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I" 

sO 


II 


03799 


Crisis  and  Compromise 


By  Philip  Williams 
Politics  in  Post-War  France 

By  Philip  Williams  and  M.  Harrison 
De  Gaulle's  Republic 


CRISIS    AND 
COM  PROMISE 

Politics  in  the  Fourth  Republic 

by 
PHILIP    M.    WILLIAMS 


LONGM ANS 


LONGMANS,   GREEN  AND   CO  LTD 

48  Grosvenor  Street,  London  W.I 

Associated  companies,  branches  and  representatives 

throughout  the  world 

©  Philip  M.  Williams  1958  and  1964 

First  published  1954  under  the  title 
Politics  in  Post- War  France 

Second  edition  1958 

Third  edition  1964  under  the  title 
Crisis  and  Compromise 

Printed  in  Great  Britain  by 
Western  Printing  Services  Ltd,  Bristol 


PREFACE 

This  book  has  a  large  but  limited  theme :  the  political  machinery  of  the  Fourth 
Republic  and  the  combinations  of  men  who  operated  or  obstructed  it.  It 
describes  each  of  the  principal  parties  and  political  institutions  of  the  regime, 
and  analyses  its  working  as  a  system.  But  it  does  not  attempt  to  recount  the 
history  of  the  period,  or  to  discuss  problems  of  policy  except  where  this  is 
necessary  to  explain  their  impact  on  institutions  or  parties.  As  it  stops  in 
1958,  the  old  title,  Politics  in  Post-War  France,  is  no  longer  appropriate. 

To  deal  with  the  sweeping  changes  of  the  Fourth  Republic's  last  five  years, 
the  book  has  been  entirely  recast.  Of  the  thirty-one  chapters  eleven  are  quite 
new,  and  all  but  three  of  the  rest  have  been  completely  rewritten.  For  when 
the  first  edition  was  completed  ten  years  ago,  France  was  at  war  in  Indo- 
China  and  at  peace  in  Algeria.  Tunisia,  Morocco,  Madagascar  and  much  of 
Western  and  Equatorial  Africa  were  still  ruled  from  Paris.  The  future  of 
western  European  union  seemed  to  depend  on  the  fate  of  the  European 
Defence  Community,  and  most  Frenchmen  bitterly  regretted  Britain's 
absence  from  that  project.  At  home,  industrial  production  lagged  at  the  1929 
level :  the  French  economic  miracle  lay  ahead.  With  Gaullism  in  ruins  and 
Poujadism  not  yet  born,  the  political  system  seemed  secure.  Neither  Pierre 
Mendes-France  nor  Guy  Mollet  had  attained  the  premiership.  The  Algerian 
war  had  not  begun  its  stealthy  encroachment  on  the  freedom  of  minorities : 
opposition  newspapers  were  not  yet  confiscated  by  the  government,  meetings 
were  not  broken  up,  internment  camps  for  suspected  terrorists  had  not  been 
established,  and  though  the  officer  corps  might  grumble  at  its  political  masters 
it  did  not  dream  of  challenging  their  authority. 

Some  old  material  has  been  omitted  to  make  room  for  the  new  develop- 
ments, and  in  some  respects  I  have  changed  my  mind.  In  1953 1  seriously  over- 
estimated the  stability  of  a  regime  which  had  yet  to  face  a  political  and 
emotional  challenge  as  grave  as  the  Irish  question  in  Britain,  or  the  problem 
of  the  South  in  the  United  States.  It  may  be  that  different  governmental 
actions  and  policies  could  have  saved  the  Fourth  Republic,  and  an  attentive 
reader  of  both  editions  would  find  my  views  on  some  leaders,  groups  and 
practices  more  severe  than  they  used  to  be.  But  I  am  inclined  to  doubt 
whether  France  could  have  accomplished  her  disengagement  from  North 
Africa  without  the  sacrifice  of  at  least  one  Republic  at  home  (in  the  end  it 
very  nearly  cost  her  two).  General  de  Gaulle,  who  had  the  immense  advantage 
of  coming  to  power  as  the  nation's  last  resort,  used  it  skilfully  to  settle  a 
problem  before  which  his  predecessors  had  been  impotent  -  yet,  with  far 
greater  prestige  and  a  far  freer  hand  than  they,  he  often  had  to  employ 
similar  expedients.  The  frequency  with  which  undesirable  practices  of  the 
old  regime  were  taken  over  by  the  new  shows  that  they  often  arose  from  the 
difficulties  of  the  situation  as  well  as  weaknesses  of  the  leaders'  characters  or 
faults  in  the  constitution.  In  pointing  this  out  from  time  to  time  I  do  not 
necessarily  condemn  the  Fifth  Republic,  which  has  had  even  more  difficult 
situations  to  confront. 


PREFACE 


To  keep  this  work  within  manageable  dimensions,  many  important  and 
interesting  subjects  have  had  to  be  omitted.  Administration,  justice  and 
'France  overseas'  fall  within  its  scope  only  where  they  impinged  on  domestic 
politics.  The  social  and  philosophical  background  is  not  treated;  revealing 
episodes  such  as  the  worker-priest  movement,  or  the  protest  against  the 
Rosenberg  executions,  find  no  place;  and  even  the  influence  of  press  and 
army,  trade  unions  and  universities  is  touched  on  only  briefly.  In  my  approach, 
though  I  have  tried  to  appreciate  all  points  of  view  about  French  affairs,  I 
have  found  it  neither  possible  nor  desirable  to  avoid  acquiring  preferences 
and  prejudices.  While  the  British  academic  tradition  in  writing  about  politics 
is  one  of  complete  detachment,  the  French  (even  in  their  state-controlled 
universities)  are  less  concerned  to  avoid  the  appearance  of  taking  sides.  There 
is  much  to  be  said  for  both  approaches;  there  is  nothing  to  be  said  for  pro- 
fessing one  and  practising  the  other.  Bias  is  dangerous  only  when  it  is  con- 
cealed -  or  unconscious.  The  reader  is  therefore  entitled  to  know  my  political 
standpoint,  which  is  that  of  the  moderate  wing  of  the  Labour  party. 

The  title,  part  of  Chapter  8  and  much  of  Chapter  29  are  adapted  from  an 
article  of  mine  which  appeared  in  the  Political  Science  Quarterly  in  1957.  1  am 
grateful  to  the  publishers  for  permission  to  use  this  material. 

My  principal  debt  of  gratitude  is  to  the  Warden  and  Fellows  of  Nuflield 
College,  Oxford,  for  making  it  possible  for  this  book  to  be  written  and  later 
rewritten,  and  for  much  stimulus  and  encouragement  in  the  process.  I  am 
grateful  for  valuable  advice  and  comment  to  Saul  Rose  and  Francis  de  Tarr, 
who  read  Chapter  7  and  Chapter  9;  to  those  who  read  all  or  large  parts 
of  the  manuscript:  Malcolm  Anderson,  Ian  Campbell,  Bernard  Donoughue, 
Francois  Goguel,  Martin  Harrison,  Serge  Hurtig,  David  Shapiro  and  Nicholas 
Wahl;  and  especially  to  David  Goldey  and  Anthony  King,  who  read  the 
proofs  as  well.  Jean  Brotherhood  was  not  merely  a  paragon  among  secretaries 
(not  least  in  patience)  but  helped  invaluably  with  the  index.  It  is  impossible 
to  name  all,  and  would  be  invidious  to  mention  only  a  few  of  the  academic, 
political,  official  and  journalistic  friends  in  France  without  whom  this  book 
would  never  have  been  written  ;  but  I  must  particularly  thank  Jean  Touchard 
and  his  colleagues  of  the  Fondation  nationale  des  sciences  politiques  for  their 
help  and  friendship  over  many  years.  None  of  these,  of  course,  has  any 
responsibility  for  the  views  I  have  expressed  or  the  errors  I  have  committed. 


CONTENTS 

PREFACE  V 

ABBREVIATIONS  ix 

PRINCIPAL  DATES  xii 

,  PART  I  THE  BACKGROUND 

1.  The  Basis  of  French  Politics  2 

2.  The  War  and  its  Aftermath,  1936-1947  1 7 

3.  The  Search  for  a  Majority,  1947-1953  31 

4.  Revolts  against  the*  System',  1954-1958  44 

PART  II  THE  PARTIES 

5.  Political  Communication  and  Party  Structure  60 

6.  The  Communist  Party  71 

7.  The  Socialist  Party  88 

8.  The  Christian  Democrats  (MRP)  103 

9.  The  Radical  Party  115 

10.  TheGaullists  132 

11.  The  Conservative  Groups  148 

12.  The  Extreme  Right  160 

13.  The  Minor  Parties  170 

PART  III  THE  INSTITUTIONS 

14.  The  Constitutional  Problem  184 

15.  The  President  and  the  Cabinet  195 

16.  The  National  Assembly:  (1)  Machinery  and  Methods  208 

17.  The  National  Assembly:  (2)  Government  and  Parliament  222 

18.  The  National  Assembly:  (3)  The  Committee  Structure  242 

19.  The  National  Assembly:  (4)  Legislation  and  Finance  257 

20.  The  Council  of  the  Republic  276 

21 .  Subordinate  Institutions  and  Constitutional  Amendment  292 

22.  The  Electoral  System  307 

PART  IV  THE  SYSTEM 

23.  Voters  and  Members  322 

24.  Politics  and  the  State  Machine  336 

25.  Interests  and  Causes  352 

26.  Pressure  Politics  369 

27.  Parties  and  Coalitions :  (1)  The  Battle  of  the  Monoliths  386 

28.  Parties  and  Coalitions :  (2)  The  War  of  Manoeuvre  396 

29.  Parties  and  Coalitions :  (3)  Crisis  as  an  Institution  413 

30.  The  Men  and  the  System  428 

31.  Society  and  the  State  444 


CONTENTS 
MAPS 

1.  Income  per  head,  1951  456 

2.  The  Left  in  the  Third  Republic  456 

3.  Agriculture  and  poverty,  1954  456 

4.  Population  increase,  1946-54  456 

5.  Catholic  areas  45~ 

6.  The  Right  in  the  Third  Republic  457 

7.  Electoral  turnout,  1946-1951-1956  457 

8.  Electoral  evolution,  1946-56  457 

9.  Communists,  1946-1951-1956  458 

10.  Socialists,  1946-1951-1956  458 

11.  Radicals,  1946-1951-1956  458 

12.  RPF  1951  and  Poujadists  1956  458 

13.  MRP,  1946-1951-1956  459 

14.  Conservatives,  1946-1951-1956  459 

15.  Electoral  alliances,  1951  459 

16.  Absolute  majorities,  1951  and  1956  459 

17.  Referendum  21-10-1945:  Oui  a  de  Gaulle  460 

18.  Referendum  13-10-1946:  Constitution  of  the  Fourth  Republic  460 

19.  Referendum  28-9-1958:  Oui  a  de  Gaulle  460 

20.  The  traditional  Right  1936-1956  460 

21.  Distribution  of  industry,  1954  (with  names  of  departments)  461 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Bibliographical  Note  463 

List  of  Books  465 

List  of  Articles  470 

APPENDICES 

I.   CONSTITUTION  OF  THE  FOURTH  REPUBLIC  478 

(including  amendments  1954) 

II.   THE  MINISTRIES  494 

III.   THE  MINISTERS  496 

iv.  a.  THE  OPPOSITION:  Votes  in  the  Assembly,  1945-1954  498 
b.  OPPOSITION  AND  GOVERNMENT:  Votes  in  the  Assembly,  1955-1958     500 
v.  THE  VERDICT  OF  THE  ELECTORATE:  Referendums  and  elections 

1945-1958  502 

VI.  THE  WORKING  OF  THE  ELECTORAL  SYSTEM  504 

VII.  COMPOSITION  AND  OUTLOOK  OF  THE  PARTIES  509 


DIAGRAMS 

1.  Party  alignments,  1945-1946  21 

2.  Duration  and  composition  of  Governments,  1944-1958  33 

3.  Party  alignments,  1947-1954  43 

4.  Party  ah'gnments,  1955-1958  52 


INDEX  511 


ABBREVIATIONS 


I.  French  Parties 

(*with  a  separate  group  in  the  National  Assembly;  III  -  Third  Republic  only; 

V  -  Fifth  Republic  only.) 

Action  republicaine  et  sociale 

Centre  national  des  independants  (et  paysans) 

Independants  d'outre-mer 

Jeune  Republique 

Mouvement  pour  la  liberation  du  peuple 

Mouvement  republicam  populaire 

Mouvement  du  triomphe  des  libertes  democratiques  (Algerian) 

Parti  democrate  populaire  (III) 

Parti  populaire  francais  (III) 

Parti  du  regroupement  africain 

Parti  republicain  de  la  Liberte 

Parti  socialiste  autonome  (V) 

Parti  social  francais  (III) 

Parti  socialiste  unifie  (V) 

Rassemblement  democratique  africain 

Rassemblement  des  Gauches  republicaines 

Rassemblement  des  groupes  republicains  et  independants  francais 

(1951  and  1956  elections) 
Rassemblement  national  (1956  election) 
Rassemblement  du  peuple  francais  (Gaullists) 
Republicains  spciaux  (Gaullists) 
Section  frangaise  de  1'Internationale  ouvriere  (official  title  of  the 

Socialist  party) 

Union  democratique  des  independants 
Union  democratique  du  Manifesto  algefien 
Union  democratique  et  socialiste  de  la  Resistance 
Union  democratique  du  travail  (V) 
Union  des  forces  democratiques  (V) 
Union  et  fraternite  franchise  (Poujadist  deputies) 
Union  de  la  Gauche  socialiste 
Union  des  nationaux  et  des  independants  republicains   (1951 

election) 
Union  pour  la  nouvelle  Republique  (V) 


*ARS 

*CNI,  CNIP 
*IOM 

JR 

MLP 
*MRP 
*MTLD 

PDP 

PPF 
*PRA 
*PRL 

PSA 

PSF 

PSU 
*RDA 
*RGR 

RGRIF 

RN 
*RPF 
*RS 
*SFIO 

*UDI 

*UDMA 

*UDSR 

UDT 

UFD 
*UFF 

UGS 

UNIR 

*UNR 


II.  Other  Organizations 

ACJF  Association  catholique  de  la  jeunesse  francaise 

APEL  Association  des  parents  des  eleves  de  Tenseignement  libre 

APLE  Association  parlementaire  pour  la  liberte  de  Tenseignement 

CFTC  Confederation  francaise  des  trayailleurs  Chretiens 

CGA  Confederation  generale  de  1'agriculture 

CGC  Confederation  generale  des  cadres 

CGSI  Confederation  generale  des  syndicats  independants 

CGT  Confederation  generale  du  travail 

CGT-FO  Confederation  generale  du  travail  -  Force  ouvriere 

CGPME  Confederation  generale  des  petites  et  moyennes  entreprises 

CGV  Confederation  generale  des  viticulteurs 

CNPF  Conseil  national  du  patronat  frangais 

DST  Direction  de  la  surveillance  du  territoire 

EDC  European  Defence  Community 

EN  A  ficole  nationale  d'administration 


X  ABBREVIATIONS 

II.  Other  Organizations  (continued) 

FLN  Front  de  Liberation  nationale  (Algerian) 

FNSEA  Federation  nationale  des  syndicats  d'exploitants  agricoles 

FO  Force  ouvriere 

I G  A  M  E  Inspecteurs-generaux  de  1'administration  en  mission  extraordinaire 

('super-prefects') 

INSEE  (see  Publications) 

JAC  Jeunesse  agricole  chretienne 

JOC  Jeunesse  ouvriere  chretienne 

NATO  North  Atlantic  Treaty  Organization 

OAS  Organisation  de  Parmee  secrete  (V) 

PME  Petites  et  moyennes  entreprises 

SDECE  Section  de  documentation  exterieure  et  de  contre-espionnage 

SEATO  South-East  Asia  Treaty  Organization 

UDCA  Union  de  defense  des  commercants  et  des  artisans  (Poujadists) 

III.  Publications 

AN,  Doc.  no Documents  published  by  the  National  Assembly 

AP  UAnnee  politique,  published  annually  from  1944-45  by  Editions 

du  grand  siecle,  from  1957  by  Presses  universitaires  francaises 

APSR  American  Political  Science  Review 

BC  Bulletin  des  Commissions  (published  by  the  National  Assembly) 

BCE  Bulletin  du  Conseil  economique 

INSEE  Institut  national  de  statistiques  et  d'etudes  economiques 

JO  Journal  Officiel  de  la  Republiquefrancaise.  Unless  otherwise  stated 

the  series  referred  to  is  that  of  Debats  parlementaires  either  of 
the  Constituent  or  of  the  National  Assembly  according  to  the 
date.  The  date  shown  is  that  of  the  debate,  not  that  of  publica- 
tion. 

JO(ACE)  Journal  Officiel ...  Avis  et  rapports  du  Conseil  economique. 

JO(A  UF)  Journal  Officiel . . .  Debats  de  VAssemblee  de  /'  Union  francaise 

JO(CR)  Journal  Officiel . . .  Ddbats  parlementaires,  Conseil  de  la  R&publique 

JP  Journal  of  Politics 

P.  Adm.  Public  Administration 

P.  Aff.  Parliamentary  Affairs 

PS  Political  Studies 

RDP  Revue  du  droit  public  et  de  la  science  politique 

RFSP  Revue  francaise  de  science  politique 

RPP  Revue  politique  et  parlementaire 

SCC  i  Seances  de  la  commission  de  la  constitution,  comptes  rendus 

analytiques  (First  Constituent  Assembly) 

SCC  n  Seances  . . .,  etc.  (Second  Constituent  Assembly) 

TM  Temps  modernes 

WPQ  Western  Political  Quarterly 


PRINCIPAL  DATES 

GOVERNMENT  DOMESTIC 

'44  June  De  Gaulle:  Bidault,  Foreign  Aug.  Paris  liberated  ~~~ 

^ Oct.   Resistance  militia  dissolved 

'45 

Apr.  Mendes-F.  resigns 
Oct.  referendum ;  election ;  3  big  parties 

'46  Jan.    Gouin,  Soc. :  Tripartisme  Mar.-May  nationalizations,  social  security 

May  referendum,  53  %  non 
June  election,  Socs.  lose 

June  Bidault,  MRP  :  Socs.  lose  Finance  June  De  Gaulle's  Bayeux  speech 

Sep.   Mollet  leader  of  Soc.  Party 
Oct.   referendum,  53  %  out 
Nov.  election,  Socs.  lose 

Dec.  Blum:  all-Soc.  government Nov.  Monnet  Plan  agreed  to 


'47  Jan.   Ramadier,  Soc.  Jan.   Auriol  (Soc.)  elected  President 

May  Communists  out  Apr.   De  Gaulle  founds  RPF 

Oct.   RPF  win  municipal  elections 
Nov.  Schuman,  MRP:  Moch,  Interior  Nov.  Communist-led  strikes; 

Nov.  CGT  split 

'48 

May  Poinso-Chapuis  decree 
July  Marie,  Rad. :  Schuman,  Foreign  July  Duchet  founds  CNIP 

Oct.-Nov.  Communist  coal  strike 

Nov.  New  upper  house:  no  RPF  maj. 

__9 

Oct.  Bidault,  MRP 

'50  Feb.  Socs.  out,  lose  Interior   Jan.    'Scandal  of  the  Generals' 

July  Pleven,  UDSR;  Socs.  back 

*51   Mar.  Queuille,  Rad.  June  election,  120  RPF 

Aug.  Pleven ;      Socs.  out  Sep.   Lot  Barang£  (church  schools) 

'52  Jan.   Faure,  Rad.  Mar.  RPF  splits  in  NA  on  Pinay 

Mar.  Pinay,  Cons. May  last  big  Comm.  demonstrations 

'53  Jan.   Mayer,  Rad.  Bidault,  Foreign 

May  5-week  crisis  May  De  Gaulle  ends  RPF  (as  party) 

July  Laniel,  Cons.:  Gaullists  in  July    1st  Pouj.  agitation;  Aug.,  big  strikes 

Dec.  Coty  (Cons.)  elected  President 

'54 

June  Mendes-F. :  MRP  out,  lose  Foreign 

Sep.   'Scandal  of  the  leakages* 
Nov.  Constitution  amended 


'55  Feb.  Faure,  Rad. :  MRP  back  Mar.  Poujadist  pressure  on  NA 

May  Mendfes-F.  leads  Rad.  Party 

Dec.  NA  dissolved,  election  Jan.  2 


'56  Jan.   Mollet,  Soc. :  MRP  out  Jan.    Left  gains,  but  50  Poujadists 

Feb.  Lacoste  M.  for  Algeria  Spring  1 1  Poujadists  unseated 
May  Mendes-F.  resigns          Spring  Heakages  trial* 

Oct.   Rad.  Party  split 

—  , 

May  Govt.  falls  May  Mendes-F.  loses  Rad.  Party 

June  Bourges-M,  Rad.  July   NA  accepts  internment  camps 

Oct.  5-week  crisis 
Nov.  Gaillard,  Rad. :  MRP,  Cons,  back Nov.  Gaullist  propaganda  campaign 

*58  Mar.  Constitutional  reform  fails 

Apr.  3rd  crisis  in  a  year 
May  nth  Pflimlin,  MRP;  Socs.  join 

'    _     „       „,  May  24th  Gaullists  seize  Corsica 

June  De  Gaulle ;  all  but  Comms.  in  June  NA  allows  govt.  to  draft  const. 

Sep.   referendum,  85  %  out;  Nov.  election 


PRINCIPAL  DATES 


IMPERIAL 


Dec.  Franco-Soviet  treaty 


May    Algerian  outbreak  repressed 


Feb.   Yalta  conference  ends 
May  European  war  ends 


'45 


Nov. 
Dec. 


Haiphong  bombarded 
Indo-China  war  begins 


Mar.    Madagascar  revolt 
Aug.    Algerian  government  bill 


Apr.  Moscow  conference  fails 
June  Marshall  Aid  offered 


*47 


Apr*     Algerian  'elections' 


Feb.  Communist  coup  in  Prague 
Mar.  Berlin  blockade  begins 


*48 


July  NA  ratines  Atlantic  Pact 
Dec.  Communists  win  in  China 


June 
Oct. 


Tunis  negotiations  open 
Indo-China  frontier  posts  lost 


May  Schuman  Plan  (Coal  and  Steel) 
June  Korean  war  begins 


'51 


Dec.    Tunis  talks  broken  off 


Dec.  NA  ratifies  Schuman  Plan 


Mar.   Tunis  repression,  ministers  arrested       May  EPC  treaty  signed 


Aug.    Sultan  of  Morocco  deposed 


'52 
'53 


May    Dien-Bien-Phu  falls 
July     Indo-China  peace 
July  31st  Tunis  negotiations 
Nov.    Algerian  war  begins 


'54 


Aug.  NA  defeats  EDC 

Dec.  NA  accepts  German  rearmament 


'55 


Jan.  Soustelle  Gov-Gen.  Algeria 

July  NA  ratines  Tunisian  treaty 

Aug.  Outbreaks  in  Morocco,  Algeria 

Nov.  Sultan  returns  to  Morocco 

ALGERIA,  ETC.  *56 

Feb.  6th  Europeans  riot 

June    Bombs  in  Algiers.  Loi-cadre  for  Black  Africa 

Oct.     Ben  Bella  *kidnapped' Nov.  Suez  war ;  Budapest  repression 

'57 


Jan.     Massu  i/c  police ;  bazooka  fired  at  Salan 


Sep. 
Nov. 


NA  defeats  Algerian  loi-cadre 
OB,  us  sell  arms  to  Tunisia 


July   NA  ratifies  Common  Market 


Feb.     Sakiet  (Tunisia)  bombed 

Apr.     NA  rejects  'good  offices' 

May  13th  European  riot,  C.  of  Pub.  Safety 

May    Parachutist  threat  to  Paris 

July     De  Gaulle  appeases  Tunisia 


Feb.  GB,  us  offer  *good  offices' 


'58 


PART  I 

THE  BACKGROUND 


Chapter  1 
THE  BASIS  OF  FRENCH  POLITICS 

1.  FRANCE  AND  BRITAIN:  THE  BACKGROUND 

The  British  have  never  had  much  respect  for  the  political  capacity  of  their 
nearest  neighbour.  Official  and  ministerial  circles  too  often  share  the  general 
impression  that  the  French  are  incapable  of  governing  themselves  properly,  or 
even  of  managing  a  democratic  system  at  all.  There  is  little  understanding  of 
the  deep  differences  between  the  British  and  the  French  outlook  on  politics,  or 
of  the  fundamental  reasons  for  these  differences.  The  faults  in  the  political 
structure  of  France  are  the  result  of  her  historical  and  geographical  back- 
ground. No  country  can  rid  itself  of  its  past. 

In  the  first  place  the  Reformation  failed  on  the  other  side  of  the  Channel. 
The  Catholic  Church  is  active  and  powerful,  retains  the  allegiance  of  a  sub- 
stantial proportion  of  the  population,  and  is  therefore,  as  in  all  Catholic 
countries,  a  focus  of  political  controversy.  Education  remained  an  explosive 
problem  for  half  a  century  longer  than  in  Britain;  and  the  conflict  was  always 
more  bitter  because  the  issues  were  more  clear-cut.  As  Bodley  once  put  it,  the 
group  structure  characteristic  of  French  politics  was  reproduced  in  Britain  in 
the  religious  sphere  -  and  the  clear  and  straightforward  British  party  system 
was  paralleled  in  France  by  the  struggle  between  clericals  and  anticlericals.1 

Secondly,  the  form  of  the  state  is  still  open  to  attack.  Frenchmen  are  used  to 
changes  not  merely  of  government  but  of  the  whole  political  regime.  In  170 
years  they  have  had  fifteen  new  constitutions.  The  British  practice  of  revolu- 
tionizing the  reality  while  retaining  the  name  and  the  facade  was  reversed  in 
France:  there  the  fundamentals  of  life  continued  with  comparatively  little 
change  over  large  regions  of  the  country,  while  the  political  surface  was  always 
turbulent.  The  stability  and  resilience  of  French  life  below  that  surface  were 
unfortunately  less  striking  than  the  apparent  chaos  at  the  top.  The  well-known 
story  of  the  Paris  bookseller  regretting  that  he  could  not  supply  a  copy  of  the 
constitution  'because  we  do  not  deal  in  periodical  literature'  dates  from  1848 ; 
its  modern  counterpart  could  be  seen  in  the  huge  posters  in  the  Metro  just  a 
century  later  -  'Republics  pass:  Soud6e  paint  lasts'.  The  Fourth  Republic 
was  then  two  years  old  and  had  ten  more  to  live. 

Thirdly,  though  the  political  form  of  the  state  may  be  open  to  question  and 
change,  its  administrative  structure  has  stood  without  fundamental  alteration 
since  the  reforms  of  Napoleon.  It  is  a  tightly  centralized  system,  based  on  a 
uniform  pattern  and  closely  controlled  from  Paris.  The  police,  who  enjoy 
much  more  power  than  in  Britain,  are  directly  subject  to  the  ministry  of  the 
interior.  A  centralized  administrative  and  police  system  is  reinforced  by  a 
centralized  judicial  organization  under  the  ministry  of  justice,  and  protected 

L  Bodley,  France,  i.  138 ;  ii.  457.  Information  on  the  date  and  place  of  publication  of  books 
is  given  at  the  first  reference  when  the  author  is  cited  in  one  chapter  only,  in  the  bibliography  on 
p.  465  when  he  is  cited  in  more  than  one.  Articles  are  cited  in  the  footnotes  by  number  only,  as 
listed  on  pp.  470-7. 


THE  BASIS  OF  FRENCH  POLITICS  3 

by  an  army  much  stronger  than  the  British  -  for  France  has  three  land  fron- 
tiers. The  seizure  of  power  is  greatly  simplified  where  in  the  words  of  Deschanel, 
*  We  have  the  Republic  on  top  and  the  Empire  underneath.  '2 

The  Frenchman's  approach  to  the  problem  of  authority  is  consequently 
shaped  by  three  crucial  experiences:  a  political  struggle  waged  with  sectarian 
bitterness  and  sparing  few  sectors  of  the  country's  organized  life;  a  recent 
memory  of  governments  abusing  their  authority  to  maintain  their  position ; 
and  an  immensely  powerful  administrative  machine  providing  a  standing 
temptation  to  abuse.  There  is  a  latent  totalitarianism  in  the  French  attitude  to 
politics  which  makes  French  democrats  fear  the  power  of  government,  and 
expect  from  it  more  danger  than  advantage. 

These  historical  factors  were  reinforced  by  geographic,  demographic  and 
economic  ones.  Uncertainty  about  the  future  was  engendered  by  a  stationary 
population  and  an  invasion  in  every  generation ;  it  provided  fertile  soil  for 
defeatism  and  disillusionment.  Above  all,  France  remained  until  1940  a 
country  of  small  enterprise.  Agriculture  was  far  more  important  than  in 
Britain:  in  1946  France  still  had  one  industrial  worker  for  every  agricultural 
worker,  while  Britain  had  nine.  Small  towns  and  small  industry  predominated: 
there  were  sixty-one  towns  with  a  population  of  100,000  in  Britain,  only 
twenty-two  in  France.  Almost  half  the  population  still  lived  in  agricultural 
communities.  Where  in  Britain  the  small  farm  was  destroyed  by  enclosures 
and  the  small  business  subjected  to  the  full  force  of  competition,  in  France 
they  not  only  survived  but  were  protected  economically,  courted  politically 
and  glorified  ideologically.3 

France  was  not  naturally  a  wealthy  country.  Her  early  efforts  at  industrial- 
ization failed,  prejudicing  Frenchmen  for  generations  against  capitalist  pro- 
gress and  its  consequence,  the  ruin  of  the  unsuccessful.  Business  families  often 
valued  security  and  stability  far  more  than  risky  expansion  on  borrowed 
money  which  might  endanger  their  control  of  their  firms.  Until  the  Fourth 
Republic  the  ruling  economic  outlook. was  'Malthusian':  a  conviction  that 
the  market  was  fixed  and  one  trader's  gain  meant  another's  loss,  a  preference 
for  high  profit  on  a  low  turnover,  and  a  willingness  to  mitigate  competition 
sufficiently  to  keep  the  weaker  firms  afloat.  Almost  everyone  worshipped  the 
cult  of  the  'little  man';  no  adjective  was  more  favoured  in  election  speeches 
and  newspaper  titles  than  petit*  Social  stability  was  prized  above  economic 
progress,  and  the  politician  who  sought  votes  in  good  times  or  feared  revolu- 
tion in  bad  ones  used  laws,  taxes  and  tariffs  to  protect  the  weak  -  and  so  ham- 
per the  strong.  In  Britain  free  trade  was  a  Liberal  policy  and  almost  a  Liberal 

1.  See  Index  for  brief  biographical  notes  on  persons  named.  The  Vichy  regime  has  indeed  been 
called  'nothing  but  this  sovereign  state  apparatus  . .  .deprived  of  its  democratic  and  republican 
facade' :  Luthy,  The  State  of  France,  p.  38. 

3.  Of  a  working  population  of  20,500,000,  there  were  9,100,000  who  lived  in  rural  communes 
where  over  20%  worked  in  agriculture:  Bulletin  mensuel  de  statistique,  October  1952,  p.  44. 
Britain,  the  United  States,  Germany,  Italy  and  the  Netherlands  had  all  become  urbanized  far 
sooner  and  more  thoroughly:  see  the  striking  diagram  in  Moraze,  Les  Francois  et  la  Rgpublique, 
p.  217 ;  and  for  later  figures,  below,  n.  32.  Cf.  Goguel  in  Aspects  de  la  societe  francaise  (henceforth 
cited  as  Aspects)*  pp.  248-50. 

4.  Luthy,  pp.  287,  332;  Siegfried,  Tableau  des  partis  en  France,  p.  90  -  translated  as  France: 
A  Study  in  Nationality,  pp.  42-3 ;  Siegfried,  De  la  IIP  a  la  IVe  Republique,  p.  25 ;  Thibaudet,  La 
Republique  des  professeurs,  pp.  259-60. 


4  THE  BACKGROUND 

religion,  but  in  France  it  was  the  work  of  an  autocrat,  Napoleon  III,  and  it  did 
not  long  survive  the  advent  of  the  Third  Republic.5 

The  principle  that  the  state  should  not  interfere  with  the  economy  was  thus 
accepted  in  theory  by  both  countries  but  applied  very  differently  in  practice. 
One  result  was  that  in  France  business  success  was  suspect,  since  it  was  assumed 
(not  always  wrongly)  to  be  due  to  political  favours.6  From  the  state,  it  was 
thought,  came  improper  privileges  for  the  powerful  and  very  proper  protec- 
tion for  the  weak.  'A  subject  rather  than  a  citizen,  the  rural  Frenchman 
continues  to  expect  his  sustenance  from  his  suzerain.'7  Progress  was  resisted 
because  it  meant  sacrifices  for  some ;  and  the  resistance  was  effective  enough  to 
bring  about  long  periods  of  decline  -  until  these  in  turn  provoked  discontent 
and  revolution.  France  had  achieved  her  economic  and  social  (and  therefore 
political)  equilibrium  not  by  integrating  the  conflicting  forces  into  a  society 
which  all  accepted  but  by  bringing  them  into  a  condition  of  mutual  stalemate.8 

2.  FRANCE  AND  BRITAIN:   POLITICAL  ATTITUDES 

Differences  so  deep-rooted  explain  why  few  of  the  political  terms  and  axioms 
of  British  politics  applied  across  the  Channel.  Words  like  'Right'  and  'Left' 
had  quite  different  connotations  in  the  two  countries.  For  in  France  three 
issues  were  fought  out  simultaneously:  the  eighteenth-century  conflict  between 
rationalism  and  Catholicism,  the  nineteenth-century  struggle  of  democracy 
against  authoritarian  government,  and  the  twentieth-century  dispute  between 
employer  and  employed.  On  the  Continent,  Right  and  Left  defined  positions 
in  relation  to  the  philosophical  and  political  struggles,  which  turned  in  normal 
times  on  educational  policy  and  in  crises  on  the  structure  of  the  regime ;  the 
social  contest  over  the  distribution  of  the  national  income  provided  a  new  topic 
of  division,  already  foreshadowed  in  the  Revolution,  which  after  1848  cut  the 
political  Left  in  two. 

Thus,  where  Britain  had  two  major  political  attitudes,  France  never  had 
fewer  than  three.  The  clerical  and  conservative  Right  was  opposed  by  a 
socialist  Left  (itself,  since  the  rise  of  the  Communist  party,  internally  divided 
by  the  deepest  fissure  of  all).  But  between  these  rivals  was  a  great  amorphous 
mass  of  peasants  and  small  businessmen,  who  were  social  and  economic 
conservatives  yet  ardent  Republicans  and  anticlericals.  As  they  owed  their 
position  to  the  Revolution  it  was  indeed  the  heritage  of  revolution  that  they 

5.  On  these  two  paragraphs  and  the  next  see  Moraz£,  pp.  46-7,  56-61,  69-72, 116-18, 199-206  >" 
Siegfried,  France,  pp.  15-17,  21-3,  113-14,  and  Tableau,  pp.  32-7,  44-8,  232-4;  Liithy,  pp.  179- 
180,286-334  (especially  311-13,  320-3);  Maillaud,  France,  Chapter  6;  Tannenbaum,  The  New 
France,  Chapter  3 ;  Fauvet,  La  France  de'chire'e,  pp.  29-30,  translated  as  The  Cockpit  of  France, 
pp.  33-5;  Earle,  ed.,  Modern  France,  particularly  Chapters  4  (by  J.  B.  Christopher),  17  (by  J.  E. 
Sawyer)  and  19  (by  D.  S.  Landes);  Landes,  article  no.  135  (see  Bibliography  on  pp.  470-7), 
pp.  329-50.  For  an  instance  of  opposition  to  modernization,  Chevallier,  Les  Paysans,  pp.  141-56, 
169-79 ;  for  the  political  preponderance  of  the  small  independent  business  and  professional  man, 
Priouret,  La  Rtpublique  des  date's,  pp.  180-7,  215-18 ;  for  qualifications  to  the  thesis  of  French 
economic  stagnation,  Raymond  Aron,  France  Steadfast  and  Changing,  pp.  45-8,  53-64,  141-3. 

6.  Liithy,  pp.  25-6;  Priouret,  D6put6s,  pp.  138-42;  Moraz6,  p.  73;  E.  Beau  de  Lom6nie,  Les 
responsabilite's  des  dynasties  bourgeoises  (4  v.,  1943,  1947,  1954,  1963),  passim. 

7.  Moraz6,  p.  202  (cf.  p.  61  on  other  classes). 

8.  The  Third  Republic  has  been  called  'the  stalemate  society* ;  Hoffmann  in  France:  Change 
and  Tradition  (henceforth  cited  as  Change),  p.  3,  and  in  no.  126,  p.  29.  Cf.  Aron,  Steadfast, 
p.  135. 


THE  BASIS  OF  FRENCH  POLITICS  5 

were  determined  to  conserve.  This  was  the  basic  source  of  the  curious  con- 
tradiction between  their  words  and  their  deeds :  revolutionary  language  in  the 
political  field,  conservative  actions  in  the  social.  Best  represented  by  the 
Radical  party,  they  dominated  French  politics  between  1900  and  1940.9 

Since  Left  and  Right  divided  on  issues  other  than  those  predominant  in 
Britain,  it  is  not  surprising  that  they  had  a  different  electoral  basis.  The  equa- 
tion between  industry  and  the  Left,  agriculture  and  the  Right  was  largely 
invalid  in  France.  The  agrarian  Midi  was  the  stronghold  of  the  Left,  industrial 
Lorraine  voted  Right.  When  the  Socialists  first  became  an  important  party  in 
the  election  of  1893,  their  highest  percentage  of  votes  in  the  provinces  was  in 
the  agricultural  Cher  department.10  In  June  1951  the  Communist  vote 
exceeded  40%  in  three  constituencies  -  one  in  the  Paris  suburbs  and  two  in  the 
rural  centre,  Creuse  and  Corr£ze.  The  reputation  of  the  Right  as  more 
nationalist  and  more  concerned  with  defence  than  the  Left,  even  if  un- 
deserved, helped  it  to  win  the  allegiance  of  the  industrial  departments  on  the 
eastern  frontier. 

This  persistence  of  old  issues  reflected  the  failure  of  the  industrial  workers 
to  impose  their  own  demands  on  politicians  and  the  public.  They  failed  partly 
through  sheer  lack  of  numbers,  partly  because  the  small  scale  of  French  in- 
dustry and  the  individualism  of  its  employees  hampered  their  organization, 
and  partly  because  governments  were  more  responsive  to  the  rural  vote.  The 
dominant  groups  of  the  Third  Republic,  the  Radicals  and  their  allies,  drew 
their  strength  from  the  countryside  and  small  towns  where  individualism 
flourished;  they  had  little  following  in  the  urbanized  regions  where  the 
economy  was  changing,  the  division  between  proletariat  and  bourgeoisie  was 
sharpening,  and  a  new  and  more  highly  organized  type  of  politics  was  develop- 
ing. 

British  and  French  attitudes  towards  government  differed  as  profoundly  as 
political  behaviour  or  political  terminology.  Habits  which  remained  powerful 
in  France  had  been  formed  in  an  age  when  politics  were  a  luxury  remote  from 
the  realities  of  day-to-day  life.  There  was  no  nineteenth-century  tradition  of 
independent  local  government  to  breed  an  attitude  of  responsibility.  The 
country's  governing  personnel  was  recruited  far  more  than  in  Britain  from  the 
professions  and  the  intellectuals,  and  far  less  from  businessmen,  farmers,  or 
workers ;  the  more  theoretical  and  unreal  character  of  the  issues  was  both 
cause  and  consequence  of  this  situation.11  For  there  was  (and  is)  a  curious 
blend  of  idealism  and  cynicism  in  the  characteristic  French  attitude  to 
political  programmes  -  an  idealism  which  attaches  more  importance  to  the 
symbolic  value  of  a  proposal  than  to  its  practical  effect,  a  cynicism  which 

9.  The  Radicals  have  been  called  'les  conservateurs  du  muse"e  re"volutionnaire':  Hoffmann, 
Le  Mouvement  Poujade,  p.  384.  The  'three-party'  interpretation  is  also  proposed  by  Dupeux, 
no.  80,  pp.  332-4. 

10.  Bodley,  ii.  465.  Names  of  departments  are  shown  in  Map  21  on  p.  461. 

11.  In  France  *  politics  are  the  hobby  of  individuals,  not  the  condition  of  their  lives' :  R.  de 
Jouvenel,  La  Rdpublique  des  camarades,  p.  4.  At  the  turn  of  the  century  more  than  half  the  deputies 
were  drawn  from  the  professional  classes,  while  only  a  fifth  were  dependent  upon  agriculture, 
industry  or  commerce  -  the  occupations  of  five-sixths  of  the  electorate:  Bodley,  ii.  157-63. 
Cf.  Priouret,  Dtputts,  pp.  123-5, 145-6, 180-7 ;  Luthy,  p.  24.  For  the  Fourth  Republic  see  below, 
p.  332. 


6  THE  BACKGROUND 

remains  unshakably  confident  that  nothing  will  ever  really  be  done.  According 
to  the  influential  Radical  philosopher  Alain,  'The  true  power  of  the  voters 
should  be  defined,  I  believe,  rather  by  resistance  to  the  authorities  than  by 
reformist  action.  .  . .  The  important  thing  is  to  construct  every  day  a  little 
barricade  or,  if  you  like,  to  bring  each  day  some  king  before  the  court  of  the 
people.'12 

This  outlook  could  flourish  in  a  country  whose  atomized,  small-scale 
economy  helped  for  decades  to  breed  individualism,  strong  local  loyalties, 
sharp  regional  differences,  and  a  political  psychology  better  adapted  to  resis- 
tance than  to  construction:  and  whose  history  was  a  source  not  of  shared 
experiences  but  of  bitter  conflicts,  in  which  each  side  had  its  own  memories, 
its  own  anniversaries,  its  own  symbols  and  its  own  martyrs.  Marianne,  who 
personified  the  regime,  was  to  one  vigorous  group  of  enemies  merely  the  hire- 
ling of  the  capitalists,  to  another  the  kept  woman  of  the  freemasons.13  It  was 
precisely  because  the  centrifugal  forces  were  so  strong  that  the  heirs  of 
Rousseau  uncompromisingly  defended  the  Republic  one  and  indivisible;  they 
feared  any  geographical  decentralization,  any  recognition  of  corps  inter- 
medicares  between  state  and  individual  which  might  allow  their  enemies  on  the 
Right  or  the  Left  to  build  up  a  La  Rochelle,  a  Vend6e  or  a  Paris  Commune  as 
a  bastion  of  separatism. 

In  a  naturally  fragmented  and  individualist  society  their  doctrinaire 
antagonism  to  organized  social  groups  helped  powerfully  to  reinforce  the 
peculiar  French  style  of  authority,  which  was  characterized  by  a  'horror  of 
face-to-face  discussion'.  Instead,  problems  were  referred  for  settlement  to  a 
superior  authority,  the  state,  supposedly  above  the  battle  but  inevitably 
remote,  impersonal,  arbitrary  and  suspect:  Them.  And  many  Frenchmen  in 
turn  reacted  like  'draftees  in  a  modern  army,  where  the  goals  are  to  preserve 
one's  individuality,  evade  the  regulations  wherever  possible,  and  obtain 
special  privileges,  preferably  on  a  permanent  basis'.  Here  were  the  roots  of 
the  incivisme  or  lack  of  civic  responsibility  which  made  them  regard  the  state 
as  an  enemy  personified  in  the  tax-collector  and  recruiting  sergeant.14 

Yet  those  two  agents  of  the  hostile  state  were  regarded  very  differently. 
When  conscription  was  politically  unthinkable  in  Washington  or  Westminster, 
Frenchmen  bore  a  crushing  burden  of  military  service.  Thus  incivisme  was  not 
exactly  bad  citizenship,  but  rather  civic  indiscipline  (or  individualism)  in 
domestic  affairs :  where  the  British  response  to  government  was  instinctively 
co-operative,  the  French  was  traditionally  negative.  This  outlook  was  least 
attractive  in  economic  matters,  where  reluctance  to  pay  taxes  was  reinforced 
by  suspicious  peasant  tight-fistedness.  But  the  same  contrariness  protected  the 
individual  against  oppression,  inspired  resistance  to  an  occupying  enemy,  and 
produced  movements  of  indignation  and  protest  whenever  authority  was 

12.  Alain  (fimile  Chartier),  Elements  d'une  doctrine  radicale  (4th  ed.,   1933,  first  pub.  1925), 
pp.  123-4.  *  It  is  a  good  idea  to  talk  of  reforms,  but  imprudent  to  carry  them  out' :  quoted  Sieg- 
fried, Tableau,  p.  76  (France,  p.  36). 

13.  The  first  act  of  the  rioters  who  stormed  Government  House  at  Algiers  on  13  May  1958 
was  to  carry  off  her  bust. 

14.  Crozier,  no.  64,  pp.  779-97  (' face-to-face');  Wylie,  Village  in  the  Vaucluse,  pp.  206-10. 
330-3  ('Them');  Tannenbaum,  pp.  6-7  ('draftees*).  Cf.  Siegfried,  De  la  ///»,  p.  254. 


THE  BASIS  OF  FRENCH  POLITICS  7 

gravely  abused.  If  gave  rise  to  the  conception  of  democracy  summed  up  by 
Alain  as  Le  Citoyen  contreles  Pouvoirs:  'the  title  of  one  of  his  books  and  the 
substance  of  all  of  them  '.15 

France,  then,  was  a  country  without  consensus.  Internal  divisions  went 
deeper  and  the  feeling  of  community  was  less  widespread  than  in  Britain.  It 
was  assumed  that  governments  could  never  be  trusted  and  must  always  be 
checked,  since  their  aims  were  as  questionable  as  their  methods.  Against  a 
state  regarded  as  'not  a  referee  but  a  player  -  and  probably  a  dirty  player', 
the  Frenchman  used  his  'ancient  secret  weapon  of  anarchy'  or  the  improved 
modern  model,  democratic  institutions.  It  was  not  surprising  that  democracy, 
worked  in  this  spirit,  seemed  to  many  Frenchmen  incompatible  with  effective 
government.  But  the  spirit  itself  was  'a  reflex  to  political  disorder'  as  well  as  a 
cause  of  its  persistence.16 

The  constitution  of  the  Fourth  Republic  was  thus  a  characteristic  symptom 
rather  than  a  basic  cause  of  the  weakness  of  the  French  democratic  state.  Its 
imperfections  of  detail  mattered  not  in  themselves  but  because  of  the  absence 
of  a  will  to  govern  and  accept  government.  Nor  is  it  sufficient  to  complain  that 
the  French  are  too  intellectual  or  too  narrow-minded,  too  selfish  or  too 
Utopian,  too  intransigent  or  too  fond  of  combinazioni,  to  be  capable  of 
managing  democratic  institutions.  The  French,  like  the  rest  of  us,  are  the 
prisoners  of  their  past;  and  the  outside  observer  must  endeavour  to  follow 
Spinoza : '  Do  not  laugh,  do  not  weep  -  try  to  understand.' 

3.  THE  THIRD  REPUBLIC 

The  Third  Republic  was  established  in  1875  by  a  majority  of  one  vote  in  an 
Assembly  dominated  by  monarchists  who  could  not  agree  on  a  king.  It  never 
won  the  genuine  allegiance  of  its  opponents.  In  the  Ralliement  of  the  1890's, 
the  Catholic  Church  made  its  peace  with  the  regime.  But  the  Dreyfus  case 
soon  vividly  showed  that  most  Frenchmen  of  the  Right  still  instinctively 
sympathized  with  the  violent  attacks  on  democracy  launched  by  men  like 
Charles  Maurras.  Maurras  himself  lived  to  become  an  outspoken  apologist 
for  the  Vichy  regime  and  to  describe  his  sentence  of  life  imprisonment  at  the 
Liberation  as  '  the  revenge  of  Dreyfus '. 

For  though  Great  Britain  has  many  conservatives  (in  all  parties)  who  prefer 
to  make  progress  slowly,  it  is  happily  free  of  real  reactionaries.  France  is  not. 
Men  who  condemned  all  that  was  done  in  the  years  following  1789  could  not 
simply  be  dismissed  as  harmless  cranks.  Sixty  years  ago  an  English  commen- 
tator observed  that  'France  is  the  land  of  political  surprises,  where  lost  causes 
come  to  life  again/  Thirty  years  later  the  most  acute  of  French  political 
writers  pointed  out  that  every  regime  of  the  past  retained  its  partisans,  await- 
ing the  opportunity  to  reassert  their  claims  to  power.17  In  1940  the  chance 

15.  Fauvet,  Cockpit,  p.  26.  Cf.  ibid.,  p.  29,  and  Dtchirte,  pp.  22,  24-5;  Siegfried,  De  la  IIIe, 
p.  118 ;  D.  Thomson,  Democracy  in  France  (1st  ed.,  1946),  pp.  14,  17;  N.  Wahl's  analysis  of  the 
clash  between  the  representative  and  the  administrative  traditions  of  government  in  The  Fifth 
Republic  (1959),  pp.  24-30,  and  in  Beer  and  Ulam,  Patterns  of  Government,  Part  in. 

16.  I  take  the  'reflex'  phrase  from  Professor  H.  W.  Ehrmann's  stimulating  essay  (no.  86),  p.  11 ; 
the  *  dirty  player'  from  a  broadcast  by  Professor  D.  W.  Brogan ;  the '  secret  weapon'  from  Liithy, 
p.  128. 

17.  Bodley,  ii.  352.  Siegfried,  France,  pp.  96-7 ;  Tableau,  pp.  199-200 ;  cf,  De  la  IUe,  pp.  81,  85. 


8  THE  BACKGROUND 

came,  and  a  vast  body  of  opinion  rallied  joyfully  to  the  men  of  Vichy  -  not 
indeed  to  the  Lavals  and  D6ats,  but  to  the  men  who  felt,  as  Petain  allegedly 
once  said,  that  'France  will  never  be  great  again  until  the  wolves  are  howling 
round  the  doors  of  her  villages. ' 

What  was  at  stake  in  the  French  political  struggle  was  thus  more  than 
specific  issues  of  economic  or  educational  or  foreign  policy.  It  was  the  frame- 
work within  which  these  specific  issues  should  be  tackled.  To  Republicans  the 
heritage  of  the  Revolution  meant  political  freedom,  the  responsibility  of  the 
rulers  to  the  ruled;  freedom  of  opportunity,  the  chance  to  rise  to  the  top  -  and 
in  practice  a  preference  for  rulers  drawn  from  the  under-privileged;  freedom 
from  clerical  domination;  freedom  to  own  one's  own  land.  The  Right  stood 
for  authoritarian  government,  for  the  rule  of  the  wealthy  and  respectable,  for 
clericalism  and  landlordism.  It  is  understandable  that  for  electoral  purposes  it 
was  essential  to  look  and  sound  Left;  indeed  it  became  almost  a  recognized 
rule  of  French  politics  that  a  party  added  the  word  Gauche  to  its  title  at  the 
moment  when  it  contracted  an  alliance  with  the  Right.  In  some  areas  can- 
didates of  the  Right  called  themselves  Independent  Socialists.  Just  before  the 
war  the  most  conservative  group  in  the  Senate  was  named  Gauche  republicaine. 
Usually  when  a  new  parliamentary  assembly  was  elected  there  was  a  noisy 
quarrel  over  the  seating  arrangements,  the  party  allocated  the  benches  on  the 
right  denouncing  this  monstrous  misrepresentation  of  its  position  -  as  the 
Gaullists  did  in  1951  and  the  Poujadists  in  1956. 

In  electoral  campaigning  the  danger  from  the  Right  played  the  principal 
part,  but  in  parliamentary  conflict  the  Socialist  pressure,  which  split  the 
Republican  majority,  became  more  and  more  important  during  the  present 
century.  French  politics  came  to  focus  on  these  two  threats,  from  the  Right 
against  the  Republic  and  from  the  Left  against  property.  Their  tone  was  there- 
fore overwhelmingly  defensive.18  Moreover,  as  we  have  seen,  the  dominant 
section  of  opinion  remained  intensely  suspicious  of  the  power  of  the  govern- 
ment even  after  capturing  it.  Two  Napoleons  had  overthrown  the  Republic, 
two  other  generals  (MacMahon  and  Boulanger)  had  threatened  it;  so  Alain's 
ideal  politician  was  Camille  Pelletan,  minister  of  marine  from  1902  to  1905, 
who  systematically  disregarded  his  professional  advisers.  The  results  were 
unfortunate  for  the  navy  but  (in  Alain's  view)  advantageous  for  the  regime: 
the  leading  Republican  intellectual  might  have  echoed  the  slogan  of  his  great 
enemy  Maurras  -  Politique  d'abord!  In  1906  this  strange  philosopher  of  a 
governmental  party  wrote: 

In  France  there  are  a  great  many  radical  electors,  a  certain  number  of  radical 
deputies  and  a  very  small  number  of  radical  ministers :  as  for  the  heads  of  the  civil 
service,  they  are  all  reactionaries.  He  who  properly  understands  this  has  the  key  to 
our  politics.19 

Familiarity  with  office  did  not  change  the  Radicals'  outlook  fundamentally. 
They  continued  to  use  their  position  to  weaken  the  institutions  of  government 
and  to  thwart  the  progress  of  powerful  personalities.  In  1900  it  had  been 
observed  that  the  Republicans  'use  all  the  force  of  governmental  machinery  to 

18.  D.  Thomson,  The  Democratic  Ideal  in  France  and  England  (1940),  p.  59. 

19.  Op.  cit.t  p.  25.  But  cf.  below,  pp.  337,  343. 


THE  BASIS  OF  FRENCH  POLITICS  9 

crush  men  of  parts  who  seem  apt  to  win  popular  favour'.  In  1940  this  attitude 
had  not  altered.  The  Left,  alarmed  at  having  produced  Clemenceau  in  1917, 
had  made  certain  that  he  should  have  no  successor.  Promotion  went  to  safe 
men  of  the  type  who  had  formed  the  Tiger's  cabinet,  and  whom  he  had 
described  as  'the  geese  who  saved  the  Capitol'.20 

The  weakness  of  government  was  only  partly  due  to  this  hostility  to  strong 
personalities.  It  was  also  the  result  of  many  institutional  barriers  which  had 
been  set  up  in  the  cabinet's  path.  The  electoral  system  promoted  political 
individualism.  The  constitution  allowed  the  President  with  the  consent  of  the 
Senate  to  dissolve  the  Chamber;  but  President  MacMahon's  dissolution  for 
partisan  purposes  in  1877  so  discredited  this  weapon  that  ixo  successor  ever 
dared  make  the  attempt.  Consequently  the  deputies  knew  they  could  count  on 
four  years  before  they  would  have  to  face  the  electors  again,  and  felt  free  to 
overthrow  ministries  with  impunity.  Parliament's  work  was  organized  by 
committees  of  specialists  which  developed  a  point  of  view  and  a  prestige  of 
their  own,  and  whose  views  the  Chamber  tended  to  follow.  Since  the  leaders  of 
the  committees  were  almost  ex  officio  potential  ministers  with  an  interest  in 
replacing  the  incumbents,  they  tended  to  behave  as  critics  rather  than  as  allies. 
The  President  of  the  Chamber  had  far  less  authority  than  the  Speaker  of  the 
House  of  Commons,  and  procedural  rules  left  the  ministry  much  weaker  than 
in  Britain:  it  had  no  control  of  parliamentary  time,  and  devices  like  the  inter- 
pellation seemed  to  have  (and  had)  been  invented  for  the  express  purpose  of 
keeping  the  government  subject  to  the  domination  of  the  deputies.  Above  all 
the  Senate,  a  powerful  and  sober  second  chamber  carefully  insulated  from  the 
dangerous  control  of  universal  suffrage,  stood  guard  to  check  any  'hasty' 
legislation  or  any  over-presumptuous  cabinet  with  which  the  Chamber  failed 
to  deal.  The  governmental  system  of  the  Third  Republic  was  'a  machine  so 
well  provided  with  brakes  and  safety-valves  that  it  comes  slowly  to  a  state  of 
immobility'.21 

Yet  even  these  institutional  devices  were  not  the  main  difficulty.  For  the 
weakness  of  French  government  was  due  less  to  the  number  and  potency  of 
the  brakes  than  to  a  deficiency  of  motive  power.  It  was  because  there  was  no 
majority  for  action  in  the  country  that  there  was  no  pressure  strong  enough  to 
overcome  a  resistance  which  found  so  many  points  of  advantage  in  the  con- 
stitutional framework.  This  became  apparent  at  the  turn  of  the  century  when 
the  Radicals  and  their  allies,  including  most  of  the  Socialists,  had  an  anti- 
clerical programme  to  enact.  They  organized  a  steering  committee,  the  Z>^- 
gation  des  Gauches,  which  dominated  the  Chamber.  Since  a  majority  was  ready 
to  support  its  instructions,  it  could  overcome  the  hostility  of  committees  or 
interpellators  without  difficulty.  For  three  years  their  leaders  wielded  an 
authority  as  great  as  that  of  a  British  government  because  there  was  for  once  a 
real  political  objective,  capable  of  rallying  a  real  majority. 

20.  Bodley,  i.  328  ('men  of  parts*);  Brogan's  introduction  to  Werth,  The  Twilight  of  France, 
p.  xvi  (Clemenceau) ;  J.  Hampden  Jackson,  Clemenceau  and  the  Third  Republic  (1946),  p.  170 
(*  geese'). '  Only  mediocrity  was  reassuring ...  of  all  possible  perils  genius  was  the  one  from  which 
the  nation  soon  found  itself  most  thoroughly  preserved' :  H.  de  Jouvenel,  Pourquoije  suis  syndi- 
calists (1928),  p.  20;  cf.  R.  Binion,  Defeated  Leaders  (New  York,  1960),  p.  137 

21.  Brogan,  loc.  cit.,  p.  vi. 


10  THE  BACKGROUND 

But  such  a  programme  had  to  be  political  in  the  narrow  sense.  The  indus- 
trial workers  were  neither  numerous  nor  organized  enough  to  attract  similar 
support  for  their  own  demands.  The  small  farmers  and  small  businessmen 
feared  and  suspected  the  working  class:  they  resisted  reforms  for  its 
benefit  at  their  own  expense,  they  cherished  an  individualist  type  of  society 
which  powerful  trade  unions  might  threaten,  and  they  valued  economic 
efficiency  less  than  social  stability  which  enabled  the  least  fortunate  of 
them  to  maintain  his  independent  existence  and  escape  the  ultimate  disaster 
of  proletarianization.  The  political  pattern  of  the  Third  Republic  was  there- 
fore clearly  marked:  at  election  times  the  two  wings  of  the  political  Left  united 
to  defend  the  Republic,  but  once  in  power  they  divided  over  social  and 
economic  policy.22  So  Chambers  as  well  as  individual  politicians  regularly 
began  their  careers  strongly  inclined  to  the  Left  and  ended  them  strongly 
inclined  to  the  Right.  It  was  even  made  a  complaint  against  the  Fourth  Repub- 
lic that  this  traditional  evolution  occurred  less  smoothly  than  in  the  past. 

The  basic  reason  for  the  weakness  of  French  government  was  thus  the  con- 
tentedness  of  the  dominant  section  of  opinion.  This  middle  block,  Centre  or 
even  Right  in  British  terminology  but  Left  in  the  Continental  sense,  was 
wholly  negative  in  outlook,  equally  opposed  to  clerical  reaction  and  to  social- 
ist experiment,  neither  wanting  nor  expecting  advantage  from  positive 
governmental  policies.  Its  aim  was  to  prevent  action,  of  which  it  was  almost 
sure  to  disapprove;  its  method  was  to  keep  the  government  too  weak  to  em- 
bark on  dangerous  courses ;  and  its  principal  instrument  was  the  Senate,  con- 
trolled by  moderate  Radicals  -  older  men  and  less  subject  to  electoral  pressure 
than  their  colleagues  in  the  Chamber  -  who  ejected  any  ministry  which  leant 
too  far  towards  either  clericalism  or  socialism.  This  situation  explained  why 
governments  changed  so  frequently  and  policies  so  little;  as  early  as  1875, 
indeed,  Laboulaye  had  described  France  as  '  a  tranquil  country  with  agitated 
legislators'.23 

For  it  was  only  in  major  crises  that  Right  and  Left  confronted  one  another 
in  battle  array.  Normally  political  decisions  were  taken  not  after  a  clear  and 
intelligible  clash  between  opposing  sides,  but  as  a  result  of  quite  minor  shifts 
of  view  or  emphasis  within  the  centre  groups  which  permanently  predomi- 
nated in  power.  The  cautious,  uncommitted,  unstable  floating  vote,  which  in 
Britain  was  usually  polarized  by  the  two-party  system,  in  France  provided  the 
leadership  for  almost  every  government.  Since  small  changes  at  the  fulcrum 
might  upset  the  balance  of  power  and  bring  great  policy  decisions,  they  were 
sometimes  bitterly  fought  over  and  provoked  big  displacements  of  votes  else- 
where.24 But  the  legislators  were  equally  agitated  over  shifts  which  had  no 
such  significance  for  policy,  yet  still  raised  some  men  up  on  the  seesaw  and 
cast  others  down.  For  superimposed  on  the  battles  over  policy  was  another 

22.  See  Siegfried,  France,  pp.  60-1  (Tableau,  pp.  125-6),  for  one  of  many  descriptions  of  this 
process.  Cf.  Priouret,  Ddputts,  pp.  177-8,  208-11, 219-20  (he  points  out  that  the  first  Republican 
social  measure  was  the  abolition  of  the  Sunday  rest  day  as  a  clerical  survival). 

23.  Bodley,  i.  57. 

24.  So  of  three  Radical  premiers  elected  in  1953,  1954  and  1955,  one  obtained  200  more  left- 
wing  votes  in  the  Assembly  than  the  other  two,  Moraz<§,  p.  149;  cf.  pp.  23,  123,  132,  152,  218, 
252-4, 


THE  BASIS  OF  FRENCH  POLITICS  11 

contest  for  careers,  office  and  power,  which,  as  in  eighteenth-century  Britain, 
often  seemed  to  approximate  to  the  pure  game-theory  of  politics.25  Conducted 
according  to  elaborate  unwritten  rules  in  the  'house  without  windows'  where 
the  Chamber  of  Deputies  sat,  the  game  fascinated  the  closed  circle  of  players 
but  repelled  their  uncomprehending  constituents.  The  people  felt  little  more 
sense  of  participation  in  the  government  when  it  was  representative  than  when 
it  was  authoritarian. 

The  gap  between  citizens  and  politicians  had  no  grave  immediate  con- 
sequences beforethe  1930's.  A  comfortable  majority  of  the  electorate  remained 
loyal  to  the  regime  and  the  centre  politicians  who  defended  it.  In  a  fairly  self- 
sufficient  small-scale  economy,  politics  had  no  day-to-day  effect  on  the  life  of 
the  ordinary  voter,  who  could  judge  his  deputy's  behaviour  by  theoretical  and 
doctrinaire  standards.  The  type  of  question  which  excited  politicians  was 
whether  the  navy  ought  to  celebrate  Good  Friday,  or  whether  the  army 
should  supply  guards  of  honour  for  civil  as  well  as  religious  funerals.26 

Below  the  parliamentary  surface  the  country's  need  for  government  was 
met,  as  under  the  monarchy  and  empire,  by  the  permanent  bureaucracy  (for 
the  Radical  distrust  of  the  administration  had  the  strange  result  that  by  con- 
stantly upsetting  cabinets  it  allowed  few  ministers  the  time  or  authority  to 
acquire  real  control  of  their  departments,  and  so  ensured  that  a  long-term 
policy  in  any  sector  of  government  could  normally  originate  only  with  the 
feared  and  suspected  officials).27  In  times  of  great  crisis  the  politicians  sus- 
pended their  game  and  the  ideologists  their  crusade,  and  the  country  conferred 
on  some  respected  leader  -  a  Clemenceau  or  a  Poincar6  -  an  authority  which 
was  almost  unlimited  for  a  time.  The  needs  of  efficient  government  reasserted 
themselves  briefly  against  those  of  representative  control  -  to  be  thrust  back 
into  their  subordinate  place  as  soon  as  the  emergency  was  over. 

The  Third  Republic  maintained  this  equilibrium  for  three  generations,  far 
longer  than  any  previous  regime  since  1789.  Politically  the  powers  of  govern- 
ment were  concentrated  in  Paris,  but  its  functions  were  narrowly  limited  and 
its  abuses  checked  by  a  close  parliamentary  control  in  which,  however, 
between  elections  the  ordinary  voter  had  no  part  to  play.  Socially,  like  that 
other  stalemate  society  the  Habsburg  Empire,  the  regime  contrived  to  keep  the 
contending  groups  in  a  'balanced  state  of  mild  dissatisfaction'  which  most  of 
them  found  preferable  to  any  serious  alternative,  even  if  in  the  Burkean 
partnership  of  the  dead,  the  living  and  the  yet  unborn  the  French  state  seemed 
over-committed  to  those  who  were  dead.28 

But  the  structure  was  ill-adapted  to  shocks  from  outside,  and  it  broke  down 
when  confronted  with  the  economic  and  international  crises  of  the  thirties. 
When  the  financial  and  economic  difficulties  of  the  inter-war  years  called  for 
treasures  that  were  electorally  unpopular,  no  majority  for  them  could  be 

25.  Hoffmann  in  Change,  p.  16,  and  no.  126,  p.  31 ;  Aron,  Steadfast,  p.  5. 

26.  Even  in  May  1951  urgent  parliamentary  business  was  delayed  by  the  Socialists*  insistence 
that  since  the  Assembly  was  not  to  sit  on  Ascension  Day  it  must  not  sit  on  Labour  Day  either. 

27.  Maillaud,  p.  39;  J.  Barthelemy,  Le  Gouvernement  de  la  France  (1939  ed.),  pp.  142-3;  M. 
Aug6-Laribe,  La  politique  agricole  de  la  France  (1950),  pp.  386-91  -  referring  respectively  to 
foreign,  educational  and  agricultural  policy.  Cf.  Liithy,  p.  39. 

28.  Ehrmann,  no.  86,  p.  7. 


12  THE  BACKGROUND 

found;  the  only  solution  that  the  deputies  could  devise  was  to  hand  over  to 
the  government  special  powers  to  legislate  by  decree.  If  democracy  meant 
paralysis  the  capacity  for  action  had  to  be  restored  by  suspending  democracy. 
The  return  to  normal  only  underlined  the  lesson.  From  February  1930  to 
February  1934  the  country  had  fourteen  ministries.  When  the  Germans 
entered  the  Rhineland  France  had  a  caretaker  government  awaiting  a  general 
election,  and  therefore  too  timid  to  call  up  reservists.  When  they  marched  into 
Austria,  France  was  in  a  ministerial  crisis.  During  the  Munich  episode  there 
was  a  government  but  no  parliament;  Daladier,  having  been  granted  special 
powers,  had  sent  the  Chamber  off  on  holiday.  The  defeat  of  1940  did  not 
kill  the  Third  Republic,  it  merely  drew  attention  to  the  fact  that  it  was  dead. 
'The  constitutional  crisis  that  opened  in  the  thirties  is  still  awaiting  its 
solution.'29 

4.  SOCIAL  TRANSFORMATION 

The  changes  which  matured  in  the  next  generation  have  been  described  as  the 
most  far-reaching  since  1789.30  For  the  first  time  for  over  a  century  the  birth- 
rate began  to  rise ;  the  coming  decade  will  see  the  impact  of  an  abnormally 
large  generation  of  impatient  young  adults  upon  the  psychological,  social 
and  political  outlook  of  their  countrymen.  The  economy  expanded  far  faster 
than  the  British  or  American.  Both  the  changing  age-structure  and  the 
economic  advance  brought  problems  as  well  as  benefits,  for  large  sectors  and 
regions  were  still  excluded  from  or  even  harmed  by  the  process  of  moderniza- 
tion. But  for  the  first  time  the  predominant  economic  outlook  was  forward- 
looking  and  expansionist;  'the  market  is  at  last  seen  as  growing  instead  of 
frozen5.31  Progress,  prosperity  and  rejuvenation  cracked  the  crust  of  the  old 
society  at  many  points ;  horizons  broadened  and  some  barriers  to  communica- 
tion and  comprehension  between  Frenchmen  were  lowered  if  not  eliminated. 
The  new  influence  of  youth  weakened  the  hold  of  the  old  tightly-closed 
authoritarian  family.  Unprecedented  numbers  of  students  started  to  force 
a  breach  in  that  fortress  of  political  radicalism  and  academic  conservatism, 
the  teaching  profession  -  /'  University. 

Though  small  businesses  flourished  for  a  time  after  the  war,  their  numbers 
soon  began  to  fall  off.  The  proportion  of  the  population  engaged  in  agriculture 
dropped  sharply.32  Everywhere  the  family  farm  was  in  decline ;  everywhere  the 
isolation  of  the  village  was  diminishing,  and  indeed  in  some  regions  it  was 
ceasing  to  be  the  main  economic  or  even  social  centre  as  a  result  of  the  steady 
drift  to  the  towns  and  the  demand  for  better  conditions  and  facilities  in  the 
countryside.  Progress  and  expansion  after  a  generation  of  inflation  trans- 
formed the  attitude  to  savings:  there  was  less  determination  to  hoard  and 
more  willingness  to  invest  and  risk.  Even  the  tenacious  class  divisions  were 
somewhat  less  bitter.  The  traditional  owner  gave  way  to  the  professional 
manager;  much  of  the  business  community  at  last  accepted  the  welfare  state; 

29.  Ibid.,  p.  10.  30.  Hoffmann  in  Change,  p.  60. 

31.  Hoffmann,  no.  126,  p.  62;  cf.  Change,  pp.  63-4. 

32.  From  44%  in  1906  to  36%  in  1936,  27%  in  1954  and  under  25%  in  1960:  Tannenbaum, 
p.  12.  Cf.  Wahl,  p.  25 ;  Aron,  Steadfast,  pp.  52-3 ;  Siegfried,  De  la  ///«,  pp.  259-60.  (Figures  from 

INSEB.) 


THE  BASIS  OF  FRENCH  POLITICS  13 

workers,  though  still  feeling  alienated  from  society  in  many  ways,  grew  less 
savagely  rebellious  as  they  drew  away  from  the  poverty  line ;  and  between  the 
sides  in  the  class  war  the  new  technical  and  administrative  cadres  formed  a 
buffer  growing  in  size  and  importance.33  The  defeatism  and  depression  of  the 
pre-war  years  were  replaced  by  a  new  vitality  and  self-confidence.  At  the  same 
time,  however,  the  country's  relative  power  in  the  world  had  declined  sharply: 
the  more  sharply  because  it  had  been  artificially  prolonged  between  the  wars. 
Simultaneous  progress  at  home  and  retreat  abroad  set  up  acute  psychological 
strains.34  In  some  areas  adjustment  was  remarkably  rapid,  in  others  remark- 
ably slow,  but  the  price  in  both  cases  was  a  tension  with  explosive  potentialities. 

This  new  France  which  began  to  show  itself  in  the  middle  1950's  was  the 
result  of  changes  which  had  begun  twenty  years  before  as  dissatisfaction  with 
the  old  'stalemate  society'  became  widespread.  Greatly  accelerated  by  the 
second  world  war,  these  changes  were  often  encouraged  and  promoted  -  in 
fact  if  not  always  in  intention  -  by  Vichy  and  the  Resistance  alike.35  Many 
representatives  of  groups  which  had  been  excluded  from  positions  of  influence 
in  the  Third  Republic  rose  to  power  in  the  economy,  society  and  government 
of  post-war  France.  The  newcomers  were  younger  and  more  progressive  than 
their  predecessors,  and  the  society  they  meant  to  modernize  was  less  frag- 
mented, less  individualist,  more  willing  for  and  responsive  to  organization 
than  pre-war  France  had  been.  Yet  the  impulse  for  change  came  from  above 
rather  than  from  below,  as  it  had  done  ever  since  the  first  Napoleon. 

The  new  climate  was  visible  first  of  all  in  the  willingness  to  allow  authority 
to  men  in  their  prime.  Resistance  organizations,  writes  Hoffmann,  were 
'dominated  by  young  men  who  acceded  to  responsibilities  which  French 
youth  had  been  deprived  of  since  the  days  of  the  Revolution'.36  No  longer 
could  the  gibe  be  repeated  that  France  was  ruled  by  men  of  seventy-five 
because  the  octogenarians  were  dead:  in  1952  she  had  her  youngest  prime 
minister  for  seventy  years,  and  in  the  next  six  the  new  record  was  again  broken, 
twice.  Five  of  the  last  ten  governments  of  the  Fourth  Republic  were  led  by 
men  in  their  forties.  Yet  it  was  precisely  in  politics  that  the  new  generation 
made  least  impression.  As  one  critic  cruelly  asked,  'What's  the  good  of  being 
young  if  you  carry  out  the  old  men's  policies?'37 

The  technocratic  elements  in  business  management  and  public  administra- 
tion (which  in  France  are  closely  linked)  composed  another  group  which 
vastly  improved  its  position,  firstly  through  Vichy's  industrial  'organization 
committees'  which  gave  great  power  to  the  managers  of  the  big  firms,  and 
later  through  the  post-war  planning  machinery,  nationalized  industries,  and 

33.  Priouret,  Deputes,  pp.  240-52;  Aron,  Steadfast,  pp.  57-60,  64-5 ;  Tannenbaum,  pp.  10-23  ; 
Fauvet,  Cockpit,  pp.  150-5,  D6chir6e,  pp.  147-52.  From  1953  to  1957  industrial  production 
increased  by  10%  a  year,  and  (1949  =  100)  real  wages  rose  from  118  to  145,  production  of  house- 
hold appliances  from  202  to  562,  of  radios,  television  sets  and  gramophones  from  166  to  513  ; 
INSEE  figures  quoted  Wahl,  p,  21,  cf.  Aron,  p.  65.  Farm  tractors  were  56,000  in  1946,  211,000 
in  1953  and  628,000  in  1959:  INSEE  figures,  more  fully  in  Change,  p.  418. 

34.  Wahl,  pp.  20-3 ;  Aron,  Steadfast,  pp.  146-50. 

35.  This  is  one  theme  of  Professor  Hoffmann's  chapter  in  Change,  to  which  this  section  owes  a 
great  deal.  Cf.  also  Priouret,  Deputes,  pp.  229-31. 

36.  Change,  p.  36;  no.  126,  p.  46. 

37.  Pierre  Cot,  JO  5  November  1957,  p.  1350. 


14  THE  BACKGROUND 

expanding  private  businesses.38  Thibaudet  had  listed  the  Saint-Simonian 
devotion  to  industrial  progress  as  one  of  the  half-dozen  important  political 
attitudes  in  France;  now  'the  Saint-Simonian  tradition  was  no  longer  under- 
ground'.39  The  ascendancy  of  Jean  Monnet  and  his  planning  staff,  says 
Professor  Ehrmann,  "provides  an  excellent  example  of  a  highly  intense 
minority  which  overrode,  at  the  price  of  ceaseless  efforts,  the  traditional 
values  and  preferences  of  a  relatively  indifferent  majority'.40 

The  Liberation  gave  them  an  exceptional  opportunity  of  which  they  took 
full  advantage:  business  was  unpopular,  scared,  and  anxious  to  redeem  by 
co-operation  its  rather  murky  wartime  record,  while  under  Communist 
leadership  the  working  class,  sharing  briefly  in  power  almost  for  the  first  time, 
was  also  willing  to  co-operate  in  laying  economic  foundations  for  the  overdue 
social  reforms  it  demanded.  After  that  first  favourable  moment,  however,  the 
planners  could  not  have  maintained  the  momentum  without  exploiting  other 
assets:  Marshall  Aid;  effective  planning  instruments  for  influencing  the  supply 
of  credit  and  the  direction  of  investment ;  a  large  nationalized  sector ;  above  all, 
despite  the  'relatively  indifferent  majority',  the  goodwill  of  their  contem- 
poraries in  business  and  the  administration  and  of  most  of  the  holders  of 
political  power.41  Their  success  was  to  widen  still  further  the  gap  between  those 
economic  sectors  and  geographic  regions  which  were  willing  and  able  to 
adapt  and  those  which  refused  and  revolted:  between  'modern  France'  and 
the  'static  France'  which  uttered  in  Poujadism  its  strident  protest  against  the 
incomprehensible  injustices  of  the  new  world.42 

The  devout  Catholics,  who  had  normally  been  excluded  from  power  in  the 
Third  Republic,  formed  another  group  which  was  promoted  by  both  Vichy 
and  the  Resistance.  Their  party,  the  Mouvement  rtpublicain  populaire  (MRP), 
belonged  to  the  majority  for  all  but  seven  and  to  the  government  for  all  but 
thirty  months  of  the  fourteen-year  period  from  the  Liberation  to  the  fall  of  the 
Fourth  Republic.  They  were  convinced  if  cautious  advocates  of  social  reform, 
economic  modernization  and  accommodation  to  France's  new  position  in 
Europe  (though  over  colonial  matters  they  were  less  enlightened).  In  post-war 
journalism,  in  administration,  in  party  politics  and  in  the  public  life  of  rural 
France,  active  Catholics  played  a  far  more  prominent  part  in  the  Fourth 
Republic  than  under  its  predecessor.  No  longer,  therefore,  was  it  unquestioned 
republican  orthodoxy  to  condemn  social  pluralism  and  group  organization 

38.  Hoffmann  in  Change,  pp.  39-42,  53-4;  in  n.  30  he  points  out  that  de  Gaulle's  first  finance 
minister  had  been  chairman  of  Vichy's  organization  committee  for  coal-mines ;  cf.  no.  126,  pp.  40- 
43,  48-9 ;  no.  127,  pp.  47,  56-7,  63-4,  68-9 ;  Priouret,  Dtputds,  pp.  229-30.  On  the  organization 
committees  see  also  Ehrmann,  Organized  Business  in  France,  Chapter  2 ;  Pickles,  France  Between 
the  Republics,  pp.  37-8,  210. 

39.  Hoffmann  in  Change,  p.  40;  Thibaudet,  Les  idies  politiques  de  la  France,  Chapter  3,  Even 
Vichy  contributed  to  the  Saint-Simonian  revival,  for  Plain's  own  pastoral  ideology  was  by  no 
means  shared  by  ministers  like  Pucheu  and  Bichelonne :  Hoffmann  in  Change,  p.  42,  nos.  126-7, 
loc.  cit. ;  Ehrmann,  Business,  pp.  63,  68-76. 

40.  Ehrmann,  no.  86,  p.  16;  cf.  Liithy,  pp.  288-97. 

41.  See  below,  pp.  337,  343;  on  the  machinery,  Wilson,  French  Banking  Structure  and  Credit 
Policy. 

42.  Goguel,  France  under  the  Fourth  Republic,  pp,  141-6;  Liithy,  pp.  287-91,  301-15,  430-1, 
453-4;  Priouret,  Deputes,  pp.  249-58 ;  Fauvet,  Cockpit,  pp.  97-100,  bichiree,  pp.  90-3 ;  Hamon, 
no.  120,  pp.  841-5 ;  and  below,  Chapter  12. 


THE  BASIS  OF  FRENCH  POLITICS  15 

and  to  oppose  any  corps  intermddiaires  screening  the  state  from  the  individual 
citizen. 

The  proliferation  of  new  organizations  in  a  once  atomized  and  individualist 
society  was  indeed  among  the  most  significant  of  the  new  developments. 
Again  the  war  played  an  important  part.  Vichy  with  its  corporative  state  doc- 
trine threw  up  new  bodies  from  which  grew  the  main  post-war  organizations 
of  business  (the  Conseil  national  dupatronatfran$ais,  CNPF),  of  the  peasantry 
(the  Federation  nationale  des  syndicats  d'exploitants  agricoles,  FNSEA),  and 
of  several  leading  professions  -  and  in  some  cases  also  discovered  their  post- 
war leadership.43  The  fragmentation  of  the  country  into  several  sealed-off 
zones  concentrated  attention  on  the  interdependence  of  different  parts  of 
France,  and  stimulated  willingness  to  plan  on  a  national  rather  than  a  local  or 
regional  scale;44  before  long  the  planners  and  the  progressive  businessmen 
were  to  find  France  itself  too  small  a  unit  for  the  developments  they  wanted  to 
encourage.  The  reforms  of  the  Liberation  marked  an  irreversible  expansion  of 
the  state's  economic  and  social  activities,  by  nationalization,  planning  and 
social  welfare  measures45  (though  generous  family  allowances  and  retirement 
pensions  -  and  subsidies  for  church  schools  -  all  date  back  to  1939  and  1940). 
Politically,  the  large  constituencies  adopted  at  the  Liberation  as  a  framework 
for  proportional  representation  did,  despite  the  many  drawbacks  of  that 
system,  help  to  widen  the  limited  horizon  of  the  local  politician.  And  the  per- 
sonnel of  Parliament  was  a  little  less  cut  off  from  the  country's  economic  life 
than  before.  The  Gaullists  recruited  many  managers,  engineers  and  industrial- 
ists, and  the  Socialists  (and  even  MRP)  allowed  more  influence  to  trade 
unionists  than  the  governing  parties  of  the  Third  Republic  had  ever  given 
them. 

These  changes,  however,  did  little  or  nothing  to  solve  the  problem  of  a 
political  authority  which  still  appeared  as  remote,  as  impersonal  and  as 
arbitrary  as  ever.  There  were  a  number  of  useful  and  important  administrative 
measures  taken  to  strengthen  the  machinery  of  the  state,  but  the  changes 
designed  to  harness  popular  political  energies  proved  a  total  disappointment. 
The  Fourth  Republic  did  no  more  than  the  Third  (or  the  Fifth)  to  encourage 
genuine  political  participation.  Assiduously  though  the  deputy  might  culti- 
vate his  constituents,  they  continued  to  regard  him  not  as  an  agent  for  the 
enactment  of  policies  they  had  had  a  hand  in  deciding  but  as  a  local  am- 
bassador, or  rather  consul,  performing  services  and  seeking  benefits  from  a 
foreign  body  over  whose  inexplicable  whims  they  had  no  control.  How  could 
it  be  otherwise  when  the  result  of  general  elections  bore  no  visible  relationship 
to  the  composition  of  governments,  which  still  seemed  to  be  arbitrarily  made 

43.  Hoffmann  in  Change,  pp.  38-9,  no.  126,  pp.  40-1 ;  Ehrmann,  Business,  pp.  67,  79,  8 In.,  115, 
etc. ;  Liithy,  p.  288 ;  Fauvet  and  Mendras,  eds.,  Les  paysans  et  la  politique  (henceforth  cited  as 
Paysans),  pp.  235,  289-90.  The  trend  had  begun  earlier:  cf.  Tannenbaum,  p.  9;  Sharp,  The 
Government  of  the  French  Republic,  pp.  88-9.  These  bodies  were  of  course  always  centres  of 
pressure-group  activity  and  sometimes  of  resistance  to  modernization ;  but  even  the  arch-conser- 
vative Petites  et  moyennes  entreprises  (PME)  proved  such  a  two-way  transmitter  between  the 
government  and  the  membership  that  the  latter  revolted  to  follow  Poujade. 

44.  Hoffmann  in  Change,  p.  40;  no.  126,  p.  43. 

45.  Priouret,  Diputis,  pp.  230-1,  238-9 ;  Aron,  Steadfast,  pp.  61-2 :  social  security  and  welfare 
payments  made  up  over  40%  of  the  total  of  wages  and  salaries  in  1947.  Cf.  Liithy,  pp.  326-8. 


16  THE  BACKGROUND 

and  unmade  by  the  politicians  in  the  course  of  their  endless  private  game?  But 
this  game,  'the  System'  as  General  de  Gaulle  called  it,  and  the  immobilisme 
which  it  protected  received  shorter  shrift  from  the  citizens  of  the  Fourth 
Republic  than  from  those  of  the  Third.  Until  1934  the  System  and  the  stale- 
mate society  held  the  allegiance  of  a  safe  majority  of  the  electorate  and  an 
overwhelming  majority  in  Parliament.  But  in  the  post-war  years  society  was  no 
longer  in  stalemate  and  the  enemies  of  the  System  could  sometimes  command 
a  third  of  the  seats  and  nearly  half  the  votes.  In  their  insistence  that  represen- 
tative government  must  mean  their  own  dominance  over  the  cabinet,  the 
deputies  did  not  merely  degrade  government:  they  themselves  ceased  to 
represent.46 

In  these  conditions  a  weak  regime  was  dangerously  vulnerable  to  shocks 
from  abroad.  The  resurgence  of  Germany  had  fatally  weakened  the  Third 
Republic  before  the  Wehrmacht  crushed  it  in  the  battle  of  France.  The  sense 
of  national  humiliation  which  resulted  was  to  influence  the  outlook  of  French 
political  leaders  from  Georges  Bidault,  first  foreign  minister  of  the  Fourth 
Republic,  to  Michel  Debre,  first  prime  minister  of  the  Fifth,  and  to  determine 
that  of  one  important  social  group,  the  officer  corps.  And  where  the  Third 
Republic  had  enjoyed  the  credit  for  winning  an  empire,  the  Fourth  suffered 
the  odium  of  losing  it.  The  new  regime  was  inherently  no  stronger  than  the  old, 
and  it  succumbed  when  confronted  with  the  French  equivalent  of  the  Irish 
question  or  America's  problem  of  the  South:  the  war  in  Algeria. 

46.  Hoffmann  in  Change,  p.  51 ;  no.  126,  p.  56.  In  1957  an  inquiry  among  3,500  conscripts  found 
that  97  %  knew  the  winner  of  the  Tour  de  France  (the  annual  bicycle  race)  and  15  %  the  prime 
minister:  Georgel,  Critiques  et  reforme  des  constitutions  de  la  Rtpublique,  i.  177.  An  inquiry  late 
in  1958  asked  how  many  parties  were  desirable:  97%  said  there  were  too  many;  the  average 
member  of  a  splinter  group  wanted  only  3-5  parties,  members  of  a  major  party  3,  and  others  2-8 : 
Converse  and  Dupeux,  no.  59,  p.  10. 


Chapter  2 
THE  WAR  AND  ITS  AFTERMATH,  1936-1947 

World  war  shook  France  from  the  economic  stagnation  and  political  paralysis 
which  had  marked  the  last  years  of  the  Third  Republic.  Defeat  provided  the 
opportunity  for  a  counter-revolution  directed  against  both  the  working-class 
movement  and  the  democratic  regime  itself.  The  Resistance  was  a  revolution- 
ary response  to  this  challenge,  and  its  triumph  revolutionized  the  political 
situation.  But  the  apparent  national  unity  was  quickly  dissipated.  The  Com- 
munist drive  for  power  forced  all  groups  to  take  sides.  During  1945  and  1946 
there  proceeded  simultaneously  a  national  effort  at  indispensable  economic 
reconstruction,  a  struggle  over  the  framing  of  the  new  constitution,  and  a 
bitter  political  'cold  war'  between  jthe  ruling  parties.  When  the  Communists 
went  out  of  office  in  May  1947  the  regime  gradually  returned  to  normal  and 
the  political  practices  of  the  past  slowly  revived. 

1.   POLITICAL  FORCES,    1936-45 

Before  the  second  world  war  the  Radicals  were  politically  dominant,  appealing 
to  all  those  who  'wore  their  hearts  on  the  left  and  their  wallets  on  the  right'. 
The  party  was  so  loose  in  its  organization  and  discipline  that  members  with 
very  different  opinions  could  join ;  the  Radicals  in  the  Senate  (such  as  Cail- 
laux)  were  far  more  conservative  than  those  in  the  Chamber  (like  the  rising 
young  leader  Daladier).  At  elections  the  latter  could  usually  impose  an 
alliance  with  the  Socialists,  but  during  the  course  of  each  parliament's  life 
the  moderate  wing  gradually  encouraged  their  colleagues  into  coalition  with 
the  Right.  Its  pivotal  position  gave  the  party  a  permanent  hold  on  power ;  the 
premiership  and  ministry  of  the  interior  were  generally  in  its  hands,  and  it 
was  able  to  train  many  skilful  and  experienced  politicians  both  in  Paris  and 
through  its  extensive  hold  on  local  government. 

But  the  Radicals  had  the  defects  of  their  qualities.  The  body  of  opinion 
represented  by  them  was  broad  but  shallow.  This  negative,  unconstructive 
and  timid  following  handicapped  the  party  in  a  period  of  crisis.  Loose  dis- 
cipline allowed  it  to  attract  such  wide  support  that  it  became  less  a  party  in  the 
British  sense  than  a  social  club  attached  to  an  electioneering  machine.  Its  hold 
on  power  meant  that  it  attracted  the  careerist  politician  and  the  unscrupulous 
henchman:  few  were  the  political  and  financial  scandals  in  which  Radicals 
were  not  involved.  And  in  training  its  young  men  it  sought  not  to  promote 
strong  personalities  but  to  suppress  them.  Many  Radicals  positively  preferred 
mediocrity  to  ability. 

Until  1936  the  Socialist  party  sat  on  the  far  Left  in  Parliament.  Once 
revolutionary  and  anti-militarist,  the  Socialists  had  settled  down  as  orthodox 
defenders  of  the  regime  -  although  they  long  refused  to  take  office.  When  they 
changed  their  minds  in  1936,  on  becoming  the  strongest  party  in  the  Popular 
Front  majority,  they  were  already  feeling  the  breath  of  competition  on  their 
Left.  For  at  that  election  the  Communist  party  was  accepted  as  an  ally  by  the 


Ig  THE  BACKGROUND 

Socialists  and  Radicals.  Hitherto  badly  under-represented  by  the  electoral 
system  it  suddenly  leapt  from  a  dozen  parliamentary  seats  to  seventy,  but  in 
its  turn  refused  office  and  gave  Blum's  government  only  the  cold  comfort  of 
*  support  without  participation'.  -  .  . 

The  Right  like  the  Socialists,  was  too  weak  to  win  an  electoral  majority. 
Much  of  its  strength  lay  in  the  support  of  influential  figures  like  P6tain  in  the 
army  Chiappe  in  the  police,  Coty  in  business,  Maurras  among  intellectuals. 
During  the  thirties  such  men  became  more  and  more  sympathetic  towards 
fascism.  At  home  strong  fascist  leagues  grew  up  of  which  Croix  defeu  was  the 
largest  (and  least  extreme).  Abroad  the  entire  Right  demanded  a  policy 
favourable  to  Mussolini's  Italy  and  to  Franco's  cause  in  Spain,  and  many  of 
its  supporters  came  to  see  the  predominance  of  Nazi  Germany  as  a  lesser  evil 
than  the  rule  of  a  Jewish  Socialist  prime  minister  in  Paris. 

Fascism  did  not  attract  the  Right  alone.  Among  its  most  extreme  exponents 
were  the  former  Communist  leader  Doriot  and  the  'Neo-Socialist'  D6at.  It 
gained  indirectly,  too,  as  Hitler's  successive  victories  sapped  the  determination 
and  paralysed  the  will  of  French  leaders  -  including  most  Radicals  and  half  the 
Socialists  as  well  as  the  Right.  Since  at  first  the  Communists  stood  for  resis- 
tance to  Germany,  by  the  time  of  Munich  anti-Communism  had  become 
the  main  bond  between  the  forces  of  appeasement  and  the  main  motive  of 
governmental  policy.  Then  when  the  Nazi-Soviet  pact  was  signed  the 
Communists  turned  defeatist,  playing  into  the  hands  of  those  of  their  enemies 
for  whom  the  class  war  at  home  was  more  important  than  the  fight  against 

Hitler. 

So  where  the  first  world  war  had  brought  national  unity,  the  second  des- 
troyed it.  The  regime  had  long  been  opposed  by  an  extreme  Right  which  felt 
excluded  from  government  and  an  extreme  Left  which  felt  alienated  from 
society.  For  some  years  it  had  also  been  losing  former  supporters  who  believed 
it  could  no  longer  fulfil  its  task.  The  defeat  seemed  to  prove  them  right.  An 
overwhelming  majority  conferred  full  powers  upon  Marshal  P6tain  as  chief 
of  the  French  State :  the  very  name  of  Republic  was  abandoned.  His  regime 
was  based  primarily  on  right-wing  opinion,  which  found  at  Vichy  (not  of 
course  among  the  German  puppets  in  Paris)  the  political  leadership  it  really 
sought.  But  the  Marshal's  first  cabinet  also  included  two  prominent  Socialists, 
a  Radical  ex-premier,  and  an  assistant  secretary  of  CGT,  the  trade  union 
federation.  Conversely  when  General  de  Gaulle  issued  his  appeal  on  18  June 
1940  he  found  followers  in  all  political  camps  from  Socialists  to  Croix  defeu, 
but  his  support  from  the  Right  came  from  individuals  only.1  In  the  Resistance 
inside  France  the  pioneers  were  usually  Socialists,  Catholic  democrats  or 
army  officers.  Only  after  Germany's  invasion  of  Russia  did  the  Communist 
party  play  its  active  part. 

