSION
This paper has dealt with issues which at first glance •Y seea
only tenuously related to one another.
Chapter I dealt with both the
potential of a President-Parliaaent confrontation and the shift 1n power
away from the Assembly towaX'ds the President.
Chapter II dealt with the
tradition of protest present in France's past and current regiaes.
Chapter III was concerned with the possessors of this protest traditions
a rigidly organized but electorally stagnant PCF and a rapidly growing
but highly diffuse PS.
Chapter IV showed how the regime established a
streamlined, more efficient, but less accountable and thus intolexa.ble
blq"ea\,lcracy.
The last chapter cfealt with the Left -- again, the inheritors
of this tradition of protest -- and its attempt to deal with the bureauera tic regime •
Yet there exists a couon thread in all these chapters.
In each
chapter, the lack of constitutional consensus rears its head.
To better
illustrate how, it is only necessary to ask what the result would be if
the Fifth Republic had constitutional consensus.
If the paralysis were
gone from the French political world, would one fret so often at the flaws
1n the Constitution?
Would there be a tradition of protest as described
in this pa.per? Would the Leftist parties' structures and platform be the
same? Would there be the shift to and the problems 1n a state which is even
by weste:m standards extremely technocratic? Finally would there have been
-86-
a Common Program? Clearly politics in France without constitutional
paraly·s is would be unrecognizable.
France still lacks constitutional consensus.
The antibiotics of the
Fifth Republic, in whatever form, ha.ve been ineffective against the old
virus of constitutional paralysis.
-87-
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Fauvet, Christian, et Schneider, Robert. "Barre,
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Un Vote de Sursia."
"12-19 Mars, les Signes Avant-Coureurs." L'Express,
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Fauvet, Christian.
Frasure, Robert c., and Falcone, David J. "The Attitudes of ~nch
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(April 1974)1 15-20.
''The French National Assembly Elections of March 1978,"
Government and Opposition 13 (Summer 1978)1 323-.340. ~
Frears, J. R.
Gallo, Max.
La
"Vingt Ans de ye Republique," L'Express, 8-14 •11978, PP• 38-49.
Gauche Peut-Elle Encore Ga&ner?" L' Expxess, 13-19 mars 1978, PP• 38-42.
Giesbert, Franz-Olivier. ''IA,s Contestataires de Mitterrand." Le Nouvel
Observateur, du 25 avril au 1 mai 1977, P• 45.
Giesbert, F:t'anz-Olivier. "Un Marchais Euro~ene." Is Nouvel Observateur~
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Giesbert, Franz-Olivier. "Ia Toilette du 'Progxalllt8 Comaun'." Is Nouvel
Observateur, du 18 au 24 avrll 1977, PP• 44-45,
/
n.£.
/
'
Grumbach, Philippe. "Le President
de la nepublique
Repond
a L' Express."
L'~ress, 9-15 mai 1977, PP• 94-100.
Hardouin, Patrick. "Les Characteristiques Sociologiques du Parti
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Hayward, Jack, and Wright, Vincent. "Les Deux France and the French
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(SUlDiller 1974) 1 208-235.
Hayward, Jack, and Wright, Vincent. "Presidential Sup:re•cy and the
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Inglehart, Ronald, and Hochstein, Avram. "Alignment and Dealignment of
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-90-
Jackson, Robert J.; Atkinson, Michael; and Hart, Kenneth D. "Constitutional
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Jaffre, Jer<>me, et Parodi, Jean-Luc. "Le Pous6'e et le R'flux de la Gauche
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Kesselman, March J., "Changes in the French Party System."
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Iabro, Michel, et Roure, Jacques. "PCs
.
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Lieber, Nancy I. "Ideology and Tactics of the French Socialist Party."
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Machin, Howard, and Wright, Vincent. "The French Left Under the Fifth
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Macridis, Roy. ''The French CP's Many Faces." Probleas of Couunism 25
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Macrid.1s, Roy a. "Oppositions in F1'ance1 An Interpretation." Governaent
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Michelat, Guy, and Siraon, Michel. "Religion, Class, and Politics."