Though  directed  against  a  foreign  occupier,  the  Resistance  was  potentially 
a  revolutionary  movement;  and  the  Liberation  was  potentially  a  revolu- 
tionary change.  For  a  few  months  indeed  the  new  Gaullist  authorities 
shared  precarious  power  with  the  largely  Communist-controlled  militia  and 

1.  The  Communists  denounced  him  as  a  hireling  of  the  City  of  London :  cf.  Rossi,  La  physiologic 
4 u  Parti  comrnvniste  fran$ais,  pp.  86-7,  90-3,  220,  and  his  other  bpoks  cited  in  the  bibliography. 


THE  WAR  AND  ITS  AFTERMATH,   1936-47  19 

insurrectionary  committees  which  dominated  most  of  southern  France.2  But 
at  the  end  of  1944  Thorez  allowed  his  supporters  to  be  disarmed  and  the  Liber- 
ation Committees  disbanded  without  resistance.  The  war  was  still  raging  and 
the  party  had  decided  to  bid  for  power  by  legal  means.  It  knew  that  the  old 
political  leaders  as  a  group  (and  often  as  individuals)  had  suffered  a  disastrous 
loss  of  prestige.  The  Right  was  discredited  by  Vichy;  the  Radicals  were  blamed 
for  the  events  leading  up  to  the  war,  for  their  weakness  and  lack  of  responsi- 
bility in  power,  and  for  their  rather  unheroic  part  under  the  occupation.  Thus 
two  of  the  three  main  forces  on  the  pre-war  scene  were  under  a  heavy  cloud. 
New  men  rose  to  the  top  who,  as  in  any  revolution,  included  both  inexperienced 
idealists  and  more  or  less  scrupulous  and  patriotic  adventurers.  Welded  into  a 
strong  Resistance  party  they  might  form  a  buffer  against  the  Communists; 
dispersed  and  divided,  they  would  easily  be  outmanoeuvred  by  the  largest  and 
best-disciplined  party. 

The  Resistance  party  was  never  formed.  The  Communists  were  bent  on 
hampering  any  organization  they  did  not  control.  Some  Resisters  from  the  old 
parties,  especially  Socialists,  were  unwilling  to  lose  their  former  political 
identity.  Christian  Democrats  who  could  hope  at  last  to  found  a  major  party 
would  not  renounce  this  opportunity  for  an  uncertain  fusion  with  rather 
reluctant  anticlerical  partners.  Above  all  General  de  Gaulle,  who  in  1943  had 
revived  the  discredited  old  parties  by  bringing  them  into  the  National  Resis- 
tance Council  to  strengthen  his  hand  in  Washington  and  London,  was  in 
1944-45  still  unwilling  to  forfeit  his  position  as  a  national  hero  by  stooping  to 
lead  a  political  party.3  The  attempt  to  transform  the  non-Communist  Resis- 
tance into  a  political  movement  was  thus  stillborn,  and  instead  three  parties 
succeeded  in  canalizing  the  new  enthusiasm. 

The  Communists  reaped  in  votes  the  reward  of  their  Resistance  record  after 
1941,  becoming  the  largest  single  party;  and  they  contrived  through  their 
dynamism,  their  organizing  capacity  and  their  ruthless  use  of  slander  and 
violence  to  capture  control  of  CGT.4  Equally  spectacular  was  the  sudden 
emergence  of  a  new  party,  the  Mouvement  republican  populaire  (MRP), 
based  on  an  old  tradition  of  Catholic  democracy  which  had  never  before 
found  effective  political  expression  and  on  a  new  generation  of  progressive 
Christians  who  had  come  to  maturity  in  the  Resistance.  Between  these  two  the 
old  Socialist  leaders  hoped  to  rejuvenate  their  party  and  make  it  the  link  and 
leader  of  all  the  new  forces. 

In  these  forgotten  years  of  1944-45  General  de  Gaulle  was  earning  distinc- 
tion at  home  as  the  first  French  premier  to  bring  Communists  into  his 
administration,  and  abroad  as  the  chief  advocate  of  the  middle  way  between 

2.  Robert  Aron,  Histoire  de  la  Liberation  de  la  France  (1959),  pp.  573-637;  Lfithy,  pp.  100-4; 
Rieber,  Stalin  and  the  French  Communist  Party,  pp.  150-8,  168-74. 

3  Wright,  Reshaping  of  French  Democracy,  pp.  32-6,  64-78;  Matthews,  Death  of  the  Fourth 
Republic,  pp.  107-11 ;  Fauvet,  La  IVe  Republique,  pp.  24-7;  H.  Michel,  Histoire  de  la  Resistance 
(1950),  pp.  47-8,  51 ;  M.  Granet  and  H.  Michel,  Combat  (1957),  pp.  297-306;  R.  Hostache,  Le 
Conseil  National  de  la  Resistance  (1958),  Chapters  2  and  3 ;  Bourdet,  no.  27,  pp.  1837-62;  Frenay, 

4.  Lorwin,  French  Labor  Movement,  pp.  107-11  (and  in  Earle,  pp.  202-4);  Rioux,  Le  Syndi- 
calisme,  pp.  75-6;  Lefranc,  Les  experiences  syndicates  en  France,  pp.  140-1  ?  151-68;  Rossi, 
pp.  444-5 ;  Rieber,  pp.  179-82,  220-4, 


20  THE  BACKGROUND 

Washington  and  Moscow.  Vincent  Auriol,  later  President  of  the  Republic  and 
champion  of  'the  System*  against  Gaullism,  was  the  General's  chief  constitu- 
tional adviser  and  his  agent  in  dealing  with  the  politicians.  The  Communists 
were  seeking  fusion  of  their  party  with  the  Socialists;  the  voters  of  the  Right 
could  find  an  electoral  home  only  with  MRP;  the  General  was  on  intimate 
terms  with  both  Socialists  and  MRP  but  sharply  divided  from  the  Radicals 
and  Conservatives.5  And  the  style  of  government,  in  which  a  national  hero  of 
authoritarian  temper  carried  out  the  revolutionary  policies  of  an  insurrec- 
tionary committee  subject  to  the  criticism  of  a  parliamentary  assembly,  was 
one  which  combined  features  cherished  by  the  extreme  Right,  the  extreme 
Left  and  the  moderate  Centre.6 

2.  POLITICS  AND  CONSTITUTIONAL  REFORM,    1945-47 

The  Third  Republic  formally  committed  suicide  on  10  July  1940  when  the 
Chamber  and  Senate,  sitting  together  as  a  National  Assembly  empowered  to 
revise  the  constitution,  voted  full  powers  to  Marshal  Pftain.  The  rival 
government  of  General  de  Gaulle  established  itself  at  Algiers  in  1943.  It 
gradually  obtained  Allied  recognition,  and  took  control  in  France  in  1944. 
But  until  21  October  1945  its  authority  was  based  on  no  formal  or  legal 
title. 

On  that  day  the  French  electorate  had  three  decisions  to  take.  They  had  to 
choose  their  parliamentary  representatives.  They  had  to  decide  by  referendum 
whether  the  new  assembly  should  draft  a  new  constitution:  if  not,  it  would 
simply  become  a  Chamber  of  Deputies,  a  senatorial  election  would  take  place 
according  to  the  pre-war  procedure,  and  the  new  parliament  might  or  might 
not  proceed  to  revise  the  constitution  in  the  manner  prescribed  in  1875.  But  if 
the  voters  gave  the  new  assembly  constituent  powers  (as  they  did),  they  would 
also  have  to  accept  or  reject  a  governmental  proposal  limiting  its  authority  to 
seven  months  and  requiring  its  draft  constitution  to  be  approved  by  another 
referendum.  For  General  de  Gaulle  was  unwilling  to  confer  unlimited  power 
on  a  single  assembly  checked  by  no  rival  institution. 

The  referendum  produced  an  overwhelming  vote  of  no  confidence  in  the 
Third  Republic.  Only  the  Radicals  advocated  returning  to  the  system  of 
which  they  had  been  the  principal  beneficiaries  (and  only  one  in  three  of  their 
two  million  surviving  voters  followed  them).  The  Assembly  was  given  consti- 
tuent status  by  18,600,000  votes  to  700,000.7  But  this  enormous  majority 
divided  over  the  Assembly's  powers.  Socialists  and  MRP  supported  General 
de  Gaulle  and  called  on  their  followers  to  vote  0  UI-  0  UL  The  Communists, 
against  whom  the  restrictions  on  the  Assembly's  powers  were  directed,  cam- 
paigned vigorously  for  OUI-  NON.  On  the  second  question  they  were  joined 
by  the  Radicals,  who  disliked  plebiscites  in  principle  and  General  de  Gaulle  in 

™vT*e  ten?  '^onservrati,ve'  is  used  to  denote  the  small  and  shifting  right-wing  groups  like 
PRL ,  (Parti  rtpubhcain  de  la  Liberty,  the  Peasant  party,  the  Independent  Republicans,  and  the 
dissident  GauUists:  see  below,  Chapter  11.  Without  a  capital  letter,  'conservative'  refers  to  a 
social  and  economic  outlook  which  some  anticlericals  share 

6.  Moraze,  p.  141. 

7.  See  Appendix  v.  Voting  figures  from  Husson,  Les  Elections  et  R£f6rendums  (1945-6,  two 
volumes,  cited  henceforth  as  Husson  i  and  ii). 


I     Anti-    I  1 

i  Clerical  J  Clerical  \ 


For  a  new  constitutional  regime 


Socially  progressive;  constitutionally,  for  the  Fourth  Republic 


Socially  conservative;  constitutionally,  for  the  Third  Republic 


I.  Referendum.  2! -1 0-45 

For  a  new  constitution 

(Carried) 


3.  Referendum,  S-S'46 
For  the  first  draft  constitution 
(Lost) 


Com. I 


DeG. 
-or- 

RPF 


Soc. 


Rad. 


MRP 


ConsJ 


2.  Referendum,  21  •  10-45 

For  limiting  the  Assembly's  powers 

(Carried) 


For 


Against 


4.  Referendum,  13-10*46 

For  the  second  draft  constitution 

(Carried) 


5.  For  the  government,  1946 
(Tripartisme) 


Rad. 


DeG. 


MRP 


Cons. 


6.  For  a  P. R.  electoral  system,  1947 


Single-member 

seats,  majority 

voting 


Mu  I  ti  -member 
seats,  majority 
voting 


Split 


Fig.  1.  Party  Alignments  1945-7 


22  THE  BACKGROUND 

practice.  The  General  won  this  vote  by  nearly  13  million  to  6£  million.  For 
the  first  time  France  had  a  Constituent  Assembly  with  limited  powers. 

The  election  produced  an  Assembly  unlike  any  of  its  predecessors.  The  three 
large  organized  parties,  Communists,  MRP  and  Socialists,  polled  5, 4f  and  4^ 
million  votes  respectively.  These  three  disciplined  groups  shared  between 
them  in  roughly  equal  numbers  nearly  four-fifths  of  the  586  seats  in  the 
Assembly.  The  Radicals  were  routed;  they  and  their  allies  polled  2  million 
votes,  but  the  party  held  only  24  seats  in  metropolitan  France  and  many  of  its 
leaders  were  beaten.  The  different  varieties  of  Conservative  did  a  little  better 
with  about  2-J-  million  votes  and  64  seats. 

For  nearly  three  years  after  the  Liberation  the  Communists  held  office  and 
their  pressure  on  the  government  dominated  the  political  struggle.  They 
pinned  their  hopes  on  completing  the  revolution  legally,  by  electoral  victory 
and  infiltration  of  the  state  machine.  The  basis  of  their  strategy  was  a  close 
alliance  with  the  other  great  Marxist  party;  and  the  reluctance  of  the  Socialist 
leaders  was  to  be  overcome  by  arousing  their  followers  who  still  recognized 
'no  enemies  on  the  Left'.  The  Radicals  were  also  potential  allies,  for  distrust 
of  political  generals  had  led  them  to  co-operate  with  the  Communists  in  the 
1945  referendum.  MRP  was  to  be  discredited  as  the  standard-bearer  of  re- 
action; in  particular  the  clerical  dispute,  which  many  hoped  had  been  buried 
in  the  Resistance  struggle,  was  resuscitated  in  order  to  prevent  any  close  com- 
bination between  MRP  and  the  'Socialists.8  But  proportional  representation, 
in  many  ways  a  help  to  the  Communists,  hindered  them  here :  for  it  allowed 
each  party  to  fight  the  electoral  battle  alone,  and  so  enabled  the  Socialists  to 
escape  being  forced  into  a  Marxist  coalition  which  might  have  alienated  them 
irrevocably  from  MRP.9 

Immediately  after  the  election  General  de  Gaulle  reconstituted  his  govern- 
ment and  based  it  on  the  support  of  all  the  main  parties.  But  a  few  weeks  later, 
on  20  January  1946,  he  suddenly  resigned  in  exasperation  with  the  quarrels 
and  demands  of  the  parties.  Like  some  other  war  leaders,  he  was  more 
interested  and  knowledgeable  in  military  than  in  economic  affairs ;  reconstruc- 
tion of  the  army  was  his  most  cherished  objective,  and  the  interference  of 
party  politics  in  this  sphere  precipitated  his  departure.10  He  rejected  any  idea 
of  carrying  out  a  coup  d'etat,  and  Blum  and  Auriol  advised  him  against 
appealing  by  radio  to  the  public.11 

His  departure  inaugurated  a  year  of  tripartisme,  a  coalition  government  of 
the  three  main  parties,  headed  at  first  by  the  Socialist  President  of  the  Con- 
stituent Assembly,  F61ix  Gouin.  The  three  parties  associated  in  the  govern- 
ment (allied  would  be  too  strong  a  word)  could  reach  no  agreement  on  the 
constitutional  problem.  The  Socialists,  having  failed  to  arrange  a  compromise, 
joined  the  Communists  against  all  the  other  principal  parties  in  voting  the 

8.  See  Hamon,  no.  119,  pp.  103-5.  9.  Goguel,  Fourth  Republic,  pp.  61-2. 

10.  The  last  straw  was  a  large  cut  in  the  military  budget,  moved  by  the  Socialists  in  order  to 
embarrass  the  Communist  minister  responsible  but  promptly  taken  up  and  carried  by  the  Commu- 
nists themselves.  But  see  below,  p.  386 ;  and  Fauvet,  IVe,  pp.  64-5. 

11.  Wright,  Reshaping,  p.  131 ;  Chapters  4  and  5  give  the  fullest  account  of  the  General's 
relations  with  the  cabinet  and  parties.  For  his  rejection  of  a  coup,  see  La  France  sera  la  France 
(a  collection  of  his  pronouncements  published  by  RPF),  pp.  31-3;  Monde,  13  March  1951; 
Rassemblement,  \  \  July  1952  -  but  cf.  his  memoirs :  Le  Salut,  pp.  286-7. 


THE  WAR  AND  ITS  AFTERMATH,   1936-47  23 

draft  constitution  on  19  April  1946  and  campaigning  for  it  in  the  referendum. 
Its  opponents  attacked  the  draft  itself  (which  conferred  virtually  unchecked 
power  on  a  single  chamber);  the  electoral  law  associated  with  it;  and  the  con- 
troversial preamble  -  especially  the  omission  of  the  right  to  'freedom  of 
education',  the  guarantee  of  the  Catholic  schools.  But  they  were  even  more 
hostile  to  the  sponsors  than  to  the  provisions  of  the  draft.  They  feared  that 
acceptance  would  constitute  a  triumph  for  the  Communists,  consolidating 
both  their  alliance  with  the  Socialists  and  their  domination  of  that  alliance. 

The  referendum  of  5  May  1946  checked  the  steady  Communist  advance.  For 
the  first  time  in  French  history  the  electorate  answered  NON  in  a  plebiscite. 
The  draft  constitution  was  rejected  by  a  majority  of  just  over  one  million  votes 
in  a  poll  of  twenty  million.  Some  Socialists  had  evidently  voted  against  their 
leaders  -  who  tried  to  recover  the  lost  ground  by  a  sharp  reversal  of  policy  and 
violent  denunciation  of  the  Communists.  Nevertheless,  in  the  general  election 
on  2  June  the  Socialists  were  the  principal  losers.  The  Communists  gained  a 
little,  M  RP  gained  more.  As  it  emerged  as  the  largest  party,  its  leader  Georges 
Bidault  succeeded  Gouin  at  the  head  of  the  tripartite  government.  An  equally 
important  shift  of  power  was  the  replacement  of  Andr6  Philip,  the  Socialist 
minister  of  finance  who  favoured  a  controlled  economy,  by  Robert  Schuman, 
on  economic  matters  one  of  the  most  conservative  members  of  MRP. 

During  the  referendum  campaign  General  de  Gaulle  maintained  complete 
silence  and  did  not  even  vote.12  But  after  the  election  he  emerged  from  his 
reserve.  At  Bayeux  on  16  June  he  denounced  the  working  of  the  regime, 
attacked  the  power  of  the  parties,  and  expounded  his  own  remedy  of  strong 
presidential  rule  -  the  so-called  Bayeux  constitution.13  His  open  opposition 
presented  a  challenge  to  MRP,  which  claimed  to  be  the  parti  de  lafiddite.  But 
the  MRP  leaders  believed  that  an  unsatisfactory  compromise  was  better  than 
another  controversial  draft  constitution,  another  rejection  by  referendum,  and 
another  seven  months  of  provisional  government.  Until  a  constitution  had 
been  adopted  there  could  be  neither  relief  from  the  paralysing  pressure  of 
imminent  elections  nor  hope  of  upsetting  the  coalition  with  the  Communists. 

MRP  therefore  accepted  the  last-minute  concessions  offered  by  the 
chastened  Communists  and  worried  Socialists.  But  to  their  vast  embarrass- 
ment General  de  Gaulle,  in  another  speech  at  Spinal,  denounced  the  new 
proposals.14  The  October  referendum  proved  MRP's  fears  well-founded.  The 
constitution  was  adopted  by  a  majority  of  only  9  million  against  8  million;  a 
third  of  the  electorate,  8£  million  people,  did  not  trouble  to  vote.  Plainly  it 
was  accepted  not  on  its  merits  but  as  an  escape  from  provisional  government. 

The  Socialist  and  Communist  parties  alone  had  polled  on  2  June  half  a 
million  more  votes  than  were  cast  in  favour  of  the  constitution  on  13  October. 
Yet  since  June  MRP  with  its  5£  million  voters  had  joined  the  OUI  camp. 
There  was  therefore  a  gap  of  6  million  between  the  earlier  vote  for  the  three 
parties  and  the  subsequent  vote  for  the  constitution  they  had  framed.  General 
de  Gaulle  had  shown  his  power.  But  he  was  not  yet  ready  to  re-enter  the 

12.  V Annie  politique  (henceforth  cited  as  AP),  1946,  p.  161. 

13.  Text  of  the  speech  in  ibid.,  pp.  534-9;  cf.  La  France  sera  la  France,  pp.  36,  51,  167. 

14.  Extracts  in  ibid.,  pp.  16,  44,  169 ;  text  in  AP  1946,  p.  245. 


24  THE  BACKGROUND 

political  arena,  and  the  general  election  of  10  November  again  gave  nearly 
three-quarters  of  the  seats  to  the  three  main  parties.  MRP  lost  the  half- 
million  votes  which  they  had  gained  in  June,  and  the  Socialist  decline  con- 
tinued. The  Communists  slightly  increased  their  vote,  again  becoming  the 
strongest  party;  but  their  real  power  diminished,  for  the  Socialist  defeat 
deprived  the  Marxist  parties  of  their  (theoretical)  majority.  The  groups 
opposed  to  tripartisme  adapted  their  tactics  to  the  electoral  system  and  divided 
the  constituencies  between  them;  this  particularly  helped  RG  R  (Radicals  and 
allies)  who  won  70  seats.  The  Assembly  contained  183  Communists,  166 
MRP,  103  Socialists,  and  74  Conservatives.  It  lasted  until  1951. 

Tripartisme  was  dying.  MRP  wanted  to  demonstrate  its  anti-Communism 
to  the  voters  who  had  deserted  it  in  the  referendum ;  the  Communists  feared  to 
lose  their  hold  on  the  working  class  by  staying  in  office.  Since  neither  party 
would  vote  for  the  other's  candidate,  Thorez  and  Bidault  in  turn  failed  to 
secure  the  absolute  majority  of  the  Assembly  which  they  needed  to  be  elected 
prime  minister.  The  immediate  problem  was  solved  by  the  formation  on  16 
December  of  a  one-party  Socialist  government  under  the  veteran  L6on  Blum. 
The  general  public  was  delighted  to  find  a  ministry  which  knew  its  own  mind ; 
the  rival  parties  were  less  pleased.  In  January  the  constitution  was  officially 
inaugurated  by  the  election  as  President  of  the  Republic  of  Vincent  Auriol, 
who  had  succeeded  Gouin  as  President  of  the  Assembly  a  year  before.  Blum 
resigned  (as  was  customary  on  the  election  of  a  new  President)  and  the  big 
parties  renewed  the  coalition  under  another  Socialist,  Paul  Ramadier. 
The  Radical  party,  after  a  year  in  opposition,  now  returned  to  office  and  began 
its  climb  back  to  power;  but  its  influence  was  as  yet  small  and  the  Ramadier 
ministry  rested  on  the  alliance  of  Socialists  and  MRP. 

The  Communists  were  increasingly  uneasy  partners.  They  were  opposed  to 
the  other  parties  both  on  domestic  issues,  especially  wages  policy,  and  on 
colonial  questions  (Madagascar  and  Indo-China  were  both  in  revolt).  In 
March  their  deputies  -  other  than  ministers  -  abstained  in  a  vote  of  confidence 
on  Indo-China,  though  the  party  stayed  in  office  in  the  hope  of  influencing 
French  policy  during  the  foreign  ministers'  conference  in  Moscow.  By  May 
France  had  aligned  herself  with  the  West,  and  a  strike  at  the  Renault  works 
warned  the  Communists  that  their  trade  union  influence  was  threatened:  the 
whole  party  (including  ministers)  voted  against  the  government  on  wages 
policy.  The  ministers  refused  to  resign,  and  were  dismissed  on  5  May  1947, 
the  most  important  date  in  the  history  of  the  Fourth  Republic. 

The  Republic  had  won  its  'battle  of  Prague'.  It  had  taken  the  risk  of 
admitting  Communists  into  the  government,  but  had  escaped  the  fate  of  most 
countries  which  tried  that  gamble.  The  Socialists  had  not  been  enticed  into  an 
alliance  controlled  by  their  rivals.  The  Communists  had  neither  gained  control 
of  the  key  ministries  nor  penetrated  the  governmental  machine  sufficiently  to 
paralyse  it.  They  were  not  strong  enough  either  to  win  a  free  election  or  to 
create  a  revolutionary  situation.  Their  one  great  asset  was  their  grip  on  the 
trade  unions;  and  France  had  now  to  be  ruled  against  the  opposition  of  the 
largest  party  and  the  industrial  working  class, 

A  month  earlier  General  de  Gaulle  had  re-entered  politics.  At  Strasbourg  on 


THE  WAR  AND  ITS  AFTERMATH,   1936-47  25 

7  April  1947  he  appealed  to  all  Frenchmen  to  rally  to  his  Rassemblement  du 
peuplefran$ais  (RPF),  a  new  non-party  movement  to  reform  the  constitution, 
combat  the  Communist  'separatists'  and  regenerate  national  life.  His  appeal 
met  with  a  large  response  in  the  country.  In  the  autumn  RPF  extended  its 
activity  to  Parliament,  setting  up  an  'inter-group'  which  all  deputies  (except 
Communists)  were  invited  to  join  while  still  remaining  members  of  their  for- 
mer parties.  But  Socialists  and  MRP  forbade  their  members  to  adhere,  so 
that  the  new  body  consisted  of  old  opponents  of  tripartisme  reinforced  by  a 
few  MRP  dissidents  who  preferred  the  leadership  of  the  General  to  that  of  the 
party.  Gaullists  and  Communists,  whose  alliance  in  1944  had  laid  the  founda- 
tions of  the  Fourth  Republic,  were  now  both  bent  on  its  destruction.15 

3.  SOCIAL  CONFLICTS 

The  events  of  1947  transformed  French  politics.  Domestically,  imperially  and 
internationally  there  were  adjustments  and  reversals  of  policy  (not  all  for  the 
better).  The  working  of  the  regime  changed  completely.  Party  cohesion 
declined  as  soon  as  it  ceased  to  be  indispensable  in  defence  against  Com- 
munist pressure.  Old  individualist  habits  revived  and  profoundly  affected  both 
political  behaviour  and  constitutional  practice. 

In  the  autumn  of  1947  the  creation  of  the  RPF  inter-group  and  the  begin- 
ning of  active  Communist  opposition  opened  a  new  phase  of  parliamentary 
life.  The  problem  of  the  political  regime  emerged  again  into  the  forefront  of 
controversy.  There  was  massive  support  in  the  country  for  both  the  drastic 
solutions,  'people's  democracy'  leading  to  Communism,  and  presidential 
democracy  leading  perhaps  to  authoritarian  rule  from  the  Right.  Their 
advocates  in  the  Assembly  combined  in  a  negative  coalition  to  make  all 
government  impossible,  hoping  afterwards  to  fight  out  their  own  battle  over 
the  ruins  of  the  parliamentary  republic.  Only  by  the  alliance  of  all  the  middle 
parties,  loyal  to  the  classic  forms  of  parliamentary  rule,  could  a  system  of  the 
familiar  type  be  preserved. 

Union  of  the  centre  groups  was  indispensable  to  the  regime's  survival  and 
perhaps  to  their  own.  But  even  on  the  constitution  itself  they  disagreed: 
Socialists  and  MRP  had  created  the  Fourth  Republic,  Radicals  and  many 
Conservatives  still  preferred  the  Third.  A  graver  weakness  arose  from  the 
clash  of  party  ambitions.  The  middle  parties  had  a  common  interest  in  stand- 
ing together  against  the  oppositions.  But  this  could  neither  suppress  their 
rivalries  nor  prevent  the  weaker  Radical  and  Conservative  groups  from 
pressing  continually  for  a  larger  share  in  power  as  their  parliamentary  bar- 
gaining position  improved.  Nor  was  this  merely  a  matter  of  jobs,  for  the 
majority  was  deeply  divided  on  all  questions  of  policy. 

The  main  cause  of  division  was  the  economic  problem:  the  distribution  of 
the  national  income  and  of  the  burdens  and  benefits  of  government  expendi- 
ture among  different  social  groups.  In  the  post-Liberation  inflation,  fixed- 
income  groups  suffered  but  small  businesses  flourished,  paying  their  debts 
and  taxes  in  depreciated  francs.  The  wage-  and  salary-earner  could  not  escape 
direct  taxation;  but  the  self-employed  defrauded  the  treasury  on  a  massive 

15.  Luthy,  p.  137. 


26  THE  BACKGROUND 

scale.  Peasants,  because  of  their  electoral  influence,  had  always  paid  far  less 
than  their  share  of  taxation.16  Radical  and  Conservative  politicians  passion- 
ately advocated  a  free  economy  -  but  insisted  on  guaranteed  agricultural 
prices  and  government-supported  markets.17  Moreover,  wartime  and  post- 
war food  shortages  meant  a  golden  age  for  the  peasantry.  In  August  1947  -  the 
peak  year  for  farm  prices  -  the  average  town  worker  was  spending  almost 
three-quarters  of  his  wages  on  food.18  Since  the  supply  nearly  all  came  from 
small  farmers,  rationing  was  far  less  effective  than  in  Britain  (where  half  of  it 
entered  through  the  ports).  And  the  German  occupation  had  reinforced  and 
strengthened  old  habits  of  obstruction  by  making  resistance  and  sabotage  a 
national  duty. 

For  a  generation  before  the  war,  opposition  to  taxation  had  prevented 
France  from  balancing  her  budget.  Deputies  would  not  risk  electoral  disaster 
by  voting  adequate  taxes;  governments  would  not  court  parliamentary  defeat 
by  proposing  them.  They  paid  their  way  by  inflation.  Between  the  wars  the 
monetary  problem  dominated  French  politics  as  unemployment  dominated 
British  -  largely  because  of  the  determination  of  the  better-off  to  evade  their 
share  of  the  national  burdens.  Frenchmen  were  always  more  reluctant  to  give 
their  money  than  their  blood. 

The  remark  that '  France  is  a  land  of  excessive  taxation,  fortunately  tem- 
pered by  fraud'  was  as  true  of  the  Fourth  Republic  as  of  the  Third.  In  1948 
the  ministry  of  finance  raised  £10,000,000  from  Parisians  owning  American 
cars,  three-quarters  of  whom  had  been  paying  no  income  tax  at  all.  Officials 
estimated  evasion  of  one  tax  at  20%,  of  another  at  30  to  50%.19  Governments 
had  to  rely  on  indirect  taxation  which  fell  most  heavily  on  the  poor.  This 
increasing  burden  on  those  least  able  to  bear  it  was  the  main  cause  of  the 
recurring  political  crises;  and  it  could  never  be  tackled  effectively  because  of 
the  conflicting  electoral  interests  of  the  governing  parties. 

In  1945  Mend&s-France,  as  de  Gaulle's  minister  of  economic  affairs,  had 
urged  an  austere  policy  of  controlling  the  economy,  reforming  the  currency 
and  limiting  governmental  commitments  in  order  to  avoid  inflation.  He  was 
opposed  by  bankers  and  businessmen,  peasants  and  profiteers,  conservatives 

16.  Wright,  Reshaping,  p.  254:  19%  of  national  income,  1  3%  of  taxes.  For  other  estimates 
see  Pickles,  French  Politics,  pp.  247-8;  Goguel,  Fourth  Republic,  p.  191 ;  Duverger,  Institutions 
financier es>  pp.  130,  154-6,  168-75;  Raymond  Aron,  Le  Grand  Schisme,  pp.  220-1 ;  Meynaud, 
Groupes  de  pression  en  France,  p.  203  and  n. ;  Statistiques  et  ttudes  financiers,  Supplement 
finances  francaises,  no.  18,  1953,  p.  202,  summarized  in  Monde,  6  to  9  June  1953,  and  by  B.  de 
Jouvenel  in  Manchester  Guardian,  6  and  7  July  1953 ;  Shoup,  no.  199,  pp.  341-2. 

17.  See  for  instance  Aron,  Schisme,  pp.  215-16;  Siegfried  in  A?  1952,  p.  xi. 

18.  Agricultural  prices  in  relation  to  the  general  price  level  reached  121  in  1947  (1913  parity 
100).  In  the  thirties  and  forties  they  were  nearly  always  over  100,  but  they  dropped  below  90 
during  the  fifties :  Paysans,  p.  xxv. 

19.  Cars:  Ren6  Pleven,  rapporteur  of  the  finance  committee,  to  a  committee  on  fiscal  reform 
(Figaro,  9  December  1948) ;  Jules  Moch,  minister  of  the  interior,  to  a  Socialist  conference  (Bulletin 
interieur  SFIO,  no.  39,  February  1949,  p.  69).  Percentages:  Figaro,  12-13  August  1950;  Edgar 
Faure,  minister  of  state  for  the  budget,  JO  23  May  1950,  p.  3814,  who  quoted  an  estimate  of 
3-400  milliards  (£3-400  million)  for  loss  through  fraud.  Ehrmann,  Business,  p.  314,  puts  it  50% 
higher.  Among  small  businesses  investigated  in  1950,  the  fraud  rate  was  80  %  :  Duverger,  op.  cit., 
p.  168.  In  1949  even  tax-exempt  government  bonds  proved  unsaleable  as  long  as  purchasers* 
names  were  recorded :  M.  Wolfe,  The  French  Franc  between  the  Wars  (New  York,  1951),  p.  21n. 
(I  owe  this  reference  to  Dr.  D.  Goldey.)  For  some  important  qualifications  see  Aron,  Steadfast, 
pp.  49-51 ;  and  on  the  whole  subject  Shoup,  no.  199,  pp.  325-44. 


THE  WAR  AND  ITS  AFTERMATH,  1936-47  27 

and  Communists.  The  General  preferred  the  more  comfortable  advice  of  his 
finance  minister,  Ren<§  Pleven;  Mendes-France  resigned  and  the  inflation 
promptly  followed.  As  prime  minister  in  1946,  Georges  Bidault  called  a  con- 
ference of  business,  peasant  and  trade  union  representatives  at  the  Palais 
Royal;  but  they  merely  agreed  to  support  one  another's  demands  for  price  and 
wage  increases  and  so  gave  the  inflation  a  further  impetus.20  In  December 
L6on  Blum  formed  an  all-Socialist  government  which  could  at  last  formulate 
an  agreed  economic  policy;  the  other  parties  allowed  it  to  survive  for  a  month. 
Significantly,  a  public  opinion  poll  found  that  62%  thought  it  the  most 
successful  cabinet  since  the  Liberation.21 

At  the  root  of  the  long-term  economic  problem  was  the  technical  inadequacy 
of  France's  agriculture  and  small-scale  industry.  The  Monnet  Plan  was  a  bold 
attempt  to  lay  foundations  for  modernization.  But  since  the  necessary  invest- 
ments were  financed  mainly  through  the  budget  (and  Marshall  Aid)  this  policy 
entailed  real  sacrifices,  which  provoked  stubborn  political  resistance  and 
persistent  efforts  to  shift  the  burden.  In  one  form  or  another  the  economic 
problem  destroyed  most  governments  in  the  first  seven  years  of  the  Fourth 
Republic.22  In  November  1947  Ramadier  was  swept  out  of  office  by  the  reper- 
cussions of  the  month's  great  strikes.  Schuman's  first  ministry  was  beaten  in 
July  1948  over  the  military  budget,  Marie's  broke  up  in  August  over  price 
policy,  Schuman's  second  fell  in  September  because  the  Conservatives  objected 
to  the  appointment  of  a  Socialist  minister  of  finance.  Wages  policy  split 
Queuille's  cabinet  in  October  1949  and  Bidault's  in  February  1950;  the  latter 
was  finally  defeated  in  June  over  civil  service  pay.  Throughout  1951  economic 
policy  was  in  constant  dispute  within  the  successive  governments ;  in  January 
1952  the  second  Pleven  ministry  was  beaten  when  it  tried  to  economize  on  the 
railways,  in  February  the  Faure  cabinet  fell  when  it  proposed  increased  taxes, 
in  December  Antoine  Pinay  was  ousted  over  his  proposals  to  meet  the  social 
security  deficit,  and  in  May  1953  Ren6  Mayer  was  overthrown  on  demanding 
special  powers  to  economize  by  decree. 

Until  1948  prices  rose  steadily;  either  wages  rose  correspondingly,  giving  a 
further  twist  to  the  inflationary  spiral,  or  wage  stabilization  led  to  strikes  and 
a  reinforcement  of  the  Communist  party.  But  in  1949  and  1950  the  heavy 
investments  of  the  post-war  years  at  length  began  to  produce  results.  The 
national  income  rose  while  prices  remained  stable  -  until  the  Korean  war 
destroyed  the  equilibrium  once  again.  At  the  same  time  some  post-war 
governments  made  a  real  if  insufficient  effort  to  finance  their  expenditure  by 
taxes  instead  of  inflation:  the  proportion  of  the  national  income  taken  by  the 
government  rose  substantially  after  the  war.23  The  ministries  of  the  Fourth 
Republic  lasted  no  longer  than  those  of  the  Third,  but  they  did  try  to  tackle 
problems  that  their  predecessors  had  shelved. 

Gratitude  is  not  a  political  sentiment.  The  modernization  programme  im- 
posed burdens  which  were  fiercely  resented  by  men  on  the  margin,  terrified  of 

20.  See  below,  p.  394  and  n.  21.  Sondages  1947,  p.  38 ;  also  Aron,  Schisme,  p.  189. 

22.  *The  movement  of  the  American  wholesale  price  index  seems  to  mark  the  rhythm  of 
French  polities':  MorazS,  p.  146  (cf.  p.  139;  his  italics). 

23.  See  below,  p.  267n. 


28  THE  BACKGROUND 

proletarianization  and  unable  easily  to  carry  extra  liabilities.  After  1952  the 
small  businessman  lost  the  advantages  of  inflation;  his  customers  migrated  to 
the  booming  industrial  areas;  and  stricter  checks  on  fraud  made  the  high 
nominal  rates  of  taxation  seem  intolerable.  The  peasantry  were  embittered  by 
the  fall  in  agricultural  prices  which  ended  their  'golden  age'.  For  these  small 
men  in  town  and  country  were  often  poor ;  they  were  a  burden  on  the  economy 
because  of  their  excessive  numbers,  not  their  undue  individual  wealth.24  Many 
indeed  were  barely  kept  alive  by '  that  barbed-wire  entanglement  of  protective 
devices  which  enables  the  marginal  producer  to  survive  without  really  enjoy- 
ing it'.25  Modernization,  however  indispensable,  threatened  their  cherished  (if 
unreal)  economic  independence  -  and  an  'inhuman  technocracy'  added  insult 
to  injury  by  maintaining  that  their  disappearance  would  benefit  themselves 
and  their  country.  The  exasperation  and  resentment  of 'static  France'  was  the 
political  price  paid  for  Monnet's  economic  miracle.26 

4.   THE  LINES  OF  POLITICAL  DIVISION 

The  economic  problem  tended  to  unite  the  parties  which  competed  for  working- 
class  votes,  the  Socialists  and  Communists,  against  those  with  no  working- 
class  following,  Radicals  and  Conservatives.  MRP  at  first  stood  with  the 
parties  of  the  Right  in  the  hope  of  retaining  the  vast  mass  of  conservative 
support  which  it  had  acquired  at  the  Liberation.  But  the  foundation  of 
RPF  won  away  right-wing  supporters  of  MRP,  which  was  thus  thrown  back 
on  the  Catholic  trade  unions  and  from  1 948  normally  aligned  itself  in  economic 
controversies  with  the  Socialists.  A  few  years  later  RPF  in  turn  lost  these 
right-wing  supporters  to  the  old-fashioned  Conservatives,  and  from  1950  a 
tendency  developed  for  some  Gaullists  to  seek  working-class  votes  and  join 
with  the  Left  in  support  of  working-class  claims. 

The  economic  problem  was  not  the  only  cause  of  division  between  those 
centre  parties  whose  union  alone  kept  governments  in  being.  Colonial  and 
military  questions  often  produced  a  similar  alignment  of  forces,  with  first 
Socialists  and  then  members  of  MRP  advocating  conciliation  of  Indo-Chinese 
or  North  African  nationalism,  while  most  Radicals  and  Conservatives 
demanded  firm  government  and  the  maintenance  of  French  rule.  On  such 
issues  the  Gaullists  for  years  sided  with  the  Right,  and  within  the  majority  a 
'  Fourth  Force '  of  Conservatives  and  Radicals  found  themselves  more  often  in 
agreement  on  policy  with  the  Gaullist  opposition  than  with  their  'Third 
Force '  Socialist  and  M  RP  partners. 

But  this  simple  division  into  four  groups,  authoritarian  and  democratic 
conservatives,  totalitarian  and  democratic  socialists,  omits  a  major  historical 
factor,  the  clerical  question.  To  most  foreign  observers  the  problem  of  the 
church  schools  seemed  trivial,  but  to  many  Frenchmen  education  was  as  vital 
an  issue  as  it  is  to  American  Catholics,  or  was  to  Englishmen  half  a  century 
ago.  It  symbolized  the  attempt  to  mould  the  nation's  life  in  either  a  Catholic  or 

24.  Statistiques,  pp.  208-9, 215-16,  and  summaries  (see  n.  1 6). 

25.  Wright,  no.  227,  p,  7. 

26.  See  below,  pp.  167-9, 


THE  WAR  AND  ITS  AFTERMATH,   1936-47  29 

a  secular  spirit.  And  even  the  least  ideologically-minded  politician  knew  that 
in  some  regions  toczte' was  still  the  real  electoral  dividing  line.27 

This  cleavage  cut  right  across  the  social  and  political  divisions,  splitting  the 
'Fourth  Force'  as  well  as  (though  less  deeply  than)  the  Third,  and  uniting 
most  Radicals  and  all  Socialists  with  the  Communists  in  a  common  hostility 
to  the  claims  pressed  alike  by  Conservatives,  MRP  and  RPF.  This  was  the 
weapon  used  by  the  Communists  in  1945  to  keep  Socialists  and  MRP  apart. 
It  split  the  first  Schuman  government  in  1948,  led  the  Socialists  to  ally  with 
Radicals  instead  of  MRP  in  the  subsequent  local  and  senatorial  elections, 
and  so  provoked  bitterness  which  gravely  weakened  the  majority  up  to  the 
1951  election.  It  was  by  exploiting  the  church  schools  question  in  the  new 
Parliament  that  RPF  alienated  the  Socialists  from  their  former  partners  and 
finally  broke  the  old  majority. 

Since  politics  turned  on  several  different  conflicts  instead  of  one,  there  was  a 
coherent  majority  neither  in  the  country  for  a  single  party  nor  in  Parliament 
for  a  lasting  coalition.  Associates  on  one  issue  were  bitter  opponents  on 
others.28  MRP  for  example  worked  with  Socialists,  Radicals  and  most  Con- 
servatives in  defending  the  regime  against  Communists  and  Gaullists.  On 
matters  involving  working-class  interests  and  sometimes  on  colonial  questions 
it  sympathized  with  the  Socialists  and  Communists;  Radicals,  Conservatives 
and  (until  1951)  RPF  were  hostile  to  its  views.  But  over  church  schools 
MRP  found  its  friends  (or  competitors)  among  Gaullists  and  Conservatives, 
while  all  Socialists  and  most  Radicals  joined  the  Communists  against  it.  And 
on  Europe  it  agreed  with  most  Conservatives  and  Socialists  and  opposed 
Communists  and  RPF,  with  the  Radicals  split.  So  complicated  a  situation  put 
a  high  premium  on  the  arts  of  manoeuvre  and  facilitated  other,  temporary 
combinations.  Electoral  tactics  united  MRP  with  the  Communists  against  all 
the  other  parties  in  defence  of  proportional  representation;  Socialists  and 
RPF  often  held  very  similar  views  on  the  problem  of  Germany. 

Most  of  the  peculiarities  of  French  government  were  thus  caused  by  the 
country's  history.  The  battle  against  the  Church  and  the  struggle  for  political 
freedom  were  still  political  issues  in  the  middle  of  the  twentieth  century,  and 
they  split  public  opinion  on  lines  different  from  those  imposed  by  the  con- 
temporary social  and  economic  conflict.  This  persistence  of  several  major 
political  dividing  lines  was  the  basic  cause  of  the  instability  of  government,  as 
the  bitterness  of  the  conflicts  and  the  recent  memories  of  power  abused  were 
the  fundamental  reasons  for  its  weakness.  Strong  organizations  like  the 
Labour  or  Conservative  parties,  each  seeking  to  form  a  (fairly)  homogeneous 
government  to  put  into  practice  a  (fairly)  coherent  policy,  were  impossible  in 
France.  The  young  and  dynamic  on  each  side,  impatient  with  the  compromise 
and  weakness  of  coalition  government,  were  consequently  tempted  into 
extremist  organizations  which  alarmed  more  prudent  sympathizers  and  en- 
raged opponents.  The  democratic  parties  could  not  compete  effectively 
because  they  were  at  loggerheads  over  the  clerical  question,  which  lay 

27.  It  was  the  only  political  problem  on  which  voters*  views  corresponded  closely  with  their 
party  sympathies :  Converse  and  Dupeux,  no.  59,  p.  19. 

28.  See  Figures  1,  3  and  4  (above,  p.  21,  and  below,  pp.  43,  52). 


30  THE  BACKGROUND 


between  Socialists  and  M  RP,  preventing  the  development  of  a  Labour  party, 
and  between  Radicals  and  Conservatives,  weakening  still  further  the  rudi- 
mentary links  between  the  political  representatives  of  the  bourgeoisie.  No 
French  party  could  hope  to  attract  a  majority  of  voters  or  deputies.  No  French 
government  could  be  based  on  a  single  party  which  put  its  policy  into  practice 
and  then  submitted  it  to  the  judgment  of  the  electorate.  Every  ministry  was  a 
coalition.  Responsibilities  were  never  clearly  apportioned;  the  government 
parties  devoted  as  much  energy  to  mutual  recrimination  as  to  fighting  the 
opposition.  The  clash  of  political  principles  became  obscured  in  the  com- 
plexity of  parliamentary  manoeuvring.  The  public  grew  apathetic  and  cynical; 
divided  ministries,  lacking  effective  support  in  the  country,  were  too  weak  to 
impose  necessary  sacrifices  on  any  powerful  private  interest  or  organized 
social  group.  But  these  undoubted  evils  had  causes  deeper  than  the  structure 
of  political  institutions,  and  changing  that  framework  has  not  done  much  to 
cure  them. 


Chapter  3 
THE  SEARCH  FOR  A  MAJORITY,  1947-1953 

Between  1947  and  1953  the  orientation  of  French  policy  changed  slowly  but 
drastically.  While  they  remained  in  alliance  the  three  'social'  parties.  Com- 
munists, Socialists  and  MRP,  had  dominated  the  Assembly  and  the  govern- 
ment. But  with  the  Communist  withdrawal  into  impotent  isolation  the  French 
proletariat  found  itself  virtually  disfranchised,  at  least  for  constructive  pur- 
poses. Socialists  and  MRP  were  not  strong  enough  to  govern  without 
Radical  and  Conservative  support,  and  within  the  new  coalition  the  struggle 
to  dominate  policy  was,  though  less  desperate,  as  active  as  in  the  period  of 
tripartisme.  In  the  1946  Assembly  a  precarious  equilibrium  was  maintained. 
But  at  the  1951  election  the  isolation  of  the  Communists  enabled  the  con- 
servative groups  to  improve  their  parliamentary  position  and  secure  tem- 
porary control  of  power  and  policy. 

1.   SOCIALIST  DISCONTENT 

The  tripartite  coalition  had  great  difficulty  in  holding  together.  But  while  it 
did  so  governments  had  no  need  to  worry  about  their  parliamentary  strength. 
The  breach  with  the  Communists  at  once  restored  the  'problem  of  the 
majority'  to  its  former  predominance.  During  the  Third  Republic  the  main 
source  of  parliamentary  instability  had  been  the  contradiction  between  the 
Radical  attitudes  on  political  (especially  clerical)  and  on  economic  questions; 
most  Chambers  began  with  a  period  of  uncertainty  in  which  the  initial  left- 
wing  majority,  elected  on  traditional  political  grounds,  fell  apart  when 
governments  had  to  deal  with  financial  matters.  In  the  Fourth  Republic  the 
difficulty  was  aggravated  since  the  extreme  groups  were  much  stronger.  The 
1946  election  returned  180  Communists,  and  RPF  at  first  rallied  80  Gaullists. 
Together  they  slightly  exceeded  the  combined  strength  of  MRP  and  the 
Socialists.  A  centre  combination  therefore  needed  to  attract  the  votes  of  most 
members  of  the  loosely-organized  Radical  and  Conservative  groups,  without 
alienating  the  two  big  disciplined  parties. 

Coalitions  with  no  bond  but  fear  of  the  extremists  could  have  no  common 
policy  and  the  division  and  impotence  of  governments  gave  an  immense 
electoral  advantage  to  their  opponents.  So  the  self-interested  but  useful 
motives  which  attach  men  and  parties  to  power  were  counteracted  by  power- 
ful pressures  in  the  opposite  direction.  Deputies  were  tempted  to  vote  against 
the  government  to  ensure  their  own  re-election,  and  parties  felt  that  they  could 
recover  lost  ground  by  a  spell  out  of  office.  The  Socialists  could  not  constantly 
compromise  on  trade  union  claims  without  forfeiting  support  to  the  Com- 
munists, while  MRP,  unless  they  could  produce  benefits  for  the  Catholic 
schools  risked  the  defection  of  the  Church  to  General  de  Gaulle. 

These  pressures  were  not  remote  but  immediate.  The  French  people  cast 
their  votes  twelve  times  in  four  years:  in  three  referendums  and  three  general 
elections  between  October  1945  and  November  1946,  second  chamber 


32  THE  BACKGROUND 

elections  at  the  end  of  1946  and  1948,  municipal  elections  in  spring  1945  and 
autumn  1947,  departmental  council  elections  in  autumn  1945  and  spring  1949. 
No  politician,  party  or  government  could  plan  ahead,  for  all  were  preoccupied 
with  averting  imminent  disaster  at  the  polls.  The  compulsion  to  take  short 
views  was  irresistible.  Feeling  the  tide  was  with  them,  the  Radicals  and  Con- 
servatives made  demands  to  which  the  Socialists  had  to  sacrifice  more  and 
more  of  their  policy. 

Some  Socialist  leaders,  more  influential  in  the  country  than  in  Parliament, 
urged  the  party  to  resign  and  repudiate  responsibility  for  a  policy  which  it  dis- 
liked. They  feared  that  continual  concessions  for  the  sake  of  governmental 
unity  were  losing  votes  and  weakening  the  non-Communists  in  the  trade 
unions.  Others  were  more  afraid  that  by  going  into  opposition  the  Socialists 
would  precipitate  the  breakdown  of  parliamentary  government  and  the 
triumph  of  General  de  Gaulle.  But  even  these  rarely  advocated  unconditional 
participation  in  government  -  in  August  1948,  when  the  Socialists  broke  up 
the  Marie  cabinet,  only  five  deputies  (mainly  ex-ministers)  at  first  favoured 
joining  its  successor.  The  great  majority  of  the  party  were  for  conditional  par- 
ticipation, and  the  battle  raged  around  the  stringency  of  the  conditions.  When 
rank  and  file  pressure  became  too  great  or  their  partners  in  office  too  exacting, 
the  Socialists  would  revolt:  during  the  1946-51  Parliament  they  brought  down 
six  governments  in  a  vain  attempt  to  check  the  drift  to  the  Right.  When  they 
finally  escaped  into  opposition  exactly  the  same  dilemma  faced  MRP,  which 
was  now  on  the  exposed  flank  of  the  majority. 

2.  RADICAL  REVIVAL 

The  first  reaction  to  the  collapse  of  tripartisme  was  an  attempt  to  constitute  a 
new  coherent  majority  around  the  Third  Force  formula.  This  depended  on  a 
close  alliance  of  Socialists  and  MRP,  reinforced  by  any  Radicals  or  Conser- 
vatives who  accepted  its  fundamental  premises :  social  reform  to  win  back  the 
allegiance  of  the  proletariat,  and  defence  of  the  regime  against  both  RPF  and 
Communists. 

By  the  autumn  of  1947  the  Ramadier  ministry  was  breaking  up.  The 
Socialists  disliked  its  unprogressive  proposals  for  the  government  of  Algeria, 
MRP  resented  its  municipal  election  law  tampering  with  proportional  repre- 
sentation, and  Radicals  and  Conservatives  criticized  its  economic  policy.  The 
majority  fell  from  1 82  in  May  to  only  49  in  September ;  the  prime  minister  was 
persuaded  not  to  resign  by  the  President  of  the  Republic.  At  the  October 
municipal  elections  RPF  won  control  of  the  thirteen  biggest  cities  in  France, 
and  had  40%  of  the  votes  against  only  25%  for  Socialists  and  MRP  together. 
With  far  more  support  in  the  country  than  the  government,  General  de  Gaulle 
demanded  the  immediate  dissolution  of  Parliament,  and  his  followers  in  the 
Assembly  tried  to  impose  it  by  voting  systematically  with  the  Communists. 

In  November  1947  Ramadier  fell.  The  new  Communist  policy  of  intransi- 
gent opposition  was  launched  by  great  strikes  which  reached  revolutionary 
temper  in  Marseilles  and  other  southern  towns.  Before  the  complicated 
negotiations  for  a  ministerial  reshuffle  had  been  completed,  the  cabinet 
resigned  and  L6on  Blum  was  put  forward  as  a  Third  Force  premier.  But  he 


1948 


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butnotCommunilts  ' '    ond  Conservatives 

|    X    |    Coalition  including  Gaullists 

Fig.  2.  Duration  and  Composition  of  Governments  1945-58 


34  THE  BACKGROUND 

alienated  many  Conservatives  and  Radicals  by  attacking  Gaullists  and  Com- 
munists equally,  and  failed  to  obtain  the  necessary  absolute  majority  of  the 
Assembly.  Plainly  the  Third  Force  was  too  weak  to  govern  without  support 
from  parties  which  repudiated  its  basic  ideas.  All  future  cabinets  were  there- 
fore based  on  temporary  and  uneasy  compromises,  and  all  parliamentary 
combinations  had  a  shifting  and  incoherent  character. 

The  ministerial  crisis  had  been  precipitated  by  the  Socialist  party  secretary 
Guy  Mollet  in  order  to  shift  the  government  to  the  Left.  But  the  demonstrable 
need  for  Radical  and  Conservative  votes  brought  about  instead  a  move  to  the 
Right.  Robert  Schuman  became  prime  minister  and  was  replaced  as  minister 
of  finance  by  Rene  Mayer,  a  Radical  with  big-business  and  administrative 
connections.  As  in  December  1946  the  leadership  of  the  government  passed  to 
a  party  just  repudiated  by  the  electorate.1  More  important  than  the  change  of 
government  was  the  split  in  CGT.  The  anti-Communist  minority  broke  away 
to  form  a  separate  federation,  CGT-Force  ouvriere  (FO),  which  was  politically 
independent  but  friendly  towards  the  Socialist  party.  FO  and  the  Catholic 
trade  union  federation,  CFTC,  now  provided  a  counterpoise  to  Communist 
control  of  the  working-class  movement.  Moreover,  internal  division  and  the 
failure  of  the  strikes  so  weakened  the  unions  that  after  the  end  of  1947  they 
could  neither  challenge  the  government  nor  even  effectively  defend  the  interests 
of  their  members  against  the  employers.2 

Schuman  once  described  his  government's  life  as  an  obstacle  race.  In  March 
1948  General  de  Gaulle's  former  minister  Ren6  Pleven  tried  to  remove  one 
obstacle  by  reconciling  his  old  leader  with  the  parties  of  the  Third  Force,  but 
his  advances  were  rejected  by  both  sides.  The  nominal  majority  split  over 
Mayer's  stiff  fiscal  levy  at  the  end  of  1947,  over  devaluation  at  the  beginning 
of  1948,  over  dismissals  of  civil  servants  in  June,  and  above  all  over  two 
questions  which  revived  the  clerical  controversy:  the  fate  of  twenty-eight 
Catholic  schools  belonging  to  the  nationalized  colliery  companies,  and  the 
Poinso-Chapuis  decree  (named  for  the  minister  of  health  who  issued  it)  which 
indirectly  allowed  local  authorities  to  subsidize  church  schools.  The  Socialists 
decided  on  19  July  to  bring  the  government  down,  proposing  as  a  pretext  a 
trivial  cut  in  the  military  budget. 

Once  again  a  crisis  opened  by  the  Left  ended  in  a  move  to  the  Right.  The 
most  active  conciliator  in  the  late  cabinet  had  been  the  Radical  minister  of 
justice,  Andr6  Marie.  He  now  became  prime  minister  at  the  head  of  a  broad 
coalition  in  which  Paul  Reynaud,  the  Conservative  leader,  was  minister  of 
finance.  The  Socialists,  who  had  vetoed  Reynaud's  appointment  nine  months 

1.  Parties  in  decline  are  less  dangerous  and  so  more  acceptable  to  a  people  who  prefer  weak 
government:  Aron,  Schisme,  pp.  188-9.  See  below,  p.  452. 

2.  On  the  crisis  of  1947  and  its  sequel,  the  coal  strike  of  1948,  see  Ltithy,  pp.  139-57;  Fauvet, 
IVe,  pp.  135-8;  Matthews,  Chapter  12;  Lorwin,  Chapter  8;  Earle,  Chapter  12;  Pickles,  French 
Politics,  pp.  82-5, 97-9, 102-6 ;  Werth,  France  1940-1955,  pp.  368-86, 402-5 ;  Lefranc,  pp.  184-93, 
210-22;  and  below,  p.  74n.  The  FO  split  was  imposed  on  reluctant  leaders  by  a  rank  and  file 
exasperated  at  Communist  violence:  Lorwin,  p.  126;  Earle,  pp.  206-7;  Lefranc,  pp.  191-3; 
Rioux,  pp.  69,  79;  Liithy,  p.  150;  Ehrmann,  no.  82,  pp.  155-6;  Godfrey,  The  Fate  of  the  French 
Non-Communist  Left,  pp.  48,  51-3 ;  but  Werth  (pp.  385-6)  thinks  that  since  American  trade  unions 
helped  with  money,  it  must  have  been  a  political  plot.  (In  his  view  French  workers  are  tainted  by 
taking  dollars  from  American  workers  but  Tunisian  workers  are  not:  cf.  pp.  570fT.)  On  FO  see 
below,  p.  359. 


THE  SEARCH  FOR  A  MAJORITY,   1947-53  35 

before,  now  accepted  him  reluctantly.  As  a  condition  of  taking  office  he  in- 
sisted on  emergency  powers  to  reorganize  by  decree  the  civil  service,  the 
taxation  system,  the  nationalized  industries  and  the  social  security  organiza- 
tion. On  securing  these  powers  from  Parliament  he  used  them  to  raise  food 
prices;  the  trade  unions  protested  violently  and  the  Socialists  broke  up  the 
government. 

Significantly,  MRP  supported  the  Socialists.  In  1947  they  had  shown  their 
determination  to  remain  politically  on  the  Left  by  resisting  the  appeal  of 
General  de  Gaulle.  This  decision  cost  them  most  of  their  conservative  follow- 
ing and  gave  greater  weight  to  their  working-class  rank  and  file.  In  1948  they 
emerged  as  a  party  of  the  social  and  economic  Left  too.  Robert  Schuman, 
narrowly  elected  to  a  second  premiership,  chose  the  only  Socialist  minister  of 
finance  between  1946  and  1956,  Christian  Pineau.  His  tenure  lasted  just  two 
days;  on  7  September  1948  the  cabinet  met  the  Assembly  and  the  Conserva- 
tives overthrew  it  by  six  votes.  Three  days  later  Henri  Queuille,  a  Radical 
leader  from  pre-war  days,  was  elected  prime  minister. 

The  significance  of  this  long  ministerial  crisis  was  great  though  negative.  In 
terms  of  measures  it  proved  the  impracticability  of  any  clear-cut  orientation  of 
policy,  whether  Right  or  Left;  and  in  terms  both  of  men  and  of  constitutional 
methods  it  seemed  for  a  time  to  mark  the  triumph  of  the  defunct  Third 
Republic  over  the  upstart  Fourth.  At  the  Liberation  new  leaders  had  replaced 
the  discredited  seniors ;  but  soon  the  old  politicians  were  recalled.  None  of  the 
first  three  premiers  had  held  office  before  the  war;  four  of  the  next  five  had 
done  so.3  The  Marie  administration,  with  the  first  Radical  prime  minister  and 
the  first  Conservative  minister  of  finance,  marked  a  stage  in  this  revival  of  the 
old  regime.4  The  reversion  was  equally  apparent  in  constitutional  practice; 
the  Marie  cabinet  was  mostly  and  the  Queuille  cabinet  wholly  selected  before 
the  respective  prime  ministers  had  been  chosen  by  the  Assembly.  Marie 
developed  his  predecessor's  method  of  evading  the  constitution  by  making 
matters  unofficially  questions  of  confidence,  and  defied  the  spirit  of  the  new 
regime  both  by  demanding  special  powers  and  by  staking  the  existence  of  his 
government  on  the  second  chamber's  consent  to  them.5 

The  events  of  August  and  September  1948  defined  an  equilibrium  of  forces 
which  was  to  last  for  three  years.  The  older  leaders  and  groups  regained  a 
share  in  power  but  not  a  monopoly  or  even  a  preponderance;  the  constitu- 
tional pendulum  swung  half-way  back  to  the  Third  Republic.  The  failures  of 
Reynaud  and  Pineau  showed  that  no  wholehearted  policy,  Conservative  or 
Socialist,  could  command  the  support  of  the  Assembly.  The  centre  parties 

3.  Of  the  first  three,  Gouin  had  been  a  deputy,  de  Gaulle  and  Bidault  not.  The  next  five  (Blum, 
Ramadier,  Schuman,  Marie  and  Queuille)  had  all  spent  twelve  years  or  more  in  the  Chamber, 
though  Schuman's  first  office  was  under  Petain.  Governments  from  1949  to  1954  were  formed  by 
three  pre-war  office-holders  (Queuille,  Laniel,  Mendes-France),  one  pre-war  parliamentarian 
(Pinay)  and  four  'new  men'  (Bidault,  Pleven,  Faure,  Mayer).  After  1954  Pinay  was  the  only 
pre-war  deputy  nominated  for  the  premiership. 

4.  Reynaud  was  assisted  at  the  ministry  of  finance  by  Joseph  Laniel  and  Maurice  Petsche,  so 
that  the  three  Conservative  groups  (Republican  Independents,  PRL  and  Peasants)  were  all 
represented.  Queuille  was  at  first  his  own  minister  of  finance,  but  soon  transferred  the  post  to  his 
under-secretary  Petsche,  who  retained  it  until  1951. 

5.  See  Prelot,  no.  184,  pp.  720-30;  and  below,  pp.  226,  232-3,  270-1,  281. 


36  THE  BACKGROUND 

were  'condemned  to  live  together'  in  compromise  and  frustration.  Therefore 
the  government  was  too  weak  to  challenge  any  of  the  great  organized  interests, 
employers,  workers  or  peasants.6 

3.  DOCTOR  QUEUILLE 

Henri  Queuille  proved  surprisingly  well  suited  to  this  difficult  situation.  He 
was  a  characteristic  figure  of  Third  Republican  politics.  A  country  doctor  by 
origin,  he  had  served  in  twenty  pre-war  cabinets,  in  a  dozen  of  them  as  minis- 
ter of  agriculture.  His  skill  in  the  despised  arts  of  parliamentary  manoeuvre 
was  to  stand  him  in  good  stead.  Competent  observers  gave  his  ministry  three 
weeks;  it  lasted  thirteen  months  and  reversed  the  steady  drift  of  opinion  away 
from  the  parties  of  the  Centre. 

Queuille  believed,  like  Stanley  Baldwin,  that  'the  art  of  statesmanship  is  to 
postpone  issues  until  they  are  no  longer  relevant'.  His  first  expedient  was  to 
lower  the  political  temperature  by  deferring  for  six  months  the  imminent 
departmental  council  elections.  General  de  Gaulle  protested  in  angry  speeches 
hinting  at  insurrection.  But  after  an  ugly  clash  between  Gaullists  and  Com- 
munists at  Grenoble  in  September,  and  a  bitter  and  violent  miners'  strike  in 
October,  public  opinion  rallied  to  the  government  in  alarm  at  the  spectre  of 
civil  war. 

In  Parliament,  however,  the  ministry  faced  a  new  obstacle.  It  had  been 
agreed  in  1946  that  after  two  years  the  upper  house,  the  Council  of  the 
Republic,  should  be  wholly  re-elected  and  its  method  of  election  reconsidered. 
To  weaken  the  Communists  the  new  law  greatly  restricted  proportional 
representation,  which  had  made  the  first  Council  almost  a  replica  of  the 
Assembly,  and  reverted  to  a  system  very  like  that  used  to  elect  the  old  Senate. 
MRP  also  suffered  from  this  change;  both  parties  fell  to  a  score  of  members 
out  of  a  total  of  320.  Almost  half  the  new  senators  (a  title  they  forthwith 
bestowed  upon  themselves)  had  sought  RPF  support  at  the  election.  In  the 
end  only  58  of  them  accepted  the  Gaullist  whip,  so  that  RPF  could  not,  as  it 
had  hoped,  use  the  new  Council  to  block  all  legislation  and  force  the  govern- 
ment to  hold  new  elections.  But  the  Radical  and  Conservative  senators  found 
the  upper  house  a  useful  weapon,  and  the  new  'second  thoughts  chamber' 
celebrated  its  appearance  by  rejecting  the  budget.7 

At  the  beginning  of  1949  the  government's  prestige  stood  high.  Queuille 
had  started  with  a  modest  aim:  to  ensure  that  ministerial  crises  could  occur 
without  endangering  the  regime.  His  very  success  made  it  safe  to  overthrow 
him.  Previous  ministerial  crises  had  been  affairs  of  desperation,  provoked  by 
parlies  which  felt  their  support  slipping  away  and  their  very  existence  at  stake. 
The  impending  ones  were  crises  of  hope,  the  work  of  groups  or  leaders  gaining 
ground  in  the  country  who  felt  entitled  to  exert  more  influence  on  policy.  In 
May  Reynaud  began  a  vigorous  drive  to  remove  the  Socialists  from  office; 

6.  Pr61ot  points  out  that  the  Radical  recovery  meant  a  victory  for  the  peasants  and  that  Rey- 
naud's  policy  involved  an  agreement  with  CGA  (Confederation  generate  de  V agriculture)  and  a 
breach  with  the  trade  unions.  He  adds,  *as  the  trade  unions  ejected  M.  Paul  Reynaud,  the 
employers'  unions  executed  M.  Christian  Pineau*  (ibid.,  pp.  729-30).  'Condemned*:  Queuille, 
J0>  24  May  1949,  p.  2871. 

7.  See  below,  pp.  279-80  (electoral),  286-7  (political). 


THE  SEARCH  FOR  A  MAJORITY,   1947-53  37 

some  MRP  leaders  (notably  Bidault)  contemplated  abandoning  them  for  an 
alliance  with  RPF,  but  the  rank  and  file  firmly  refused.  At  the  end  of  July  the 
Conservatives  attacked  Daniel  Mayer,  the  Socialist  minister  of  labour,  for 
a  minor  infringement  of  the  wage  freeze  and  the  majority  fell  to  three.  Only 
the  parliamentary  recess  saved  the  government,  and  before  the  reassembly  in 
October  it  had  broken  up.  British  devaluation  forced  France  to  follow  suit, 
and  Mayer  seized  the  opportunity  to  demand  a  return  to  free  collective  bar- 
gaining (suspended  since  before  the  war).  This  proposal  split  the  government; 
attempts  at  compromise  failed  and  Queuille  resigned  on  5  October  1949. 

The  rules  of  the  parliamentary  game  required  that  the  Socialists,  who  had 
brought  down  the  last  government,  be  invited  to  form  the  next.  President 
Auriol  called  on  Jules  Moch,  who  as  minister  of  the  interior  had  broken  the 
great  strikes,  helped  devise  the  new  electoral  law  for  the  Council  of  the 
Republic,  and  produced  several  compromise  proposals  before  the  Queuille 
government  fell.  But  he  was  too  strong  a  personality  to  be  popular.  The  bitter 
hatred  of  the  Communists  was  indeed  an  asset  to  him,  but  many  MRP  deputies 
and  some  even  of  his  own  party  were  also  unfriendly.  He  was  elected  prime 
minister  with  only  one  (disputed)  vote  to  spare,  failed  to  form  a  government 
and  had  to  resign.  The  same  fate  befell  the  next  nominee,  Ren6  Mayer,  who 
had  a  comfortable  majority  of  158  but  was  unable  to  reconcile  the  demand  of 
his  own  Radical  party  that  Daniel  Mayer  should  leave  the  ministry  of  labour 
with  the  Socialists'  insistence  that  he  should  remain  there. 

It  was  now  MRP's  turn.  The  bickerings  of  the  politicians  had  exasperated 
the  public,  and  Bidault  took  advantage  of  this  impatience,  refusing  to  con- 
front the  Assembly  until  the  parties  had  accepted  his  cabinet.  This  enabled 
him  to  form  a  government  but  did  nothing  to  resolve  the  conflict.  Radical 
attacks  on  the  budget  nearly  destroyed  his  ministry  in  December,  in  February 
the  Socialists  resigned  over  wages  policy,  and  four  months  later  they  turned 
him  out  over  the  salaries  of  civil  servants  -  many  of  whom  were  Socialist 
voters. 

The  crisis  of  June- July  1950  showed  that  the  political  balance  had  changed 
little  in  the  previous  two  years.  The  Socialists  would  not  give  up  their  new 
freedom  without  compensation.  They  helped  elect  Queuille  to  the  premier- 
ship, but  refused  to  join  his  government  and  overthrew  him  (with  the  aid  of 
the  left  wing  of  MRP)  when  he  formed  a  conservative  cabinet.  The  Socialist 
leader  Guy  Mollet  then  drew  up  a  programme  including  constitutional  and 
electoral  reform,  to  please  the  Radicals  and  Conservatives,  and  a  halt  to 
deflation,  to  satisfy  his  own  party  and  MRP.  On  this  basis  the  Socialists 
returned  to  office;  but  they  were  not  strong  enough  to  claim  the  premiership, 
which  fell  to  the  leader  of  the  smallest  of  the  majority  parties,  Ren6  Pleven  of 

UDSR. 

The  approaching  general  election  made  the  coalition  even  harder  to  main- 
tain. Mistrust  between  the  Socialists  and  MRP  had  persisted  since  the  former 
left  the  Bidault  government,  and  worsened  in  November  when  several  MRP 
deputies  voted  to  impeach  Moch  (Pleven's  minister  of  defence  and  principal 
colleague).8  Moreover  the  conflict  over  economic  policy  broke  out  again, 

8.  See  below,  p.  299. 


38  THE  BACKGROUND 

Socialists  and  MRP  advocating  industrial  subsidies,  Radicals  and  Conser- 
vatives attacking  them.  Most  serious  of  all  was  the  disagreement  on  electoral 
reform.  The  Radicals  demanded  a  return  to  the  pre-war  double  ballot  which 
MRP  bitterly  opposed.  The  Conservatives  were  divided.  The  100  Socialists 
were  comparatively  indifferent  and  voted  in  turn  for  each  solution  proposed; 
the  180  Communists  voted  equally  regularly  against  each  and  so  the  Assembly 
rejected  them  all.  For  a  time  the  government  maintained  a  precarious  neutrality, 
but  at  the  end  of  February  it  at  last  broke  up. 

As  the  Socialists  were  now  the  party  of  conciliation  on  the  crucial  issue, 
Guy  Mollet  was  nominated  for  the  premiership.  When  he  failed  to  obtain  an 
absolute  majority,  Queuille  contrived  to  solve  the  crisis  by  simply  reconstitut- 
ing his  predecessor's  cabinet.  To  minimize  the  ravages  of  electoral  fever  he 
resolved  to  hold  the  elections  in  June,  four  months  early.  As  no  electoral 
reform  could  pass  without  the  consent  of  MRP,  he  persuaded  his  Radical 
friends  to  give  way,  and  the  new  law  and  the  budget  were  passed  just  in  time 
for  elections  on  17  June. 

4.  THE  NEW  ASSEMBLY 

The  results  showed  a  severe  defeat  for  the  two  parties  most  responsible  for 
creating  and  governing  the  Fourth  Republic.  MRP  lost  half  their  5  million 
voters  of  1945,  and  of  the  4^  million  Socialist  votes  only  3  million  were  left. 
Communist  strength  at  5  million  was  almost  unimpaired ;  Conservatives  and 
RGR  -  Radicals  and  allies  -  retained  nearly  all  their  supporters,  2%  million 
and  2  million  respectively.9  RPF  (which  had  not  existed  in  1945)  won  4  mil- 
lion votes.  Some  came  from  conservative-minded  electors  who  had  switched 
from  MRP  to  General  de  Gaulle  when  the  former  made  too  many  com- 
promises with  the  Communists.  Others  were  voters  for  the  older  parties 
whose  candidates  had  thought  it  advantageous  to  climb  on  the  Gaullist  band- 
wagon; these  'political  hitch-hikers'  were  mainly  Conservatives  who  soon 
jumped  off,  as  many  Radicals  had  already  done. 

For  RPF  had  passed  its  peak.  It  still  had  over  20%  of  the  vote,  second  only 
to  the  Communists  with  their  25%;  but  in  the  municipal  elections  of  1947 
some  67%  had  voted  for  these  two  parties.  Together  the  Socialists  with 
nearly  15%,  Conservatives  (13%),  MRP  (12*%),  and  RGR  (11%)  held  a 
narrow  popular  majority.  But  these  four  parties  of  the  regime  were  divided 
over  the  social  reforms  of  the  Liberation,  which  were  still  approved  by  a 
majority  of  voters  (Communists,  Socialists,  MRP  and  some  RPF),  and 
over  church  schools  (where  the  balance  in  the  electorate  was  now  very 
close).10 

Changes  in  the  Assembly  were  greater  owing  to  the  new  electoral  law  (see 
Chapter  22).  This  modified  proportional  representation  by  allowing  parties  to 
form  alliances,  and  discarded  it  entirely  where  an  alliance  (or  single  party) 

9.  These  1\  million  exclude  300,000  who  voted  Gaullist  in  1946:  Goguel,  Fourth  Republic, 
pp.  90,  102.  Both  RGR  and  Conservatives  claimed  great  gains;  they  did  win  seats  but  they  lost 
votes. 

10.  On  these  results  see  Goguel,  op.  cit.t  Part  in;  Pickles,  French  Politics,  Chapter  9;  Williams, 
no.  219.  Some  RGR  voters  favoured  the  Catholic  cause  in  education. 


THE  SEARCH  FOR  A  MAJORITY,   1947-53  39 

won  a  majority  of  votes.  Radicals,  Conservatives  and  MRP  gained  most 
from  the  new  system;  the  Socialists  gained  less  as  they  were  often  excluded 
from  the  centre  combinations.  RPF  could  have  made  alliances,  but  its  leader 
nearly  everywhere  preferred  independence  even  though  it  cost  him  a  few 
seats.  The  Communists  were  isolated  throughout  the  country  and  lost  heavily 
by  the  new  law.  The  two  opposition  parties  had  just  under  half  the  votes ;  the 
old  system  would  have  given  them  over  half  the  seats,  the  new  one  gave  them  a 
third. 

The  six  major  parties  were  approximately  equal  in  the  Assembly  but  the 
three  strongest  were  those  least  able  to  combine:  121  Gaullists,  107  Socialists 
and  101  Communists  out  of  627.  With  the  Communists  in  unrelenting  opposi- 
tion there  was  no  majority  for  a  government  unless  either  RPF  or  Socialists 
could  be  won  over  or  split.  As  the  Socialists  were  eager  to  escape  taking 
responsibility  for  the  policies  of  others,  RPF  could  achieve  a  commanding 
position  by  widening  the  breach  between  them  and  their  former  partners.  It 
did  so  by  using  the  clerical  question  to  divide  the  centre  parties  as  the  Com- 
munists had  done  six  years  before.11 

In  accordance  with  custom  Queuille  resigned  after  the  election.  A  Radical, 
Ren6  Mayer,  was  nominated  for  premier;  MRP  thought  him  too  anticlerical. 
A  Conservative,  Maurice  Petsche,  failed  for  lack  of  Socialist  support.  Ren6 
Pleven's  last  government  had  pleased  the  Socialists ;  he  won  their  votes  and 
was  elected  premier  but  they  would  not  join  his  cabinet.  RPF  pressed  its 
advantage.  A  powerful  pressure-group,  the  Association  for  Educational  Free- 
dom, had  enrolled  a  majority  of  the  Assembly,  and  in  mid-September  its  bill 
(called  the  lot  Barange  after  its  sponsor)  was  voted  by  the  combined  clerical 
groups,  the  government  remaining  neutral  since  most  Radicals  opposed  the 
bill.  The  Socialists  could  now  claim  that  the  old  partnership  had  been  broken 
by  others. 

In  December  the  Pleven  ministry  won  its  solitary  triumph  when  the  Assembly 
ratified  by  a  large  and  unexpected  majority  the  Schuman  plan  for  a  European 
coal  and  steel  community.  But  its  own  supporters  were  no  longer  reliable. 
MRP  joined  the  three  oppositions  in  passing  the  sliding-scale  bill  (a  Socialist 
measure  tying  wage  rates  to  the  cost  of  living,  which  the  upper  house  delayed 
and  drastically  amended).  Radicals  and  Conservatives  attacked  Robert 
Schuman  for  attempting  to  conciliate  the  Tunisian  nationalists.  Ren6  Mayer, 
minister  of  finance,  was  a  target  for  the  Peasant  group  of  right-wing  Conser- 
vatives. Finally  the  budget,  which  called  for  special  powers  to  reorganize  the 
social  services  and  nationalized  railways,  drove  the  Socialists  into  opposition 
and  they  defeated  the  cabinet  in  January  1952.  The  new  premier  was  Edgar 
Faure,  a  young  Radical  leader,  who  tried  hard  to  win  them  back  by  concessions 
over  Europe  and  Tunisia,  the  budget  and  the  sliding-scale  bill;  the  Con- 
servatives and  many  of  his  own  party  revolted,  and  on  proposing  higher  taxes 
he  was  beaten  at  the  end  of  February.  A  Conservative,  Antoine  Pinay,  was 
nominated ;  his  failure  was  meant  to  show  these  rebels  that  there  was  no  right- 
wing  alternative  to  the  old  majority  and  they  must  therefore  make  the  necessary 
concessions.  But  to  the  general  astonishment  he  achieved  the  impossible: 

11.  See  above,  p.  22. 


40  THE  BACKGROUND 

twenty-seven  Gaullist  deputies  defied  their  whip  to  vote  him  into  the  premier- 
ship at  the  head  of  the  most  conservative  majority  France  had  known  for 
twenty  years. 

Aided  by  a  world-wide  fall  in  prices  Pinay  succeeded  in  checking  inflation 
(and  expansion),  restoring  confidence  and  winning  a  great  popular  reputation. 
Inevitably  this  provoked  parliamentary  jealousy.  But  not  until  the  end  of  1952 
did  Radicals  and  MRP  feel  it  safe  to  overthrow  him,  the  former  with  their 
usual  skill  manoeuvring  the  latter  into  taking  the  blame.  By  then  external 
questions  had  come  to  overshadow  domestic  ones.  For  it  was  under  Pinay 
that  the  new  resident  in  Tunis  took  it  upon  himself  to  arrest  the  local  ministers ; 
and  it  was  his  foreign  minister,  Robert  Schuman,  who  signed  the  treaty 
establishing  a  European  defence  community.  MRP's  main  aim  thenceforth 
was  to  get  the  ED C  treaty  ratified;  to  stop  it,  the  Gaullists  were  ready  to 
work  with  the  Communists  as  well  as  the  'anti-Europeans'  in  the  traditional 
parties.  In  January  1953  Ren6  Mayer  purchased  precarious  RPF  support  for 
his  new  cabinet  by  sacrificing  Schuman  and  equivocating  on  the  European 
army.  But  in  May  the  Gaullists  turned  him  out  when  he  demanded  special 
powers  to  effect  economies;  the  next  premier,  Joseph  Laniel,  gave  them  office 
and  obtained  the  special  powers.  His  election,  however,  was  preceded  by  the 
longest  ministerial  crisis  on  record,  which  for  the  first  time  brought  into  par- 
liamentary discussion  the  basic  choices  facing  the  country. 

For  this  President  Auriol  was  largely  responsible.  In  sending  first  for  Paul 
Reynaud  and  then  for  Pierre  Mend&s-France,  he  gave  a  platform  to  two 
leaders  who  had  consistently  refused  office  without  power.  Reynaud  announced 
that  he  would  form  no  ministry  until  the  constitution  had  been  revised  to  allow 
governments  to  dissolve  the  Assembly  at  will;  Mend&s-France  proposed  to 
choose  his  ministers  without  regard  to  party  claims,  and  to  make  them 
promise  not  to  join  the  next  cabinet.  His  appeal  for  clear  choices  and  general 
sacrifices  brought  a  remarkable  public  response,  and  won  him  support  from 
many  -  but  not  enough  -  younger  deputies  in  revolt  against  their  leaders. 
Georges  Bidault,  the  next  nominee,  also  declined  to  consult  the  parties  and 
affirmed  that  he  would  use  his  full  constitutional  powers;  he  was  beaten  by  a 
single  vote.  Andr6  Marie  adopted  the  more  traditional  tactics  of  equivocating 
on  policy  and  appealing  to  men  of  tried  experience ;  he  received  the  lowest  vote 
of  the  four.  But  the  long  crisis  was  now  discrediting  the  parties,  especially 
MRP  (who,  after  blocking  Marie,  deterred  Pinay  from  standing).  When 
Laniel  was  nominated  they  thought  it  prudent  to  support  him,  and  he  was 
comfortably  elected. 

The  new  cabinet  was  paralysed  by  its  internal  divisions.  It  omitted  the  Con- 
servatives closest  to  Pinay,  and  included  friends  of  Mend&s-France  such  as 
Edgar  Faure  and  Francois  Mitterrand,  as  well  as  Gaullist  members  (soon 
renamed  Social  Republicans)  who  were  no  longer  recognized  by  the  General. 
The  ministry's  economy  decrees,  drafted  in  August  under  the  new  special 
powers,  attacked  many  vested  interests;  but  the  first  to  become  known 
affected  workers  and  state  employees,  who  seemed  once  again  to  bear  the 
burdens  which  others  would  evade.  Their  wrath  provoked  a  strike  movement 
on  a  scale  unknown  since  1936,  and  -  unlike  the  Communist-led  strikes  of 


THE  SEARCH  FOR  A  MAJORITY,   1947-53  41 

1947-48  -  remarkable  for  its  spontaneity  and  orderliness.12  MRP  pressure 
obtained  a  few  concessions  for  the  strikers,  whose  movement  was  followed  in 
October  by  widespread  demonstrations  of  peasant  discontent. 

Still  more  important  developments  were  occurring  in  the  French  Union. 
Public  opinion,  as  Mendes-France's  candidature  had  shown,  was  weary  of  the 
Indo-Chana  war  and  uneasy  about  events  in  North  Africa.  This  mood  grew 
stronger  in  June,  when  the  King  of  Cambodia  fled  to  Siam,  and  in  October, 
when  the  Vietnam  national  congress  resolved  against  remaining  in  the  French 
Union  in  its  existing  form  -  although,  too  late,  a  new  doctrine  of  the  Union's 
constitutional  status  was  slowly  being  evolved  in  Paris.  Even  men  of  the  Right 
began  to  ask  why  France  should  divert  her  forces  from  Europe  to  a  Far 
Eastern  war  where  victory  could  bring  no  benefit. 

Thus  over  Indo-China  the  failure  of  'association'  to  satisfy  nationalist 
aspirations  tended  to  bring  part  of  the  Right  into  agreement  with  the  Left. 
But  in  North  Africa  it  merely  stiffened  the  diehards.  In  August  1953  the  resi- 
dent in  Morocco  deposed  the  Sultan,  who  was  the  nationalist  leader  as  well  as 
the  monarch  and  the  religious  chief.  Faure  protested  and  Mitterrand  resigned ; 
but  the  responsible  minister,  Bidault,  justified  an  action  he  had  previously 
forbidden.  For  the  first  time  serious  observers  began  to  hint  that  the  enemies 
of  liberal  policies  abroad  might  one  day  endanger  democracy  at  home.13 

Even  these  problems  were  far  overshadowed  by  that  of  the  European  army. 
Gaullists  and  Communists  were  willing  to  accept  any  alliance  in  order  to 
defeat  the  treaty,  and  its  principal  sponsors  played  into  their  hands.  For  it  was 
primarily  to  save  EDC  that  MRP  had  accepted  unpopular  conservative 
policies  at  home  and  in  the  empire.  Instead  the  consequence  was  a  hardening 
of  opposition  to  the  treaty  on  the  Left.  When  the  two  houses  met  at  Versailles 
in  December  1953  to  elect  a  President  of  the  Republic,  the  Communists, 
Socialists  and  Radicals  sometimes  acted  and  cheered  together  as  in  the  days  of 
the  Popular  Front.14  When  Herriot  retired  a  month  later  the  Socialist  Andr6 
Le  Troquer  was  elected  President  of  the  Assembly,  with  Gaullist  as  well  as 
left-wing  support,  against  the  strongly  *  European'  Pierre  Pflimlin  of  MRP. 
Several  new  committee  chairmen  owed  their  elevation  to  Communist  votes, 
and  it  no  longer  seemed  unthinkable  that  a  premier  might  be  installed  in  the 
same  way. 

The  presidential  election  harmed  the  regime.  Hitherto  one  day  and  two 
ballots  had  always  sufficed  to  find  the  clear  majority  required.  But  this  time 
the  old  conflict  of  Left  and  Right,  already  complicated  by  the  EDC  quarrel, 
was  still  further  embroiled  by  a  prolonged  contest  of  wills  between  Laniel,  who 
maintained  that  as  premier  he  had  a  quasi-constitutional  right  to  the  presidency, 
and  the  Radicals,  who  hoped  Queuille  would  ultimately  emerge  victorious 
from  the  general  exhaustion.  On  the  seventh  day  and  thirteenth  ballot  the 

12  Rioux,  pp.  119-21 ;  Godfrey,  pp.  66-7.  Because  of  a  leakage,  it  began  before  the  decrees 
were'published:  see  Delouvrier  in  Crise  dupouvoir  et  crise  du  civisme  (henceforth  cited  as  Crise), 
p.  83. 

13.  Fauvet,  no.  90,  p.  107 ;  cf.  his  IVe,  pp.  293-4. 

14.  On  EDC  see  Aron  and  Lerner,  eds.,  France  Defeats  ED  C  and  Grosser,  La  IV*  Republique 
et  sa  politique  exterieure,  pp.  234-46,  312-20.  The  presidential  election  is  minutely  dissected  m 
Melnik  and  Leites,  The  House  without  Windows. 


42  THE  BACKGROUND 

electors  chose  Ren6  Coty,  a  highly  respected  Conservative  senator  of  seasoned, 
Third  Republican  presidential  timber  (he  was  vice-president  of  the  upper 
house).  He  had  voted  for  P6tain  in  1940  but  had  never  compromised  with  the 
Germans;  illness  had  kept  him  from  taking  sides  over  EDC;  Gaullists  and 
MRP  both  voted  solidly  for  him;  and  with  his  election  the  ideals  of  the  Resis- 
tance and  Liberation  seemed  to  have  been  peacefully  laid  to  rest. 


I.  Atlantic  Pact,  1949 


For 


Against 


3.  Queuille  &  Pleven 
1948-51;  1 95 1  election 


5.  Plnay.  Mayer  &  Laniel 
1952-4 


Against  P. 
ForM.&L. 


7.  European  Defence 
Community,  Aug.  1954 


*L.   Loi  Barange,  Sept.  1951 
(subsidies  to  Catholic  schools) 


4.  Constitutional 
amendment,  1954 


6.  Mendes-France 
1954-5 


For,  then 
Against 


8.  German  Rearmament 
Dec.  1954 


Fig.  3.  Party  Alignments  1947-54 


Chapter  4 
REVOLTS  AGAINST  THE  'SYSTEM',  1954-1958 

In  the  early  years  after  the  war  foreign  policy  played  little  part  in  the  parlia- 
mentary struggle.  Communists,  MRP  and  de  Gaulle  agreed  on  a  'hard* 
policy  of  dismembering  Germany  to  which  only  the  Socialists  demurred, 
France  had  to  retreat  from  this  untenable  position,  and  the  London  declara- 
tion of  June  1948,  by  which  the  Allies  decided  to  restore  a  central  German 
government,  marked  the  collapse  of  her  policy;  the  political  price  was  paid  by 
Georges  Bidault,  foreign  minister  (except  for  one  month)  ever  since  the 
Liberation.  His  successor  Robert  Schuman,  after  the  Atlantic  pact  had  been 
ratified  overwhelmingly  in  July  1949,  set  French  policy  on  an  entirely  new 
course.  His  plan  for  a  European  coal  and  steel  authority  was  launched  in  May 
1950  and  voted  by  Parliament  in  December  1951.  It  helped  to  hold  the 
majority  together,  for  the  centre  parties  welcomed  the  popular  policy  of 
European  economic  union;  their  cohesion  was  endangered  only  when  the 
highly  unpopular  cause  of  German  rearmament  was  linked  to  it.  The  first 
proposal  for  a  European  army  came  in  late  1950,  and  coincided  both  with  the 
first  serious  criticism  of  the  Indo-China  war  and  with  the  early  rumblings  of 
the  coming  storm  in  the  North  African  protectorates.  The  final  rejection  of  the 
EDC  treaty  in  the  summer  of  1954  followed  soon  after  the  turn  towards 
conciliation  in  the  protectorates  and  the  peace  -  sequel  to  military  disaster  -  in 
Indo-China.  Only  a  hundred  days  after  that  war  ended,  another  began  in 
Algeria.  It  was  to  destroy  the  Fourth  Republic. 

The  same  year,  1954,  saw  the  one  real  attempt  at  change  within  the  regime. 
Mend&s-France  enjoyed  a  success  that  was  spectacular  but  short-lived.  In  so 
right-wing  an  Assembly  a  liberal  leader  had  little  chance,  and  that  little  was 
denied  him  by  the  Allies'  insistent  demand  for  German  rearmament.  He  hoped 
for  a  stronger  position  in  the  next  Parliament,  but  his  apparent  electoral 
victory  of  January  1956  was  soon  followed  by  total  defeat.  Thus  in  1956  the 
System  triumphed  over  its  various  enemies:  first  the  Gaullists  were  routed  at 
the  polls  and  then  the  new  challengers  (Poujade  as  well  as  Mend&s-France) 
each  found  his  following  melt  away  as  swiftly  as  it  had  appeared. 

The  tragedy  of  these  last  years  of  the  Fourth  Republic  was  that  catastrophe 
abroad  overshadowed  its  real  success  at  home.  Post-war  sacrifices  were  at  last 
bearing  fruit  in  rising  production  and  rapidly  improving  living  standards. 
Relieved  of  immediate  economic  pressures  many  voters  lapsed  into  apathy; 
but  an  active  minority  neither  understood  nor  accepted  the  contrast  between 
growing  domestic  strength  and  self-confidence  and  the  steady  erosion  of 
France's  world  position.  The  result  was  an  assertive  nationalism,  influencing 
the  Left  as  well  as  the  Right,  which  focused  the  political  conflicts  of  these  years 
on  external  rather  than  internal  affairs.  The  revolt  against  EDC  was  the  first 
symptom  of  the  new  mood,  and  its  outcome  -  the  admission  of  Germany  to 
NATO  -  did  nothing  to  assuage  the  widespread  bitterness  at  Allied  indiffer- 
ence to  French  views  and  interests.  Such  resentments  strengthened  the 


REVOLTS  AGAINST  THE  'SYSTEM',   1954-58  45 

repeated  right-wing  protests  against  any  withdrawal  overseas :  Tunisia  was  the 
occasion  for  Mendes-France's  defeat  early  in  1955  and  Morocco  mined 
Edgar  Faure's  credit  later  in  the  year.  When  the  Algiers  settler  riots  of  Feb- 
ruary 1956  led  Mollet  to  reverse  his  conciliatory  policy,  he  was  followed  by 
most  of  his  Socialist  and  Radical  supporters  as  well  as  by  his  conservative 
opponents,  but  was  soon  condemned  by  both  extremes:  the  few  advocates  of 
timely  concessions  to  Algerian  nationalism,  and  the  settlers,  soldiers  and  right- 
wing  'ultras'  who  were  resolved  to  prevent  such  concessions  and  eager  to 
silence  those  who  favoured  them. 

Once  again  France  was  fighting  to  hold  an  untenable  position.  In  office, 
most  politicians  soon  found  this  out,  and  almost  every  government  after  1953 
was  overthrown  for  truckling  to  Arabs  or  foreigners.  When  the  crisis  came 
in  the  spring  of  1958  it  showed  the  weakness  of  the  ultras  in  the  National 
Assembly,  where  they  could  destroy  cabinets  (with  Communist  help)  but  not 
replace  them.  But  it  also  showed  the  precariousness  of  the  regime,  for  on 
failing  in  Parliament  the  ultras  turned  to  direct  action.  And  against  the  threat 
of  civil  war  the  Fourth  Republic  found  itself  helpless :  its  citizens  apathetic, 
and  its  professional  defenders  disloyal.  For  too  long  weak  governments  had 
allowed  generals  and  proconsuls  to  defy  them  with  impunity,  and  by  May  1958 
disobedience  was  universal. 

When  faced  with  a  major  crisis  French  politicians,  even  those  of  the  Left, 
turn  by  instinct  to  a  national  saviour.  The  Chamber  of  the  Cartel  des  Gauches 
elected  Poincar6  in  1926,  the  left-wing  victors  of  1932  chose  Doumergue  in 
1934,  the  Parliament  of  the  Popular  Front  voted  for  P6tain  in  1940.  In  1958 
the  National  Assembly  of  the  Republican  Front  averted  an  open  military 
revolt  by  installing  General  de  Gaulle. 

1.  'SUPERMAN' 

The  first  signs  of  revolt  appeared  in  the  spring  of  1954.  LaniePs  government 
was  intensely  unpopular;  the  Left's  dislike  of  him  was  feeble  compared  with 
the  army's  hatred.  EDC  was  condemned  by  a  chorus  of  generals  headed  by 
Marshal  Juin,  who  quarrelled  publicly  with  Pleven,  the  minister  of  defence. 
During  the  battle  for  Dien-Bien-Phu  Pleven  and  Laniel  were  assaulted  by  ex- 
soldiers  and  serving  officers  in  mufti  at  a  war  memorial  ceremony,  the  police 
showing  little  enthusiasm  in  their  defence.  Soon,  however,  the  military  zealots 
of  the  Right  were  to  acquire  a  new  target  for  their  hatred. 

In  May  Dien-Bien-Phu  fell.  Five  weeks  and  three  votes  of  confidence  later 
the  Laniel  government  was  beaten  by  thirteen.  President  Coty  summoned 
Mendfes-France,  the  unofficial  leader  of  the  opposition,  who  promised  to 
resign  either  if  he  owed  his  election  to  Communist  support  or  if  he  failed  to 
make  peace  in  Indo-China  within  a  month.1  He  needed  314  non-Communist 
votes.  To  everyone's  surprise  he  received  320. 

The  seven  months  of  his  premiership  saw  a  series  of  spectacular  policy 
decisions,  bewildering  cabinet  reshuffles,  and  complex  shifts  of  party  allegiance. 
He  began  by  choosing  his  own  colleagues,  defying  the  usual  rules  (only  four 

1.  But  before  resigning  he  promised  he  would  bring  in  a  bill  to  authorize  sending  conscripts 
to  Indo-China  -  a  measure  none  of  his  predecessors  had  ventured  to  propose. 


46  THE  BACKGROUND 

had  served  in  the  last  government  and  only  one  was  an  ex-premier)  and 
ignoring  the  parties  (though  he  carefully  balanced  supporters  and  opponents 
of  EDC).  The  cabinet  was  based  on  Radicals  and  Gaullists ;  the  Socialists  and 
Communists  were  in  the  majority  but  not  in  the  ministry,  a  few  MRP  and 
Conservative  dissidents  took  office  although  their  parties  were  reserved  or 
hostile.  The  deputies  were  sufficiently  impressed  by  the  premier's  sudden 
popularity  in  the  country  to  give  him  massive  majorities  for  his  settlement  in 
Indo-China,  his  conciliatory  policy  in  Tunisia,  and  his  demand  for  sweeping 
special  powers  over  the  economy. 

This  brief  honeymoon  was  ended  by  EDC.  No  decision  on  that  subject 
could  have  left  the  cabinet  or  the  majority  intact.  When  Mend&s-France  tried 
(in  vain)  to  induce  France's  partners  to  modify  the  terms  of  the  treaty,  three 
'anti-European'  ministers  resigned;  when  the  government  decided  to  bring 
the  unchanged  text  before  Parliament  while  itself  staying  neutral,  three  'pro- 
Europeans'  left  it.  On  a  procedural  vote,  with  half  the  Socialist  deputies 
defying  their  whip,  ratification  was  defeated  by  319  to  264.  This  outcome  was 
neither  a  victory  of  parliamentarians  over  the  public  (who  were  indifferent), 
nor  of  extremists  over  democrats  (who  were  divided),  nor  of  immobilistes  over 
reformers  (both  camps  included  supporters  as  well  as  opponents  of  change).  It 
was  no  accident  which  could  have  been  altered  by  a  different  stand  on  the 
premier's  part:  the  deputies'  minds  were  made  up.  Yet  it  surprised  the  'Euro- 
peans' in  Paris  and  Washington  who  had  so  rashly  helped  to  wreck  any  com- 
promise, and  it  earned  the  prime  minister  the  unrelenting  enmity  of  M  RP.  To 
save  the  Atlantic  alliance  Mend&s-France  then  sponsored  the  London  and 
Paris  agreements  rearming  Germany.  Dulles  called  him  'Superman'  when  he 
forced  these  through  the  Assembly  in  the  face  of  bitter  Communist  hostility, 
reluctant  opposition  from  many  of  his  own  staunch  supporters,  and  a  most 
discreditable  attempt  by  the  leading  'Europeans'  (other  than  Schuman  and 
Pflimlin)  to  stir  up  the  nationalist  and  anti-German  passions  they  had  been 
deploring  for  years.2 

Meanwhile  on  1  November  the  Algerian  war  had  begun.  Francois  Mitter- 
rand, minister  of  the  interior,  dissolved  the  main  nationalist  party;  Mend&s- 
France  appointed  Jacques  Soustelle  as  a  reforming  governor-general;  both 
reaffirmed  that  Algeria  was  for  ever  part  of  France.  The  rising  strengthened 
conservative  hostility  to  the  premier,  which  was  further  aggravated  when  he 
attacked  the  alcohol  interest.  In  February  1955  he  was  overthrown  by  the 
votes  of  Communists  and  Conservatives  reinforced  by  twenty  right-wing 
dissidents  from  his  own  Radical  party  -  and  by  M  R  P,  despite  their  approval  of 
his  North  African  policy  on  which  the  vote  was  taken. 

Late  in  1954  the  constitution  had  been  amended:  would-be  premiers  now 
formed  their  governments  before  the  vote,  in  which  a  clear  majority  of  the 
Assembly  was  no  longer  required.  Antoine  Pinay  (Conservative)  declined 
nomination;  Pierre  Pflimlin  (MRP)  failed  to  form  a  ministry;  Christian 

2.  Some  of  them  even  spread  rumours  that  ministers  were  betraying  defence  secrets  to  the 
Communist  party:  see  Williams,  no.  222;  Wright,  no.  229;  Thdolleyre,  Le  procts  des  fuites; 
Fauvet,  IVe,  pp.  280-3.  The  prefect  of  police,  Jean  Baylot,  and  Superintendent  Dides  were 
dismissed ;  on  them  see  pp.  52, 98n,  130n.,  146n.,  165n.,  347-8. 


REVOLTS  AGAINST   THE   'SYSTEM*,    1954-5S  47 

Pineau  (Socialist)  tried  to  revive  the  European  programme  and  the  MRP 
alliance  but  was  beaten  in  the  Assembly.  Success  went  at  last  to  a  Radical, 
Edgar  Faure,  finance  minister  in  the  last  two  cabinets  and  foreign  minister  for 
the  last  two  weeks.  A  talented  conciliator,  he  carried  by  a  huge  majority  the 
Tunisian  agreements  which  had  destroyed  his  predecessor.  But  the  storm- 
centre  had  now  moved  to  Morocco,  where  French  right-wing  extremists  (in 
the  police  force)  murdered  a  leading  liberal  newspaper-owner.3  The  premier 
sent  out  a  new  resident,  Gilbert  Grandval,  a  progressive  Gaullist  whose  long 
period  of  authority  in  the  Saar  had  won  him  a  reputation  as  a  forceful  pro- 
consul.4 But  the  Right  would  not  allow  concessions  to  nationalism  in  a 
second  North  African  territory.  GrandvaFs  mission  was  wrecked  by  blatant 
military  and  administrative  sabotage,  openly  encouraged  by  some  Gaullist 
ministers  and  Conservative  parliamentarians.  On  20  August  1955,  the 
anniversary  of  the  Sultan's  deposition,  there  were  outbreaks  and  massacres 
both  in  Morocco  -  as  the  resident  had  warned  -  and  in  Algeria.  Grandval 
resigned  and  with  him  vanished  the  last  chance  of  compromise.  The  obstruc- 
tionists (among  them  the  new  resident,  General  Boyer  de  la  Tour)  soon 
brought  about  the  very  result  they  feared.  Within  three  months  the  Moroccan 
nationalists  were  able  to  impose  the  triumphant  return  of  the  exiled  Sultan.5 

The  National  Assembly  faced  an  election  in  June  1956  and  would  approve 
no  drastic  step,  forcible  or  conciliatory,  to  halt  the  spreading  Algerian  war. 
Faure  therefore  resolved  to  go  to  the  country,  escaping  months  of  electioneer- 
ing, permitting  an  earlier  decision  on  Algerian  policy  -  and  also  retaining  an 
advantageous  electoral  law  and  denying  his  opponents  time  to  develop  their 
campaigns.  His  coalition  was  under  heavy  fire  both  from  Poujade  whose 
demagogic  tax-resistance  movement  was  sweeping  the  south,  and  from 
Mend&s-France  who  had  captured  the  Radical  machine.  The  latter  demanded 
a  return  to  the  pre-war  electoral  system  of  single-member  constituencies  and 
two  ballots;  as  it  was  favoured  by  the  countryside,  the  proposal  of  the  leader 
of  the  Left  was  voted  by  the  conservative  (but  rural-minded)  upper  house. 
With  Communist  help  Faure  resisted  this  demand,  but  on  29  November  1955 
he  was  beaten  by  an  absolute  majority  in  a  vote  of  confidence.  This  defeat 
enabled  him  to  take  the  bold  (but  unexpectedly  popular)  decision  to  dissolve 
the  Assembly  for  the  first  time  for  nearly  eighty  years. 

The  election  offered  the  voter  his  clearest  choice  since  the  war  -  although 
over  the  predominant  North  African  issue  every  leader  except  Bidault  and 
Poujade  professed  liberal  intentions.  In  1951  a  broad  centre  majority  had 
straddled  every  question.  Now  the  centre  was  broken.  On  the  moderate  Right 
Faure's  parliamentary  coalition  formed  the  basis  of  constituency  alliances 
embracing  MRP,  the  Conservatives,  and  the  premier's  Radical  associates 
(who  were  expelled  by  their  party).  On  the  Left  a  rival  Republican  Front  was 
called  for  by  Guy  Mollet  (Socialist),  Mendes-France  (Radical),  Mitterrand 

3.  See  below,  p.  350n.  The  victim,  Lemaigre-Dubreuil,  had  himself  been  a  right-wing  extremist 
in  the  thirties,  and  later  helped  to  plan  the  Allied  landing  at  Algiers  in  1942. 

4.  Later  in  the  year  the  Saar  voted  heavily  to  rejoin  Germany. 

5.  He  formed  a  cabinet  identical  with  that  proposed  to  Paris  eight  years  earlier  by  the  liberal 
resident  Labonne  -  except  that  then  foreign  affairs  and  defence  were  to  be  in  French  hands. 
Labonne  had  of  course  promptly  been  recalled :  Bloch-Morhange,  Les  Politiciens,  pp.  57-8. 


48  THE  BACKGROUND 

(UDSR)  and  Chaban-Delmas  (Social  Republican).6  These  opposing  demo- 
cratic combinations  were  harassed  on  their  flanks  by  Communists  and  Pou- 
jadists  -  who  left  one  another  severely  alone.  The  slogan  of  the  former  was 
Front populaire  /,  that  of  the  latter,  Sortez  les  Sortants !  (roughly,  'Throw  the 
rascals  out !').  Vulgar  and  violent,  these  political  newcomers  used  rowdyism 
and  occasionally  physical  force  on  a  scale  unheard  of  in  French  electioneering. 
Though  these  tactics  did  them  more  harm  than  good,  they  appealed  success- 
fully to  nationalist  and  racialist  feelings  about  North  Africa,  to  the  discon- 
tents of  peasants  and  small  shopkeepers,  and  above  all  to  the  widespread 
distrust  of  all  politicians  as  a  class.7 

2.  FROM  SOCIALISM  TO  'iMMOBILISME* 

On  2  January  1956  France  recorded  her  highest  vote  since  the  war.  The 
strength  of  the  traditional  parties  was  little  altered:  Communists,  Socialists 
and  right-wing  Radicals  maintained  their  percentage  share  of  the  poll,  MRP 
fell  back  slightly,  the  Conservatives  gained  24%.  But  among  the  various 
groups  of  critics  there  were  sweeping  changes.  The  Gaullists,  divided  and 
absorbed  into  the  System  they  had  been  elected  to  oppose,  lost  nearly  four- 
fifths  of  their  four  million  votes.  Mend&s-France's  Radical  supporters  doubled 
their  vote,  from  one  to  two  million,  and  raised  their  share  of  the  poll  from 
5  to  nearly  10% ;  they  gained  most  around  Paris  and  in  the  booming  industrial 
north-east.  But  in  the  rural  south,  which  was  losing  population  to  the  expand- 
ing areas,  it  was  the  Poujadists  who  crystallized  the  demand  for  change.  To 
everyone's  surprise  (even  their  own)  they  polled  2^  million  votes  or  nearly 
13%.  In  a  few  areas  these  came  largely  from  the  Gaullists,  but  in  the  south 
they  gained  from  every  party  including  the  Communists. 

The  conservative  coalition  thus  suffered  a  double  disappointment.  First, 
despite  the  Gaullist  collapse  they  added  only  800,000  to  their  vote  and  1%  to 
their  share  of  the  electorate,  while  the  Left  -  Communists,  Socialists  and 
Mend&s-France  Radicals  together  -  gained  two  million  (5%).  Secondly,  the 
electoral  system  failed  to  help  them.  They  had  hoped  in  conservative  depart- 
ments to  win  a  clear  majority  of  votes  (and  therefore  all  the  seats),  while  in 
left-wing  areas  neither  Communists  nor  democratic  Left  would  command  a 
clear  majority  and  so  proportional  representation  (PR)  would  continue  to 
apply.8  Poujade  frustrated  these  calculations  by  making  heavy  inroads  both 
on  their  own  former  votes  and  on  those  they  had  expected  to  acquire  from  the 
Gaullists.  Consequently  it  was  hard  for  anyone  to  win  a  clear  majority.  In 
1951  it  had  been  done  in  forty  constituencies,  usually  by  an  alliance  of  the 
centre  parties,  but  in  1956  in  only  eleven  (one  Left,  ten  Right).  Everywhere 
else  PR  applied.  The  Poujadist  surge  thus  benefited  not  only  their  own  can- 
didates but  also  the  Communists,  who  regained  fifty  seats  of  which  the 

6.  The  Social  Republican  (Gaullist)  ministers  were  dismissed  by  Faure  in  October  1955;  the 
party's  candidates  were  divided,  most  choosing  conservative  rather  than  left-wing  allies  (see  below, 
p.  136n.)-. 

7.  Cf.  below,  p.  325n.  For  this  election  see  Nicholas  et  aL,  nos.  167-70;  Pierce,  no.  180;  Les 
flections  du  2  Janvier  1956  (1957,  henceforth  cited  as  Elections  1966).  For  the  Poujadists  see  below, 
Chapter  12;  and  for  the  dissolution,  below,  p.  239. 

8.  See  pp.  315-6  below. 


REVOLTS  AGAINST  THE  'SYSTEM*,   1954-58  49 

electoral  law  -  rather  than  the  electorate  -  had  deprived  them  in  the  last  Par- 
liament. To  hamper  Mendes-France,  Faure's  cabinet  had  risked  strengthening 
Thorez;  and  their  tactical  ingenuity  had  produced  an  Assembly  with  only  200 
of  their  own  supporters,  150  of  the  Republican  Front,  40  Radical  and  Gaullist 
doubtfuls,  150  Communists  and  50  Poujadists.9  It  seemed,  and  was,  even 
more  ungovernable  than  its  predecessor.  Yet  Guy  Mollet'  s  new  cabinet  was 
to  prove  the  longest-lived  of  the  Fourth  Republic. 

The  country's  swing  Left  had  changed  the  parliamentary  balance.  Mollet 
was  the  master  of  the  legislature,  for  without  the  hundred  Socialist  votes  no 
government  could  survive,  and  Communists  and  Conservatives  alike  feared 
to  drive  him  into  the  arms  of  their  rivals.  Mendes-France's  leadership  in  the 
election  campaign  therefore  availed  him  little.10  He  refused  the  ministry  of 
finance,  fearing  the  inflationary  consequences  of  Socialist  domestic  policies; 
was  vetoed  for  the  foreign  ministry  by  MRP;  and  was  finally  relegated  to  an 
uneasy  office  without  portfolio.  Worse  was  to  follow.  On  6  February  1956 
(anniversary  of  the  Paris  riots  of  1934)  the  new  prime  minister  visited  Algiers 
to  inaugurate  his  policy  and  install  his  liberal  minister  for  Algeria,  General 
Catroux.  A  mob  of  the  poorer  Europeans  greeted  him  with  rotten  tomatoes 
and  he  sacrificed  his  minister  as  Faure  had  thrown  over  Grandval. 

In  Catroux's  place  Mollet  appointed  Robert  Lacoste,  who  of  all  the  Socialist 
leaders  had  been  the  most  favourable  to  General  de  Gaulle  ten  years  before  and 
to  Mendes-France  in  1  954.  Refusing  to  fight  simultaneously  against  both  settlers 
and  Moslems,  the  newminister  firmly  postponed  political  concessions  until  the 
day  of  military  victory.  The  national  pride  which  Mendes-France  had  tried  so 
hard  to  rekindle  was  now  mobilized  against  him  by  his  former  allies,  Soustelle 
and  Lacoste.  The  ex-premier  resigned  in  May  after  delaying  his  departure  so 
as  not  to  seem  to  disavow  the  sending  of  conscripts  to  Algeria;  his  fellow- 
Radicals  stayed  in  office  as  he  (quite  superfluously)  advised  them.  Few  of  his 
colleagues  came  to  his  defence  against  the  outrageous  treason  charges  of  1954 
which  the  crypto-fascist  Right  now  revived,  ably  exploiting  a  long  and  sordid 
official  secrets  trial  to  reveal  many  police  intrigues  and  rivalries  and  further 
discredit  the  regime.11 

The  liberal  mood  of  the  election  campaign  and  the  protests  of  the  first  con- 
scripts sent  to  Algeria  were  soon  forgotten  as  public  opinion  reacted  against 
long  years  of  humiliation  and  defeat.  The  Suez  expedition  was  acclaimed  by 
most  Frenchmen  and  supported  by  a  united  cabinet,  including  the  most 
liberal  ministers,  Francois  Mitterrand  and  Gaston  Defferre  ;  many  conservative 
politicians  privately  thought  it  unwise,  but  Mendes-France  found  little 

9  The  majority  unseated  eleven  of  the  Poujadists  and  declared  their  rivals  elected.  Though 
probably  legally  correct,  this  was  politically  inept  and  injured  Parliament  in  general  and  the 
Republican  Front  in  particular.  See  Appendix  vi.  WWM:At. 

10.  In  polls  during  the  campaign,  27%  had  said  they  would  like  Mendte-France  as  premier 
and  2%  that  they  would  like  Mollet:  cited  Duverger,  La  VI*  Rfyublique  et  le  rtgime  pr&identiel, 
p  133,  cf.  his  Demain  la  Rtpublique,  pp.  51,  82.  But  looser  institutional  ties  with  Algeria  were 


P.  195  (c,  p  200)  claims  that 
supported  by  Fauvet,  IV*9  pp.  316-17,  or  by  AP  1956,  p.  24. 


50  THE  BACKGROUND 

backingfor  his  cautious  public  disapproval12  The  repression  of  the  Hungarian 
revolt  disillusioned  the  allies  of  the  Communist  party,  incensed  its  enemies 
and  completed  its  isolation.  In  January  1957  a  by-election  in  south  Paris 
showed  how  opinion  had  moved:  the  Conservative  won,  the  Socialist  did 
well,  the  Communist  receded,  the  Mendesist  lost  three-quarters  of  his  pre- 
decessor's vote,  and  Pierre  Poujade  in  person  kept  only  half  that  of  his  can- 
didate a  year  before. 

This  much-maligned  ministry  introduced  some  overdue  reforms  at  home 
(higher  old-age  pensions  and  longer  paid  holidays)  and  in  Black  Africa  and 
Madagascar,  where  Defferre's  loi-cadre  for  once  enabled  France  to  keep  pace 
with  the  demands  of  local  nationalism  and  retain  the  goodwill  of  its  leaders.13 
For,  if  the  Right  was  happy  to  see  a  Socialist-led  government  take  responsi- 
bility for  waging  the  war  in  Algeria,  Mollet  was  skilful  at  extracting  advantage 
from  his  opponents'  reluctance  to  turn  him  out.  It  was  under  his  ministry, 
however,  that  the  ravages  of  the  Algerian  conflict  began  to  afflict  France  itself. 
First,  a  war  superimposed  upon  a  boom  rapidly  dissipated  the  record  reserves 
of  foreign  exchange  built  up  by  Edgar  Faure,  and  once  again  subjected 
France's  economy  to  inflation  and  her  policy  to  the  need  for  foreign  aid. 
Secondly,  this  government  began  the  legal  harrying  of  minorities,  mani- 
pulation of  opinion  and  petty  interference  with  the  freedom  of  the  press;  its 
successors  went  so  much  further  that  before  long  a  colonel  in  the  defence 
ministry  could  have  all  copies  of  a  newspaper  illegally  seized  without  even 
seeking  the  formality  of  ministerial  approval.  And,  thirdly,  the  Mollet  cabinet 
presided  over  a  further  decline  of  the  civil  power  across  the  Mediterranean. 

Though  the  6  February  riots  had  installed  a  new  minister  and  a  new  policy 
in  Algiers,  the  government  continued  secret  talks  with  the  rebel  FLN  and  in 
October  serious  negotiations  seemed  possible  for  the  first  time.  But  as  Ben 
Bella  and  four  other  FLN  leaders  were  flying  to  a  preliminary  conference  at 
Tunis  (in  a  Moroccan  plane  with  a  French  crew)  they  were  diverted  and 
arrested  at  Algiers  by  French  military  intelligence.  One  junior  minister  knew 
in  advance  and  another  resigned  in  protest,  but  Guy  Mollet,  like  Georges 
Bidault  before  him,  covered  and  justified  zfait  accompli  he  had  disapproved 
or  forbidden.14  Then  as  murderous  and  indiscriminate  FLN  terrorism 
sowed  chaos  in  Algiers,  Lacoste  handed  over  complete  power  in  the  city  to 
General  Massu's  parachutists.  They  broke  the  terrorists,  but  their  methods 
alienated  Moslem  opinion  and  in  France  itself  aroused  vociferous  criticism. 

Without  the  army  Algeria  could  no  longer  be  administered;  and  within  it 
officers  were  increasingly  angered  by  the  government's  hesitations  and  the 
attacks  of  a  part  of  French  opinion.  In  December  1956  General  Jacques 
Faure  was  found  plotting  to  seize  power  in  Algiers;  the  government  gave  him 

12.  Among  the  doubters  were  Faure,  Reynaud,  Pinay,  Pflimlin,  and  every  speaker  at  the 
Conservative  party  meeting:  Fauvet,  IVe,  pp.  321-2;  Isorni,  Le  silence  est  tTor,  pp.  173-6. 
But  only  eleven  Radicals  abstained  with  Mendes-France ;  seventeen  Socialists  later  condemned 
the  expedition.  The  only  avowed  opponents  were  the  Communists  -  and  M,  Poujade,  who 
opposed  'fighting  for  the  Queen  of  England'.  On  the  Communists  see  below,  p.  172. 

13.  See  Robinson,  no.  192. 

14.  See  above,  p.  41.  Max  Lejeune,  minister  of  state  (secretaire  d*£tat)  for  the  army,  knew 
beforehand ;  Alain  Savary,  minister  of  state  for  Tunisian  and  Moroccan  affairs,  resigned  and  so 
did  the  ambassador  at  Tunis, 


REVOLTS  AGAINST  THE  'SYSTEM',   1954-58  51 

sixty  days'  fortress  arrest  and  posted  him  to  Germany.15  Next  month  French 
extremists  killed  an  ADC  with  a  bazooka  shell  fired  into  the  office  of  the 
commander-in-chief,  General  Salan,  who  was  then  considered  a  loyal  repub- 
lican; the  perpetrators  were  arrested  and  their  leader  Kovacs  implicated  lead- 
ing Gaullist  politicians  in  the  plot.  His  charges,  even  if  false,  served  their 
purpose  and  investigation  of  the  bazooka  plot  was  hushed  up. 

In  May  1957  the  Mollet  government  was  at  last  overthrown  by  the  Right. 
They  approved  of  the  war  but  not  of  higher  taxes,  accused  the  cabinet  of 
extravagant  spending,  and  suspected  its  intentions  in  Algeria.  But  though  the 
Socialists  had  lost  the  premiership  they  still  controlled  the  Assembly.  Because 
of  their  lukewarmness  and  Radical  hostility,  Pierre  Pflimlin  (the  new  chairman 
of  MRP,  who  held  mildly  liberal  views  about  Algeria)  withdrew  his  candida- 
ture without  a  vote;  the  Socialists  then  gave  their  willing  support  to  Maurice 
Bourges-Maunoury,  the  Radical  minister  of  defence  who  had  been  mainly 
responsible  for  the  infringements  of  civil  liberties  under  the  Mollet  govern- 
ment. He  formed  a  Socialist  and  Radical  cabinet  without  those  ministers  who 
had  been  critical  of  Lacoste's  Algerian  policy,  and  obtained  from  the  Assem- 
bly the  narrowest  vote  of  confidence  (240  to  194)  ever  given  an  incoming 
premier. 

The  deputies  promptly  granted  to  the  new  ministry  the  tax  increases  they 
had  refused  to  the  old  one.  In  July  they  voted  by  a  large  majority  to  ratify  the 
treaties  setting  up  the  Common  Market  and  'Euratom';  Mendes-France 
joined  the  Gaullists,  Poujadists  and  Communists  in  opposition.  Algerian 
terrorism  was  met  by  setting  up  internment  camps  in  France,  but  Lacoste's 
loi-cadre,  a  mild  measure  of  Algerian  political  reform,  divided  the  cabinet.  A 
'round  table'  of  parliamentary  leaders  patched  up  a  compromise.  But  the 
Right  revolted  and  brought  the  government  down. 

Ten  years  earlier  the  Assembly  of  1946  had  been  chosen  by  a  system  of  pro- 
portional representation  which  guaranteed  a  third  of  the  seats  to  the  various 
enemies  of  the  regime.  Now  the  1956  election  had  produced  a  similar  result, 
and  a  similar  dilemma.  Unless  all  the  other  parties  stood  together  no  govern- 
ment could  be  formed  or  survive ;  yet  these  parties  could  agree  only  on  a 
standstill  policy  (immobilisme)  which  in  turn  provoked  discontent  within  their 
own  ranks.  When  Pinay  was  nominated  the  Socialists  showed  that  he  could 
not  command  a  majority;  when  Mollet  stood  the  Conservatives  returned  the 
compliment  (both  of  course  were  assisted  in  their  demonstration  by  the  votes 
of  their  common  enemies).  After  five  weeks  a  young  Radical,  F61ix  Gaillard, 
emerged  to  form  a  combination  as  broad  and  shallow  as  Queuille's  nearly  a 
decade  before.  For  the  first  time  since  the  1956  election  MRP  and  Conser- 
vative leaders  sat  in  cabinet  alongside  not  only  the  Radicals,  but  also  the 
Socialists  to  whom  they  had  been  opposed  for  six  years.  But  the  Socialists 
could  not  concede  too  much  without  losing  control  of  their  party,  nor  the 
Conservatives  without  seeing  their  rural  followers  go  over  to  Poujade. 

15.  The  same  penalty  was  inflicted  on  General  Paris  de  la  Bollardiere  for  resigning  and  publicly 
denouncing  military  brutality  in  the  countryside.  Paul  Teitgen,  the  senior  police  official  who 
exposed  General  Faure's  plot,  also  soon  resigned  in  protest  against  the  tortures  and  'disap- 
pearances' of  Moslems  in  Algiers.  On  the  army's  mood  see  Planchais,  Le  malaise  de 
Chapter  5;  and  Girardet  in  Military  Politics,  Chapter  5,  and  no,  99b, 


52  THE  BACKGROUND 

Though  the  Gaillard  government  introduced  some  necessary  economies,  its 
energies  were  mainly  occupied  in  avoiding  its  own  disintegration. 

These  domestic  strains  were  accompanied  by  an  endless  colonial  war.  Over 
Algeria  as  over  Indo-China,  there  was  a  majority  neither  for  victory  at  any 
price  nor  for  peace  by  negotiation,  but  only  for  ineffective  compromise 
solutions;  when  Gaillard  reintroduced  and  passed  the  Lacoste  loi-cadre  it  had 
to  be  so  whittled  down  in  order  to  attract  the  votes  of  the  Right  that  few 
remembered  it  had  once  been  meant  to  win  over  the  Moslems.  North  Africa, 
however,  was  nearer  home  than  Indo-China,  and  the  tensions  it  generated 
were  much  more  serious.  They  were  to  destroy  not  merely  a  government  but  a 
regime. 

3.  THE  DELIQUESCENT  STATE 

Across  the  Mediterranean  the  authority  of  the  Republic  had  been  flouted  for 
years.  Generals  and  residents,  prefects  and  riot  leaders  had  imposed  their  own 
disastrous  policies  at  Tunis  in  1952,  Rabat  in  1953,  Algiers  in  1956.  More 
recently  the  disease  had  spread  to  France.  Left-wing  officials  gave  military 
secrets  to  the  press;  right-wing  police  officers  falsely  accused  their  political 
superiors  of  treason  and  found  respectable  politicians  to  purvey  their  slanders. 
Military  judges  showed  gross  political  bias.  General  Faure  was  not  punished 
for  sedition;  Kovacs  was  not  tried  for  murder;16  Bourg&s-Maunoury,  minister 
of  the  interior,  did  not  even  resign  when  in  March  1958  the  Paris  police 
(organized  by  ex-superintendent  Dides)  staged  an  ugly  anti-parliamentary  and 
anti-semitic  demonstration  outside  the  Assembly.  Socialist  and  Radical 
ministers  were  too  busy  denouncing  left-wing  critics  of  the  Algerian  war, 
seizing  their  papers  and  banning  their  meetings,  to  recognize  the  real  threat  to 
French  democracy. 

The  Fourth  Republic  was  crumbling  both  at  the  top  and  at  the  base.  The 
long  ministerial  crises  of  1957  exacerbated  public  opinion  and  sapped  the  self- 
confidence  of  the  political  leaders  themselves.  Dr.  Queuille's  medicine  was  too 
insipid  when  the  political  temperature,  raised  by  Indo-China  and  Tunisia, 
Morocco  and  Suez,  was  kept  at  fever  pitch  by  the  Algerian  war.  This  was  the 
year  of  two  bitter  emotional  agitations,  one  by  the  Right  over  Captain 
Moureau,  an  officer  who  was  seized  and  doubtless  murdered  by  Moroccan 
guerrillas,  the  other  by  the  Left  over  Djamila  Bouhired,  a  Moslem  girl  accused 
of  terrorism  who  was  tortured  and  sentenced  to  death  in  Algiers  after  a 
scandalous  trial. 

The  democratic  politicians  could  not  agree  on  the  measures  to  be  taken 
either  at  home  or  overseas.  The  conflicts  between  the  parties  were  complicated 
by  bitter  divisions  within  each  of  them,  especially  among  the  Radicals  who 
had  traditionally  specialized  in  managing  political  transitions.  A  solution 
through  the  normal  political  process  seemed  unattainable,  and  the  familiar 
remedy  of  constitutional  reform  again  came  into  fashion.  In  press  and  intel- 
lectual circles  a  campaign  in  favour  of  a  presidential  system  obtained  support 
in  unexpected  quarters.  While  the  parliamentary  leaders  preferred  less  drastic 

16.  After  de  Gaulle  came  to  power  Kovacs  was  brought  to  trial  but  given  bail  on  medical 
grounds  and  escaped  from  the  country.  On  the  leakages  and  slanders  see  above,  pp.  46n.,  49, 


I.  Financing  pension* 
1956 


3.  Decolonization 
1955-57 


5.  Europe  1957 
Common  Market 


7.  Party  politics  1957 
PInay  &  Mollet 


For?, 
only 


For 


Against 


2.  Repeal  of 
Loi  BarangS,  1956 


4.  Algeria  1957:  Special 
powers  (internment) 


6.  Algerian  reform 
1 957  (lot -cadre) 


8.  27  May  &  I  June  1958, 
Pflimlin  &  De  Gaulle 


Fig.  4,  Party  Alignments  1955-8 


54  THE  BACKGROUND 

and  more  ingenious  schemes,  more  and  more  of  them  felt  that  changes  must 
come  soon,  either  by  their  own  initiative  or  else  imposed  on  them  from  with- 
out. 

Yet  they  knew  also  that  the  chance  of  agreed  reform  from  within  was  small 
indeed.  Therefore,  from  President  Coty  downwards,  some  were  turning  as  a 
last  resort  to  a  towering  figure  outside  the  regime.  In  the  final  months  of  the 
Fourth  Republic  General  de  Gaulle  was  receiving  more  visitors  than  for  many 
years  past,  and  they  ranged  from  the  far  Right  to  the  very  fringes  of  the  Com- 
munist party.  The  left-wing  weeklies  UExpress  and  France-Observateur,  the 
bitterest  critics  of  Guy  Mollet  and  his  younger  prot<5g£s  and  successors,  gave 
space  and  encouragement  to  the  Gaullist  alternative.  Meanwhile  the  Gaullist 
leaders  were  multiplying  their  activities.  They  appealed  to  public  opinion  with 
new  journals  like  Michel  Debr£'s  Courrier  de  la  Colere  and  Jacques  Soustelle's 
Void  Pourquoi  (both  started  in  November  1957).  Behind  the  scenes  they 
organized  for  illegal  action,  reviving  the  old  wartime  and  Resistance  networks 
and  penetrating  into  the  heart  of  the  state  machine.  They  had  a  foothold  in 
the  Cornell  d'£tat  and  a  stronghold  in  the  ministry  of  defence  under  a  Gaullist 
minister,  Jacques  Chaban-Delmas ;  they  enjoyed  the  sympathy  of  the  chief  of 
the  general  staff  and  of  a  number  of  senior  officers  in  Algeria;  and  L6on 
Delbecque,  a  Gaullist  on  the  minister's  personal  staff,  provided  a  link  between 
the  discontented  military  chiefs  and  the  revolutionary  Europeans  of  Algiers. 

The  Gaullists  were  not  the  only  plotters;  the  crypto-fascist  Right  were  also 
active  in  Algiers  and  vigilant  in  Paris.  They  had  no  public  support  in  France. 
Up  to  the  very  moment  of  crisis,  by-elections  and  local  elections  showed  little 
change  in  opinion;  Communism  was  standing  still,  Poujadism  was  in  decline 
and  the  other  extreme  Right  groups  were  utterly  negligible.17  But  if  an  explo- 
sion occurred  they  could  count  on  public  indifference,  for  no  one  (not  even  the 
Communists,  as  the  Gaullists  rightly  foresaw)  was  willing  to  fight  for  the 
regime.  The  detonator  for  the  explosion  -  every  explosion  -  was  ready  in 
Algiers.  But  it  could  not  be  touched  off  without  the  assent  of  the  army. 

The  soldiers  had  little  love  for  the  Algiers  Europeans,  whose  demonstration 
against  Lacoste's  loi-cadre  had  been  stopped  in  September  1957  by  General 
Massu.  But  they  deeply  distrusted  the  politicians  in  Paris  and  were  determined 
never  to  permit  a  'government  of  scuttle'  to  hand  Algeria  over  to  the  FLN. 
They  were  furious  when  at  the  end  of  1957  Britain  and  the  United  States 
delivered  arms,  after  France  had  refused,  to  Tunisia  -  which  had  become  the 
FLN's  base.  Then  in  February  1958  the  air  force  caused  an  international  out- 
cry by  bombarding  the  Tunisian  village  of  Sakiet;  as  usual  the  government 
had  not  been  informed  beforehand.  The  Left  (including  some  ministers) 
wanted  to  defy  the  army  and  punish  those  responsible,  the  Right  to  defy 
world  opinion  and  reoccupy  Tunisia.  The  Centre  feared  the  consequences  of 
either  challenge,  and  Gaillard  accepted  Anglo-American  mediation.  But  the 
Right  resented  his  minor  concessions  to  Tunisia  and  suspected  that  the 

1 7.  At  Marseilles  in  February  1 958  an  extreme-Right  candidate  won  2  %  of  the  vote ;  in  north- 
west Paris  in  March  another  won  3  %  on  the  first  ballot  and  under  1  %  on  the  second,  2,500  votes 
out  of  580,000  electors.  (In  both  cases  the  official  Conservative  was  very  right-wing.)  The  Gaullists 
were  recovering  slightly  from  their  low  point  of  1956. 


REVOLTS  AGAINST  THE  'SYSTEM',   1954-58  55 

Algerian  problem  also  would  be  internationalized.  In  April  they  overthrew 
the  cabinet  -  the  third  they  had  defeated  in  twelve  months.  So  opened  the  last 
and  longest  interregnum  of  the  Fourth  Republic. 

It  soon  became  clear  that  those  who  had  caused  the  crisis  were  unlikely  to 
gain  by  it.  Soustelle  had  no  more  chance  of  forming  a  cabinet  than  Mendes- 
France.  Bidault  was  sent  for;  he  was  frustrated  by  his  own  party  and  in  par- 
ticular by  its  chairman  Pflimlin.  Pleven,  a  specialist  in  reconciling  opposites, 
was  prevented  from  forming  a  cabinet  by  the  refusal  of  orthodox  Radicals  to 
sit  with  a  right-wing  ex-Radical,  Andr6  Morice.  The  Socialists  decided  to  .stay 
out  of  office  altogether  so  as  to  remove  Lacoste  from  Algiers  without  directly 
disavowing  him.  The  crisis  provoked  by  the  Europeans  of  Algeria  was  leading 
to  the  progressive  elimination  of  all  their  political  friends.  And  to  crown  the 
process  the  premiership  was  offered  to  Pflimlin,  leader  of  the  liberal  wing  of 
MRP. 

In  the  hothouse  atmosphere  of  Algiers  his  nomination  seemed  a  prelude  to 
capitulation  to  the  FLN.  The  army  leaders  officially  warned  President  Coty 
that  the  election  of  a  'government  of  scuttle'  would  have  incalculable  con- 
sequences ;  the  mob,  stimulated  by  the  rival  plotters  and  remembering  their 
success  of  6  February  1956,  rioted  against  Pflimlin's  candidature.  On  13  May 
1958,  with  the  connivance  of  a  section  of  the  army,  they  occupied  Govern- 
ment House  in  Algiers  a  few  hours  before  the  Assembly  was  due  to  vote,  and 
set  up  a  Committee  of  Public  Safety  under  General  Massu.  But  the  news 
rallied  support  to  Pflimlin  and  induced  the  Communists  to  abstain;  instead  of 
failing  as  expected,  he  was  comfortably  elected.  Hoping  to  win  the  army  back 
to  its  allegiance  he  delegated  civil  power  in  Algiers  to  General  Salan.  But  the 
commander-in-chief,  after  a  day's  hesitation,  publicly  appealed  to  a  third 
general:  de  Gaulle.18 

4.  'RESURRECTION' 

General  de  Gaulle's  name  had  been  canvassed  on  the  Left  as  well  as  the  Right; 
but  a  candidate  for  the  premiership  had  to  appear  before  the  National  Assem- 
bly, and  when  sounded  privately  by  President  Coty  ten  days  earlier,  de  Gaulle 
had  refused  to  do  so.  Now  he  seized  the  chance  presented  by  Salan:  that 
evening  (15  May)  he  publicly  announced  his  readiness  'to  assume  the  powers 
of  the  Republic '.  The  brief  trial  of  strength  had  begun. 

Although  the  cabinet  was  reinforced  by  the  entry  of  the  Socialists  and  by 
repeated  and  massive  majorities  in  the  Assembly,  the  isolation  and  discredit  of 
Parliament  and  the  politicians  now  became  painfully  clear.  Against  the  threat 
(or  bluff)  of  insurrection  in  France  and  invasion  from  Algeria  the  government 
found  itself  defenceless.  The  army  and  air  force  were  openly  mutinous ;  the 
police  had  shown  their  feelings  in  their  demonstration  in  March;  the  civil 
administration  disregarded  orders.  Nor  was  the  defection  of  the  state  machine 
offset  by  any  mobilization  of  popular  forces.  Hardly  any  Frenchmen  believed 
that  the  former  leader  of  the  Resistance  now  intended  to  destroy  democratic 

18.  For  a  fuller  account  of  the  13  May  crisis  and  its  background  see  Williams  and  Harrison, 
De  Gaulle* s  Republic,  Chapters  3  and  4 ;  Werth,  The  De  Gaulle  Revolution,  Parts  I  and  n ;  Macridis 
and  Brown,  The  De  Gaulle  Republic,  Part  i;  Williams,  no.  220.  


56  THE  BACKGROUND 

liberties,  and  few  would  run  risks  or  make  sacrifices  for  the  Fourth  Republic  - 
or  even  for  the  proletarian  revolution. 

On  Saturday  24  May  Corsica  was  taken  over  by  supporters  of  de  Gaulle. 
Convinced  at  last  of  their  own  impotence,  ministers  secretly  opened  negotia- 
tions with  the  General.  But  he  feared  the  army  would  launch  the  planned 
invasion  from  Algeria,  Operation  Resurrection,  and  tried  to  rush  matters.  He 
only  stiffened  resistance  in  the  Assembly,  where  a  majority  still  preferred  even 
a  Popular  Front  to  the  Algiers  Committees  of  Public  Safety;  for  once  the 
deputies  were  desperately  trying  to  keep  in  office  a  premier  who  wanted  only 
to  escape  from  it.  The  resignation  of  the  Conservative  ministers  gave  Pflimlin 
the  pretext  he  needed,  and  despite  his  enormous  majority  of  408  to  165  he 
resigned  in  the  early  morning  of  28  May.  Later  that  day  in  eastern  Paris  some 
200,000  people  demonstrated  for  the  parliamentary  Republic. 

In  a  special  message  next  afternoon  President  Coty  threatened  to  resign  his 
own  office  unless  the  deputies  elected  de  Gaulle  premier.19  It  took  the  Socialist 
leaders  three  more  days  to  bring  round  enough  of  their  followers.  The  General's 
moderate  language  won  over  some  members,  the  composition  of  his  ministry 
(which  included  Mollet  and  Pflimlin  but  not  as  yet  Soustelle)  reassured  many 
more.  On  Sunday  1  June  he  appeared  in  the  Assembly  he  had  once  said  he 
would  never  enter  again,  and  delivered  the  shortest  investiture  speech  of  the 
Fourth  Republic.  With  nearly  half  the  Socialists  voting  for  him,  he  was  elected 
with  a  majority  of  more  than  a  hundred. 

The  deputies  had  not  yet  said  their  final  word.  General  de  Gaulle  asked 
Parliament  to  vote  bills  continuing  the  government's  special  powers  in 
Algeria,  giving  it  full  authority  in  France  for  six  months,  and  allowing  it  to 
draft  a  new  constitution  to  be  ratified  by  referendum.  The  deputies  wanted 
Parliament  to  vote  the  draft,  but  gave  way  when  de  Gaulle  threatened  to 
resign;  after  exacting  a  promise  that  he  would  not  alter  the  electoral  law  they 
departed,  reassured,  into  an  exile  which  they  still  could  not  believe  would  be 
permanent.20  But  they  were  not  to  meet  again,  and  fewer  than  a  quarter  of 
them  would  reappear  in  the  first  National  Assembly  of  the  Fifth  Republic. 

During  the  summer  the  government  hastily  drafted  its  constitutional  pro- 
posals, submitted  them  to  a  mainly  parliamentary  consultative  committee 
whose  objections  were  mostly  ignored,  and  presented  them  with  an  immense 
publicity  campaign  for  ratification  by  the  electorate.  Most  of  the  Fourth 
Republican  parties  approved,  the  Socialists  by  a  large  and  the  Radicals  by  a 
fairly  narrow  majority.  The  non-Communist  Left  opposition  refused  to 
defend  the  Fourth  Republic  and  insisted  that  their  NON  vote  implied  the 
election  of  a  Constituent  Assembly  to  draft  a  new  constitution  in  the  proper 
democratic  way.  The  Communist  party,  after  denouncing  them  for  hair- 
splitting when  the  Republic  was  in  danger,  discovered  the  unpopularity  of  the 
old  regime  in  its  own  ranks  and  itself  came  out  for  a  Constituent  Assembly. 
On  28  September,  in  a  record  85%  poll,  four-fifths  of  those  voting  approved 

19.  Coty's  resignation  would  have  opened  the  way  to  a  Popular  Front  government;  cf.  below, 
pp.  202-3. 

20.  The  government  sought  and  obtained  the  right  to  change  this  law  from  a  higher  authority, 
the  people  themselves,  in  the  referendum  of  28  September  1958. 


REVOLTS  AGAINST  THE  'SYSTEM5,   1934-58  57 

the  new  constitution.  As  all  the  O  Uh  and  nearly  all  the  NONs  were  voting 
against  the  defunct  republic,  the  electorate's  condemnation  of  it  was  quite  as 
overwhelming  as  their  repudiation  of  its  predecessor  thirteen  years  earlier.21 

21.  For  a  fuller  account  of  the  interregnum  period  and  the  referendum  campaign  see  Williams 
and  Harrison,  De  Gaulle's  Republic,  Chapter  5,  and  'France  1958 '  in  Butler,  ed.,  Elections  Abroad', 
Macridis  and  Brown,  Part  n ;  Werth,  op.  cit.,  Chapters  20-25. 


PART  II 

THE  PARTIES 


Chapter  5 

POLITICAL  COMMUNICATION  AND 
PARTY  STRUCTURE 

The  Third  Republic  had  found  its  democratic  base  in  the  provinces  rather 
than  Paris.  Its  six  hundred  small  constituencies  were  remarkably  self- 
contained,  and  the  deputy  who  entrenched  himself  in  his  fief  by  conscientious 
local  services  had  little  to  fear  from  pressure-groups  or  prefects,  party  whips 
or  national  swings.  Party  and  professional  organization  was  very  weak;  few 
prefects  cared  to  offend  a  powerful  politician;  and  the  floating  vote  was  small. 
The  opinions  of  the  electorate  remained  stable  over  long  periods,  changing 
their  labels  but  rarely  their  proportions.  The  focus  of  political  organization  on 
the  Right  was  often  the  chateau  or  the  Church;  on  the  Left,  an  ad  hoc  com- 
mittee of  lawyers,  doctors  or  schoolteachers,  influential  in  local  government 
and  sometimes  linked  by  freemasonry;  and  everywhere  the  small  local 
newspapers,  which  were  born  for,  lived  on,  and  sometimes  died  of  electioneer- 
ing. Occasionally  a  daily  in  a  provincial  metropolis  became  a  great  power  in 
its  region,  like  Le  Progres  at  Lyons,  but  there  was  no  national  press  and  broad- 
casting was  used  politically  only  in  the  last  few  years.  The  capital  was  a  remote 
and  suspect  world:  its  ministers,  writers,  bureaucrats,  salons,  journalists  and 
proletarians  might  influence  the  policy-makers  at  times,  but  they  had  little  if 
any  impact  on  the  voters. 

After  1945  the  rapid  changes  in  French  society  outpaced  the  slow  evolution 
of  political  methods.  Parties  were  better  organized  than  in  the  Third  Republic, 
though  (except  in  1945-47)  worse  than  in  most  democratic  countries. 
Pressure-groups  grew  in  number,  scale  and  power.1  The  press,  temporarily 
reorganized  at  the  Liberation,  never  quite  resumed  its  old  role.  Radio  and 
television  developed  in  the  Fourth  Republic,  but  their  full  impact  on  politics 
was  reserved  for  the  Fifth. 

1.  THE  MEDIA  OF  COMMUNICATION 

Before  1939  the  smaller  local  newspapers  were  already  declining  as  transport 
improved,  and  in  the  Fourth  Republic  many  of  them  disappeared.  The  great 
regional  journals  were  more  widely  read:  Toulouse  kept  its  militant  D<2p£che, 
a  mighty  force  within  the  Radical  party,  and  Marseilles  had  an  old-style  news- 
paper war  between  the  Socialist  Provencal  and  the  reactionary  Meridional. 
But  these  were  exceptional,  for  most  of  the  regionals  were  reluctant  to  offend 
potential  readers  by  violent  polemics.  The  largest,  Quest-France,  was  Catholic 
and  moderate  but  gave  little  space  to  politics.  Some  provincial  papers  took  no 
clear  line  at  all. 

Another  sign  of  the  reader's  distaste  for  polemical  politics  (or  for  politics) 
was  the  rapid  decline  of  the  official  party  publications  after  a  momentary  post- 
war expansion.  The  Liberation  brought  a  revolution  in  the  journalistic  balance 

1.  Parties  are  discussed  in  the  following  chapters,  and  in  Chapter  23;  pressure-groups  in 
Chapters  25  and  26. 


POLITICAL  COMMUNICATION  AND  PARTY  STRUCTURE  61 

of  power,  for  the  presses  of  papers  which  had  appeared  under  German  censor- 
ship were  provisionally  allotted  to  new  party  or  Resistance  organs.  In  1939 
journals  supporting  the  Radicals  and  Conservatives  had  had  5,000,000  readers 
and  Socialist  and  Communist  ones  1,300,000;  in  1944  these  figures  were 
reversed.  MRP  had  a  new  press  with  1,300,000  readers,  and  many  'non- 
party'  conservative  papers  passed  to  Resisters  of  the  Left.  These  sweeping 
changes  helped  to  cripple  the  old  parties  and  strengthen  the  new  in  the  early 
post-war  elections,  and  a  law  of  1946  sought  to  perpetuate  them.  But  it  was 
thwarted  first  by  political  opponents  and  then  by  the  readers  themselves.  In 
ten  years  the  Communist  papers  lost  two-thirds  of  their  circulation  and  many 
had  to  close.  MRP's  national  daily,  UAube,  ceased  publication  in  1951.  The 
Socialist  Populaire  survived  precariously,  thanks  to  the  British  Labour  party 
and  other  sympathizers,  as  a  bulletin  for  party  members  rather  than  a  news- 
paper.2 

Resistance  journals  like  Combat  soon  suffered  a  similar  fate.  At  the  Libera- 
tion there  had  been  great  hopes  that  a  new,  purified  and  independent  press 
would  replace  the  notoriously  venal  Parisian  papers  (which  were  often  on  sale 
both  to  foreign  governments  and  to  French  bankers  and  industrialists).  But 
financial  weakness  and  inexperience  soon  forced  many  of  the  newcomers 
into  merger  or  liquidation.  Business  recovered  much  of  its  power,  though  its 
new  organs  were  more  discreet  and  less  corrupt  than  the  old  ones.  But  one 
exception  stood  out:  Le  Monde  preserved  that  'financial  and  intellectual 
independence  [which]  in  some  quarters  seems  astonishing  if  not  almost 
scandalous'.3  Financiers  tried  to  buy  it  or  wreck  it;  a  Socialist  government 
abused  price-control  powers  to  force  it  into  bankruptcy;  but  its  circulation 
rose  steadily  and  by  1958  was  nearly  200,000,  over  three  times  that  of  the  old 
Temps.  Arousing  strong  admiration  and  intense  hatred,  it  became  the  indis- 
pensable paper  of  a  serious  generation  of  students  and  of  the  entire  political 
class.  At  times  it  was  more  effective  as  a  critical  forum  than  Parliament  itself. 

The  other  Paris  dailies  also  had  more  readers  than  before,  and  their  stan- 
dards were  not  quite  as  abysmal  as  those  of  their  predecessors  (or  some  of  their 
popular  counterparts  in  other  countries).  Usually  they  were  more  anxious  to 
increase  circulation  than  to  influence  opinion:  Le  Figaro  was  a  weathercock  of 
respectable  bourgeois  opinion,  France-Soir  ran  no  risks  but  had  a  mild 
preference  for  progress,  and  Le  Parisien  Libert  attracted  many  Communist 
readers  by  giving  little  emphasis  to  its  extreme  reactionary  politics.  The  place 
of  the  old  journaux  d?  opinion  was  taken  by  the  weeklies.  On  the  Left,  the 
satirical  but  well-informed  Canard Enchaine  was  joined  by  several  newcomers. 
When  Claude  Bourdet  was  evicted  from  Combat  he  founded  UObservateur, 
later  France-Observateur,  to  appeal  to  the  neutralist  intellectuals.  L'Express 
rallied  the  progressive  bourgeoisie  to  Mend&s-France;  Ttmoignage  Chretien 
wrote  for  the  Catholic  Left,  a  new  group  who  also  influenced  the  tone  of  other 
Catholic  papers  like  the  daily  La  Croix.  The  right-wing  weeklies  were  not  much 

2.  On  the  Communist  press  see  below,  p.  77;  on  the  1946  law,  below,  p.  392.  By  1950,  109 
dailies  had  closed;  by  1957,  27  more:  list  in  AP  1957,  pp.  552-3.  In  1958  the  ten  main  regionals 
had  45  %  of  the  total  provincial  circulation:  Grosser,  p.  162  (the  best  short  account  of  the  press). 

3.  Delouvrier  in  Crise,  p.  82.  See  also  A.  Chatelain,  Le  Monde  et  ses  lecteurs  (1962),  Chapter  2, 
p.  183,  n.  53, 


62  THE  PARTIES 

read:  Aspects  de  la  France  was  a  pale  shadow  of  the  pre-war  daily  V Action 
fran$aise>  and  Rivarol  poisoned  far  fewer  minds  than  Gringoire.  Also  in  sharp 
contrast  to  the  1930's,  the  leading  monthlies  were  the  Left  Catholic  Esprit  and 
the  neutralist  Temps  Modernes,  with  the  Vichyite  Merits  de  Paris  far  behind. 
But  all  these  journals  gave  focus  to  currents  of  opinion  whose  influence  was 
out  of  proportion  to  their  numbers.  Among  the  individualist  extremists  on 
both  political  wings  there  were  parties  around  a  newspaper  rather  than  news- 
papers belonging  to  a  party. 

Sound  radio  played  less  part  in  France  than  in  other  great  democracies.  As 
elsewhere,  political  broadcasting  mattered  less  than  'non-political'  daily 
programmes  (though  Mendes-France's  fireside  chats  helped  consolidate  his 
brief  popularity).  Every  government  abused  its  control  of  the  radio,  but  only 
the  Socialists  approached  the  degree  of  partisanship  which  became  common- 
place in  the  Fifth  Republic.  To  escape  manipulated  information,  listeners 
turned  increasingly  to  the  independent  stations,  Radio  Luxembourg  and 
Europe  No.  1.  In  television  the  state  network  had  no  competitor,  but  it  still 
covered  only  a  limited  area  when  the  Fourth  Republic  fell;  it  was  not  used  in 
an  election  until  1956,  and  then  with  conspicuous  ineptitude  by  everyone 
except  Pierre  Poujade. 

Thus  means  of  communication  were  slow  to  adapt  to  the  growing '  nationali- 
zation' of  political  issues  and  moods,  With  television  in  its  infancy,  radio  not 
much  used,  the  Paris  press  influential  only  close  to  the  capital,  and  few  political 
leaders  making  electioneering  tours,  there  was  hardly  more  national  political 
campaigning in  the  Fourth  Republic  than  in  the  Third.4  Nor  did  the  forms  of 
party  organization  change  much  more  rapidly,  although  all  the  many  parties 
of  the  Fourth  Republic  were  twentieth-century  foundations. 

2.  THE  PARTIES:  MEMBERS  AND  OUTLOOK 

The  Radical  party  has  enjoyed  a  continuous  existence  since  1901,  the  Socialist 
party  in  its  present  form  since  1905  and  the  Communists  since  1920.  For  in 
France  political  parties  are  a  left-wing  innovation:  the  Radicals  established  a 
very  loose  formal  framework,  the  Socialists  introduced  disciplined  voting,  and 
the  Communists  extended  that  discipline  to  all  spheres  of  party  activity.  Con- 
servative forces,  relying  on  the  influence  of  powerful  individuals,  were  long 
reluctant  to  organize  politically  except  in  very  loose  formations  which  avoided 
both  the  name  and  the  habits  of  party  (Democratic  Alliance,  Republican 
Federation),  or  in  anti-parliamentary  leagues  dedicated  to  the  violent  over- 
throw of  the  democratic  system  (Action  fr an faise). 

The  second  world  war  gave  a  great  impetus  to  party  organization.  MRP, 
born  of  the  Resistance  and  founded  in  1944,  was  intended  to  be  a  'movement' 
with  a  purpose  broader  than  mere  electioneering.  Two  small  Conservative 
parties,  the  Peasants  and  the  Parti  republican  de  la  Liberte  (PRL)  were  also 
formed  at  the  Liberation;  but  only  after  the  foundation  in  1948  of  the  Centre 
national  des  inddpendants  et  paysans  (CNIP)  did  the  moderate  Right  for  the 
first  time  in  its  history  gradually  build  a  headquarters  recognized  by  most  of 

t  £  ?£  Pira?agaiidxT ?nutl!e  1956  ,camPai8n  see  factions  1956,  pp.  67-195,  especially  pp.  88, 1 10, 
161,  182,  195;  and  Nicholas  et  aL,  nos.  168-70,  pp.  147,  160-1,  257-60,  280-1. 


POLITICAL  COMMUNICATION  AND  PARTY  STRUCTURE  63 

its  troops.  Two  very  different  leaders,  General  de  Gaulle  and  Pierre  Poujade, 
were  successively  to  evoke  the  latent  anti-parliamentary  sentiments  of  many  of 
their  compatriots.  Although  their  followings  also  differed  greatly,  both  men 
attracted  support  predominantly  from  the  Right  and  marginally  from  the 
Left.  The  Gaullist  RPF,  founded  in  1947,  was  already  withering  when  the 
General  withdrew  his  patronage  in  1953;  the  Poujadist  Union  et  fraternitt 
francaise  (UFF),  formed  to  fight  the  1956  election,  had  perished  within  a  few 
months  -  except  in  the  Assembly  against  which  it  so  vigorously  vituperated. 
One  of  the  smaller  groups,  Union  democratique  et  socialists  de  la  Resistance 
(UDSR)  emerged  from  the  Resistance  movement.  The  rest  arose  from  splits 
within  other  parties:  Action  republicaine  et  sociale  (ARS)  were  conservative 
Gaullists  on  their  way  into  CNIP,  the  Dissident  Radicals  were  opponents  of 
the  progressive  policies  and  strong  leadership  of  Mendes-France,  and  one 
wing  of  the  Peasant  party  refused  to  submerge  its  identity  in  a  wider  Conser- 
vative coalition. 

French  parties  bore  little  resemblance  to  one  another  and  still  less  to 
political  parties  as  they  are  conceived  of  in  Britain.  First,  they  were  much 
smaller.  At  their  peak  just  after  the  war  the  Communists  and  RPF  each 
claimed  about  a  million  members,  the  Socialists  a  third  and  MRP  a  fifth  of 
that  number;  but  within  five  years  most  of  these  had  deserted.  The  Con- 
servative groups  never  attempted,  and  the  Radicals  tried  only  under  Mendes- 
France,  to  organize  their  rank  and  file  supporters ;  instead  these  parties  con- 
tented themselves  with  a  network  of  notables  scattered  through  the  small 
towns  and  the  countryside,  who  sprang  into  sudden  activity  at  election  times. 
Pierre  Poujade  claimed  350,000  for  his  Shopkeepers'  and  Artisans'  Defence 
Union  (UDCA),  which  started  with  a  professional  purpose  but  later 
developed  into  the  political  UFF;  Mendes-France  brought  the  Radicals  above 
the  100,000  mark;  both  successes  were  short-lived.  By  the  end  of  the  Republic 
the  Communists  were  probably  the  only  party  with  over  100,000  members  and 
the  Socialists  their  only  rival  with  over  50,000.  Thus  if  most  of  the  main  groups 
could  rely  on  influential  supporters  in  the  localities,  only  the  Communists 
could  boast  of  anything  like  the  constituency  structure  of  a  big  British  party. 

Discipline  differed  immensely  from  one  group  to  another.  For  a  short 
period  at  the  Liberation  it  seemed  that  the  pressure  of  the  more  rigid  parties 
would  react  on  the  looser  ones.  Until  1935  the  Radicals  and  Conservatives 
together  with  the  smaller  intermediate  groups  had  controlled  four-fifths  of  the 
seats  in  the  lower  house,  but  ten  years  later  they  held  little  more  than  a  quarter. 
The  rest  were  divided  between  two  old  well-organized  parties,  Communists 
and  Socialists,  and  a  new  one,  MRP,  which  also  despised  and  condemned  the 
personal  and  parochial  politics  of  pre-war  days  and  aspired  to  become  a 
powerful  and  disciplined  unit.  Like  the  Communists  it  owed  much  of  its  force 
and  cohesion  to  a  base  of  support  deeper  than  simple  electoral  loyalty. 

While  these  three  strong  parties  were  agreed  they  dominated  Parliament. 
But  once  the  Communists  were  relegated  to  the  opposition,  the  fate  of  govern- 
ments again  came  to  depend  on  a  handful  of  marginal  votes  -  and  life  and 
uncertainty  returned  to  the  parliamentary  scene.  In  day-to-day  business  every 
party  could  still  count  on  the  votes  of  the  enormous  majority  of  its  members; 


64  THE  PARTIES 

but  on  the  major  questions  where  discipline  was  worst,  party  authority  was 
soon  little  stronger  than  in  pre-war  days.  It  was  most  effective  on  the  Left, 
which  had  always  hoped  by  mass  organization  to  offset  the  personal  prestige 
of  its  conservative  adversaries.  It  was  weakest  in  the  Centre :  for  there 
politicians  were  often  torn  between  their  conflicting  views  on  social  and 
economic  questions  and  on  political  and  religious  problems;  and  were  par- 
ticularly likely,  because  of  their  pivotal  position,  to  be  tempted  by  the  sweets 
of  office  into  personal  decisions  of  which  their  colleagues  disapproved.5 

At  bottom  the  differences  in  behaviour  reflected  differences  in  purpose.  The 
ordinary  Communist  deputy  obeyed  his  party  because  he  believed  it  was  a 
force  dedicated  to  constructing  a  new  society.  The  Poujadists  at  first  seemed  a 
solid  group  when  they  arrived  in  Parliament  in  1956  to  make  their  inarticulate 
but  vehement  protest  against  the  existing  political  order;  in  1951  the  Gaullists 
had  created  the  same  impression,  though  it  soon  became  plain  that  many  of 
them  were  making  the  protest  only  in  order  to  arrive  in  Parliament.  And  if 
those  parties  of  revolt  could  not  keep  their  ranks  unbroken  once  they  were 
subjected  to  the  temptations  of  power,  their  governmental  rivals  were  naturally 
even  more  vulnerable. 

All  the  democratic  politicians  of  the  Fourth  Republic  were  under  inter- 
mittent pressure  from  a  new  political  generation,  impatient  with  the  System 
and  insistent  on  more  positive  and  progressive  government.  Though  the 
reforming  zeal  of  the  Liberation  did  not  last,  there  remained  a  pent-up 
demand  for  change  which  sought  expression  at  different  times  through  MRP 
and  the  Socialist  party,  Mend^s-France  and  de  Gaulle.  But  when  Mend£s- 
France  sought  to  impose  discipline  as  well  as  reforming  policies  on  the  Radical 
party,  he  soon  found  that  the  members  of  that  electoral  co-operative  would 
not  renounce  the  right  to  vote  as  conscience,  career  or  constituency  dictated. 
MRP  soon  lost  most  of  its  initial  missionary  fervour  and  its  leaders  accommo- 
dated themselves  all  too  readily  to  what  de  Gaulle  called  'the  games,  the 
poisons  and  the  delights  of  the  System'.  Among  the  parties  of  piecemeal 
reform  only  the  Socialists  retained  the  strict  parliamentary  voting  discipline  of 
which  they  were  traditionally  proud;  in  compensation  (or  in  consequence)  a 
decision  committing  the  party's  vote  caused  them  more  acute  internal  dis- 
sension than  any  of  their  rivals  suffered.  Ultimately,  exasperation  with  the 
Republican  politicians  was  to  give  another  chance  to  the  General  whom  they 
had  ousted  in  1946  and  thwarted  in  1951. 

3.  MONEY  AND  POWER 

In  organization,  too,  the  same  terms  covered  different  realities.  But  since  all 
parties  existed  largely  and  some  exclusively  for  electoral  purposes,  an  apparent 
similarity  was  imposed  by  the  local  government  system.  France  has  ninety 
departments  very  roughly  corresponding  to  English  counties,  and  38,000 
communes  varying  from  tiny  hamlets  to  great  cities  like  Lyons  or  Marseilles. 
The  Socialists,  a  relatively  well-organized  party,  had  a  'federation'  in  each 
department,  and  should  have  had  a  'section'  in  each  commune  (or  each  ward 
of  a  big  town),  though  in  practice  this  ideal  was  only  partly  realized.  The 

5.  See  below,  pp.  397-400, 


POLITICAL   COMMUNICATION  AND  PARTY  STRUCTURE  65 

sections  met  monthly  or  fortnightly,  and  collected  members'  subscriptions, 
keeping  most  of  them.  At  the  national  level  there  were  an  executive  committee 
for  current  business,  an  annual  conference  which  was  the  party's  supreme 
authority,  and  between  the  two  a  national  council  or  *  little  conference'  con- 
sisting of  a  representative  from  each  federation  and  meeting  quarterly  (more 
often  in  emergencies).  There  were  also  special  committees  to  regulate  disputes 
over  discipline  and  check  the  party's  accounts.6 

All  the  parties  were  poor.  Subscriptions  were  low,  members  were  few,  and 
loyalties  tended  to  be  local:  for  instance  in  the  Socialist  party  the  sections 
decided  the  rate  of  subscription  and  the  central  organization  received  only  a 
fixed  sum  per  member.  The  better-organized  parties  tried  to  raise  funds  and 
strengthen  cohesion  by  levies  on  the  salaries  of  their  members  of  parliament. 
All  charged  something  for  the  services  of  the  group's  office,  and  members 
sometimes  voluntarily  offered  more.  The  Communists  went  much  further, 
collecting  most  of  these  salaries  and  repaying  only  the  equivalent  of  a  skilled 
worker's  wage.  Poujade  in  his  heyday  tried  to  imitate  their  system  by  housing 
his  troop  of  *  non-political'  provincials  in  a  single  hotel,  drawing  their 
deputies'  salaries  in  common,  and  retaining  much  of  them  for  the  party  (but 
his  attempt  to  increase  its  share  late  in  1956  seems  to  have  helped  to  under- 
mine his  authority  over  his  followers).  It  was  believed  that  the  lucrative  if 
illegal  profits  of  trading  in  over-valued  Indo-Chinese  piastres  were  used  for 
years  to  replenish  the  funds  of  several  parties,  though  only  one  -  RPF, 
scourge  of  the  corrupt  System  -  was  exposed  in  public.  But  the  main  source  of 
party  finance  seems  to  have  been  business.  Senator  Boutemy,  a  former  Vichy 
prefect  who  was  made  minister  of  health  in  1953  but  had  to  resign  after  violent 
Communist  attacks,  was  alleged  without  contradiction  to  be  the  political 
paymaster  for  CNPF  and  in  1951  to  have  financed  members  of  all  parties 
except  the  Communists;  any  Radical  deputy  could  have  £500  from  his  funds 
and  ex-ministers  (including  the  then  premier)  £1,000.7 

6.  Socialists  and  RPF  called  their  national  council  the  conseil national',  M RP,  comitl  national', 
Radicals,  comite  executif\  Communists,  comite  central.  Those  of  Communists  and  MRP  were 
supposed  to  meet  every  two  months;  the  Radicals'  and  (till  1956)  the  Socialists*,  every  three 
months;  RPF's  met  less  often  and  was  used  more  for  long-term  policy-making.  The  executives 
were  called  bureau  politique  (Communist),  comite  directeur  (Socialist),  commission  executive 
(MRP  and,  till  1955,  Radical),  conseil  de  direction  (RPF) ;  members  of  parliament  were  generally 
kept  in  a  minority  on  them  (except  by  the  Communists)  but  usually  managed  to  dominate  them. 
MRP  and  RPF  gave  representation  to  'corporative'  organizations  of  youth,  women,  workers, 
etc.  For  these  large  parties,  conferences  mustered  from  a  thousand  to  four  thousand  delegates 
(Communists  rather  fewer).  They  were  generally  held  in  summer,  though  the  Radicals  preferred 
autumn ;  in  most  parties  they  were  annual,  but  the  Communists  held  theirs  every  two  years  in 
principle  and  less  frequently  in  practice  (between  1947  and  1959  only  three  instead  of  the  statutory 
five).  Special  conferences  were  called  as  occasion  arose.  CNIP,  the  least  structured  of  the  big 
parties,  held  no  full  conference  until  1954.  See  Campbell,  no.  47,  pp.  412-23. 

7.  JO  17  February  1953,  p.  1067,  M.  Pronteau-  a  Communist  who  was  informed  by  some  of 
the  beneficiaries:  Bloch-Morhange,  p.  43.  See  also  ibid.,  pp.  118-23;  Isorni,  Ainsi  passent  les 
Republiques,  pp.  9-10  (who  says  no  promises  were  required  in  return  for  the  money);  JO  24 
November  1948,  p.  7196,  letter  of  M.  Macouin  (PRL)  read  by  M.  Duclos;  Ehrmann,  Business, 
pp.  223-7;  below,  p.  371  and  n.  Allegedly  the  amounts  were  doubled  in  1956:  Fauvet,  Cockpit, 
p.  142,  Dechiree,  p.  135.  On  RPF  and  the  piastres  scandal,  Monde,  1,  22,  23,  30  and  31  October 
1953 ;  all  parties  except  CNIP  and  the  Communists  were  implicated,  according  to  a  biased 
source,  Faucher,  Uagonie  d*un  regime,  p.  26.  On  Communist  and  Poujadist  levies  see  also  below, 
pp.  80, 165 ;  Socialist  members  contributed  about  one-sixteenth  of  their  salaries  to  the  party  and 
provided  from  20  to  25%  of  its  budget.  On  electioneering  costs  and  on  particular  party  funds, 
below,  pp.  371-2. 


66  THE  PARTIES 

These  central  contributions  were  spent  mainly  in  the  constituencies.  This 
both  reflected  and  reinforced  the  individual  deputy's  remarkable  independence 
of  his  party  headquarters.  Nowhere  was  the  contrast  with  Britain  more 
striking  than  in  the  capital.  Paris  could  neither  offer  the  facilities  nor  perform 
the  functions  that  a  British  party  expects  from  head  office  at  Westminster. 
Apart  from  the  Communists  only  the  Socialists  had  an  organization  com- 
parable even  with  the  British  Liberals.  Most  French  parties  had  no  more  than 
six  or  ten  headquarters  officials,  with  even  fewer  typists  and  doormen.8  Some 
like  CNIP,  with  hardly  any  full-time  staff,  had  to  recruit  outside  sympathizers 
for  an  election  campaign;  others  like  MRP,  normally  better  organized,  found 
half  their  regular  officials  disappearing  to  contest  seats  in  the  provinces.  How- 
ever, parties  could  manage  with  these  tiny  staffs  because  campaigns  were  so 
localized  -  some  headquarters  did  not  even  know  the  names  of  the  candidates 
they  were  nominally  sponsoring. 

Thus  the  politician  could  not  expect  much  help  (or  hindrance)  from  his 
party.  He  had  to  rely  on  his  own  reputation,  activity,  financial  resources  and 
friends  for  his  campaign;  the  party  label  helped,  especially  in  the  towns  and 
especially  on  the  Left,  but  except  in  1945-46  the  deputy  was  more  often  an 
asset  to  the  party  than  the  party  was  to  him.  Moreover,  when  so  many 
organizations  were  competing,  expulsion  from  his  original  party  need  not 
terminate  a  parliamentarian's  career.9  Therefore  members  were  independent 
enough  to  defy  the  machine  when  its  instructions  ran  counter  to  their  own 
views  or  ambitions  or  the  needs  of  their  constituents.  In  every  party  (except 
possibly  the  Communist)  there  were  conflicts  between  the  members  of  par- 
liament and  those  who  sought  to  give  them  orders  -  whether  these  were  the 
delegates  of  the  active  rank  and  file  or  an  authoritarian  party  leader.  As  in  the 
Third  Republic,  the  militants  or  the  external  leadership  suspected  the  deputies 
of  an  excessive  willingness  to  compromise  at  the  expense  of  principle,  while 
the  parliamentarians  upbraided  their  critics  for  narrow  sectarianism  and 
flagrant  irresponsibility. 

Power  was  centralized  in  two  parties  other  than  the  Communist.  RPF's 
national  organs  were  not  elected  but  nominated  by  the  Founder-President, 
and  at  first  all  key  posts  were  filled  and  major  policies  decided  by  him.  But  the 
strict  discipline,  which  proletarian  Communists  had  accepted  only  with 
reluctance  after  fifteen  years  of  pressure,  could  not  suddenly  be  clamped  down 
upon  a  bourgeois  movement  whose  members  were  far  less  prepared  by  their 
personal  lives  for  organized  collective  activity.  Central  office  interference  in 
elections  produced  a  constant  stream  of  resignations  in  the  constituencies;  and 

8.  In  Britain  in  1951  Conservative  headquarters  numbered  220,  Labour  100,  Liberals  50;  a 
fifth  of  the  Liberals  and  a  third  of  the  other  two  were  policy  staff:  D.  E.  Butler,  The  British 
General  Election  of  1951  (1952),  pp.  25-7.  The  French  Socialists  had  to  cut  staff  from  102  to  37 
in  1948-49;  Ligou,  Histoire  du  Socialisms  en  France  1871-1961,  p.  589.  They  had  60  permanent 
employees  in  1958:  Laponce,  Government  of  the  Fifth  Republic,  p.  62  (a  useful  source  for  party 
organization).  Robert  Buron  claims  that  only  half  a  dozen  party  officials  in  all  counted  politically : 
Le  plus  beau  des  metiers,  p.  20. 

9.  See  below,  pp.  324-8.  In  a  poll  in  November  1944,  72%  favoured  voting  for  a  pro- 
gramme and  16  %  for  a  man;  by  January  1958,  52  %  wished  to  vote  for  a  man  and  only  27  % 
for  a  party:  cited  Le  referendum  de  septembre  et  les  Elections  de  novernbre  1958  thenceforth 
cited  as  Elections  1958),  p.  278. 


POLITICAL   COMMUNICATION  AND  PARTY  STRUCTURE  67 

when  in  1951  RPF  acquired  a  strong  parliamentary  group,  the  deputies 
proved  so  recalcitrant  over  policy  and  tactics  that  within  two  years  General  de 
Gaulle  had  repudiated  all  connection  with  them.  Nor  had  Poujade  any  better 
fortune,  though  the  inadequacy  of  his  followers'  educational  background  and 
their  total  lack  of  political  experience  should  have  made  them  easier  to  mani- 
pulate -  even  if  they  did  not  take  too  seriously  his  warning  that  whoever 
betrayed  the  movement  would  be  hanged.  Within  ten  months  of  entering  the 
Assembly  a  third  of  his  deputies  had  disobeyed  his  order  to  vote  against  the 
Suez  expedition,  and  in  1958  the  whole  group  defied  its  leader  and  supported 
General  de  Gaulle  for  the  premiership. 

Another  pair  of  formations  was  at  the  opposite  extreme  of  decentralization. 
The  Radicals  and  Conservatives  were  hardly  more  than  federations  of  parlia- 
mentary personalities  who  enjoyed  strong  influence  in  their  own  constituen- 
cies. They  made  little  attempt  to  impose  common  tactics  or  policies.  So  far 
from  the  parliamentary  parties  being  affiliates  of  organizations  in  the  country, 
the  latter  existed  (if  at  all)  merely  as  constituency  appendages  to  individual 
deputies.  In  1951  about  a  third  of  the  seats  were  contested  by  more  than  one 
Conservative  list,  and  about  a  sixth  by  rival  lists  each  claiming  allegiance  to 
the  Radicals  or  one  of  their  allies  in  RGR  (Rassemblement  des  Gauches 
Republicaines,  a  combination  including  Radicals,  UDSR  and  some  smaller 
groups) ;  in  1956  the  former  were  rather  better  co-ordinated  but  the  latter  much 
worse.  Deputies  elected  against  one  another  might  join  the  same  parliamentary 
group,  or  members  returned  on  the  same  list  profess  different  loyalties  in  the 
Assembly.  Thus  when  dissensions  appeared  in  these  organizations  they  nor- 
mally reflected  not  revolt  at  the  grass  roots  but  struggles  between  rival  par- 
liamentary chieftains:  Daladier  and  Herriot  among  the  Radicals,  Pleven  and 
Mitterrand  in  UDSR,  Antier  and  Laurens  in  the  Peasant  party.  And  when 
Mendes-France  tried  to  bring  order  out  of  the  Radical  anarchy  by  imposing  a 
common  policy  and  disciplined  voting,  he  soon  found  that  the  new  recruits 
he  won  for  the  party  in  the  country  did  not  compensate  for  the  alienation  of  its 
parliamentary  stalwarts.  Within  less  than  a  year  the  Radicals  had  split,  and 
six  months  later  even  the  extra-parliamentary  organization  turned  against  its 
turbulent  leader. 

If  three  of  the  seven  parties  were  more  or  less  disciplined  despotisms  and 
two  more  or  less  quarrelsome  oligarchies,  the  other  two  could  make  fairly 
plausible  claims  to  be  'democratically'  organized  bodies.  Socialist  candidates 
were  chosen  locally;  the  executive  committee  was  annually  elected  by  the 
conference  and  most  of  its  members  had  to  be  outside  Parliament;  between 
conferences  it  was  the  executive  which  settled  policy,  imposed  discipline,  and 
even  in  a  ministerial  crisis  had  greater  authority  over  tactics  than  the  parlia- 
mentary group.  But  Guy  Mollet  gradually  established  a  tight  grip  on  the 
machine  which,  with  the  firm  support  of  the  two  largest  federations  (Nord  and 
Pas-de-Calais)  sufficed  to  ensure  him  effective  control  of  the  party.  MRP's 
constitution  was  deliberately  designed  to  reduce  the  weight  of  the  large  federa- 
tions;10 it  gave  the  parliamentarians  virtual  control  of  the  executive  and 
substantial  representation  on  the  national  council  -  though  dissensions  did 

10.  See  below,  pp.  106-7. 


68  THE  PARTIES 

appear  both  there  and  at  annual  conference.  In  neither  party,  however,  was 
there  normally  a  clear-cut  division  between  those  in  and  those  out  of  Parlia- 
ment. Usually  at  both  levels  there  were  representatives,  if  in  different  propor- 
tions, of  both  wings :  M  RP  conservatives  and  progressives,  Socialist  supporters 
and  opponents  of  the  leadership. 

No  party  was  really  ruled  by  its  rank  and  file.  In  those  that  were  despotically 
organized  the  conference  itself  was  controlled  from  above.  In  the  oligarchies  it 
was  usually  easily  manipulated,  and  could  always  be  defied  with  impunity. 
And  even  in  the  more  democratic  parties  the  leadership  had  sufficient  influence 
to  get  its  way,  though  occasionally  at  the  price  of  tactical  concessions.  Only  in 
1946  among  the  Socialists  and  (irregularly,  as  usual)  in  1955  among  the 
Radicals  did  a  conference  succeed  in  replacing  an  incumbent  leadership. 

4.  PRINCIPLE  AND  PRACTICE 

Parties  in  the  Fourth  Republic  -  even  more  than  elsewhere  -  were  characterized 
in  theory  by  lofty  aspirations  to  universality  and  in  practice  by  a  humbler  con- 
centration on  representing  particular  groups  and  interests.  In  Parliament  the 
democratic  parties  all  chose  their  representatives  mainly  from  the  professional 
classes;  there  were  very  few  workers,  except  on  the  Communist  benches,  and 
peasants  were  rare  except  on  those  of  the  Conservatives  (and  in  later  years  of 
MRP).11  Some  parties  had  a  special  attraction  (or  repulsion)  for  particular 
occupational  groups.  Priests  tended  to  favour  MRP;  the  many  engineers  and 
army  officers  in  RPF  both  gave  it  and  responded  to  its  technocratic  and 
military  tone;  lawyers  were  most  numerous  in  the  loose  traditional  parties, 
Radicals  and  Conservatives;  commercial  travellers  and  shopkeepers  in  the 
food  trades  predominated  among  the  Poujadists;  minor  civil  servants  like 
postmen  and  railwaymen  were  often  Socialists  (though  police  officers  might 
equally  be  Radical  and  rural  schoolteachers  Communist). 

Each  party  found  it  profitable  to  work  on  specific  sections  of  the  electorate 
and  futile  to  try  to  cultivate  others.  In  1956  68%  of  practising  Catholics  voted 
MRP  or  CNIP,  68%  of  Protestants  were  Radical  or  Socialist,  and  79%  of  the 
irreligious  cast  Socialist  or  Communist  ballots.12  Communists  and  Socialists 
naturally  found  little  welcome  among  businessmen,  or  Radicals  and  Con- 
servatives among  industrial  workers.  The  state  tended  to  take  its  employees 
from  its  own  schools,  while  private  industry  often  recruited  them  from  the 
Catholic  educational  system:  so  in  1951  among  white-collar  workers  in 
private  business  52%  voted  MRP  or  RPF  and  only  13%  Socialist  or  Radical, 
while  among  those  employed  by  the  state  the  proportions  were  nearly  reversed 
(17%and48%).13 

11.  For  details  see  tables  by  M.  Dogan  in  Partis  politiques  et  Classes  sociales  en  France  (hence- 
forth cited  as  Partis  et  Classes),  p.  298,  and  Elections  1956,  p.  456.  See  also  below  PD  80n.,  95n., 
109  n.  14,  110  n.  21,  123,  140,  156. 

12.  Upset,  Political  Man,  p.  245.  On  Protestant  voting  in  1946  and  1951  see  Schram,  Protes- 
tantism and  Politics  in  France,  Chapter  15 ;  for  1956,  Paysans,  pp.  377-85. 

13.  M.  Crozier  in  Partis  et  Classes,  pp.  89,  95-8.  A  poll  in  the  1956  election  (taken  from  a  very 
small  sample  in  southern  Paris)  found  that  shopkeepers  and  artisans  provided  only  10%  of  the 
CNIP  voters  but  54%  of  the  Poujadists,  while  retired  people,  rentiers  and  women  without 
occupation  were  respectively  48  %  and  19  %  -  although  by  income-groups  the  composition  of  the 
two  parties  was  very  similar :  Stoetzel  and  Hassner  in  Elections  1956  (from  Table  m  bis  on  p.  249). 


POLITICAL  COMMUNICATION  AND  PARTY  STRUCTURE  69 

There  was  geographical  as  well  as  social  differentiation.  Parties  were  con- 
centrated in  particular  areas,  and  because  of  the  diversity  of  the  country  and 
the  multiplicity  of  political  issues  they  might  represent  different  interests  and 
groups  in  different  regions.  Even  the  tightly  disciplined  Communists  needed  to 
make  very  dissimilar  appeals  in  the  coalfields  and  factories  of  the  north  and  in 
the  prosperous  Protestant  vineyards  near  the  Mediterranean  coast.  Around 
Toulouse  the  Right  was  so  weak  that  the  political  struggle  was  fought  out 
between  the  traditionally  dominant  Radicals  and  the  Socialists  who  were 
threatening  to  replace  them.  In  the  west  MRP  and  RPF  competed  for  the 
favour  of  the  Catholic  Church;  in  Alsace  the  former  was  the  Catholic  and  the 
latter  the  Protestant  party ;  in  the  third  main  Catholic  area,  the  Massif  Central, 
the  Peasants  replaced  both.  The  Socialists  in  Limoges  both  kept  a  strong 
working-class  following  and  rallied  all  opponents  of  the  Communists,  who 
dominated  the  region  through  their  hold  on  the  peasantry.  Around  Nantes 
and  St.  Nazaire  Catholic  trade  unionists  supported  MRP  while  anticlerical 
businessmen  voted  Radical.  Thus  the  outlook  and  interests  of  members  of  the 
same  party  might  differ  according  to  their  region  of  origin. 

Nor  were  these  the  only  factors  of  division  within  political  groups.  Numer- 
ous as  they  were,  the  parties  only  imperfectly  represented  the  real  tendencies  of 
opinion  even  on  domestic  questions,  and  in  the  later  years  of  the  regime,  when 
external  affairs  became  crucial,  the  gap  between  organizational  facade  and 
political  reality  grew  wider  still.  Every  question  that  raised  passions  -  Indo- 
China,  the  European  army,  the  Algerian  war,  the  advent  of  de  Gaulle  -  caused 
dissension  within  all  the  parties  of  the  majority  and  often  those  of  the  opposi- 
tion as  well.  For  example,  in  1958  the  extreme  Algfrie  frangaise  champions 
were  in  Parliament  a  Gaullist,  a  Conservative,  an  MRP  and  a  Radical 
leader,  and  in  the  cabinet  a  Socialist;  yet  each  of  their  parties  contained  both  a 
minority  which  favoured  sweeping  concessions  to  Moslem  nationalism  and 
many  supporters  of  a  middle  course.  So  policy  disputes  added  to  and  cut 
across  geographical  divisions  and  personal  quarrels,  destroying  the  cohesion 
and  paralysing  the  effectiveness  of  every  party  and  group. 

French  parties,  excepting  the  special  case  of  the  Communists,  thus  differed 
from  British  ones  in  being  very  much  smaller,  much  less  well  organized,  far 
poorer  and  far  more  decentralized.  Their  frequent  and  notorious  internal 
divisions  took  place  within  organizations  supported  by  only  a  small  fraction  of 
the  voters  and  numbering  their  members  at  best  in  tens  of  thousands.  No 
party  had  the  slightest  hope  of  ever  attaining  power  and  applying  a  programme ; 
their  only  object  was  to  win  a  marginal  increase  in  the  bargaining  power  they 
could  wield  in  the  inevitable  deals  with  other  minority  groups.  To  achieve  this 
limited  aim  they  had  to  appeal  to  sectional  interests  -  social,  geographical  or 
religious  -  and  to  express  a  sectional  outlook  more  forcibly  and  intransigently 
than  their  rivals  who  were  tilling  the  same  electoral  field.  But  on  arriving  in  the 
legislature  they  discovered  that  to  put  any  of  their  principles  into  practice, 
achieve  any  short-term  gains  for  their  clients,  or  use  any  such  successes  to 
assure  their  own  re-election,  they  had  to  compromise.  A  continued  refusal  to 
join  in  the  parliamentary  game  spelt  only  political  impotence  and  the  sacrifice 
of  the  interests  of  the  sections  they  represented.  (French  industrial  workers 


70  THE  PARTIES 

would  have  obtained  many  more  immediate  concessions  from  governments 
had  they  not  'sterilized*  their  votes  by  bestowing  them  on  a  party  in  root  and 
branch  opposition  to  the  regime.) 

Some  groups  -  the  Communists,  the  Poujadists  at  first,  a  section  of  tfye 
Gaullists  -  preferred  to  remain  as  protest  parties  reflecting  and  profiting 
politically  from  the  latent  revolt  of  many  Frenchmen  against  a  regime  from 
which  these  politicians  usually  tried  to  dissociate  themselves  completely. 
Others  enjoyed  or  endured  a  central  position  which  made  them  indispensable 
to  almost  any  conceivable  governing  coalition.  In  the  Third  Republic  this  had 
been  the  role  of  the  Radicals,  who  shared  it  in  the  Fourth  with  a  sometimes 
reluctant  MRP;  there  were  always  minor  collections  of  'king's  friends'  such 
as  the  pre-war  Republican  Socialists  and  the  post-war  UDSR;  and  at  one 
time  a  fourth  group,  the  ex-Gaullist  Social  Republicans,  discovered  an  un- 
expected vocation  as  a  pivot-party.14  Intermediate  between  protesters  and 
compromisers  were  the  parties  of  policy,  Socialists  and  various  brands  of 
Conservative,  who  were  willing  to  join  governments  whose  general  attitude 
satisfied  their  (not  always  exacting)  requirements;  their  bargaining  position 
varied  with  their  own  strength,  with  the  stability  of  the  regime,  and  with  the 
pliability  or  stubbornness  of  their  leaders.  But  all  parties  which  tried  to  work 
the  system  had  to  adopt  between  elections  a  posture  of  bargaining  in  defence 
of  particular  interests,  which  contrasted  sharply  with  the  high-principled 
intransigence  they  expressed  at  the  polls.  Repeated  over  several  elections,  this 
contrast  reinforced  the  unjust  conviction  of  the  ordinary  citizen  that  politicians 
(even  those  of  his  own  party)  were  beings  from  a  different  world,  untrust- 
worthy in  their  promises,  greedy  and  corrupt  in  their  motives,  erratic  and 
absurd  in  their  behaviour,  disastrous  for  the  nation  because  of  their  factional- 
ism and  ineptitude.  Perhaps  even  more  than  specific  discontents  this  attitude 
provided  an  inexhaustible  source  of  recruits  for  the  parties  of  revolt,  of  which 
the  largest,  longest-lived  and  most  feared  was  the  Communist  party. 

14.  MorazS,  pp.  148f. 


Chapter  6 
THE  COMMUNIST  PARTY 

1.   HISTORY 

The  French  Communist  party,  like  its  opposite  numbers  elsewhere,  has  used 
varying  tactics  to  attain  unchanging  objectives.  Moscow  often  embarrassed  its 
faithful  followers  by  sharp  and  sudden  turns  of  policy  which  required  them  to 
contradict  themselves  overnight.  But  the  embarrassment  was  only  a  matter  of 
public  relations ;  the  hardened  Communist  knew  that  the  party  line  of  the 
moment  was  merely  a  device  to  acquire  governmental  power  in  his  own  country 
and  to  promote  (as  he  supposed)  the  world  revolution  by  serving  the  interests 
of  the  USSR. 

The  French  party  was  founded  in  December  1920  when  the  Tours  con- 
ference of  the  Socialist  party  split  over  affiliation  to  the  Third  International.  A 
large  majority  of  the  party's  members  (though  only  a  small  minority  of  its 
deputies)  accepted  the  twenty-one  conditions  imposed  by  Moscow,  which  in- 
cluded the  expulsion  of  the  dissentients  and  the  adoption  of  the  name  of  Com- 
munist party.  But  the  initial  success  was  not  followed  up.  The  repercussions  of 
the  struggle  for  power  in  Russia,  the  internal  feuds  within  the  party,  and  the 
resentment  of  revolutionary  Frenchmen  at  receiving  instruction  from  novices 
in  backward  Moscow  all  contributed  to  a  sharp  Communist  decline  and  a 
recovery  of  the  old  Socialist  party  and  its  associates  in  the  trade  unions. 
Between  1924  and  1928  Communist  membership  fell  from  88,000  to  52,000; 
and  though  the  party  gained  votes,  these  came  largely  from  the  traditional  Left. 
The  decision  in  1928  to  treat  the  Socialists  as  the  main  enemy  to  be  destroyed, 
and  to  maintain  Communist  candidates  against  them  on  the  second  ballot, 
cost  the  party  40%  of  its  votes  between  the  two  ballots  and  reduced  its  mem- 
bership in  the  Chamber  to  a  dozen.1 

Nor  did  its  situation  improve  for  some  years.  The  party  was  divided  by 
bitter  personal  and  political  rivalries.  Maurice  Thorez,  arrested  in  1929, 
believed  that  he  had  been  betrayed  by  colleagues  who  had  seized  the  oppor- 
tunity to  be  rid  of  him.  When  he  came  out  of  prison  a  year  later,  he  described 
the  party  as  weak  and  declining  in  numbers,  full  of  mutual  suspicion,  lacking 
any  sense  of  reality,  and  ruled  by  an  arbitrary  leadership  which  demanded 
from  its  followers  uncritical  obedience.2  The  separate  Communist  trade 
unions  had  proved  a  complete  failure.  In  the  1932  election  the  party  lost 
300,000  of  its  former  million  votes,  and  on  the  second  ballot  little  more  than 
half  its  remaining  supporters  continued  to  vote  for  it  against  better-placed 
candidates  of  the  Left.  If  the  Socialists  had  retaliated  where  a  Communist  was 
in  the  lead,  the  latter  would  have  lost  eight  of  the  ten  seats  which  they  re- 
tained.3 In  the  Chamber  and  in  the  provinces  (though  not  in  the  capital)  their 

1.  The  fullest  account  of  its  development  (to  1940)  is  Walter,  Histoire  du  Parti  communiste 
franpais;  he  is  a  sympathizer.  Crapouillot,  no.  55  (January  1962),  is  hostile  but  useful.  On  1936-45 
see  Rossi;  Ehrmann,  French  Labor  from  Popular  Front  to  Liberation  (1947);  and  Esprit,  no.  80 
(May  1939),  pp.  157-70.  The  1928  figures  come  from  Walter,  p.  191,  and  Rossi,  p.  331. 

2.  M.  Thorez,  Fits  du  Peuple  (1st  ed.,  1937),  pp.  63,  72-3.  3.  Walter,  pp.  240-1. 


72  THE  PARTIES 

political  influence  was  negligible.  But  the  party  itself  was  not  primarily  con- 
cerned with  immediate  electoral  success.  Expulsions,  Reorganizations,  and 
changes  of  line  were  gradually  building  it  into  a  disciplined  movement  avail- 
able to  promote  whatever  policy  seemed  likeliest  to  bring  it  to  power. 

The  Popular  Front  gave  the  Communists  their  chance.  As  late  as  the  begin- 
ning of  1934  the  party  line  still  insisted  that  social  democracy,  not  fascism,  was 
the  real  enemy  of  the  working  class.  On  6  February  1934  Communist  ex- 
servicemen  marched  beside  the  fascists  against  the  Chamber  of  Deputies.  But 
on  the  12th,  after  an  abrupt  change  of  line,  Communist  and  Socialist  trade 
unionists  joined  in  huge  anti-fascist  demonstrations  in  defence  of  the  despised 
bourgeois  Republic.  Next  year  Laval  signed  the  Franco-Soviet  pact,  and 
Stalin's  commendation  of  the  French  rearmament  programme  put  an 
immediate  end  to  Communist  anti-militarism.  At  the  1936  election  the  Radical, 
Socialist  and  Communist  parties  made  an  official  alliance  for  the  second  ballot, 
and  the  electoral  system  no  longer  harmed  the  Communists  so  severely.  They 
won  1£  million  votes  and  returned  seventy  members  to  the  new  Chamber. 