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Michelat, Buy. "Vote des Groupes Socio-Professionnels et Variables
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11
a
Mitterrand L' Express 1 'On Ga.gnera Quand Meme • ' "
janvier 1978, PP• 26-32.
Molho, Daniel.
"Ceress Le PS Boite
L' Express, 16-22
a Gauche." Le Point, 16 mai 77, P• 76.
"National Assembly Elections." Keesing's Contemporary Archives, November
24, 1978, PP• 29317-29327.
Nelkin, Dorothy, and Dollak, Michael. "Political Parties and the Nuclear
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(January 1980) 1 127-140.
/.
Roure, Jacques. "PCF. Les L1Jlits du Debe.t." L'Express, 10-16 avril
1978, pp. 40-41.
du Roy, Albert. "La Gauche en Tete." L'Express, 20-26 fevrier 1978,
PP• 30-31.
-91-
du Roy, Albert. "La Majori~ Battue?" L'Express, 23-29 janvier 1978,
PP• JO-JJ.
du Roy, Albert. "Mitterrand.-Marchais1 Les Mots et lea Choses."
L'Express, 6-12 fe,rier 1978, p. JO.
du Roy, Albert. "Qui est Socialiste en Fl.'ance." L'Express, 14 av:ril 19?9,
PP• 75-78.
Roy, Maurice. "Les Comptes Fantastiques du PC." Le Point, 16 ma.1
PP• 74-75,
'
77,
.
Schneider, Robert. "Le Face a Face Barre-Mitterrand." L'Express, 9-15
mai 1977, PP• 104-1o6.
Schneider, Robert.
PP• . J4-J6.
"Giscard Maitre du Jeu." L'Express, 20-26 mars 1978,
Schneider, Robert. "La Machine Sooia1iste," L'Express, 27 febrier au 5
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Schneider, Robert. "PC-PS1 La Querelle des Portfeuilles." L'Express,
6-12 febrier 1978, PP• 28-JO.
Schneider, Robert. "A Quoi Joue Les Couunistes?" L'Express, 16-22 mai
1977, PP• 92-93,
Schneider, Robert; Brossolette, Sylvie-Pierre, et Fauvet, Christian.
"Gisoard I L • Engageaent de Verdun. " L' Express, JO janvier a.u 5
febrier 1978, PP• JJ-35,
Schneider, Robert, et Rouretl Jacques. "Que Feront Les Co•unutes?"
L'Express, 20-26 feirier 1978, PP• JJ-34.
Serfati, Simon. ''The Fifth Republic Under Giscard d'Eatainga Steadfast
or Changing?" The World Todg J2 (March 76) a 95-103,
Simmons, Harvey G. ''The French Socialist Opposition in 1969," Governaent
and 9PEosition 4 (sWUler 1969)1 2~-307.
Suffert, Georges. ''Deux Hommes Charges de Chaines," Le Point, 16 mai
1977, PP• 72-73,
Tiersky, Ronald. ''French CoDunism in 1976." Problems of Communism 25
(January-Februazy 1976) a 20-47.
Tiersky, Ronald. "The French Communist Pa~y and Detente." Journal of
Intemational Affairs 28 (1974)1 188-205,
\
Willot, Didier. "Programme Commun1 L' Etat Pesera Lou.rd." Le Point,
25 avril 77, PP• 86-87.
-92-
Wright, Vincent. "Politics and Administration Under the French Fifth
Republic" Political Studies 22 (March 1974) a 44-65,
Wright and Machin, "The French Socialist Party1 Success and the Problems
of Success," Political Quarterly 46 (January 1975)1 J6-52,
Miscellaneous Items
L'HU11anit~, May •68 to May '78.
LeMonde, May • 68 to May ' 78.
Notes from Middlebury College, summer 1979, La Societ~ Contemporaine.