The  new  line  was  decided  from  above  without  prior  discussion  by  the  rank 
and  file.4  But  it  was  certainly  more  popular  than  the  old  one  among  party 
members  and  voters  alike.  An  even  greater  advantage  was  that  Blum  and 
Daladier,  by  accepting  Communist  co-operation,  seemed  to  testify  to  non- 
Communists  that  the  outstretched  hand  had  really  replaced  the  knife  between 
the  teeth.  But  the  Communists  had  changed  their  'image',  not  their  nature. 
They  refused  office  in  the  Blum  government,  keeping  their  hands  free  to 
exploit  domestic  discontent  and  attack  its  foreign  policy.  Their  real  sentiments 
towards  their  partners  of  the  Popular  Front  were  shown  when  the  Vichy 
regime  put  the  leaders  of  the  pre-war  governments  on  trial,  and  prominent 
Communists  wrote  to  Marshal  P&ain  offering  to  give  evidence  for  the  prosecu- 
tion. L'Jtfwwamte' protested  when  Vichy  released  Socialist  leaders  from  jail  and 
even  when  they  were  treated  as  political  prisoners  instead  of  as  ordinary 
criminals.5 

The  Popular  Front  had  come  to  power  at  the  worst  possible  moment.  As 
the  German  menace  came  more  and  more  to  determine  the  course  of  politics, 
the  government  drifted  further  to  the  Right.  By  1938  the  Radicals  again 
dominated  the  ministry;  and  Daladier,  three  years  earlier  the  chief  Radical 
advocate  of  the  Popular  Front,  became  the  man  of  Munich.  The  Socialists, 
hopelessly  split  between  pacifists  and  resisters,  went  out  of  office  and  saw  their 
political  influence  disappear.  Only  the  Communist  party  stood  solidly  for 
opposition  to  Germany,  and  this  alone  discredited  the  resistance  policy  with 
much  of  the  French  bourgeoisie.  After  the  general  strike  of  November  1938 
the  Daladier  ministry  was  primarily  an  anti-Communist  administration,  and 
many  conservatives  allowed  their  support  for  appeasement  to  turn  into 
sympathy  for  fascism. 

4.  See  Esprit,  he.  cit.y  p.  167. 

5.  Rossi,  pp.  83,  431-2;  he  quotes  Billoux's  letter,  the  first  published.  During  the  1951  election 
campaign  the  former  president  of  the  high  court  of  justice  published  several  others  in  Le  Populaire. 
(Ironically,  one  ex-minister  against  whom  the  Communists  offered  *  evidence*  was  Pierre  Cot, 
later  a  leading  fellow-traveller.)  Cf.  Crapouillot,  pp.  46-7;  Histoire  du  Parti  communiste  franfais 
(by  an  opposition  group  of  party  members,  henceforth  cited  as  Histoire),  ii  42-7. 


THE  COMMUNIST  PARTY  73 

The  signature  of  the  Nazi-Soviet  pact  led  to  another  complete  change  of 
party  line.  After  violently  denouncing  the  appeasers  of  Germany,  the  Com- 
munists turned  overnight  into  demagogic  pacifists  and  anti-patriotic  defeatists. 
Their  enemies  seized  the  opportunity  to  suppress  the  party  and  its  satellite 
organizations  and  expel  its  deputies  from  the  Chamber.  But  resentment  at 
the  'phoney  war'  and  the  government's  anti-working-class  policy  enabled  the 
Communists  to  survive  their  somersault  without  disastrous  damage.  After  the 
German  victory  they  continued  their  defeatist  policy,  claiming  that  the  war 
was  an  imperialist  one,  that  the  main  enemy  was  at  home,  and  that  the  down- 
fall of  the  French  bourgeoisie  gave  the  party  its  opportunity.  The  leaders 
hoped  to  carry  out  their  revolution  with  German  connivance  and  the  backing 
of  Germany's  partner,  Russia,  just  as  the  men  of  Vichy  hoped  to  carry  out 
theirs  with  Italian  support  and  German  acquiescence.  The  first  Communist 
reaction  to  the  German  entry  into  Paris  was  to  apply  to  the  occupation 
authorities  for  permission  to  publish  UHumanite  legally. 

In  May  1941  tension  between  Germany  and  Russia  produced  the  first  signs 
of  change,  and  in  June  the  Nazi  attack  on  the  USSR  led  to  another  violent 
reversal.6  Now  that  the  Soviet  Union  was  in  danger  the  'mercenaries  of  the 
City  of  London*  became  overnight  'our  gallant  British  allies',  the  Gaullists 
suddenly  changed  from  traitors  to  comrades,  and  the  Communists  took  the 
lead  in  Resistance  activity,  showing  a  zeal  and  a  heroism  which  their  own  rank 
and  file  and  many  non-Communists  equated  with  patriotic  enthusiasm  for  the 
French  cause.  But  the  temporary  coincidence  of  French  and  Russian  interests 
led  to  no  relaxation  in  the  struggle  for  power. 

The  Resistance  movement  helped  Communist  penetration  into  circles  pre- 
viously impervious  to  it.  In  agricultural  areas  their  influence  in  the  maquis 
offered  a  useful  basis  for  the  extension  of  their  hold  on  the  peasantry.  A  body 
like  the  Front  national,  safely  controlled  by  the  party  behind  a  respectable 
facade  of  Marins  and  Mauriacs,  enabled  them  to  appeal  to  groups  which  they 
could  not  normally  reach;  the  Right  was  unused  to  working  with  the  Com- 
munists and  willing  to  accept  them  as  patriotic  Frenchmen  -  though  the 
experienced  Socialists  were  much  more  suspicious.7  Above  all  the  war  per- 
mitted the  Communist  capture  of  the  trade  unions.  Under  the  Popular  Front 
their  penetration  was  already  well  advanced.  In  1940  many  anti-Communist 
union  leaders  went  over  to  Vichy,  and  the  rest  had  neither  the  numbers  nor 
the  organization  to  resist  effectively.8 

No  doubt  the  sharp  changes  of  party  line  destroyed  the  Communists' 
reputation  for  consistency  and  cost  them  some  peripheral  support.  But  they 
strengthened  the  cohesion  and  discipline  of  the  solid  core  of  militants.  Those 
who  survived  these  repeated  switches  were  reliable  followers,  available  for  any 
purpose  for  which  the  leadership  wished  to  use  them.  The  Resistance  move- 
ment gave  the  party  new  advantages  to  exploit  when,  in  1944,  victory  over 

6.  Some  individual  party  members  were,  however,  already  engaged  in  Resistance  activities. 
See  Domenach  in  Einaudi  et  al,  Communism  in  Western  Europe,  p.  74;  Michel,  p.  38;  Histoire* 
ii.  30,  33-5,  50-4,  70-5 ;  Rieber,  p.  84;  A.  Lecoeur,  Le  Partisan  (1963),  pp.  141-66,  172-7. 

7.  Debu-Bridel,  Les  Partis  centre  de  Gaulle,  pp.  36,  52;  cf.  Bourdet,  no.  27,  pp.  1844-5, 1849> 
1857.  (Marin  was  a  Conservative  leader,  Mauriac  a.  famous  Catholic  writer.) 

8.  See  above,  p.  19  and  n, 


74  THE  PARTIES 

Germany  appeared  imminent  and  power  seemed  within  its  grasp.  At  the 
Liberation  the  Communists  tried  to  discredit  experienced  political  adversaries, 
use  the  purge  of  collaborators  to  rid  themselves  of  potential  opponents,  and 
pay  off  old  scores  by  murdering  ex-Communists  who  had  left  the  party  in  pro- 
test against  the  Nazi-Soviet  pact  -  whether  they  had  subsequently  collaborated 
or  resisted.9  But  even  more  important  than  this  revolutionary  violence  was 
another  consequence  of  the  Liberation:  thanks  to  General  de  Gaulle  they 
became  for  the  first  time  a  government  party,  with  greater  prestige,  power,  and 
opportunity  to  infiltrate  part  of  the  machinery  of  the  bourgeois  state. 

Though  the  Communists  escaped  being  outflanked  on  the  Left  by  leaving 
office  in  May  1947,  they  continued  for  months  afterwards  to  proclaim  them- 
selves a  party  of  government.  Indeed,  Andr6  Marty  and  the  extreme  wing  of 
the  party  thought  with  some  cause  that  the  leadership  had  wasted  a  revolu- 
tionary opportunity  and  become  corrupted  by  this  period  of  respectability.10 
Later  in  the  year,  however,  the  Cominform  was  set  up,  Zhdanov  'exposed 
their  errors',  and  a  new  revolutionary  phase  opened.  The  strike  weapon  was 
ruthlessly  used  for  political  purposes  until  it  broke  in  the  party's  hands.11 
They  found  less  and  less  response  to  their  violent  agitations :  the  general  strike 
against  Jules  Moch's  candidature  for  the  premiership  in  1949  failed,  and  so 
did  the  attempts  in  1950  to  stop  arms  arriving  from  America  or  troops  leaving 
for  Indo-China,  the  campaigns  against  Generals  Eisenhower  and  Ridgway  in 
1951-52,  and  the  protest  strikes  against  the  arrest  of  Jacques  Duclos  in  1952. 
For  a  moment  it  even  seemed  that  these  successive  defeats  might  give  an 
opposition  within  the  party  the  upper  hand.12 

In  the  end  the  old  leaders  were  able  to  survive  and  to  insist  on  continued 
doctrinal  rigidity  and  verbal  intransigence.  But  they  had  to  modify  their 
political  tactics.  During  the  honeymoon  period  of  'peaceful  co-existence' 
after  Stalin's  death,  the  Communists  tried  hard  to  re-enter  the  normal  political 
arena  and  had  some  success  with  nationalists  like  Daladier,  Gaullists  like 
Soustelle,  and  especially  neutralists  like  Bourdet.  In  1954  they  offered  their 

9.  Richer,  pp.  178-80,  and  Rossi,  pp.  442-5  give  details.  Ex-members  killed  at  the  front  or  in 
concentration  camps  were  omitted  by  Communist  papers  and  spokesmen  from  lists  of  fallen 
deputies.  Almost  half  the  leaders  who  had  resigned  were  assassinated  or  had  narrow  escapes: 
Micaud,  no.  162,  p.  347.  Cf.  Histoire,  ii.  89-90. 

10.  A.  Marty,  U  Affaire  Marty  (1955),  pp.  240-51,  257-8;  he  denies  that  he  ever  favoured 
armed  insurrection.  At  the  meeting  which  set  up  the  Cominform  in  1947  Duclos  admitted  that 
some  Communists  had  opposed  leaving  office  in  May;  other  delegates  then  denounced  Thorez's 
*nostalgia  for  government',  and  Duclos  promptly  confessed  to  'opportunism,  legalitarianism, 
parliamentary  illusions':  E.  Reale,  Avec  Jacques  Duclos  au  bane  des  accuses  (1958),  pp.  84,  136, 
163.  Cf.  Dumaine,  Quai  d'Orsay,  p.  180;  Histoire,  ii.  253,  256-9 ;  and  sources  below,  p.  401  n.  17. 

11.  In  the  1 948  coal  strike  no  decision  was  taken  without  prior  reference  to  Thorez :  A.  Lecceur, 
L'autocritique  attendue  (1955),  p.  37;  on  1947  strikes  see  references  above,  p.  34n.;  in  both  there 
were  serious  economic  grievances  for  the  party  to  exploit.  At  the  1947  Cominform  meeting 
Duclos  at  first  called  the  Communists  'the  party  of  order'  who  would  not  play  into  de  Gaulle's 
hands  by  violence ;  but  in  his  self-criticism  after  being  denounced,  he  promised  to  mobilize  the 
people  for  extra-parliamentary  action  against  American  imperialism:  Reale,  pp.  87,  160,  163. 
Cf.  Lecoeur,  Partisan,  pp.  225-30  (Cominform),  230-41  (strikes). 

12.  For  the  internal  disputes  (especially  the  repudiation  and  reaffirmation  of  Billoux's  *  ultra- 
Left'  article  in  1952),  see  P.  Herv<§,  Lettre  a  Sartre  (1956),  pp.  22-35.  In  Crapouillot,  Herv6  (who 
wrote  the  post-war  section,  pp.  54ff.)  suggests  that  the  ultra-Left  wing,  with  Chinese  support, 
wanted  to  concentrate  on  opposing  the  Indo-China  war  rather  than  German  rearmament: 
no.  124,  pp.  67-70.  See  also  Lecoeur,  Partisan,  pp.  256-8.  On  Duclos'  arrest  see  below,  p.  21  In. 
Histoire,  ii,  259-61  accuses  Thorez  of  systematically  purging  Resisters. 


THE   COMMUNIST  PARTY  75 

support  to  the  opponents  of  EDC,  and  voted  for  Mendes-France  as  premier; 
in  1955  they  temporarily  saved  Edgar  Faure's  government  and  averted  a 
change  of  electoral  law;  in  1956  they  gave  prolonged  backing  to  Guy  Mollet, 
and  voted  the  special  powers  which  were  to  make  General  Massu  the  master  of 
Algiers. 

Fluctuations  of  policy  were  accompanied  by  changes  in  leadership.  At  the 
1950  congress  L6on  Mauvais  (said  to  belong  to  the  extremist  wing)  was 
dropped  from  the  secretariat  and  Arthur  Ramette,  leader  of  the  Nord 
federation,  lost  his  seat  on  the  bureau politique.  Two  years  later  Andr6  Marty, 
the  party's  vieillard  terrible,  and  Charles  Tillon,  its  chief  Resistance  leader, 
were  removed  from  all  their  offices;  the  former  was  subsequently  expelled.  In 
1954  Auguste  Lecoemy  who  had  replaced  Mauvais  and  led  the  attack  on 
Marty,  was  in  turn  disgraced  and  then  ejected.  Many  local  leaders  were  also 
purged.  And  in  1956  the  most  prominent  of  the  younger  intellectuals,  Pierre 
Herv6,  was  hastily  and  irregularly  expelled  for  prematurely  demanding  the 
'destalinization'  which  the  Twentieth  Congress  of  the  Soviet  Communist 
party  was  about  to  approve.  For  the  French  bonzen  had  been  proud  of  their 
exceptionally  fulsome  adulation  of  Stalin,  and  may  well  have  feared  that 
repudiation  of  the  'genial  leader'  would  affect  their  own  power.13  Certainly 
they  were  conspicuously  reluctant  to  destalinize:  Raymond  Guyot  publicly 
upbraided  the  Italian,  Polish  and  Hungarian  Communists  and  praised  only 
the  Albanians.14  The  Budapest  repression  disturbed  many  of  the  party's 
intellectual  adherents  (including  Picasso)  and  all  its  fellow-travellers  (notably 
Sartre)  and  completed  its  political  isolation.  Its  working-class  followers,  too  - 
as  the  party  discovered  in  May  1958  -  were  silently  losing  confidence.16  And 
the  advent  of  the  Fifth  Republic  was  to  aggravate  rather  than  to  diminish 
dissensions  within  the  ranks.16 

2.  ORGANIZATION  AND  FOLLOWING 

The  party's  formal  structure  was  unique  in  two  ways.  First,  below  the  section 
level  was  a  basic  unit,  the  cell,  which  was  supposed  to  comprise  all  party  mem- 
bers working  in  the  same  establishment.  Secondly,  all  party  executive  bodies 
were  responsible  upwards  to  their  superiors  as  well  as  downwards  to  their  con- 
stituents (thus  the  central  leadership  often  appointed  and  removed  officials  of 
departmental  federations).  All  links  were  vertical  through  the  hierarchy,  and  it 

13.  For  their  ultra-Stalinism  see  Duclos'  speech  on  Thorez  quoted  by  Jean  Baby,  Critique  de 
base  (1960),  pp.  140-1 ;  ibid.,  p.  215;  Herv6,  no.  124,  p.  65.  For  the  leaders*  motives,  cf.  Baby, 
pp.  15-16;  Herve,  Lettre,  pp.  44-5,  152-3,  155.  Baby  (who  defends  the  Hungarian  intervention, 
pp.  28-32)  was  expelled  for  writing  his  book. 

14.  France-Observateur,  22  November  1956.  Cf.  HervS,  Lettre,  pp.  44-61,  and  no.  124,  p.  75; 
and  the  quotations  by  Macridis,  no.  152,  pp.  620-1.  Early  in  1956  some  local  units  apparently 
enjoyed  greater  freedom,  and  in  June  the  deputies  and  central  committee  genuinely  debated  (for 
five  hours)  the  decision  to  abstain  on  an  Algerian  vote  in  the  Assembly ;  but  this  case  was  unique 
in  the  Fourth  Republic.  See  R.  Barrillon's  articles  in  Le  Monde  between  15  and  24  July  1956, 
especially  those  of  the  17th  and  18th. 

15.  Baby,  p.  179,  cf.  also  pp.  35,  37,  211,  218;  D.  Mothe,  Journal  d'un  ouvrier  1956-58  (1959), 
pp.  82-95  and  pass im ;  Herv6,  no.  124,  pp.  73,  74. 

16.  MM.  Servin  and  Casanova,  disgraced  in  1961  for  crypto-Gaullist  heresies  which  had  lasted 
for  three  years,  seem  to  have  attracted  more  support  (especially  from  younger  members)  than  any 
previous  dissidents.  Characteristically,  they  had  formerly  been  the  most  rigorous  defenders  of 
orthodoxy. 

D* 


76  THE  PARTIES 

was  a  grave  violation  of  discipline  to  try  to  create  horizontal  links  which  might 
interfere  with  the  chain  of  command.17  The  cells  were  not  allowed  to  criticize 
the  party's  political  line.  But  discussion  was  encouraged,  for  it  informed  the 
leaders  of  the  reception  given  to  their  policies  and  enabled  heresy  to  be  exposed 
and  smothered  at  birth.  The  isolation  of  each  unit  prevented  any  dissentient 
from  contaminating  its  neighbours.  If  a  cell  showed  signs  of  deviation  a  senior 
party  member  was  assigned  to  bring  it  back  into  line ;  if  his  ability  and  prestige 
failed  to  retrieve  the  situation,  it  was  dissolved.  Thus  dissension  could  rarely 
reach  the  section,  still  less  the  federation  or  central  committee. 

The  workplace  cell  was  a  good  instrument,  in  normal  times  for  agitation  and 
direct  action  (far  more  important  for  a  revolutionary  party  than  electioneer- 
ing), and  in  an  emergency  for  clandestine  work.  But  the  leadership  had 
continually  to  combat  the  members'  preference  for  organization  based  on  resi- 
dence ;  in  1946  there  were  28,000  rural  and  local  cells  and  only  8,000  workplace 
ones,  and  in  1954  only  5,000  out  of  19,000  were  workplace  cells  (perhaps  no 
more  than  2,000  in  industrial  plants).18  Moreover,  in  later  years  reports  of  cell 
meetings  no  longer  emphasized  the  vigour  and  freedom  of  discussion.  *. . .  The 
life  of  a  great  many  cells . . .  has  been  profoundly  transformed.  They  are  more 
or  less  cut  in  two :  on  one  side  those  who  approve  blindly . , .,  who  tolerate  no 
criticism;  on  the  other  those,  workers  or  intellectuals,  who  want  to  say  why 
they  are  disturbed  or  discontented.'19 

For  the  party's  formally  democratic  constitution  was  a  sham.  Often  the 
rules  were  flatly  violated.  Expulsions  were  carried  out  unconstitutionally.20 
Party  conferences,  national  councils  (due  in  years  with  no  conference)  and 
central  committee  meetings  were  held  much  less  frequently  than  the  constitu- 
tion required.  Conferences  and  councils  were  so  carefully  prepared  in  advance 
that  no  post-war  expulsion  or  purge  aroused  the  least  whisper  of  dissent.21  The 
central  committee  never  really  debated  policy,  and  far  from  it  electing  the 
national  executive  bodies,  its  own  composition  was  settled  by  a  few  leaders 
who  used  their  power  to  reward  the  orthodox,  punish  the  hesitant,  and  so 
reinforce  their  own  authority.22  But  in  the  end  control  from  the  top  stifled 
enthusiasm  at  the  base.  *  In  periods  of  crisis,  the  dissenters,  who  know  it  is  use- 
less to  vote  "against"  something  with  their  hands,  prefer  to  "  vote  with  their 
feet":  they  leave  the  party.'  And,  when  the  crisis  period  ended,  'everything 

17.  For  fuller  details  of  the  formal  organization  see  Politics  in  Post-war  France,  pp.  48ff. 
(henceforth  cited  as  Williams). 

18.  On  the  initial  resistance  to  workplace  cells  see  Walter,  pp.  121ff.  On  post-war  developments, 
Domenach,  p.  84,  and  Naville,  no.  164,  p.  1914.  On  the  whole  subject,  Duverger,  Political  Parties, 
pp.  27-36;  Partis  et  Classes,  pp.  181-3  (anonymous  article  written  by  Pierre  Fougeyrollas). 

19.  Baby,  p.  27;  also  pp.  35,  74,  101,  134,  149,  152,  154,  205,  217;  cf.  Histoire,  ii.  266-7. 
Contrast  earlier  accounts  in  Domenach,  pp.  84-5 ;  Micaud,  no.  162,  p.  338 ;  Brayance,  Anatomic 
du  Parti  communiste  francais,  p.  38. 

20.  See  for  instance  Herv6,  Lettre,  pp.  240-50, 

21.  Baby,  pp.  35,  152-4;  Domenach,  pp.  89-90. 

22.  Baby,  pp.  150-1 ;  Lecoeur,  Partisan,  pp.  249-50 ;  Brayance,  pp.  98-9.  Baby,  p.  137 : '. . .  in 
practice,  an  authoritarian  centralism  [which]  paralyses  any  genuine  democracy  .  . ,' ;  cf.  pp.  134, 
135, 154,  202,  217.  Herve,  Lettre,  p.  44:  'What  has  poisoned  the  internal  life  . . .  of  international 
communism  is  the  extension  of  the  police  regime,  of  the  police  spirit,  of  the  police  type  of  man- 
oeuvre ... ';  cf.  pp.  47,  115,  and  also  his  Dieu  et  Cesar  sont-ils  communistes?,  pp.  66-8.  One 
report  claimed  that  four-fifths  of  the  central  committee  members  never  opened  their  mouths : 
see  Godfrey,  no.  100,  p.  329.  Also  see  Lecoeur,  Autocritique,  pp.  21,  31-2,  71. 


THE  COMMUNIST  PARTY  77 

returned  to  normal  -  that  is  to  the  routine  of  declarations  nobody  reads, 
protests  nobody  hears,  meetings  nobody  attends'.  The  party  might  retain  a 
substantial  membership  and  a  vast  electoral  following,  for  there  was  no 
acceptable  alternative.  But  behind  the  impressive  facade  its  strength  was  slowly 
crumbling  away.23 

The  great  increases  in  Communist  membership  came  in  the  two  periods  of 
ostentatious  patriotism,  the  Popular  Front  and  the  Liberation.  Between  1934 
and  1937  the  number  of  adherents  rose  from  45,000  to  340,000;  below  400,000 
in  1944,  it  was  soon  alleged  to  have  reached  the  million.  Subsequently  it 
dropped  steadily  until  1956,  when  a  membership  of  430,000  was  claimed;  it 
then  levelled  off,  and  the  figure  given  in  1959  was  only  5,000  fewer.  These 
claims  were  certainly  inflated,  perhaps  by  50%.24  Nevertheless,  in  1958  Com- 
munist membership  probably  equalled  that  of  all  other  parties  combined  - 
and  it  demanded  more  of  the  individual  than  did  the  others.  The  demands, 
however,  were  not  always  met.  Even  in  the  early  fifties  only  a  minority  of 
members  (between  a  third  and  a  fifth)  seem  to  have  attended  cell  meetings,  and 
half  of  these  were  otherwise  inactive.25  And  in  later  years  their  zeal  continued 
to  decline. 

One  sympton  of  disaffection  was  the  collapse  of  the  party  press.  In  1954 
UHumanite's  circulation  in  the  Paris  area  was  only  half  the  pre-war  figure 
(77,000  against  144,000  in  1937)  while  in  the  provinces  it  had  dropped  still 
further.26  In  1949  the  party  admitted  that  only  a  third  of  its  voters  in  the  Paris 
region  read  UHumanit^,  and  five  years  later  that  only  a  quarter  did;  the  pro- 
portion fell  to  2%  in  some  rural  areas.  The  circulation  of  the  Communist  press 
dropped  by  two-thirds  in  the  ten  years  after  1947,  and  few  of  the  900,000 
remaining  readers  still  believed  what  they  read.27 

Another  failure  was  in  a  sphere  to  which  the  party  attached  great  impor- 
tance :  the  recruitment  of  youth.  Here  centralization  of  party  authority  made  it 

23.  'Crisis',  Domenach,  p.  90  (cf.  Baby,  pp.  27,  35,  154);  'normal',  Baby,  p.  115,  cf.  Herv6, 
no.  124,  p.  70.  And  see  below,  pp.  85-7. 

24.  The  official  1954  figure  was  506,000;  Lecceur,  ex-organizing  secretary,  says  (Autocritique, 
p.  24)  that  the  real  figure  was  below  the  340,000  of  1937  (and  that  the  decline  was  worst  in  the 
working-class  areas).  Since  he  also  claims  (p.  62)  that  the  apparent  half-million  drop  since  1946 
was  *  false*,  the  real  peak  figure  must  have  been  800,000  or  (probably)  less.  In  1945  there  were 
545,000  paid-up  members  and  825,000  claimed :  Histoire,  ii.  285.  Figures  in  text  from  Fauvet, 
Les  forces  politiques  en  France,  p.  36;  Domenach,  pp.  71-2;  Duverger,  Parties,  pp.  87-8,  317; 
Brayance,  pp.  205-7;  Herv6,  no.  124,  p.  70n.  (he  suggests  there  were  about  700,000  card-holders 
in  1945  and  300,000  in  1961).  In  Partisan,  p.  280,  Lecceur  says  that  the  peak  figure  of  cards 
distributed  was  800,000,  but  that  the  real  membership  was  far  lower. 

25.  Brayance,  p.  207;  cf.  Lecceur,  Autocritique,  pp.  23,  24,  64;  Naville,  no.  164,  p.  1915; 
Domenach,  p.  101.  Micaud  (no.  162,  p.  334)  was  told  the  real  militants  were  usually  under  5%. 
Meynaud  and  Lancelot,  La  participation  des  francais  a  la  politique,  p.  31,  suggest  that  the  party 
in  1961  may  have  had  about  150,000  active  members  (plainly  their  definition  of  'active'  differs 
from  Micaud's). 

26.  Partly  because  of  the  party's  new  provincial  papers,  though  these  too  were  in  decline  and 
many  were  soon  to  close ;  at  the  beginning  of  the  fifties  they  had  only  40  %  of  their  1945  daily 
circulation :  Bauchard,  no.  9b,  p.  600. 

27.  Mothd,  pp.  83-4,  123 ;  Wylie,  p.  214.  The  last  two  figures  are  from  Fauvet,  Dtchiree, 
p.  133n.,  Cockpit,  p.  140n.;  those  for  1949  from  Domenach,  p.  118;  the  rest  from  Humanite, 
13  November  1954.  Cf.  Godfrey,  no.  100,  p.  328.  Humanite  printed  600,000  copies  in  1945  and 
192,000  in  1960:  Herv6,  no.  124,  p.  70n,  All  party  papers  have  lost  readers  and  every  party  has 
lost  members. 


78  THE  PARTIES 

easy  for  the  leaders  to  insist  on  early  promotion.  In  1946  the  Communist 
parliamentary  group  had  the  lowest  average  age  (forty)  of  any  important  party. 
At  the  1950  conference  the  delegates  averaged  only  31  and  hardly  any  were 
over  45.  Half  the  bureau  politique  of  1952  were  in  their  forties,  and  party 
spokesmen  proudly  pointed  out  that  Maurice  Thorez  had  entered  it  at  twenty- 
five  and  Benoit  Frachon  (general  secretary  of  CGT)  at  thirty.  A  generation 
later,  however,  they  were  still  in  place.  The  Communists  were  indeed  the  only 
Fourth  Republican  party  to  retain  their  pre-war  leadership;  and,  in  spite  of 
the  changes  lower  down  in  the  hierarchy,  they  found  it  increasingly  hard  to 
attract  young  recruits.  At  the  1954  conference  their  failure  was  blamed  on 
Marty,  who  had  recently  been  expelled  -  yet  in  the  next  five  years  the  number 
of  members  under  25  was  halved.28 

The  leadership  also  tried  to  encourage  the  industrial  working-class  element 
in  the  party;  petty-bourgeois  origins  were  considered  as  dangerous  as  middle 
age  for  a  revolutionary  movement.  The  great  extension  of  its  appeal  at  the 
Liberation  had  diluted  its  working-class  character.29  In  1950  there  were 
official  complaints  that  only  44%  of  federal  secretaries  and  37%  of  federal 
committees  were  workers,  and  insistent  demands  that  the  proportions  be 
greatly  increased.30  But  at  the  congresses  of  1954  and  1959  the  proportion  of 
working-class  delegates  was  still  only  40%,  and  dissident  Communists  indeed 
claimed  that  the  party's  crisis  was  worst  in  the  great  factories  round  Paris 
which  had  once  been  the  strongholds  of  militancy.31 

Ironically,  the  party  did  best  in  the  sphere  to  which  it  should  have  attached 
least  importance.  Throughout  the  Fourth  Republic  its  electoral  influence 
remained  intact.  From  just  under  1-J  million  votes  in  1936,  or  15%  of  the 
votes  cast,  the  Communists  jumped  to  5  million  in  October  1945,  over  26%  (of 
a  total  doubled  by  the  admission  of  women).  By  November  1946  they  had 
gained  another  500,000;  at  the  general  election  of  June  1951  their  vote  fell 
back  almost  to  5  million.  Nearly  half  the  loss  of  450,000  votes  occurred  in  the 
areas  where  the  Church  is  strong  and  the  main  issue  was  often  that  of  the 
Catholic  schools  -  twenty-nine  north-western,  eastern  frontier  and  Cevennes 
departments  which  contained  altogether  only  27%  of  the  electorate.  But  the 
industrial  departments,the  scene  of  the  main  Communist  progress  in  November 

28.  For  the  pressure  in  favour  of  youth,  Brayance,  pp.  70, 214-15  and  Humanite,  6  April  1950; 
for  the  1954  criticisms,  ibid.,  5  and  7  June  1954 ;  for  the  under-25s,  Marcel  Servin's  report  in  Monde, 
27  June  1959  and  Baby,  pp.  88-9  (10-2%  in  1954  and  5-6%  of  almost  the  same  total  in  1959).  The 
youth  organization  in  1956  had  only  30,000  members,  a  tenth  of  its  post-war  and  a  third  of  its 
pre-war  strength:  Baby,  p.  87  (Domenach,  p.  90,  gives  the  1936  figure  of  100,000).  Among 
conference  delegates  the  average  age  rose  to  32  in  1954,  35  in  1956  and  38  in  1959,  and  pre-wa 
party  members  were  35,  41  and  37  %  of  the  respective  totals :  Humanitt,  8  June  1954  and  21  July 
1956,  Monde  same  dates  and  27  June  1959.  Membership  among  £cole  normale  students  dropped 
from  25  to  5%:  ibid.,  17  November  1956.  But  inconclusive  figures  suggest  some  Communist 
success  among  young  voters  in  1956:  Elections  1956,  p.  408  and  Williams,  no.  168,  p.  174n. 

29.  Between  1937  and  1945  party  membership  rose  50  %  in  industrial,  doubled  in  semi-industria\ 
and  more  than  trebled  in  agricultural  regions :  Duverger,  Parties,  p.  34.  The  latter  had  the  highest 
membership  in  proportion  to  population  in  1945  (ibid.)  but  also  the  largest  drop  subsequently 
by  1954  the  number  of  rural  cells  was  halved:  see  C.  Ezratty  in  Paysans,  p.  78  (but  cf.  ibid., 
P-  439). 

30.  Monde,  13  February  1950;  cf.  Duverger,  Parties,  pp.  158-9. 

31.  Lecceur,  Autocritique,  p.  23;  Baby,  pp.  9,  156,  179;  cf.  MotU,  passim;  contrast  Micaud, 
no.  162,  writing  of  an  earlier  date. 


THE  COMMUNIST  PARTY  79 

1946,  also  contributed  more  than  their  share  of  the  losses  five  years  later.32 
In  1956,  however,  the  party  recovered  there:  over  the  whole  country  its  vote 
increased  to  5,600,000  (though  as  the  total  poll  also  rose,  its  percentage  share 
remained  the  same).  Gains  in  the  industrial  north  were  offset  by  losses  in 
the  rural  south,  where  part  of  the  perennial  protest  vote  was  attracted  by  the 
novelty  and  violence  of  another  enemy  of  the  System,  Pierre  Poujade.33  No 
major  nation-wide  decline  in  Communist  electoral  support  occurred  until  the 
advent  of  General  de  Gaulle.34 

The  party  was  strongest  in  the  industrial  zone  between  Paris  and  Belgium, 
on  the  northern  and  western  edge  of  the  Massif  Central,  and  along  the 
Mediterranean  coast  (with  parts  of  the  hinterland).  In  the  rural  areas  its 
influence  derived  less  from  its  championship  of  the  proletariat  than  from  its 
annexation  of  the  traditions  of  1789.  In  the  south  and  centre  almost  all  the 
departments  where  Communism  was  strongest  had  been  on  the  Left  since  the 
beginning  of  the  Third  Republic;  only  in  the  towns  and  in  the  industrial  north 
did  the  party  make  a  specifically  working-class  appeal.35  Its  influence  on  the 
peasantry  was  not  confined  to  the  poor  sharecroppers  of  the  centre,  but 
extended  to  prosperous  southern  farmers  and  winegrowers  who  voted  to 
express  a  political  rather  than  a  social  choice;  in  Gard  most  Protestant 
peasants  (who  own  their  land)  probably  voted  Communist.36  In  some  rural 
areas  Communist  leadership  in  the  maquis  gave  the  party  a  foothold  which 
improved  its  political  position  both  directly,  and  also  indirectly  through  giving 
its  members  the  opportunity  to  take  over  official  positions.37  But  the  crucial 

32.  From  the  15  most  industrial  departments  (see  Map  21),  which  include  some  35%  of  the 
electorate,  came  45%  of  the  Communist  gains  in  November  1946,  51  %  of  their  losses  in  1951, 
and  nearly  70%  of  their  net  gains  in  1956.  (Four  eastern  departments  are  both  industrial  and 
Catholic.) 

33.  The  Communist  share  of  the  poll  fell  most  where  the  Poujadists  did  best,  and  rose  most 
where  no  Poujadist  stood : 

In  constituencies  where  Communist  share  of  poll  was 

Poujadist  vote  was :  down2j%     stable    up  2j% 

over  15%  16  18 

10-15%  5  22  2 

under  10%  3  24  4 

(no  candidate)  -  5  4 

See  also  Pierce,  no.  180,  p.  412  and  n.;  Werth,  The  Strange  History  of  Mendes-France  ..., 
pp.  xvii,  271  (who  claims  that  even  party  members  voted  for  Poujade  and  a  more  ruthless  policy 
in  Algeria) ;  Pay  sans,  pp.  60,  203,  249 ;  below,  pp.  87n.,  167n. 

34.  Even  then  fewer  than  half  the  defectors  voted  for  any  other  party,  at  least  in  the  Marseilles 
area:  Olivesi  and  Roncayolo,  Geographic  electorate  des  Bouches-du- Rhone  (cited  as  Olivesi), 
pp.  124,  130,  224-5,  238. 

35.  Goguel,  Geographic  des  elections  francaises,  pp.  105,  117;  also  Fauvet,  Forces,  p.  39, 
Cockpit,  pp.  95-9,  Dechirte,  pp.  88-91 ;  and  Maps  2  and  9.  In  the  1947  municipal  elections  their 
percentage  varied  directly  with  the  size  of  communes :  Cotteret  et  al,  Lois  Electorates  et  megaliths 
de  representation  (henceforth  cited  as  Ine%alites\  p.  121. 

36.  Schram,  p.  201.  On  peasant  Communism  see  Wright,  nos.  224,  228,  Chapter  13  in  Earle; 
Ehrmann,  no.  83;  Klatzmann,  no.  132;  Paysans,  pp.  51-2,  65-6,  69-83,  307,  380,  439;  Fauvet, 
Cockpit,  pp.  93-6,  Dechiree,  pp.  86-9,  and  in  Partis  et  Classes,  pp.  172-7;  Siegfried,  De  la  IIIe, 
pp.  209,  261-4;  Moraz6,  pp.  194, 218-19;  Ltithy,  pp.  435-6;  Wylie,  pp.  212,  218-21.  Rural  party 
membership  was  often  small  (only  1,000  of  its  54,000  voters  in  Correze  in  1951 :  Brayance,  p.  69). 

37.  Duclos  in  Reale,  p.  86;  Duverger,  Parties,  p.  317 ;  Goguel  in  Aspects,  pp.  259-60,  and  no. 
102b,  p.  951 ;  Derruau-Boniol,  no.  69,  pp.  61-2;  Partis  et  Classes,  p.  191.  For  example  in  Haute- 
Vienne  a  Communist  prefect  and  a  mayor  of  Limoges  enabled  the  party  to  appeal  to  the  peasantry 
as  a  *  serious*  instead  of  a  'wild*  movement.  (But  the  mayor's  defection  in  1952  did  not  corre- 
spondingly reduce  the  party's  popular  support.) 


80  THE  PARTIES 

facts  remain  that  (outside  Alsace-Lorraine)  most  industrial  workers  voted 
Communist  and  that  the  party  depended  overwhelmingly  on  their  support.38 

To  the  Communists,  however,  elections  were  a  test  of  efficiency  rather  than 
a  road  to  power.  They  considered  Parliament  a  minor  field  of  operations.  In 
1924  the  International  insisted  that  the  French  party  must  apply  strictly  the 
rules  drawn  up  at  the  Second  World  Congress.  The  Communist  deputy  was 
'responsible  not  to  the  anonymous  mass  of  electors,  but  to  the  Communist 
Party'.  He  was  to  make  use  of  his  parliamentary  immunity  to  facilitate  the 
illegal  as  well  as  the  legal  work  of  the  party,  subordinate  his  parliamentary  to 
his  party  work,  and  introduce  'purely  propagandist  proposals,  drafted  not 
with  a  view  to  their  adoption  but  for  publicity  and  agitation',  as  the  party 
leaders  might  require.  The  parliamentary  group  was  dominated  by  the  party 
executive,  which  had  to  approve  its  choice  of  officers,  had  a  representative 
with  a  right  of  veto  at  all  its  meetings,  and  gave  instructions  in  advance  on  all 
matters  of  importance  (including  the  right  to  choose  who  should  speak  for  the 
party  and  to  approve  the  text  of  their  speeches).  Every  Communist  candidate 
had  to  give  a  written  undertaking  in  advance  to  resign  if  called  upon  to  do  so 
by  the  party.39 

Party  leaders  and  officials  were  usually  found  seats  in  Parliament;  in  1950 
the  fourteen  members  of  the  bureau  politique  were  all  deputies  except  L6on 
Mauvais,  who  had  been  a  senator  (though  of  the  seventeen  members  nominated 
at  the  1956  conference,  six  were  not  in  Parliament).  The  party  thus  arranged 
for  its  corps  of  professional  revolutionaries  to  be  maintained  by  the  state  they 
were  subverting,  for  it  drew  the  salaries  of  Communist  parliamentarians  and 
paid  them  only  the  equivalent  of  a  skilled  worker's  wage.40  This  practice 
brought  into  the  central  party  funds  nearly  twice  as  much  as  the  ordinary 
members'  subscriptions  even  when  membership  was  at  its  peak.41  It  kept  the 
ordinary  deputy's  outlook  close  to  that  of  the  class  from  which  he  had  usually 
sprung.42  It  enabled  the  party  to  exploit  the  ordinary  Frenchman's  prejudice 
against  politicians;  and  it  helped  to  avoid  the  internal  disputes  between  rank 
and  file  and  parliamentarians  which  plagued  all  left-wing  movements, 

38.  It  was  estimated  in  1956  that  70  %  of  manual  workers  voted  Communist  in  Paris  and  almost 
as  many  in  Marseilles,  and  that  from  75  to  80  %  of  Communist  voters  in  these  cities  were  working 
class:  Pans,  J.  Klatzmann  in  Elections  1956,  p.  273;  Marseilles,  Olivesi,  pp.  246,  253,  268,  271. 
For  the  five  elections  of  1945-56  over  all  France  M.  Dogan  estimated  the  first  proportion  at  50 
and  the  second  at  70%:  in  Hamon,  ed.,  Les  nouveaux  comportements  politiques  de  la  classe 
ouvriere  (1962),  pp.  113-14;  cf.  Partis  et  Classes,  p.  33,  and  Fauvet,  Cockpit,  p.  93n.,  Dechiree, 
p.  86n.  (but  see  below,  p.  95n.).  For  estimates  in  two  Paris  suburbs  in  1946,  P.  George  in  Moraz6 
et  al.,  Etudes  de  sociologie  Electorate,  pp.  82-5,  and  L.  A.  Lavandeyra  in  P.  George  et  al,  fitudes 
sur  la  banlieue  de  Paris,  pp.  131-2. 

39.  Theses  of  the  Second  World  Congress,  quoted  Walter,  pp.  143-4. 

40.  In  1958  each  deputy  kept  £15  a  week  and  the  party  took  £70 :  G.  Gosnat  at  the  15th  party 
conference,  Monde,  28-29  June  1959  and  Humanity  29  June  1959. 

41  In  1946:  Priouret,  La  Republique  des  partis,  p.  177.  The  elus*  contribution  rose  each  year 
from  1 952  (262  million  francs)  to  1 958  (492  million) :  Marrane's  report  to  14th  conference  (Cahiers 
du  Communisme,  special  number  1956,  p.  409)  and  Gosnat's  to  15th,  loc.  cit.  But  so  few  Communist 
deputies  were  returned  in  the  1958  elections  (under  de  Gaulle)  that  the  party's  finances  were  hard 
hit  and  it  had  to  reduce  staff  and  suspend  several  local  dailies:  ibid,,  and  AP  1958,  p.  155. 

42.  In  1951  38%  of  the  Communist  deputies  had  been  manual  workers  and  another  20% 
white-collar  workers  (including minor  civil  servants);  in  1956,  42%  and  17%.  These  social  cate- 
gories were  next  strongest  in  MRP,  where  they  had  fewer  than  20%  of  the  deputies  between 
them.  See  Dogan's  tables  (above,  p.  68n.). 


THE  COMMUNIST  PARTY  81 

especially  the  Socialists.  To  the  militant,  the  deputy  was  less  suspect  when  his 
origins  and  standard  of  living  plainly  cut  him  off  from  the  parliamentary 
fraternity,  the  Rfyublique  des  camarades.  To  the  deputy,  the  militant  was  no 
threat  when  both  formed  part  of  a  tightly-disciplined  army  whose  commanders 
were  themselves  members  of  parliament.43  Nor  could  he  easily  forget  his  own 
subordinate  role,  for  the  party  staff  prepared  his  bills,  resolutions  and  even 
speeches.44 

The  low  rating  given  to  parliamentary  activity  resulted  in  a  low  level  of 
ability.  Often  the  educational  background  of  the  Communist  deputies  made 
them  less  articulate  than  others,  and  at  times  their  truculent  approach  in- 
hibited mutual  understanding  -  which  indeed  was  rarely  their  object.45  Apart 
from  a  few  skilful  procedural  specialists  the  rank  and  file  made  little  impression 
in  debate,  although  their  leader  Duclos  and  their  brilliant  fellow-traveller 
Pierre  Cot  showed  that  the  handicaps  could  be  overcome.  As  assiduous 
workers  they  were  sometimes  effective  in  committee.46  But,  as  the  International 
had  instructed  in  1924,  the  Communist  deputy  had  always  to  *  remember  that 
he  is  not  a  "legislator"  trying  to  find  a  common  language  with  other  legis- 
lators, but  a  Party  agitator  sent  into  enemy  territory  to  carry  out  the  decisions 
of  the  Party'.39 

3.   CHARACTERISTICS 

The  characteristics  of  the  party  were  essentially  military.  The  high  command 
was  in  theory  elected  but  in  reality  self-perpetuating;  it  appointed  and  dis- 
missed subordinates,  settled  the  party  line  and  conveyed  detailed  directives 
down  to  the  lower  levels.  Although  all  the  troops  had  volunteered,  many  of 
them  -  like  some  regular  soldiers  -  in  time  found  it  hard  to  imagine  existence 
outside  the  ranks  in  which  their  friendships  had  been  made  and  their  life 
organized.47  For  the  party  expected  much  of  its  members:  it  sought  to  domi- 
nate their  whole  mental  outlook,  claimed  most  of  their  leisure  time,  assigned 
and  withdrew  duties  from  them  as  it  saw  fit.48  It  aimed  indeed  to  be  far  more 
than  an  ordinary  legal  political  party,  ntore  than  a  massive  conspiracy  for  the 
seizure  of  power,  more  even  than  a  state  within  the  state.  'It  is  a  discipline 
opposing  a  discipline,  a  university  opposing  a  university,  a  police  opposing  a 

43.  It  was  not  always  realized  that  the  commanders  -  the  members  of  the  bureau  politique  and 
secretariat  -  in  effect  kept  their  full  parliamentary  salary:  Lecceur,  Autocritique,  pp.  57-8.  This 
may  have  contributed  to  their  isolation  from  the  rank  and  file,  on  which  see  Baby,  pp.  214-16; 
Micaud,  no.  162,  pp.  348-9 ;  cf.  Histoire,  ii.  290. 

44.  Buron,  p.  155. 

45.  But  cf.  Fauvet,  Cockpit,  p.  87,  Dechiree,  p.  80;  Noel,  Notre  Derniere  Chance,  p.  110;  and 
Christian  Pineau's  novel  Mon  cher  depute,  pp.  56-8.  Lecoeur  says  that  some  deputies,  and  parti- 
cularly the  leaders,  were  on  familiar  terms  with  *  reactionary*  colleagues  though  hostile  to  the 
Socialists :  Nation  Socialiste,  no.  9  (March  1957),  p.  S6.  Marty  claimed  (op.  cit.,  p.  85)  that  Jacques 
Duclos  called  in  two  RPF  doctors  (one  a  former  deputy)  to  get  him  out  of  prison  on  health 
grounds  in  1952.  Resistance  friendships  were  sometimes  tenacious,  and  some  of  the  fellow- 
travelling  Progressives  maintained  wide  contacts. 

46.  Isorni,  Ainsi,  p.  55,  and  Silence,  pp.  132-3  (cf.  p.  57).  But  some,  especially  the  leaders,  were 
conspicuous  absentees :  Noel,  pp.  63,  109;  and  see  below,  p.  244  n.  9,  246?n.  21. 

47.  Cf.  Micaud,  no.  162,  pp.  338-41;  E.  Morin,  Autocritique  (1959),  pp.  159-60,  174. 

48.  In  1952  the  paper  edited  by  Pierre  Herv6  was  suppressed  without  his  being  consulted,  and 
he  was  formally  ordered  to  undertake  other  propagandist  work  which  he  did  not  want:  Herv6, 
Lettre,  pp.  20-2, 27, 245,  cf.  Dieu  et  Cesar,  pp.  25-32, 41-2, 54-6, 


82  THE  PARTIES 

police,  an  organization  of  workers,  women,  children,  old  men,  cripples, 
tenants,  tradesmen,  housewives,  sportsmen,  motion  picture  stars.  It  is  a  com- 
plete society  which,  in  embryonic  form,  already  exists  inside  the  society  it  aims 
to  replace.'49 

The  Communist  appeal  was  wide.60  The  largest  and  least  regionalized 
French  party,  it  had  support  throughout  the  country.  Satellite  organizations  - 
from  the  Tenants'  League  to  the  Federation  of  Cin£-Clubs  -  spread  its  in- 
fluence in  a  dozen  subsidiary  fields.51  Just  after  the  war  the  Communists  won 
many  supporters,  from  Picasso  to  Joliot-Curie,  among  the  intellectuals  who 
enjoy  such  exceptional  prestige  in  France.  Generosity,  social  conscience,  revolt 
against  the  existing  order  and  (for  persons  compromised  in  the  war)  personal 
prudence  brought  some  bourgeois  Frenchmen  to  join  or  support  the  party. 
But  it  forfeited  much  of  this  sympathy  by  its  rigid  Stalinism  and  its  defence  of 
the  repression  in  eastern  Europe;  in  1956  Budapest  finally  alienated  most  of 
the  remaining  intellectuals  and  nearly  all  the  fellow-travellers.52 

This  heterogeneous  army  was  recruited  and  maintained  by  uninhibited 
tactical  opportunism.  In  office  the  Communists  allowed  no  considerations  of 
cabinet  solidarity  to  blunt  their  attacks  on  ministers  of  other  parties,  and  aban- 
doned their  own  policy  of  wage  restraint  as  soon  as  it  seemed  likely  to  weaken 
their  position  in  the  trade  unions.  Out  of  office  they  promoted  every  demagogic 
cause  with  a  robust  contempt  for  cost,  consistency  or  practicability.53  In  1945 
they  displayed  -  and  exploited  -  the  crudest  chauvinism  against  Germany  and 
over  the  disputed  Italian  frontier,  and  in  Algeria  they  denounced  rebellious 
Moslem  nationalists  as  instruments  of  Nazism.54  They  'have  long  since  taken 
over  practically  all  the  slogans  and  subject  matter  of  the  former  Fascist 
movements,  including  the  systematic  exploitation  of  national  hatred,  economic 
nationalism  and  protection  of  the  middle  class,  and  chauvinism  and  con- 
servatism in  the  arts'.55  Hunting  peasant  and  small-shopkeeping  votes,  in 

49.  Domenach,  p.  67. 

50.  Rossi,  Chapters  27-29,  discusses  the  Communist  appeal  to  different  sections  of  the  popula- 
tion; cf.  Micaud,  no.  162. 

51.  Puverger,  Parties,  pp.  107-8;  Brayance,  pp.  129-50;  Coston,  Partis,  journaux  et  hommes 
politiques,  p.  487.  Control  of  the  Tenants'  League  was  incomplete:  Brayance,  pp.  143-4. 

52.  Even  some  Progressive  deputies  (see  below,  pp.  171-2)  publicly  differed  from  the  party 
line.  (But  though  the  Hungarian  crisis  was  the  party's  worst  since  1939  -  when  a  third  of  its 
deputies  had  resigned  -  in  1956  only  one  out  of  150  did  so.)  On  the  intellectuals  see  Macridis, 
no.  152,  pp.  629-32;  Herv6,  Lettre,  pp.  108-24,  Dieu  et  Cdsar,  p.  220;  Morin,  passim;  Baby, 
pp.  9,  177-81.  Ibid.,  pp.  157,  on  front  organizations,  117-18,  193-201,  on  hostility  to  the  non- 
Communist  extreme  Left  ('for  the  Party  leadership  ...  the  principal  enemy',  p.  199).  Morin  was 
expelled  for  writing  in  France-Ob servateur ;  the  party  spokesman  told  his  cell  that  it  was  *the 
journal  of  the  Intelligence  Service' :  Morin,  pp.  167-71. 

53.  Just  before  the  1951  election  the  prime  minister  (Queuille)  estimated  the  cost  of  the  party's 
bills  and  amendments  at  £2,000  million:  see  below,  p.  26 In. 

54.  *  Finally  I  was  unaware  that  the  party  allowed  the  Algerian  nationalist  movement  to  be 
persecuted  or  even  took  part  in  the  persecution.  Besides,  I  had  completely  forgotten  the  colonial 
problem.  The  salvoes  of  victory  had  deafened  our  ears  to  the  massacres  of  S6tif ...  it  was  a  crazy 
outburst  of  patriotic  flag-waving' :  Morin,  pp.  68-9,  cf.  pp.  72-3,  79,  87.  On  Algeria,  'It  is  neces- 
sary to  mete  out  the  punishment  they  deserve  to  the  Hitlerite  killers  who  took  part  in  the  events 
of  the  8th  of  May,  and  to  the  pseudo-nationalist  leaders . . . ' :  Humanity  19  May  1945,  quoted 
(with  many  other  damaging  citations)  in  Vote  communiste,  March-April  1962;  and  in  G.  Mollet, 
13  mai  1958-13  mai  1962  (1962),  pp.  140-1 ;  cf.  C.  H.  Favrod,  La  revolution  algfrienne  (1959), 
p.  76.  Generally,  Grosser,  pp.  104-5, 144,  206,  215;  Rieber,  pp.  313-28. 

55.  Luthy,  pp.  437-8  (cf.  pp.  134, 433-6).  In  1947  they  exploited  anti-Semitic  hostility  against 
Le"on  Blum:  Ehrmann,  no.  82,  p.  150, 


THE  COMMUNIST  PARTY  83 


1946-47  they  joined  the  Right  in  condemning  food  rationing  and  economic 
controls,  and  a  few  years  later  they  were  active  in  fostering  the  Poujadist 
movement  -  until  it  became  a  dangerous  competitor  in  demagogy.56  Their 
political  activity  had  but  one  objective:  the  acquisition  of  power.  About 
methods  they  had  few  scruples  and  about  policies  little  concern  -  save  as 
means  to  this  one  end.  (Yet  when  their  strategy  dictated  a  policy  of  co-operation, 
their  single-minded  devotion  could  produce  results  which  none  of  their  rivals 
could  match;  witness  the  admirable  restraint  of  the  trade  unions  during  the 
Liberation  period.57) 

The  experiences  of  1936-38  and  1945-47  showed  the  difficulty  of  working 
with  the  Communists  in  government.  In  opposition,  their  bitter  hostility  to 
the  regime  drove  their  opponents  together  and  the  unmeasured  fury  of  their 
attacks  saved  more  than  one  cabinet.  By  defying  the  ordinary  parliamentary 
rules  they  sterilized  their  votes  for  constructive  (though  not  for  obstructive) 
purposes,  and  so  falsified  the  political  balance  by  removing  most  of  the  weight 
from  the  left-hand  scale.  Yet  these  self-inflicted  wounds  were  the  price  of 
homogeneity  and  discipline.  And  every  parliamentary  display  of  common 
hostility  to  the  Communists  reinforced  the  workers'  sense  of  isolation  from 
the  community  which  gave  the  party  its  hold  on  their  imagination. 

Here  was  the  secret  of  the  Communists'  power.  The  best  young  working- 
class  leaders  were  naturally  attracted  to  a  force  which  claimed  to  express  the 
aspirations  and  defend  the  interests  of  their  own  people  -  especially  when  so 
few  other  organizations  in  French  society  offered  scope  for  a  poor  youth's 
abilities.  But  the  party  could  not  turn  to  Moscow's  ends  the  strength  it  could 
command  as  the  champion  of  the  proletariat.  Hardened  party  members  might 
favour  alliances  with  the  nationalist  Right  for  reasons  of  foreign  policy,  and 
regard  the  Socialists  as  their  real  enemies.  But  to  the  working-class  Communist 
voter  his  Socialist  neighbour  was  also  a  man  of  the  Left  and  a  potential  ally  in 
a  new  Popular  Front.58  Thus  workers  who  adhered  to  Communist-controlled 
unions  often  remained  suspicious  of  the  party  itself,  as  the  elections  of  social 
security  administrators  in  April  1947  showed:  CGT  candidates  polled  only 
half  their  claimed  membership  while  CFTC  (Catholic  trade  union)  candidates 
nearly  doubled  theirs,  and  many  workers  deliberately  voted  against  individual 
Communist  leaders.59  Six  months  later  CGT  split;  it  no  longer  commanded  a 
majority  of  trade  union  votes,  and  after  1948  it  proved  useless  to  the  party  as 
an  instrument  of  direct  action.60  In  1956  CGT  refused  to  approve  the  Soviet 
intervention  in  Hungary.61 

56.  Ibid.,  p.  154;  AP  1946,  p.  191,  1947,  pp.  97,  139,  245,  1948,  p.  42 ;  cf.  Domenach,  p  128. 
Later,  Lavau  in  Partis  et  Classes,  pp.  63,  72-3;  Macridis,  no.  152,  p.  626n.;  Pay  sans,  p.  307; 

C5°W''The  communists  have  recreated  in  their  ranks  the  sense  of  responsibility  which  Frenchmen 
of  recent  Republics  have  totally  lost' :  Brayance,  p.  13.  This  severe  but  pseudonymous  author  is 
really  Alain  Griotteray,  later  a  right-wing  conspirator  against  the  Fourth  Republic. 

59!  Jpri947,'p.  77 ;  Beaulieu,no.*10,pp.  557ff. ;  Lorwin,  p.  116 ;  Lefranc,  p.  147 ;  Galant,  Histmre 
politique  de  la  Securite  sociale,  pp.  126-7.  Even  so  CGT  had  60  %  of  the  vote  and  CFTC  only  26 :  %. 

60.  See  above,  pp.  34, 74.  In  the  social  security  elections  of  1950  Force  OuvntretocklS  %  of  the 
vote  from  CGT;  CFTC  lost  5%  to  minor  groups  which  often  sympathized  with  PCX _In  1955 
CGT  with  43%  held  its  narrow  lead  over  the  combined  forces  of  CFTC  (21)  ana  *u  Ut>j. 

ll.  It  was  condemned  publicly  by  some  COT  unions  and  locals,  and  by  Pierre  Le  Brun's 


84  THE  PARTIES 

The  party's  organizational  basis  was  a  weakness  here.  The  cell  unit  was  sup- 
posed to  help  identify  party  work  with  the  member's  daily  life.  But  this 
identification  itself  concealed  a  danger:  the  member  might  neglect  aspects  of 
party  work  which  did  not  concern  him  intimately.  Trade  union  demands  might 
arouse  the  rank  and  file  much  more  than  the  political  campaigns  imposed  by 
the  leadership.  Nor  was  this  heresy  of  'economism'  confined  to  the  lower 
levels.  Leaders  in  the  unions,  who  knew  their  followers'  wishes,  resented  the 
dissipation  of  their  own  strength  and  credit  in  futile  demonstrations  which 
often  bore  no  relation  to  the  interests  of  the  French  working  class.  This 
deviation  caused  the  downfall  of  Marcel  Paul,  ex-minister  and  leader  of  the 
electricity  workers,  and  even  Benoit  Frachon  himself  was  suspected  of  sym- 
pathy for  it. 

The  unsuccessful  political  strikes  of  1947-48  shattered  the  power  of  the 
unions.  In  the  1950  social  security  elections  CGT  polled  fewer  than  half  the 
votes  -  and  a  third  of  those  eligible  did  not  vote  at  all.  For  years  even  strictly 
economic  strikes  were  doomed  to  failure;  in  1950  the  combined  pressure  of 
the  unions  backed  by  open  governmental  and  newspaper  sympathy  could  not 
overcome  Michelin's  resistance  at  Clermont-Ferrand.  And  so  successfully  did 
the  Communists  combat  'economism'  that  the  great  strikes  of  1953  and  1955, 
provoked  by  purely  economic  grievances,  owed  nothing  whatever  to  CGT 
leadership.  A  weak  and  divided  trade  union  movement,  determined  not  to 
allow  its  remaining  strength  to  be  dissipated  in  political  adventures,  was  of 
very  little  use  to  a  revolutionary  party. 

Nor  did  the  Communists'  other  assets  compensate  for  this  major  dis- 
appointment. Even  in  votes  they  soon  seemed  to  reach  saturation  point;  in  the 
Paris  'red  belt',  their  pre-war  stronghold,  they  made  no  progress  at  the 
Liberation  and  polled  less  well  in  1951  than  in  1936.  Their  infiltration  of  key 
positions  was  limited  even  when  they  held  office  and  soon  reversed  when  they 
left  it.  And  1947  showed  that  a  Communist  threat  would  provoke  a  stronger 
counter-revolutionary  riposte.  That  October  in  the  municipal  elections  de 
Gaulle's  RPF  led  the  field  in  the  thirteen  largest  cities  in  France.62 

This  rallying  to  the  strongest  anti-Communist  movement  at  a  moment  of 
crisis  was  no  accident.  The  party  deliberately  set  out  to  draw  a  sharp  line 
between  itself  and  all  its  political  rivals.  'We  are  not  a  party  like  the  others.' 
All  opponents  were  confounded  together.  Thereby  the  Communists  provided 
their  divided  enemies  with  a  bond  of  union.  But  they  also  went  far  to  establish 
among  the  masses  the  impression  they  most  wished  to  create:  that  their  own 
determined,  energetic  and  youthful  movement,  able  to  offer  solutions  for  the 
day-to-day  problems  which  beset  the  ordinary  Frenchman,  confronted 
quarrelling  cliques  of  tired  old  men  interested  only  in  cynical  bargaining  to 
prolong,  probably  for  corrupt  purposes,  their  stay  in  office. 

small  but  active  non-Communist  opposition  in  CGT:  see  ibid.;  France-Observateur,  15,  22  and 
29  November  1956;  Rioux,  p.  66;  Grosser,  pp.  145-6.  Contrast  CGTs  approval  in  1949  of 
Thorez's  statement  that  French  workers  would  support  the  Red  Army  if  it  crossed  France's 
border  'in  pursuit  of  an  aggressor* :  AP  1949,  p.  25 ;  Lorwin,  p.  283.  On  CGT  and  Communism 
generally,  Lorwin,  pp.  279-91 ;  Godfrey,  no.  100,  pp.  323-7. 

62.  Red  belt :  cf.  Goguel,  no.  102b,  p.  956,  and  in  Fourth  Republic,  p.  98,  Infiltration :  see  below, 
pp.  391-2.  On  Communist  strength  in  1947,  Van  Dyke,  no.  212, 


THE  COMMUNIST  PARTY  85 

Political  disillusionment  provided  fertile  soil  for  this  Communist  campaign. 
After  the  elections  of  June  1946  the  French  Gallup  poll  found  58%  of  Com- 
munist voters  completely  satisfied  with  their  party:  their  nearest  rivals  were 
MRP  with  31%,  Only  9%  of  Communists  were  not  reasonably  satisfied:  the 
corresponding  percentages  were  double  for  Socialists  and  MRP,  and  higher 
still  for  Radicals  and  Conservatives.63  The  psychology  of  the  French  Com- 
munist militant  was  very  different  from  that  of  other  politically-minded 
Frenchmen.  Party  members  displayed  none  of  the  individualism  which  so 
often  frustrated  rival  parties.  In  a  crisis  like  the  war  the  Communists  could 
count  on  exceptional  discipline  and  devotion  for  the  advancement  of  their 
creed;  in  humdrum  matters  like  running  a  municipality  they  were  sometimes 
able  to  develop  among  their  constituents  a  quite  unusual  sense  of  civic 
responsibility.  Their  dynamism,  certainty  and  conviction  offered  an  attractive 
contrast  to  the  disputes  and  hesitations  of  their  old-fashioned,  self-doubting 
and  internally-divided  competitors. 

Yet  the  Communist  achievement  of  changing  the  mental  outlook  of  their 
militants  (for  it  was  nothing  less)  was  bought  at  a  high  price.  Rigid  discipline 
required  complete  suspension  of  individual  judgment.64  Men  convinced  of  the 
triumph  of  their  cause  proved  willing  to  accept  any  crime  to  '  shorten  history's 
birth-pangs'.  The  party  was  a  state  within  the  state,  warring  against  its  legal 
rival;  the  genuine  qualities  of  citizenship  which  it  sometimes  evoked  were 
deformed  for  destructive  and  disastrous  ends.  In  the  last  resort  its  most 
important  psychological  achievement  was  to  kill  the  intellectual  honesty  and 
pervert  the  moral  integrity  which  inspired  its  best  recruits. 

As  the  fifties  progressed,  however,  the  Communists*  revolutionary  fervour 
diminished.  The  destalinization  and  Hungarian  crises  provoked  growing 
criticism  of  the  party's  bureaucratic  structure  among  both  members  and 
sympathizers.  The  leadership  was  attacked  for  conservatism,  dogmatism,  in- 
correct analyses  and  false  priorities ;  for  losing  touch  with  the  workers,  check- 
ing them  when  they  wanted  to  fight,  using  the  most  backward  and  lethargic  to 
break  the  militancy  of  their  more  active  fellows;65  above  all  for  prolonged 
equivocation  over  the  Algerian  war  (no  doubt  partly  due  to  the  growing 
racial  feeling  of  the  French  working  class).66 

The  party's  failing  dynamism  seems  hard  to  reconcile  with  its  stable  voting 
base.  Yet  they  may  have  a  common  cause.  The  narrower  but  more  revolu- 
tionary organization  of  the  inter-war  years  was  dominated  by  the  industrial 

63.  Sondages  1948,  p.  225.  In  1952,  62%  of  Communist  voters  professed  full  confidence  in 
their  party;  again  MRP  with  51  %  came  second:  ibid,,  1952,  no,  2,  p.  6.  See  Appendix  vn. 

64.  When  Laurent  Casanova  wrote  to  Maurice  Thorez  in  1960,  *I  attach  more  importance  to 
my  self-respect  and  human  dignity  as  a  communist  than  to  my  membership  of  the  bureau  politique\ 
the  leader  commented :  'This  is  unheard  of.  I  must  say  I  have  never  heard  such  a  remark.'  Monde, 
2  March  1961. 

65.  J.  Simon  in  Socialisme  ou  Barbaric  3.18  (January  1956)  on  the  1955  provincial  strikes, 
especially  pp.  4-6,  13-16,  26-8,  31;  Lecoeur,  Autocritique,  p.  74;  Moth6,  pp.  108-9,  127-30, 
146-7 ;  Baby,  pp.  35,  37,  70,  122,  211.  Cf.  n.  72. 

66.  Mothe",  pp.  107-9,  shows  that  workers  no  less  than  intellectuals  condemned  the  party 
for  discouraging  the  spontaneous  opposition  to  the  war  which  arose  in  1956;  cf.  Baby,  p.  115; 
Morin,  p.  192;  Vote  communiste,  he.  cit.  On  the  later  growth  of  working-class  racialism,  ibid.-, 
Mothe",  p.  172;  Rioux,  pp.  87-8;  Tillion,  no.  208,  p.  10;  cf.  above,  n.  33 ;  Morin,  p.  223.  The 
party  lost  its  hold  on  many  of  the  young  Communists  conscripted  for  the  Algerian  war. 


86  THE  PARTIES 

workers.  After  the  war,  expanding  into  new  fields,  the  party  presented  itself  as 
all  things  to  all  men:  'a  Radical  party'  operating  as  a  pressure-group  on 
specific  bills  and  governments.67  It  was  the  class  party  of  the  workers  yet  it 
lobbied  for  the  shopkeepers  and  the  bouilleurs  de  cru.  The  champion  of  laicitg, 
it  extended  the  outstretched  hand  to  the  Catholics.  Internationalist,  it  went 
through  a  'crisis  of  chauvinism'.68  In  revolt  against  existing  society,  it  con- 
trolled much  patronage  -  important  more  for  status  than  for  cash  -  in  Parlia- 
ment, local  government,  the  social  security  system  and  the  nationalized  indus- 
tries. 'It  is  in  favor  of  modernization  but  also  supports  all  the  marginal  groups 
that  impede  it;  it  is  for  socialization  and  for  private  property  ...  it  is  slowly 
becoming  a  captive  of  the  many  and  diverse  forces  whose  support  it  has  culti- 
vated. It  has  reached  a  dead  center  of  compromise  and  synthesis  beyond  which 
there  can  be  no  movement  in  one  direction  or  another  without  serious 
electoral,  and  perhaps  organizational  and  ideological,  dislocations.'  Only  a 
centralized  and  ruthless  bureaucratic  machine  could  hold  together  so  hetero- 
geneous a  party.69 

The  consequences  were  not  surprising.  As  in  Russia,  those  who  rose  to  power 
in  the  party  were  the  natural  bureaucrats  rather  than  the  natural  revolutionaries. 
Inevitably  their  policy  tended  to  preserve  the  balance  of  forces  in  which  they 
flourished,  and  their  disciplinary  authority  was  used  to  crush  critics  who 
threatened  their  position. '  Fossilized'  in  their  refusal  to  confront  new  ideas  or 
recognize  new  circumstances  -  which  contrasted  so  sharply  with  the  flexibility 
of  their  Italian  comrades  -  the  French  Communist  leaders  displayed  over  the 
years  a  narrow  and  obstinate  conservatism  reminiscent  of  their  own  bour- 
geoisie at  its  worst.70  Yet  from  their  standpoint  the  alternative  was  no  more 
satisfactory.  If  the  workers  participated  actively  in  the  industrial  transforma- 
tion of  the  country,  their  revolutionary  dlan  would  be  weakened:  better  to 
keep  them  in  their  ideological  ghetto,  even  through  absurd  propaganda  cam- 
paigns like  that  of  1955  asserting  that  the  masses  were  becoming  poorer.  By 
allowing  revisionist  discussion  and  criticism,  Togliatti  was  risking  the  erosion 
of  his  party's  unity  and  discipline  in  the  hope  of  broadening  its  appeal; 
Thorez  preferred  to  maintain  the  monolithic  authority  of  the  organization 
over  a  smaller  membership  and  a  narrower  sphere  of  influence.71 

By  this  strategy  he  preserved  a  disciplined  striking  force  for  use  in  a 
revolutionary  situation  which  he  became  less  and  less  capable  of  exploiting. 
Politically,  the  French  party  behaved  so  cautiously  and  equivocally  over 
Algeria  that  it  avoided  immediate  unpopularity  and  repression,  but  also  for- 
feited the  long-term  credit  it  might  have  earned  by  an  early  and  courageous 

67.  Herv<§,  no.  124,  p.  73.  68.  Grosser,  p.  104  (and  see  above,  n.  54). 

69.  Macridis,  no.  1 52,  pp.  626-8, 633-4  (he  points  out  that  in  1 956  there  were  1 ,300  Communist 
mayors  and  25,000  municipal  councillors).  Cf.  also  France-Ob  servateur,  15  February  1957; 
Naville,  no.  164,  pp.  1909-20  (especially  191 1-12) ;  Godfrey,  no.  100,  pp.  321-38 ;  Moth6,  p.  166. 
In  the  1952  poll,  41  %  of  Communist  voters  thought  the  party  most  useful  in  office  (31  %  even  in 
a  coalition)  while  only  47  %  preferred  it  to  remain  in  opposition ;  32  %  considered  it  'the  strongest 
bulwark  of  parliamentary  institutions',  and  only  40%  favoured  forcible  seizure  of  power  in  any 
circumstances:  Bondages,  1952,  no.  3,  pp.  56-8.  See  Appendix  vn. 

70.  Crozier,  no.  64,  p.  791.  *  Fossilized' :  Herv6,  no.  124,  p.  79.  'They  have  become  part  of  the 
familiar  furniture  of  the  do-nothing  Fourth  Republic,  like  old  clocks  that  have  gone  slow,  and 
which  no  one  notices  as  they  strike  midday  at  two  in  the  afternoon' :  Hervd,  Dieu  et  Cesar,  p.  242. 

71.  Fougeyrollas,  no.  94,  pp.  121-31. 


THE  COMMUNIST  PARTY  87 

campaign  for  Algerian  independence.  Socially,  in  championing  all  the  back- 
ward groups  which  were  suffering  from  the  country's  modernization,  it 
gradually  lost  touch  with  those  who  were  benefiting. 72  Thus  towards  the  end  of 
the  Fourth  Republic  it  disqualified  itself  for  leadership  either  in  the  hypo- 
thetical social  revolution  which  was  plainly  receding,  or  in  the  real  political 
crisis  which  was  fast  approaching.  Its  hope  could  lie  only  in  a  transformation 
of  the  international  balance  of  power  to  the  advantage  of  the  USSR;  and 
only  in  Moscow's  accounting  could  Thorez's  policy  conceivably  yield  any 
returns. 

The  French  working  class,  and  the  many  devoted  and  self-sacrificing  party 
militants,  deserved  better  leadership  than  the  Communist  party  gave  them. 
But  where  else  were  they  to  turn? 

72.  Herv6  thought  the  party  was  in  danger  of  coming  to  represent  the  most  backward  sections 
of  the  working  class,  like  Bonapartism  in  an  earlier  generation,  and  was  mobilizing  the  revolt  of 
the  parasitic  elements  in  society  like  'a  "Poujadism"  of  the  extreme  Left' :  Dieu  et  Cesar,  pp.  235, 
239. 


Chapter  7 
THE  SOCIALIST  PARTY 

1.   HISTORY 

The  Socialist  party  -  officially  the  Section  frangaise  de  V Internationale  ouvriere9 
S  F I O  -  was  formed  in  1 905  by  the  junction  of  two  smaller  groups .  The  French 
working-class  movement  was  weak  in  numbers  and  organization,  and  torn 
between  the  demands  of  its  revolutionary  ideology  and  those  of  parliamentary 
strategy.  The  Dreyfus  case  posed  its  dilemma  starkly:  when  reactionary  forces 
tried  to  reverse  the  verdict  of  1789,  should  Socialists  continue  to  agitate  for  a 
new  revolution  and  so  endanger  the  conquests  of  the  old  one?  Jean  Jaures  and 
most  Socialist  deputies  advocated  an  electoral  and  parliamentary  alliance 
with  the  Radicals  to  save  the  Republic,  while  another  wing  under  Jules 
Guesde  adhered  to  the  orthodox  Marxist  doctrine  of  opposition  to  all  bour- 
geois governments.1  The  struggle  came  to  centre  on  Alexandre  Millerand,  the 
Third  Republic's  first  Socialist  minister.  In  1904  the  Amsterdam  congress  of 
the  Socialist  International,  under  German  leadership,  demanded  the  expulsion 
of  Millerand  and  the  unification  of  the  French  movement.  Jaures  accepted  its 
decision  and  a  year  later  the  united  party  was  established.  The  affair  demon- 
strated both  the  profound  internationalism  and  the  abiding  mistrust  of  leaders 
which  were  for  years  to  characterize  SFIO. 

Nevertheless,  Jaures  soon  established  his  ascendancy  as  the  great  tribune  of 
Socialism  and  indeed  of  the  whole  Left.  The  genuine  revolutionaries  deserted 
politics  for  anti-political  syndicalist  agitation  in  the  trade  unions,  and  the 
Socialist  politicians  finally  became  *  herbivorous  rather  than  carnivorous 
Marxists',  still  uttering  revolutionary  rhetoric  at  banquets  but  no  longer 
organizing  disorder  in  the  streets.  Despite  Jaures'  assassination  on  the  eve  of 
war,  revolutionaries  and  reformists  alike  rallied  to  the  defence  of  the  nation  in 
1914;  and  the  parliamentary  leaders  -  including  the  orthodox  Marxist  Guesde 
-  entered  the  government  of  national  unity.  But  the  endless  carnage  aroused 
growing  dismay  among  the  militants,  and  when  the  Russian  Revolution  pro- 
vided a  new  focus  for  extremist  loyalties  the  latent  conflict  between  reformist 
leadership  and  revolutionary  rank  and  file  burst  forth  irrepressibly.  At  the 
Tours  conference  in  1920  the  Bolsheviks  used  it  to  split  the  party  with  their 
twenty-one  conditions.  'They  are  at  once',  said  Guesde,  'everything  I  have 
recommended  all  my  life  and  what  all  my  life  I  have  condemned.'2 

In  1924  SFIO  revived  its  old  electoral  pact  with  the  Radicals  and  formed 
the  left  wing  of  Herriot's  parliamentary  majority.  The  associates  in  this  Cartel 
des  Gauches  shared  a  common  republican  and  anticlerical  outlook,  but  they 
differed  too  deeply  over  economic  policy  for  the  alliance  to  be  lasting; 
Radicals  preferred  to  govern  (though  not  to  face  the  voters)  in  combination 

1.  As  late  as  May  1956  SFIO  delegates  visiting  Moscow  heard  a  Soviet  leader  condemn 
Jaures  for  his  support  of  Dreyfus.  '"No,"  said  Kaganovitch,  "this  was  not  a  matter  for  the 
working  class,  and  there  was  no  need  to  mingle  in  this  affair"':  D.  J.  Dallin,  Soviet  Foreign 
Policy  after  Stalin  (Philadelphia,  1961),  p.  240.  (I  owe  this  reference  to  Dr.  Anthony  King.) 

2.  Quoted  by  Natanson,  no.  163,  p.  94. 


THE  SOCIALIST  PARTY  89 

with  Conservatives  rather  than  Socialists.  In  any  case  this  choice  was  imposed 
on  them  by  the  intransigence  of  the  SFIO  rank  and  file,  who  in  1929  over- 
ruled the  ^  deputies  when  they  wished  to  join  a  Radical  government,  and  in 
1933^  again  shattered  the  alliance,  which  had  been  restored  for  the  1932 
election.  The  most  moderate  deputies  resigned  to  form  a  new  group  led  by 
Pierre  Renaudel;  one  wing  of  these  'neo-Socialists',  headed  by  Marcel  D6at 
and  Adrien  Marquet,  fell  increasingly  under  Nazi  influence.  In  1936  the 
alliance  of  the  Left  parties  was  reconstituted  and  extended  to  include  the  Com- 
munists, and  won  another  electoral  victory.  As  the  largest  group  in  the  new 
majority,  SFIO  took  over  the  premiership.  This  first  experience  of  office  in 
peacetime  lasted  for  only  two  years. 

The  short-lived  success  did  not  end  Socialist  dissensions.  As  Nazi  power 
increased  L6on  Blum  and  most  of  the  leaders  officially  (though  somewhat  half- 
heartedly) advocated  resistance  to  Germany;  but  nearly  half  the  party,  led  by 
the  general  secretary  Paul  Faure,  clung  to  its  traditional  pacifism  and  accepted 
first  appeasement  and  then  Vichy.  In  1940,  36  out  of  80  votes  against  full 
powers  for  Marshal  P&ain  were  cast  by  Socialists;  but  three-quarters  of  the 
SFIO  members  of  parliament  were  on  the  other  side.  Paul  Faure's  chief  trade 
union  ally,  Ren6  Belin,  became  the  Marshal's  minister  of  labour. 

During  the  occupation  many  Socialists  played  an  active  and  creditable  part; 
some  Resistance  movements,  like  Liberation-Nord,  were  predominantly  con- 
trolled by  them.  Their  contribution  was  perhaps  less  spectacular  than  that  of 
the  Communists  or  the  Catholics,  who  had  more  solid  organizations  behind 
them;  but  as  individuals  the  Socialists  had  nothing  to  be  ashamed  of.  Their 
position  at  the  Liberation  seemed  very  favourable :  parliamentary  democracy 
and  political  freedom  had  regained  prestige;  drastic  social  reforms  were  con- 
sidered inevitable  and  indeed  overdue ;  many  pre-war  parties  were  discredited; 
and  SFIO  seemed  to  have  an  obvious  role  in  reconciling  the  new  claimants  to 
power,  Communists  and  Catholics,  with  the  Republic  from  which  they  had 
hitherto  been  virtually  excluded.  Revisionist  leaders  like  Blum  hoped  to 
rejuvenate  their  movement  as  a  French  Labour  party,  emancipated  from  a 
Marxist  creed  which  they  had  long  ceased  to  take  seriously,  and  to  open  it  to 
new  blood  from  the  Resistance  organizations  for  which  it  could  provide  the 
most  natural  political  channel. 

This  opportunity  was  lost.  The  rank  and  file  remained  attached  to  the  old 
doctrines,  the  old  prejudices,  and  the  old  faces:  they  would  not  grant  rapid 
promotion  to  newcomers  with  no  record  of  party  service.  Potential  new  mem- 
bers, and  above  all  potential  new  leaders,  occasionally  joined  other  groups  but 
more  frequently  abandoned  politics.3  On  the  other  hand,  an  exceptionally 
drastic  purge  of  the  members  who  had  supported  Petain  sacrificed  practical 
experience  to  presumed  ideological  purity. 

The  election  of  October  1945  found  the  Socialists  only  the  third  largest 
party.  Like  the  British  Liberals  between  the  wars,  they  were  ground  between 
stronger  rivals  on  either  flank.  Whether  they  worked  with  the  Communists 
against  MRP  in  defending  the  first  draft  constitution,  or  with  MRP  against 
the  Communists  as  in  subsequent  months,  they  still  alienated  support.  A 

3.  See  below,  pp.  97,  174. 


90  THE  PARTIES 

second  electoral  defeat  in  June  1946  brought  their  internal  differences  to  a 
head.  At  the  Lyons  conference  of  that  year  the  old  leadership  was  repudiated 
and  the  left  wing  won  a  narrow  majority  on  the  executive  committee.  Daniel 
Mayer,  a  revisionist  proteg6  of  L6on  Blum,  was  replaced  as  general  secretary 
by  the  doctrinaire  Marxist  Guy  Mollet,  who  extended  the  authority  of  the 
executive  over  the  deputies  and  sought  to  take  the  party  into  opposition.  Upon 
the  expulsion  of  the  Communist  ministers  in  May  1947  he  nearly  persuaded 
SFIO  to  withdraw  too,  and  six  months  later  he  brought  down  the  Ramadier 
government. 

But  the  Socialists  were  virtual  prisoners  of  their  conservative  partners.  They 
dared  not  repudiate  responsibility  for  policy  by  going  into  opposition,  for 
without  their  votes  no  majority  could  be  found:  in  1947  or  1948  their  resigna- 
tion would  have  brought  General  de  Gaulle  to  power.  But  they  were  too 
isolated  to  impose  their  own  views,  and  could  only,  with  MRP's  help,  try  to 
prevent  the  dismantling  of  their  post-war  reforms.  They  had  to  retain  office  in 
governments  they  disliked,  alienating  most  of  their  followers  by  continual 
compromises.  The  resentment  of  the  militants  was  expressed  by  three  ex- 
ministers  -  Andr6  Philip,  Daniel  Mayer  and  fidouard  Depreux  -  who  had 
taken  the  revisionist  side  in  1945-46;  but  Guy  Mollet,  as  party  leader,  became 
an  advocate  of  participation  in  government. 

As  these  reversals  of  position  suggest,  the  division  was  more  tactical  than 
fundamental.  It  reflected  differences  about  the  best  means  of  competing  with 
the  Communists  and  not  about  the  desirability  of  an  alliance  with  them  - 
which  both  sides  rejected.  One  wing  preferred  opposition  in  order  to  advocate 
the  policies  of  the  party  and  repudiate  responsibility  for  the  actions  of  its 
rivals;  the  other  relied  on  office  to  win  practical  reforms  to  benefit  their 
followers  or  to  prevent  injury  to  them.  In  France  as  elsewhere  it  was  usually 
the  middle-class  Socialists,  those  who  were  in  a  small  minority  in  their  own 
areas,  who  showed  most  devotion  to  doctrinaire  principle  and  least  interest  in 
the  responsibilities  of  power;  and  in  1951  the  smaller  federations  carried  a 
motion  empowering  the  executive  committee,  rather  than  the  parliamentary 
group,  to  take  decisions  in  a  governmental  crisis.4  The  large  working-class 
federations  like  Nord  and  Haute-Vienne  regularly  supported  the  leadership. 
But  there  were  many  cross-currents,  for  each  SFIO  federation  enjoyed  a  good 
deal  of  autonomy  and  played  its  own  different  electoral  role:  the  focus  of 
anticlericalism  at  Rennes  and  of  anti-Communism  at  Limoges;  the  chief  rival 
of  Radicalism  in  the  south-west,  but  a  proletarian  party  in  the  northern  indus- 
trial area.  Their  tactics  depended  on  particular  circumstances  more  than  on 
general  principle.  Before  the  1956  election  the  chief  advocate  of  local  alliances 
with  the  Communists  was  Robert  Lacoste. 

The  quarrel  over  participation  was  settled  when  SFIO  returned  to  opposi- 
tion, first  for  a  few  months  in  1950  and  then  for  five  years  in  1951.  But  instead 
the  problem  of  EDC  and  German  rearmament  soon  came  to  dominate 
Socialist  politics.  Here  the  factional  lines  differed  from  previous  and  sub- 
sequent struggles:  many  governmental-minded  or  nationalistic  leaders  were 
opposed  to  EDC  (e.g.  MM.  Auriol,  Moch,  Naegelen,  Lacoste,  Lejeune) 

4.  For  details  see  Williams,  p.  73,  n.  27.  Also  cf.  below,  pp.  403-4. 


THE  SOCIALIST  PARTY  91 

while  Guy  Mollet  defended  it  in  association  with  his  bitterest  critic,  AndnS 
Philip.  The  militants  favoured  the  treaty  and  so  did  the  executive  which  they 
chose.  But  a  majority  among  the  deputies  turned  against  it  and  finally  defied 
party  discipline  to  ensure  its  defeat. 

The  bitterness  of  the  EDC  fight  was  carried  over  into  the  dispute  on 
Algerian  policy  which  racked  SFIO  after  its  return  to  office  in  1956.  Robert 
Lacoste  and  Max  Lejeune,  who  were  mainly  responsible  for  the  policy,  were 
attacked  not  only  by  the  old  opponents  of  participation  but  also  by  those 
'governmental'  Socialists  who  had  been  their  allies  against  EDC.5  But  their 
critics  found  little  support  in  the  party,  least  of  all  in  the  big  federations  (of 
which  only  Bouches-du-Rhone,  led  by  Gaston  Defferre  the  mayor  of  Mar- 
seilles, inclined  to  their  side).  By  now  not  much  trace  remained  of  the  com- 
radely feelings  which  had  held  the  party  together  through  earlier  internal 
battles,  and  by  1958  many  of  the  Algerian  opposition  were  on  the  brink  of 
secession.  In  the  May  crisis  they  won  the  support  of  some  of  Mollet's  closest 
associates  (such  as  Albert  Gazier  and  Christian  Pineau)  and  carried  a  majority 
of  both  deputies  and  executive  against  de  Gaulle's  candidature,  which  the 
general  secretary  favoured.  But  though  this  reinforcement  of  the  opposition 
threatened  Mollet's  position,  at  the  September  1958  conference  he  was  saved 
by  Defferre  -  who  credited  de  Gaulle  with  liberal  intentions  in  Algeria.  The 
conference  therefore  approved  the  proposed  constitution  of  the  Fifth  Republic, 
and  the  old  critics,  still  led  by  Depreux,  Mayer  and  Philip,  withdrew  to  form  a 
new  party.6 

2.   ORGANIZATION  AND  FOLLOWING 

SFIO  was  democratically  organized.  The  basic  unit,  the  section,  corresponded 
to  the  lowest  local  government  area,  the  commune  (or  in  large  towns  to  the 
arrondissement  or  ward,  Lyons  for  instance  having  eight  sections) ;  but  while 
there  are  38,000  communes  in  France  there  were  in  1959  only  8,000  SFIO 
sections.  A  departmental  federation  had  to  have  at  least  five  sections  and  a 
hundred  members.  These  units  elected  their  own  officers  and  conference 
delegates  and  controlled  their  own  finances,  settling  the  amount  of  the  sub- 
scription and  paying  over  a  fixed  sum  to  the  centre;  prosperous  members  paid 
more  than  the  minimum,  but  local  branches  were  prone  to  keep  the  balance. 

5.  None  of  the  17  deputies  who  protested  against  the  Algerian  and  Suez  policies  in  December 
1956  had  supported  EDC,  although  outside  Parliament  Andr6  Philip  had. 

6.  On  it  see  below,  pp.  173-4;  and  on  SFIO  divisions,  MacRae,  no.  149,  pp.  203-9.  Leaders* 
positions  for  Mollet  (F)  and  against  him  (A)  can  be  tabulated: 

Traditionalism       Participation         EDC  Algeria       de  Gaulle 

Majority  1945-47  1949  1954  1956-57      Sept.  1958 

(Mollet)  F  F  F  F  F 

Gazier  A,  then  F  F  F  ?F  A 

Pineau  A  F  F  ?F  A 

Lacoste  A  F  A  F  F 

Lejeune  A  F  A  F  F 

Defferre  A  F  F  A  F 

Auriol  A  F  A  A  F 

Moch  A  F  A  A  F 

Philip  A  A  F  A  A 

Mayer  A  A         :  A  A  A 

Depreux  A  A  A  A  A 


92  THE  PARTIES 

The  Socialists  were  the  poorest  of  the  big  parties,  and  in  the  1951  election 
probably  spent  no  more  than  £100,000. 7  Only  about  ten  wealthy  federations 
could  afford  a  full-time  secretary.  But  after  the  party  took  office  in  1956 
SFIO  headquarters  employed  'federal  assistants'  resident  in  the  provinces 
and  travelling  'national  delegates'.8 

At  conference  the  smaller  federations  had  more  than  their  share  of  delegates 
(who  voted  as  individuals  in  electing  the  executive)  but  hardly  more  than  their 
share  of  'mandates'  for  other  votes.  In  1951,  for  instance,  there  were  fifty-five 
federations  with  fewer  than  500  members  and  six  with  more  than  3,000;  the 
former  with  16%  of  the  total  membership  had  112  delegates  out  of  374  and 
649  mandates  out  of  3,937;  the  latter  with  40%  of  the  membership  had  no 
more  delegates  (113)  but  many  more  mandates  (1,606).9  Delegates  were 
usually  mandated  to  vote  for  one  or  another  of  the  long  policy  motions  pro- 
posed -  as  a  rule  -  by  deputies  and  party  leaders.  Many  federations  split  their 
votes  proportionately  between  the  different  motions.  But  the  large  working- 
class  federations  (like  a  British  trade  union  at  a  Labour  party  conference) 
carried  habits  of  industrial  solidarity  into  politics  and  usually  voted  as  a 
block;  since  the  smaller  federations  were  always  divided,  the  big  federations 
were  unbeatable  if  they  stood  together. 

Before  the  war  the  executive  was  elected  by  proportional  representation 
from  the  different  factions  (tendances)  which  each  had  its  own  local  following, 
its  own  journal  and  sometimes  even  its  own  subscription.10  In  1944,  in  an 
attempt  to  make  SFIO  more  than  a  mere  federation  of  parties,  the  executive's 
powers  were  extended,  and  its  cohesion  reinforced  by  abolishing  PR.  This 
change  made  possible  the  internal  revolution  of  1946.  In  future,  members  of 
any  minority  wing  sat  on  the  executive  by  grace  of  a  majority  which  might 
always  withdraw  its  favours.11  In  1951  Jules  Moch  was  ejected  for  suggesting 
with  his  usual  unforgivable  clarity  that,  as  the  traditional  proletariat  was 
declining  in  numbers  and  the  party's  main  appeal  was  now  to  other  social 
groups,  it  ought  to  adapt  its  programme  and  vocabulary  accordingly.  In  1956 

7.  Fusilier,  no.  96,  p.  261  (the  Communists  spent  ten  times  as  much  on  posters  alone).  Cf.  above, 
p.  66n.  For  the  local  branches  see  Report  to  the  45th  Conference,  pp.  15-16.  (The  party  authorities 
sometimes  io  practice  appointed  a  section  secretary  when  no  member  appeared  suitable.) 

8.  Critics  charged  that  these  organizers  influenced  the  federations  to  which  they  were  sent  by 
their  services,  money  and  pressure :  A.  Philip,  Le  Socialisme  trahi  (1957),  p.  200.  It  seems  that  they 
did,  for  at  the  1957  conference  the  share  of  the  total  opposition  vote  cast  by  the  14  federations 
to  which  a  federal  assistant  had  been  assigned  dropped  from  18%  to  under  10%  (including 
Seine  -  see  below,  p.  99  -  it  fell  from  34%  to  18%).  The  opposition  increased  elsewhere  in  the 
provinces  but  carried  only  5  of  these  14  federations  (9  previously),  and  only  39%  of  their 
votes  (58  %  previously).  But  the  numbers  involved  were  too  small  to  affect  the  result.  (From 
Report  to  the  50th  Conference ;  cf.  pp.  32, 146-7, 159-60.)  In  1960  federal  assistants  were  abolished 
and  more  national  delegates  appointed.  It  may  be  no  coincidence  that  SFIO  increased  staff  on 
entering  the  government  and  reduced  staff  soon  after  leaving  it. 

9.  Report  to  the  44th  Conference,  pp.  219-20.  Each  federation  had  one  mandate  plus  another 
for  every  25  members,  and  two  delegates  plus  another  for  every  15  mandates  (or  fraction  over  7). 
The  mandate  system  of  voting  was  also  used  at  the  national  council  (conseil  national) ;  this  body 
was  largely  attended  by  party  officials  who  were  responsive  to  the  leadership :  Grosser,  pp.  1 14-15. 
Rich  federations  like  Pas-de-Calais  or  Se"ne"gal  inflated  their  voting  strength  within  the  party  by 
buying  more  cards  than  they  could  dispose  of:  Duverger,  Parties,  p.  81. 

10.  Ibid.,  p.  120. 

11.  The  minimum  vote  needed  for  election  in  a  given  year  has  often  been  as  high  as  60  %  of  the 
total:  Laponce,  p.  59,  Cf.  Ligou,  pp.  588,  620-1,  632, 


THE  SOCIALIST  PARTY  93 

two  opponents  of  Guy  Mollet's  Algerian  policy  lost  their  seats  on  an  enlarged 
executive.  In  1960  all  the  minority  members  resigned  when  one,  Georges 
Dardel,  was  thrown  off  by  the  majority  for  accepting  Communist  votes  in  his 
election  as  chairman  of  the  Seine  departmental  council. 

As  the  organ  of  the  rank  and  file,  the  executive  frequently  clashed  with  the 
parliamentarians.  Suspicion  of  their  integrity  had  marked  the  very  foundation 
of  the  party,  and  was  kept  alive  by  the  tendency  of  French  politicians  to  start  a 
career  on  the  Left  and  conclude  it  on  the  Right.  At  first  no  parliamentarian 
could  belong  to  the  executive  (or  represent  his  federation  at  a  national  council) ; 
but  in  1913  ten  members  of  parliament  were  allowed  on  the  executive  of  31, 
and  in  1956  the  number  was  raised  to  20  out  of  45.  Moreover,  through  succes- 
sive conflicts  and  compromises  the  deputies  gradually  increased  their  influence 
in  ministerial  crises.12 

Control  over  discipline,  however,  remained  with  the  representatives  of  the 
rank  and  file.  The  executive  could  dissolve  and  reconstitute  a  rebellious 
federation  such  as  Seine  in  1939,  or  Pyr6n6es-Orientales  in  1950.13  Recalcitrant 
party  leaders  were  often  subjected  to  mild  penalties  by  the  executive  or  severe 
ones  by  the  national  council/In  1954  half  the  parliamentary  party  successfully 
defied  the  executive  in  their  revolt  over  ED C;  next  year  seventeen  deputies 
(including  Mayer,  Moch  and  Lejeune)  were  expelled  for  repeating  the  offence 
over  German  rearmament,  though  they  were  soon  readmitted  because  of  the 
imminent  general  election.  Isolated  rebels  were  less  fortunate:  Philip  was 
expelled  in  1957  for  his  denunciation  of  the  leadership,  and  Mayer  driven  to 
resign  his  seat  soon  afterwards  for  opposing  internment  camps  for  Algerians 
in  France.14  By  this  time  the  party  machinery  had  become  subordinated  to 
the  government;  in  1956-57,  with  the  general  secretary  as  prime  minister,  the 
executive  met  less  frequently  and  rarely  discussed  politics.15  The  anathemas 
once  hurled  by  a  militant  rank  and  file  at  leaders  who  compromised  themselves 
with  the  ruling  class  were  now  reserved  by  ministers  for  their  inconveniently 
intransigent  critics. 

The  split  at  Tours  in  1920  had  divided  the  parliamentarians  from  the  rank 
and  file.  Membership  fell  from  180,000  to  52,000  in  1921. 16  By  1936  it  had 
regained  the  former  level,  and  a  year  later  the  record  figure  of  285,000  was 
attained  (though  nearly  a  third  of  these  had  fallen  away  by  the  outbreak  of 
war).  At  the  Liberation  came  another  influx,  and  in  1946  a  new  record  of 

12.  See  below,  pp.  403-4.  On  their  financial  contribution  see  above,  p.  65n, 

13.  On  it  see  below,  p.  328.  Seine  was  led  before  the  war  by  a  perennial  rebel,  Marceau  Pivert. 

14.  In  June  1957  Mayer  and  25  other  deputies  refused  to  vote  the  special  powers  allowing  the 
government  to  set  up  camps,  and  in  November  he  alone  voted  against  them ;  for  this  he  was 
*  suspended*  by  the  party  for  the  whole  Parliament  (i.e.  he  lost  his  committee  seat  —  he  was  chair- 
man of  the  foreign  affairs  committee  -  and  was  supposed  not  to  speak  without  party  leave).  In 
March  1958  he  became  president  of  the  League  for  the  Rights  of  Man,  and  chose  to  resign  his 
seat  rather  than  face  expulsion  for  his  next  offence  against  discipline.  (Philip  was  expelled,  techni- 
cally, for  publishing  his  criticisms  in  non-Socialist  papers  -  Socialist  ones  being  closed  to  him.) 

15.  In  1951-56  it  had  averaged  39  meetings  between  July  and  March.  But  from  July  1956  to 
March  1957  it  met  only  18  times:  Report  to  the  49th  Conference,  p.  150.  It  had  no  opportunity 
to  discuss  Suez:  Philip,  p.  200.  Of  its  45  members,  9  were  ministers. 

16.  Rimbert,  no.  190,  p.  125.  The  Communists  attracted  130-140,000  members  but  only 
13  deputies;  SFIO  kept  53  deputies  but  only  30,000  members:  Walter,  pp.  45,  50,  53. 


94  THE  PARTIES 

354,000  was  reached.  For  the  next  eight  years  membership  -  as  in  other 
parties  -  steadily  declined;  for  the  Socialists  this  was  the  first  drop  lasting 
more  than  two  years  and  also  the  first  to  include  a  general  election  year,  1951. 
At  the  end  of  1954  they  claimed  only  113,000  -  almost  the  lowest  figure  since 
1928.17  But  in  the  pre-election  year  of  1955  there  was  a  slight  increase,  and  at 
the  end  of  1957  they  claimed  1 18,000. 

The  party's  voting  strength  fell  sharply,  from  4J  million  in  October  1945  to 
2|  million  in  June  1951.  From  20%  of  those  voting  in  1932,  and  19%  in  1936 
(before  woman  suffrage)  the  Socialist  share  increased  to  23%  in  1945,  only  to 
fall  back  in  three  successive  general  elections  to  14%  six  years  later.  But  the 
decline  slowed  after  1946  and  was  reversed  in  1956,  when  SFIO  recovered  a 
little  to  3J  million  votes  (14fc%  of  the  poll).  It  retained  this  total  in  the  Fifth 
Republic's  first  election  in  1958. 

Before  this  revival  many  observers  claimed  that  the  Socialists  were  taking 
over  the  Radical  party's  old  electoral  following.  The  1952  poll  found  that  they 
had  fewer  supporters  than  any  other  major  party  in  the  big  cities  with  over 
100,000  inhabitants,  and  drew  42%  of  their  votes  from  the  rural  communes 
with  under  2,000.  (This  strength  in  the  provinces  was  both  cause  and  effect  of  a 
provincial  press  far  more  flourishing  than  that  of  the  Communists.18)  It  was 
rarely  based  on  the  industrial  proletariat,  for  in  most  areas  working-class 
Socialist  support  came  from  small  plants,  secondary  industries,  and  state  or 
public  employees  -  the  fields  where  Force  ouvri&re  also  found  recruitment 
easiest.19 

In  1956  the  limited  Socialist  electoral  revival  occurred  in  the  industrial 
departments,  which  were  little  affected  by  the  ravages  of  Poujadism,  and  it  was 
offset  by  losses  in  the  rural  south.20  In  Nord  and  Pas-de-Calais  the  Socialist 
vote  exceeded  the  Communist  for  the  first  time  for  a  decade.  S  FI  O's  *  Radical- 
ization'  had  plainly  been  exaggerated,  for  though  the  party  attracted  only 
15-20%  of  the  manual  workers,  even  this  limited  proletarian  following  made 
up  more  than  40%  of  the  total  Socialist  vote.  Moreover  the  remainder  came 
from  white-collar  workers  rather  than  from  the  small  businessmen,  artisans 

17.  In  1934  it  was  only  110,000.  See  Rimbert,  no.  190,  p.  125  for  figures  up  to  1950;  Fauvet, 
Forces,  p.  87,  for  those  of  1945-50;  Reports  to  next  year's  conference  for  those  of  later  years; 
Duverger,  Parties,  pp.  8 Iff.,  for  a  discussion  of  their  significance.  The  membership  claimed  is  the 
number  of  party  cards  sold;  it  is  inflated,  e.g.  in  1954  (113,000  claimed)  monthly  subscriptions 
paid  were  only  twelve  times  88,000.  Moreover  some  subscriptions  were  bogus :  see  above,  n.  9. 
Coston,  p.  392,  estimates  the  real  figure  for  1958  at  only  60,000,  barely  half  the  number  claimed. 

18.  Its  circulation  was  half  as  great  again  in  1952 :  Bauchard,  no.  9b,  p.  601.  It  was  well  over 
twice  as  great  in  1958  :  J.  Kayser  in  Elections  195 8,  p.  82.  But  in  Paris  Le  Populaire  clung  to  life 
with  the  utmost  difficulty.  (For  the  1952  poll  see  Appendix  vn.) 

19.  Rimbert  in  Partis  et  Classes,  pp.  204-7.  At  Lyons  in  1958  75  %  of  salaried  or  wage-earning 
members  of  SFIO  were  in  FO  unions,  10%  in  CGT  unions  (mainly  those  like  the  printers  who 
had  no  alternative)  and  15%  in  no  union:  Grawitz,  no.  115,  p.  463  -  she  confirms  Rimbert 
throughout.  On  FO  and  SFIO  see  Lorwin,  especially  pp.  186-7,  291-4;  Rioux,  pp.  81-2, 130-1 ; 
Godfrey,  pp.  54-6 ;  Williams,  p.  71 ;  Ehrmann,  no.  82,  pp.  158-9. 

20.  The  15  most  industrial  departments  (see  Map  21)  with  35%  of  the  electorate  contributed 
30%  of  SFIO's  losses  in  1951  but  80%  of  its  net  gains  in  1956.  These  gains  were  greatest  in  the 
most  industrial  areas ;  at  Nantes,  after  the  1955  strikes,  the  Socialist  vote  more  than  doubled  (a 
much  bigger  gain  than  that  of  the  Communists)  while  elsewhere  in  Loire-Inf6rieure  it  rose  only 
by  50  % ;  in  the  Lille  and  Arras  constituencies  it  rose  by  nearly  half,  but  in  the  rest  of  Nord  and 
Pas-de-Calais  only  by  a  quarter;  at  Marseilles  SFIO's  share  was  3  %  up,  in  the  rest  of  Bouches- 
du-Rh6ne  1  %  down.  And  see  Pierce,  no.  180,  p.  414;  and  Map  10. 


THE  SOCIALIST  PARTY  95 

and  professional  men  on  whom  the  Radicals  had  relied.  Civil  servants  were 
particularly  attracted  to  SFIO,  and  in  1951  it  was  estimated  that  with  their 
wives  and  retired  colleagues  they  made  up  30%  of  its  vote.21 

Though  the  civil  servants  played  the  leading  part  in  the  life  of  the  party, 
more  workers  belonged  to  it  than  was  often  supposed.  In  1951  an  inquiry 
covering  14,000  members  found  that  a  third  were  workers  (25%  in  private  and 
9%  in  nationalized  industry).  Another  15%  were  civil  servants  (including 
postmen  and  teachers);  almost  a  quarter  of  the  membership  thus  enjoyed  the 
status  and  security  of  state  employees.  In  the  leadership,  both  local  and 
national,  the  workers  were  under-  and  the  civil  servants  over-represented.  In 
1951  the  latter  provided  37%  of  the  federal  committees,  and  among  the  hun- 
dred-odd Socialist  deputies  who  sat  in  the  Assemblies  of  the  Fourth  Republic 
there  were  never  more  than  four  industrial  workers  or  fewer  than  thirty 
teachers.22 

Young  men  were  almost  as  rare  as  industrial  workers  in  the  Socialist  leader- 
ship. The  party  youth  organization  was  suspect;  in  1947  it  was  deprived  of  its 
autonomy  for  Trotskyist  heresies.  Ten  years  later  it  existed  in  only  forty-eight 
of  France's  ninety  departments.23  In  1951  only  30%  of  party  members  were 
under  40;  they  were  in  a  majority  only  on  one  federal  committee  in  eight.  In 
1946  SFIO  had  fewer  deputies  aged  35  or  less  than  any  rival  party;  in  1956, 
none  at  all.  This  situation  in  part  reflected  the  influence  of  the  civil  servants, 
whose  long  professional  struggles  against  favouritism  had  given  them  an 
ingrained  preference  for  'advancement  in  order  of  stupidity'.  But  their 
pressure  only  reinforced  the  traditional  insistence  of  the  militants  on  long 
service  as  a  condition  of  promotion.  Five  years'  membership  was  a  minimum 
for  almost  any  important  function  in  the  party.  Even  in  all  the  turbulence  of 
Liberation  -  with  a  new  generation  emerging  from  the  Resistance  and  the 
old  one  thinned  by  wartime  losses  and  a  drastic  purge  -  SFIO  still  chose  far 
more  pre-war  politicians  as  candidates  than  any  other  party.24 

Moreover  in  practice,  though  not  in  theory,  the  Socialists  seemed  to  share 
the  Radicals'  traditional  antipathy  to  females  in  politics.  Anticlerical  parties 
were  handicapped  in  appealing  to  women,  among  whom  religious  observance 
was  much  commoner  than  among  men.  But,  the  Communists  apart,  they  were 

21.  Proletarians  40  % :  Dogan  in  Hamon,  pp.  1 13-14.  In  Paris  the  proportions  were  about  10  % 
and  33%  (Klatzmann,  Elections  1956,  p.  273)  and  at  Marseilles  17%  and  30%  (Olivesi,  pp.  251, 
261,  268,  271).  Fauvet's  estimates  of  15%  and  21%  in  all  France  (Cockpit,  p.  93n.,  Dechirte, 
p.  86n.)  omit  wives  and  agricultural  workers.  Civil  servants  30%:  R.  Catherine  in  Partis  et 
Classes,  pp.  140-1  (roughly  confirmed  by  the  1952  poll).  In  1956  Klatzmann  thought  that  one 
white-collar  worker  in  six  voted  Socialist  in  Paris  (loc.  cit.) ;  and  at  Marseilles  SFIO  got  a  third 
of  the  white-collar  vote  and  drew  43  %  of  its  own  vote  from  this  group  (Olivesi,  pp.  259-61,  271). 
Long  before  the  war  Herriot  had  quoted  an  inn-sign  which  he  applied  to  SFIO :  'Restaurant 
ouvrier.  Cuisine  bourgeoise. ' 

22.  Rimbert  in  Partis  et  Classes,  p.  197,  for  the  1951  inquiry,  and  no.  191,  p.  297  for  federal 
committees.  For  candidates  and  deputies  before  1956,  Williams,  p.  70  (civil  servants  regularly 
outnumbered  workers  by  ten  to  one);  for  the  1956  Assembly,  Dogan  in  Elections  1956,  p.  456. 
In  1951  14%  and  in  1956  17%  of  SFIO  deputies  were  manual  or  white-collar  workers  (see 
above,  p.  68n.).  N 

23.  Report  to  the  50th  Conference,  pp.  54-7  (but  in  1950  it  had  existed  hi  only  30  departments). 
The  Socialist  students  had  to  be  reorganized  again  at  this  time  (1957). 

24.  Under-forties :  Rimbert  in  Partis  et  Classes,  p.  196,  and  no.  191 ,  p.  292.  Deputies :  Duverger, 
Parties,  p.  168,  and  no.  81,  p.  1880.  'L'avancementau  tour  de  bete',  ibid.,  p.  1882.  On  candidates 
in  1945  see  p.  llln. ;  on  SFIO  and  young  voters  in  1956  see  final  references  above,  p.  78,  n.28. 


96  THE  PARTIES 

not  particularly  hospitable  to  those  they  did  recruit.  In  1951  only  12%  of 
SFIO  members  were  women;  there  were  only  a  hundred  among  the  1,800 
members  of  federal  committees  and  never  more  than  one  out  of  thirty-one  on 
the  executive  (at  one  time  even  the  women's  committee  had  a  male  chairman). 
The  family  associations  and  similar  organizations  were  almost  all  in  clerical  or 
Communist  hands.25 

Not  surprisingly,  recruitment  dried  up.  Young  people  were  discouraged  by 
the  party's  stress  on  seniority,  and  women  by  its  indifference  to  the  newly 
enfranchized  half  of  the  electorate.  Some  potential  supporters  were  antagonized 
by  its  faded  Marxist  vocabulary,  others  alienated  by  its  narrow  anticlericalism, 
and  yet  others  offended  by  its  repeated  -  if  sometimes  reluctant  -  compromis- 
ing of  the  principles  it  still  professed.  Whereas  before  1939  the  proportion  of 
new  members  to  old  ones  in  any  given  year  had  never  fallen  below  15%,  for 
years  after  1945  it  was  under  4%.26 

The  Socialists  were  thus  a  predominantly  lower-middle-class  and  white- 
collar  party  which  kept  some  local  support  from  industrial  workers.  They 
acted  as  democratic  reformists  while  still  talking  the  language  of  Marxist 
revolutionaries.  Their  practice  bore  no  relation  to  their  professions;  but  in 
1945-46  they  refused  to  adapt  their  professions  to  their  practice.  This  re- 
affirmation  of  a  radical  creed  was  a  profoundly  conservative  gesture.27  But  the 
gesture  inhibited  an  effective  reformist  appeal. 

3.   CHARACTERISTICS 

The  option  of  1945-46  affected  the  party's  internal  character  as  well  as  its 
capacity  for  expansion.  It  strengthened  the  influence  of  conservative  forces 
within  SFIO  by  giving  them  a  cloak  of  militancy,  and  it  sharpened  the  con- 
trast between  brave  revolutionary  words  and  cautious  reformist  actions.  But 
while  impeding  Socialist  recruitment  among  white-collar  workers  and 
Catholics,  it  did  not  win  back  workers  in  industry. 

SFIO  had  always  suffered  from  the  anti-political  tradition  of  French  trade 
unionism.  This  semi-anarchist  heritage  had  deprived  it  of  any  organic  con- 
nection with  the  industrial  labour  movement.  French  unionism  was  always 
based  on  the  civil  servants  and  other  employees  of  the  state;28  strong  co- 
operatives or  mass  unions  in  private  industry,  so  familiar  in  Britain  or 
Scandinavia,  were  unknown  in  France.  Indeed  when  industrial  workers 

25.  Fauvet,  Forces,  p.  8.  The  1952  poll  found  that  41  %  of  Socialist  voters  were  women.  For 
members,  Rimbert  in  Partis  et  Classes,  p.  195,  and  for  committees,  no.  191,  p.  292.  When  the 
executive  was  enlarged  to  45  in  1956,  a  second  woman  won  a  seat. 

26.  Duverger,  Parties,  p.  89. 

27.  Blum  told  the  conference  after  Mayer's  defeat:  *You  are  nostalgic  for  everything  that 
might  recall  this  Party  as  you  knew  it  in  other  days  .  .  .  you  are  afraid  of  what  is  new.'  Mollet's 
successful  motion  proclaimed  '.. .  .  that  all  attempts  at  revisionism  must  be  condemned,  parti- 
cularly those  inspired  by  a  false  humanism  whose  real  purpose  is  to  mask  that  fundamental  reality,, 
the  class  struggle. ...  It  is  these  deviations  and  errors  which  tomorrow  would  lead  [us]  down  the 
same  path  as  the  Radical  party.  .  .  .  To  enrich  Marxism  .  .  .  and  in  no  way  dilute  it ...  to 
combat  all  forms  of  imperialist  exploitation,  to  help  the  overseas  peoples  in  their  struggle  for 
emancipation  .  .  .':  Ligou,  pp.  544-7  (cf.  Grosser,  p.  114).  After  the  1962  election  SFIO  re- 
affirmed its  1945  programme  professing  its  revolutionary  aims. 

28.  Martinet,  no.  156,  especially  p.  776 ;  Ehrmann,  Labor,  p.  25 ;  Lorwin,  pp.  60-1 ;  Rioux,  pp. 
37-8 ;  Godfrey,  pp.  24-5.  State  employees  were  naturally  predisposed  to  emphasize  electoral  and 
parliamentary  rather  than  industrial  or  revolutionary  action. 


THE  SOCIALIST  PARTY  97 

without  organizational  experience  did  come  flooding  into  the  unions  in  1919, 
1936  and  1944-45,  they  were  organized  mainly  by  the  Communists  or  their 
revolutionary  forerunners.29  In  the  Fourth  Republic,  therefore,  there  were 
only  a  few  departments  where  the  Socialist  party  retained  its  hold  on  impor- 
tant sections  of  the  industrial  working  class.  But  these  few,  where  the  real 
political  struggle  was  between  the  two  proletarian  parties,  had  both  the  largest 
and  the  most  anti-Communist  federations  in  SFIO. 

If  the  Socialists  could  not  satisfy  the  revolutionary  workers,  their  appeal  to 
the  reformists  was  hampered  by  the  religious  quarrel.30  They  could  never 
attract  the  Christian  proletariat  because  of  the  fervour  with  which  they  clung 
to  the  anticlerical  tradition.  Lalciti  was  the  hidden  reef  that  wrecked  the 
proposal  for  a  French  Labour  party  which  Blum  and  his  friends  vainly 
launched  at  the  Liberation.  Many  Resisters  then  held  that  only  by  combining 
Socialists  and  progressive  Catholics  in  one  solid  organization  could  the 
democratic  Left  carry  weight  in  coalition  politics  and  impose  reforms  which 
might  loosen  the  Communist  hold  on  the  French  workers.  When  the  Resis- 
tance had  challenged  the  assumption  that  no  Catholic  could  be  a  good  repub- 
lican, there  appeared  a  chance— probably  slender  and  certainly  fleeting — to 
build  a  party  which  could  reconcile  devout  Catholic  citizens  with  the  Republic 
and  Catholic  workers  with  socialism. 

The  first  reconciliation  was  achieved  by  others  and  the  second  was  not 
achieved  at  all.  The  foresight  of  a  few  Resisters  and  SFIO  leaders  could  not 
overcome  the  determination  of  the  militants  to  stand  by  their  old  creed  and 
flag.  The  Socialist  rank  and  file  would  not  welcome  the  Resistance  generation, 
which  broke  away  with  UD S  R  or  retired  into  disillusionment.31  And  though 
they  gradually  learned  to  work  with  the  new  party  of  progressive  Catholics 
they  never  trusted,  understood  or  sympathized  with  it:  they  preferred  to  vote 
Radical  or  even  sometimes  Gaullist  rather  than  MRP. 

In  the  Fourth  Republic  anticlericalism  came  to  centre  in  SFIO;  in  1955 
Guy  Mollet  was  still  describing  MRP  as  a  party  which  had  no  right  to  exist 
because  it  was  not  based  on  a  class.32  In  many  rural  areas  laicite  was  the  real 
electoral  watershed  -  and  the  few  places  where  SFIO  maintained  its  vote  in 
the  disastrous  election  of  1951  were  almost  all  among  those  where  it  fought 
unencumbered  by  clerical  allies.33  Parliamentary  co-operation  between 

29.  Lorwin,  pp.  52-7,  74-5,  108-9;  Ehrmann,  Labor,  pp.  20-3,  51-2;  Godfrey,  pp.  33,  46; 
Rioux,  pp.  22-6,  49-50,  54,  75-6. 

30.  See  Derczansky,  no.  68,  p.  677. 

31.  The  price  the  party  paid  could  be  clearly  seen  in  Bouches-du-Rhone.  In  the  first  consti- 
tuency (Marseilles)  its  new  young  leaders  -  Gaston  Defferre,  a  pre-war  Socialist  who  rose  through 
the  Resistance,  and  Francis  Leenhardt,  one  of  the  few  who  came  over  from  UDSR  -  defeated  a 
traditionalist  revolt  in  1945  (below,  p.  388n.).  From  November  1946  SFIO  made  steady  progress, 
even  at  the  1951  and  1958  elections  when  it  lost  ground  nationally,  gaining  especially  among 
white-collar  but  also  among  industrial  workers.  But  in  the  second  constituency  it  had  an  elderly, 
discredited  and  traditionalist  standard-bearer,  Felix  Gpuin,  and  it  lost  steadily  until  his  retire- 
ment in  1958  -  when  under  new  and  younger  leadership  it  made  striking  advances.  See  Olivesi, 
especially  pp.  274-6.  ^ 

32.  AP  1955,  p.  59.  In  the  Fifth  Republic  Mollet  suggested  that  a  cur&  might  well  become 
secretary  of  a  Socialist  section.  For  SFIO's  strong  appeal  to  Protestants  see  Schram,  pp.  133, 149, 
186,  201 ;  Paysans,  pp.  378-9. 

33.  There  were  SFIO-MRP  alliances  in  55  of  the  103  French  constituencies,  but  in  only  two 
of  the  eight  where  SFIO  held  or  increased  its  share  of  the  vote;  for  details  see  Williams,  p.  74n. 

{over 


98  THE  PARTIES 

Socialists  and  MRP  was  buried  in  1951  by  the  Barang<§  bill  subsidizing 
church  schools;  five  years  later  it  could  be  resuscitated,  ironically  enough, 
only  because  the  Socialist  proposal  to  repeal  that  law  was  blocked  by  the 
very  Mendesist  Radicals  against  whom  the  revived  Socialist-MRP  under- 
standing was  largely  directed.  To  the  teachers  who  were  so  numerous  in 
SFIO  this  was  the  crucial  question;  and  its  electoral  importance  made  it  an 
important  link  between  the  rank  and  file  in  the  country  and  the  compromisers 
in  Parliament. 

Indeed  many  Socialist  deputies  and  would-be  deputies  were  really  Radicals 
in  spirit.  The  most  distinguished  of  these  was  Paul  Ramadier,  sometime 
chairman  of  the  parliamentary  freemasons'  group,  prime  minister  in  1947,  and 
consistent  champion  of  Socialist  participation  in  government.  Freemasonry, 
once  the  backbone  of  Radicalism,  had  begun  to  invade  SFIO  between  the 
wars ;  and  in  the  Fourth  Republic  one  wing  of  it  evolved  rapidly  towards  the 
far  Right  and  carried  a  section  of  the  party  along  with  it.34  But  for  years 
the  traditionalists  of  the  Left  found  a  common  bond  in  anticlericalism,  and  as 
late  as  1957  the  Socialist  bosses  preferred  the  premiership  to  go  to  Radicals  as 
illiberal  as  Bourg&s-Maunoury  or  as  prudently  ineffective  as  Gaillard,  rather 
than  to  an  enlightened  MRP  leader  like  Pflimlin. 

Comfortably  installed  in  national  and  local  administration,  and  strategically 
placed  at  the  political  centre  of  gravity,  SFIO  grew  increasingly  reluctant  to 
disturb  the  workings  of  the  System.  No  party  defended  the  regime  more 
resolutely  against  the  RPF  assault.  The  Socialists  voted  for  Mend^s-France 
but  stayed  out  of  his  government,  and  lest  he  steal  their  own  (muted)  thunder 
they  gave  only  grudging  and  short-lived  sympathy  to  his  campaign  to  revitalize 
French  political  life.  On  institutional  questions  they  were  staunchly  con- 
servative, opposing  the  stronger  executive  which  their  social  and  economic 
policies  seemed  to  require,  rejecting  any  suggestion  of  a  presidential  system, 
and  even  resisting  attempts  to  give  fairer  representation  to  the  big  cities  - 
where  there  were  so  few  Socialist  voters.35  Over  both  Indo-China  and  Algeria 
they  were  radicals  in  opposition  but  standpatters  in  office.  Only  in  their  con- 
sistent support  of  European  economic  union  did  they  seriously  favour  a  major 
change  -  but  one  supported  by  most  centre  politicians,  even  the  most  con- 
servative. 

To  many  voters,  therefore,  SFIO  seemed  a  timid,  old-fashioned,  bourgeois 
party,  sadly  lacking  in  dynamic  energy  and  ceaselessly  buffeted  by  stronger 
rivals.  This  impression  was  not  always  justified.  At  the  Liberation  Socialists 
showed  courage  and  foresight  in  resisting  the  anti-German  chauvinism  of 
Gaullists,  Communists  and  MRP.  The  short-lived  all-Socialist  government  of 

(One  Socialist  allied  to  MRP  was  the  anticlerical  zealot  Maurice  Deixonne,  who  a  few  weeks 
later  led  a  furious  attack  on  the  Barang6  bill.) 

34.  Pre-war :  Thibaudet,  Icttes,  pp.  186-7 ;  Fauvet,  Cockpit,  p.  138,  Dichirte,  p.  132 ;  Bardonnet, 
U Evolution  de  la  structure  du  Parti  radical,  pp.  238-42;  below,  pp.  115,  434-5.  Post-war:  the 
'McCarthyite'  prefect  of  police  Jean  Baylot  (pp.  46n.,  347-8)  was  an  active  freemason  and 
a  member  of  SFIO  until  the  1958  election  (when  he  was  returned  as  a  Conservative  deputy 
endorsed  by  Georges  Bidault's  Christian  Democrats).  On  right-wing  freemasonry  see  Coston, 
pp.  350-3 ;  on  Baylot  also  ibid.,  p.  504. 

35.  On  cities  see  Goguel,  no.  112,  p.  85,  who  refers  to  SFIO  without  naming  it;  JO  (Stnat) 
11  July  1961,  pp.  765,  768-9;  above,  p.  94. 


THE  SOCIALIST  PARTY  99 

December  1946  acted  with  vigour  and  energy;  Moch  took  over  the  ministry 
of  the  interior  when  it  was  the  least  coveted  post  in  the  government  and  left  it 
the  most  sought-after;  Mollet  andLacoste  did  not  evade  responsibility  in  1956- 
1957,  however  grave  the  responsibilities  they  incurred.  But  all  too  often  the 
party  was  obliged  by  its  own  indispensability  to  take  office  in  a  coalition  which 
it  did  not  control,  and  responsibility  for  policies  which  it  did  not  approve.  In 
four  of  the  five  Assemblies  elected  between  1945  and  1958  (and  in  many 
municipal  councils  throughout  France)  it  held  the  pivotal  position  once 
occupied  by  the  Radicals :  that  of  the  party  without  whose  consent  no  majority 
could  be  found  and  no  administration  formed. 

Before  1956  it  was  widely  believed  that  as  the  Socialists  slipped  into  the 
Radical  party's  social  and  geographical  skin  they  were  also  acquiring  its 
political  habits  and  temperament.  But  SFIO's  electoral  success  in  1956 
reversed  the  'Radicalization'  of  its  voting  base  while  apparently  accelerating 
the  'Radicalization'  of  its  political  behaviour.  The  party's  reputation  had 
already  suffered  from  the  charge  that  associates  of  Socialist  ministers  were 
involved  in  every  major  scandal  from  the  Algerian  wine  deals  in  1946  to  the 
'affair  of  the  generals'  in  1950.  Now,  on  taking  office,  SFIO  distributed  more 
patronage  to  its  supporters  than  any  party  had  ventured  to  disburse  for  years.36 
Thereby  it  encouraged  what  a  bitter  critic  called  'the  invasion  of  certain  sec- 
tions by  men  devoid  of  any  principle'.  The  influx  was  particularly  marked  in 
Paris,  and  perhaps  explains  the  Seine  federation's  unusual,  sudden  and  short- 
lived support  for  the  party  leadership.37  But  it  occurred  in  the  provinces  also ; 
in  Lyons  in  1958  one  member  in  twenty  was  a  police  official,  and  of  these  two- 
thirds  had  joined  SFIO  only  since  the  party  had  re-entered  the  government.38 

Locally,  too,  the  Socialists  were  often  a  party  of  administration  rather  than 
of  opposition.  In  big  towns  they  kept  a  large  membership,  wrote  an  ex- 
deputy,  only  as  a  'mutual  aid  society  of  municipal  employees'  in  places  where 
the  mayor  'belonged'.  In  1957  they  claimed  60,000  municipal  councillors, 
more  than  half  the  nominal  figure  of  party  members.  Like  most  French 
parties  they  had  become  an  organization  of  local  politicians,  but  one  enjoying 
a  pivotal  position  in  many  councils ;  thus  they  controlled  Marseilles  in  1945  in 
alliance  with  the  Communists,  and  again  after  1953  in  opposition  to  them. 
This  strategic  situation  made  them  an  especially  attractive  choice  for  would- 
be  mayors  and  administrators,  and  in  national  elections  SFIO's  influence 
depended  heavily  on  the  prestige  of  these  local  leaders.39 

36.  King,  no.  131,  pp.  437,  441.  See  also  Coston,  pp.  397-8,  on  colonial  appointments ;  Plan- 
chais,  pp.  33-4,  on  military  ones ;  Philip,  p.  199,  on  the  radio ;  Isorni,  Silence,  pp.  45-6 ;  Siegfried 
in  AP  1956,  p.  viii,  1957,  p.  viii.  On  scandals  see  below,  pp.  299,  339n. 

37.  'Invasion' :  Philip,  p.  203.  For  similar  influences  in  another  party  see  Bardonnet,  pp.  116, 
118. 

38.  Grawitz,  no.  115,  p.  462.  In  1957  this  local  party  had  a  resident  federal  assistant  and  was 
visited  by  a  national  delegate,  and  nearly  doubled  its  membership  (newcomers  45%  of  the  1958 
total,  see  table  on  p.  458).  Among  these  recruits  far  fewer  were  trade  unionists  than  among  the 
longer-standing  members  (26%  as  against  64%,  calculated  from  figures  on  pp.  458,  463)  and  the 
former  were  not  even  much  younger  than  the  latter  (average  age  43  as  against  49).  The  newcomers* 
attitude  to  policy  is  not  recorded,  but  the  federation  switched  from  opposing  to  supporting  the 
leadership  at  the  1957  party  conference  (cf.  n.  8  above). 

39.  See  (e.g.)  C.  Leleu  on  Isere  in  Elections  1956,  pp.  381-4.  On  Bouches-du-Rhone  in  1956, 
Olivesi,  pp.  30,  92,  161-2,  182;  in  1958,  ibid.,  pp.  104-6,  112,  138,  201,  263,  274-6,  and  Williams 

[over 


100  THE  PARTIES 

The  contrast  between  the  party's  formal  creed  and  its  day-to-day  practice 
became  increasingly  evident  during  the  life  of  the  Fourth  Republic  (notably 
when  Mollet  cited  Marx  in  his  defence  of  the  Suez  expedition).40  Yet  the 
leadership  maintained  a  control  over  the  party  which  its  predecessors  would 
have  envied.  Hitherto  SFIO  militants  had  never  been  charged  with  excessive 
concern  for  power  or  indifference  to  principle,  but  rather  with  a  doctrinaire 
intransigence  which  constantly  impeded  the  compromises  without  which  a 
system  based  on  party  coalitions  would  become  unworkable.  In  the  past  the 
rank  and  file,  having  the  last  word  on  policy,  had  repeatedly  defied  the  parlia- 
mentary leaders  -  though  almost  always  with  disastrous  results:  they  had 
chosen  Communism  in  1920,  helped  paralyse  Parliament  and  endanger  the 
Republic  in  the  early  thirties,  favoured  appeasement  later  in  the  decade,  and  in 
1945-46  prevented  any  revision  of  the  party's  doctrine,  any  broadening  of  its 
base  or  any  introduction  of  new  blood  into  its  leadership. 

Yet  1946  was  the  militants'  last  revolt.  When  German  rearmament  strained 
SFIO's  cohesion  and  discipline  in  1954,  it  was  the  parliamentarians  who  were 
the  rebels.  And  those  of  them  who  had  flouted  the  party's  code  of  conduct 
over  EDC  were  all  the  more  reluctant  to  repeat  the  offence  over  Algeria  - 
especially  when  a  Socialist  premier  was  pursuing  enlightened  policies  of  which 
they  approved  both  at  home  and  in  Black  Africa.  Despite  their  internal  dis- 
putes the  Socialists  could  still  regard  their  party  as  a  community  and  be  proud 
of  the  freely  accepted  discipline  which  symbolized  its  solidarity.41 

But  the  breakdown  of  this  discipline  over  EDC  affected  the  leadership  also. 
A  major  policy  endorsed  by  the  majority  of  the  party  had  been  defeated 
owing  to  the  deliberate  and  repeated  defiance  of  its  representatives  in  Parlia- 
ment; were  this  to  happen  again,  SFIO  would  be  in  danger  of  disintegration. 
In  these  conditions  discipline  was  reinforced,  and  extended  to  penalize  not 
merely  votes  cast  against  party  policy  but  also  criticisms  levelled  against  it.42 
This  rigidity  might  have  been  appropriate  to  revolutionaries  in  a  revolutionary 
situation :  it  was  unacceptable  to  democrats  in  revolt  against  policies  which, 
they  thought,  betrayed  the  party's  principles.  The  camps  and  prisons  of 
Algeria  finally  destroyed  the  solidarity  and  comradeship  which  had  survived 
all  previous  quarrels,  and  the  minority  found  family  life  in  the  vieille  maison 


and  Harrison  in  Elections  Abroad,  pp.  37n.,  83-4.  On  Somme  in  1958,  J.  Blondel  in  ibid.,  pp.  100-2. 
'Mutual  aid' :  Conte,  La  Succession,  p.  54.  In  1951  SFIO  was  called:  'a  party  of  patronage  . . . 
of  ministers  and  deputies,  mayors  and  county  councillors,  prefects  and  police  officials,  a  true 
coalition  of  the  ambitious  and  the  interested,  within  which  a  few  old-style  militants  curiously 
survive  as  political  small  rentiers,  sadly  living  on  the  capital  of  their  memories' ;  Martinet,  no. 
155,  p.  .55. 

40.  At  the  1957  conference:  Monde,  2  July  1957. 

41.  Grosser,  p.  113.  Yet  suppressed  resentments  might  prevail  in  a  secret  ballot:  see  Melnik 
and  Leites,  pp.  80-2. 

42.  No  one  preached  the  need  for  rigour  more  forcibly  than  Andr6  Philip,  who  was  so  soon  to 
suffer  from  it.  But  critics  who  had  respected  discipline  did  not  escape.  Madame  Brossolette  in 
1958  declined  (on  party  instructions)  an  offer  to  stand  as  the  only  left-wing  candidate  in  an  impor- 
tant Paris  by-election  to  the  Assembly ;  a  few  weeks  later  the  majority  denied  her  re-election  to  her 
seat  in  the  upper  house.  Ainong  those  who  resigned  from  the  party  in  1958  were  fidouard  Depreux 
(below,  p.  400n.),  and  Mireille  Osmin,  another  critic  who  as  candidate  in  a  Paris  by-election  in 
i957  had  obediently  advocated  the  Algerian  policy  of  the  majority. 


THE  SOCIALIST  PARTY  101 

increasingly  intolerable.  After  their  resignations  Guy  Mollet  pronounced 
their  epitaph:  'They  have  never  been  real  socialists.'43 

Early  in  the  century  Peguy  said  that  'tout  commence  en  mystique  et  tout 
finit  en  politique'.  The  remark  still  applies  to  the  Socialists  (as  to  every  Fourth 
Republican  party  which  ever  ventured  to  claim  a  mystique  at  all).  An  extreme 
right-wing  critic  lamented  SFIO's  'intellectual  downfall'.  A  left-wing 
observer  noted  that:  'Its  doctrine  is  an  embarrassment.  It  dare  not  reject  it,  or 
apply  it,  or  renovate  it:  another  aspect  of  the  party's  sclerosis.  SFIO  still  calls 
itself  revolutionary,  but  neither  its  leaders  nor  its  cadres  nor  its  members  nor 
its  voters  have  any  desire  to  make  a  revolution.'  Yet  with  all  its  failings  the 
party  obstinately  maintained  and  even  slightly  improved  its  position  during 
the  Fourth  Republic.  As  Jacques  Fauvet  put  it,  'If  today  it  no  longer  has  the 
method  of  Marx  nor  the  faith  of  Jaures  nor  the  austerity  of  Guesde,  what  has 
it  left?  Power,  no  doubt:  which  is  much  -  and  nothing.'44 

There  were  many  to  accuse  SFIO  of  thinking  power  was  everything.  Yet 
the  only  serious  attempts  to  reconcile  the  industrial  workers  to  the  Republic 
were  made  under  Socialist  inspiration  in  1936  and  in  1945-46;  their  failure 
should  not  deprive  the  party  of  the  credit  for  tackling  a  task  which  most  of  its 
rivals  preferred  to  ignore  or  obstruct.  In  1956,  with  no  majority  either  in  Par- 
liament or  in  the  country,  the  Socialists  succeeded  in  passing  some  useful 
reforms  at  home  and  in  preventing  the  errors  committed  in  North  Africa 
from  being  repeated  south  of  the  Sahara.  And  if  they  failed  disastrously  to 
solve  the  desperately  difficult  problem  of  Algeria,  progress  was  not  so  very 
much  faster  under  a  successor  with  far  greater  prestige  and  freedom  of  action. 

The  party's  opportunism  in  these  years  was  violently  attacked  by  Socialists 
and  others  at  home  and  abroad.  But  they  were  mistaken  in  thinking  that  its. 
course  was  wholly  determined  by  the  character  of  its  leader  and  his  skill  at 
manipulating  the  machine.  Over  EDC  in  1954  and  de  Gaulle's  election  as 
premier  in  1958,  Guy  Mollet  failed  to  convince  his  party.  While  his  success 
was  normally  assured  by  the  support  of  Nord  and  Pas-de-Calais,  he  usually 
had  a  majority  of  the  other  votes  as  well;  in  any  case  the  numerical  weight  of 
the  two  big  federations  only  reflected  their  unusual  achievement  in  retaining 
a  mass  working-class  base.  And  when  as  prime  minister  Mollet  was  denounced 
for  failing  to  apply  party  instructions  (often  by  the  very  same  critics  who  had 
attacked  him  ten  years  before  for  trying  to  impose  party  orders  on  the 
Ramadier  ministry)  he  could  call  in  return  on  the  strong  loyalties  evoked  by 
the  first  Socialist-led  government  for  nearly  a  decade. 

Still  more  important  than  party  loyalty  was  the  support  of  a  public  opinion 
to  whose  moods  he  was  uncannily  sensitive.  In  France  as  elsewhere,  a  politi- 
cian charged  by  his  fellow-partisans  with  'putting  country  before  party' 
tends  to  find  his  standing  with  other  citizens  enhanced.  If  Mollet  unjustly 

43.  Combat,  19  April  1960.  To  others  the  vieille  maison  was  still  home ;  even  when  the  Socialists 
decided  to  support  Lacoste's  removal  from  Algiers,  he  refused  to  leave  SFIO  and  lead  the  settlers. 
*  You  don't  throw  off  a  party  like  an  old  coat' :  J.  Ferniot,  Les  Ides  de  Mai  (1958),  p.  7. 

44.  Fauvet,  Forces,  p.  67  (from  Monde,  4  October  1947);  Coston,  p.  390  (' downfall') ;  Duver- 
ger,  no.  81,  p.  1871  (' doctrine').  But  some  observers  still  found  SFIO  quite  distinctive  in 
professing  concern  for  doctrine  and  looking  beyond  Parliament  to  the  country :  Melnik  and  Leites, 
pp.  53-5. 


102  THE  PARTIES 

despised  the  intellectuals  and  their  criticisms,  so  did  many  other  Frenchmen. 
If  he  was  nationalist  in  1956,  so  were  his  compatriots ;  if  he  turned  to  de  Gaulle 
in  1958,  so  did  they.  Again  like  the  Radicals  of  twenty  years  before,  the  Social- 
ists were  among  the  gravediggers  of  a  Republic  less  because  they  misrepre- 
sented the  French  people  than  because  they  represented  them  all  too  well. 


Chapter  8 
THE  CHRISTIAN  DEMOCRATS  (MRP) 

1.   HISTORY 

The  Mouvement  rdpublicain  populaire  represented  an  old  tradition  in  French 
thought,  which  before  1940  found  no  effective  political  expression.  Ever  since 
Lamennais  there  had  been  Catholics  who  were  aware  of  the  problems  created 
by  the  industrial  revolution  and  Catholics  (not  always  the  same  ones)  who 
were  anxious  for  reintegration  in  the  French  political  community  from  which, 
during  much  of  the  Third  Republic,  they  were  virtually  excluded.  In  the  early 
years  of  this  century  Marc  Sangnier's  Sillon  formed  .a  focus  for  liberal 
Catholicism  as  important  as  that  provided  for  reactionaries  by  Maurras  and 
Action  francaise}-  A  more  important  electoral  influence  was  Action  liberate 
populaire.  This  party  was  already  in  decline  by  1914,  but  it  had  claimed 
nearly  eighty  deputies  a  decade  before. 

Between  the  wars  the  progressive  Catholic  tradition  was  represented  by  two 
small  groups,  the  Parti  democrate  populaire  and  Jeune  Republique.  PDF  was 
based  on  Brittany,  Alsace,  Lorraine,  and  one  or  two  mountainous  southern 
departments;  commentators  found  it  hard  to  classify  as  either  Right  or  Left. 
Jeune  Republique,  founded  by  Sangnier  after  the  ban  on  Sillon,  was  not  a  party 
but  an  extra-parliamentary  'league'.  Less  clearly  confessional,  less  electorally 
oriented  and  more  progressive  than  PDP,  it  adhered  to  the  Popular  Front  of 
1936. 

MRP  had  deeper  roots  than  these  predecessors,  since  it  could  tap  the 
social  organizations  sponsored  by  the  Church  or  inspired  by  its  principles: 
notably  the  Catholic  trade  union  movement,  Confederation  frangaise  des 
travailleurs  Chretiens  (CFTC)  and  the  youth  organizations  like  Jeunesse 
ouvriere  chretienne,  Jeunesse  agricole  chretienne  and  Association  catholique  de 
la  jeunesse  francaise.  Some  of  these  were  created  and  others  greatly  extended 
between  the  wars,  and  in  1932  Thibaudet,  describing  Christian  socialism  as 
one  of  the  six  great  French  political  traditions,  declared  that  only  leader- 
ship was  needed  to  create  a  powerful  new  movement.2  Francisque  Gay's 
paper  UAube,  with  its  contributors  from  PDP,  CFTC,  Catholic  Action 
and  Jeune  Republique,  foreshadowed  the  combination  from  which  MRP 
emerged. 

1.  Both  movements  were  condemned  by  the  Vatican.  Sangnier  ended  his  life  as  honorary 
president  of  MRP  and  on  his  death  was  officially  honoured  by  the  Socialist  party.  Maurras  was 
sentenced  to  life  imprisonment  for  collaboration,  and  just  before  his  death  in  1952  he  celebrated 
his  compassionate  release  by  demanding  the  execution  of  the  minister  of  justice  responsible  for 
the  post-war  purge. 

2.  'II  y  a  une  jeunesse,  elle  attend  un  guide;  des  cadres,  ils  sont  pret  pour  un  tableau;  des 
hommes,  il  leur  faudrait  un  homme':  Idees,  p.  118.  Cf.  Priouret,  Partis,  pp.  59-61;  L.  Biton, 
La  Democratic  chretienne  dans  la  politique  francaise  (1954),  pp.  49-61 ;  Dansette,  Destm  du 
Catholicisme  francais  IS 26-1956,  Chapter  2 ;  Bosworth,  Catholicism  and  Crisis  in  Modern  France, 
Chapters  4  and  5,  and  especially  pp.  24,  37,  241-2,  249,  323.  Of  MRP's  52  bureau  and  executive 
members  in  1959,  40  had  been  active  in  Catholic  Action  and  similar  groups:  f6w?pp   254-5 
(full  list)  cf.  Williams,  p.  78n.  For  a  full  account  of  M  RP  see  Goguel  (with  M.  Emaudi),  Christian 
Democracy  in  Italy  and  France  (1952);  for  its  relations  with  the  Church,  Bosworth,  pp.  239-61. 


104  THE  PARTIES 

These  developments  were  accelerated  by  the  war  and  the  Resistance.  The 
progressive  Catholic  groups  refused  to  compromise  with  fascism  either  at 
home  or  abroad.  They  opposed  Mussolini's  attack  on  Abyssinia,  Franco's 
rising  in  Spain  and  the  capitulation  to  Hitler  at  Munich;  and  after  the  defeat 
their  members  and  leaders  could  claim  a  splendid  Resistance  record.  MRP 
was  formed  in  1944  at  Lyons,  a  centre  of  Catholic  Resistance.  Starting  with 
new  men  and  a  clean  sheet,  it  set  out  to  reclaim  for  the  Republic  two  danger- 
ously  alienated  groups,  the  devout  Catholics  and  the  industrial  workers.  It 
chose  to  call  itself  a  movement,  not  a  party,  in  order  to  emphasize  that  its 
purposes  went  beyond  electoral  success  to  the  promotion  of  Catholic  prin- 
ciples and  doctrines  in  society.  In  the  purified  atmosphere  of  the  new  regime  it 
hoped  to  regenerate  French  political  life. 

In  pursuing  these  ambitious  objectives  it  enjoyed  important  advantages.  A 
solid  basis  in  the  Catholic  youth  and  social  organizations  was  reinforced  by 
the  clergy's  powerful  support  (which  was  ardent  among  the  parish  priests, 
more  prudent  among  some  of  their  formerly  Vichyite  superiors  who  were  now 
seeking  merit  by  association  with  authentic  Resisters).  This  strong  backing 
gave  it  the  organization  and  discipline  to  compete  with  the  Communist  party. 
The  MRP  leaders  had  no  responsibility  for  either  the  despised  inter-war 
regime,  the  war  itself,  or  the  Vichy  counter-revolution.  Besides  the  prestige  of 
novelty  and  an  admirable  Resistance  record,  they  enjoyed  the  tacit  blessing  of 
the  greatest  of  Catholic  Resisters,  General  de  Gaulle;  and  millions  of  French 
Conservatives,  bewildered  by  the  disgrace  of  their  former  leaders,  rallied  to 
the  movement.  So  MRP  achieved  an  initial  success  which  astounded  its  own 
leaders :  in  August  1945  it  had  100,000  members,  in  October  nearly  five  million 
votes.3 

This  triumph  was  artificial.  Only  a  minority  of  M  RP  voters  shared  the  pro- 
gressive views  of  the  party  militants ;  the  majority  were  Conservatives  for 
whom  MRP  was  a  temporary  barrier  against  Communism  and  not  a  per- 
manent political  home.  To  preserve  this  swollen  electoral  following  MRP 
leaders  and  deputies  often  adopted  a  more  conservative  attitude  than  the 
membership  would  have  wished,  but  they  did  not  move  far  enough  Right  to 
satisfy  their  voters.  During  1946  MRP  first  acquired  new  support  by  leading 
the  opposition  to  the  first  draft  constitution,  then  forfeited  it  again  by 
reluctantly  accepting  the  second.  To  millions  of  its  voters  this  was  com- 
promising with  Communism.  They  had  as  yet  no  alternative  party;  but  they 
expressed  their  resentment  in  the  referendum  of  October  1946  when  some  two- 
thirds  of  the  MRP  voters,  especially  in  the  conservative  west  and  north-east, 
responded  to  General  de  Gaulle's  condemnation  of  the  constitution.  Given  a 
lead,  they  would  desert  a  party  whose  aims  they  had  never  shared  to  follow  a 
more  acceptable  standard. 

In  April  1947  de  Gaulle  gave  that  lead,  and  the  lost  Conservatives  went  over 
in  droves  to  RPF.  In  the  October  municipal  elections  MRP  kept  only  10%  of 
the  votes  as  against  25%  the  year  before  (and  Gaullists  cruelly  suggested  that 
UAube,  now  the  party  paper,  should  change  its  name  to  Le  Crfyuscule).  But 
when  the  decline  was  halted  a  smaller  but  more  homogeneous  movement 

3.  Wright,  Reshaping,  p.  76  (membership). 


THE  CHRISTIAN  DEMOCRATS  (MR?)  105 

emerged.4  Although  MRP  deputies  still  felt  the  pressure  of  right-wing 
competition,  at  the  Strasbourg  conference  of  1949  the  militants  checked 
Georges  Bidault's  attempt  to  flirt  with  RPF.  And  at  Nantes  in  the  following 
year  a  left-wing  candidate  for  general  secretary  obtained  40%  of  the  vote  (224 
against  341  for  the  official  nominee,  Andr6  Colin). 

Yet  the  movement  was  being  driven  inexorably  towards  the  Right.  A  breach 
with  the  Socialists  over  wages  policy  early  in  1950  was  healed  -  temporarily  -  a 
few  months  later.  But  in  the  1951  election  a  quarter  of  the  MRP  deputies  held 
their  seats  in  alliance  with  the  Right  or  even  RPF  and  in  opposition  to  the 
Socialists;  only  RPF  intransigence  kept  even  Robert  Schuman  from  allying 
with  these  opponents  of  the  government  in  which  he  served.  Moreover,  by 
halving  the  party's  numbers  in  the  Assembly  this  election  increased  the 
relative  weight  of  its  Catholic  strongholds;  nearly  half  its  deputies  now  came 
from  the  conservative  departments  of  the  north-west  and  north-east.  To 
avoid  being  outbid  by  RPF  for  the  favour  of  the  Church,  MRP  had  to  vote 
for  the  Barang6  bill  subsidizing  Catholic  schools  and  so  to  reopen  the  breach 
with  the  Socialists. 

In  the  new  Assembly  the  movement  supported  the  conservative  Pinay  and 
Laniel  cabinets.  Its  ministers  now  bore  the  main  responsibility  for  repression 
in  Tunisia,  for  crisis  in  Morocco  and  for  the  long  war  in  Indo-China.  Its 
deputies  gave  no  support  to  the  strikes  of  1953,  although  these  were  largely 
led  by  CFTC,  and  voted  steadily  for  Conservative  candidates  in  the  presi- 
dential election  at  the  end  of  that  year.  Its  leaders  were  the  main  target  of 
Mendes-France's  criticisms,  and  when  he  came  to  power  it  formed  the  core 
of  the  opposition  to  him  -  finally  defeating  him  over  North  Africa  despite 
its  approval  of  his  policy  there.  In  the  1956  election  its  candidates  allied 
with  Conservatives  and  right-wing  Radicals  against  the  Left's  Republican 
Front. 

This  rightward  movement  was  punctuated  by  a  number  of  mutinies.  In 
1950  a  third  of  the  MRP  deputies  frustrated  Queuille's  attempt  to  form  a  con- 
servative ministry.  Two  years  later  the  same  proportion  withheld  their  support 
from  Pinay,  whose  administration  (detested  by  the  militants)  was  brought 
down  in  December  1952  by  an  MRP  revolt.  In  the  long  ministerial  crisis  of 
the  following  summer  half  the  deputies  opposed  Reynaud,  three-fifths  sup- 
ported Mendes-France,  almost  all  repudiated  Marie,  and  only  with  extreme 
reluctance  did  they  resign  themselves  to  Laniel.  At  the  beginning  of  Mend£s- 
France's  government  in  1954  most  of  them  voted  him  special  economic 
powers,  and  on  his  fall  they  did  their  best  to  recover  a  left-wing  reputation  by 
supporting  a  Socialist,  Christian  Pineau,  for  the  premiership. 

MRP's  situation  was  as  uncomfortable  as  that  of  the  Socialists  a  few  years 
earlier,  and  its  struggles  to  escape  were  as  unavailing;  at  the  1953  congress  its 
president,  P.  H.  Teitgen,  argued  like  Socialist  leaders  before  him  that  by 
going  into  opposition  the  party  would  merely  paralyse  government,  discredit 
the  regime,  and  play  into  the  hands  of  the  Right.  MRP  also  feared  that  to 
leave  a  majority  which  the  Gaullists  had  just  entered  would  enable  the 

4.  C FTC's  strength  in  the  social  security  elections  suggests  that  working-class  voters  were 
more  faithful  to  MRP  than  hourgeois  ones ;  see  Goguel,  no.  109,  pp.  249-50,  But  see  n.  14. 


106  THE  PARTIES 

nationalist  forces  to  halt  progress  towards  European  integration,  and  in  par- 
ticular to  prevent  the  ratification  of  the  European  army  treaty.  It  was  largely 
because  they  blamed  Mend£s-France  for  the  eventual  defeat  of  E  D  C  that  they 
ended  by  pursuing  him  with  unrelenting  hostility.  At  odds  with  the  Gaullists 
about  foreign  affairs,  with  the  Socialists  about  educational  and  colonial  policy, 
and  with  the  Radicals  about  almost  everything,  MRP  were  forced  into  the 
embrace  of  the  Conservatives  whose  political  influence  they  had  once  hoped  to 
destroy. 

Yet  the  movement  did  not  disintegrate.  The  extreme  left  wing,  which  had 
always  been  far  to  the  Left  of  the  Socialists,  became  finally  disillusioned ;  three 
deputies  broke  with  the  party  in  1950,  a  few  parliamentarians  were  expelled 
in  1954  -  temporarily  for  supporting  Mend£s-France  or  permanently  for 
opposing  EDC  -  and  in  the  1956  election  some  Catholic  intellectuals  cam- 
paigned for  the  Mendesist  Radicals  and  some  trade  unionists  for  the  Socialists. 
On  the  other  flank,  Bidault,  now  a  diehard  colonialist,  enjoyed  a  little  support 
in  Parliament  but  none  among  the  militants;  by  1955  he  was  already  isolated 
within  the  party  (though  he  stayed  in  it  three  more  years).  In  the  centre,  the 
great  majority  of  members  followed  Pierre  Pflimlin  in  cautiously  urging  pro- 
gress in  Morocco  in  1955  and  in  Algeria  in  1956  and  1957  ;5  out  of  power, 
MRP  leaders  proved  more  liberal  than  most  ministers  from  the  Republican 
Front  parties.  In  the  1956  Assembly  MRP's  concentration  on  the  European 
programme,  instead  of  reinforcing  conservative  coalitions,  now  supplied  a  link 
with  the  dominant  Socialist  and  Radical  leaders.  And  in  the  Fourth  Republic's 
final  crisis  MRP,  like  most  Radicals  and  half  the  Socialists,  shifted  from  a 
stern  republican  condemnation  of  the  mutinous  army  of  Algiers  to  support  for 
General  de  Gaulle  as  the  alternative  to  civil  war  and  the  safeguard  against 
repression  and  reaction. 

2.   ORGANIZATION  AND  FOLLOWING 

MRP's  organization  followed  the  Socialist  model  but  was  modified  to 
strengthen  the  leadership.  At  the  base  were  the  familiar  sections  and  federa- 
tions ;  as  in  S  FI O  the  subscription  rate  was  fixed  by  the  federations,  and  there 
were  the  customary  difficulties  over  the  collection  of  affiliation  fees  by  the 
centre.  Members  of  parliament  did  not  have  to  subscribe  part  of  their  salaries 
to  party  funds,  but  generally  did  so.  Federations  could  choose  candidates 
freely  for  municipal  elections,  but  those  standing  for  Parliament  or  a  depart- 
mental council  had  to  be  approved  by  the  national  executive.  The  supreme 
authority  nationally  was  the  annual  conference,  which  was  supplemented  by 
the  usual  national  council  (comit^  national)  of  about  200  members,  and  execu- 
tive committee  (commission  executive)  of  about  fifty. 

These  bodies  differed  sharply  from  their  Socialist  counterparts.  Delegates 
to  the  national  council,  members  of  parliament  and  of  the  Assembly  of  the 
French  Union  had  a  vote  at  conference.  There  the  federations  were  represented 
not  in  proportion  to  membership  as  in  SFIO,  but  under  a  sliding  scale 
favouring  the  smaller  units.  The  object  was  to  prevent  the  strong  Breton  and 

5.  Pflimlin  won  the  party  presidency  in  1956  by  429  votes  to  167  for  a  rival  more  progressive 
on  social  questions,  Francois  de  Menthon :  AP  1956,  p.  55. 


THE  CHRISTIAN  DEMOCRATS  (MRP)  107 

Alsatian  branches  gaining  an  ascendancy  which  might  have  hampered  the 
movement's  appeal  elsewhere;  but  an  indirect  consequence  was  to  weaken 
potential  opposition,  since  in  a  new  and  inexperienced  party  the  large 
federations  -  which  lost  votes  by  the  sliding  scale  -  were  those  likeliest  to 
challenge  the  leadership.6 

The  annual  conference  elected  the  party's  president,  who  was  almost  always 
a  prominent  ex-minister  and  served  for  three  years,  and  the  general  secretary 
whose  tenure  was  unlimited;  Andre  Colin  held  the  latter  office  from  1945 
until  1955  when  he  was  succeeded  by  Ren6  Simonnet.  They  were  assisted  by  a 
bureau  dominated  by  the  leadership.7  The  officers,  chairmen  of  parliamentary 
groups  and  ministers  (or  five  ex-ministers  when  in  opposition)  sat  ex  officio  on 
both  the  national  council  and  executive  committee  and  naturally  carried  great 
weight.  Deputies  and  senators  chose  a  third  of  the  national  council,  which 
elected  twelve  of  them  to  the  executive.  The  national  council  further  co-opted 
twenty-four  militants  and  elected  five  of  these  to  the  executive;  these  were 
unlikely  to  be  opponents  of  the  leadership  and  could  be  members  of  parlia- 
ment or  party  officials.  Thus  rank  and  file  representation  was  severely  re- 
stricted. The  federations  elected  only  about  half  the  national  council,  which  in 
turn  chose  their  eighteen  representatives  on  the  executive  of  fifty-odd  (in  con- 
trast, Socialist  parliamentarians  were  unrepresented  on  the  former  body  and 
limited  to  a  third  of  the  latter).8  Although  ex-officio  members  could  not 
number  more  than  a  fourth  of  the  executive  or  parliamentarians  more  than 
half,  the  rest  were  likely  to  include  few  rebels. 

The  militants  were  kept  in  check  by  the  party's  structure,  but  they  also 
showed  more  docility  (or  team  spirit)  than  had  been  usual  among  their 
Socialist  counterparts.  MRP  conferences  were  dominated  by  ministers  and 
faithfully  supported  their  policies  even  when  these  conflicted  with  party 
orthodoxy  -  or  with  one  another.9  Given  the  strains  on  an  inexperienced  party 
which  very  quickly  lost  half  its  following,  more  internal  dissension  might  have 
been  expected.  But  there  were  naturally  many  defections  among  the  deputies 
in  the  1946  Assembly;  and  voting  discipline  in  Parliament  soon  had  to  be 
relaxed  since  any  attempt  to  coerce  the  Left  minority  would  have  split  the 
party.  During  the  Pinay  government  parliamentary  discipline  collapsed 
altogether;  although  there  was  some  improvement  subsequently,  the  whip  was 
rarely  enforced  on  recalcitrant  politicians  (except  for  spectacular  offences  such 
as  joining  Mendes-France's  cabinet,  and  even  then  the  members  expelled  for 

6.  Duverger,  Parties,  p.  144 ;  but  the  big  working-class  federation  of  Nord  supported  the  Pinay 
government.  Federations  had  a  delegate  for  every  50  members  up  to  200,  every  further  100  up  to 
5,000,  and  every  200  beyond.  Thus  whereas  a  Socialist  federation  with  200  members  had  9 
delegates  and  one  with  2,000  had  81,  MRP  allotted  them  4  and  22  respectively :  Campbell,  no.  47, 
p.  416. 

7.  Six  members  sat  ex  officio ;  in  1951,  of  the  seven  elected  by  the  executive  all  but  one  were 
deputies  and  most  were  ex-ministers.  (The  rank  and  file  were  given  slightly  more  representation 
in  1959.)  On  officers  see  Grosser,  p.  121. 

8.  Until  1956  (above,  p.  93,  on  SFIO).  Federations  had  a  national  council  delegate  for  every 
thousand  members  or  fraction  thereof.  These  could  not  be  M.P.s  (but  could  be  party  officials) ; 
however  their  alternates  might  be  M.P.s,  and  in  ministerial  crises  distant  federations  were  often 
represented  by  their  deputy  -  or  not  at  all,  for  attendance  was  often  as  low  as  half  the  membership: 
Laponce,  p.  375  n.  6. 

9.  Grosser,  pp.  121-4. 

E* 


108  THE  PARTIES 

this  were  soon  readmitted).  For  years  Bidault  was  permitted  to  flout  the  policy 
of  the  party,  though  it  did  refuse  to  support  him  for  the  premiership  during  the 
Fourth  Republic's  final  crisis  in  May  1958.10 

One  original  feature  needs  special  mention.  In  accordance  with  Catholic 
corporatist  ideas  MRP  required  every  federation  to  set  up  groups  (tfquipes) 
from  whose  nominees  the  national  council  co-opted  twelve  representatives. 
These  groups  were  to  organize  women,  youth,  workers,  professions  and 
management  (cadres),  local  councillors,  and  peasants ;  the  last  was  much  the 
most  effective.11  The  workers'  equipe  was  a  potential  nucleus  of  opposition;  at 
the  1953  Paris  conference  it  defeated  the  platform  on  workers'  control  in 
industry,  and  in  1954  it  protested  against  the  expulsion  of  a  left-wing  deputy, 
Andr<§  Denis.  But  disillusioned  militants  in  MRP  were  more  likely  to  leave 
the  party  than  to  remain  rebelliously  within  it.  The  rank  and  file's  solidarity 
and  devotion  to  a  common  cause  enabled  ministers  easily  to  defeat  their 
critics,  but  also  preserved  the  movement  from  the  violent  internal  clashes  so 
common  among  its  rivals. 

Like  those  rivals  MRP  suffered  from  the  general  decline  of  parties.  From 
over  200,000  members  in  1946  it  fell  to  under  100,000  in  1950  and  under 
40,000  in  1957.  UAube  ceased  publication  in  1951 ;  the  total  circulation  of  the 
party's  press  was  then  600,000,  only  half  the  figure  at  the  Liberation.  MRP's 
vote  reached  a  peak  of  5,600,000  in  June  1946.  But  this  too  was  an  artificially 
swollen  figure,  which  fell  by  more  than  half  when  General  de  Gaulle  launched 
his  RPF  a  year  later.  The  remainder  proved  unexpectedly  loyal,  and  in  1951, 
1956  and  1958  alike  the  movement  obtained  nearly  2,400,000  votes  and  about 
11%  of  the  poll.12 

At  the  Liberation  MRP  was  a  youthful  party.  Its  early  congresses  were 
dominated  by  men  in  their  thirties;  in  1946  it  had  the  second  highest  propor- 
tion of  young  deputies  (after  the  Communists)  and  in  1951  the  highest  of  all. 
But  the  gradual  disillusionment  of  many  left-wing  militants  took  its  toll,  and 
little  new  blood  was  brought  in.  By  1960  a  left-wing  Catholic  journalist  could 
describe  MRP  as  the  party  of  a  generation  which  had  come  to  maturity  in  the 
1930's;  its  leaders  were  men  of  45  to  55,  and  their  juniors  were  in  groups  fur- 
ther to  the  Left.13  By  the  end  of  the  Fourth  Republic  the  movement  also 
seemed  to  have  tempered  its  early  (and  relative)  enthusiasm  for  women  can- 
didates. 

Like  other  Christian  Democratic  parties  MRP  included  employers, 
workers  and  peasants.  Its  parliamentary  membership  was  representative  of 
the  country's  political  personnel  as  a  whole,  though  it  included  more  former 

10.  On  MRP  discipline  see  below,  pp.  402-3 ;  MacRae,  no.  149,  pp.  194-203. 

11.  Bosworth,  pp.  246-7;  cf.  R.  Plantade  in  Paysans,  p.  125. 

12.  For  membership,  Fauvet,  Forces,  p.  182,  Dtchiree,  p.  117n.,  and  Les  partis  politiques  dans 
la  France  actuette,  p.  99  (where  he  gives  MRP  450,000  members  in  1947);  Laponce,  pp.  105-6. 
For  the  press,  Bauchard,  no.  9b,  p.  602;  Biton,  p.  135;  but  cf.  J.  Kayser  in  Elections  1956,  p.  85. 
For  votes,  12-3%  in  1951,  11  %  in  1956,  11-8%  at  the  first  ballot  in  1958  (including  500,000  for 
Bidaulfs  dissidents):  Monde,  25  November  1958. 

13.  Suffert,  Les  Catholigues  et  la  Gauche,  pp.  37, 41, 97.  This  is  borne  out  by  the  1956  Assembly 
in  which  55  %  of  MRP  deputies  (but  no  more  than  45  %  of  any  other  party)  were  men  in  their 
forties  -  MRP  having  fewer  old  members,  as  well  as  fewer  young  ones,  than  most  of  its  rivals. 


THE  CHRISTIAN  DEMOCRATS  (MRP)  109 

wage-earners  (and  fewer  lawyers)  than  any  party  but  the  Communists. 
Opinion  polls  suggest  that  among  industrial  workers  MRP  had  less  support 
than  Communists,  Socialists  or  RPF,  but  that  among  white-collar  workers 
(employes)  it  usually  led  the  field.14  Of  the  100,000  members  of  MRP  in  1950, 
these  groups  accounted  for  20%  and  a  further  10%  were  state  employees 
(including  railwaymen).  Five  years  later  the  working-class  element  was  down 
from20%to!5%.15 

The  Church  backed  MRP  strongly  in  the  early  post-war  elections,  but 
became  much  more  reserved  after  1951,  partly  because  the  hierarchy  preferred 
more  conservative  parties.16  Moreover  the  movement  itself  (like  the  German 
CDU)  wished  to  attract  non-Catholics  and  gladly  promoted  the  few  who 
joined  it.  In  the  upper  house  a  Jewish  senator  was  chairman  of  an  important 
committee,  a  Protestant  presided  over  the  MRP  group,  and  in  1959  two  of 
the  four  MRP  senators  from  Bas-Rhin  (which  has  many  Protestant  voters) 
were  practising  adherents  of  that  faith.  But  the  electorate  continued  to  regard 
the  party  as  essentially  Catholic.  In  its  north-eastern  stronghold  MRP  did 
badly  wherever  the  hold  of  the  Catholic  Church  was  weak,  and  where  it  had 
less  support  its  following  was  concentrated  in  districts  noted  for  their  piety.17 
As  religious  observance  is  much  more  widespread  among  women  than  men, 
MRP  was  the  only  party  which  invariably  had  more  female  than  male 
support  at  the  polls.18 

Once  M  RP  shed  its  conservative  fellow-travellers  of  the  Liberation  period, 
this  dependence  on  Church  support  confronted  it  with  the  risk  of  becoming  a 
regional  party  like  PDF  between  the  wars.  Of  the  eighteen  departments  where 
15  %  of  the  electorate  voted  for  it  in  1951,  seven  were  in  the  west  and  four  more 

14.  Among  its  deputies,  wage-earners  were  19*%  in  1951  and  18%  in  1956:  from  Dogan's 
tables  (p.  68n.),  cf.  Williams,  p.  84n.  Polls:  for  1952  ibid.,  p.  452,  citing  Sondagesl9529  no.  3 
(cf.  Appendix  vn)  ;  for  1956  and  1958  Lipset,  pp.  225  and  163.  They  suggest  that  M  RP  took  at 
least  8  %  (more  in  1958)  of  the  industrial  and  about  25  %  Cess  in  1958)  of  the  white-collar  workers 
vote;  had  20%  of  the  peasant  vote  in  1951  and  30%  in  1956-8  ;  and  drew  about  15  %  of  its  total 
support  from  industrial  workers,  a  little  more  from  peasants  and  a  little  less  from  white-collar 
workers  (wives,  who  were  probably  more  pro-  MRP  than  their  husbands,  are  not  included  in 
these  figures  •  and  cf.  p.  68  above  on  the  distinction  between  state  and  private  employees).  These 
polls  must  be  treated  cautiously,  for  when  recalculated  on  a  comparable  basis  they  indicate  some 
wildly  improbable  changes  over  the  years;  I  cite  only  figures  that  ^  "^^""^J; 
They  suggest  that  some  360,000  industrial  workers  voted  MRP;  Bosworth,  pp.  273-4,  gives  an 
estimate  of  150,000  (but  points  out  that  this  was  only  a  fifth  of  C  FTC  )  membership).  ^ 

15.  For  1950,  J.  Fonteneau  (assistant  secretary)  at  the  Lyons  conference:  MRP  a  I  Action 
no   115  (May  1951),  p.  4;  22%  were  engaged  in  commerce  or  industry,  15%  in  agriculture,  8  /o 
Tn  the  professions  or  as  students;  the  rest  were  retired  or  ^hout  occupation  Lehousemves 
For  1955  D  P6py  in  Partis  et  Classes,  pp.  212-14  ;  his  inquiry  covered  a  sample  of  5,000  members. 
Of  them  12  %  were  peasants,  who  formed  only  3  %  of  the  local  and  6  %  of  the  national  leadership  ; 

T6k1L\^  130-2;  Goguel,  Four*  Republic,?.  89  ;  J.  Chariot 

^D^^ 

Toucha^^ 

pp  47,  60  on  Bouches-du-Rhone;  Elections  1956,  pp.  317-18  on  Lyons  ;  ibid.,  pp.  386-7  on  Isere, 

cf  Wvlie  DP  217-18,  and  maps  in  Bosworth,  pp.  345-58. 


pp.  251-2,  and  below,  p.  125n. 


110  THE  PARTIES 

on  the  Franco- German  border.  Thus,  despite  its  original  preference  for  the 
Left,  MRP  found  its  support  coming  from  the  traditionally  conservative 
strongholds  of  the  Church.19  In  1951,  nearly  half  the  MRP  deputies  (37  out  of 
83,  omitting  overseas  members)  came  from  the  west  and  north-east;  in  1956 
the  proportion  reached  three-fifths  (44  out  of  70)  since  the  movement  lost 
seats  in  the  south  but  gained  in  Brittany  and  Alsace.  But  this  was  not  the 
whole  story;  by  increasing  its  vote  outside  its  traditional  strongholds  it  fore- 
shadowed the  resilience  it  was  to  show,  to  its  own  surprise,  in  1958.20 

The  growing  influence  of  young  Catholic  peasant  leaders  was  reflected  in 
the  departmental  councils,  where  MRP  made  gains  at  every  post-war  election. 
By  the  end  of  the  Fourth  Republic  MRP  was  firmly  implanted  in  those  parts 
of  the  French  countryside  where  Catholicism  was  still  a  living  force;  it  had 
built  up  a  network  of  local  councillors  and  rural  militants  who  were  both 
younger  and  more  authentically  agricultural  than  the  small-town  doctors  and 
lawyers  who  had  manned  the  pre-war  Radical  committees.  With  the  help  of 
its  new  notables  MRP  survived  even  the  introduction  of  the  single-member 
constituency  which  it  had  always  feared.21  But  in  the  towns  it  was  another 
story.  In  1958  no  MRP  deputy  was  returned  from  any  of  the  seven  largest 
cities  in  France.22 

3.   CHARACTERISTICS 

MRP's  founders  held  high  ambitions :  to  reconcile  the  workers  to  the  Catholic 
Church  and  the  Church  to  the  Republic,  to  end  the  ancient  quarrel  over 
clericalism  which  was  preventing  national  unity,  and  to  transform  the  quality 
of  French  public  life.  Believing  in  a  plural  society  of  many  independent  social 
groups,  they  found  themselves  in  head-on  opposition  to  the  Jacobin  tradition 
which  still  inspired  most  French  democrats  (from  Gaullists  to  Socialists). 
They  rejected  equally  the  Marxist  collectivism  professed  by  the  Left  and  the 
conservative  individualism  proclaimed  by  the  Right;  and  while  their  ideo- 
logical originality  set  them  apart  from  the  other  parties,  they  were  proud  of  it 
precisely  because  they  believed  it  could  transcend  the  old  divisions.23 
M  RP's  greatest  asset  was  that  its  members  felt  they  had  a  philosophy  and  a 

19.  In  1932  the  Right  won  the  votes  of  45  %  of  the  electorate  in  eight  of  the  18  departments 
and  fell  below  30  %  in  only  three ;  the  Radicals  reached  30  %  in  only  four  and  the  Socialists  and 
Communists  (even  added  together)  in  only  two.  Goguel,  Geographic,  pp.  49,  77  and  113 ;  Pickles, 
no.  177,  p,  178  (for  Radicals  in  1932).  In  1945  a  conservative  Pyrenean  peasant  claimed  he  had 
always  voted  MRP  'like  my  father  and  grandfather' :  d'Aragon  in  Pay  sans,  pp.  502-3. 

20.  In  1956  it  gained  votes  in  30  constituencies  of  which  14  were  in  the  south  (Goguel  in  Elections 
1956,  pp.  486-7)  but  lost  seats  there  because  of  the  electoral  law  (see  Chapter  22).  See  also 
Pierce,  no.  180,  pp.  416-17;  and  Maps  5,  6  and  13. 

21.  For  single-member  seats,  see  Chapter  22.  In  1951  6%  of  MRP  deputies  were  peasants, 
in  1956  12%,  in  1958  17%:  Dogan's  tables  (p.  68n.  and  Elections  1958,  p.  267).  For  MRP's 
success  in  rural  elections,  Goguel  et  al  in  ibid.,  pp.  353-9 ;  R.  Plantade  in  Paysans,  pp.  123-7, 
For  Catholic  rural  organizations,  M.  Faure  in  ibid.,  pp.  345-60;  Fauvet  in  Partis  et  Classes, 
p.  175;  Suffert,  pp.  128-32;  Dansette,  Destin,  pp.  384-90;  Bosworth,  pp.  122-3,  247;  Wright, 
nos.  226,  228;  below,  p.  365. 

22.  In  1958  Paris  had  31  deputies  and  the  six  next  largest  cities  29.  (In  1956  the  capital  had  had 
a  distinctive  electoral  law  which  gave  MRP  seven  members  where  under  the  ordinary  system  it 
would  have  had  none:  see  below,  pp.  313n.,  504.) 

23.  Einaudi  and  Goguel,  pp.  130-2;  Biton,  especially  pp.  83-4;  cf.  Bosworth,  pp.  310-13; 
Fogarty,  Chapters  4-7.  But  see  below,  p.  113. 


THE  CHRISTIAN  DEMOCRATS  (MRP)  111 

purpose  wider  than  electioneering.  Rather  like  the  Communists,  they  dis- 
tinguished between  formal  and  real  democracy;  they  believed  that  political 
parties  should  bridge  the  gap  between  'us'  and  'them'  and  restore  the  broken 
circuit  of  confidence  between  citizen  and  government,  lepeuple  and  lepouvoir. 
They  had  a  strong  sense  of  the  unity  and  mission  of  their  movement  (like  the 
younger  and  less  hidebound  members  of  SFIO,  who  in  the  early  years  con- 
sequently felt  far  closer  to  MRP  than  to  their  traditional  Radical  partners). 
But  as  a  new  and  overwhelmingly  Catholic  party  MRP  had  a  conception  of 
discipline  different  from  that  of  the  more  pragmatic  and  freethinking  Social- 
ists: 'no  longer  a  technique  ...  but  a  kind  of  sacrament'.  In  the  social 
organizations  by  which  the  Church  appealed  to  various  categories  -  youth, 
women,  peasants,  workers,  students  -  they  had  effective  channels  to  approach 
the  masses  with  a  wider  and  deeper  appeal  than  individualist  groups  could 
make.  And  as  individuals  they  were  political  newcomers,  not  long  exposed  to 
the  contagion  of  the  world's  slow  stain.24  Was  it  wholly  accidental  that  when 
the  Paris  parliamentary  correspondents  voted  to  choose  the  most  likeable 
deputy  in  the  1946  Assembly  the  first  three  places  went  to  MRP  members?25 

A  public  penchant  for  righteousness  in  politics  has  its  distasteful  features, 
and  MRP  morality  recalled  the  failings  as  well  as  the  virtues  of  the  British 
Nonconformist  conscience  a  few  decades  earlier.  Its  adherents  often  displayed 
a  real  concern  for  the  standards  of  public  life,  a  political  vision  not  limited  to 
personal  careerism,  a  willingness  to  allow  idealism  and  imagination  to  intrude 
even  into  foreign  affairs,  an  appreciation  of  problems,  like  the  scourge  of 
alcoholism,  that  fell  outside  the  well-worn  party  grooves.  On  the  other  hand 
their  policies  were  often  both  restrictive  and  unrealistic.  Some  of  them 
betrayed  an  illiberal  desire  to  impose  minority  moral  standards  on  their 
fellow-citizens,  and  a  short-sighted  weakness  for  unenforceable  legislation 
(against,  for  example,  prostitutes  and  pastis)  which  either  drove  these  social 
evils  underground  or  was  so  openly  flouted  as  to  bring  the  law  into  contempt. 
On  wider  issues,  too,  they  were  prone  to  exaggerate  the  importance  of  formal 
structures  and  to  view  institutions  as  ends  in  themselves  irrespective  of  the 
forces  controlling  them.  This  tendency  was  particularly  marked  over  the 
problem  of  Europe. 

MRP's  championship  of  European  integration  was  passionate,  if  somewhat 
belated.  In  1945  the  movement  was  proud  of  its  *  national'  -  not  to  say 
nationalist  -  foreign  policy  and  contemptuous  of  the  Socialists'  more  liberal 
(and  more  realistic)  attempts  to  modify  French  attitudes  towards  Germany. 
But  in  1950,  after  years  of  steady  retreat  under  Allied  pressure,  the  Schuman 
plan  restored  initiative  to  Paris.  MRP  now  gave  a  warm  welcome  to  European 

24.  In  1945  62%  of  MRP  candidates  had  held  no  previous  elective  post  nationally  or  locally, 
compared  with  56%  of  Communists,  48%  of  Radicals,  43%  of  Socialists  (the  Conservatives  had 
to  put  forward  new  men  since  most  of  the  old  ones  were  ineligible,  having  supported  Vichy) : 
calculated  from  Husson,  i.  xxii.  See  also  Melnik  and  Leites,  p.  82  (discipline);  Fauvet,  no.  89, 
pp.  13-14  (purpose,  SFIO),  cf.  P.  Cot  in  ibid.,  p.  62n.;  Duverger,  Demain,  pp.  24-6,  50-4,  66 
(circuit  of  confidence). 

25.  Monde,  3  May  1951.  Or  that  MRP  was  the  only  party  to  choose  its  typists  for  competence 
rather  than  beauty?:  Isorni,  Silence,  p.  182.  Or  that  it  alone  tried  to  meet  Poujadist  pressure 
honestly  and  not  demagogically? :  Hoffmann,  p.  371n.,  Guy,  Le  Cas  Poujade,  pp.  128-43  (quoting 
each  party's  reply).  In  Wylie's  village  only  MRP  voters  trusted  their  leaders :  pp.  217-18,  221. 


112  THE  PARTIES 

economic  association,  and  quickly  became  the  chief  defender  of  the  European 
army  proposal  which  soon  followed.  When  EDC  was  defeated  Mend&s- 
France,  to  satisfy  the  Allies,  accepted  the  restoration  of  a  German  army; 
MRP  leaders  denounced  *  Mendes-Wehrmacht '  with  a  venom  which  suggested 
either  an  excessive  confidence  in  the  formal  safeguards  provided  by  ED C  or  a 
violent  underlying  anti-Germanism  -  or  else  a  tactical  unscrupulousness  un- 
edifying  in  a  movement  so  accustomed  to  parade  its  superior  moral  standards. 
But  for  many  MRP  leaders  Europe  had  by  this  time  become  a  psychological 
necessity.  They  could  promise  themselves  that  they  would  now  accomplish 
within  a  new  framework  the  social  and  political  advances  they  had  once  in- 
tended to  achieve  at  home  and  in  the  empire.26 

A  substitute  for  lost  hopes  was  the  more  needed  because  the  failures  had  so 
largely  been  MRP's  own  fault.  In  1946  Georges  Bidault,  by  frustrating  the 
attempt  to  create  a  federal  French  Union,  had  exasperated  nationalists  from 
Casablanca  to  Hanoi.  Then  for  seven  years  Paul  Coste-Floret  and  Jean 
Letourneau  presided  over  Indo-Chinese  affairs  while  incompetence,  corrup- 
tion and  political  blindness  rotted  the  French  position  away  -  and  the  party 
supported  them  throughout  from  a  strong  sense  of  personal  loyalty,  combined 
perhaps  with  concern  for  the  Catholics  of  Tonkin.  In  North  Africa  it  was 
Radicals  and  right-wingers  who  obstructed  reforms  and  demanded  repression 
most  vociferously.  But  Maurice  Schumann  succumbed  to  their  pressure  over 
Tunisia  in  1951  and  Georges  Bidault  over  Morocco  in  1953,  and  by  1956  the 
chief  critics  of  these  policies  within  the  movement  had  all  been  eliminated  (for 
other  reasons).  Yet,  conscious  of  the  purity  of  their  own  intentions  and  con- 
fident of  those  of  their  leaders,  MRP  members  bitterly  resented  such  criti- 
cisms -  for,  again  like  Nonconformists,  they  were  naively  surprised  to  find 
that  in  politics  even  the  most  well-meaning  men  and  movements  are  judged  by 
results. 

MRP's  success  had  been  too  rapid  for  its  own  good,  and  its  early  illusions 
were  soon  shattered.  The  enormous  tail  of  voters  who  shared  none  of  the 
movement's  constructive  aims  had  made  it  the  largest  party  in  France  and 
confronted  its  inexperienced  leaders  with  crushing  responsibilities.  During  the 
ten  years  after  the  Liberation  MRP  was  in  office  for  all  but  a  month.  No 
wonder  it  was  described  as  having  *  the  soul  of  an  opponent  but  the  body  of  a 
joiner'.  With  SFIO  it  occupied  the  Radicals'  old  pivotal  position  in  French 
politics;  the  Catholic  democrats  were  almost  as  indispensable  to  every 
majority  as  the  conservative  anticlericals  had  once  been.  But  a  movement 
which  was  constantly  exposing  its  conscience  in  public,  whatever  its  merits 
and  services,  was  unlikely  to  facilitate  the  smooth  working  of  the  political 
machinery.27  For  politicians  concerned  with  power  rather  than  principles 
could  change  allies  more  easily  than  men  acutely  conscious  of  their  mission; 
an  organization  manipulated  by  a  few  leaders  had  a  freer  hand  than  one  in- 
fluenced, however  intermittently,  by  a  militant  rank  and  file;  an  old  party 
with  a  tradition  of  co-operating  alternately  with  Right  and  Left  found  willing 

26.  Cf.  Grosser,  pp.  124-7,  193 ;  also  206,  214-15,  325-6. 

27.  "...  no  possible  majority  with  them  or  without  them' :  Siegfried,  De  la  HI0,  p.  192  (cf.  ibid., 
pp.  163-4).  They  felt  'persecuted  and  hoodwinked',  'troubled  and  anxious',  and  were  prone  to 
'feverish  examinations  of  conscience' :  Melnik  and  Leites,  pp.  45-6,  54-5,  cf.  172-3. 


THE  CHRISTIAN  DEMOCRATS  (MRP)  113 

partners  more  readily  than  a  new  movement  which  prided  itself  on  its  original- 
ity of  doctrine  and  outlook. 

The  traditional  parties  were  slow  and  reluctant  to  accept  MRP  as  a 
political  ally  or  even  admit  its  right  to  exist  at  all.28  The  MRP  militants  who 
despised  and  rebelled  against  the  traditional  Conservatives  were  forced  into 
unwilling  association  with  them  by  the  reticence  of  more  desirable  partners. 
For  at  the  Liberation  the  Resistance  dream  of  co-operation  with  the  Com- 
munists was  shattered  by  their  denunciation  of  the  Machine  a  Ramasser  les 
Petainistes  and  their  revival  of  the  old  clerical  quarrel  in  order  to  drive  MRP 
to  the  Right.  The  alliance  with  the  Socialists  lasted  until  1951,  when  it  was 
destroyed  by  the  Right's  exploitation  of  the  same  dispute;  but  the  Socialists 
had  never  been  happy  with  it,  were  delighted  at  the  opportunity  to  break  it  off, 
and  were  adamant  in  rejecting  MRP's  attempts  to  renew  it  four  years  later. 
The  old-style  Radicals  were  MRP's  antithesis,  and  though  their  spokesmen 
sat  with  MRP's  leaders  in  many  cabinets  they  could  never  work  together 
comfortably.  The  Gaullists  blamed  MRP  for  deserting  the  General  in  1946 
and  frustrating  the  RPF  campaign  in  later  years;  MRP  members  in  turn 
feared  Gaullist  obstruction  of  the  European  integration  programme  to  which 
they  had  sacrificed  so  much.  The  defeat  of  ED  C  was  also  the  decisive  count  in 
their  indictment  against  Mendes-France,  whose  new  radicalism  MRP 
denounced  as  fraudulent  and  reactionary  in  social,  constitutional,  electoral 
and  foreign  affairs  alike.29  Yet  perhaps  they  found  it  hardest  of  all  to  forgive 
him  for  trying  to  play  the  progressive,  regenerating  role  in  which  they  had 
once  cast  themselves ;  for  reproducing  their  former  attacks  against  a  '  System' 
to  which  they  now  belonged;  for  appealing  to  the  very  groups  -  youth, 
women,  progressive  Catholics  -  which  they  had  once  hoped  to  make  their  own; 
and  for  attracting  a  popular  enthusiasm  and  confidence  which  their  own 
leaders  had  failed  to  arouse.30 

MRP  deputies  (and  especially  potential  ministers)  were  always  more 
impressed  than  the  militants  with  the  advantages  of  participation  in  govern- 
ment. Their  hold  on  the  party  was  secured  not  only  by  its  organizational  struc- 
ture but  also  by  the  increasing  weight  of  its  conservative-minded  electorate  in 
the  west  and  north-east.  The  left  wing  suffered  repeated  frustrations,  and  in 
1956  a  million  Catholic  votes  were  thought  to  have  gone  to  the  Republican 
Front.  MRP  was  then  widely  written  off  as  a  party  of  'Christian  Radicals' 
who  had  abandoned  their  principles  for  the  sake  of  power.  Frangois  Mauriac 
attacked  its  'spiritual  bankruptcy'  and  accused  it  of  developing  ea  holy 
patience.  It  knows  how  to  wait,  and  while  waiting  it  installs  itself . .  .'31 

28.  Einaudi  and  Goguel,  pp.  214-18  (and  see  above,  pp.  97-8). 

29.  For  a  content  analysis  of  electoral  themes  and  vocabulary  showing  that  MRP  and  Radicals 
had  few  common  concerns  and  no  common  language,  A.  Touraine  in  Elections  1956,  pp.  298-9, 
302.  On  their  instinctive  mutual  antagonism  cf.  Melnik  and  Leites,  pp.  96,  162,  250;  Einaudi  and 
Goguel,  pp.  216-17;  and  below,  p.  437. 

30.  For  a  similar  view  see  Grosser,  p.  307,  and  in  Elections  1956,  pp.  1 16-17. 

31.  L'Express,  14  May  1959 ;  quoted  Bosworth,  p.  259.  'Bankruptcy' :  Terre  humaine,  Septem- 
ber 1953,  pp.  6-10.  Cf.  Duverger,  Parties,  p.  188;  Hoffmann,  no.  125,  p.  816:  '. . .  in  practice 
everything  that  gave  MRP  its  ideological  originality  has  been  hidden  under  a  bushel  for  the  last 
ten  years'.  Suffert,  p.  44,  describes  the  typical  MRP  outlook  more  kindly  as  that  of  *  a  conserva- 
tive in  a  changing  world*.  On  1956  see  below,  p.  173. 


114  THE  PARTIES 

Yet  behind  the  parliamentary  fagade  the  movement  was  slowly  acquiring 
the  local  roots  it  had  formerly  lacked.  The  new  generation  of  young  Catholics 
was  no  less  civic-minded  but  much  less  conservative  than  its  predecessors. 
Within  CFTC,  leadership  passed  in  1957  to  the  young  progressives  of  the 
former  opposition,  the  Reconstruction  group.32  Young  Catholics  rose  to  local 
leadership  in  the  peasant  organizations.  The  authorities  of  the  Church  in  (or, 
more  commonly,  outside)  France  could  sometimes  hamper  and  even  destroy 
their  organizations  -  such  as  A  C  J  F  -  but  they  could  only  check  the  movement, 
not  reverse  it.33  After  the  collapse  of  Mendesism,  many  of  this  generation 
were  driven  back  to  MRP  because  they  found  the  alternatives  on  the  Left 
even  more  unsatisfactory.  Their  conditional  support  enabled  the  movement 
to  weather  the  storm  in  1958  more  successfully  than  either  its  friends  or  its 
enemies  had  ever  expected.  But  the  combination  of  progressive  militants  and 
conservative  voters  remained  precarious  in  the  new  Republic  as  in  the  old. 

32.  Suffert,  pp.  89-91,  95-7;  Rioux,  pp.  88-96;  cf.  Barnes,  no.  9a;  Lorwin,  pp.  170,  294-8; 
Bosworth,  pp.  266-78, 323-8.  _  ^  ^  . 

33  Ibid*  passim,  especially  pp.  57-65,  90-3,  106-8,  162-3,  198-9,  323;  Dansette,  Destm, 
Chapters  6  and  8;  Suffert,  pp.  38-41,  111-13,  116-20;  Grosser,  pp.  160,  179-82;  Remond,  nos. 
187-88  (summarized  pp.  819-20) ;  Jussieu,  no.  130,  pp.  1 16-25 ;  on  peasants,  n.  21  above. 


Chapter  9 
THE  RADICAL  PARTY 

1.   HISTORY 

The  oldest  political  party  in  France  is  a  conservative-minded  organization 
'which  still  calls  itself  "Radical-Socialist",  in  pious  memory  of  its  impetuous 
youth'.1  Radical  politicians  had  acted  as  a  group  from  the  early  days  of  the 
Third  Republic.  Based  on  Paris  and  adhering  to  the  Jacobin  traditions  of  the 
capital,  they  advocated  sweeping  constitutional  reforms  including  abolition 
of  the  Presidency  and  Senate  and  election  of  judges.  In  their  struggle  to 
democratize  French  institutions  and  weaken  the  power  of  the  Church  and  the 
landowners,  they  saw  the  few  industrial  workers  and  their  socialist  spokesmen 
as  potential  allies. 

In  the  last  years  of  the  century,  at  the  time  of  the  Boulanger  and  Dreyfus 
crises,  the  character  of  Radicalism  underwent  a  rapid  change.  Industry  spread 
quickly,  especially  around  Paris ;  the  suburban  proletariat  grew  in  numbers, 
power  and  aggressiveness;  and  for  the  first  time  the  capital  itself  began  voting 
for  the  Right.  In  retreat  from  the  cities,  the  Radicals  still  found  a  welcome 
among  the  middle  class  of  the  small  towns  and  villages:  the  schoolteachers 
and  shopkeepers,  country  doctors  and  lawyers  who  acted  as  the  spokesmen  of 
the  inarticulate  peasantry.  These  rural  and  small-town  notables  claimed  to 
defend  the  little  man  against  the  big,  the  constituencies  against  the  bureau- 
cracy, the  provinces  against  Paris.  They  distrusted  all  organized  power,  whether 
wielded  by  governments  or  landlords,  bishops  or  generals.  Their  outlook, 
vocabulary  and  enmities  were  derived  from  the  Revolution  of  1789,  and  despite 
the  growing  strength  of  Socialism  these  traditions  bound  them  to  the  Left. 

In  1 90 1 ,  during  the  battle  over  the  Dreyfus  case,  the  Parti  republicain  radical 
et  radical-socialiste  was  officially  constituted.  In  itself  this  step  had  no  great 
consequences,  for  the  organization  remained  highly  localized  in  the  country 
and  poorly  disciplined  in  Parliament;  there  was  no  one  official  Radical  group 
until  1910  in  the  Chamber,  or  ever  in  the  Senate.  Nevertheless  Radicalism 
attained  its  peak  of  power  and  cohesion  at  this  period,  for  the  adherence  of 
freemasonry  -  hitherto  predominantly  favourable  to  the  moderate  republicans 
-  gave  new  and  solid  backing  to  the  isolated  election  committees  of  the  small 
towns.  Against  the  priests  and  soldiers  the  Radicals  joined  forces  with  the 
Socialists  whom  Jaures  had  rallied  to  defend  the  Republic,  and  moved  on  to 
their  greatest  triumph,  the  separation  of  Church  and  State.  Yet  this  victory 
was  to  undermine  the  foundations  of  their  strength,  for  by  taking  much  of  the 
bitterness  out  of  the  clerical  quarrel  it  weakened  the  party's  main  source  of 
ideological  vitality.  Henceforward  the  intellectual  sterility  of  Radicalism  was 
to  be  a  commonplace  of  political  commentators.2 

1.  Luthy,  p.  166. 

2.  On  the  early  period,  Kayser,  Les  grandes  bataittes  du  radicalisms ;  on  organization,  Bardon- 
net,  pp.  141n.,  144-8;  on  freemasonry,  ibid.,  pp.  228-42,  and  Duverger,  Parties,  p.  149;  on  the 
effects  of  the  separation,  Thibaudet,  Professeurs,  pp.  182-3,  193-4,  and  Idles,  pp.  47,  82-3,  120, 
153-5, 


116  THE  PARTIES 

Tliis  defeat  of  the  Right  also  loosened  the  ties  between  Radicals  and 
Socialists.  Comfortably  installed  within  the  institutions  of  the  state,  the 
Radicals  became  less  eager  for  their  reform ;  there  was  no  point  crusading  for 
the  abolition  of  a  Senate  which  Radicals  dominated/Moreover  the  revival  of 
working-class  militancy  confronted  them  for  the  first  time  with  an  organized 
power  -  and  therefore  an  enemy  -  that  threatened  them  from  the  Left.  In  1906, 
a  year  after  the  foundation  of  S  FI O  and  the  separation  of  Church  and  State, 
the  trade  unions  adopted  the  revolutionary  syndicalist  Charter  of  Amiens.  By 
1907  Jaures  was  bitterly  condemning  Clemenceau  when  as  prime  minister  the 
former  enfant  terrible  of  the  Left  used  the  power  of  government  to  deny  the 
right  to  strike.3 

The  growth  of  Socialism  provoked  among  the  Radicals  a  conflict  between 
their  traditions  and  their  interests  which  divided  the  party.  The  provincial 
committeemen  had  no  love  for  Clemenceau.  His  'proconsular'  brand  of 
Radicalism,  energetic,  nationalist  and  authoritarian,  derived  from  an  authen- 
tic Jacobin  strain.  But  the  comitardsweiQ  cautious  traditionalists  who  suspected 
organized  power;  their  vision  was  bounded  by  the  horizon  of  their  constitu- 
encies, and  for  many  of  them  politics  was  an  eternal  round  of  petty  local 
jobbery  and  intrigue  which  ensured  electoral  triumph  -  and  so  gave  new 
opportunities  for  jobbery  and  intrigue.  They  overthrew  Clemenceau  in  1909; 
eight  years  later  he  had  his  revenge.  At  the  crisis  of  the  war  he  swept  the  party 
aside  and  brought  two  of  its  leaders,  Caillaux  and  Malvy,  to  trial  for  defeatist 
activities.  But  when  he  stood  for  the  presidency  in  1920  the  Radicals  defeated 
him  through  the  safe  secrecy  of  the  parliamentary  ballot,  and  in  the  1924  election 
Herriot  reverted  to  the  old  Socialist  alliance.  The  Cartel  des  Gauches  was  re- 
turned to  power  -  and  Clemenceau  commented  scornfully,  *0  plus  0  plus  0 
equals  0.  '4 

Radical  parliamentary  strength  was  swollen  by  the  double  ballot  electoral 
system,  for  the  party  profited  by  championing  progress  against  reaction  in 
some  regions,  moderation  against  revolution  in  others.  Some  Radicals  there- 
fore owed  their  election  to  Socialist  votes  at  the  second  ballot  and  others  to 
Conservative  support.  By  balancing  in  the  middle  of  the  electoral  seesaw  the 
party  gained  seats  but  lost  cohesion ;  there  was  permanent  tension  between  the 
two  wings.  The  Left  relied  on  the  militants  in  the  country  and  predominated 
at  election  times.  The  Right  were  reinforced  by  the  Radical  senators,  who 
were  older  than  their  Chamber  colleagues  and  not  answerable  to  a  popular 
electorate;  their  point  of  view  prevailed  on  budgetary  and  financial  matters. 
The  Socialist-Radical  alliances  of  1924,  1932  and  1936  all  collapsed  within 
two  years,  usually  over  finance  (though  the  last  was  further  strained  by  the 
exigencies  of  a  third  partner,  the  Communists). 

Acting  as  a  buffer  between  more  positive  and  dynamic  forces,  the  Radicals 
facilitated  transitions  whenever  the  balance  of  power  shifted.  These  old 
enemies  of  central  authority  now  sought  to  enter  every  government;  in  par- 
ticular they  always  coveted  and  usually  controlled  the  ministry  of  the  interior. 

3.  Priouret,  Ddputts,  pp.  204-20;  M.  Agulhon  in  George  et  al,  Baritieue,  pp.  51-5,  for  the 
striking  suddenness  of  the  change  among  Radicals  in  one  locality,  Bobigny. 

4.  Thibaudet,  Idtes,  pp.  143,  147-51, 


THE  RADICAL  PARTY  117 

Daladier  in  1934  led  one  cabinet  which  the  Socialists  supported  and  the  Con- 
servatives opposed,  in  1938  another  which  was  favoured  by  the  Right  and 
attacked  by  the  Left;  in  between,  his  party  had  belonged  to  Conservative 
governments  until  the  1936  election  approached,  then  switched  to  the  Popular 
Front.  By  joining  each  combination  and  moderating  each  swing  of  the 
pendulum  the  Radicals  made  government  workable  in  a  deeply  divided  land. 
But  they  did  not  offer  strong  leadership  for  a  dangerous  period. 

Although  at  the  top  they  had  become  a  governmental  party,  in  the  country 
they  were  still  dedicated  to  protecting  the  humble  citizen  against  overweening 
authority  and  the  simple  provincial  against  the  wily  Parisian.  These  pre- 
dilections limited  the  leaders'  breadth  of  view  and  reduced  their  freedom  of 
manoeuvre.  Radical  militants  and  deputies  were  devoted  to  the  single-member 
constituency  which  restricted  the  politician's  horizon;  Radical  ministers  were 
often  inhibited  from  vigorous  action  by  the  traditions  and  habits  of  mind  of  a 
party  which  preferred  weak  and  conformist  leaders  to  strong  personalities. 

In  1930  Siegfried  called  the  Radicals  the  true  conservatives  of  France, 
representative  of  all  the  backward  elements  in  her  life:  the  small  towns,  the 
regions  unaffected  by  industrialization,  the  political  traditionalists.6  This  party 
for  quiet  times  was  utterly  unsuited  to  the  crises  of  the  thirties  and  the  trials  of 
the  German  occupation.  The  great  majority  of  Radical  parliamentarians  sup- 
ported Munich  and  voted  for  P6tain  (though  26  of  his  80  opponents  were 
Radicals).  Herriot  and  Daladier  were  deported  to  Germany  and  some  well- 
known  Radicals  were  killed  by  the  Germans  or  the  French  fascists;  but  the 
party's  contribution  to  the  Resistance  was  not  very  impressive. 

In  the  unfamiliar  world  of  1945  the  Radicals  were  at  a  grave  disadvantage. 
Their  failure  of  leadership  both  before  and  during  the  war  had  cost  them  the 
support  or  confidence  of  many  of  their  followers  (in  the  1945  referendum  two- 
thirds  of  their  remaining  voters  repudiated  the  constitutional  regime  under 
which  the  party  had  flourished).6  To  the  new  groups  which  had  come  to 
political  activity  through  the  war  and  the  Resistance  -  youth,  workers,  pro- 
gressive Catholics  -  their  outlook  seemed  decadent  and  outmoded.  They 
avowed  their  preference  for  the  old  press,  constitution  and  electoral  law  at  a 
time  when  these  were  condemned  by  the  public  as  dangerous  or  demoralizing 
political  influences. 

New  legal  conditions  also  hampered  them.  A  party  based  on  distrust  of 
organized  power  was  severely  handicapped  in  the  new  regime  of  disciplined 
political  units  backed  by  strong  social  organizations  such  as  the  trade  unions 
or  the  Catholic  Church.  More  than  any  of  their  rivals  the  Radicals  had  relied 
on  the  personal  influence  of  local  notables  and  individual  politicians;  they 
could  no  longer  exploit  this  asset  since  most  parliamentarians  who  had  voted 
for  P&ain  -  though  still  in  good  standing  with  the  party  -  were  (until  1953) 
barred  by  law  from  any  public  position.  Under  legislation  which  the  Radicals 
bitterly  criticized,  many  of  their  newspapers  changed  hands.  A  new  electoral 

5.  France,  pp.  78-9 ;  Tableau,  pp.  159-61.  On  the  last  few  paragraphs  also  France,  pp.  36-8, 
59-60;  D.  Hal6vy,  La  Ripublique  des  comitts  (1934),  pp.  46,  96-7,  165;  and  on  provincialism, 
Bardonnet,  pp.  26-7,  and  De  Tarr,  The  French  Radical  Party,  pp.  18-19. 

6  See  above,  p.  20,  and  Appendix  v.  Opinion  polls  showed  Radical  voters  as  the  least  satis- 
fied with  their  leaders :  see  Sondages,  1948,  pp.  225  and  240;  1952,  no.  2,  p.  6;  cf.  Appendix  vn. 


118  THE  PARTIES 

law,  offering  no  scope  for  alliances,  prevented  them  from  reaping  their  usual 
profit  from  contradictory  combinations  in  different  areas.  They  could  no 
longer  prevent  women  getting  the  vote  (a  change  which  they  had  always 
feared  would  strengthen  the  influence  of  the  priests).  At  local  elections  early 
in  1945  the  party  did  so  badly  that  in  the  autumn  its  supporters,  fearing  to 
waste  their  votes,  turned  elsewhere  to  stop  the  Communists.7 

Yet  simultaneously  the  Radical  leaders  were  conducting  a  strange  flirtation 
with  the  Communists  themselves,  which  was  based  on  a  common  dislike  of 
plebiscites  and  distrust  of  General  de  Gaulle.  In  the  referendum  campaign  of 
October  1945  the  two  parties  advocated  opposite  answers  to  the  first  question 
(a  new  constitution)  but  the  same  negative  reply  to  the  second  (limited  powers 
for  the  Constituent  Assembly).  Since  the  campaign  centred  on  the  second 
question,  the  Radicals  and  Communists  made  an  unofficial  non-aggression 
pact  for  the  general  election  held  on  the  same  day.8 

At  that  election  most  of  the  party  leaders  were  beaten  and  only  two  dozen 
seats  were  saved.  The  Radicals  belatedly  accommodated  their  tactics  to  the 
hated  new  electoral  system  which  favoured  strong  parties,  especially  where 
smaller  competitors  multiplied  opposing  candidatures.  In  April  1946  a 
Radical-UDSR  alliance  was  announced,  and  in  November  the  Radicals 
negotiated  a  pact  with  the  new  Conservative  party  (PRL)  by  which  each 
refrained  from  contesting  a  number  of  departments.  Within  a  year  they  had 
switched  from  friendship  with  the  extreme  Left  to  friendship  with  the  extreme 
Right.9  The  new  combination  added  very  little  to  their  vote  but  much  to  their 
parliamen  tary  strength. 

Since  electoral  success  was  always  their  object,  the  sudden  rise  of  RPF 
swept  most  Radicals  along  with  it.  In  the  elections  for  town  councils  in  1947 
and  the  second  chamber  in  1948  most  Radical  candidates  sought  Gaullist 
support  by  accepting  the  RPF  label  -  a  device,  as  the  sequel  showed,  for 
emergency  use  only.  Older  leaders  like  Herriot  always  remained  suspicious  of 
generals  in  politics,  and  in  1951  they  at  last  persuaded  the  party  to  forbid  the 
*  bigamy '  by  which  its  members  could  simultaneously  belong  to  RPF.  But  the 
attractions  of  Gaullism  had  already  diminished  before  sentence  was  pro- 
nounced, and  most  of  the  'bigamists '  had  long  since  returned  to  their  original 
hearth;  Paul  Giacobbi,  the  first  chairman  of  the  RPF  inter-group  in  the 
Assembly,  entered  the  government  in  1950  to  draft  the  electoral  reform  which 
was  to  blight  Gaullist  hopes.  In  the  1951  election  three-quarters  of  the  Radical 
deputies  won  their  seats  in  alliance  with  Socialists  and  MRP.10 

In  the  new  Parliament  the  party  again  formed  an  intermittent  part  of  every 
majority  and  a  permanent  component  of  every  ministry.  In  1952-54  three 
conservative-minded  premiers  were  elected  with  solid  Radical  support;  the 

7.  Goguel  in  Uinfluence  des  syst&mes  tlectoraux  sur  la  vie  politique  (henceforth  cited  as 
Systbrnes  Mectoraux),  pp.  80-1.  On  the  press  law  see  below,  p.  392. 

8.  De  Tarr,  pp.  43-6. 

9.  'They  sleep  with  everybody  but  no  longer  reproduce' ;  quoted  Wright,  no.  227,  p.  6.  For  the 
electoral  system  see  below,  pp.  309-10;  for  UDSR,  below,  pp.  174-6;  for  the  PRL  pact, 
Priouret,  Partis,  p,  106. 

10.  Of  the  78  Radical  and  allied  members  for  French  constituencies  58  were  elected  in  alliance 
with  these  Third  Force  parties,  3  in  alliance  with  RPF,  and  17  in  opposition  to  both.  On  Radicals 
and  RPF  see  De  Tarr,  Chapter  6.  See  also  below,  p.  121. 


THE  RADICAL  PARTY  119 

last  of  them,  Laniel,  was  overthrown  by  the  defection  of  one  wing  of  the  party. 
Earlier  and  later  left-centre  cabinets  (both  led  by  Radicals)  were  upset  by  the 
revolt  of  another  faction.  Of  the  four  Radical  premiers  in  this  Parliament, 
Edgar  Faure  was  elected  in  1952  with  Socialist  votes,  Ren6  Mayer  in  1953  by  a 
conservative  majority,  Pierre  Mendes-France  in  1954  with  temporary  Com- 
munist and  consistent  Socialist  support,  and  Edgar  Faure  again  in  1955  in 
opposition  to  the  entire  Left  -  even  though  he  had  been  a  leading  colleague  of 
Mendes-France.  'In  a  single  month,  one  Radical  leader  was  thrown  out  of 
office  by  another  and  replaced  by  a  third.  The  founder  of  the  party  was  surely 
Judas,  not  Gambetta.'11  But  the  Radicals  themselves  were  disconcerted  by 
these  speedy  acrobatic  turns  -  which  always  seemed  to  end  on  the  Right. 
During  1955  Mendes-France  led  a  growing  demand  for  a  more  progressive 
policy,  democratic  party  organization,  and  rigid  discipline.  This  pressure 
brought  about  a  revolution  and  then  a  reaction  within  the  party  which  went 
far  to  destroy  it  as  an  eifective  political  force.  These  events  are  discussed  in 
Section  4. 

2.   ORGANIZATION  AND  FOLLOWING 

The  paper  structure  of  the  Radical  party  had  some  superficial  resemblance  to 
that  of  its  rivals  but  bore  even  less  relation  to  reality.  The  lowest  territorial 
unit  was  the  committee  (comitf)  based  on  the  commune  or  canton,  and  above 
it  were  departmental  and  sometimes  regional  federations,  the  strongest  being 
that  of  south-western  France.  The  committees  differed  from  the  sections  of 
other  parties  in  being  entirely  self-sufficient;  indeed  the  party  itself  had  been 
formed  by  bringing  existing  comites  together.12  The  federations  enjoyed  full 
independence  in  choosing  candidates  and  election  tactics,  and  could  not  be 
used  as  an  instrument  of  pressure  by  the  centre  against  the  deputy;  neverthe- 
less they  were  suspected  and  feared  by  Radical  members  of  parliament  lest 
they  interfere  with  the  politician's  cherished  freedom  of  action.13 

Membership  was  open  to  individuals,  organizations  and  newspapers  sup- 
porting the  party's  nebulous  doctrines.  (However,  in  later  years  few  news- 
papers retained  their  membership.14)  Since  the  rules  governing  conference 
membership  were  very  vague,  the  admission  of  individual  members  made  it 
easy  for  conferences  to  be  packed.  Important  Radical  elus  (members  of  parlia- 
ment and  of  major  local  councils)  attended  ex  officio.  Local  parties  sent  an 
indeterminate  number  of  delegates  (in  practice  only  the  well-off).  Any  paid-up 

11.  Fauvet,  Cockpit,  p,  27,  D6chir6e>  p.  23.  Mendes-France  was  overthrown  by  Mayer  and 
succeeded  by  Faure  (cf.  below,  p.  127). 

12.  Effective  committees  might  have  80  members  and  30  or  40  attending  monthly  meetings; 
Mendes-France's  committee  at  Louviers  numbered  117  and  that  at  nearby  Evreux,  300.  But  many 
committees  were  phantom.  Allen,  no.  2,  pp.  449-50;  cf.  Bardonnet,  p.  38. 

13.  Ibid.,  pp.  33-42,  53-62,  63  n.141,  67-8.  Thibaudet  says  the  committees  acted  as  'brakes 
rather  than  motors'  and  'miniature  senates'  (stnaticuks] :  Id6es,  p.  141.  On  the  federations* 
financial  autonomy  see  Allen,  loc.  cit.  Because  of  it,  national  headquarters  could  be  small,  and 
in  1929  its  budget  (not  published  in  the  Fourth  Republic)  was  only  a  tenth  of  the  Socialist  figure : 
Hatevy,  pp.  191-2. 

14.  On  their  former  importance,  Duverger,  Parties,  p.  150;  Bardonnet,  pp.  32-3 ;  F.  Goguel  in 
Encyclopddie  politique,  i.  323-4.  (The  late  M.  Kayser  told  me  that  the  journals  of  Patendtre  and 
Laval  did  not  belong  to  the  party  and  these  politicians  owed  their  influence  upon  it  to  other 
sources.) 


120  THE  PARTIES 

member  could  buy  a  special  card ;  factions  tried  to  have  conferences  held  in  a 
favourable  region  so  that  their  supporters  could  attend,  and  leaders  bought 
cards  for  distribution  to  sympathizers  -  not  always  party  members  -  who 
could  shout  and  demonstrate,  though  not  (in  theory)  vote.  There  was  wide 
scope  for  fraud:  'card-votes,  proxies  and  obscure  voting  rules  . . .  allow  very 
small  groups  to  neutralize,  if  necessary,  the  wishes  of  the  conference'.15 

The  national  council  (comite  extcutif)  was  supposed  to  organize  con- 
ferences and  decide  electoral  and  disciplinary  matters.  On  it  ttus  outnumbered 
rank  and  file  representatives  by  at  least  three  to  one.  Members  of  parliament 
dominated  both  by  personal  prestige  and  because  meetings  were  held  in  Paris; 
only  if  the  quorum  was  not  reached  (and  it  was  only  150  out  of  a  total  varying 
from  1,200  to  2,000)  were  decisions  referred  to  another  session  to  which  'the 
provincial  members  shall  be  summoned'  (sic).  Nevertheless  from  1946  to  1955 
the  party  leaders  preferred  to  work  through  the  executive  committee  of  seventy 
(then  called  the  commission  executive,  before  and  since  known  as  the  bureau), 
whose  weekly  meetings  were  attended  on  the  average  by  only  twenty  members 
-  among  whom  party  officials  and  members  of  parliament  or  of  ministerial 
cabinets  were  naturally  much  more  numerous  than  representatives  of  the 
provincial  rank  and  file.  Tactics  in  ministerial  crises  were  decided  by  a  joint 
sitting  of  the  executive  and  the  deputies  called,  from  the  town  whose  delegate 
proposed  its  establishment  in  1917,  the  'Cadillac  committee';  it  too  was 
dominated  by  parliamentarians  and  very  loosely  managed  (there  were  some- 
times more  votes  cast  than  members).16 

Control  from  the  top  was  no  guarantee  of  harmony.  Dissensions  could  arise 
not  only  between  parliamentarians  and  militants  but  among  the  parliamen- 
tarians themselves,  owing  to  differences  of  age,  policy,  local  interest  or  tactical 
appreciation.  Usually  the  rank  and  file  had  been  to  the  Left  of  the  elus> 
and  between  the  wars  fidouard  Daladier  led  them  in  attacking  the  cautious 
policies  of  his  former  schoolteacher,  fidouard  Herriot.  But  in  the  lean  years 
after  the  war  the  militants  were  on  the  Right;  older  leaders  like  Herriot  might 
support  Third  Force  governments  for  fear  of  de  Gaulle,  but  'young  Turks' 
and  Radicals  in  the  country  were  convinced  that  opposition  was  electorally 
more  fruitful.  At  the  Toulouse  conference  of  1949  Daladier  stood  against 
Herriot  in  a  bitter  contest  for  the  party  presidency;  the  leaders  arranged  a 
curious  deal  with  the  pro-Gaullist  faction,  and  beat  off  his  attack  by  759  to 
382.  Six  months  later  the  loser  became  president  of  RGR  and  the  quarrel  was 

15.  A.  Gourdon  in  Partis  et  Classes,  p.  233,  cf.  p.  235 ;  Bardonnet,  pp.  38, 74-6,  83-7 ;  Duverger, 
Parties,  pp.  41-2,  143-4,  145-6;  Goguel,  he.  cit.;  De  Tarr,  p.  23n.;  Frederix,  Etat  des  forces  en 
France'(l915),  pp.  131-3, 212-3;  below,  pp.  127, 129.  For  an  estimate  (by  Goguel  in  1951)  that  500 
men  decided  party  policy,  Bardonnet,  pp.  71-2.  But  before  the  war  the  rank  and  file  were  credited 
with  more  influence  by  Siegfried,  France,  p.  72,  Tableau,  pp.  147-8 ;  Soulier,  IS  instability  minis- 
tlrielle,  p.  371 ;  Thibaudet,  Idles,  pp.  146-7,  188,  and  Professeurs,  pp.  152-6,  244-5  Cany  honest 
Radical  deputy  will  tell  you  that  a  year  before  a  general  election  the  pressure  of  his  committees 
drives  him  dotty',  p.  245). 

16.  Bardonnet,  p.  127;  U>id.t  pp,  125-8  on  Cadillac,  114-18  on  the  executive.  On  the  comite 
executif,  ibid.,  pp.  93-110,  138 ;  Gourdon,  he.  cit. ;  Goguel,  he.  cit. ;  Duverger,  Parties,  pp.  41-2, 
143-4;  DeTarr,  p.  247.  The  1951  decision  to  ban  *  bigamy'  with  RPF  was  voted  by  543  to  128  at 
a  meeting  attended  by  two-thirds  of  the  1,200  members;  at  the  same  meeting  271  out  of  the  382 
present  confirmed  the  expulsion  of  Chambaretaud  (below,  pp.  178-9):  V Information  radicale, 
6th  year,  no.  61:  Monde,  15  March  1951. 


THE  RADICAL  PARTY  121 

peacefully  resolved  -  for  the  6war  of  the  two  fidouards'  was  not  fought  to 
make  le grand  Charles  king.  Herriot  was  made  unassailable  as  life  president,  and 
the  machine  was  entrusted  to  an  administrative  president,  L6on  Martinaud- 
D6plat,  whose  policies  provoked  another  revolt  of  the  militants  at  Marseilles 
in  1954.  Daladier  was  again  their  standard-bearer  (though  this  time  on  the 
Left  of  the  battlefield)  and  was  very  narrowly  defeated  by  746  to  689.17 

When  the  chieftains  were  agreed  the  clansmen  rarely  raised  their  voices.  But 
the  officers  would  not  accept  a  rigid  chain  of  command,  and  any  attempt  to 
impose  centralized  control  would  have  foundered  on  the  mutual  jealousies  of 
the  parliamentarians  long  before  it  began  to  meet  resistance  in  the  federations. 
These  cherished  their  autonomy,  though  they  often  prized  tactical  flexibility 
more  than  particular  policy  preferences,  and  sometimes  even  chose  their  can- 
didate to  suit  their  alliance  partners.18  Protected  by  the  divisions  at  the  top, 
they  retained  unrestricted  freedom  except  that  from  1947  they  were  forbidden 
to  ally  with  the  Communists. 

Where  the  party  itself  was  weak  this  impotence  of  the  centre  benefited  the 
local  notables.  Elsewhere  it  profited  the  members  of  parliament,  who  in- 
dividually often  dominated  their  departmental  federations  and  collectively 
controlled  the  party's  central  institutions  -  if  they  were  united.  But  since  some 
of  them  owed  their  seats  to  support  from  the  Right  and  others  to  the  sympathy 
of  the  Left,  they  agreed  only  in  defence  of  their  personal  independence  of 
judgment  and  decision.  Thus  deputies  did  not  need  to  fear  discipline  de  vote 
(the  equivalent  of  a  three-line  whip);  and  no  one  ever  pretended  to  expect 
party  loyalty  from  senators.19  On  the  Left  Mendes-France  flouted  every 
canon  of  Radical  orthodoxy  on  economic,  military  and  colonial  policy.  From 
the  Right  Daladier  and  the  'young  Turks'  actively  opposed  governments  sup- 
ported or  even  headed  by  Radical  leaders.20  Many  other  Radicals  allied  with 
or  even  joined  RPF;  there  was  a  clause  in  the  party  statutes  forbidding  mem- 
bers to  belong  to  another  political  organization,  but  for  four  years  it  was  con- 
veniently ignored.  The  'bigamists'  were  not  forced  to  choose  between  their 
loyalties  until  1951,  when  Chaban-Delmas  -  the  Radical  and  Gaullist  mayor 
of  Bordeaux  -  invaded  Herriot's  own  territory  at  Lyons  to  speak  for  his  RPF 
opponent,  Soustelle.  Bowing  to  the  wrath  of  the  patriarch  (and  impressed  by 
the  ebbing  of  the  Gaullist  tide)  the  comite  exe'cutifzt  last  invoked  the  forgotten 
clause  and  banned  'bigamy'.21  But  discipline  did  not  improve.  In  the  second 
National  Assembly  three  of  the  four  Radical  premiers  were  overthrown 
mainly  by  members  of  their  own  party. 

17.  AP  1949,  pp.  198-9,  1954,  pp.  81-3 ;  De  Tarr,  pp.  130-1 ;  Bardonnet,  pp.  76n.,  77n.,  83n., 
121-2  and  n.  At  both  the  Toulouse  and  Marseilles  conferences  irregularities  in  the  voting  were 
alleged.  On  Daladier  and  RGR  see  below,  pp.  177-8. 

18.  On  the  importance  of  alliances  see  below,  p.  323.  At  Bordeaux  in  1951  they  picked  one 
candidate  to  stand  if  RPF  agreed  to  an  alliance,  and  another  in  case  the  Conservatives  did  (but 
in  the  end  ran  no  list) ;  in  Aube  they  were  refused  by  RPF,  so  they  allied  with  the  Socialists  and 
changed  their  candidate  in  consequence:  Monde,  22  and  31  May  1951 ;  Bardonnet,  p.  155n. 

19.  Ibid.,  Chapter  3,  for  parliamentary  control  generally;  below,  p.  398n.  for  an  exceptional 
case  of  discipline  de  vote. 

20.  Like  some  Pacific  tribes,  Radical  young  Turks  organized  to  shake  the  old  men  out  ot  tne 
coconut-tree  and  finish  them  off':  Duverger,  quoted  Bardonnet, p.  177n. Their  leaders  (Bourges- 
Maunoury  and  Gaillard)  were  given  office,  and  Daladier  was  offered  it,  hi  1950-51. 

21.  Ibid.,  pp.  154-60;  De  Tarr,  pp.  145-52;  AP  1951,  pp.  34,  71;  above,  p.  118.  For  other 
bigamies  see  below,  pp.  129,  178. 


122  THE  PARTIES 

Control  by  oligarchy  thus  ensured  the  independence  of  the  elus  both  at 
elections  and  in  Parliament.  But  parliamentary  dominance  did  nothing  at  all 
to  assist  the  Radicals  to  decide  on  and  promote  a  policy.  When  Mend&s- 
France  became  leader  and  tried  to  turn  the  old  electoral  co-operative  into  a 
modern  party  with  a  purpose,  he  shattered  both  his  own  career  and  the 
organization  -  and  perhaps  even  the  Fourth  Republic. 

The  party  had  from  80,000  to  100,000  members  between  the  wars,  but  only 
30,000  in  1946;  it  revived  to  62,000  in  1948,  but  fell  back  to  51,000  the  next 
year.  Votes  cast  for  the  Radicals  and  their  allies  were  two  million  in  1951, 
150,000  fewer  than  in  1946,  and  their  share  of  the  electorate  was  down  from 
8£  to  8% ;  probably  losses  to  RPF  were  masked  by  gains  from  other  parties.22 
But  at  the  same  time  the  party  was  steadily  regaining  political  influence, 
returning  sixty-eight  deputies  from  metropolitan  France  in  1951  compared 
with  only  twenty-four  in  1945.23  For  departmental  councils  and  most  senatorial 
elections  majority  voting  was  used,  so  that  the  Radicals  could  once  again 
profit  from  alliances  with  Socialists  in  some  departments  and  Conservatives  or 
Gaullists  in  others.  In  Parliament  they  long  presided  over  both  houses,  and 
earned  the  title  le  parti  des  prtsidences.  From  1947  they  held  office  in  every 
government,  and  from  1950  they  or  their  UDSR  allies  filled  at  least  three  of 
the  six  chief  ministries.24 

In  their  following  as  in  their  outlook,  behaviour  and  policies  the  Radicals 
seemed  to  be  a  party  of  a  bygone  age.25  Their  votes  came  from  the  elderly,  and 
their  constitution  and  conduct  showed  their  profound  reverence  for  seniority. 
Yet  they  were  no  mere  collection  of  greybeards.  War  and  Liberation  had 
removed  many  older  leaders,  and  rank  and  file  influence  did  not  (as  among  the 
Socialists)  check  the  ascent  of  their  juniors  or  interfere  with  their  indepen- 
dence of  judgment.  Some  able  and  progressive  young  political  newcomers 
joined  the  Radicals,  whose  parliamentary  group  in  1946,  with  an  average  age 
higher  than  any  other,  still  contained  proportionately  more  members  under  35 
than  the  Conservatives  and  twice  as  many  as  the  Socialists.26  In  1956,  after 

22.  On  members,  Bardonnet,  pp.  50-1 ;  Fauvet,  Forces,  p.  110 ;  for  the  1946  figure  I  am  indebted 
to  Dr.  F.  De  Tarr;  see  also  below,  n.  49.  On  votes,  Goguel,  Fourth  Republic,  p.  90  (the  1946 
figures  in  Husson  i  and  ii  differ  slightly,  as  alliances  and  joint  lists  allow  different  classification). 
On  losses  and  gains  see  a  1951  poll  quoted  by  Stoetzel,  no.  204,  pp.  113-14,  Table  iv. 

23.  Radicals  and  UDSR  together  in  1945  (when  they  were  not  yet  allied)  had  45  members 
from  France  and  59  counting  overseas  deputies;  in  November  1946,  as  allies  in  RGR,  they  had 
55  and  70,  and  in  1951,  78  and  95.  On  UDSR  see  below,  pp.  174-6. 

24.  fidouard  Herriot  presided  over  the  Assembly  until  1953,  Gaston  Monnerville  over  the 
Council  of  the  Republic  throughout  its  existence,  Albert  Sarraut  over  the  Assembly  of  the  French 
Union  from  1951  and  fimile  Roche  over  the  Economic  Council  from  1954.  In  the  first  Assembly 
the  average  cabinet  had  four  Radical  full  ministers  and  in  the  second,  six. 

25.  Fauvet,  Forces,  p.  103 ;  De  Tarr,  p.  14  (who  quotes  a  Christmas  cartoon  of  a  small  boy 
pointing  at  Santa  Claus:  'Look,  a  Radical!').  In  1952  and  1955  two  polls  (by  one  organization) 
found  that  RGR  had  fewer  voters  under  35  and  more  over  50  than  any  other  party:  Sondages, 
1952,  no.  3,  p.  81;  Stoetzel,  no.  204,  p.  116,  Table  xii,  for  1955.  Under-35s  were  11  and  23% 
respectively  of  the  Radical  total,  minimum  for  other  parties  30  and  25% ;  over-50s  were  65  and 
47  %,  maximum  for  other  parties  45  and  42  %.  (Between  1952  and  1955  mortality  among  Radicals 
over  50  seems  to  have  been  alarmingly  high.)  On  1952  see  Appendix  vn. 

26.  Duverger,  Parties,  pp.  165-8;  Bardonnet,  p.  179;  Lavau,  no.  138b,  pp.  1903-4,  on  the 
attractions  of  Radicalism  for  a  young  politician.  Thibaudet  once  maintained  that  there  were  no 
young  Radical  idealists :  Idees,  p.  258. 


THE  RADICAL  PARTY  123 

the  Mendesist  revolution,  their  percentage  of  members  under  40  was  double 
that  of  any  other  democratic  party  and  exceeded  only  by  the  Poujadists. 

In  social  composition  the  Radicals  were  overwhelmingly  middle-class.  Well 
over  two-thirds  of  the  RGR  deputies  were  always  professional  men  and  over  a 
quarter  were  lawyers;  businessmen  far  outnumbered  peasants;  there  were 
three  ex-wage-earners  in  1951  and  one  in  1956.  Radical  mayors,  usually 
peasants,  administered  5,000  of  France's  38,000  communes.27  The  party  was 
strongest  in  the  small  country  towns;  in  the  industrial  regions  its  share  of  the 
electorate  in  1951  was  only  half  that  attained  elsewhere.28  In  1952  and  1958 
polls  estimated  that  5%  or  fewer  of  industrial  workers  voted  Radical  (but  1 1  % 
in  1956  under  Mendes-France). 

In  agricultural  areas  its  influence,  once  strong,  was  diminishing:  from  18% 
of  the  agricultural  vote  in  1951  it  dropped  to  under  12%  in  1956  although  its 
share  of  the  total  vote  rose  -  for  Poujade  was  taking  away  old  Radical  votes  in 
the  countryside  while  Mendes-France  was  gaining  new  ones  in  the  towns. 
More  permanently,  the  foundations  of  the  party's  rural  strength  had  been 
undermined  when  it  was  deprived  of  much  of  its  provincial  press  by  the  purge 
laws  of  the  Liberation,  and  subsequently  lost  its  former  secure  hold  on  the 
ministry  of  agriculture  and  the  powerful  professional  and  co-operative 
organizations.29  Without  these  sources  of  influence  the  Radicals  were  in 
danger  of  becoming  a  rootless  group  dependent  on  the  personal  popularity  of 
individual  leaders  (which  alone  had  saved  their  few  seats  in  1945).30 

In  the  Fourth  Republic  several  attempts  were  made  to  secure  a  base  for  the 
party.  There  was  some  progress  in  recovering  the  traditional  southern  strong- 
holds: of  thirty-six  departments  where  10%  of  the  electorate  supported  the 
party  in  1951,  only  a  quarter  were  north  of  the  Loire,  and  of  twenty-one 
where  15%  did  so,  eleven  were  in  the  south-west  -  still  influenced  by  a  great 
Radical  newspaper,  the  Depeche  du  Midi  of  Toulouse.  But  the  newer  groups 
which  were  trying  in  different  ways  to  reshape  the  party  sought  to  penetrate  quite 
new  social  groups  and  geographical  regions.  Mend&s-France's  modernizing 
Radicalism  won  widespread  (if  short-lived)  support  in  the  Paris  area  and  the 
industrial  north-east  in  1956.  In  some  provincial  towns  and  in  Parisian  bour- 
geois quarters  there  took  root  an  aggressive  right-wing  'neo-Radicalism' 
closely  linked  to  the  wealthy  settlers  of  North  Africa.  'Alongside  Toulouse 
and  Lyons,  Paris  and  Algiers  have  become  the  capitals  of  a  new  Radicalism.'31 

27.  Deputies:  Dogan's  tables,  p.  68n.  above;  only  SFIO  had  as  many  professional  men  and 
only  CNIP  as  many  lawyers.  Gourdon  in  Partis  et  Classes,  pp.  224-30  (for  mayors,  candidates 
and  deputies). 

28.  In  the  17  most  industrial  departments  it  had  4-9  %  in  the  other  73,  9-8  % :  Goguel,  Fourth 
Republic,  p.  113  (cf.  Williams,  p.  lOln.).  In  the  1947  municipal  elections  it  was  strongest  in 
communes  with  2,500  to  4,000  inhabitants,  weaker  in  those  with  fewer  (the  countryside)  and 
weakest  in  those  with  more:  Inegalitts,  p.  121.  Above,  p.  I09n.  14,  for  polls  cited  next  sentence. 

29.  Below,  p.  392,  and  De  Tarr,  pp.  55-6  (press);  Paysans,  pp.  18-19,  48,  53,  461  (votes, 
including  RGR),  106-8,   113  and  276-8   (organizations),   112  and  257-64  (ministry).   The 
Radicals  had  never  put  forward  many  peasant  candidates  but  this  had  not  hitherto  prevented  them 
garnering  rural  votes :  ibid.,  pp.  108  (pre-war),  212  (post-war). 

30.  L.  Latty  and  J.  M.  Royer  in  ibid.,  p.  111.  Cf.  ibid.,  pp.  42,  53. 

31 .  Gourdon,  loc.  cit.,  pp.  235-8 ;  cf.  n.  39  below.  For  regional  varieties,  also  De  Tarr,  pp.  82-5 ; 
Goguel,  no.  108,  pp.  329-31  for  bourgeois  Paris;  in  Fourth  Republic,  pp.  103-6,  and  Gtographie, 
pp.  110-11,  for  1951 ;  in  Elections  1956,  pp.  488-92,  for  1956;  and  cf.  Map  11.  There  were  51 

[over 


124  THE  PARTIES 

3.   CHARACTERISTICS 

*  NCOS'  and  Mendesists  were  utterly  different  in  their  policies,  their  standards 
of  political  behaviour  and  their  impact  on  French  public  life.  The  former 
publicly  proclaimed  their  solidarity  with  right-wing  Conservatives;32  the 
latter  ultimately  found  an  uneasy  home  among  the  left-wing  Socialists.  Yet 
they  had  something  in  common.  Each  group  included  a  few  old  party  mem- 
bers and  many  newcomers.  Each  prospected  new  fields  in  its  search  for  sup- 
port. And  each  tried  to  make  the  party  face  issues  instead  of  fudging  them  - 
though  they  faced  in  opposite  directions. 

This  meant  attempting  a  complete  change  in  the  party's  character.  For 
among  French  political  groups  the  Radicals  had  the  best  lines  of  communica- 
tion with  all  the  others:  lines  which  the  Neos  would  have  broken  on  the  Left 
and  the  Mendesists  on  the  Right.  The  Radicals  had  great  experience  and  skill 
at  playing  party  politics  and  attracting  a  wide  variety  of  opinions.  North  of 
the  Loire  they  could  appear  as  a  party  of  the  Left  hostile  to  clericalism  and 
reaction;  around  Paris  they  were  (till  1956)  the  spokesmen  of  extreme  con- 
servatism; in  the  south  they  won  right-wing  votes  as  the  last  bulwark  against 
the  Marxists. 

Expert  tacticians  though  they  were,  this  diversity  was  not  merely  tactical. 
Many  different  traditions,  from  Bonapartism  to  the  Paris  Commune,  stemmed 
from  the  great  Revolution  which  all  good  Radicals  venerated.  Yet  though 
wide,  the  tolerance  on  which  the  party  prided  itself  was  not  unlimited:  in  1946 
the  Left  Radicals  were  expelled  because  they  claimed  (like  Clemenceau)  that 
the  Revolution  was  indivisible  and  therefore  refused  to  break  with  the  Com- 
munists; and  in  1951  the  Radical  Gaullists,  proconsular  nationalists  in  the 
Jacobin  tradition  (also  like  Clemenceau),  were  forced  to  choose  between  the 
party  and  RPF.33  The  leaders  could  reasonably  maintain  that  continuing  an 
alliance  on  grounds  of  mere  principle  when  it  was  no  longer  politically 
advantageous  was  an  un-Radical  activity;  and  even  after  the  departure  of  these 
small  groups  the  party  still  embraced  a  great  variety  of  views.  But  by  the 
beginning  of  the  Fifth  Republic  it  had  shed  both  Neos  and  Mendesists  and 
retained  only  the  two  most  traditional  species  of  the  genus :  the  inveterate 
opponents  and  the  immovable  supporters  of  every  cabinet  whatever  its  com- 
plexion.34 

With  a  core  of  members  who  subordinated  policy  to  popularity  or  power, 
and  fringe  groups  which  advocated  every  conceivable  policy  choice,  the 

Radical  deputies  from  agricultural  and  18  from  industrial  areas  in  1951 ;  32  and  24  in  1956 ;  21  and 
21  after  the  split  (below,  p.  128).  Western  and  southern  Radicals  dropped  from  50  to  31  and  then 
18 :  Laponce,  no.  137,  p.  355. 

32.  DeTarr,  p.  129. 

33.  De  Tarr  gives  the  fullest  account  of  how  each  different  group  followed  and  diverged  from 
the  central  party  tradition.  Of  the  Left  Radicals,  most  ended  as  Communist  *  fellow-travellers' 
(below,  pp.  171-2),  but  Jacques  Kayser  was  readmitted  in  the  Mendesist  period,  and  the  strongly 
anticlerical  Albert  Bayet  became  an  intransigent  defender  of  Algtrie  franfaise. 

34.  The  party  was  split  both  in  1949-50  when  the  Socialists  supported  Bidault  against  attacks 
by  the  Right,  and  in  1953  when  the  Left  opposed  the  Conservative  Laniel ;  seven  Radical  deputies 
took  a  right-wing  and  five  a  left-wing  line  on  each  occasion,  but  twelve  supported  and  eight 
opposed  both  governments.  Sometimes  when  a  Radical  obtained  office  transmutation  between 
the  species  occurred  (above,  n.  20).  Cf.  below,  pp,  407-8,  418-19 ;  MacRae,  no.  149,  pp.  187-94. 


THE  RADICAL  PARTY  12 

Radicals  were  serious  claimants  to  office  in  any  situation,  and  therefore  a  pole 
of  attraction  for  able  young  politicians  who  reinforced  their  team  of  elder 
statesmen.  Sometimes,  like  Queuille  in  the  crisis  of  1948-49,  they  could  teach 
more  earnest  and  less  easy-going  rivals  an  object-lesson  in  experience,  patience 
and  guile.  Often  they  were  more  eager  to  control  the  levers  of  power  than  to 
use  them  for  any  constructive  purpose.  Always  they  were  'compromisers,  bar- 
gainers, conciliators,  administrators  and  caretakers  . .  .  willing  to  adapt  their 
policies  to  the  needs  and  desires  of  the  day'  and  to  echo  Queuille  in  1951 :  'I 
will  do  my  best,  the  least  harm  possible;  you  can  pass  judgment  afterwards; 
France  must  have  a  government.'35 

It  was  a  limited  conception  of  leadership  for  a  country  whose  social  struc- 
ture and  world  position  were  rapidly  being  transformed.  The  Radicals' 
prestige  suffered  from  their  ineffectiveness  in  the  thirties  and  their  heavy  share 
of  responsibility  for  1940,  and  although  by  tactical  skill  the  leaders  brought 
the  party  back  to  power,  they  could  not  restore  the  intellectual  identity  and 
sense  of  purpose  which  had  been  waning  for  years.  As  the  party  of  the  French 
Revolution  Radicals  stood  for  values  and  fears  deeply  ingrained  in  French 
political  psychology:  the  defence  of  the  weak  against  the  powerful,  the  cult  of 
the  little  man,  the  mistrust  of  aristocracies  of  birth  and  wealth,  the  demand  for 
equality.  But  the  Socialists  were  formidable  competitors  in  the  same  field,  and 
the  rise  of  Communism  gave  more  weight  to  the  conflicts  which  placed 
Radicals  on  the  Right  than  to  those  which  had  located  them  on  the  Left.  To 
Thibaudet  laicite  had  been  at  the  very  centre  of  the  Radical  outlook;  but  it 
began  to  seem  out-of-date  when  even  rural  Radicals  feared  the  Communists 
more  than  the  Church.36  To  preserve  the  traditional  electoral  alliance  with  the 
Socialists  most  provincial  deputies  opposed  the  Barang6  bill  to  subsidize  the 
church  schools ;  but  they  did  so  half-heartedly,  avoiding  the  subject  when  they 
could,  voting  as  constituency  interests  dictated  when  they  had  to,  and  leaving 
fervent  anticlericalism  to  their  allies.37  The  innovators  of  both  Left  and  Right, 
Mendesists  as  well  as  Neos,  gave  vital  economic  and  colonial  problems 
priority  over  that  faded  shibboleth. 

On  these  problems  Radicals  could  no  longer  remain  all  things  to  all  men: 
the  interests  of  their  voters  drew  them  too  strongly  to  the  conservative  side. 
The  'young  Turks'  of  1930  had  been  on  the  Left;  those  of  1950  were  on  the 
Right.  In  the  Fourth  Republic  'the  supporters  of  conservative  political  and 
economic  interests  not  only  had  links  with  the  party:  they  joined  it,  led  it,  and 

35.  Quotations  from  De  Tarr,  pp.  xvii,  165-6. 

36.  Thibaudet,  Idees,  pp.  159-61,  165;  Paysans,  pp.  276-7.  A  1952  poll  found  that  40%  of 
Radical  voters  were  practising  Catholics:  Bosworth,  p.  252,  Stoetzel,  no.  204,  p.  117,  Table  xvi, 
and  Sondages>  1952,  no.  4,  p.  40.  This  poll  omitted  all  persons  not  baptized  Catholics  (20  %  of  the 
population  by  its  own  estimate,  4  %  by  another :  ibid.,  p.  54).  For  other  polls  see  Fogarty,  p.  361 ; 
Bosworth,  pp.  251-2;  Lipset,  p.  245. 

37.  Lavau,  no.  138b,  pp.  1894-5, 1901  and  n. ;  De  Tarr,  pp.  125-6;  Goguel,  Fourth  Republic, 
p.  126 ;  Fauvet,  Cockpit,  p.  72,  Dechiree,  p.  66 ;  cf.  Siegfried,  De  la  HIe,  p.  188.  In  the  key  divisions 
on  the  Marie  bill  (4  September  1951),  the  Barange  bill  (10  September  1951)  and  article  6  of  the 
education  budget  (9  November  1952),  pro-clerical  votes  were  cast  by  Parisian  and  Algerian 
Radicals  and  those  elected  in  alliance  with  RPF  or  Conservatives,  and  anticlerical  votes  by  mem- 
bers elected  against  strong  Conservative  opposition ;  most  members  who  temporized  represented 
departments  where  the  Conservatives  were  weak  and  their  votes  might  be  won  in  future.  (My 
analysis.) 


126  THE  PARTIES 

tried  to  transform  it  into  their  own  image'.38  The  rich  spokesmen  of  the  North 
African  settlers  -  *  a  veritable  French  "Tamany  Hall"  '  (sic)  -  were  'found  at 
every  turn  of  the  party's  political  life  and  through  their  agents  controlled  its 
machine'.39  The  new  leadership  not  only  subordinated  social  progress  to 
economic  expansion  (Mendes-France  himself  did  that)  but  also  threatened  the 
trade  unions;  defended  the  interests  of  farm  lessors  against  the  lessees  for 
whom  the  party  had  once  stood ;  gave  much  more  support  to  Conservative 
than  to  Socialist  candidates  for  the  premiership ;  opened  an  anti-Communist 
campaign  which  shared  many  features  with  McCarthyism ;  and  championed 
the  narrowest  interests  of  colonialism,  above  all  in  North  Africa.40  The  party 
which  had  once  expressed  provincial  mistrust  of  Paris  now  represented  the 
most  reactionary  elements  in  the  capital.  In  1930  Siegfried  had  claimed  that 
its  allegiance  to  the  Left  was  'its  real  raison  d'etre9;  a  quarter  of  a  century 
later  it  was  said  to  have  no  link  with  the  Left  at  all.41  On  becoming 
leader,  wrote  Mend&s-France  privately,  he  had  found  the  headquarters 
'with  no  funds  and  no  files'  and  the  party  'with  no  soul  and  no  modern 
ideas'.42 

4.  REVOLUTION  AND  REACTION 

The  Mendesist  revolution  was  supported  by  two  groups  who  for  quite  differ- 
ent reasons  were  determined  to  reverse  the  rightward  trend  which  the  Neos 
had  imposed  on  the  party.  A  few  modernizers  wanted  to  substitute  an  equally 
clear  and  permanent  leftward  orientation  which  they  claimed  to  be  the  true 
vocation  of  Radicalism.  But  a  far  larger  number  were  discontented  traditional- 
ists who  followed  Jean  Baylet,  controller  of  the  D6p£che  du  Midi  and  proto- 
type of  Alain's  provincial  Radical.43  They  took  a  different  view  of  the  party's 
vocation,  and  wanted  no  lasting  choice  of  direction.  Their  eyes  always  fixed 
on  the  next  election,  they  feared  that  the  Neos'  liking  for  discredited  con- 
servative governments  would  lose  votes  and  prevent  an  alliance  with  the 
Socialists,  and  they  hoped  that  the  broad  coat-tails  of  a  premier  enjoying  un- 
rivalled popular  prestige  would  carry  them  to  victory.  But  their  support  of 
Mendes-France  wavered  when  he  left  office,  fell  off  when  his  popularity 
waned,  and  disappeared  altogether  when  his  policies  split  the  party  and 
threatened  to  reduce  each  faction  to  a  powerless  rump.  Their  defection  broke 

38.  De  Tarr,  p.  80;  cf.  Lavau,  no.  138b,  p.  1899 ;  Bardonnet,  p.  267. 

39.  Gourdon,  loc.  cit.,  pp.  237,  239;  cf.  De  Tarr,  pp.  82-4;  Lavau,  no.  138b,  pp.  1899-1900; 
Bardonnet,  pp.  267-8;  Hamon,  no.  120,  p.  840;  Grosser,  pp.  131~2;.Nicolet,  Pierre  Mendes- 
France  ou  le  me1  tier  de  Cassandre,  pp.  104-5 ;  below,  p.  354. 

40.  Gourdon,  loc.  cit.,  p.  223;  Fauvet,  forces,  pp.  111-12;  Lavau,  no.  138b,  pp.  1896-1900; 
De  Tarr,  Chapter  5. 

41.  Siegfried,  Tableau,  p.  160  (and  France,  p.  79) -cf.  De  la  IIle,  pp.  192-3.  Lavau, no.  138b, 
p.  1901. 

42.  Quoted  Nicolet,  Cassandre,  p.  149.  Yet  even  under  his  leadership  the  party  could  appeal 
to  the  'little  employer  or  future  little  employer,  little  property-owner  or  future  little  property- 
owner  . . .'  (De  Tarr,  p.  20)  as  almost  fifty  years  before  it  had  claimed:  *  Small  bourgeois,  small 
employers,  small  shopkeepers,  small  peasant  owners,  small  white-collar  workers,  small  civil 
servants  have  discovered  that  they  are  closer  to  the  working  class  than  to  the  great  banks,  the  big 
capitalists  and  those  specially  favoured  by  wealth  ...'  (F.  Buisson  in  1910,  quoted  Bardonnet, 
p.  265n.). 

43.  On  the  Dtp&che  see  Economist,  27  January  1962  (friendly)  and  Lectures  franyaises  no.  31, 
October  1959  (hostile). 


THE  RADICAL  PARTY  127 

the  left  wing  in  1957  as  it  had  broken  the  right  in  1955.44  By  then  not  much 
remained  of  the  party  which  once  had  dominated  French  politics. 

Pierre  Mendes-France  was  never  really  a  Mendesist.45  Unlike  his  young 
followers  of  the  Jacobin  Club  or  the  new  recruits  he  won  for  the  party,  he  was 
a  lifelong  Radical.  He  went  less  far  than  they  in  anti-colonialism,  shared 
neither  the  neutralism  nor  the  nostalgia  for  the  Popular  Front  that  many  of 
them  professed,  was  more  favourable  to  traditional  Radical  causes  like  laicite 
and  the  single-member  constituency,  more  amenable  to  tactical  compromises, 
and  more  averse  to  open  quarrels.  As  prime  minister  he  organized  no  coherent 
parliamentary  following,  but  carried  each  successive  policy  by  a  different  but 
always  disparate  majority  like  a  virtuoso  of  the  System.  So  far  from  seeking  to 
impose  discipline  on  his  own  party,  he  would  not  help  his  friends  to  oust 
Martinaud-D6plat  from  the  administrative  presidency  in  1954.46  But  his 
neutrality  did  not  appease  the  Neos:  the  successful  attack  on  his  government 
four  months  later  was  led  by  Ren6  Mayer.  Worse  still,  the  new  premier  who 
revived  the  Conservative  alliance  was  Mendes-France's  own  minister  of 
finance,  Edgar  Faure. 

These  developments  determined  the  fallen  premier's  course.  The  existing 
Radical  party  had  proved  too  unstable  a  base;  the  misadventures  of  General 
de  Gaulle  were  a  warning  against  attempting  to  form  a  new  party;  the  only 
alternative  was  to  renovate  the  old  one.  Already  the  provincial  militants  were 
seething.  At  the  special  conference  of  May  1955  the  right-wing  leaders  used  all 
the  dubious  practices  which  had  preserved  their  power  for  so  long,  but  were 
defeated  by  a  no  less  irregular  Mendesist  coup  d'etat^1  Martinaud-D&plat's 
post  was  abolished  and  Mendes-France  became  first  vice-president,  Herriot 
remaining  titular  president.  A  committee  of  seven  was  set  up  to  reorganize  the 
party  and  give  more  influence  to  the  rank  and  file;  its  half-heartedness  con- 
tributed to  the  ultimate  failure  of  the  Mendesists.48 

There  had  been  other  internal  revolutions  in  the  Radical  party.  But  never 
before  had  its  membership  nearly  doubled  in  a  couple  of  years.49  Many  of  the 
new  recruits  came  from  groups  hitherto  closed  to  Radicalism:  youth,  women, 
technical  and  managerial  staffs,  even  Catholics.50  At  the  annual  conference  in 

44.  Nicolet,  Cassandre,  pp.  105-8,  cf.  pp.  158-62. 

45.  De  Tarr,  pp.  191-201,  219-21;  Bardonnet,  p.  20n.  For  useful  summaries  of  the  whole 
episode  see  Allen,  no.  2,  and  Laponce,  no.  137;  also  Brigitte  Gros's  novel,  Vfronique  dans 
Vappareil  (1960). 

46.  See  above,  p.  121. 

47.  AP  1955,  pp.  46-8;  De  Tarr,  pp.  131-3;  Bardonnet,  pp.  76n.,  151n.,  212n.;  Nicolet, 
Cassandre,  pp.  111-12.  One  reactionary  journalist  (never  eloquent  on  abuses  of  the  past)  wrote 
that  :  *  Nowadays  seizing  control  of  a  party  is  like  raiding  a  bank  van'  :  Faucher,  p.  152. 

48.  Nicolet,  Le  Radicalisme,  pp.  117-18  ;  Allen,  no.  2  ;  Bardonnet,  pp.  98-9,  100,  118-19,  127-8, 
130-1,  273-4.  The  Mendesists  did  try  to  organize  in  greater  depth  a  party  in  which  membership 
was  'exclusively  political,  without  effect  on  professional  or  family  life'  (ibid.,  p.  271)  by  bringing 
together  Radical  civil  servants,  lawyers,  businessmen  etc,  ;  the  attempt  was  a  total  failure  and  the 
one  successful  society  (the  doctors)  distinguished  itself  only  by  opposing  the  social  reforms  of  the 
Mollet  government  (ibid.,  pp.  219-23). 

49.  From  57,000  in  May  1954,  just  before  Mendes-France  became  premier,  to  73,000  soon  after 
(November),  90,000  a  year  later,  and  105,000  at  the  peak  :  Bardonnet,  p.  51.  For  previous  revolu- 
tions (especially  after  1927  under  Daladier)  see  ibid.,  pp.  17-19,  22,  165-6.  On  membership  see 
also  Nicolet,  Radicalisme,  p.  1  16.  In  Cassandre,  p.  1  14,  he  suggests  that  the  real  increase  was  from 


50.  -Ibid.,  pp.  114-18. 


128  THE  PARTIES 

November  1955  they  consolidated  Mendes-France's  victory.  Partly  to  check 
his  rival's  progress,  Faure  seized  the  chance  which  his  opponents  rashly  gave 
him  to  dissolve  the  Assembly.  The  traditionalist  Radicals  were  still  fervently 
Mendesist,  especially  as  the  dissolution  meant  an  election  fought  under  an 
electoral  law  they  detested;  most  Radical  minsiters  resigned,  and  the  party 
expelled  Faure  and  several  leading  Neos  -  including  Mayer,  Martinaud- 
Deplat  and  Lafay  -  who  were  organizing  RGR  as  a  stronghold  of  their  fac- 
tion.51 

Mendes-France's  progressive  policies  appealed  to  the  Left;  his  personal 
vigour  and  style  attracted  the  Gaullists  and  evoked  echoes  of  Clemenceau.  In 
the  election  the  vote  of  his  Radical  supporters  doubled  while  that  of  his 
opponents  hardly  changed.  But  the  Mendesists  had  no  time  to  choose  reliable 
candidates,  and  in  most  constituencies  they  endorsed  sitting  Radical  members 
who  included  many  traditionalists  and  a  few  open  enemies.  Those  whose  votes 
had  contributed  to  Mendes-France's  fall  did  conspicuously  badly.  But  the 
outgoing  deputies  who  had  only  recently  found  salvation  shared  in  the  boom 
as  well  -  though  not  as  much  -  as  the  truly  Mendesist  new  candidates,  and 
among  the  fifty-eight  Radical  members  returned  wearing  their  leader's  label 
only  a  small  minority,  mostly  young  newcomers  from  Paris,  went  as  far  or 
further  than  he  in  their  zeal  for  reform.62 

The  old  Radical  instinct  to  join  every  majority  and  then  slow  down  its  pro- 
gress was  soon  at  work.  The  first  disputes  over  the  ministry's  composition 
showed  the  weakness  of  the  Radical  leader's  position  and  the  anxiety  of  his 
Socialist  allies  to  conciliate  their  opponents  -  both  in  the  Assembly  and  in 
Algeria.53  At  first,  when  the  young  Mendesists  wanted  the  party  to  refuse 
office,  their  leader  sided  with  his  senior  colleagues  against  them.  Then  after  he 
resigned  in  May  (finding  himself  impotent  to  influence  policy  in  Algeria)  he 
continued  to  discourage  his  followers  from  attacking  the  twelve  remaining 
Radical  ministers  or  their  Socialist  partners.54  It  made  no  difference ;  public 
opinion  in  its  new  nationalist  mood  was  with  the  government,  and  even  muted 
criticism  cost  Mend&s-France  the  popularity  which  alone  had  enabled  him  to 
impose  his  outlook  and  policies  upon  the  parliamentarians  of  the  System. 

The  old  parliamentary  hands  had  defected,  but  the  new  recruits  remained 
faithful.  At  the  Lyons  conference  of  October  1956  Faure's  expulsion  was  con- 
firmed and  Mend6s-France's  policy  endorsed  overwhelmingly.  Twenty 
senators  and  fourteen  deputies,  among  them  Queuille,  Morice  and  Marie, 
thereupon  resigned  from  the  party.  A  year  earlier  it  had  included  five  ex- 
premiers  of  the  Fourth  Republic;  now  Mend&s-France  alone  remained.  And 
when,  riding  the  crest  of  the  nationalist  wave,  the  government  invaded  Egypt, 
only  eleven  Radicals  abstained  with  their  nominal  leader  in  the  Suez  vote.55 

51.  See  below,  p.  178, 

52.  On  these  results  see  Goguel,  Elections  1956,  pp.  488-92;  Williams,  2nd.  ed.,  p.  xx  n.,  and 
no.  168,  pp.  168-70;  Pierce,  no.  180,  pp.  415-16;  above,  p.  48  and  below,  p.  178n. 

53.  They  were  given  the  chance  to  do  so  by  Mendesists  who  put  principle  before  tactics  and 
voted  to  postpone  a  bill  repealing  the  church  schools  subsidy  -  a  measure  which  was  anathema  to 
MRP,  but  which  no  Socialist  could  oppose.  See  above,  p.  98. 

54.  De  Tarr,  pp.  219-21. 

55.  See  above,  pp.  49-50 ;  and  Williams,  p.  xxi  n. ;  another  of  the  few  open  Suez  critics  was 
Edgar  Faure.  Of  the  fourteen  deputies  who  resigned  at  Lyons,  nine  had  voted  against  Mendes- 

[over 


THE  RADICAL  PARTY  129 

The  electorate  was  also  turning  against  Mend6s-France.  At  a  by-election  in 
south  Paris  in  January  1957  the  Radical  vote  was  only  20,000  (against  80,000  a 
year  earlier  and  27,000  even  in  1951).  He  had  both  split  his  party  and  flouted 
public  opinion,  and  the  south-western  traditionalists  who  had  joined  him  in 
hopes  of  electoral  success  and  governmental  patronage  now  deserted  him  just 
as  the  Gaullist '  hitch-hikers '  had  left  the  General  five  years  before  -  for  fear  of 
immediate  exclusion  from  the  corridors  of  power  and  subsequent  disaster  at 
the  polls.56  Again  as  with  RPF,  an  attempt  to  enforce  disciplined  voting 
brought  the  quarrel  to  a  head.  In  March  1957  Mend&s-France,  by  moderating 
his  stand  on  Algeria,  induced  the  parliamentary  group  to  agree  to  vote  as  the 
majority  decided  in  important  divisions.  The  new  rules  were  at  once  broken  by 
the  twelve  ministers  and  nine  of  their  supporters,  reaffirmed  at  a  special  con- 
ference in  May  (at  the  price  of  more  policy  concessions  which  offended  the 
young  Mendesists)  and  .again  promptly  defied  by  the  ministers  and  their 
friends ;  the  bureau  -  the  party  executive,  supposedly  a  Mendesist  stronghold  - 
refused  to  expel  two  of  the  recalcitrants  and  Mendes-France  resigned  the 
leadership. 

At  the  November  conference  at  Strasbourg  Jean  Baylet,  the  south-western 
traditionalist,  reappeared  as  kingmaker.  The  Mendesists  carried  their  policy 
motion  but  lost  all  their  offices  -  since  only  comitg  executif  members  could 
vote  to  elect  the  bureau?'*  Soon  they  were  subjected  to  the  discipline  they  had 
tried  to  enforce.  When  the  Fourth  Republic  collapsed  a  few  ex-Gaullists 
among  them  returned  to  their  old  allegiance,  but  most  of  them  joined  with  the 
opposition  Socialists  in  a  new  anti-Gaullist  group,  UFD.  In  the  1958  election 
*  bigamy'  was  forbidden,  and  by  choosing  to  continue  the  new  liaison  they 
excluded  themselves  from  the  original  hearth  exactly  as  they  had  ejected  their 
adversaries  during  the  previous  campaign.58 

If  disarray  was  complete  among  Radicals  of  the  Left,  it  was  scarcely  less 
among  their  right-wing  opponents,  who  were  split  into  three  groups.  The 
oldest,  RGR,  had  been  turned  by  the  leaders  expelled  in  1955  from  an 
alliance  of  parties  into  an  independent  formation.59  But  the  1956  election  gave 
it  only  a  dozen  deputies,  and  its  limited  influence  was  dissipated  by  personal 
disputes.  Its  secretary  Jean-Paul  David  was  one  of  the  two  bosses  of  right- 
wing  Radicalism  in  the  Paris  area;  the  other  -  Bernard  Lafay  -  set  up  a  group 

France  when  his  government  was  overthrown  and  only  three  for  him  (two  were  new  to  the  Assem- 
bly). The  split  showed  how  unwisely  Mendes-France  had  allowed  his  prestige  to  benefit  his  oppo- 
nents in  the  election. 

56.  Nicolet,  Cassandre,  p.  161 :  traditional  Radicalism  insisted  on  the  need  'for  friendly  wire- 
pulling as  a  check  on  arbitrary  power  ...  It  means  the  defence  of  local  groups  of  citizens  against 
dishonest  appeals  to  the  general  interest.  But  it  is  also,  and  more  frequently,  a  complete  ignorance, 
a  total  contempt  -  whatever  the  verbiage  -  for  this  general  interest.  Mendes-France  wore  himself 
out  against  this  instinctive  insistence  on  office.'  (His  italics,)  No  Radical  cry  was  more  venerable 
than  'Justice  for  all,  and  jobs  for  friends! ' :  De  Tarr,  p.  156.  On  Gaullists,  below,  p.  140. 

57.  On  the  comiti  extcutifsee  above,  p.  120 ;  on  the  south-western  influence,  Nicolet,  Cassandre, 

58.  On  the  defeat  of  Mendesism  see  Allen,  no.  2 ;  Laponce,  no.  1 37 ;  De  Tarr,  pp.  226-33, 236-8 ; 
Bardonnet,  pp.  98-9n.,  119-20, 169-73,  274n.  On  the  'bigamies'  see  ibid.,  pp.  159-60  and nn.,  and 
De  Tarr,  pp.  134  and  n.,  238.  On  UFD  see  below,  p.  174. 

59.  See  above,  p.  128,  and  below,  pp.  176-8. 


130  THE  PARTIES 

of  his  own,  the  Republican  Centre,  which  showed  some  strength  in  the  by- 
elections  of  1957.  While  these  parties  contended  for  the  urban  Neos,  the 
Dissident  Radicals  who  split  off  at  Lyons  appealed  more  to  conservatives  in 
the  countryside.60  Henri  Queuille  was  their  president  and  Andr6  Morice  their 
secretary,  and  they  spread  further  confusion  by  calling  themselves  'the 
Radical  Socialist  party'  until  restrained  by  the  courts.  At  their  first  conference 
at  Asnieres  in  April  1957  the  Dissidents  piously  adopted  the  constitution  of 
the  old  party  with  all  the  old  abuses,  and  claimed  to  have  attracted  a  third  of 
its  membership  (33,000  in  over  fifty  federations).  The  prosperous  commercial 
atmosphere  of  their  headquarters  and  the  tone  of  their  conference  -  with  few 
women  or  young  men,  no  disagreements,  and  the  rank  and  file  firmly  relegated 
to  the  role  of  'innocent  and  passive  shareholders'  -  stamped  them  as  a  party 
of  the  Right.  Morice  joined  an  Algerie  fran$aise  'quartet'  with  Bidault, 
Duchet  and  Soustelle,  and  fervently  demanded  the  silencing  of  journals  which 
criticized  the  war  and  its  abuses.61 

During  1957  attempts  to  unite  the  splinter  groups  were  frustrated  by  per- 
sonal differences,  political  disputes  and  internal  divisions:  Martinaud-D6plat 
joined  the  Dissidents;  J.P.  David  controlled  RGR  and  Lafay  was  not  invited 
to  discuss  reunion;  Queuille  wanted  to  rejoin  the  Radical  party  (and  did  so  in 
1 958)  but  Morice  would  not ;  Mitterrand  and  most  of  U  D  S  R  still  sympathized 
with  the  Mendesists;  Pleven  (also  of  UDSR)  offered  Morice  a  post  in  May 
1958,  and  so  the  'orthodox'  Radicals  prevented  him  forming  a  government.62 
The  advent  of  General  de  Gaulle  split  both  the  'orthodox'  Radicals  and 
UDSR-  while  the  right-wing  groups  all  supported  him  in  hopes  of  riding  the 
Gaullist  wave  to  a  safe  electoral  haven.  But  the  division  had  shattered  both 
factions,  and  though  Morice  pooled  his  provincial  influence  with  Lafay's 
financial  and  Parisian  strength  in  the  Republican  Centre,  at  the  November 
election  both  men  lost  their  seats.63 

Even  after  the  departure  of  the  Dissidents,  the  attenuated  Radical  party  was 
divided  in  every  important  vote.  General  de  Gaulle  was  an  old  adversary,  and 
when  he  stood  for  the  premiership  he  was  opposed  by  eighteen  of  the  forty- 
two  Radical  deputies:  most  of  the  Mendesists,  their  staunch  ally  Daladier, 
their  faithless  friend  Baylet,  and  their  illiberal  antagonist  Bourg&s-Maunoury. 
At  the  party  conference  in  September  1958  these  incongruous  associates 
mustered  40%  of  the  votes  against  the  new  constitution;  at  the  November 

60.  See  Pay  sans,  pp.  115-16 ;  and  note  31  above.  Of  the  fourteen  seceding  deputies  only  three 
were  from  industrial  departments,  and  only  one  was  from  northern  or  eastern  France  (though 
none  came  from  Baylet's  south-western  stronghold).  Reactionary  Radicalism  in  alt  its  forms  owed 
much  to  one  wing  of  French  freemasonry  (cf.  Coston,  pp.  346-53,  and  also  above,  p.  98  and  n.) 
which  moved  Right  as  the  Catholic  Church  moved  Left. 

61.  The  journals  retaliated:  cf.  below,  p.  351n.  On  Asnieres  see  AP  1957,  pp.  36-7;  De  Tarr, 
p.  225;  Bardonnet,  pp.  28,  73,  107  (organization),  51n.  (numbers),  91  and  n.,  133n.,  cf.  267-8 
(tone). 

62.  'Some  are  departing,  others  want  to  return;  it's  no  longer  a  party  but  a  railroad  station' : 
De  Tarr,  p.  243,  quoting  a  delegate  in  1957.  Cf.  ibid.,  pp.  134,  225 ;  Bardonnet,  pp.  50-2  and  nn. ; 
AP  1957,  p.  119,  and  1958,  pp.  50-1. 

63.  The  right-wing  Radicals  polled  1,400,000  and  returned  twenty  members.  The  Republican 
Centre  (see  Coston,  pp.  349-50)  ran  several  crypto-fascist  candidates  who  had  formerly  followed 
Colonel  de  la  Rocque,  Pierre  Poujade  and  Me  Tixier-Vignancour  (see  Chapter  12);  also  Jean 
Baylot,  ex-prefect  of  police  and  Mendes-France's  enemy  in  1954  (see  p.  46n.). 


THE  RADICAL  PARTY  131 

elections  the  Gaullist  tidal  wave  swept  them  all  away.  At  a  far  lower  ebb  even 
than  in  1945,  the  Radical  party  was  reduced  to  20,000  members,  a  million 
votes  and  thirteen  seats.  Perhaps  the  old  men  had  been  right  to  'prefer 
effectiveness  in  a  sordid  cohabitation  to  disaster  in  a  healthy  split'.64 

The  weaknesses  of  that  traditional  Radical  doctrine  were  all  too  evident. 
France  in  the  middle  of  the  twentieth  century  could  not  afford  timid  political 
leadership.  Her  industrial  re-equipment  demanded  painful  sacrifices,  her 
imperial  retreat  called  for  uncomfortable  reappraisals,  her  foreign  policy 
required  clear-cut  choices.  The  Radical  party  existed  to  protect  its  following 
from  painful  sacrifices,  uncomfortable  reappraisals  and  clear-cut  choices.  Its 
voters  were  a  drag  on  any  constructive  and  vigorous  economic  policy.  Its 
financiers  used  the  party  to  obstruct  timely  reforms  overseas.  Its  deputies 
joined  every  majority  and  its  ministers  sat  in  every  cabinet,  bewildering  and 
disgusting  the  voter  by  ensuring  that  he  was  never  presented  with  clear  alter- 
natives. 

Having  neither  policy  nor  discipline  nor  consistency  in  its  choice  of  allies  it 
contributed  greatly  to  political  confusion  -  even  in  its  own  ranks,  where  con- 
ferences regularly  applauded  speakers  who  employed  a  common  vocabulary 
to  advocate  opposite  policies,  and  then  voted  a  negre-blanc  motion  endorsing 
both  points  of  view.  Prudence  and  guile,  not  decision  and  discipline  led 
Radical  politicians  to  success:  and  when  Mendes-France  tried  to  impose  a 
real  choice  they  frustrated  him  within  a  month  and  broke  him  within  a  year. 
But  in  the  end  'wearing  their  ears  out  by  dragging  them  along  the  ground' 
harmed  the  politicians  themselves,  for  in  1958  as  in  1945  the  Radical  record 
was  overwhelmingly  repudiated  by  the  electorate. 

Yet  despite  its  failings  the  party  performed  an  essential  function  in  French 
public  life.  Its  chiefs  were  used  to  power,  and  had  a  sens  de  V&at  often  lacking 
in  less  experienced  groups.  Its  wide  embrace  enabled  it  to  recruit  able  men,  its 
lax  discipline  allowed  them  freedom  to  preach  their  individual  views,  and  it 
therefore  afforded  a  platform  from  which  unpopular  minority  views  could  be 
put  by  men  of  recognized  standing.  The  conviction  that  'the  main  task  of  a 
great  party  is  the  same  as  that  of  a  good  stomach:  not  to  reject  but  to  assimi- 
late' provided  an  indispensable  element  of  continuity  in  a  deeply  divided 
country.  Inevitable  political  transitions  could  occur  with  the  minimum  of 
disturbance  when  a  highly  flexible  party  was  available  to  switch  without 
embarrassment  from  one  coalition  to  another.  Radicalism  formed  a  buffer 
between  more  active  and  constructive  but  also  more  ruthless  rivals:  when  the 
Mendesist  demand  for  decision  and  clarity  broke  it  into  impotent  fragments, 
the  buffer  was  eliminated.  Majorities  could  no  longer  be  assembled  nor  minis- 
tries formed  because  an  indispensable  component  of  both  had  disappeared. 
At  the  end  of  the  Third  Republic  a  hostile  critic  conceded,  'Perhaps  it  was  a 
Radical  party  that  Spain  lacked  in  1936'.  By  the  end  of  the  Fourth,  France 
lacked  one  too.65 

64.  G.  Martinet,  France-Observateur  14  October  1954.  Cf.  De  Tarr,  pp.  233, 235-8 ;  on  member- 
ship, Laponce,  pp.  76,  83. 

65.  B.S.  (Goguel),  no.  87,  p.  187  ('Spain') ;  cf.  pp.  174, 183, 221 ;  also  DeTarr,  pp.  9  ('stomach ), 
238-45.  Verdicts  on  the  Radical  party  are  commonly,  and  appropriately,  n&gre-blanc. 


Chapter  10 
THE  GAULLISTS 

1.   HISTORY 

In  the  Fourth  Republic  the  Gaullist  movement  took  three  political  forms:  the 
short-lived  Union  Gaulliste  of  1946,  the  Rassemblement  du  Peuple  fran$ais 
(RPF)  founded  in  1947,  and  the  party  of  Rdpublicains  sociaux  (RS)  which 
succeeded  it  in  1953.1  But  Gaullism  was  born  much  earlier,  on  18  June  1940  - 
the  125th  anniversary  of  Waterloo  -  when  the  unknown  undersecretary  for 
war  in  the  outgoing  French  government  proclaimed  over  the  BBC  that  the 
battle  of  France  had  not  decided  the  war.  Without  the  slightest  organized 
backing  he  was  setting  out  upon  a  revolutionary  path.  Already  he  had  revealed 
in  his  writings  his  extraordinary  self-confidence  and  self-sufficiency;  the 
resounding  vindication  of  his  solitary  stand  inevitably  confirmed  his  certainty 
of  his  own  mission.  Long  before  Winston  Churchill  addressed  him  as  'the 
man  of  destiny',  the  General  had  cast  himself  in  that  role.2 

The  decision  of  1940  and  its  consequences  profoundly  influenced  the  de- 
velopment of  Gaullism.  They  gave  the  movement  the  centralized  structure 
which  was  intended  to  make  it  the  exclusive  instrument  of  its  founder's  will. 
They  gave  it  its  leadership,  for  General  de  Gaulle  never  fully  extended  his  con- 
fidence to  any  but  his  earliest  collaborators.  They  gave  it  much  of  its  consti- 
tutional doctrine,  for  the  General's  political  prescriptions  were  deeply  affected 
by  the  fear  of  another  1940  and  the  need  to  devise  remedies  in  advance  against 
such  a  catastrophe.3  They  even  bequeathed  to  RPF  many  of  its  internal 
problems.  For  that  revolutionary  decision  placed  the  General  in  opposition  to 
the  great  majority  of  the  army,  to  nearly  all  the  Right  and  to  most  of  the 
influential  men  and  classes  in  the  country.  Ten  years  later  these  men  and 
classes  formed  the  bulk  of  a  new  Gaullist  movement:  but  neither  they  nor 
their  leader  forgot  that  at  a  crucial  moment  they  had  taken  opposite  sides. 

Gaullism,  more  even  than  MRP,  was  the  movement  of  a  generation. 
Twenty  years  later  the  core  of  the  party  was  still  formed  by  men  who  had 
answered  the  call  as  Resisters  or  Free  Frenchmen.  Very  many  original 
followers  became  devotees  for  life  who  willingly  subordinated  their  own  views 
(and  careers)  to  the  General's  successive  policies  and  appeals.  These  true 
Gaullists  were  contemptuous  of  the  timid  bourgeoisie  who  applauded  P6tain 
in  1940  and  stayed  prudently  attentiste  until  1944.  For  them  Conservatism 
was  a  slothful  or  cowardly  acquiescence  in  existing  trends  and  Gaullism  a  bold 

1.  For  useful  accounts  of  RPF  see  Pierce,  no.  178 ;  Neumann,  no,  166;  Casalegno,  no.  49.  On 
Gaullism  in  the  Fifth  Republic  see  Elections  1958,  pp.  15-19,  361-71,  and  sources  above,  p.  57n. 

2.  Since  he  was  twelve :  Wright,  Reshaping,  p.  42. 

3.  As  he  told  the  press  on  17  August  1950 : 

*The  nation  remembers  how  a  regime  of  the  same  type,  though  with  less  glaring  vices,  literally 
evaporated  when  the  disaster  against  which  it  had  been  unable  to  protect  us  had  broken  down  the 
country's  defences  ...  It  is  therefore  necessary  that  in  good  time  another  power  appear,  morally 
capable  of  taking  in  charge  the  independence  and  interests  of  France.  This  has  been  accomplished 
once!  The  country  may  rest  assured  that  it  would  be  accomplished  again.*  AP  1950,  p.  296 ;  see 
also  AP  1946,  p.  538,  1948,  p.  329;  and  below,  p.  191  and  n. 


THE  GAULLISTS  133 

assertion  that  the  course  of  history  could  be  changed  by  human  will;4  with  the 
traditional  Right  there  might  be  occasional  co-operation  but  no  trust,  esteem 
or  lasting  understanding.  Dedicated  to  their  charismatic  leader  and  their  lofty 
cause,  Gaullists  too  often  attributed  attacks  on  either  of  them  to  mere 
pettiness,  corruption  or  even  treason. 

Suspicion  of  Gaullist  intentions  was  fostered  by  the  General's  prickly 
intransigence  and  arrogance,  the  character  of  some  of  his  associates,  and  the 
determination  with  which  they  waged  the  political  struggle  in  London  and 
Algiers.  But  these  doubts  proved  unjustified.  De  Gaulle  established  neither  a 
dictatorship  nor  the  quasi-presidential  regime  he  himself  desired.  His  govern- 
ment held  free  and  genuine  parliamentary  elections  only  five  months  after  the 
end  of  the  European  war,  and  allowed  the  country  to  make  its  own  constitu- 
tional choice.  No  doubt  he  influenced  the  results  by  allowing  women  to  vote 
(against  Radical  protests),  by  the  form  of  his  constitutional  proposals,  and  by 
his  new  electoral  law.  But  these  were  honest  attempts  to  find  a  democratic 
solution  in  a  revolutionary  situation. 

In  January  1946,  three  months  after  the  election,  the  brief  honeymoon 
between  the  parties  and  the  General  came  to  an  abrupt  end.  Conciliation  and 
compromise  had  never  been  marked  features  of  his  character,  and  no  doubt 
he  made  too  little  allowance  for  the  difficulties  of  partners  who  had  to  meet  a 
totalitarian  and  demagogic  rival  on  the  electoral  battlefield.  But  to  be  a  prime 
minister  unable  to  act  without  first  conciliating  three  strong  and  mutually 
suspicious  parties,  and  leader  of  a  ministry  whose  solidarity  was  little  more 
than  a  mockery,  would  have  frustrated  a  humbler  and  more  patient  man. 
Making  no  attempt  to  seize  power,  General  de  Gaulle  quietly  withdrew  into 
private  life.5 

MRP  did  not  follow  him;  and  a  breach  was  opened  between  the  party  of 
Resistance  Catholics  and  the  Catholic  leader  of  Resistance.  For  a  great 
political  movement  could  not  go  into  silent  retirement  like  a  single  individual, 
and  MRP  dared  not  withdraw  from  office  and  so  leave  the  Socialist  lamb  in  a 
t&te-a-tete  with  the  Communist  tiger.  But  the  General  felt  himself  betrayed  in 
January,  and  in  May  he  returned  the  compliment:  he  left  MRP  to  bear  alone 
the  brunt  of  opposing  the  constitution  which  the  Marxist  parties  had  drafted, 
and  did  not  even  cast  his  own  vote  against  it.  Not  until  the  battle  was  over  did 
he  fire  his  first  shot,  the  Bayeux  speech  of  16  June  1946  calling  for  a  quasi- 
presidential  constitution.  And  in  the  referendum  of  October  1946  theparrf  de 
lafidelite  clashed  with  the  leader  to  whom  it  had  proclaimed  its  faithfulness, 
and  found  that  two-thirds  of  its  voters  preferred  to  follow  his  leadership. 

Millions  of  MRP  electors  were  disillusioned  with  their  party  and  hostile  to 
tripartisme.  But  they  would  not  throw  their  votes  away  on  a  new,  weak  party 
lacking  the  endorsement  of  the  General  himself;  the  Gaullist  Union,  founded 
by  Ren6  Capitant  to  advocate  the  'Bayeux  constitution',  secured  only  300,000 
votes  in  the  November  election  and  returned  only  half  a  dozen  members  (who 
mostly  joined  UD  S  R).  To  mobilize  the  electoral  influence  he  had  demonstrated 

4.  See  for  instance  Noel,  pp.  72-6,  80-1 ;  R.  Capitant,  preface  to  Vallon,  UHistoire  s'avance 
masqu^e,  pp.  6-11 ;  cf.  E.  Michelet,  Le  Gaullisme  passionnante  aventure  (1962), 

5.  See  above,  p.  22  and  n.,  and  below,  pp.  386-7. 


134  THE  PARTIES 

at  the  October  referendum,  de  Gaulle  personally  had  to  take  the  lead  of  all  the 
forces  opposed  to  tripartisme,  including  the  Right  which  had  never  loved  or 
trusted  him,  and  the  Radicals  who  had  so  recently  allied  with  the  Communists 
against  him.  The  man  who  had  once  hoped  to  rebuild  France  with  the  aid  of 
Socialists  and  MRP  now  became  the  chief  of  a  movement  challenging  these 
parties  for  power. 

At  Strasbourg  on  7  April  1947  General  de  Gaulle  launched  his  Rally  of  the 
French  People,  RPF.  In  May  the  Communists  went  into  opposition,  and  the 
government  had  to  try  to  govern  against  the  hostility  of  most  of  the  organized 
workers.  The  atmosphere  of  alarm  and  tension  was  aggravated  by  the  onset  of 
the  cold  war;  de  Gaulle  himself  feared  an  imminent  Russian  attack  and 
another  1940.  Amid  continuing  colonial  troubles,  grave  economic  difficulties 
and  violent  revolutionary  strikes,  RPF  seemed  the  one  force  capable  of  check- 
ing the  Communist  advance.  Before  the  end  of  1947  it  was  claiming  more 
members  than  the  Communists  themselves.  And  in  the  municipal  elections  of 
October  1947  the  Gaullists  (with  their  allies  on  coalition  lists)  secured  nearly 
six  million  votes,  almost  40%  of  the  total  and  far  more  than  MRP  and 
Socialists  combined.  They  united  the  Conservative  and  Radical  followings, 
took  over  the  disillusioned  from  MRP,  and  in  the  big  cities  also  ate  into  the 
electoral  support  of  the  proletarian  parties.  De  Gaulle's  triumphant  return 
to  power  seemed  only  a  matter  of  time. 

At  first  the  General  and  his  supporters  earnestly  denied  that  the  Rally  was  a 
new  party.  It  was  meant  to  attract  Frenchmen  of  all  views  who  were  loyal  to 
the  state  (but  not  collaborators  or  Communists).  It  would  form  no  new  par- 
liamentary group,  only  an  'inter-group'  of  deputies  who  would  remain  mem- 
bers of  their  original  parties.  In  the  event  these  came  mainly  from  RGR  and 
Conservative  groups;  yet  this  was  not  the  wish  of  the  Gaullists  but  the  choice 
of  S  FI 0  and  MRP,  who  both  forbade  their  members  to  join  the  inter-group. 

The  great  expectations  of  November  1947  were  never  realized.  The  Marshall 
Plan  averted  the  expected  economic  collapse.  The  inter-group  attracted  less 
than  eighty  deputies;  the  inevitability  of  the  General's  triumph  was  evidently 
not  appreciated  at  the  Palais  Bourbon.  The  Assembly  majority  ignored  his 
invitation  to  them  to  commit  political  suicide  by  voting  their  own  dissolution.6 
Trying  to  impose  discipline  on  its  supporters  just  as  if  it  were  a  new  party, 
RPF  came  up  against  the  refractory  individualism  of  the  French  deputy  of 
the  Right ;  only  two  dozen  members  accepted  the  strict  Gaullist  whip. 7  After  a 
great  effort  to  capture  control  of  the  upper  house,  RPFclaimed  150  of  the  320 
senators  elected  in  November  1948.  But  many  candidates,  especially  Radicals, 
had  welcomed  Gaullist  support  with  no  intention  of  accepting  Gaullist  dis- 
cipline. When  RPF  formed  within  this  new  inter-group  a  separate  group 
pledged  to  obey  orders,  it  recruited  only  fifty-eight  senators. 

Queuille's  long  ministry,  from  September  1948  to  October  1949,  ended 

6.  De  Gaulle  demonstrated  his  determination  to  come  to  power  legally  when  he  demanded  that 
the  Assembly  dissolve  itself  by  the  two-thirds  majority  required  for  a  constitutional  amendment, 
since  the  regular  conditions  for  dissolution  (see  below,  pp.  236-7)  were  not  fulfilled  in  1947. 

7.  Pierre  Montel  (a  vice-president)  and  twelve  Conservative  deputies  resigned  from  the  inter- 
group  in  protest  against  instructions  to  oppose  Paul  Reynaud's  financial  programme  in  the  brief 
Marie  government. 


THE  GAULLISTS  135 

Gaullist  hopes  of  early  success.  Those  who  had  hoped  that  RPF  would  shield 
France  from  revolutionary  violence  were  shocked  by  a  clash  at  Grenoble  in 
which  two  men  were  killed.  Prices  stopped  rising,  and  at  the  beginning  of  1949 
a  successful  loan  was  floated.  Increasingly  RPF  suffered  from  clashes  between 
parliamentarians  and  militants,  clericals  and  anticlericals,  just  like  the  parties 
it  despised.  When  the  ministry  finally  broke  up  the  crisis  lasted  a  month;  yet 
even  this  unfortunate  spectacle  did  not  help  RPF. 

By  1951  it  was  evident  that  the  Gaullists  would  not  obtain  power  by  them- 
selves. But  if  together  with  the  Communists  they  commanded  a  clear  majority 
in  the  new  Assembly,  they  might  threaten  to  paralyse  government  and  thus 
dictate  terms.  To  avoid  this  result,  an  electoral  law  was  voted  which  encouraged 
party  alliances  by  discriminating  against  parties  which  were  too  suspect  (like 
the  Communists)  or  too  intransigent  (like  RPF)  to  contract  them.  For  the 
General  still  hoped  for  a  nation-wide  response  to  his  appeal,  which  he  would 
not  allow  to  be  tarnished  by  compromises  with  the  System;  besides,  he  had 
learned  a  lesson  from  the  senatorial  elections,  and  refused  to  swell  the  ranks 
of  his  parliamentary  supporters  with  men  whose  electoral  commitments 
divided  their  loyalties.  So  local  RPF  branches  were  allowed  to  enter  into 
electoral  combinations  in  a  handful  of  departments  only.8  Partly  as  a  result, 
and  partly  because  the  movement  obtained  rather  fewer  votes  than  had  been 
expected  (perhaps  in  consequence  of  the  electoral  law),  the  Gaullists  won  only 
120  seats  instead  of  the  200  for  which  their  optimists  had  hoped. 

Even  so,  at  the  beginning  of  the  new  legislature  they  scored  an  important 
success.  By  forcing  to  the  front  the  question  of  the  church  schools  they 
obliged  M  RP  either  to  oppose  them  and  forfeit  the  support  of  the  Church,  or 
to  follow  them  and  break  with  the  Socialists.  When  the  Barange  bill  to  sub- 
sidize the  Catholic  schools  went  through  in  September  1951,  the  old  majority 
was  broken.  If  the  indignant  Socialists  began  voting  with  RPF  and  the  Com- 
munists on  other  matters,  the  opposition  would  command  a  majority  of  the 
Assembly.  Two  governments  fell,  one  through  Socialist  and  the  other  through 
Radical  defections,  and  RPF's  moment  seemed  to  have  come. 

But  the  Gaullist  manoeuvring  had  unexpected  results.  Since  the  centre  of 
gravity  of  the  majority  had  been  shifted  far  to  the  Right,  a  Conservative, 
Antoine  Pinay,  was  put  up  for  the  premiership  -  and  the  former  Conservatives 
in  RPF  insisted  upon  voting  for  him.  In  March  1952  he  became  prime 
minister  at  the  head  of  the  most  Conservative  parliamentary  majority  for 
twenty  years.  Inside  the  Gaullist  movement  months  of  friction  followed.  The 
rebellion  was  soon  consolidated  when  the  by-elections  showed  that  in  middle- 
class  areas  RPF  had  lost  two-thirds  of  its  votes  within  a  year.  But  left-wing 
Gaullists  in  the  cities  proved  equally  uncompromising,  and  in  divisions  the 
once  monolithic  group  split  three  ways  like  mere  Radicals,  or  saved  its  unity 
by  undignified  but  unanimous  abstention.9 

8.  Eleven  RPF  deputies  owed  their  election  to  alliance  with  Conservatives;  eight  of  them 
revolted  before  or  in  July  1952;  less  than  a  quarter  of  the  other  members  of  the  group  did  so 
(see  below,  p.  153n.),  On  the  electoral  law  see  below,  pp.  313-14. 

9.  On  a  minimum  wage  bill  in  April,  26  RPF  deputies  voted  for  Pinay,  29  abstained  and  28  - 
mainly  from  Paris  and  the  industrial  areas  -  voted  against  him:  Williams,  p.  136n.  On  the  split 
see  also  below,  pp.  140,  153,  372. 


136  THE  PARTIES 

In  July  the  General  and  his  advisers  decided  to  impose  new  disciplinary 
rules,  and  a  quarter  of  the  Gaullist  deputies  resigned  to  form  a  new  group, 
ARS  (see  Chapter  11).  But  indiscipline  was  contagious,  and  in  January  1953 
even  the  'orthodox'  parliamentary  group  defied  the  leadership  by  voting  for 
a  new  prime  minister,  Ren6  Mayer.  In  May  a  heavy  Gaullist  defeat  in  the 
municipal  elections  convinced  the  General  that  he  had  failed,  and  he  required 
RPF  to  abandon  all  parliamentary  and  electoral  activity.  The  deputies,  re- 
christened  first  URAS  (Union  des  republicans  (Faction  sociale)  and  then 
Social  Republicans  (RS)  were  at  last  free  to  play  the  parliamentary  game. 
Two  months  later  their  leaders  were  in  office. 

In  supporting  Mayer  for  the  premiership  the  Gaullist  deputies  had  changed 
their  tactics.  By  entering  the  majority  they  hoped  generally  to  strengthen  their 
influence  and  specifically  to  defeat  the  European  army  treaty.  To  achieve  this 
crucial  objective  intransigent  Gaullist  leaders  were  ready  to  appear  on  plat- 
forms with  Communists,  while  the  more  opportunist  were  willing  to  sit  in 
cabinet  with  MRP  and  other  pro-European  colleagues.  Claiming  to  be  a 
centre  party  and  apparently  reconciled  to  the  System,  they  were  learning  with 
the  zeal  of  neophytes  how  to  turn  its  own  weapons  against  it.  All  four 
premiers  elected  from  1953  to  1955  won  a  majority  of  their  votes,  but  only 
Mend£s-France  -  himself  a  distinguished  rebel  against  and  victim  of  the 
System  -  kept  their  support  to  the  end.  The  other  three  were  defeated  by 
defections  in  which  the  Social  Republicans  played  a  decisive  part.  Andre 
Diethelm,  RS  chairman  in  the  Assembly,  could  claim:  '  We  are  still  alive,  for 
we  can  destroy  -  if  not  create.'10 

This  conduct  did  not  endear  the  party  to  the  electorate.  From  120  deputies 
in  1951  the  Gaullist  numbers  dropped  to  71  at  the  dissolution  in  1955;  in  the 
new  house  only  21  were  returned.  The  collapse  was  due  to  their  rather  lofty 
attitude  towards  their  constituency  duties,  to  the  conservatism  of  their  original 
voters  (for  only  four  of  the  ARS  dissidents  were  beaten),  and  above  all  to  de 
Gaulle's  withdrawal;  but  also  to  their  attempt  to  manipulate  the  System  they 
were  pledged  to  destroy.  By  entering,  leaving  and  then  rejoining  the  conser- 
vative coalition  they  had  given  an  impression  of  unreliability  which  was 
reinforced  by  their  quarrels  with  Edgar  Faure  (and  with  each  other)  over 
Morocco,  and  then  by  their  conduct  in  the  election  campaign.  Their  leader 
Chaban-Delmas  (a  former  Radical)  joined  Mollet  and  Mend&s-France  in  the 
Republican  Front,  but  most  outgoing  RS  deputies  were  allied  with  the  Right. 
They  had  won  their  spurs  as  a  centre  party.11 

In  the  election  Social  Republicans  of  the  Left  and  Right  each  lost  three- 
quarters  of  their  votes.  The  few  who  survived  were  those  who  enjoyed  strong 
constituency  loyalties.12  Two  of  their  leaders  entered  the  Mollet  cabinet, 

10.  JO  21  May  1953,  p.  2816;  AP  1953,  p.  43. 

11.  Moraz6,  pp.  147-8,  150-1.  Ten  candidates  made  apparent ements  with  the  Left  (of  which  8 
included  and  2  excluded  Socialists) ;  but  of  49  sitting  members  who  stood  again,  only  one  did  so 
(after  the  Conservatives  had  rebuffed  him)  and  26  preferred  to  ally  with  the  Right  -  among  them 
even  so  thorough  a  Mendesist  as  Diomede  Catroux,  nephew  of  General  Catroux. 

12.  Even  these  often  depended  on  personal  reputation  rather  than  genuine  local  roots.  Thus 
in  Lyons  (Soustelle's  seat)  RS  had  no  real  local  base  and  met  in  the  big  public  halls,  while  an  old 
party  like  the  Radicals  preferred  ward  meetings  in  clubs  and  caf6s :  Elections  1956,  p.  320. 


THE  GAULLISTS  137 

which  most  of  the  group  supported  until  its  fall;  thereafter  they  again  began 
voting  for  premiers  at  their  first  appearance  but  quickly  turning  against  them. 
Nor  was  their  opposition  now  confined  to  the  parliamentary  stage ;  leaders  like 
Soustelle,  Chaban-Delmas  and  Debr6  were  actively  working  for  the  over- 
throw of  the  regime.  The  result  was  seen  in  May  1958. 

2.   ORGANIZATION  AND  FOLLOWING 

RPF  was  built  around  its  leader,  constructed  according  to  his  ideas,  led  by 
his  loyal  disciples  and  devoted  to  his  service.  This  personal  allegiance  was 
almost  the  only  common  bond  between  supporters  of  diverse  social  and 
political  origins.  Too  heterogeneous  to  enjoy  a  natural  unity  of  purpose,  the 
movement  tried  with  indifferent  success  to  enforce  strict  discipline  as  a 
substitute. 

Power  was  concentrated  in  the  President  of  the  Rally,  General  de  Gaulle 
himself,  who  chose  a  secretariat  and  an  executive  to  assist  him.  The  general 
secretary  (at  first  Jacques  Soustelle,  later  Louis  Terrenoire)  was  named  by  and 
took  instructions  from  the  President.  The  secretariat  comprised  de  Gaulle's 
personal  collaborators,  working  either  in  Paris  or  as  regional  delegates  in  the 
field  but  all  meeting  weekly  in  the  capital.  The  executive  originally  had  twelve 
members,  who  could  not  have  seats  in  Parliament  (Diethelm,  a  Gaullist  leader 
from  the  earliest  days,  had  to  resign  in  1948  on  being  elected  a  senator).  In  the 
constituencies  power  was  in  the  hands  of  a  departmental  delegate,  selected  by 
and  responsible  to  the  centre,  which  also  chose  his  chief  subordinates  on  his 
recommendation.  The  elected  departmental  council  was  purely  consultative 
and  could  communicate  with  headquarters  only  through  the  delegate.  The 
twenty-two  regional  delegates  were  members  of  the  secretariat,  and  checked 
any  tendency  by  departmental  delegates  to  support  their  local  councils  against 
the  centre.13 

General  de  Gaulle  originally  conceived  RPF  as  a  broad  non-partisan 
movement  appealing  to  all  classes  and  especially  the  workers.  In  the  early  days 
the  Gaullists  gave  much  attention  to  organizing  workshop  cells,  and  they 
always  retained  some  influence  on  the  margin  of  the  trade  union  movement.14 
There  was  a  corporative  structure  of  youth,  family  and  ex-service  organiza- 
tions, and  large  fractions  of  the  departmental  councils,  national  council 
(conseil  national)  and  annual  conference  (assises)  were  chosen  on  a  non- 
territorial  basis.  The  conference  selected  the  national  council,  on  which  the 
departmental  councils  and  national  headquarters  were  represented  as  well  as 
the  social  groups  (though  parliamentarians  were  at  first  excluded).  It  was  the 
national  council  which  in  the  early  days  worked  out  two  of  the  most  original 

13.  Late  in  1951  the  delegate  for  Meurthe-et-Moselle  resigned  in  sympathy  with  the  depart- 
mental council ;  it  promptly  made  him  its  chairman,  and  was  as  promptly  disaffiliated :  Monde, 
8  and  9  January,  18-19  May  1952 ;  Figaro,  17-18  May  1952 ;  cf.  n.  16.  RPF's  formal  organization 
is  described  more  fully  in  Williams,  pp.  123-9. 

14.  Particularly  through  the  small  Confederation  g^ndrale  des  syndicats  independants,  whose 
secretary  (a  former  Communist  deputy)  enjoyed  Gaullist  support  against  a  rival  faction  led  by 
the  former  Vichy  minister  of  labour,  Ren6  Belin.  See  references  in  ibid.,  p.  124n. ;  Lorwin,  pp.  131, 
298-9 ;  Rioux,  pp.  104-5 ;  Lefranc,  pp.  207-8 ;  Gu6ry,  Les  maitres  de  fUNX,  pp.  130-50  -  hostile 
but  informative.  In  1948  RPF  claimed  145,000  members  organized  in  workplace  cells  (groupes 
d'entreprise) :  R.  Barrillon  in  Partis  et  Classes,  p.  279. 


138  THE  PARTIES 

items  of  the  party  programme,  educational  allowances  and  the  'association' 
of  labour  and  capital.15 

This  structure  ensured  close  control  from  Paris.  Local  tactics  were  nationally 
determined,  and  parliamentary  candidates  were  personally  chosen  by  the 
General  himself.  But  control  from  the  centre  led  to  friction  at  the  periphery; 
at  every  election  RPF  suffered  a  crop  of  resignations  of  local  leaders  affronted 
by  the  peremptory  instructions  from  above.16  The  subordination  of  members 
of  parliament  was  no  less  deeply  resented.  For  the  deputies  who  rallied  to  de 
Gaulle  in  1947  had  all  been  elected  without  his  sponsorship,  and  after  reject- 
ing the  discipline  of  a  party  few  of  them  were  now  ready  to  submit  to  that  of  a 
military  leader.  The  decision  to  organize  *  inter-groups'  instead  of  a  separate 
parliamentary  party  suited  the  politicians  better  than  the  General:  they 
acquired  an  electorally  profitable  label  without  undertaking  any  clear  com- 
mitment, he  mobilized  an  impressive  paper  following  on  which  he  could  not 
rely.  Attempts  to  impose  discipline  simply  provoked  resignations.17  So  at  the 
end  of  1948  distinct  groups  of  faithful  Gaullists  were  set  up  in  both  houses; 
each  was  joined  by  about  a  third  of  the  inter-group.18  After  the  1951  election 
the  inter-group  and  its  equivocations  disappeared  from  the  Assembly. 

The  parliamentarians  gradually  obtained  a  voice  in  policy-making.  In  1949 
they  were  permitted  to  attend  their  local  departmental  council  and  the  national 
council,  and  a  liaison  committee  was  set  up;  the  General  also  nominated  four 
deputies  and  three  senators  to  an  enlarged  executive  of  twenty  (renamed  con- 
sell  de  direction  instead  of  comite  executif).  In  1 95 1  the  national  council  was  in 
turn  enlarged  to  give  them  a  quarter  of  the  seats.19  But  at  that  year's  general 
election  most  members  of  the  executive  won  seats  in  the  Assembly,  and  they 
soon  came  to  resent  the  control  of  tactics  by  a  leader  and  advisers  outside 
Parliament.20 

In  July  1952  an  attempt  was  made  to  reimpose  the  discipline  which  Pinay 
had  broken.  The  parliamentarians  were  given  a  somewhat  greater  voice,  but 

15.  See  below,  p.  143.  Fractions:  half  of  each  departmental  council;  nearly  a  third  of  the 
national  council ;  at  first  a  majority,  later  a  large  minority  of  the  conference. 

16.  Thus  in  1951  the  departmental  delegate  for  Morbihan,  the  three  RPF  senators  and  two 
RPF  candidates  came  out  for  the  rival  Conservative-MRP  list  with  which  headquarters  had 
forbidden  them  to  ally.  For  other  examples  see  Williams,  p.  129n.,  and  below,  p.  143.  For 
bitter  criticism  of  headquarters  for  its  over-confidence  and  ignorance  of  the  provinces  by  an 
ARS  deputy  (a  former  Free  French  officer)  see  J.  Halleguen,  Aux  quatre  vents  du  Gaullisme  (1953), 
pp.  218-26 ;  for  the  author's  own  dictatorial  methods  as  a  departmental  delegate,  Monde,  17  May 
1950. 

17.  See  above,  n.  7,  and  below,  p.  143  and  n. 

18.  The  group  in  the  Council  of  the  Republic  was  called  Action  dtmocratique  et  rfyublicaine, 
and  had  58  members.  Until  1951  there  were  two  groups  in  the  Assembly,  Action  dtmocratique  et 
sociale  (with  18  members  at  the  end)  and  Rtpublicains  populaires  independants  (half  a  dozen 
ex-members  of  MRP,  affiliated  to  the  larger  group). 

19.  It  was  increased  from  140  to  233  of  whom  40  were  deputies  and  20  senators;  AP  1951, 
p.  294.  Fauvet,  Forces,  pp.  242-3 nn.,  names  the  executive  (omitting  Diethelm)  and  some  pro- 
minent members  of  the  council. 

20.  Though  most  members  of  the  executive  were  now  in  Parliament  (16  out  of  29  by  1952), 
the  General  still  controlled  it;  after  the  1952  pro-Pinay  revolt  he  omitted  to  convoke  it  for  weeks 
and  then  did  not  invite  the  chief  rebel.  At  an  earlier  executive  meeting  two  future  rebel  leaders 
had  bitterly  opposed  supporting  any  cabinet  not  led  by  the  General  (for  that  policy  would  not 
have  brought  them  office,  while  a  revolt  might) :  Noel,  p.  46.  The  deputies  themselves  had  never 
been  allowed  to  discuss  such  a  policy:  Halleguen,  pp.  231,  237;  on  pp.  234-6  he  quotes  the  Gen- 
eral's haughty  letter  to  the  rebellious  deputies. 


THE  GAULLISTS  139 

in  return  were  required  to  observe  discipline  on  all  votes  affecting  the  life  of  a 
government  and  all  other  major  questions  where  the  parliamentary  party  so 
decided.  These  rules  were  voted  by  478  to  56  at  a  national  council  meeting  at 
St.  Maur;21  thirty  deputies  resigned  and  even  the  loyalists  attacked  the  new 
rules.  In  November  General  de  Gaulle  consented  to  reduce  his  personal 
authority  and  allow  more  representation  to  both  parliamentary  and  rank  and 
file  opinion.  But  the  damage  had  been  done  and  six  months  later,  after  a  heavy 
electoral  defeat,  the  disillusioned  leader  withdrew  from  politics.  When  most  of 
his  parliamentary  followers  regrouped  as  the  Social  Republicans  they  adopted 
a  title  and  form  of  organization  borrowed  from  the  Conservatives,  founded  on 
departmental  autonomy  and  control  by  members  of  parliament.22 

This  choice  of  organizational  form  showed  that  by  1953  Gaullism  was  no 
longer  a  mass  movement.  Yet  at  one  time  it  had  attracted  the  largest  member- 
ship ever  attained  by  a  French  party.  From  a  million  early  in  1948  it  dropped 
to  350,000  two  years  later,  recovering  by  the  end  of  1950  to  500,000.23  Its  mass 
support  was  essentially  urban.  In  the  countryside  RPF  was  always  a  party  of 
notables,  familiar  figures  with  a  following  only  in  old  Conservative  or 
Bonapartist  strongholds.  But  in  the  cities  it  appealed  successfully  to  suppor- 
ters of  the  Left.  At  the  1947  municipal  elections  RPF's  own  lists  (as  distinct 
from  coalition  ones)  obtained  under  10%  of  the  vote  in  the  small  rural  com- 
munes but  nearly  30%  in  the  towns;  in  Paris  RPF  gained  137,000  Socialist 
and  Communist  votes,  which  stayed  Gaullist  in  1951  but  then  reverted 
(usually)  to  SFIO.24  Both  in  1951  and  afterwards  the  proletarian  quarters 
remained  more  faithful  to  the  Gaullists  than  the  respectable  bourgeois  dis- 
tricts.25 

With  their  coalition  allies  the  Gaullists  had  won  38%  of  the  poll  in  1947.  In 
1951  they  had  21%  (17%  of  the  electorate)  and  4J  million  votes.  This  left 
RPF  well  behind  the  Communists  but  far  ahead  of  the  other  parties  (none  of 
which  reached  3  million).  And  since  the  electoral  law  harmed  Thorez's 
followers  far  more  than  de  Gaulle's,  RPF  jumped  from  two  dozen  seats  in  the 
Assembly  to  first  place  with  120.26 

21.  On  it,  Halleguen,  pp.  239-42;  Noel,  pp.  49-51. 

22.  Goguel,  Le  regime  politique  francais,  p.  92. 

23.  Fauvet,  Forces,  p.  227  and  n.  Soustelle  claimed  800,000  in  May  1947  and  1,500,000  requests 
to  join  in  April  1948 ;  in  1949  only  450,000  asked  to  renew  membership ;  in  1955  RPF  was  under 
100,000  and  the  Social  Republicans  (in  65  departmental  federations)  only  25-30,000:  Barrillon 
in  Partis  et  Classes,  pp.  280-4.  Coston,  p.  291,  and  Malterre  and  Benoist,  Les  partis  politiques 
francais  (n.d.,  71956),  pp.  130-1,  give  only  500,000  in  October  1947. 

24.  Communes  over  9,000  inhabitants,  28  % ;  all  communes  over  2,500,  21  % ;  all  under  2,500, 
9% :  AP  1947,  pp.  363-4,  Fauvet,  Forces,  p.  224.  Paris:  see  Williams,  p.  13 In.  Cf.  Intgalitte, 
p.  121 ;  Elections  1956,  pp.  315  (Lyons),  410  (Aisne) ;  and  Olivesi,  pp.  176-7  (Marseilles).  In  1951 
RPF's  support  was  much  less  clerical  and  more  urban  than  that  of  the  right-wing  parties: 
MacRae,  no.  148,  p.  295.  A  1952  poll  (above,  p.  125n.)  found  that  24%  of  RPF  voters  were  not 
practising  Catholics.  ^,-,«  i.  ^ 

25.  Goguel,  no.  108,  pp.  330,  333;  cf.  Barrillon,  loc.  cit.,  p.  283.  In  1951  RPF  lost  over  half 
its  1947  votes  in  Paris  (and  even  more  in  the  rich  west  end)  but  under  a  quarter  in  the  working- 
class  banlieue.  However,  Professor  N.  Wahl  kindly  informs  me  that  RPF's  strongest  supporters 
were  non-proletarians  obliged  by  the  housing  shortage  to  live  in  working-class  districts  (cf.  Wylie, 
p.  218,  on  village  Gaullists). 

26.  Apparent 6s,  here  as  elsewhere,  are  counted  with  the  group. 

F* 


140  THE  PARTIES 

Gaullists  of  the  Left  complained  of  under-representation  in  the  parliament- 
ary party,  but  did  not  deny  that  they  were  a  minority.27  Almost  all  the  twenty- 
three  departments  where  RPF  polled  20%  of  the  electorate  had  been 
right-wing  strongholds  twenty  years  before.28  But  outside  the  Conservative 
west  Gaullist  strength  lay  in  the  dynamic  industrial  regions,  and  south  of  the 
Loire  it  reached  20%  only  in  three  west-coast  departments  -  so  that  it  was 
weak  in  the  old  unoccupied  zone  which  Vichy  controlled  from  1940  to  1942.29 
This  strong  conservative  element  reflected  the  lack  of  self-confidence  which 
had  led  so  many  notables  to  creep  under  the  General's  banner  when  it  was  un- 
furled in  1947.  By  1951  many  of  them  -  especially  Radicals  -  felt  strong 
enough  to  confront  the  electorate  without  sheltering  beneath  that  long  shadow. 
A  year  later  the  right-wing  fellow-travellers  also  defected;  the  ARS  seceders 
of  1952  were  men  from  a  Conservative  background  or  Conservative  consti- 
tuencies, particularly  those  low  on  their  lists  whose  seats  were  unsafe.30  Their 
departure  left  RPF  with  74  metropolitan  deputies,  53  of  them  from  north 
of  the  Loire. 

However,  as  a  dynamic  modernizing  movement  Gaullism  attracted  a  follow- 
ing unlike  that  of  the  older  conservative  parties.  RPF  had  a  higher  proportion 
of  young  voters  than  any  rival  but  the  Communists,  and  even  the  decaying 
Social  Republicans  in  1955  drew  31%  of  their  membership  from  the  under- 
thirties.31  Only  one  metropolitan  Gaullist  member  of  the  1946  Assembly  was 
over  fifty  when  elected,  though  in  its  heyday  RP  F  attracted  senior  and  success- 
ful men;  the  average  age  of  its  group  in  1951  was  fifty.  Only  one  of  its  107 
metropolitan  deputies  had  been  a  wage-earner.  The  technocratic  element  was 
strong ;  industrialists  and  engineers  were  the  largest  group  on  the  1950  national 
council  and  numerous  in  the  1951  Parliament.  There  were  few  lawyers,  and 
half  of  these  seceded  with  ARS,  leaving  the  traditional  political  profession 
weaker  than  in  any  party  except  the  Communist.32 

The  leadership  was  not  very  typical  of  the  rank  and  file.  Polls  suggested 
that  both  in  1951  and  1958  the  Gaullists  won  about  17%  of  the  manual 
workers'  vote  and  drew  about  23%  of  their  support  from  this  class.  In  1949 
RPF  sources  claimed  a  membership  of  450,000,  of  whom  40%  were  manual 
or  white-collar  workers,  20%  shopkeepers  or  classes  moyennes,  15%  peasants 
and  10%  professional  men.  At  RPF's  annual  conferences  the  two  or  three 
thousand  delegates  were  not  drawn  from  the  intellectual  or  political  governing 

27.  Vallon,  pp.  33-4,  claims  that  at  least  a  quarter  of  RP  F's  votes  but  only  a  tenth  of  its  deputies 
came  from  the  Left. 

28.  In  1932  the  Right  had  polled  30%  of  the  electorate  in  21  of  them,  the  Radicals  in  seven 
and  the  Socialists  and  Communists  together  in  only  one,  Gironde :  Goguel,  Geographic,  maps  on 
pp.  49,  77,  107;  for  Radicals,  Pickles,  no.  177,  p.  178. 

29.  MorazS,  p.  130.  Cf.  Map  12. 

30.  See  pp.  135n.,  153n.,  and  for  the  electoral  system,  p.  388.  In  16  constituencies  the  RPF 
deputies  were  divided  between  rebels  and  loyalists ;  only  in  4  did  the  man  with  the  best  chance  of 
re-election  go  over  to  ARS. 

31.  Votes:  38%  according  to  the  1952  poll  (corrected  figure  in  Appendix  vii)  as  against 
Communists  42%,  Radicals  11  %,  others  30-31  %.  Members  (18,000  analysed) :  Barrillon,  he.  cit., 
p.  284. 

32.  Council :  Fauvet,  Forces,  p.  239n.  Deputies :  Dogan  in  Partis  et  Classes,  p.  298  (there  were 
49  professional  men,  40  businessmen  and  engineers  and  16  agriculturalists);  and  Barrillon  in 
ibid.,  p,  282. 


THE  GAULLISTS  141 

classes.  Andr6  Malraux  once  referred  to  the  Gaullist  clientele  as  'the  rush- 
hour  crowd  '.33 

3.   CHARACTERISTICS 

General  de  Gaulle  was  no  Napoleon.  But  in  the  French  political  tradition 
RPF  was  a  branch  of  the  Bonapartist  stream,  which  in  some  regions  flows 
underground  for  generations,  then  bursts  forth  with  explosive  suddenness.34 
The  demand  for  a  government  with  authority,  the  passionate  nationalism  and 
the  determined  attempt  to  woo  the  Left  were  hallmarks  of  its  character.  But 
these  characteristics,  which  enabled  RPF  to  penetrate  circles  which  con- 
ventional Conservatives  could  not  reach,  also  made  the  latter  shun  such 
agitations  as  dangerous  adventures  into  which  only  the  direst  necessity  could 
lure  prudent  men. 

Some  of  the  old  Conservatives  found  RPF's  nationalist  outlook  on  foreign 
and  imperial  questions  congenial,  though  they  might  feel  it  was  expressed 
with  excessive  bluntness.  They  were  willing  to  accept  de  Gaulle's  emergency 
leadership  even  though  they  distrusted  his  views  on  economic  and  constitu- 
tional matters.  But  they  had  no  real  confidence  in  him,  and  were  profoundly 
suspicious  of  some  of  his  associates.  They  detested  the  policies  of  his  govern- 
ment at  the  Liberation  -  the  purge,  the  nationalization  of  industry,  the  admis- 
sion of  Communists  to  office.  Almost  all  of  them  had  followed  P6tain  in  1940, 
and  the  leading  Vichy  apologists  remained  bitterly  hostile  to  RPF.  However, 
in  their  fear  of  Communism  the  Conservative  voters  turned  en  masse  to  the 
new  Gaullist  movement,  and  many  parliamentary  Conservatives  thought  it 
wise  to  follow  the  trend. 

The  pressure  of  these  Vichyite  votes  affected  RPF  in  its  turn.  The  General 
and  the  movement  gradually  shifted  their  ground  on  treatment  of  the  im- 
prisoned Marshal,  amnesty  for  the  purge  victims,  and  the  return  of  former 
pro-P6tain  politicians  to  political  life.  In  April  1950  Colonel  R6my,  a  promi- 
nent Resistance  and  RPF  leader,  advocated  rehabilitation  for  the  Marshal; 
he  declared  not  only  that  the  Vichy  shield  had  been  as  necessary  to  the  country 
in  1940  as  the  Gaullist  sword,  but  that  General  de  Gaulle  had  himself  spoken 
of  the  need  for  two  strings  to  France's  bow.  The  article  was  disavowed  and 

33.  Malraux:  ibid.,  p.  277.  Members:  ibid.,  pp.  281  and  284;  in  1955  RS  claimed21  %  manual 
and  20%  white-collar  workers,  18%  professional,  17%  farmers,  14%  shopkeepers,  9%  civil 
servants.  Polls :  cf.  above,  p.  109  n.  14. 

34.  'Bonapartism  . ..  aims  at  establishing  an  autocratic  government  within  the  framework 
of  the  democracy.  According  to  this  vigorous  conception,  we  should  have  a  national  leader 
chosen  by  a  popular  plebiscite,  who  would  curb  anarchy  and  silence  the  chatterboxes  in  Parliament 
Equality  would  still  exist,  but  order  would  prove  more  excellent  than  liberty,  while  the  material 
conquests  of  1789  would  be  guaranteed  against  not  only  a  return  of  the  ancien  rlgime  but  also 
against  any  threat  of  social  revolution  . . .  Bonapartism  continues  as  a  latent  tendency  even  outside 
of  any  political  system.  From  time  to  time,  it  comes  to  the  surface,  and  its  expressions  even 
remind  one  of  the  eruptions  of  a  volcano/  Siegfried,  France,  pp.  98-100;  Tableau,  pp.  203-6. 

*  Springing  from  all  classes,  Boulangism  cut  clean  across  the  parties.  They  came  together,  no 
longer  to  defend  social  interests,  but  for  or  against  the  new  movement  according  to  their  tem- 
peraments  In  our  democracy  there  is  always  an  underlying  Boulangism* :  Dansette,  Le  Boulan- 

gisme,  pp.  369,  371.  In  1947  the  Gaullists  won  a  clear  majority  in  the  same  Paris  districts  that 
Boulanger  had  carried  sixty  years  before:  Barrillon,  he.  cit.,  p.  281.  And  de  Gaulle's  first  appeal 
to  workers  was  directed  to  the  areas  where  they  had  most  favoured  Napoleon  m :  Ehrmann,  no.  82, 
p.  166,  cf,  p.  164. 


142  THE  PARTIES 

R6my  had  to  resign  from  the  Gaullist  executive,  but  the  phrase  itself  was 
never  denied;  plainly  the  General's  views  had  changed  since  his  denunciation 
of  Per e  la  Dtfaite.  But  de  Gaulle  had  no  intention  of  disavowing  the  past.35 

The  wartime  record  which  divided  de  Gaulle  from  the  Right  should  have 
brought  him  closer  to  MRP.  But  though  millions  of  its  voters  transferred 
their  support,  these  were  mainly  disillusioned  Conservatives  who  soon  found 
themselves  as  unhappy  with  the  new  movement  as  with  the  old.  The  MRP 
leaders  who  went  over  were  very  few  (though  some  who  did  not  were  friendly  to 
RPF).  The  rank  and  file  of  the  party  was  anxious  to  establish  its  republican 
bona  fides  in  Socialist  and  Radical  eyes,  and  would  not  tolerate  even  short- 
term  and  tactical  alliances  with  the  Gaullists.36 

The  Radicals,  considering  themselves  the  incarnation  of  the  Republic,  had 
no  such  inhibitions.  They  flocked  to  de  Gaulle's  banner  in  1947,  only  to  desert 
it  in  1949.  A  few  went  over  permanently,  notably  two  old  Gaullists  and 
spokesmen  of  'proconsular'  Radicalism:37  Jacques  Chaban-Delmas,  who 
took  his  local  party  with  him,  and  Michel  Debr6,  who  lost  the  support  of  his 
only  at  the  moment  of  rupture.  But  RPF  attracted  far  more  short-service 
recruits  from  the  'committee  Radicals'  -  typical  adherents  of  France's  most 
temperamentally  conservative  party,  with  its  anxiety  for  a  quiet  life,  its  dis- 
trust of  new  solutions,  its  philosophy  (so  far  as  it  had  one)  of  defending  the 
citizen  and  weakening  the  government,  and  its  suspicion  of  strong  leaders, 
especially  generals.  The  reasons  for  this  remarkable  alliance  were  temporary: 
men  of  property  looked  for  immediate  protection  against  Communism, 
politicians  hoped  to  repair  the  disaster  which  had  struck  their  party,  Gaullists 
and  Radicals  alike  detested  tripartisme.  But  the  alliance  also  was  temporary, 
and  it  collapsed  as  soon  as  the  political  situation  made  dangerous  roads  to 
salvation  less  attractive  -  especially  since  the  Radicals  soon  came  back  to 
power,  [and  RPF  was  beginning  to  display  clerical  sympathies  over  that 
traditional  republican  touchstone,  the  church  schools  problem.  The  episode 
again  illustrated  Radical  willingness  to  associate  with  any  partner  in  the  hope 
of  electoral  profit  and  Radical  skill  at  getting  the  better  of  the  bargain. 

It  also  illustrated  the  problem  which  faced  RPF  once  its  initial  impetus  had 
declined.  The  raison  d'etre  of  the  movement  was  constitutional  reform:  the 
Rally  was  to  mobilize  members  of  all  parties  for  this  essential  but  limited 
objective.38  Instead,  frustrated  of  early  success,  it  soon  developed  into  a  new 
party  in  everything  but  name  -  a  disciplined  and  autonomous  movement 
seeking  power  and  obliged  to  take  a  line  of  its  own  on  all  major  issues.  Con- 
sequently the  educational  and  social  questions,  over  which  the  other  parties 
fought,  faced  RP  F  with  an  acute  internal  problem. 

At  first  the  movement  seemed  likely  to  split  from  top  to  bottom  over  the 
treatment  of  the  church  schools.  Like  other  Resisters,  many  active  Gaullists 
felt  that  this  was  an  out-of-date  and  regrettable  dispute.  Most  of  them  sent 

35.  See  Williams,  p.  134.  For  his  mature  view  of  P6tain,  Le  Salut,  pp.  248-50.  For  the  R6my 
affair,  AP  1950,  pp.  78-9 ;  R6my*s  article  in  Carrefour,  1 1  April  1950,  was  reprinted  together  with 
some  of  the  replies  it  evoked  in  R&ny  (G.  Renault),  La  justice  et  Vopprobre  (Ed.  du  Rocher, 
Monaco,  1950). 

36.  See  above,  p.  105,  and  below,  p.  402.  37.  See  above,  p.  116. 
38.  Its  constitutional  solution  is  discussed  below,  pp.  191-2. 


THE  GAULLISTS  143 

their  own  children  to  the  state  schools,  and  the  RPF  leadership  (like  that  of 
the  left-wing  parties)  included  many  Protestants  and  Jews.39  The  general 
secretary  (Soustelle)  and  propaganda  organizer  (Malraux)  were  opposed  to 
the  General's  own  pro-clerical  tendencies.  But  the  Catholics  pressed  their 
claims  hard.  At  RPF's  first  conference  the  education  committee  failed  to 
reach  agreement. 

Friction  spread  to  the  constituencies,  and  came  to  a  head  at  the  Melun  local 
by-election  of  June  1949.  Henri  Lespes,  an  MRP  deputy  turned  Gaullist,  was 
nominated  by  national  headquarters  to  stand  for  the  departmental  council. 
The  local  RPF  members  of  parliament  disliked  intervention  from  Paris, 
especially  on  behalf  of  a  clerical  candidate;  they  put  up  a  nominee  of  their  own 
and  he  was  elected.  Three  senators  were  censured  by  headquarters,  and  a 
deputy  expelled.  The  Radical  chairman  of  the  Assembly  inter-group  then 
resigned  in  protest,  and  was  supported  by  his  colleagues.40  The  incident 
accelerated  Radical  defections  from  RPF,  which  was  soon  left  with  a  follow- 
ing sympathetic  to  the  Church.  In  1949  the  Gaullists  adopted  an  ingenious 
solution,  the  allocation-education  (a  subsidy  to  the  parents  of  school  children 
instead  of  to  the  schools  themselves),  which  gave  partial  satisfaction  to 
Catholics  and  minimum  provocation  to  anticlericals.  And  in  September  1951 
all  but  five  of  the  120  RPF  deputies  voted  for  the  Barange  bill. 

In  the  end  it  was  on  social  questions  that  unity  proved  unattainable.  Early 
in  1950  RPF  was  still  voting  with  the  Radicals  and  Conservatives  to  amend, 
in  ways  disliked  by  the  trade  unions,  a  bill  restoring  collective  bargaining.  But 
they  were  also  supporting  a  wage  bonus  which  Conservatives  opposed,  and 
violently  denouncing  the  government  as  a  puppet  of  American  trusts.  By  the 
1951  election  RPF  had  lost  its  politically  Radical  but  socially  conservative 
fellow-travellers.  Business  money  (which  had  once  flowed  freely)  was  diverted 
to  CNIP,  a  less  adventurous  party  immune  from  such  dangerous  if  imprecise 
ideas  as  the  'association'  of  labour  and  capital.  General  de  Gaulle  retaliated 
by  bitterly  attacking  the  electoral  activities  of  the patronat*1  In  September 
1951  RPF  joined  the  Socialists,  the  Communists  and  most  of  MRP  in 
carrying  through  the  Assembly  (against  the  government,  Radicals  and  Con- 
servatives) a  bill  tying  minimum  wage  rates  to  the  cost  of  living.  In  March 

39.  Barrillon  in  Partis  et  Classes,  p.  279 ;  cf.  Coston,  pp.  501n.,  504,  513.  Soustelle,  Valkm, 
Baumel  and  Schmittlein  (president  of  the  parliamentary  group  first  of  RS,  later  of  UNR)  were 
among  the  Protestants ;  Henry  Torres,  Raymond  Aron  and  the  Palewski  brothers  were  among  the 
Jews;  Michel  DebrS  was  half- Jewish.  In  1951  and  even  1956  the  many  Protestants  of  Alsace 
voted  heavily  Gaullist:  Paysans,  pp.  380-3,  cf.  Schram,  pp.  136,  148,  167-71,  192;  Dreyfus  in 
Elections  1956,  pp.  414-17. 

40.  The  four  members  of  parliament  protested  to  General  de  Gaulle:  'We  have  fought  too 
hard  against  the  feudal  power  of  party  executive  committees  to  tolerate  it  in  RPF,  whose 
methods  and  ukases  are  transforming  it  from  a  national  rally  into  a  political  party  . . .' :  AP  1949, 
p.  123.  At  Melun  MRP,  angry  at  Lespes'  defection,  had  supported  the  dissident  Gaullists  against 
him  despite  their  anticlerical  attitude.  But  six  months  later  another  local  by-election  in  the  depart- 
ment was  won  by  a  Conservative  supported  by  both  RP F  and  MRP,  against  a  Radical  backed  by 
PRL  and  the  Gaullist  dissidents.  And  in  the  1951  general  election  Begouin,  the  deputy  whom 
RPF  had  expelled,  was  elected  as  a  Radical  with  a  prominent  local  Catholic  as  his  second  -  and 
was  opposed  by  the  candidate  he  had  sponsored  at  Melun. 

41.  Trusts:  Fauvet  in  Monde,  15-16  January  1950.  Funds:  Barrillon,  loc.  cit.,  pp.  277-8;  cf. 
Nicolet,  Cassandre,  p.  102;  Ehrmann,  Business,  pp.  230-1.  Association:  ibid.,  pp.  359-61.  De 
Gaulle:  Monde,  24-25  June  1951. 


144  THE  PARTIES 

1952  its  leaders  announced  that  they  would  enter  no  cabinet  which  excluded 
either  MRP  or  SFIO.42  This  was  the  context  in  which  the  conservative 
Gaullists  rebelled  against  the  leadership  to  put  and  keep  Pinay  in  office.  There- 
by they  further  displaced  the  movement's  centre  of  gravity. 

The  evolution  to  the  Left  was  not  confined  to  domestic  affairs.  Purged  of  its 
most  opportunist  elements  RPF  lost  in  weight  but  gained  in  elan,  recovering 
some  of  the  mystique  of  the  past  and  reverting  to  a  kind  of  Jacobin  revolution- 
ary nationalism.43  Soon  the  fight  against  EDC  brought  the  Gaullists  into 
alliance  with  neutralists  of  the  Left  and  made  them  increasingly  tolerant  of 
Russian  policies  and  critical  of  American.  In  1954  Soustelle  violently  con- 
demned the  conduct  of  the  United  States  in  Guatemala.  Whereas  in  1952  Le 
Rassemblement  had  treated  American  suspicions  of  Gaullist  anti-American- 
ism as  a  'fable',  two  years  later  it  claimed  that  these  suspicions  proved  that  de 
Gaulle  really  spoke  for  France. '  From  nationalism  to  opposition  to  EDC ... 
to  opposition  to  American  policy  ...  to  the  assertion  that  the  US  and  the 
USSR  were  equal  dangers  to  peace . . .  [and]  that  France  must  act  as  a  bridge 
between  the  two  blocs,  such  was  the  long  road  travelled  by  the  General  and 
his  companions.'44 

Gaullist  imperial  policies  evolved  equally  rapidly.  The  Indo-China  war 
came  to  seem  a  humiliating  counterpart  of  American  aid,  and  a  burdensome 
diversion  of  French  forces  from  Europe;  Christian  Fouchet,  chairman  of  the 
Gaullist  deputies,  called  it  the  Fourth  Republic's  Mexican  expedition.45  Over 
North  Africa  a  similar  shift  occurred.  In  1947  de  Gaulle  had  championed  the 
Algerian  settlers  and  opposed  political  concessions.46  But  by  1951  the  North 
African  election  funds  were  already  flowing  to  apparently  safer  parties. 
Liberal  Gaullists  became  increasingly  vocal.  The  Sultan  of  Morocco,  deposed 
in  1953,  was  befriended  by  de  Gaulle  and  chose  as  his  spokesman  in  Paris  the 
Gaullist  deputy  and  air  ace  Pierre  Clostermann.  In  the  Assembly  most 
Gaullists  supported  Mendfes-France,  the  General  commended  him  publicly, 
and  when  in  1955  he  and  his  successor  needed  strong  proconsuls  for  North 
African  danger-spots,  each  sent  a  Gaullist  of  liberal  reputation:  Jacques 
Soustelle  to  Algiers,  and  Gilbert  Grandval  to  Rabat. 

In  the  1956  election  several  Gaullists  were  active  on  the  Left.  Clostermann 
was  returned  as  a  Radical  and  Jean  de  Lipkowski  (Grandval's  assistant)  as  an 
independent  Mendesist;  Capitant  and  Vallon  were  prominent  in  various  'new 

42.  Ibid.,  2-3  March  1952. 

43.  Marcus,  Neutralism  and  Nationalism  in  France,  Chapter  3.  At  the  1952  conference  Capitant 
claimed  that  RPF  would  restore  to  the  people  the  rights  of  which  capitalism  and  parliamen- 
tarianism  had  robbed  them:  Monde,  12  November  1952,  Rassemblement,  13  November.  Cf. 
MacRae,  no.  149,  p.  184. 

44.  Marcus,  pp.  97-105;  cf.  Moraze",  p.  166. 

45.  JO  20  October  1953,  p.  4396 ;  AP 1953,  p.  293.  Cf.  Marcus,  p.  101. 

46.  To  the  press,  18  August  1947 :  '. . .  we  must  not  allow  the  fact  that  Algeria  is  part  of  our 
land  (est  de  notre  domaine)  to  be  called  into  question  in  any  form,  either  at  home  or  abroad.' 
At  Algiers,  12  October  1947 :  'Any  policy  which  would  lead  either  to  a  reduction  of  the  rights  and 
duties  of  France  here,  or  to  the  discouragement  of  the  inhabitants  of  metropolitan  origin  ...  or, 
finally,  to  a  belief  among  Moslem  Frenchmen  that  they  might  be  allowed  to  separate  their  lot 
from  that  of  France,  would  in  truth  only  open  the  gates  to  decadence'  (my  italics) :  La  France 
sera  la  France,  pp.  178,  181 ;  Grosser,  p.  138.  On  RPF  in  Algeria  see  S.  Wisner,  UAlgerie  dans 
rimpasse  (1948),  pp.  96-8. 


THE  GAULLISTS  145 

Left'  groups.47  But  the  coming  nationalist  upsurge  soon  showed  itself  in  the 
Gaullist  movement.  Already  most  (not  all)  of  the  Social  Republicans  had 
opposed  Edgar  Faure's  liberal  policy  in  Morocco.  After  the  election  Algeria 
alienated  them  from  Mendes-France,  then  turned  them  against  the  feeble 
cabinets  of  1957-58,  and  finally  enabled  them  to  destroy  the  Fourth  Republic 
itself. 

The  Gaullists  had  always  predicted  and  sometimes  promoted  the  decay  of 
a  regime  which  had  never  found  means  of  appealing  to  anyone's  imagination, 
and  in  its  decline  provoked  increasing  impatience  and  frustration.  Adminis- 
trative scandal,  parliamentary  intrigue  and  governmental  impotence  offered 
easy  scope  to  its  enemies,  and  the  young  and  enthusiastic  found  the  Fourth 
Republic  as  drab  or  even  as  sordid  as  the  Third.  To  his  critics,  de  Gaulle's 
programme  was  best  summed  up  by  the  Canard Enchaine : '  La  France  manque 
de  pain?  Moi,  je  serai  le  Boulanger.'  The  Gaullists  of  1947,  dynamic,  deter- 
mined and  justly  proud  of  their  record  in  the  war  and  Resistance,  were  con- 
vinced that  they  could  rally  the  people  and  that  the  feeble  regime  would 
crumble  the  moment  it  was  challenged. 

They  had  underestimated  their  opponents,  for  the  Republic,  as  Anatole 
France  once  said,  was  bad  at  governing  but  good  at  self-defence.  On  finding 
themselves  condemned  to  years  of  unexpected  opposition  the  Gaullists  -  like  . 
so  many  parties  of  the  Right  which  pride  themselves  on  their  superior 
patriotism  -  lapsed  into  strident  and  shameless  irresponsibility.  They  charged 
the  parties  in  power  with  playing  politics  at  the  expense  of  the  national  in- 
terest -  yet  they  voted  with  the  Communists  to  destroy  the  regime  in  the  hope 
of  winning  a  battle  among  the  ruins.  With  shrill  indignation  they  exploited 
the  'affair,  of  the  generals'  to  accuse  the  governing  parties  of  betraying  the 
soldiers  fighting  in  Indo-China  -  yet  they  raised  their  own  party  funds  from 
the  lucrative  traffic  in  Indo-Chinese  piastres.  They  condemned  the  System 
because  of  its  divided  cabinets  without  authority  -  yet  once  in  office  Gaullist 
ministers  busily  sabotaged  the  policies  of  the  premiers  who  appointed  them. 
They  insisted  demagogically  that  the  country's  disputes  and  difficulties  arose 
not  from  her  weakened  situation  or  her  divided  people  but  from  the  deliberate 
choice  of  the  selfish  politicians,  and  that  these  evils  could  be  simply  cured  by 
a  new  structure  of  government  ensuring  determination  and  authority  among 
the  rulers  and  evoking  discipline  and  sacrifice  among  the  citizens. 

Naturally  this  appeal  was  stigmatized  as  fascist.  RPF  shared  some  features 
of  fascist  movements:  the  simultaneous  demand  for  national  revival  and 
social  change,  the  call  for  strong  government  superseding  futile  party  bicker- 
ing, the  evocation  of  the  dignity  and  power  of  the  state  against  the  rampant 
demands  of  pressure-groups  and  sectional  interests.  Gaullist  psychology  was 
marked  by  the  cult  of  authority  and  of  the  infallible  leader.  RPF  was  led  by 
prosperous  men  but  supported  by  a  section  of  the  poor,  especially  by  economic 
proletarians  who  resented  and  repudiated  that  social  classification. 

Yet  de  Gaulle's  own  record  -  whether  in  1940,  in  1944-46  or  after  1958  - 
was  poles  removed  from  fascism.  The  French  social  structure  has  little  in 
common  with  that  of  the  countries  which  succumbed  to  fascism  between  the 

47.  See  below,  p.  173. 


146  THE  PARTIES 

wars.  RPF  was  based  on  the  dynamic  and  not  the  declining  regions  of 
France.  It  was  nationalist  -  but  no  more  so  than  the  German  Socialists  at  the 
same  date.  It  had  neither  the  extensive  capitalist  support  nor  the  purely 
demagogic  programme  of  other  fascist  movements,  and  it  was  never  tainted 
by  any  breath  of  anti-semitism.  De  Gaulle  was  never  prepared  to  seize  power 
illegally.  The  movement's  propaganda  never  glorified  violence,  and  its 
*  shock  troops '  were  kept  firmly  subordinate.  And  in  demanding  *  the  balancing, 
the  reconciliation  of  great  pressure-groups  by  a  strong  executive  *  it  was  putting 
forward  a  potentially  dangerous  remedy  -  for  a  potentially  fatal  disease.48 

Many  RPF  supporters  who  detested  fascism  would  have  been  content  to 
turn  the  movement  into  a  respectable  parliamentary  Conservative  party. 
Rather  than  permit  such  a  frustration  of  his  purpose  General  de  Gaulle 
preferred  division  in  the  Assembly,  disaster  in  the  constituencies,  and  with- 
drawal from  the  political  arena.  By  1956  his  disciples,  having  lost  both  their 
leader  and  their  following,  had  degenerated  into  a  turbulent  and  aggressive 
parliamentary  splinter  group.  But  because  of  the  many  military  and  adminis- 
trative contacts  of  their  leaders,  because  of  their  past  experience  of  clandestine 
political  activity,  and  above  all  because  of  the  General's  own  character  and 
reputation,  they  were  well  placed  to  take  advantage  of  the  crisis  which  -  as  de 
Gaulle  had  always  expected  -  eventually  shattered  the  fragile  structure  of  the 
Fourth  Republic. 

In  1958  subversion,  riot  and  overt  military  pressure  at  last  brought  Gaullism 
to  power  in  circumstances  which  gave  maximum  scope  to  whatever  fascist 
tendencies  were  latent  in  the  movement.  Moreover  UNR,  the  dominant  party 
of  the  Fifth  Republic,  seemed  more  prone  to  right-wing  authoritarian 
temptations  than  RPF  as  long  as  the  Left  Gaullists  were  outside  the  fold. 
Yet  despite  the  defections  of  Soustelle  and  Delbecque  an  overwhelming 
majority  loyally  supported  the  President's  progressive  Algerian  policies.  In 
power  they  appeared  not  as  fascists  but  as  middle-class  reformers:  not 
sentimental,  not  particularly  humanitarian  and  not  at  all  liberal-minded, 
but  concerned  to  create  a  prosperous  and  thus  strong  and  united  nation.49 

Like  Theodore  Roosevelt's  American  Progressives  early  in  the  century,  the 
Gaullists  recruited  among  a  younger  generation  and  a  different  social  milieu 
from  the  established  parties.50  Again  like  the  Progressives  the  Gaullist  leaders 
were  disagreeably  self-righteous;  this  made  them  sometimes  unscrupulous, 
frequently  heavy-handed,  perpetually  impatient,  and  too  often  grossly  un- 
generous to  opponents  (also,  at  times,  ludicrously  bombastic).  But  like  the 
Progressives,  too,  at  their  best  they  remained  devoted  to  an  ideal  of  the  public 

48.  Shock  troops :  Fauvet,  Forces,  p.  237 ;  Guery,  pp.  24-5.  (One  of  their  organizers  was  Jean 
Dides,  on  whom  pp.  46n.,  52,  348.)  'Balancing';  H.  S.  Hughes  in  Earle,  p.  259  (he  argues  that 
RPF  was,  on  the  whole,  fascist);  for  the  other  view  see  Aron,  Schisme,  pp.  225-6,  and  no.  5, 
p.  81  ('neither  the  strength  nor  the  vices  of  fascist  parties'). 

49.  Far  more  often  than  others  Gaullist  voters  said  they  supported  their  party  'to  shape 
France's  future',  and  far  less  often  'to  defend  my  legitimate  interests'  (1 1  %  of  RPF  voters,  22  % 
or  more  for  every  other  party;  they  rated  leadership  much  higher  and  doctrine  much  lower  than 
anyone  else:  Sondages,  1952,  no.  3,  quoted  Appendix  vn).  But  some  Gaullist  politicians  were  to 
display  a  keen  appetite  for  spoils. 

50.  This  comparison  was  suggested  to  me  by  Professor  N.  Wahl. 


THE  GAULLISTS  147 

good,  contemptuous  of  private  intrigues  and  social  pressures,  eager  for  con- 
structive reform  and  willing  to  take  personal  risks  for  their  conception  of 
public  duty  -  as  in  1940,  when  they  threw  up  their  careers  and  prospects  to 
follow  an  obscure  brigadier-general  who  knew  that  he  could  save  his  country 
and  that  no  one  else  could. 


Chapter  11 
THE  CONSERVATIVE  GROUPS 

1.   HISTORY 

Until  1939  an  amorphous  set  of  shifting,  ill-organized  groups  stood  to  the 
Right  of  the  Radical  party  in  the  political  spectrum.  Although  all  were  broadly 
Conservative,  there  were  many  differences  between  them  which  often  cut 
across  the  nominal  lines  of  political  division. 

The  Right  had  opposed  the  Third  Republic  until,  towards  the  end  of  the 
nineteenth  century,  it  became  plain  that  the  traditional  royalist  cause  was  lost. 
Among  the  laique  section  of  the  bourgeoisie  there  then  emerged  a  Centre 
which  took  up  the  defence  of  social  and  economic  conservatism  within  the 
framework  of  the  Republic;  it  was  mainly  embodied  in  a  loose  organization, 
Alliance  dgmocratique,  which  often  co-operated  with  the  moderate  Radicals. 
But  ardent  Catholics  or  nationalists  found  it  hard  to  accept  the  regime  that 
had  humiliated  the  army  in  the  Dreyfus  affair  and  imposed  the  separation  of 
Church  and  State.  Republicans  therefore  remained  suspicious  of  these  openly 
right-wing  elements,  and  before  1914  governments  rarely  risked  the  cohesion 
of  the  majority  by  accepting  support  from  them. 

As  militant  anticlericalism  declined  and  a  revolutionary  working-class 
movement  arose,  the  political  centre  of  gravity  gradually  shifted.  Increasingly 
frequently  the  dominant  Radicals  had  to  rely  on  support  from  the  Right  as 
well  as  the  Centre  at  the  polls  or  in  Parliament.  Such  combinations  remained 
unpopular  with  the  militants.  But  the  embarrassment  they  caused  the  party 
was  much  less  acute  after  the  first  world  war,  when  hardly  any  open  enemies 
of  the  Republic  sat  in  the  Chamber  of  Deputies.  For  fourteen  of  the  twenty 
inter-war  years  the  Conservative  groups  held  or  shared  power. 

Yet  these  groups  were  never  effective  in  parliamentary  action.  The  Third 
Republic  itself  had  been  established  by  a  monarchist  Assembly  which  could 
not  agree  whom  to  place  on  the  throne.  New  organizations  were  set  up  early 
in  the  new  century,  but  they  eschewed  the  name  of  party,  did  not  impose 
discipline  on  their  members  of  parliament,  and  corresponded  only  very 
approximately  to  the  different  tendencies  of  Conservative  opinion:  Alliance 
d<*mocratique  stood  for  social  conservatism  but  was  indifferent  to  the  Church; 
Fddfration  rfyublicaine  had  most  appeal  to  nationalists;  Action  lib&ale 
populaire  attracted  devout  Catholics,  and  its  successor,  the  Parti  d^mocrate 
populaire,  was  so  progressive  socially  that  many  observers  refused  to  regard 
it  as  conservative  at  all.1 

Nor  were  such  distinctions  of  outlook  and  ideology  the  only  obstacle  to 
strong  organization  on  the  Right.  With  the  exception  of  the  extreme  national- 
ists most  Conservatives  were  suspicious  of  mass  movements,  which  they 

1 .  I  use  conservative  with  a  small  V  to  denote  supporters  of  a  social  and  economic  outlook, 
and  with  a  capital  'C'  to  distinguish  those  who  also  (whatever  their  private  religious  views) 
supported  the  claims  of  the  Church  in  politics.  The  Conservatives  who  accepted  the  Republic 
usually  referred  to  themselves  as  Modirts. 


THE  CONSERVATIVE  GROUPS  149 

thought  distasteful,  demagogic  and  dangerous.  They  preferred  to  base  their 
electoral  support  upon  the  local  influence  of  individual  notables  in  areas  where 
the  old  ruling  class  retained  its  traditional  ascendancy.  But  these  independent 
political  feudatories,  wary  of  the  masses  and  jealous  of  their  own  power  and 
status,  found  discipline  and  organization  repugnant.  No  Conservative  party 
ever  attained  genuine  cohesion,  exercised  real  authority  over  its  parliamentary 
representatives,  or  attracted  a  large  popular  following.  Mass  movements  of 
the  Right  always  took  the  form  of  frankly  anti-parliamentary  leagues  such  as 
Action  fran$aise . 

This  loose  structure  gave  full  scope  for  the  personal  rivalries  which  be- 
devilled the  Right  throughout  the  Third  Republic  as  much  as  the  broader 
conflicts  between  groups,  policies  and  ideologies.  In  the  last  years  of  the 
regime  there  were  several  leaders  each  with  a  distinct  outlook  and  separate 
following:  among  the  anti-Germans  Louis  Marin,  the  ultra-nationalist  presi- 
dent of  Federation  republicaine,  and  Paul  Reynaud,  an  unruly  individualist 
from  Alliance  democratique;  on  the  side  of  appeasement  its  president  P.  E. 
Flandin,  and  Pierre  Laval,  a  refugee  from  the  Left  who  had  committed  him- 
self to  no  organization.  Outside  Parliament  Colonel  de  la  Rocque  built  up 
Croix  defeu,  an  ex-servicemen's  association,  into  a  powerful  anti-parliamen- 
tary league;  when  it  was  dissolved  in  1936  by  the  Popular  Front  government, 
he  transformed  it  into  the  Parti  social  fran$ais  with  active  constituency  com- 
mittees and  a  large  bourgeois  following.  Although  its  supporters  in  the  Cham- 
ber were  a  mere  handful,  competent  observers  expected  them  to  number  a 
hundred  after  the  general  election  of  1940.2 

In  1940,  however,  not  a  new  Chamber  but  a  new  regime  was  installed.  At 
first  the  Vichy  government  corresponded  to  the  real  desires  of  the  great 
majority  of  the  Right.  Admiration  for  fascism  -  though  for  Mussolini  rather 
than  Hitler  -  had  been  steadily  growing  among  French  Conservatives  terrified 
by  the  Popular  Front.  Although  some  prominent  individuals  like  Matin  were 
opposed  to  Vichy,  the  majority  accepted  this  authoritarian  and  traditionalist 
regime  as  their  own. 

At  the  Liberation,  therefore,  most  right-wing  politicians  were  discredited. 
Those  who  remained  set  about  organizing  what  they  hoped  would  become  the 
great  Conservative  party  of  the  Fourth  Republic,  the  Parti  republicain  de  la 
Liberte1.  But  the  Right  still  did  not  take  kindly  to  discipline,  and  several 
prominent  leaders  stayed  out,  dropped  out  or  were  driven  out.  PRL  neither 
built  up  an  effective  local  organization  nor  acquired  a  popular  following. 
During  the  1946-51  Parliament  it  had  nearly  thirty  deputies  (many  of  whom 
also  followed  de  Gaulle).  But  it  disappeared  as  a  separate  group  in  the  1951 
Assembly. 

Two  other  groups  existed  in  the  first  Assembly  of  the  Fourth  Republic.  The 
Independent  Republicans  attracted  nearly  all  the  Conservatives  who  stayed 
out  of  PRL  in  1945-46.  They  were  rather  more  willing  than  their  rivals  to 
support  and  join  Third  Force  governments.  The  Peasant  party  was  the  post- 
war successor  of  a  small  and  demagogic  Parti  agraire,  founded  in  1928  by 
Fleurant-Agricola  (M.  Fleurant  as  he  then  was)  and  based  on  the  poor 

2.  Duverger,  Parties,  p.  320;  Fauvet,  Forces,  p.  134. 


150  THE  PARTIES 

Catholic  departments  of  the  Massif  Central.  Just  after  the  war  this  area  was 
the  seat  of  four  of  the  six  Peasant  party  federations  and  returned  the  half- 
dozen  Peasant  deputies,  who  originally  were  affiliated  to  MRP.  The  party 
expanded  rapidly  and  by  1950  claimed  federations  active  in  forty-five  depart- 
ments, provisional  committees  in  another  seventeen,  and  a  total  membership 
of  20,000.  At  the  dissolution  in  1951  it  had  attracted  nearly  twenty  deputies 
from  other  Conservative  groups.  They  were  more  governmental  than  PRL 
but  less  so  than  the  Independents.3 

These  separate  groups  came  together  in  the  Centre  national  des  independants 
et  pay  sans  (CNIP),  which  grew  out  of  CNI  -  a  committee  set  up  in  July  1948 
to  co-ordinate  the  activities  of  those  PRL  and  Independent  members  of  par- 
liament who  rejected  the  leadership  of  de  Gaulle.  Early  in  1951  CNI  extended 
its  scope  and  title  to  embrace  the  Peasants.  In  the  general  election  of  that  year 
Conservatives  sponsored  by  it  ran  on  common  lists,  each  deputy  deciding 
after  his  election  whether  to  join  the  Peasant  group  or  the  Independents  (who 
absorbed  the  remains  of  PRL).  As  men  elected  on  the  same  list  usually 
adhered  to  the  same  group,  the  division  was  broadly  by  departments;  but 
colleagues  occasionally  chose  differently,  as  in  Meuse  and  Aveyron,  while 
conversely  Conservatives  elected  on  different  lists  might  find  themselves 
associated  for  parliamentary  purposes,  as  in  Haute-Saone  or  Basses-Pyr6n6es. 
The  fifty-three  Independents  tended  to  represent  northern  and  industrial 
Conservatism,  while  the  forty-three  Peasants  were  mainly  drawn  from  the 
more  backward  regions.4 

From  opposition  to  tripartisme  the  various  Conservative  groups  gradually 
drifted  into  association  with  the  majority  as  the  political  centre  of  gravity 
shifted  towards  the  Right.  In  1951,  out  of  eighty-seven  metropolitan  Con- 
servative deputies  only  twenty-one  were  elected  in  alliance  with  Gaullists; 
thirty-three  formed  part  of  combinations  in  which  Socialists  also  participated 
and  the  rest  won  their  seats  in  opposition  to  both.  The  intransigence  of  General 
de  Gaulle  was  mainly  responsible  for  this  result,  for  many  Conservatives 
would  have  allied  with  the  Gaullists  in  preference  to  the  government  parties 
if  only  the  former  had  been  willing.  But  in  the  new  Assembly  it  was  the 
Conservatives  and  not  RPF  who  seduced  the  other's  following.  Pinay  was 
elected  premier  in  May  1952  with  the  support  of  twenty-seven  dissident 
Gaullists,  who  broke  with  their  party  in  July  and  formed  a  new  group,  Action 
rfyublicaine  et  sociale.  ARS  co-operated  closely  with  CNIP  and  finally  joined 
it  in  1954,  And  after  the  1956  election  the  Independents,  ARS  and  most  of 
the  Peasants  formed  a  single  Conservative  group  in  the  Assembly  (entitled 

3.  On  its  membership  see  Fauvet,  Forces,  p.  114;  on  its  post-war  history  and  outlook,  R. 
Barrillon  in  Pay  sans,  pp.  131-47;  on  the  Parti  agraire,  J.  M.  Royer  in  ibid.,  pp.  154-5.  A  fourth 
small  Conservative  group  was  the  Union  democratique  des  independants  (UDI)  who  mostly 
came  from  MRP  by  way  of  RPF  and  adhered  to  CNI  (see  below)  in  1951.  On  Conservatism  in 
the  early  years  see  Marabuto,  Partis  politiques  et  mouvements  sociaux,  pp.  47-61. 

4.  The  Independents  attracted  three-quarters  of  the  Conservative  deputies  from  north  of  the 
Loire,  the  Peasants  two-thirds  of  those  from  departments  along  or  south  of  the  river.  They  had 
respectively  18  and  3  deputies  from  the  advanced  departments  (index  of  production  per  head  110, 
national  average  100);  2  and  15  from  the  backward  departments  (index  under  70);  27  and  22 
from  the  rest.  Later  ARS  brought  in  ten  more  members  from  the  advanced,  one  from  the  back- 
ward and  twenty  from  the  intermediate  category  (see  Goguel,  Geographic,  p.  140,  for  the  depart- 
ments in  each). 


THE  CONSERVATIVE  GROUPS  151 

Independants  et  pay  sans  d9  action  sociale).  Led  by  Pinay,  this  new  combination 
represented  the  greatest  unity  the  parliamentary  Right  had  ever  achieved. 

2.   ORGANIZATION  AND  FOLLOWING 

This  success  was  primarily  due  to  Roger  Duchet,  Independent  senator  for 
Cote  d'Or,  the  founder  of  CNIP  and  its  general  secretary  throughout  the 
Fourth  Republic.  Understanding  the  limits  of  the  possible  among  politicians 
notorious  for  their  ferocious  individualism,  he  began  the  Centre  as  a  modest 
clearing-house  for  co-ordinating  Conservative  electoral  activity.  In  its  early 
years  it  concentrated  on  helping  re-elect  sitting  members  rather  than  stimula- 
ting contests  throughout  the  country  or  proselytizing  the  electorate.  CNIP's 
executive  at  first  contained  only  members  of  parliament,  though  in  time  they 
agreed  to  co-opt  a  few  outsiders,  who  often  represented  sympathetic  pressure- 
groups.5  The  departmental  centres  (of  which  seventy-five  were  represented  at 
the  conference  of  November  1956)  were  simply  committees  of  notables  -  local 
councillors  and  leaders  of  the  district's  business  and  peasant  associations. 
Active  supporters  numbered  some  20,000  (mostly  councillors)  during  elections 
and  under  a  thousand  between  them;  the  party  did  not  even  pretend  to  seek  a 
rank  and  file  membership.6  To  do  so  might  have  its  dangers,  as  was  shown 
when  the  CNIP  conference  of  December  1954  was  swamped  by  a  mass  of 
Poujadist  and  ultra-royalist  activists  about  whom  there  was  nothing  Conser- 
vative at  all.  But  not  to  do  so  had  disadvantages  too:  lacking  voluntary 
workers  and  propagandists  CNIP  members  were  particularly  likely  to  be- 
come mere  spokesmen  for  the  local  pressure-groups  on  whose  political  and 
financial  support  they  sometimes  became  wholly  dependent.7 

At  first  CNIP  repudiated  any  intention  of  putting  pressure  on  parliamen- 
tarians who  joined;  its  first  communiqu6  described  them  as  'those  who  mean 
to  preserve  their  freedom  of  voting  and  do  not  wish  to  submit  to  party  dis- 
cipline '.  But  it  was  not  long  before  the  Independents  adopted  a  party  outlook 
and  vocabulary.  In  the  Paris  senatorial  elections  of  1952  they  announced  that 
'All  other  lists  of  "Independents"  or  "French  Independents"  are  regarded 
by  the  Centre  as  splitters  (listes  de  division)'.  At  the  1954  conference  it  was 
decided  to  expel  members  of  parliament  who  joined  a  cabinet  in  which  the 
party  had  by  a  two-thirds  majority  resolved  not  to  participate.8 

The  extent  to  which  a  party  organization  can  impose  discipline  on  its  mem- 
bers of  parliament  depends  largely  on  the  loyalty  it  can  command  from  its 

5.  In  I960  the  executive  included  21  deputies  and  17  senators  among  its  48  members :  Laponce, 
p.  116. 

6.  Figures  from  ibid.  An  official  circular  stated  that  the  national  Centre  *ne  reunit  pas  de  mili- 
tants politiques';  the  model  constitution  for  departmental  centres  specified  that  the  *  centre  est 
compost  d'elus  locaux  et  de  personnaliteV ;  ARS  announced  that  its  parliamentary  founders 
*se  refusent  par  avance  £  instituer  une  organisation  demagogique  tendant  a  tromper  les  masses 
en  leur  laissant  croire  notamment  qu'on  sollicite  leur  avis  . . .' :  quoted  by  M.  Merle  in  Partis  et 
Classes,  pp.  257-9. 

7.  Ibid.,  p.  257  n.  32;  M.  Dogan  in  Paysans,  p.  214. 

8.  CNIP  members  of  the  existing  Mendes-France  cabinet  were  not,  however,  required  to 
resign.  In  May  1958  Pflimlin's  opponents  were  at  first  one  vote  short  of  a  two-thirds  majority; 
later  they  succeeded  in  voting  the  withdrawal  of  the  CNIP  ministers,  and  the  premier  resigned. 
First  communique :  Monde,  25-26  July  1948.  'Splitters' :  quoted  Forces nouvelles  (MRP),  no.  14, 
17  May  1952.  Cf.  Williams,  p.  llln.;  Merle,  he.  cit.,  pp.  243-6. 


152  THE  PARTIES 

electorate.  The  allegiance  of  Conservative  voters,  which  had  always  been 
loose,  improved  markedly  during  the  Fourth  Republic.9  After  the  1954  con- 
ference CNIP  began  to  undertake  propaganda  in  the  country.  Its  endorsement 
proved  valuable  when  rival  Conservative  candidates  were  in  the  field,  especially 
in  by-elections;10  and  at  the  1956  general  election,  although  there  were  more 
dissident  lists  than  in  1951,  they  won  less  support11  But  CNIP  was  not  strong 
enough  to  make  or  break  a  deputy,  and  while  its  leaders  might  try  (often  in 
vain)  to  influence  the  behaviour  of  Conservative  politicians  in  a  given  depart- 
ment they  made  no  attempt  to  impose  a  uniform  policy  throughout  the 
country.  Duchet  found  it  easier  to  increase  the  number  of  Conservative 
deputies  than  to  strengthen  their  cohesion,  and  flexibility  rather  than  dis- 
cipline had  to  remain  his  watchword.12 

The  particularism  of  local  magnates  was  not  the  only  problem,  for  inter- 
necine rivalry  among  Conservatives  was  as  frequent  at  the  top  as  in  the  con- 
stituencies. Any  attempt  at  coherent  organization  had  to  allow  for  a  tradition 
of  personal  independence  cherished  by  men  who  differed  in  political  outlook, 
economic  interest  and  constituency  background;  whose  individual  ambitions 
were  better  served  by  the  continuation  of  several  small  parliamentary  groups 
(and  leaders) ;  and  who  reserved  the  right  to  give  political,  personal  or  group 
jealousies  priority  over  the  rather  nebulous  'general  interest'  of  an  inchoate 
Conservative  party.13  Thus  the  story  of  Duchet's  achievement  is  largely  that 
of  the  changing  but  ceaseless  disputes  among  his  colleagues. 

For  years  the  most  conspicuous  of  these  was  the  bitter  feud  between  Pinay 
and  Laniel  -  prot6g6s  respectively  of  two  old  enemies  from  the  Third  Repub- 
lic, Flandin  the  appeaser  and  Reynaud  the  opponent  of  Nazi  Germany. 
Duchet  himself  was  a  Pinay  man,  and  in  1950  Reynaud  attempted  to  oust  him 
from  the  secretaryship  of  his  own  organization.  Pinay's  cabinet  in  1952  and 
Laniel's  in  1954  included  between  them  eight  members  of  CNIP's  executive  - 
but  only  one  man  sat  in  both.  Duchet  and  Pinay  blocked  Laniel's  stubborn 
bid  for  the  Presidency  of  the  Republic.  But  this  prolonged  quarrel  was 
eventually  overshadowed  by  the  struggle  over  North  African  policy,  and  in 
1955  the  rival  Independent  leaders  stood  together  in  defence  of  Edgar  Faure's 
Moroccan  policy  against  a  right-wing  offensive  by  their  ex-Gaullist  colleagues 
ofARS.1* 

9.  Merle,  nn.  38  and  85 ;  in  1955  a  poll  found  82  %  of  former  Conservative  voters  meant  to  vote 
the  same  again,  the  highest  percentage  of  any  non-Communist  party.  Formerly  they  had  been  the 
least  stable  of  all:  cf.  Sondages,  1952,  no.  3,  p.  43,  and  Appendix  vn. 

10.  The  right-wing  vote  was  split  in  18  of  the  29  metropolitan  by-elections  between  1952  and 
1958.  All  the  CNIP  candidates  ran  ahead  of  their  rivals,  except  for  two  who  fought  former  local 
deputies.  Thirteen  won,  seven  of  them  despite  split  votes,  which  deprived  five  others  of  possible 
victory.  Of  course  CNIP  often  endorsed  a  candidate  who  could  have  won  without  its  aid. 

11.  Lists  neither  endorsed  by  CNIP  nor  apparenttes  with  its  lists  had  20%  of  the  Right  vote 
in  1951  and  15  %  in  1956 ;  17  %  and  9  %  outside  Seine  and  Seine-et-Oise,  the  scene  of  the  extreme 
Right's  main  effort.  In  Eure  the  CNIP  nominee  defeated  a  challenger  backed  by  Pinay  himself; 
at  Bordeaux  a  deputy  endorsed  by  CNIP  ran  far  ahead  of  another  with  strong  local  support, 
though  the  split  cost  them  both  their  seats. 

12.  In  1958  the  CNIP  group  admitted  Jean  Fraissinet  of  Marseilles,  who  at  a  by-election  early 
that  year  had  defied  Duchet  by  refusing  to  withdraw,  and  so  had  given  the  seat  to  a  Communist. 
See  also  below,  p.  154. 

13.  On  these  parliamentary  disputes  cf.  MacRae,  no.  149,  pp.  171-87;  and  below,  pp.  432-3. 

14.  Duchet  later  separated  from  Pinay  and  became  an  Algdrte  franc aise  extremist ;  his  sympathy 

[over 


THE  CONSERVATIVE  GROUPS  153 

The  ARS  group  brought  into  the  fold  about  thirty  Conservatives  who  had 
been  Gaullist  fellow-travellers.  Most  were  deputies  who  had  sat  as  Conserva- 
tives before  1951,  whose  seats  depended  on  Conservative  votes  or  who 
represented  the  Conservative  west;  ARS  attracted  few  city  members  despite 
its  large  vote  in  Paris.15  Several  of  its  deputies  had  belonged  to  PRL,  and  like 
PRL  members  they  tended  to  be  further  to  the  Right  than  the  Independents, 
more  sympathetic  to  urban  business  than  the  Peasants,  and  -  as  befitted  ex- 
Gaullists  -  more  nationalist  than  most  of  their  new  allies.  In  1954  the  ED  C 
treaty  was  opposed  by  half  the  ARS  members,  but  only  by  a  fifth  of  the 
Independents  and  a  third  of  the  Peasants.  The  governments  of  1956-58  faced 
more  consistent  hostility  (mainly  over  Algeria)  from  ex-ARS  members  than 
from  former  Independents.16 

The  third  component  of  the  united  Conservative  group  of  1956  came  from 
one  wing  of  the  Peasants.  Paul  Antier,  the  ambitious  leader  of  that  party,  had 
been  the  first  deputy  to  join  de  Gaulle  in  1940,  and  after  the  1951  election  he 
favoured  a  government  under  Gaullist  leadership.  While  holding  office  as 
Pleven's  minister  of  agriculture  he  worked  hard  to  organize  a  new  majority 
and  install  a  new  cabinet.  He  was  therefore  dismissed  and  replaced  by  his  own 
under-secretary  (a  former  official  of  Vichy's  Peasant  Corporation,  Camille 
Laurens)  and  the  party  split.  Laurens  and  most  of  the  'lawyer-peasant' 
members  of  parliament  continued  to  support  governments,  while  Antier,  the 
'  peasant-peasant '  deputies  and  the  party  executive  preferred  to  oppose  them.17 

The  spfit  was  healed  in  June  1952  but  reopened  within  eighteen  months.  In 
1954  Antier's  friends  left  CNIP,  though  it  still  endorsed  his  candidates  in  the 
1956  election.  The  united  Conservative  party  in  the  new  Assembly  absorbed 
the  Laurens  faction;  Antier's  depleted  followers  formed  a  separate  group 
which  affiliated  to  it.  But  in  May  1957  that  restless  leader  launched  a  new 
alliance  with  Poujade  and  Dorgeres  (a  pre-war  peasant  agitator  who  had  just 
been  elected  as  an  extreme-Right  deputy).  Again  the  party  executive  approved 
Antier's  course,  but  most  of  his  surviving  parliamentary  supporters  defected 
and  he  was  left  with  a  tiny  splinter  group.18 

Antier's  chequered  career  showed  that  among  peasant  politicians  the  line 

for  the  generals'  revolt  of  April  1961  lost  him  the  secretaryship  of  CNIP  and  gave  Reynaud  a 
belated  revenge. 

15.  Of  28  RPF  members  from  the  previous  Assembly  13  joined  the  rebels  (including  8  of  the 
11  who  had  been  PRL  candidates  in  1946).  So  did  8  of  the  11  deputies  who  owed  their  election 
to  Conservative  support;  8  of  the  16  members  from  the  west  (nine  departments  from  Calvados 
to  Vendee  omitting  the  Breton  peninsula) ;  8  of  the  15  Gaullist  lawyers ;  but  only  3  out  of  22  from 
the  three  Parisian  departments  and  only  2  out  of  14  from  the  constituencies  including  Lyons, 
Marseilles,  Lille,  Bordeaux,  Strasbourg  and  St.  Etienne. 

16.  Of  20  ex-ARS  deputies  16  voted  against  all  or  all  but  one  of  these  four  governments  at 
their  fall.  Of  29  ex-Independents  only  11  did  so.  Cf.  MacRae,  no.  149,  pp.  180-3;  and  below, 
pp.  158-9. 

17.  When  Mendes-France  came  to  power  these  roles  were  reversed  for  a  time.  On  the  split 
see  Barrillon  in  Paysans,  pp.  135-9.  Laurens  eventually  replaced  Duchet  as  secretary  of  CNIP 
in  1961. 

18.  On  Dorgeres  see  below,  p.  161n.,  and  on  Rassemblement  paysan,  below,  p.  166  n.  25.  In 
1956,  out  of  32  Peasant  deputies  standing  only  19  were  re-elected,  compared  with  22  out  of  26 
ARS  and  33  out  of  40  Independents;  Poujadist  gains  in  the  countryside  had  thus  changed  the 
composition  of  the  Conservative  party  as  well  as  reducing  its  members:  Pierce,  no.  180,  p.  418 
and  n. 


154  THE  PARTIES 

between  parliamentary  Conservatism  and  anti-democratic  reaction  might  be 
imprecise.  When  P6tain's  lawyer  Isorni  was  elected  for  Paris  in  1951  the 
Independent  group  would  not  admit  him  to  membership,  and  he  became  a 
parliamentary  Peasant.  But  the  Independents'  scruples  were  short-lived, 
especially  in  the  capital  where  the  extreme  Right  was  strongest.  As  the  1953 
municipal  elections  approached  the  lure  of  Vichyite  votes  proved  irresistible 
to  Conservatives,  neo-Radicals  and  ex-Gaullists  alike.  Prominent  among  the 
ARS  recruits  to  Conservatism  was  Fr<§d6ric-Dupont,  former  leader  of  the 
riot  of  6  February  1934,  already  boss  of  the  left  bank,  and  henceforth  a  per- 
petual thorn  in  CN IP's  side.  In  the  1958  election  he  endorsed  several  dis- 
sident candidates  of  whom  one  was  elected:  J.  M.  Le  Pen,  a  young  ex- 
Poujadist  deputy  of  fascist  tendencies.  Both  men  were  nevertheless  admitted 
to  the  Conservative  group  (which  also  included  all  but  one  of  the  fourteen 
unrepentant  Vichyite  officials  who  sat  in  that  Assembly,  and  a  far  smaller  pro- 
portion of  Resisters  than  any  other  party).  For  CNIP  valued  numbers  more 
than  unity  and  welcomed  any  recruit  who  could  carry  a  constituency  -  even  if 
he  had  defied  party  discipline  or  bore  dubious  democratic  credentials.  As 
Siegfried  had  said,  'It  is  difficult  to  classify  them  [right-wingers]  all  as  hostile 
to  the  Republic,  but  she  cannot  count  on  them.'19 

In  numbers  the  Conservative  groups  increased  gradually  during  the  Fourth 
Republic.  At  each  of  the  three  elections  of  1945-46  they  polled  2£  million 
votes ;  but  as  they  contested  fewer  departments  in  the  last  election,  the  apparent 
stability  conceals  a  small  advance.20  In  1951  they  faced  RPF  competition  but 
still  held  just  under  2,300,000  votes,  or  9%  of  the  total  electorate.21  In  1956 
they  won  more  from  the  Gaullists  than  they  lost  to  the  Poujadists,  and  in- 
creased their  total  vote  to  nearly  3,200,000. 

In  parliamentary  strength  they  grew  steadily:  from  62  (metropolitan) 
deputies  in  each  of  the  two  Constituent  Assemblies  to  70  in  November  1946, 
87  in  1951,  and  95  in  1956.  Including  overseas  members  they  had  74  deputies 
at  the  beginning  of  the  first  legislature  of  the  Fourth  Republic  and  over  80  at 
the  end,  in  spite  of  defections  to  de  Gaulle;  the  1951  election  brought  them 
up  to  96,  and  the  RPF  split  to  135.  But  at  the  1956  election,  though  their  vote 
increased  by  nearly  a  million,  the  electoral  law  did  not  help  the  Conservatives 
as  it  had  in  195 1.22  They  had  expected  to  gain  seats  but  lost  them  instead, 
falling  back  to  97. 

Both  the  voters  and  the  representatives  of  the  Right  were  older  than  their 
rivals.  In  the  three  National  Assemblies  of  the  Fourth  Republic  their  deputies 
had  the  highest  average  age  of  any  group  (except  the  Radicals  in  1946)  and  the 
lowest  proportion  of  young  members  (except  the  Socialists  in  1946  and  1956); 

19.  De  la  IIP,  p.  198;  cf.  pp.  206,  259.  See  also  below,  p.  160  (Isorni);  Harrison,  no.  123, 
pp.  147-56  (Dupont) ;  above,  nn.  12  (discipline)  and  14  (Duchet).  Of  Conservative  deputies  in 
1958,  25  %  were  Resisters,  of  M  RP  members  47  %,  and  in  all  other  groups  over  50  % :  M.  Dogan 
in  Elections  1958,  p.  257.  This  was  partly  because  Conservatives  were  old,  and  young  Resisters 
of  the  Right  had  joined  other  parties :  Grosser,  p.  133. 

20.  Husson,  i.  xxxiii~iv  and  ii.  xxxii  gives  them  2,546,000  in  October  1945,  2,540,000  in  June 
1946  and  2,466,000  in  November  1946  (when  by  including  Gaullist  votes  Goguel  brings  them  up 
to  three  million :  Fourth  Republic,  p.  90). 

21.  Goguel,  loc.  eft.  22.  See  above,  pp.  39-40,  48-9  and  below,  pp.  313-16. 


THE  CONSERVATIVE  GROUPS  155 

and  45%  of  their  voters  were  over  fifty  (a  percentage  exceeded  only  by  the 
Radicals).23 

Before  1939  the  strongholds  of  Conservatism  had  been  the  Catholic  west, 
the  eastern  frontier  departments  as  far  as  Champagne,  the  Massif  Central,  and 
a  few  scattered  mountainous  areas  in  the  south.  In  1951  RPF,  MRP  and 
CNIP  together  dominated  the  same  regions.24  By  1956  RPF  was  in  decline; 
MRP  was  still  a  vigorous  competitor  among  the  devout;  and  CNIP's 
support  tended  to  be  drawn  from  provinces  where  religion  was  either  dead,  as 
in  Champagne,  weak,  as  in  parts  of  Normandy,  or  traditional  and  respectable 
rather  than  a  passionately  held  belief.25  One  poll  in  1952  found  that  85%  of 
Conservative  voters  were  practising  Catholics,  but  that  the  devout  were  much 
fewer  than  in  MRP.  Four  years  later  another  poll  showed  a  third  of  all  prac- 
tising Catholics  voting  for  each  of  these  parties  and  less  than  a  third  for  all 
others  combined  -  but  negligent  Catholics  were  four  times  as  likely  to  choose 
CNIP  as  MRP.26 

Conservative  voters  included  more  property-owners  than  any  others  and 
were  more  prone  to  justify  their  party  preference  as  *  defending  my  legitimate 
interests  '.27  Polls  showed  CNIP  obtaining  at  most  7%  of  the  manual  and  1 1  % 
of  the  white-collar  workers'  vote,  winning  a  steady  21%  of  the  businessmen 
and  attracting  more  peasant  support  than  any  rival.28  Electoral  analysis 
confirmed  these  conclusions.  In  1956  20%  of  agricultural  voters  supported  the 
Conservatives,  but  only  14%  of  others ;  and  in  the  cities  they  were  strong  only 
in  bourgeois  districts.29  Like  the  Radicals,  though  less  strikingly,  they  were 
weak  in  the  industrial  areas.  The  17  most  industrial  departments  included  only 
two  of  the  fifteen  where  CNIP's  vote  reached  20%  of  the  electorate  in  1951 
and  only  three  of  the  fifteen  where  it  did  so  in  1956.  In  the  rest  of  France  their 
percentage  vote  in  1951  was  well  above  that  in  the  17  departments,  and  even 
within  a  region  their  strength  often  lay  in  the  backward  rural  areas.30 

The  same  rural  bias  was  reflected  in  their  leadership.  Local  departmental 
centres  were  often  dominated  by  peasant  spokesmen.31  In  the  National 

23.  Sondages,  1952,  no.  3;  Duverger,  Parties,  p.  167,  for  1946;  my  calculations  for  1951  and 
1956.  Cf.  Appendix  vn. 

24.  In  1932  there  were  fifteen  departments  -  of  which  nine  were  western  and  four  eastern  -  in 
which  45  %  of  the  electorate  voted  for  the  Right.  In  195 1  RP F,  M  RP  and  Conservatives  together 
reached  45  %  in  twelve  of  these  departments  and  missed  it  by  less  than  a  hundred  votes  in  two 
more.  Cf.  Maps  6,  15,  16. 

25.  Suffert,  pp.  36-7;  Fauvet  in  Partis  et  Classes,  pp.  171-2;  Merle  in  ibid.,  p.  251 ;  Paysans, 
pp.  332-3  (but  contrast  pp.  502-3).  See  Maps  5,  14,  20. 

26.  For  1952  sources  see  p.  125n.:  73%  of  MRP  and  56%  of  CNIP  voters  were  devout, 
25  and  38  %  were  Catholics  (23  and  29  %  practising)  but  not  devout.  For  1956  see  Lipset,  p.  245. 
Cf.  below,  p.  158. 

27.  Bondages,  1952,  no.  3,  pp.  40-1  (quoted  Merle,  he.  cit.,  p.  252) ;  and  Appendix  vn. 

28.  Among  businessmen  it  ran  well  behind  the  Gaullists  in  1951  and  1958,  barely  ahead  of  the 
Poujadists  in  1956.  Among  peasants  the  detailed  figures  show  highly  unlikely  variations :  25  %  in 
1951,  45  %  in  1956,  35  %  in  1958.  For  sources  see  p.  109  n.  14. 

29.  J.  Klatzmann  in  Paysans,  p.  50  (agricultural);  for  cities,  Goguel,  no.  108,  pp.  326-33  for 
Paris  1951  (for  1946  cf.  George  in  Moraz6  et  al.y,  Merle,  he.  cit.,  p.  251n.  for  Bordeaux  1951; 
Elections  1956,  pp.  320-1  for  Lyons;  Olivesi,  p.  177  for  Marseilles  1956  (cf.  p.  271). 

30.  Goguel,  Fourth  Republic,  pp.  104,  113  (1951  totals  10-2%  in  the  17  departments,  7-8%  in 
the  rest);  Elections  1956,  p.  485;  cf.  ibid.,  p.  390,  on  Isere.  See  Maps  14,  20,  and  21. 

31.  Over  half  the  members  in  Somme,  three-fifths  in  Hautes-Pyr6nees  -  the  rest  being  business 
or  professional  men,  and  few  of  the  peasants  being  'large  proprietors'  (over  250  acres) :  Merle, 
loc.  cit.,  p.  255n.  On  CNIP  candidates,  ibid.  pp.  253-4. 


156  THE  PARTIES 

Assembly  they  always  had  a  higher  proportion  of  peasants  than  any  other 
group.32  This  reflected  the  influence  of  the  Peasant  party,  for  only  five  In- 
dependents gave  agriculture  as  their  profession  while  half  the  Peasants  did 
so.33  But  half  the  Conservatives  as  against  only  a  fifth  of  the  Gaullists  had 
strong  rural  links ;  Dogan  calls  them  the '  country  Right '  and  the  *  city  Right  '.34 
CNIP  aspired  to  be  the  party  of  all  the  well-off,  but  it  was  still  heavily 
dependent  upon  the  traditional  bulwarks  of  Conservatism,  the  rural  notables. 

3.   CHARACTERISTICS 

In  1930,  at  a  moment  when  the  entire  Right  seemed  to  accept  the  parliamen- 
tary regime,  Andr6  Siegfried  located  its  base  in  those  classes  which  mistrusted 
universal  suffrage  and  claimed  (or  at  least  felt)  that  their  birth  or  fortunes 
entitled  them  to  rule  the  country.  The  battle  between  Right  and  Left,  he 
argued,  was  a  contest  between  the  political  claims  of  social  hierarchy  and  those 
of  democratic  equality.  Around  the  bishops,  landowners  and  capitalists 
gravitated  larger  groups  which  were  socially  dependent  upon  them.  French 
politics c  would  be  incomprehensible  if  we  lost  sight  of  the  fact  that  the  counter- 
revolutionary party  keeps  constantly  rebuilding  itself  as  its  spirit  crystallizes 
into  new  forms'.35 

The  taint  of  counter-revolution  sometimes  made  Conservative  support  an 
embarrassment  rather  than  an  asset  to  governments.  This  handicap  was 
reinforced  when  the  most  anti-parliamentary  Conservatives  turned  to  Vichy 
and  even  to  fascism,  and  found  themselves  discredited  by  the  outcome  of  the 
war.  Yet  the  Liberation  saw  a  weakening  even  of  that  section  of  the  Right 
which  had  defended  the  Republic  and  participated  in  the  Resistance.  For  the 
rise  of  MRP  deprived  many  old-style  Conservatives  of  the  support  of  the 
Church,  on  which  they  had  hitherto  been  able  to  count;  and  the  Gaullist 
movement  won  away  from  them  many  of  their  most  alert,  modern-minded 
and  patriotic  (or  nationalist)  adherents.  Like  the  Radicals,  the  remnants  of 
the  old-fashioned  Right  suffered  from  seeming,  and  being,  survivals  from  the 
past  rather  than  parties  adapted  to  the  post-war  world.  But  the  Conser- 
vatives had  less  influence  (and  the  Radicals  more)  than  their  numbers  would 
suggest.88  Much  of  their  energy  was  dissipated  by  individualism  and  diverted 
into  factionalism.  A  narrow  devotion  to  the  interests  and  prejudices  of  the 

32.  A  quarter  in  1951  and  a  fifth  in  1956;  only  RPF  (till  ARS  seceded)  and  the  Communists 
(in  1956)  exceeded  10  %.  CNIP  also  had  most  lawyers  (over  a  quarter)  and  in  1946  most  business 
men,  but  not  later  (a  fifth  in  1951  and  a  quarter  in  1956,  the  same  proportions  as  for  RGR 
and  MRP).  See  Dogan's  tables,  p.  68n.  above. 

33.  Among  the  other  half  were  P6tain*s  defence  counsel,  the  mayor  of  Biarritz,  and  the  presi- 
dents of  the  road  hauliers*  and  house-property  owners*  associations.  A  *  Peasant'  senator,  M. 
Boutemy,  distributed  the  political  funds  of  the  employers'  federation.  Even  among  the  self-styled 
professional  agriculturalists  many  had  rather  tenuous  connections  with  the  soil. 

34.  Partis  et  Classes,  p.  325.  Contrast  Barrillon  in  Pay  sans,  pp.  145-6. 

35.  France,  pp.  28,  32-4;  Tableau,  pp.  59-60,  68-72.  Their  outlook  had  changed  little  by  1954: 
see  comments  and  quotations  in  Merle,  loc.  cit,,  pp.  262-3.  But  see  below,  n.  49. 

36.  'Theoretically  a  vote  of  the  Right  is  as  good  as  a  vote  of  the  Left,  but  in  practice  this  is  not 
so.  The  member  of  the  Left  enjoys  special  privileges  owing  to  the  prestige  of  his  party,  for  ...  the 
Republic  instinctively  refuses  to  allow  the  nation  to  be  governed  by  men  who  are  not  at  bottom 
inspired  by  its  spirit.'  Siegfried,  France,  p.  93,  Tableau,  p.  191.  In  the  Fourth  Republic  RPF 
suffered  more  from  these  suspicions  than  the  orthodox  Conservatives. 


THE  CONSERVATIVE  GROUPS  157 

better-off  hampered  their  quest  for  votes.  In  1951  Siegfried  was  still  preaching 
the  need  for  a  modern  and  intelligent  Conservatism.37 

In  the  Fourth  Republic  the  Conservatives  made  remarkable  progress  in 
overcoming  these  weaknesses.  They  consolidated  their  influence  with  the 
peasantry  and  small  businessmen  (big  business  at  first  usually  preferred 
RPF,  and  later  favoured  the  right-wing  Radicals  as  well  as  CNIP).  They 
substantially  increased  their  popular  vote  and  became  for  a  time  the  largest 
party  in  the  Assembly.  They  set  up  an  effective  headquarters  which  brought 
five-sixths  of  the  Conservative  voters  and  nine-tenths  of  their  deputies  under 
its  rather  loose  control.  Tainted  at  first  by  their  Vichy  associations,  they 
were  by  the  end  of  the  regime  accepted  as  good  republicans  (though  many  of 
them  proved  unwilling  to  run  any  political  risk  in  the  defence  of  democracy). 

They  directed  the  government  only  between  1952  and  1954,  but  their  power 
was  greater  than  the  composition  of  ministries  indicated.  From  1954  the  Pre- 
sident of  the  Republic  was  a  Conservative,  Coty.  They  enjoyed  the  sympathies 
of  many  senior  officials,  and  the  newly  strengthened  employers'  organization 
wielded  considerable  influence  on  the  administration.38  The  details  of 
economic  policy  were  often  repugnant  to  business  or  the  peasantry,  but  its 
general  lines  were  much  more  satisfactory  to  these  groups  than  to  the  indus- 
trial workers.  More  surprisingly,  CNIP  produced  in  Antoine  Pinay  the 
Fourth  Republican  leader  who  won  most  general  and  lasting  esteem  from  his 
countrymen;  for  Guy  Mollet's  popularity  was  less  general,  Mendes-France's 
less  permanent,  and  Pinay  aroused  far  less  bitter  hostility  than  either  -  while 
no  one  else  drew  any  public  following  at  all.  So  rapid  was  the  Conservative 
recovery  from  the  demoralization  and  discredit  of  the  Liberation  that  while 
the  Third  Republic  had  begun  with  MacMahon  and  ended  with  Blum,  the 
Fourth  -  it  was  said  -  began  with  Blum  and  reverted  to  MacMahon.39 

The  revival  of  right-wing  strength  was  accompanied  by  no  great  renewal  of 
right-wing  ideas.40  Not  all  Conservatives  were  unprogressive.  The  classes 
moyennes  from  whom  they  drew  much  of  their  strength  were  a  conglomeration 
of  disparate  groups.  Dynamic  employers,  managers  in  large  businesses,  and 
many  professional  men  had  as  much  to  gain  from  economic  expansion  and 
modernization  as  rentiers,  retired  people,  small  farmers  and  shopkeepers  had 
to  lose.41  The  attempt  to  appeal  to  both  at  once  was  one  reason  for  CNIP's 
disunity;  while  most  Conservatives  opposed  Mendes-France  bitterly,  eight  of 
them  served  in  his  ministry  and  twenty-two  voted  for  him  to  the  very  end. 
Even  among  more  orthodox  party  members  there  were  men  like  Paul  Rey- 
naud  whom  no  one  could  accuse  of  being  out  of  touch  with  reality.  Never- 
theless it  was  precisely  the  Conservatives  of  this  type,  the  least  hidebound,  the 

37.  De  la  IVe  &  la  Ve  Rfyublique,  p.  176. 

38.  Ehrmann,  Business,  pp.  257-71  and  references  there. 

39.  Duverger,  quoted  Wright,  no.  226,  p.  3. 

40.  One  Gaullist  wrote  bitterly :  *  One  of  the  peculiar  characteristics  of  our  Conservatives  is 

their  refusal  to  see  and  accept  facts  . . .  [and]  realities When  in  the  end  they  give  way  to  them, 

it  is  almost  always  too  late In  so  far  as  they  recognize  change  in  the  world,  they  prefer  to  con- 
vince themselves  that  it  can  continue  without  Frenchmen  having  to  accept  the  innovations  and 
sacrifices  necessary  for  coming  to  terms  with  it.  They  mistake  stagnation  for  prudence,  passivity 
for  wisdom,  apathy  for  social  stability* :  Noel,  pp.  73-4. 

41.  Merle,  he.  cit.,  p.  273 ;  Wright,  no.  227,  pp.  10-11. 


158  THE  PARTIES 

most  capable  of  adjusting  their  ideas,  the  representatives  of  modern  and 
industrial  constituencies  rather  than  backward  rural  ones,  who  were  most 
likely  to  go  over  to  MRP  or  Gaullism.42  And  with  one  of  these  rival  move- 
ments more  attractive  to  ardent  Catholics  and  the  other  to  passionate 
nationalists,  the  orthodox  Right  found  its  following  severely  reduced  and  its 
recovery  confined  within  narrow  limits. 

Attempts  were  made  to  regain  the  lost  audience.  In  1951  the  Conservatives 
tried  both  in  the  election  and  in  Parliament  to  outbid  MRP  as  defenders  of 
the  church  schools.  But  all  sections  of  CNIP  suffered  serious  handicaps  in  a 
competition  for  the  allegiance  of  devout  Catholics.  Among  the  Independents 
one  faction  was  led  by  Reynaud,  who  came  from  the  rather  laique  Alliance 
dgmocratique,  the  other  by  Duchet,  who  had  once  stood  for  Parliament  as  an 
anticlerical  Radical.  PRL,  though  more  right-wing  in  its  economic  policy 
than  M  RP,  was  so  little  influenced  by  the  Church  that  in  1946  it  had  made  an 
electoral  pact  with  the  Radical  party.  And  the  Peasants  were  far  too  regional- 
ized, too  reactionary  and  too  exclusively  a  pressure-group  for  a  single 
economic  interest  to  attract  support  away  from  MRP.  Even  when  in  1954  the 
orthodox  Conservatives  began  for  the  first  time  officially  to  call  themselves 
an  essentially  Christian  party  they  (like  earlier  right-wing  leaders  such  as 
Maurras)  gave  mainly  secular  reasons  for  their  faith:  'mobilizing  the  divine' 
as  Barr£s  had  once  put  it.43 

Nor  could  the  Gaullists  easily  be  overmatched  in  nationalist  fervour  by  a 
party  among  whose  leaders  'ex-Vichyites  outnumber  the  ex-Resisters,  but 
both  categories  are  far  outstripped  by  the  ex-straddlers'.44  The  task  proved 
still  harder  after  the  principal  CNIP  leaders  became  ardent  defenders  of 
European  integration  (including  EDC)  and  in  Morocco  belatedly  accepted  an 
imperial  retreat  more  far-reaching  than  that  for  which  they  had  destroyed 
Mend&s-France  over  Tunisia.45  Nevertheless  they  did  their  best.  Once  the 
1956  election  was  over  most  of  the  party,  under  Duchet's  leadership,  attempted 
(in  common  with  many  Radicals  and  some  Socialists)  to  wash  away  these  sins 
by  swimming  with  the  nationalist  tide,46  And  in  1958  the  majority  of  CNIP 
members  turned  to  de  Gaulle,  despite  their  deep  distrust  of  him,  as  the  one 
man  who  could  save  the  army's  unity  and  Alggriej ran  false. 

42.  This  remained  true  in  the  Fifth  Republic,  where  the  conflict  over  financial  policy  between 
Pinay  and  Albin  Chalandon  of  UNR  was  largely  a  battle  between  stabilizers  and  expansionists. 
(Reynaud,  like  many  Gaullists  but  few  Conservatives,  was  a  carpet-bagger  with  no  deep  roots  in 
his  constituency.) 

43.  Merle,  he.  cit.,  pp.  265-7;  Suffert,  pp.  42-3 ;  Serant,  OA  va  la  Droite,  pp.  33-4.  Merle  cites 
from  official  publications  such  phrases  as  *  Religion  has  provided  society  with  the  framework  of 
lasting  institutions,  and  this  framework  has  given  to  successive  generations  an  impression  of 
security  without  which  no  enterprise  would  have  been  possible'  and  *...  legislative  measures 
extending  the  economic  functions  of  the  State  are  opposed  to  the  very  spirit  of  the  Encyclicals.' 
On  Catholic  attitudes  to  the  parties  see  above,  pp.  109, 155  and  notes. 

44.  Wright,  no.  227,  p.  5.  Cf.  n,  19  above. 

45.  Two-thirds  of  their  deputies  voted  for  EDC;  MRP  was  the  only  other  party  to  show  a 
majority  for  the  treaty.  Pinay  and  Pierre  July  of  ARS  were  the  ministers  directly  responsible  for 
the  return  of  the  Sultan  of  Morocco,  and  they  were  supported  by  Laniel,  Reynaud  and  Duchet.  On 
Conservative  external  policies  see  Grosser,  pp.  132-6. 

46.  See  Bodin  and  Touchard,  no.  21,  pp.  277-82;  Weber,  no.  215,  pp.  560-78.  As  Noel  wrote 
earlier,  in  North  Africa  *  When.  . .  calm  prevailed  they  opposed  reforms,  calling  them  useless  or 
premature  since  the  population  remained  peaceful.  When  blood  has  flowed,  they  have  found  in 
that  another  motive  for  deciding  nothing'  (p.  75). 


THE  CONSERVATIVE  GROUPS  159 

Yet  nationalist  agitation  was  not  a  role  in  which  they  were  particularly 
effective.  For  although  their  ranks  included  bitter  demagogues  like  Jean 
Legendre,  accomplished  time-servers  like  Frederic-Dupont  and  ambitious 
factional  leaders  like  Barrachin  and  Antier,  there  were  also  among  them 
many  realistic  and  responsible  men.47  In  private  though  not  in  public  all 
sections  of  Conservative  opinion  doubted  the  wisdom  of  the  Suez  expedition.48 
Pinay  himself  (not  to  speak  of  the  Mendesist  minority)  recognized  the 
inevitability  of  decolonization  in  Algeria.  Increasingly  the  party  gave  its 
support  to  European  integration.  Consequently,  while  the  excesses  of  CNIP's 
reactionary  wing  kept  alive  all  the  suspicions  of  the  centre  groups,  the  pru- 
dence of  its  moderate  section  restrained  it  from  exploiting  effectively  the 
nationalist  and  anti-parliamentary  moods  of  French  public  opinion. 

In  the  Fourth  Republic  as  in  the  Third  there  were  always  Conservatives 
who,  in  the  traditional  phrase,  were  republican  moderates  but  not  moderately 
republican,  and  represented  the  liberal  and  parliamentary  (though  not 
democratic)  strand  in  the  old  monarchist  tradition.49  As  the  Vichy  regime 
evolved  towards  fascism  many  more  men  of  the  Right  came  to  conclude  like 
Thiers  before  them  that  the  Republic  served  Conservative  interests  best.  At 
the  Liberation,  therefore,  there  was  a  'new  Ralliement'.50  Many  Conservatives 
suspected  the '  Bonapartist '  movements  of  the  Fourth  Republic,  and  remained 
faithful  to  the  centre  governments  which  Gaullists  and  Poujadists  assailed  so 
furiously.  Such  men  were  torn  between  their  specific  preferences  in  foreign  or 
social  policy  and  their  overriding  desire  to  defend  the  existing  political 
regime.  Like  all  centre  groups  they  were  under  constant  strain,  their  loyalty  to 
their  party  leaders  in  office  constantly  eroded  by  their  resentment  at  the  con- 
cessions which  had  to  be  made  to  keep  cabinets  together.  Coalition  politics 
accentuated  all  the  differences  that  separated  factions  and  all  the  uncertainties 
that  harassed  individuals.  Ambivalent  and  divided,  the  Conservatives  were 
therefore  vulnerable  to  the  unscrupulous  demagogy  of  an  increasingly  vocal 
and  violent  extreme  Right.51 

47.  'The  moderation  of  the  "Moderates"  [Conservatives]  does  not  exclude  a  marked  pro- 
pensity for  the  use  of  vindictive  and  slanderous  behaviour.  Under  the  Mendes-France  government 
we  were  able  to  observe ...  the  snarling  virulence  of  the  traditional  Right . . .' :  ibid.,  p.  79.  Legendre, 
the  ARS  'member  for  beet-growing'  (Priouret,  Deputes,  p.  234),  was  the  leader  of  this  attack. 
Barrachin,  once  prominent  in  Croix  defeu,  led  the  ARS  revolt;  when  de  Gaulle  reproached  him, 
'But  for  me  you  wouldn't  be  in  Parliament'  he  is  said  to  have  replied  *But  for  you  I  would  be  m 
the  cabinet'.  For  Antier  and  Dupont  sree  above,  pp.  153-4.  For  an  example  of  both  demagogy 
and  time-serving  see  CNIP's  response  to  Poujade:  Hoffmann,  pp.  356-63,  Guy,  pp.  128-43. 

48.  Seep.  50 n.  12. 

49.  See  Remond,  La  Droite  en  France,  pp.  25,  31,  84-6,  etc.  _     ^.,AXt_ 

50  Hoffmann  in  Change,  p.  45;  no.  126,  p.  51.  But  Siegfried  warned  that   On  the  Right  the 
Republic  does  not  and  doubtless  never  will  create  unanimity:  for  even  when  it  seems  to  have 
overcome  the  ancient  enmities,  they  never  die' :  De  la  IHe,  p.  206. 

51  For  CNIP's  eagerness  to  repudiate  the  charge  of  being  right-wing,  reactionary  or  even 
conservative  see  Merle,  loc.  cit..  pp.  261-2;  he  also  quotes  the  retort  of  Abel  Bonnard,  later  a 
collaborationist  minister,  in  Les  Moderns  (1936) :  '. . .  they  are  simply  property-owners  without  a 
doctrine,  men  who  share  the  same  social  habits  but  have  no  bond  of  faith  to  unite  them,  uneasy 
egotists,  not  quite  believing  in  the  legitimacy  of  their  own  advantages,  who  merely  hope  to  make 
sure  of  enjoying  their  own  life-interest  in  them  . . .' 


Chapter  12 
THE  EXTREME  RIGHT 

1.  VICHYITES  AND  CRYPTO-FASCISTS 

During  most  of  the  twentieth  century  the  right-wing  enemies  of  democracy 
were  weak  in  numbers,  though  Maurras's  Action  frangaise  always  enjoyed  a 
good  deal  of  influence  among  intellectuals,  particularly  students.  The  rise  of 
fascism  abroad  and  the  fear  of  the  Popular  Front  at  home  brought  them 
wider  sympathies  in  conservative  and  bourgeois  quarters,  and  the  defeat  of 
1940  thrust  power  into  their  hands.  But  there  were  bitter  divisions  within 
their  ranks.  Marshal  Plain's  government  and  entourage  included  many 
followers  of  Maurras;  these  reactionary  men  of  Vichy  were  bitterly  attacked 
by  the  national-socialist  collaborators  in  Paris  (led  by  the  ex-Socialist  D6at 
and  the  ex-Communist  Doriot).  The  collapse  of  Germany  discredited  all  the 
different  factions  and  it  was  some  years  before  the  extreme  Right  attempted  to 
resume  political  activity. 

Their  weakness  was  not  only  in  numbers.  Their  'mania  for  division'  re- 
vealed a  'reactionary  sectarianism'  which  closely  resembled  revolutionary 
sectarianism  in  its  demand  for  orthodox  purity.1  This  tendency  was  aggravated 
by  the  cult  of  personality  so  common  on  the  Right;  where  the  left-winger 
favours  teamwork,  'the  man  of  the  Right'  (as  one  of  them  put  it)  'demands 
the  leader  and  rejects  the  team'.2  In  the  Fourth  Republic  Gaullists  and  Pou- 
jadists  built  major  parties  around  the  personality  of  a  leader,  while  the  small 
groups  of  the  far  Right,  whether  formed  for  electoral  battles  or  for  street 
fighting,  were  rarely  more  than  the  organized  clientele  of  a  particular  minor 
chieftain. 

The  first  electoral  effort  came  in  1951.  One  of  the  few  prominent  Pe*tainists 
eligible  for  Parliament,  Maitre  Jacques  Isorni,  was  persuaded  by  P.  E.  Flandin 
to  stand  in  the  election.  Though  his  ad  hoc  group  U  N I R  (  Union  des  nationaux 
et  des  independents  republicans)  ran  too  few  lists  to  qualify  as  a  'national 
party'  under  the  electoral  law,  it  elected  three  champions  of  the  Marshal:  his 
former  defence  counsel  -  Isorni  -  in  north-west  Paris,  his  ex-secretary  at  Oran 
(Algeria)  and  one  of  his  ministers  of  agriculture  for  Calvados  (Normandy). 
After  some  hesitation  they  were  allowed  to  join  the  Peasant  parliamentary 
group  and  became  absorbed  as  active  and  useful  if  rather  right-wing  Con- 
servative members.3 

This  was  not  the  only  sign  of  a  change  of  climate.  In  1951  the  bitterest 
enemies  of  the  regime  founded  Rivarol,  a  weekly  organ  which  except  in 
circulation,  proved  a  worthy  successor  to  the  pre-war  Gringoire.  Next  year 
the  Gaullists  of  the  capital  split  over  whether  to  collaborate  with  Vichyites  in 

1.  Serant,  p.  157. 

2.  Coston,  p.  24.  This  is  both  the  fullest  and  the  most  friendly  source  for  most  of  these  groups. 
See  also  R,  Barrillon  in  Monde,  14,  15  and  16  February  1958;  Weber,  no.  216. 

3.  For  National  parties*  and  the  electoral  law  see  below,  pp.  506-7;  for  1951,  Isorni,  Ainsi, 
pp.  8-19 ;  UNI  R  also  won  5%  of  the  vote  in  a  fourth  district,  Tarn.  Some  other  Conservative 
deputies  had  Petainist  sympathies:  below,  pp.  177,  179n. 


THE  EXTREME  RIGHT  161 

the  coming  municipal  elections.  In  1953  Parliament,  which  was  soon  to  elect 
as  President  of  the  Republic  a  respected  politician  who  had  voted  for  P£tain 
in  1940,  passed  an  amnesty  law  allowing  others  who  had  done  so  to  resume 
their  parliamentary  careers.4  Several  tried;  very  few  succeeded. 

Although  on  the  French  Right  there  was  little  enthusiasm  for  democracy, 
its  violent  enemies  were  always  very  few.5  Most  of  them  were  concentrated  in 
the  big  towns  and  especially  in  Paris.  In  1954  they  formed  a  short-lived 
Rassemblement  national,  which  began  fighting  by-elections  the  following  year 
and  in  the  1956  general  election,  allied  to  other  right-wingers  under  the  title 
Rtforme  de  f£tat,  ran  enough  lists  to  qualify  as  a  'national  party'.  Its  leader 
Me  Tixier- Vignancour  was  returned  as  its  only  deputy  in  his  pre-war  con- 
stituency of  Basses-Pyr6n6es.6  In  Parliament  he  became  the  temporary 
manager  of  the  inexperienced  Poujadists ;  outside  it  he  was  the  ardent  defender 
of  every  fascist  conspirator  against  a  regime  which  he  skilfully  and  unscrupu- 
lously undermined,  especially  in  the  notorious  leakages  case  of  1956.7 

A  robust  and  ruthless  revolutionary,  Tixier  hated  the  Fifth  Republic  no  less 
than  previous  numerical  variants  of  the  regime.  His  attitude  to  them  all  was 
one  of  destructive  opposition,  more  nihilist  than  conservative.  There  had 
always  been  such  right-wing  extremists  who  were  delighted  to  practise  the 
politique  du  pire  by  encouraging  rival  extremists  of  the  Left  -  with  whom 
indeed  they  shared  a  common  contempt  for  the  feeble  creatures  who  occupied 
the  middle  ground.  But  this  attitude  did  not  extend  to  another  sector  of 
extreme-Right  opinion,  less  noisy  but  perhaps  more  influential,  which  drew 
its  inspiration  from  a  crusading  wing  of  the  Catholic  Church  that  had  more 
importance  at  Rome  than  in  France  itself.  The  Catholic  extreme  Right  con- 
cerned itself  with  mobilizing  anti-democratic  opinion  through  'education* 
and  psychological  warfare,  not  with  electioneering  or  revolutionary  activity. 
Its  influence  on  army  officers,  particularly  in  the  Fifth  Republic,  shows  that 
the  distinction  can  be  exaggerated.8 

Other  movements  of  the  far  Right  had  direct  action  as  their  sole  aim:  the 

4.  See  below,  p.  21  On.  9. 

5.  'The  political  dinosaur  (la  reaction)  is  a  species  (or  specimen)  peculiar  to  France  . . .  hostile, 
at  first  actively  but  later  passively,  to  a  political  regime  which  originated  much  less  in  the  general 
will  than  in  the  bankruptcy,  absence  and  misfortunes  of  the  regimes  which  preceded  it.  The  Third 
Republic  did  not  appear  in  France  as  a  dejure  but  as  a  de  facto  form  of  government,  in  a  country 
which  was  not  and  never  had  been  republican  but  gradually  became  so  ...  out  of  fear  of  militant 
clericalism' :  Thibaudet,  Idfes,  pp.  33-4. 

6.  RN  fought  every  Paris  seat  in  1956;  and  though  Tixier  was  elected  in  the  provinces,  his 
votes  were  urban :  Pay  sans,  pp.  123-4,  However,  one  peasant  extremist  -  Henri  Dorgeres,  pre- 
war *  Green  Shirt'  leader  and  later  active  in  Vichy's  Peasant  Corporation  -  was  elected  in  Ille-et- 
Vilaine  as  a  champion  of  the  bouilleurs  de  cru  (home  distillers)  against  Mendes-France's  anti- 
alcoholism  measures:  J.  M.  Royer  in  ibid.,  pp.  149-81,  cf.  Guy,  pp.  180-92,  Coston,  pp.  161-5. 
His  vote  was  negligible  in  the  towns  but  reached  30  %  and  even  42%  in  the  poorer  rural  cantons : 
Pay  sans,  p.  178. 

7.  On  Tixier  and  the  Poujadists  cf.  below,  p.  168 ;  for  the  leakages  trial  see  above,  pp.  46n.,  49. 
Grandson  of  a  Republican  deputy  of  the  1870's,  he  won  a  seat  in  1936,  was  unseated  for  electoral 
fraud  but  re-elected.  In  1940,  as  head  of  Vichy's  radio,  he  was  said  by  Maurras  to  favour  the 
pro-German  D6at:  L.  de  G6rin-Ricard  and  L.  True,  Histoire  de  r  Action  francaise  (1949),  p.  240. 
He  was  later  disgraced  by  Vichy  (not  on  political  grounds).  In  1961  he  declared  in  court:  *I  will 
never  use  the  word  legitimacy,  for  I  know  it  has  not  existed  in  France  since  21  January  1793' : 
Monde,  21  July  1961. 

8.  On  it  see  Bosworth,  pp.  183-5,  199-200,  224-8,  334-6;  Coston,  pp.  509-12;  Remond,  nos. 
187-8.  On  the  sympathies  between  extreme  Right  and  extreme  Left  see  Weber,  no.  216. 


162  THE  PARTIES 

Indo-China  ex-servicemen's  association  which  rioted  at  the  time  of  Dien- 
Bien-Phu;  Jeune  Nation,  later  the  Parti  nationalists,  a  small  but  noisy  fascist 
movement  started  in  1954  by  four  sons  of  a  leading  Vichy  milicien  executed  at 
the  Liberation,  which  joined  the  Anciens  d'Indochine  in  attacking  Communist 
headquarters  after  Budapest  in  1956;  the  Parti patriote  revolutionnaire,  set  up 
in  1957  by  the  Gaullist  lawyer-adventurer  Me  Biaggi,  which  specialized  in 
wrecking  opponents'  meetings.  Many  of  their  adherents  found  in  Algfrie 
franfaise  the  opportunity  that  some  German-Americans  saw  in  McCarthyism: 
a  chance  to  retaliate  against  those  who  had  questioned  their  patriotism.  The 
presse  de  la  trahison,  once  a  Resistance  name  for  collaborationist  journals, 
became  a  term  of  abuse  flung  by  some  of  its  former  victims  against  left-wing 
papers  sympathetic  to  Algerian  nationalism.  These  extreme-Right  groups  kept 
closely  in  touch  with  their  fellows  in  Algeria  (Biaggi  was  the  main  organizer  of 
the  riot  of  6  February  1956).  And  there  their  allies,  constantly  plotting  against 
both  Fourth  and  Fifth  Republics,  acquired  at  times  a  substantial  following.9 
The  advent  of  de  Gaulle  embarrassed  both  Vichyites  and  crypto-Fascists. 
Dorg&res  supported  his  election  to  the  premiership;  Isorni  was  the  only 
orthodox  Conservative  to  oppose  it  (since  'the  defender  of  Louis  XVI  cannot 
vote  for  Robespierre');  Tixier  voted  for  the  General's  candidature  but  against 
giving  him  full  powers  (explaining  that  for  casting  a  similar  vote  eighteen 
years  before  he  had  been  declared  unworthy  to  sit  in  Parliament  by  the  very 
man  who  was  now  asking  him  to  repeat  the  performance).  All  three  men 
were  opposed  by  Gaullists  in  the  1958  election  and  all  lost  their  seats.  Biaggi 
in  contrast  was  elected  on  a  U  N  R  (Gaullist)  ticket  in  Paris,  but  left  U  N  R  over 
Algeria  a  year  later.  By  this  time  the  government  had  dissolved  most  of  the 
direct-action  groups  and  all  of  them  had  gone  into  bitter  opposition  to  the 
regime.  Here  they  rejoined  an  old  ally  of  the  far  Right,  to  whom  Tixier  had 
once  paid  the  richly  -  if  temporarily  -  merited  tribute:  'Thanks  to  Pierre 
Poujade  we  have  found  our  way  back  to  the  masses.  * 

2.  POUJADISM:  HISTORY  AND  FOLLOWING 

Pierre  Poujade,  the  son  of  an  Action  frangaise  architect  at  St.  C6r6  in  Lot,  had 
belonged  to  the  youth  movement  of  Doriot's  PPF  before  the  war  and  to  that 
of  Vichy  during  it.  Escaping  to  North  Africa,  he  married  a  colon's  daughter 
and  served  in  the  Royal  Air  Force.  After  the  war  he  became  a  commercial 
traveller,  used  his  savings  to  buy  a  small  stationer's  shop  in  his  home  town, 
and  in  1952  was  elected  to  the  municipal  council  as  a  Gaullist  candidate  on  a 
Radical  list.  His  movement  appealed  to  the  fears  of  the  petty-bourgeois  who 
was  determined  not  to  sink  into  the  ranks  of  the  proletariat,  and  to  the 
antagonism  towards  the  politicians  of  the  System  felt  by  many  men  of  the 
traditional  Left  in  the  poorer  parts  of  the  south. 

France  had  a  million  small  shops,  far  more  than  other  European  countries 
(one  for  every  54  inhabitants  in  1956,  compared  with  a  European  average  of 
one  for  every  71),  and  their  number  increased  by  40,000  between  1950  and 
1953.  At  St.  C6r6  itself  the  population  had  been  halved  during  the  last  century 

9.  See  Williams  and  Harrison,  pp.  45-6,  51-63,  226-7.  For  their  extreme  weakness  in  France 
see  above,  p.  54n.  For  the  riots  over  Indo-China  see  above,  p.  45,  and  below,  p.  167. 


THE  EXTREME  RIGHT  163 

while  the  number  of  shopkeepers  and  artisans  remained  unchanged.  With  the 
end  of  inflation  and  the  rapid  growth  of  competition  from  co-operatives  and 
multiple  stores,  the  small  man  could  no  longer  pay  his  debts  and  taxes  in 
depreciated  francs.  The  inefficient  and  bureaucratic  fiscal  system  came  to  seem 
oppressive  as  well  when  his  ex-hero  Pinay  introduced  severe  penalties  for 
future  tax  evasion  in  return  for  an  amnesty  for  past  frauds.  These  tighter  con- 
trols were  bitterly  resented  by  those  innumerable  small  shopkeepers  -  four- 
fifths  of  the  total  -  who  declared  an  income  lower  than  the  working-class 
average  while  remaining  grimly  determined  to  differentiate  themselves  from 
the  despised  proletariat.10  When  Poujade  organized  forcible  opposition  to  a 
tax  inspector's  scrutiny  of  a  neighbour's  accounts,  he  began  a  revolt  which 
spread  like  wildfire  through  the  south. 

The  first  Poujadist  organization,  UDCA  (Union  de  defense  des  commer- 
gants  et  des  artisans),  was  formed  in  1953.  At  the  outset  the  movement  was  not 
obviously  right-wing.  Laniel's  Conservative  government  was  then  facing  the 
first  major  strikes  for  five  years  and  the  first  widespread  blocking  of  roads  by 
peasant  carts.  Poujadist  propaganda  was  directed  against  the  rich  and  power- 
ful, the  technocrats  and  officials,  and  the  recognized  spokesmen  of  the  small 
businessmen  like  L6on  Gingembre;  Poujadist  influence  was  concentrated  in 
the  traditionally  left-wing  south  and  centre;  and  the  Communists,  seeing  an 
opportunity  to  extend  their  influence  and  perhaps  sympathizing  with  another 
revolutionary  sprung  from  the  people,  gave  UDCA  full  support  and  in  many 
areas  came  close  to  controlling  it.11 

UDCA's  change  of  direction  began  at  its  first  conference,  at  Algiers  in 
November  1954.  The  annual  subscription  was  trebled  (to  1,000  francs)  and  a 
new  weekly,  Fraternitd  franfaise,  was  founded  under  the  editorship  of  an 
Algiers  extremist,  Paul  Chevallet.  Mendes-France  was  now  in  office,  and 
Poujadist  attacks  were  increasingly  directed  against  the  Left  in  general  and 
Jews  in  particular;  they  enthusiastically  denounced  economic  progress  and  the 
campaign  against  alcoholism.12  In  January  1955  a  monster  rally  in  Paris 
opened  a  campaign  of  pressure  on  the  parties:  the  Communists  reacted  with 
shameless  demagogy,  the  Socialists  with  equally  shameless  cowardice  and  the 
Conservatives  with  both  -  MRP  alone  retaining  some  sense  of  dignity  and 
responsibility.  In  March  the  Assembly  debated  tax  controls  with  a  shirt- 
sleeved  Poujade  in  the  public  galleries  directing  the  tactics  of  those  sym- 
pathetic members  (mostly  Conservatives)  whom  he  was  later  to  describe  as 

10.  Lipsedge,  no.  146,  points  out  that  French  fiscal  administration  employed  as  many  civil 
servants  (80,000)  as  that  of  the  United  States  and  that  cafes  were  subjected  to  24  different  taxes, 
garages  to  25.  Siegfried  calls  the  movement  *a  product  of  deflation' ;  De  la  IIIe,  p.  203. 

11.  For  the  economic  background  see  Hoffmann,  pp.  14-22;  for  Communist  influence,  pp. 
38-40 ;  for  the  changes  in  Communist  policy,  pp.  348-56 ;  for  Communist  support  in  the  early 
days,  VHumanite  6  July  1954,  quoted  pp.  378-9 :  'Union  is  strength;  the  Eight  of  St  C<§r<§  have 


excellent  article,  no.  210,  pp.  30-43;  on  early  Communist  influence  also  p.  83.,  and  Guy, 
pp.  40-3;  on  Gingembre,  below,  pp.  361, 379-80. 

12.  Hoffmann,  pp.  57  (alcohol),  252-3  :  'We  will  defend  the  traditional  structure  of  the  French 
economy ...  we  are  against  reconversion.'  Peasant  demonstrators'  banners  at  Chartres  in  February 
1955  proclaimed,  'Milk  =  Misery,  Productivity  -  Ruin':  De  Tarr,  p.  206. 


164  THE  PARTIES 

*  grovelling  at  my  feet'.13  The  Poujadists  set  up  'parallel  unions'  of  peasants, 
students  and  workers,  and  made  ostentatious  contributions  to  a  number  of 
strike  funds.14  When  the  local  councils  were  renewed  in  April  they  tried  -  in 
vain  -  to  unseat  their  most  prominent  enemies.  Evidently  by  the  middle  of 
1955  the  decision  to  fight  the  parliamentary  election  had  been  taken,  though 
it  was  not  yet  avowed. 

They  began  their  electioneering,  therefore,  long  before  the  other  parties. 
Their  candidate  in  Is£re  held  51  meetings  after  the  dissolution  -  but  183  earlier 
in  the  year,  which  had  earned  him  seven  appearances  in  court.  Everywhere  the 
Poujadist  campaign  was  slanderous,  violent  and  utterly  negative,  except  over 
North  Africa  where  the  movement  expressed  the  most  extreme  colonialist 
views.  A  favourite  technique  was  bar-to-bar  canvassing,  and  'non-political' 
shopkeepers,  barmen  and  commercial  travellers  made  ideal  propagandists.15 
Opponents'  meetings  were  broken  up,  usually  by  rowdyism  and  obstruction; 
juvenile  student  'ragging'  rather  than  fascist  thuggery  was  the  general  tone; 
and  all  parties  except  the  Communists  suffered  from  these  tactics.  Electoral 
violence  is  unusual  and  unpopular  in  France,  and  almost  everywhere  the 
Poujadists  soon  abandoned  it.16  But  their  catchy  slogan  Sortez  les  Sortants ! 
and  their  verbal  extravagance  appealed  to  the  ordinary  Frenchman's  bound- 
less contempt  for  all  politicians  -  except,  sometimes,  for  his  own  deputy.17 
Even  the  Poujadists  underestimated  their  own  success,  while  the  predictions 
of  journalists,  prefects  and  politicians  were  made  derisory  by  the  event.18  The 
newcomers  won  2,600,000  votes  and  elected  53  members  to  form  the  UFF 
group:  Union  et  fraternitd  f ran  false.  The  new  Assembly,  with  much  legal 
warrant  and  no  political  sense,  unseated  eleven  of  them.19 

Hoping  to  put  his  new  parliamentary  strength  to  use,  Poujade  now  turned 
on  his  extreme  fascist  associates  as  he  had  previously  ousted  the  Com- 
munists. Enforcing  his  demands  by  a  threat  of  resignation,  he  moved  party 
headquarters  back  from  Paris  to  St.  C6r6,  sent  Chevallet  home  to  Algiers 
(where  he  became  an  intermediary  between  the  local  fascists  and  the  ex- 
Cagoulard  conspirators  in  Paris),  and  expelled  the  extremist  leaders  of  the 
peasants'  and  workers'  'parallel  unions'.20  But  though  he  dominated  the 

13.  See  Hoffmann,  pp.  76-81,  356-63,  368-71 ;  Guy,  pp.  99-101, 113-8,  128-43  (party  replies) ; 
Lavau  in  Partis  et  Classes,  p.  83. 

14.  Hoffmann,  pp.  111-16,  and  (for  the  peasants)  Royer  in  Pay  sans,  pp.  182-206. 

15.  Hoffmann,  pp.  190-1;  Elections  1956,  pp.  29  (Fauvet),  480  (Goguel);  OUvesi,  p.  77;  Le 
Poujadisme  (by  Maurice  Bardeche  et  al.),  p.  6. 

16.  Their  chief  victim  (Mitterrand)  unexpectedly  gained  votes;  the  Poujadists  did  worse  in  his 
department  than  in  any  of  its  neighbours.  Cf.  Hoffmann,  pp.  164-5;  Elections  1956,  p.  421; 
Touchard,  no.  210,  p.  38  (' success  in  inverse  ratio  to  violence  used*). 

17.  For  samples  see  Hoffmann,  Chapter  6;  also  Williams,  no.  168,  pp.  156n.,  161;  Thomas,  no, 
170,  pp.  278-80;  flections  1966,  pp.  61-4. 

18.  These  authorities  relied  on  traditional  opinion-makers  such  as  local  councillors,  whom 
the  Poujadists  by-passed.  The  Communists  were  sometimes  better  prophets:  Thomas,  no.  170, 
p.  265.  The  French  Institute  of  Public  Opinion  twice  concealed  the  Poujadists  under  *  others',  and 
in  a  third  poll  credited  them  with  1  %  of  the  votes  of  youth. 

19.  See  Appendix  vi.  The  Poujadist  success  wrecked  all  the  calculations  which  had  led  Faure 
to  dissolve:  see  above,  p.  48.  The  53  include  Jean  Dides,  who  affiliated  to  the  group. 

20.  For  the  organization  (democratic  locally  but  highly  authoritarian  at  and  above  the  depart- 
mental level)  see  Hoffmann,  pp.  262-303.  For  the  peasant  union,  Royer  in  Paysans,  pp.  192-8; 
Coston,  pp.  267-71.  The  constitutions  of  both  unions,  and  of  U  DC  A,  are  published  in  Le 
Poujadisme,  pp.  129-33. 


THE  EXTREME  RIGHT  165 

organization,  he  could  not  solve  the  problems  that  had  baffled  de  Gaulle: 
retaining  the  momentum  of  an  anti-parliamentary  army  with  a  foothold  in  the 
enemy  fortress  -  the  National  Assembly  -  and  preserving  the  disciplinary 
subordination  of  the  invading  deputies  to  a  commander  who  himself  still 
stood  outside  the  abhorred  System. 

The  stationer  from  St.  C6r6  should  have  found  his  troops  more  manageable 
than  those  of  his  illustrious  predecessor.  For  the  RPF  deputies  in  1951  had 
been  three  times  as  numerous  -  and  so  had  more  to  gain  by  standing  together. 
Without  help  from  them  there  was  no  stable  majority  -  and  so  the  System 
could  not  survive  without  splitting  or  assimilating  them.  Men  of  personal 
distinction  were  as  common  in  their  ranks  as  they  were  rare  among  the 
Poujadists  -  few  of  whom  had  any  political  experience  and  fewer  still  any 
political  talent.21  Collectively  less  indispensable  and  individually  less  capable, 
they  -  unlike  the  Gaullists  -  were  rarely  courted  by  and  never  made  any  im- 
pression upon  their  colleagues.22  'Moved  by  the  one  virtue  of  indignation', 
wrote  a  sympathetic  Conservative,  'they  were,  however,  incapable  of  drafting 
a  bill  or  delivering  a  speech.  They  produced  no  reform,  even  on  fiscal  ques- 
tions. They  could  never  express  their  wishes  and  the  cries  which  they  con- 
scientiously uttered  at  regular  intervals  provoked  countercries  without  ever 
awakening  an  echo.'23 

They  might  have  seemed  a  sufficiently  malleable  group  (especially  as  all 
their  members  had  sworn  to  maintain  discipline  under  penalty  of  being 
hanged).  Moreover,  taking  a  leaf  from  the  Communist  book,  Poujade  insisted 
that  the  party  draw  their  parliamentary  salaries  and  withhold  a  levy  before 
paying  the  balance  to  the  member.  But  over  the  'Euratom'  treaty  in  June  the 
group  kept  its  unity  only  by  abstaining  -  and  allowing  three  dissidents  to  vote 
for  the  government.  In  October  some  Poujadists  seem  (in  a  secret  ballot)  to 
have  disobeyed  the  order  to  keep  a  Socialist  out  of  the  chair  by  voting  instead 
for  an  MRP  leader  whom  they  had  bitterly  denounced  in  the  election  cam- 
paign. In  November,  Poujade  amazed  his  followers  by  instructing  them  to 
vote  against  'fighting  for  the  Queen  of  England'  at  Suez;  a  third  of  them 
defied  him  and  the  articulate  few,  who  were  all  ultra-nationalists,  broke  with 
him  for  good.24  Even  their  loyalist  colleagues  almost  elected  a  rebel  to  chair 
the  depleted  group. 

Disarray  in  Parliament  reflected  decline  in  the  country.  At  a  by-election  in 

21.  For  thirty  of  the  fifty  UFF  members  this  was  their  first  political  venture;  of  the  rest  only 
two  had  stood  for  Parliament.  Ex-Socialists,  ex-Radicals  and  ex-Gonservatives  each  numbered 
two  or  three;  one  had  been  MRP,  four  PSF  (before  the  war)  and  eight  RPF  like  their  leader: 
Hoffmann,  p.  162;  Le  Poujadisme,  pp.  126-7;  Coston,  pp.  235-6;  cf.  Dogan  in  Elections  1956, 
p  449. 

22.  *Dr.  M.  Harrison  tells  me  that  committees  rarely  asked  them  to  report  on  bills  other  than 
their  own  (and  for  some  time  not  even  these).  De  Gaulle  was  the  only  prospective  premier  ever 
to  promise  (though  he  did  not  give)  office  to  any  of  them:  Isorni,  Ainsi,  p.  77. 

23.  Ibid.,  p.  75 ;  in  Silence,  p.  57,  he  adds  that  their  speeches  were  often  written  by  others.  For 
the  extraordinary  bills  they  sponsored  see  Le  Poujadisme,  pp.  68-70.  ^ 

24  Among  the  defectors  were  two  who  were  in  the  army,  Le  Pen  (above,  p.  154)  and  Demar- 
quet  (below  p.  167);  and  the  three  Euratom  rebels  led  by  Dides.  The  last  three  and  two  others 
voted  for  the  government ;  the  party  conference  expelled  Dides  from  the  movement  and  the  other 
four  from  the  parliamentary  group.  Seven  members  who  abstained  were  censured  and  lost  half 
their  salary  for  three  months.  Three  of  the  dissidents  had  already  protested  in  September  when 
the  levy  on  salaries  was  raised  from  £20  to  £50  a  month. 


166  THE  PARTIES 

south  Paris  early  in  1957  Poujade  himself  won  less  than  half  the  vote  obtained 
by  Le  Pen  a  year  before.  Turning  from  the  fickle  townsmen  to  the  perennially 
discontented  peasants,  he  negotiated  an  uneasy  alliance  with  two  rival  rural 
demagogues,  Dorgeres  and  Antier  (even  lending  Antier  enough  Poujadist 
deputies  to  enable  him  still  to  lead  a  parliamentary  group  when  his  former 
followers  revolted).25  This  new  combination  perhaps  dissuaded  the  orthodox 
Conservatives  from  making  concessions  at  the  peasants'  expense.  But  it  failed 
to  restore  the  waning  fortunes  of  Poujadism  in  the  country,  and  in  Parliament 
even  a  vote  for  Pinay's  abortive  government  in  October  1957  brought  the 
party  no  greater  influence.  At  the  end  of  the  Fourth  Republic  Poujade  suffered 
the  humiliation  of  seeing  first  his  thirty  remaining  deputies  and  then  his  voters 
repudiate  his  leadership  for  that  of  a  more  formidable  enemy  of  the  System. 
The  deputies  defied  their  leader  both  in  electing  General  de  Gaulle  premier  and 
in  approving  his  constitution;  but  having  now  themselves  become  sonants,  in 
November  they  too  went  down  to  a  defeat  as  crushing  as  Poujade's  own.26 

The  political  Poujadism  of  UFF  was  based  on  the  shopkeepers,  caf6  and 
bar  proprietors  and  artisans  who  adhered  to  the  commercial  Poujadism  of 
UDCA;  95%  of  the  UFF  candidates  and  all  but  five  of  the  deputies  were 
drawn  from  these  occupations.  The  1956  election  showed  that  the  areas  of 
strength  of  the  two  organizations  generally  coincided  closely,  and  local  sur- 
veys suggest  that  the  party  drew  from  half  to  two-thirds  of  its  votes  from  its 
professional  clients.27  Those  who  were  on  the  economic  margin  were  naturally 
the  most  tempted  by  Poujadism;  the  Poujadist  social  security  administrators 
elected  in  1955  were  often  declared  ineligible  for  failure  to  pay  their  own  social 
security  contributions.28 

Not  all  the  Poujadists  were  small  shopkeepers.  Wealthier  traders  hoped  to 
profit  from  concessions  to  their  weaker  brethren;  of  33  Poujadist  leaders  in 
Paris,  17  had  large  cars  and  7  had  two  houses.29  Many  more  recruits  came 
from  another  discontented  class,  the  peasants  -  particularly  the  bouilleurs  de 
cru  and  the  producers  of  wine.30  But  large  towns  and  industrial  areas  gave  a 

25.  On  the  Paris  election  see  Bodin  and  Touchard,  no.  21 ;  on  Dorgeres,  above,  n.  6 ;  on  Antier, 
above,  p.  153  ;  on  Rassemblement  pay  son,  Royer  in  Pay  sans,  pp.  179-81,  AP  1957,  p.  87  -  it  split 
in  1959  over  Poujade's  hostility  to  de  Gaulle. 

26.  On  post-1956  Poujadism  see  Coston,  pp,  237-40;  in  June  1958  a  conference  condemned  the 
deputies  by  83  votes  to  2.  Only  two  of  them  were  re-elected,  Luciani  as  a  Gaullist  and  Le  Pen  as 
CNIP.  Poujade  himself  did  well  at  Saumur-Sud  (Maine-et-Loire),  with  7,000  votes  out  of  40,000. 
fiut  the  combined  national  vote  of  the  extreme  Right,  *  orthodox*  Fdujadists  and  ex-Pbujadist 
deputies  was  Under  700,00t),  less  than  a  quarter  of  the  1956  figure. 

27.  For  candidates  and  deputies  see  Dogan  in  Elections  1956,  pp.  433,  456 ;  for  local  estimates, 
ibid.>  pp.  206-7  (south  Paris,  nearly  60%),  348  (Aveyron,  65%),  401-4  (Aisne,  almost  50%), 
cf.  315-16  (Lyons),  420  (Bordeaux);  also  Olivesi,  pp.  178-80  (Marseilles);  and  above,  p.  68n. 
In  one  small  Somme  village  UFF  drew  90%  of  its  votes  and  in  another  60%  from  shopkeepers, 
artisans  or  their  families :  J.  Bugnicourt  in  Pay  sans,  p.  484.  A  national  poll  found  that  about 
half  the  Poujadist  voters  were  self-employed:  Lipset,  p.  154  (cf.  pp.  163,  225).  For  a  general 
discussion  see  Hoffmann,  pp,  190-2,  For  UFF  and  UDCA,  below,  p.  167  and  n.  37. 

28.  Hoffmann,  pp.  13-14,  150,  Poujade's  own  shop  is  said  to  have  sold  about  ten  postcards  a 
day. 

29.  Ministry  of  finance  figures  quoted  Lipsedge,  no.  146;  cf.  Touchard,  no.  210,  p.  21;  also 
n.  30  below. 

30.  Agriculturalist  votes  for  the  Poujadists  averaged  15%,  rarely  fell  below  1 0  %  and  sometimes 
reached  25% ;  J.  Klatzmann  in  Pay  sans,  pp.  48,  50»  59;  cf.  Rbyet  in  ibid*,  pp.  200-3;  Olivesi, 


THE  EXTREME  RIGHT  167 

poor  welcome  to  Poujadism,  except  for  the  declining  textile  centres.31  In 
regions  of  expansion  the  movement  failed  -  though  in  a  fast-growing  depart- 
ment like  Is&re  a  vigorous  protest  vote  for  Poujade  might  come  from  districts 
which  were  losing  population  to  the  booming  towns.32  And  in  the  countryside 
it  tended  to  be  strongest  in  areas  where  owner-occupied  farms  were  too  small 
to  be  viable,  or  where  the  poverty  of  the  small  shopkeeper  reflected  that  of  his 
customers;  for,  curiously  enough,  the  movement  was  born  and  flourished 
precisely  where  least  taxes  were  paid.33  Over  great  tracts  of  the  impoverished 
south  Poujade  ravaged  the  followings  of  every  party,  including  the  Com- 
munists.34 

But  in  the  west  and  around  Paris  he  attracted  predominantly  those  right- 
wing  voters  who  felt  betrayed  both  by  RPF,  which  had  become  absorbed  in 
the  System,  and  by  CNIP  leaders  who  had  supported  ED C,  restored  the 
Sultan  of  Morocco  and  voted  for  higher  taxes.  Rich  and  aristocratic  'parlour 
Poujadists'  welcomed  a  'poor  man's  de  Gaulle'  who  could  attract  mass  sup- 
port to  the  anti-parliamentary,  ultra-nationalist  cause.  Among  the  Poujadist 
deputies  from  Paris  were  Dides  and  Le  Pen,  and  from  the  west  J.  M.  Demar- 
quet  -  an  organizer  of  riots  against  Pleven  in  1954  and  Mollet  in  1956.  At  a 
by-election  in  1957  the  party's  candidate  was  General  Faure,  the  first  soldier 
to  plot  against  the  regime  in  Algiers.  Poujadists  were  active  conspirators 
against  the  Republic,  both  before  and  during  the  reign  of  de  Gaulle. 

Individual  extremists  came  from  all  over  France  and  above  all  from 
Algeria.  Most  Poujadist  voters  probably  came  from  the  Right,  and  ex- 
Gaullists  were  often  the  largest  single  group.35  But  in  the  nationalist  but  pro- 
parliamentary  north-east  they  did  very  badly,  and  only  one  old  RPF  bastion 
gave  a  really  warm  welcome  to  U  F  F :  the  old  Chouan  stronghold  in  the  west.36 
Here  Poujadist  campaign  violence  was  most  vicious;  and  here  was  the  only 
zone  of  UFF  strength  where  UDCA  afforded  no  solid  professional  base.37 

pp.  93,  196.  Again  they  were  not  always  the  poorest  peasants :  ibid.,  pp.  76-8,  82 ;  Wylie,  p.  329  ; 
Elections  1956,  p.  393.  Sometimes  even  agricultural  workers  voted  Poujadist:  Olivesi,  p.  85. 

31.  Hoffmann,  pp.  36,  196  (general);  Dreyfus,  no.  79,  p.  540  on  north-eastern  France,  and 
Elections  1956,  pp.  392,  394  on  Isere  (general  and  textiles) ;  ibid.,  pp.  401,  416  (textiles). 

32.  For  Isere,  Elections  1956,  pp.  391-4;  Paysans,  p.  203;  Williams,  no.  168,  p.  169  n.  2. 
Generally,  ibid.,  p.  174  n.  2;  Hoffmann,  p.  197;  Pierce,  no.  180,  pp.  412-13. 

33.  Hoffmann,  pp.  11-13,  194-5;  Poujade's  own  department  of  Lot  with  4%  of  the  nation's 
population  paid  barely  1  %  of  all  local  taxes.  Also  Elections  1956,  p.  343 ;  Prost,  no.  185,  pp.  74-6 
and  (with  C.  Brindillac),  no.  31,  pp.  446-8.  However,  there  was  a  negative  correlation  between 
the  most  Poujadist  and  the  poorest  rural  departments:  MacRae,  no.  148,  p.  297.  This  is  perhaps 
explained  by  Poujadist  weakness  in  the  Left's  rural  strongholds  (cf.  nn.  37  and  38).  See  Maps  3 
and  12. 

34.  In  Bugnicourt's  two  Somme  villages  a  quarter  of  the  UFF  votes  came  from  former  Com- 
munists :  Paysans,  p.  484.  Cf.  Olivesi,  pp.  37-8,  55-6,  80-2,  221  (Bouches-du-Rhone) ;  Wylie, 
p.  328  (Vaucluse);  Paysans,  p.  439  (Savoie);  Elections  1956,  pp.  381,  393  (Isere),  421  (Vendee), 
480-1,  496;  Prost,  no.  31,  p.  452;  Williams,  no.  168,  pp.  169  n.  2  (Isere)  and  173  (for  national 
figures  cited  above,  p.  79n). 

35.  Elections  1956,  pp.  404-5  (Aisne),  420  (Gard);  Paysans,  p.  484  (Somme). 

36.  So  did  *  little  Vendee'  in  Bouches-du-Rh6ne,  which  always  voted  for  extreme-Right 
movements:  Olivesi,  pp.  78-82,  116,  cf.  pp.  40,  178,  and  Wylie,  pp.  329-30.  On  the  north-east 
see  Moraz6,  p.  211 ;  on  RPF  and  UFF,  Map  12.  Only  21  of  the  52  Poujadists  were  elected  north 
of  the  Loire,  but  53  of  74  RPF  (ARS  and  overseas  members  omitted). 

37.  Conversely,  in  west-central  France  -  an  area  of  Communist  and  Socialist  rather  than 
Radical  strength  -UDCA  was  strong  and  UFF  not.  Elsewhere,  M RP  lost  less  than  the  Conser- 
vatives to  Poujade ;  perhaps  organized  parties  resisted  his  inroads  better  than  loose  ones.  It  was 

[over 


168  THE  PARTIES 

3.  POUJADISM:  CHARACTERISTICS 

There  were  thus  two  Poujadisms.  The  extreme  Right  exploited  the  move- 
ment in  the  north  and  west  and  in  Algeria.  But  economic  Poujadism  appealed 
to  Left  as  well  as  Right:  to  Protestant  as  well  as  Catholic  in  Gard,  to  the  poor 
of  Boulogne  as  much  as  to  the  rich  of  Neuilly.  Concentrated  in c  static  France', 
economic  Poujadism  was  the  obverse  of  Mendesism  in  the  expanding  north.38 
Backward  businessmen  and  peasants  rebelled  against  the  economic  progress 
that  threatened  them  with  proletarianization.  Poujade's  'eulogy  of  sclerosis' 
appealed  to  all  those  who  feared  reform  -  whether  reorganization  of  the  dis- 
tributive system,  modernizing  of  industry,  rearrangement  of  scattered  agricul- 
tural holdings  or  an  attack  on  alcoholism.39 

The  movement  was  well  equipped  to  exploit  every  kind  of  contradictory 
discontent  at  the  polls,  despite  its  grave  organizational  weaknesses  which  pro- 
voked more  than  one  split.40  Yet  the  elections  came  almost  at  the  crest  of  the 
wave.  Negation  and  cynicism,  xenophobia  and  violence  were  effective  weapons 
for  a  lightning  campaign  but  poor  foundations  for  a  lasting  party.41  Positive 
proposals  might  have  alienated  support;  Poujade  said  they  were  'the  special- 
ists' job '.  His  propaganda  had  *  as  much  intellectual  content  as  a  scream  '.42 

Vigorous  and  vulgar  irresponsibility  gave  Poujadism  more  appeal  than 
RPF  in  some  groups  and  areas.  Despite  his  endorsement  of  Dides  and  Le 
Pen,  the  stationer  was  more  successful  than  the  General  in  resisting  conser- 
vative take-over  bids,  and  so  long  as  there  were  left-wing  votes  to  be  lost  he 
would  allow  no  compromising  electoral  alliances  with  notorious  reactionaries 
like  Tixier  or  Dorg&res.43  The  tone  of  Poujadist  propaganda  was  quite  unlike 
that  of  the  extreme  Right.  Where  Maurras  had  vilified  the  Revolution,  Pou- 
jade invoked  1789,  Valmy,  Clemenceau,  the  Resistance  and  the  Republic, 
condemned  the  parliamentarians  but  not  Parliament,  and  professed  profound 

claimed  (but  contested)  that  many  former  non-voters  turned  out  for  him :  no .  3 1 ,  pp.  445-8 ;  no.  1 85, 
pp.  73-4;  Pay  sans,  p.  484;  Wylie,  pp.  328-9;  Olivesi,  pp.  37,  77,  cf.  119  and  202-3;  contrast 
ibid*,  p.  178,  Hoffmann,  pp.  201-2,  Goguel  in  Elections  1956,  pp.  480-1.  Fullest  analysis  in 
Hoffmann,  pp.  189-208. 

38.  Discontent  took  one  or  the  other  form  according  to  regional  conditions.  For  the  total 
Radical  poll  doubled  in  departments  where  the  Poujadist  won  less  than  10%  of  the  vote;  rose  by 
half  in  those  where  they  won  10  to  1 5  % ;  and  fell  by  5  %  where  the  Poujadists  exceeded  15%.  (For 
a  similar  comparison  between  Communists  and  Poujadists  see  above,  p.  79n.)  On  Radicals  cf. 
Wylie,  pp.  328ff. 

39.  Hoffmann,  pp.  252-3 ;  Siegfried,  De  la  Ille,  pp.  203-4.  The  regions  which  had  done  best 
under  the  local  autarky  of  the  wartime  economy  were  very  susceptible  to  Poujadism :  see  maps  in 
Moraz6,  p.  131. 

40.  Hoffmann,  pp.  49-52,  125-31,  283-93.  At  the  great  Paris  meeting  in  January  1955  the 
organizers  forgot  to  have  membership  forms  at  the  doors :  Guy,  p.  1 61 . 

41.  The  party  did  badly  in  its  homeland,  the  centre,  and  especially  in  Poujade's  home  depart- 
ment, Lot.  An  early  foothold  in  Paris  gave  it  no  advantage:  Touchard,  no.  210,  p.  41  n.  Fami- 
liarity perhaps  bred  contempt;  as  one  journalist  was  told,  *  Poujade's  fine,  naturally,  but  after  all 
an  election  is  a  pretty  serious  matter'. 

42.  Quoted  Wright,  France  in  Modern  Times,  p.  542;  for  samples  see  references  above,  n.  17. 
His  boundless  cynicism  was  shown  on  the  day  after  the  elections  when  he  spoke  twice  about 
Mendes-France  -  amiably  to  V Express  and  nastily  to  Le  Figaro. 

43.  Hoffmann,  p.  340;  Paysans,  p.  177.  Wisely:  for  in  some  southern  villages  he  took  more 
votes  from  the  Radicals  (Wylie,  p.  328)  or  even  Socialists  (Olivesi,  p.  119)  than  from  all  the 
Right.  Indeed  polls  suggested  that  in  religion  and  connected  beliefs  Poujadist  voters  resembled 
Radicals  most,  Socialists  next:  Lipset,  pp.  161-2,  245.  Cf.  Siegfried,  De  la  Hie,  pp.  204,  260-2. 


THE  EXTREME  RIGHT  169 

respect  for  President  Coty.44  The  keynote  of  Pierrot's  appeal  was  his  defence  of 
les braves  gens,  lespetits,  and  the  political  ancestor  he  caricatured  was  Maurras's 
great  enemy  Alain,  the  champion  of  the  people  against  all  the  elites:  the 
politicians  and  the  technicians,  the  officials  and  the  academicians  and  the 
rich.45  If  there  were  far  fewer  Poujadist  ministrables  than  Gaullists  in  1951, 
this  was  a  parliamentary  handicap  but  an  electoral  advantage,  for  their  in- 
experienced and  inarticulate  candidates  had  an  authentic  common  touch. 

Unlike  the  many  RPF  carpet-baggers  who  despised  constituency  chores, 
most  Poujadist  candidates  had  genuine  local  roots  -  except,  significantly,  for 
the  unknowns  who  contested  Parisian  seats  and  apparently  appealed  largely 
to  newcomers  like  themselves.  Provincial  suspicion  and  dislike  of  the  capital 
were  as  important  Poujadist  themes  as  the  popular  suspicion  and  dislike  of  the 
well-off,  the  well-educated  and  the  well-placed.46  Indeed  they  were  the  same 
theme:  Poujadism  -  like  American  Populism  -  was  a  protest  against  metro- 
politan sophistication,  wealth  and  success  in  which  a  deep  but  confused  sense 
of  grievance  found  expression  (often  with  highly  reactionary  overtones)  in  the 
popular  accents  of  the  underprivileged  provincial  cut  off  from  the  seats  of 
power  and  unable  to  understand,  let  alone  influence,  the  forces  which  were 
undermining  his  way  of  life.47 

The  movement  did  not  survive  its  sudden  electoral  triumph.  Yet  it  was  a 
symptom  no  less  important  for  being  transient.  It  showed  that  the  political 
consequences  of  economic  modernization  were  not  as  exclusively  beneficial  as 
many  commentators  had  supposed,  since  those  who  suffered  from  the  process 
reacted  'with  the  wild  gestures  of  drowning  men'.  Like  other  popular 
authoritarian  right-wing  movements  it  was  violent,  eruptive  and  short-lived; 
but  the  latent  discontent  with  the  political  system  which  they  so  briefly 
crystallized  remained  dangerous  after  they  had  disappeared.  And,  if  this 
popular  provincial  outburst  against  modernity,  centralization  and  the  state 
differed  from  fascism  in  many  ways,  it  was  none  the  less  disquieting  that  'the 
revolt  was  bom,  not  in  circles  where  faith  in  the  regime  was  always  lukewarm, 
but  at  the  very  base  of  the  Jacobin  Republic'.48 

44.  Ibid.,  p.  203;  Touchard,  no.  210,  p.  28;  Hoffmann,  pp.  136,  214,  229-31,  242.  (Later  he 
visited  the  Pope  and  saluted  Joan  of  Arc :  ibid.,  p.  410.) 

45.  Hoffmann,  pp.  171,  211-13,  219-20,  228,  246;  Touchard,  no.  210,  p.  27. 

46.  Hoffmann,  pp.  251-2,  411 ;  Touchard,  no.  210,  p.  42. 

47.  Hoffmann,  p.  254n.,  citing  R.  Hofstadter,  The  Age  of  Reform  (New  York,  1955),  Chapter  2. 
There  is  a  still  closer  parallel  with  Uomo  Qualunque  in  post-war  Italy. 

48.  Hoffmann,  p.  387;  cf.  pp.  388-90, 400,  and  Siegfried,  De  lallle,  pp.  204  ('drowning*),  262. 


Chapter  13 
THE  MINOR  PARTIES 

The  Fourth  Republic  produced  a  rich  crop  of  minor  parties,  some  of  them 
entirely  ephemeral.  This  chapter  examines,  first  the  neutralist  or  'fellow- 
travelling'  left-wing  groups;  secondly  the  friends  of  Mendes-France  and  the 
opponents  of  the  Algerian  war;  then  a  single  middle-sized  party,  UDSR,  the 
uneasy  ally  of  the  Radicals;  next  a  number  of  right-wing  splinter  groups, 
mostly  linked  with  both  Radicals  and  UDSR  in  the  Rassemblement  des 
Gauches  republicaines  (RGR)  -  a  nebulous  body  which  in  1955  suddenly 
became  the  chief  focus  for  right-wing  Radical  activity;  and  finally  several 
groups  of  overseas  deputies. 

These  little  groups  were  electorally  negligible  but  not  without  interest  or 
importance.  The  neutralists  and  Mendesists  influenced  the  outlook  of  the  Left 
(and  others)  much  more  than  their  derisory  showing  at  the  polls  suggested  - 
just  as  after  1900  Action  f ran  false,  which  could  hardly  return  a  single  deputy, 
had  exerted  a  tremendous  attraction  on  the  entire  Right.  For  the  small 
extreme  groups  enjoyed  influential  support  and  sympathy  in  the  press;  and 
they  appealed  to  intellectuals  who  always  helped  to  create  the  climate  of 
opinion,  and  sometimes  could  influence  their  neighbours'  attitudes  to  specific 
problems  (though  never  decide  their  votes). 

Other  minor  parties,  lacking  the  following  to  constitute  a  popular  movement 
or  the  clarity  of  outlook  that  gives  intellectual  influence,  were  able  through 
their  strategic  position  to  play  a  vital  parliamentary  role.  There  was  always  an 
important  place  in  French  assemblies  for  a  little  group  of  able  men  without 
bitter  enmities,  whose  marginal  situation  entitled  them  to  a  large  share  of 
ministerial  posts  but  whose  entry  into  a  government  aroused  little  jealousy 
among  the  big  parties.  In  the  Third  Republic  this  part  was  played  by  the 
Republican  Socialists,  the  party  of  Briand  and  Painlev6.  In  the  Fourth  it  fell 
especially  to  U  D  S  R. 

Yet  other  organizations  had  their  origins  in  history.  The  list  of  minor 
groups  was  littered  with  relics  of  the  past.  Some  like  the  royalists  represented 
an  ancient  tradition.  A  few  such  as  Alliance  ddmocratique  were  remnants  of 
once  powerful  movements,  now  dead  but  for  the  name  and  a  frustrated 
politician  or  two  clinging  to  it  -  like  a  National  Liberal  in  Great  Britain  -  in 
the  hope  of  marginal  political  advantage.  Many  were  mere  cliques  formed 
around  a  particular  leader  or  group  ~  such  as  Paul  Faure's  collection  of 
Socialists  who  had  followed  Marshal  P6tain.  But  not  all  the  lesser  groups 
looked  backward  for  their  inspiration.  Many  of  the  colonial  parties  were  soon 
to  be  ruling  their  own  countries.  And  one  major  French  party,  MRP,  was 
built  from  just  such  petty  splinter  groups  that  had  flourished  in  a  previous 
Republic. 


THE  MINOR  PARTIES  171 

1.   THE  EXTREME  LEFT 

The  groups  discussed  in  this  section  and  the  next  were  divided  among  them- 
selves between  socialists  and  liberals,  neutralists  and  westerners,  revolution- 
aries and  reformists,  supporters  and  opponents  of  a  new  Popular  Front.  These 
conflicts  kept  them  for  years  in  ceaseless,  amoeba-like  effervescence,  and  were 
submerged  only  by  the  Algerian  war  and  its  consequence,  the  collapse  of  the 
Fourth  Republic.  In  the  end  their  common  opposition  to  de  Gaulle's  regime 
brought  most  of  them  into  uneasy  association  in  a  single  Parti  socialists 
unifig;  but  even  PS U  excluded  the  crypto-Communists,  most  Trotskyists,  and 
all  Left  Gaullists.1 

The  three  main  trends  on  the  Left  were  represented  by  the e  fellow-travellers ', 
the  neutralists,  and  the  Mendesists.  Recruits  came  from  all  the  Third  Force 
formations.  There  were  fellow-travelling  Radicals  like  Pierre  Cot,  expelled  by 
their  party  in  April  1946  for  preferring  a  Communist  to  a  UDSR  alliance; 
there  were  the  neutralist  Socialists  of  the  Parti  sodaliste  unitaire,  who  had 
been  expelled  by  theirs  for  opposing  the  drastic  laws  passed  during  the  great 
strikes  of  late  1947;  there  were  extreme-Left  Catholics.  In  April  1948  the  three 
groups  formed  a  joint  committee  along  with  Jeune  Republique?  Late  in  1950  a 
broadened  version  of  this  committee,  renamed  Union  progressiste,  was  set  up 
as  an  alliance  of  neutralists  and  fellow-travellers. 

The  Progressives  maintained  their  separate  identity  in  the  Assembly,  but  in 
order  to  obtain  committee  representation  they  normally  affiliated  to  the  Com- 
munist group.3  Most  of  their  French  members  were  Left  Radicals  who  (after 
expulsion  from  their  old  party)  had  been  re-elected  with  Communist  support; 
from  overseas  came  West  African  nationalists  belonging  to  RDA.4  The 
defection  of  RDA  in  1950  was  offset  by  the  adherence  of  three  MRP  mem- 
bers who  in  the  same  year  broke  with  their  party  over  foreign  and  social 
policy:  the  Abb6  Pierre,  a  marquis,  and  a  professor  of  medicine  who  sat  for  a 
wine-growing  area  and  had  led  the  battle  against  Coca-Cola.5  In  the  1951 
election  the  fellow-travelling  Progressives  accepted  places  on  Communist 
lists,  and  four  out  of  six  held  their  seats.  But  the  neutralists  stood  indepen- 
dently and  were  all  beaten,  new  neutralist  candidates  also  faring  very  badly. 
Two  Socialist  deputies  who  had  gone  over  to  the  Progressives  in  1948  were 
defeated,  one  as  a  neutralist  in  Paris,  the  other  on  a  Communist  list  in  Allier.6 

1.  On  the  Left  Gaullists  see  the  next  section.  On  Trotskyists  and  other  dissident  Communists 
see  Williams,  pp.  142-3;  in  1951  their  half-dozen  lists  won  from  1  to  2%  of  the  vote.  On  the 
neutralist  Left  see  Marcus,  Chapter  2,  and  Werth,  France  1940-55,  Parts  4  and  5.  Coston,  pp.  398- 
426,  discusses  most  of  these  groups.  Their  appeal  depended  largely  on  friendly  journals  like 
VObservateur  (later  France-Observateur),  U  Express,  Esprit,  Temps  Modernes  and  even  Le  Monde. 
See  C.  Estier,  La  Gauche  hebdomadaire  1914-62  (1962). 

2.  On  JR  see  p.  103 ;  it  had  lost  most  of  its  leaders  either  to  MRP  or  to  UDSR. 

3.  Only  from  1949  to  1951  had  they  the  minimum  membership  (fourteen)  needed  for  represen- 
tation in  their  own  right.  They  were  first  called  Union  des  r&publicains  et  rgsistants,  later  Union 
des  r&publicains  progressistes. 

4.  On  RDA  see  below,  pp.  176,  180-1. 

5.  They  formed  their  own  group,  Gauche  independante,  and  affiliated  to  the  Progressives  (whom 
they  soon  joined):  cf.  Einaudi  and  Goguel,  pp.  171-2.  For  two  other  ex-MRP  members  who 
briefly  associated  with  them  see  below,  p.  398  n.  8.  On  Catholic  fellow-travellers  generally  see 
Dansette,  Destin,  Chapter  5;  Bosworth,  pp.  110,  183,  265. 

6.  The  four  fellow-travellers  were  the  ex-Radicals  Cot  and  Meunier  and  the  aristocrats  d'Astier 
de  la  Vigerie,  editor  of  Liberation,  and  Gilbert  de  Chambrun  (the  only  Left  Catholic  to  survive). 

[over 

G* 


172  THE  PARTIES 

In  1954  co-operation  was  resumed  with  the  formation  of  a  Paris  liaison 
committee,  nucleus  of  the  future  Union  de  la  Gauche  socialiste  (UGS).  On  it 
were  represented  the  fellow-travelling  Progressives,  Jeune  Republique,  the 
neutralist  Nouvelle  Gauche  (including  the  remnants  of  Gauche  independante, 
and  with  Claude  Bourdet  of  France-Observateur  as  secretary)  and  the  Mouve- 
ment  pour  la  liberation  dupeuple  (MLP),  an  extreme-Left  Catholic  working- 
class  group  born  from  a  split  in  the  old  family-association  movement.7  In  the 
1956  election  one  Socialist  federation,  Vosges,  defied  party  headquarters  and 
with  the  Communists  and  MLP  ran  a  joint  list  which  elected  a  Communist 
and  a  Socialist  (who  was  expelled  by  the  party,  sat  as  an  independent,  but 
generally  voted  with  his  former  friends).  As  the  only  case  for  ten  years  of  a 
Popular  Front  in  a  parliamentary  election,  Vosges  attracted  much  attention: 
superficial  observers  noted  that  the  joint  list  won  8%  more  votes  than  the 
two  parties'  combined  poll  in  1951,  but  not  that  this  limited  gain  -  in  a  con- 
stituency with  heavy  unemployment  -  was  below  the  increase  in  their  national 
vote  and  far  below  their  regional  increase.8  Plainly  the  Popular  Front 
alignment  still  deterred  some  potential  Socialist  voters  as  it  had  done  over  the 
whole  country  ten  years  before. 

The  Progressives  benefited  from  the  Communist  advance  and  regained  two 
of  the  four  seats  they  had  lost  in  195 1.9  From  time  to  time  one  or  other  of 
their  deputies  now  voted  differently  from  the  Communists  ;10  three  of  them 
condemned  the  Soviet  action  in  Hungary,  and  the  whole  group  ostentatiously 
stayed  away  when  the  Assembly  debated  it;  over  Suez,  while  the  Communist 
spokesman  denounced  the  canal  company  and  the  American  imperialists, 
Pierre  Cot  solemnly  appealed  to  the  government  to  stand  by  President 
Eisenhower  and  Mr.  Gaitskell;  and  in  May  1958  the  Progressives  voted  for 
Pflimlin  as  premier  while  the  Communists  abstained.  In  the  general  election  of 
November  1958  two  Progressive  deputies  even  fought  (unsuccessfully)  with- 
out Communist  support.11  Despite  these  unprecedented  signs  of  independence 
the  Union  progressiste  refused  to  merge  into  the  new  Union  de  la  Gauche 
socialiste  which  was  formed  in  December  1957.  UGS  therefore  embraced 
only  individual  Progressives  along  with  MLP,  Claude  Bourdet's  Nouvelle 


The  secretary  of  the  Parti  socialiste  unitaire,  which  had  broken  with  the  Communists  over  Tito, 
won  3  %  of  the  vote  in  Aisne  where  he  had  been  Socialist  deputy  in  1945.  One  other  new  neutralist 
(in  Seine-Inferieure)  reached  2  %. 

7.  On  MLP  see  Suffert,  pp,  99-105;  Dansette,  Destin,  pp.  372-8 ;  Bosworth,  p.  110  and  n.  For 
UGS's  *  clerical*  reputation  see  Ligou,  pp.  634-5. 

8.  In  the  neighbouring  departments  the  total  of  votes  cast  for  the  Communist  and  Socialist 
parties  together  was  35%  higher  than  in  1951,  and  their  combined  share  of  the  poll  was  up  by 
4£%  (whereas  in  Vosges  it  was  down  by  li%). 

9.  Chambrun  was  beaten,  but  a  joint  Communist-Radical  list  won  two  seats  in  Creuse,  appa- 
rently on  protest  votes  (no  Poujadist  fought  this  constituency,  allegedly  because  the  prefect  had 
persuaded  them  to  withdraw  in  order  to  defeat  the  Communists!)  The  Radical  member  (Ferrand) 
affiliated  to  the  Progressives  and  eventually  joined  PSU  (see  below,  p.  174.) 

10.  They  had  occasionally  done  so  previously  in   committee:  see  AP  1953,  p.  11  for  a 
case. 

11.  At  Belfort  Dreyfus-Schmidt  ran  ahead  of  the  Communist,  who  stood  down  in  his  favour 
at  the  second  ballot;  in  Creuse  Ferrand  ran  behind  at  both  ballots.  Communist  losses  of  votes  in 
1958  were  exceptionally  heavy  wherever  a  party  man  was  standing  in  a  seat  formerly  represented 
by  a  Progressive.  (For  the  1958  electoral  system  see  below,  p.  316,  cf.  p.  307.) 


THE  MINOR  PARTIES  173 

Gauche,  a  majority  of  Jeune  Rdpublique  and  a  few  provincial  socialist  groups, 
notably  in  Normandy. 

2.   THE  MENDESISTS 

The  extreme  Left  groups,  whether  neutralist  or  fellow-travelling,  had  sup- 
ported Mendes-France  for  the  premiership  but  turned  against  him  when,  after 
the  defeat  of  EDC,  he  took  up  the  cause  of  German  rearmament.  Other 
admirers,  however,  remained  devoted  to  him  despite  (or  more  rarely  becauseof) 
his  foreign  policy.  Often  these  were  former  Catholics  or  Gaullists  (or  both)  who 
felt  out  of  place  with  the  traditional  Left.  Malraux  and  Mauriac  inspired  a 
Nouvelle  Gauche  of  more  intellectual  than  political  significance,  and  quite 
different  from  Bourdet's  movement  of  the  same  name.  Two  deputies  and  a 
senator  took  refuge  in  Jeune  Republique  after  M  RP  expelled  them  for  opposing 
EDC  and  German  rearmament;  all  three  stood  unsuccessfully  in  1956.  JR 
returned  one  candidate,  Constant  Lecoeur  in  Seine-Maritime  east.  He 
affiliated  to  the  Radical  group,  like  the  only  other  Left  Independent  to  win  a 
seat,  Jean  de  Lipkowski  -  Grandval's  aide  during  his  Moroccan  mission  and  a 
future  Left  Gaullist.  Lipkowski' s  mother  was  a  founder  of  the  Union  Gaulliste 
in  1946  and  an  outgoing  RPF  deputy;  mother  and  son  were  both  candidates 
of  an  ephemeral  group  of '  Gaullists  for  Mendes ',  the  Parti  republicain  pour  le 
redressement  economique  et  social  (she  lost).  The  Mendesist  and  neutralist 
groups  of  Left  Independents  polled  some  300,000  votes,  most  of  which  were 
probably  ex-Gaullist  and  Catholic;  the  total  Catholic  vote  for  the  Left  in 
1956  was  estimated  at  a  million.12  As  the  Algerian  war  became  more  bitter 
and  nationalist  feeling  grew  in  France,  the  anti-colonialist  cause  and  the 
defence  of  civil  liberties  found  among  the  left-wing  Catholics  some  of  their 
most  consistent  and  courageous  champions. 

Within  the  Radical  party  itself  Mend6s-France's  faithful  followers  num- 
bered only  a  dozen  deputies  in  1956,  mostly  from  the  Paris  area  and  parlia- 
mentary newcomers;  several  had  belonged  to  the  left-wing  Jacobin  Club 
within  the  Radical  party,  though  one,  the  air  ace  Pierre  Clostermann,  had  sat 
in  the  previous  Assembly  as  a  Gaullist.  With  their  failure  to  impose  party 
discipline  on  their  senior  colleagues  these  young  Mendesists  grew  increasingly 
dissatisfied  with  a  party  to  which  they  felt  no  spiritual  allegiance.  Their 
closest  allies  were  the  Left  Catholic  critics  of  the  war  and  its  abuses,  and  those 
dissident  Socialists  who  shared  their  views  about  Algeria  and  their  impatience 
with  the  traditional  political  leaders.  Just  as  an  unofficial  Algerie  franfaise 
party  grew  up  which  cut  across  party  lines,  so  the  opponents  of  the  war  were 
driven  into  closer  intimacy.  The  crisis  of  May  1958  and  the  collapse  of  repub- 
lican opposition  to  de  Gaulle  strengthened  these  bonds  -  though  severing 
those  with  the  former  Gaullists,  who  returned  to  their  old  allegiance. 

The  decisive  step  in  the  new  alignment  on  the  Left  was  delayed  until  Sep- 
tember 1958.  When  the  Socialist  party  voted  to  support  the  constitution  of  the 

12.  Elections  1956,  p.  141 ;  Suffert,  p.  39.  JR  and  the  'Gaullists  for  Mendes'  were  the  only 
Left  Independent  groups  to  run  30  lists  and  so  qualify  to  make  electoral  alliances  (see_below, 
p  313)  -  though  MLP  and  Bourdet's  Nouvelle  Gauche  jointly  ran  21.  Some  Catholic  or  Gaullist 
Mendesists  belonged  to  a  short-lived  Union  democratism  du  travail,  revived  in  the  Fifth  Republic 
by  the  same  men  as  a  Left  Gaullist  party;  on  it  see  Goston,  pp.  302-7. 


174  THE  PARTIES 

Fifth  Republic,  Mollet's  opponents  at  last  lost  hope  of  ousting  the  general 
secretary  and  broke  with  SFIO  to  set  up  their  own  organization,  the  Parti 
socialiste  autonome.  Comprising  those  who  had  opposed  both  the  war  and  the 
new  regime,  PSA  brought  together  old-fashioned  socialists  like  fidouard 
Depreux,  revisionists  like  Daniel  Mayer  and  Andr6  Philip,  and  Mendesists 
like  Alain  Savary.  In  the  1958  election  its  candidates  co-operated  with  Men- 
desist  Radicals  and  the  left-wing  UGS  in  an  ad  hoc  alliance,  the  Union  des 
forces  democratiques,  UFD. 

Between  these  grouplets  there  were  still  political,  ideological  and  personal 
differences;  but  their  common  interests  and  enmities  finally  prevailed.  After 
byzantine  negotiations  Mendes-France  and  his  leading  Radical  followers  in 
1959  made  their  journey  to  a  Socialist  Canossa  and  were  admitted  to  PSA. 
Next  year  the  reinforced  party  fused  with  the  much  smaller  and  more  Catholic 
UGS  (whose  extreme  left  wing  broke  away)  and  with  a  tiny  dissident  Com- 
munist group  to  form  the  Parti  socialiste  unifte,  P  S  U.  The  UGS  minority  soon 
won  virtual  control  of  the  new  organization,  which  reproduced  within  its 
meagre  ranks  all  the  contradictions  of  outlook,  policy  and  temperament  which 
bedevilled  the  French  Left. 

3.  UDSR 

The  most  important  of  all  the  minor  parties  was  the  Union  dgmocratique  et 
socialiste  de  la  Resistance,  whose  working  life  coincided  with  that  of  the 
Fourth  Republic.  It  was  the  only  political  group  in  France  which  had  its  roots 
exclusively  in  the  Resistance,  for  it  was  born  in  June  1945  as  a  federation  of 
five  Resistance  movements  which  rejected  the  Communist  embrace.  Most  of 
its  members  preferred  an  alliance  with  SFIO  and,  but  for  the  suspicious 
jealousy  of  the  Socialist  rank  and  file,  might  have  fused  with  and  rejuvenated 
that  ageing  party.  But  few  of  the  newcomers  were  given  good  electoral 
opportunities,  and  their  disillusionment  changed  to  exasperation  when  SFIO 
joined  the  Communists  in  supporting  the  first  draft  constitution  in  April 
1946.  Shedding  a  few  members,  UDSR  turned  instead  to  an  alliance  with  the 
Radicals  in  a  new  combination,  RGR.13  In  November  1946  it  abandoned  its 
federal  structure  and  formally  became  a  new  political  party. 

The  liaison  between  the  movement  born  in  the  Resistance  and  the  most 
typical  product  of  the  Third  Republic  was  no  love-match.14  UDSR  had  far 
closer  affinities  with  other  parties.  Its  first  general  secretary  -  Francis  Leen- 
hardt,  later  chairman  of  the  Socialist  parliamentary  party  -,  its  assistant 
secretary  and  several  deputies  went  over  to  SFIO.  It  was  also  a  refuge  for 
Gaullists:  in  1946  Capitant,  Malraux,  Soustelle  and  most  of  the  few  Union 
Gaulliste  deputies  were  associated  with  it  and  Jacques  Baumel  was  assistant 
secretary.  Claudius  Petit  led  another  wing  of  progressive  Catholics  from 
Jeune  Republique,  who  sympathized  with  MRP.  But  the  leader,  Ren6  Pleven, 
had  been  a  conservative  finance  minister  under  de  Gaulle,  and  by  1948-49 
the  party  was  behaving  almost  as  a  Conservative  group.15 

13.  For  RGR  see  next  section;  for  UDSR's  early  days,  Williams,  pp.  143-4. 

14.  Fauvet,  Forces,  p.  123 ;  De  Tarr,  pp.  93-4  -  one  Radical  summoned  all  republicans  to  quit 
'this  monster'  which  assembled  fascists,  clericals  and  socialists. 

15.  See  for  example  AP  1949,  pp.  58-9,  127,  131.  Pleven  was  consistently  supported  by  the 

[ovef 


THE  MINOR  PARTIES  175 

This  central  position  and  these  multiple  links  made  UDSR  a  useful  in- 
dicator. Its  birth  marked  the  failure  of  one  Communist  bid  for  power  -  an 
attempt  to  exploit  their  influence  within  the  Resistance.  Its  breach  with  the 
Socialists  helped  to  frustrate  a  second  bid  -  the  organization  of  a  Marxist 
coalition  which  the  Communists  hoped  to  dominate;  for  by  repudiating  the 
Socialist  alliance  UDSR  helped  to  deprive  the  Marxist  combination  of  an 
electoral  and  parliamentary  majority.  In  turning  against  tripartisme  (which  a 
Resistance  organization  might  have  been  expected  to  support)  UDSR  pointed 
the  way  the  electorate  was  soon  to  follow.  Although  a  nucleus  of  Gaullism 
and  the  group  from  which  many  of  RPF's  principal  leaders  came,  it  was  the 
first  of  the  parties  which  had  permitted  double  membership  to  put  an  end  to 
'bigamy'.  In  spring  1948  Pleven  tried  to  reconcile  RPF  and  the  government 
parties;16  in  June  1949  he  could  no  longer  retain  both  Gaullists  and  non- 
Gaullists  in  his  own  group;  and  by  July  1950  he  was  leading  a  government 
designed,  not  to  strengthen  the  majority  on  its  Right  by  an  understanding 
with  RPF,  but  to  restore  it  on  the  Left  by  bringing  back  the  Socialists. 

UDSR's  relations  with  its  Radical  allies  had  been  under  severe  strain 
during  1949  while  UDSR  opposed  the  Radical  prime  minister,  Queuille.  The 
friction  was  diminished  by  Pleven's  option  for  the  Third  Force,  but  re- 
appeared within  RGR.  There  the  anti-governmental  forces  remained  strong 
enough  to  elect  Daladier,  the  opposition  Radical  leader,  as  RGR  president 
in  May  1950.17  UDSR  was  now  firmly  in  the  majority  and  considered  aban- 
doning RGR  altogether;  the  combination  held  together  for  the  1951  election, 
but  over  the  church  schools  problem  in  the  following  September  most  Radicals 
took  the  anticlerical  side  while  most  UDSR  members  voted  for  the  Barang6 
bill.  This  provoked  a  clash  outside  Parliament,  and  at  UDSR's  Marseilles 
conference  a  month  later  the  pro-Socialist  wing,  led  by  Frangois  Mitterrand, 
won  control  of  the  (rudimentary)  organization.  But  the  deputies  remained 
faithful  supporters  of  each  ministry  in  turn,  and  voted  as  steadily  for  Pinay 
whom  the  Socialists  opposed,  as  for  Faure  whom  they  had  favoured. 

UDSR's  reconciliation  with  the  governmental  parties  affected  its  own 
character  as  well  as  its  external  relations.  At  the  centre  of  gravity  of  an 
Assembly  whose  majority  was  always  precarious,  it  was  the  chief  of  those 
marginal  formations  whose  support  every  ministry  needed.18  Like  the  pivot- 
parties  of  the  Third  Republic  it  was  too  small  to  be  feared  and  too  essential 
to  be  ignored.  Thus  on  emerging  as  a  governmental  party  it  became  a  favoured 
recipient  of  ministerial  spoils,  and  so  increasingly  attractive  to  deputies 
dependent  on  the  sympathy  of  the  administration  -  above  all  those  represent- 
ing colonial  constituencies.  In  1945  these,  who  were  mostly  settler  members  of 
Gaullist  sympathies,  made  a  third  of  UDSR's  deputies.  When  the  Gaullists 

Conservatives  in  his  department;  Petit's  candidature  in  1946  was  opposed  by  the  local  Radicals 
(De  Tarr,  p.  93)  and  in  1951  he  stood  on  a  joint  list  with  MRP  and  CNIP. 

16.  UDSR  had  played  this  role  before.  When  General  de  Gaulle  quarrelled  with  the  Commu- 
nists in  November  1945  and  the  Socialists  early  in  January  1946,  temporary  compromises  were 
f ou  nd  by  U  D  S  R  members . 

17.  See  below,  pp.  177-8. 

18.  In  February  1948  it  had  saved  Schuman's  first  cabinet  by  abstention,  and  in  September  it 
destroyed  his  second:  AP  1948,  pp.  19,  154. 


176  THE  PARTIES 

left  UDSR  in  1949  its  parliamentary  group  fell  from  27  to  14,  only  5  from 
overseas.  But  a  new  overseas  element  was  soon  to  enter  and  eventually  to  domi- 
nate the  party.  In  1950  Mitterrand,  as  minister  of  colonies,  by  his  sympathetic 
handling  of  a  crisis  in  Ivory  Coast  won  the  confidence  of  the  Rassemblement 
ddmocratique  africain  (RDA),  the  main  West  African  nationalist  party.  At 
the  cost  of  a  party  split  RDA  broke  its  Communist  links,  began  voting  with 
the  government,  and  entered  into  close  relations  with  UDSR.  After  the  1951 
election  the  9  UDSR  members  returned  from  metropolitan  France  were 
reinforced  by  14  overseas  colleagues,  and  in  1956  the  party,  with  a  mere  6 
French  deputies,  survived  only  by  its  pact  with  RDA. 

UDSR  therefore  evolved  from  a  predominantly  conservative  into  a  dis- 
tinctly liberal  group.  Mendes-France  chose  Mitterrand  as  his  minister  of  the 
interior  and  was  supported  by  most  UDSR  members  -  though  the  conser- 
vative, 'European9  and  pro-clerical  minority  remained  hostile  to  him,  and 
Pleven  was  a  bitter  opponent.  Such  drastic  shifts  in  policy  could  occur  because 
the  party  was  a  group  of  leaders  -  members  of  parliament,  local  councillors 
and  journalists  -  without  strength  among  the  electorate  except  where  an 
individual  deputy  had  built  up  a  personal  following.  Having  no  membership, 
the  organization  was  available  for  manipulation  by  rival  leaders;19  having  no 
ideology,  it  held  together  -  in  spite  of  its  divisions  -  until  the  end  of  the 
Fourth  Republic.  But  Mitterrand's  emergence  in  May  1958  as  potential 
leader  of  a  Popular  Front,  and  his  success  in  September  in  carrying  the  party 
against  de  Gaulle's  proposed  constitution,  at  last  provoked  Pleven,  Claudius 
Petit  and  the  old  minority  to  secede.  In  the  election  two  months  later  these 
two  were  the  only  survivors  from  UDSR.20 

4.  RGR,  DISSIDENT  RADICALS  AND   CONSERVATIVE  GROUPS 

Like  UDSR,  the  Rassemblement  des  Gauches  republicaines  (RGR)  was  a 
federation  of  groups  which  developed  into  a  separate  political  party  -  though 
the  former  did  so  very  early  in  its  life,  the  latter  very  late.  RGR  was  an 
alliance  between  a  major  party  (the  Radicals),  a  middle-sized  group  (UDSR), 
and  four  small  ghost  parties  of  Third  Republican  politicians,  mostly  ineligible 
for  Parliament  under  the  purge  legislation  passed  at  the  Liberation.  It  was 
formed  in  1946  to  unite  all  opponents  of  Marxism,  of  the  Socialist-Communist 
draft  constitution,  and  of  clericalism.  In  the  elections  of  June  and  November 
1946  and  June  1951  RGR  served  -  as  intended  -  as  an  electoral  clearing- 
house. But  it  was  also  frequently  used  as  a  weapon  in  the  struggle  to  control 
the  Radical  party,  and  in  the  election  of  January  1956  the  defeated  Radical 
faction  took  it  over  and  turned  it  into  a  new  party.21 

The  small  components  of  the  federal  RGR  were  cliques  centred  around 
political  leaders  of  a  previous  generation  -  for  few  French  political  move- 
ments ever  completely  disappear.  Alliance  democratique  had  been  one  of  the 
chief  conservative  organizations  in  the  country,  and  even  in  1939  it  retained 

19.  Cf.  Williams,  p.  144  and  n. 

20.  Mitterrand  lost  his  seat  (despite  Communist  support)  but  was  returned  to  the  Senate  in 
1959  -  and  to  the  Assembly  in  1962. 

21.  On  RGR-Radical  relations  see  De  Tarr,  pp.  86-95,  133-4,  and  Bardonnet,  pp.  156-60; 
for  1946,  ibid.,  p.  89. 


THE  MINOR  PARTIES  177 

thirty  deputies.  But  at  the  Liberation  its  Resistance  element  went  into  PRL, 
leaving  only  the  personal  following  of  Pierre-fitienne  Flandin,  a  former 
premier  -  and  foreign  minister  under  Vichy  -  who  was  ineligible  for  Parlia- 
ment. Several  of  its  members  sat  in  the  Assembly  (as  Conservatives,  not  as 
RGR  representatives),  and  some  held  office  -  notably  Pinay.  Its  general 
secretary  headed  the  CNIP  list  in  Dordogne  in  1951,  and  in  1954  it  left  RGR 
altogether.22 

A  second  small  party  in  RGR  was  Reconciliation  fran?aise,  the  remnant  of 
Colonel  de  la  Rocque's  Parti  social  fran$ais.  It  was  represented  in  the  1946 
Assembly  by  Guy  Petit,  a  parliamentary  Peasant  and  the  mayor  of  Biarritz, 
and  in  1951  also  by  Pierre  de  Leotard,  who  affiliated  to  the  Radical  group;  it 
had  several  sympathizers  in  the  Conservative  ranks.  The  Parti  socialiste 
democratique  consisted  of  the  friends  of  Paul  Faure,  who  had  been  general 
secretary  of  SFIO  for  twenty  years,  leader  of  the  pacifist  opposition  to  Blum, 
and  later  a  supporter  of  Petain;  one  or  two  PSD  members  were  to  attempt  a 
political  comeback  in  the  Fifth  Republic.  Lastly,  the  Parti  republicain  socialiste 
included  a  few  politicians,  mostly  ex-Socialists,  whose  central  position  and 
pro-government  voting  records  had  earned  them  a  large  share  of  jobs  in 
nearly  every  Third  Republican  ministry.23 

The  primary  interest  of  these  little  groups  was  the  return  of  their  leaders  to 
politics  through  the  abolition  of  the  ineligibility  law  (though  most  beneficiaries 
of  its  repeal  in  1953  discovered  that  even  their  former  constituents  had 
entirely  forgotten  them).  Early  in  1951  these  groups  jointly  affirmed  their 
solidarity  in  opposition  to  the  governments  supported  by  their  larger  partners, 
Radicals  and  UDSR.24  In  the  general  election  of  1951  most  of  their  candi- 
dates were  given  places  low  on  the  list  with  no  chance  of  success.  But  in  Paris, 
where  Radicals  headed  three  lists  out  of  six,  UDSR,  Reconciliation  franfaise 
and  the  Paul  Faure  Socialists  led  one  each;  though  the  last  two  lists  gained  no 
seat,  one  Radical  (Lafay)  pulled  in  Pierre  de  Leotard  as  his  second.  Over  the 
whole  country  17  constituencies  out  of  103  were  fought  by  two  different  lists 
sponsored  by  RGR  parties;  however,  only  six  of  these  involved  outgoing 
RGR  deputies  -  and  in  eight  of  the  17  the  rival  lists  belonged  to  the  same 
apparentement  (alliance).25 

The  minor  parties  had  some  importance  within  RGR,  since  they  were  over- 
represented  in  its  governing  bureau  and  therefore  strengthened  the  hand  of 
those  Radicals  -  like  Daladier  -  who  shared  their  hostility  to  the  Third  Force. 
In  November  1949  Daladier  was  defeated  by  Herriot  for  the  presidency  of  his 
own  party;  six  months  later  minor-party  votes  elected  him  president  of  RGR. 

22.  Its  political  position  had  always  been  confusing:  see  below,  p.  215.  On  Flandin  see  above, 
pp.  149,  152,  and  below,  p.  210  n.  9 ;  the  ineligibility  law  was  specially  drafted  to  apply  to  Mm. 

23.  At  the  time  of  the  constitutional  referendum  in  September  1958  this  defunct  grouplet  was 
suddenly  resurrected  and  given  radio  and  poster  facilities  to  campaign  for  O  UI. 

24.  AP  1951,  p.  33.  Two  years  later  a  Radical  complained,  'The  other  little  parties  have  scoffed 
at  us  brazenly,  carrying  their  impudence  to  the  point  of  insisting  on  our  running  candidates  who 
represented  nothing  whatever  and  then  using  the  clerical  press  (lapresse  bien  pensante)  to  disown 
RGR':  Bardonnet,  p.  159n. 

25.  For  the  electoral  law  see  below,  Chapter  22 ;  it  multiplied  hopeless  contests,  since  only 
'national  parties'  fighting  in  at  least  30  departments  could  participate  in  alliances.  Twelve  of  the 
17  conflicts  opposed  a  Radical  list  to  a  UDSR  one;  but  seven  of  these  twelve  UDSR  lists  were 
apparently  put  forward  only  to  bring  UDSR's  total  up  to  30. 


178  THE  PARTIES 

Herriot  resigned  as  R  G  R's  honorary  president  and  both  U  D  S  R  and  the  pro- 
government  Radicals  complained  that  the  election  had  been  rushed  and 
irregular.26 

Daladier  tried  to  strengthen  RGR's  power  and  prestige  (and  his  own 
influence)  by  proposing  the  formation  of  a  single  RGR  group  in  the  new 
Assembly  elected  in  1951.  A  single  group  already  existed  in  both  the  Council  of 
the  Republic  and  the  Assembly  of  the  French  Union.  But  the  Herriot  Radicals 
promptly  pointed  to  Article  61  of  the  party  constitution  which  -  if  anyone 
remembered  to  invoke  it  -  forbade  Radicals  to  belong  to  more  than  one  group. 
Separate  Radical  and  UDS  R  groups  were  therefore  retained  in  the  Assembly, 
and  Daladier  had  to  content  himself  with  the  presidency  of  an  inter-group 
embracing  both.  Shortly  afterwards  he  moved  to  the  Left,  and  the  smaller 
parties  in  RGR  transferred  their  support  to  the  new  leaders  of  right-wing 
Radicalism,  Rene  Mayer  and  Martinaud-D6plat. 

These  were  the  defectors  who  overthrew  Mend£s-France's  government  in 
February  1955.  Edgar  Faure  (hitherto  considered  a  man  of  the  Left  Centre) 
accepted  the  succession  and  so  alienated  his  former  friends  and  became  the 
standard-bearer  of  the  Right.  After  the  Radical  party  came  under  Mendesist 
control,  RGR  ostentatiously  elected  Faure  as  its  president.  In  December  the 
Radicals  expelled  first  the  prime  minister  for  dissolving  Parliament,  and  then 
several  right-wing  leaders  who  refused  to  resign  their  posts  as  party  delegates 
on  the  RGR  bureau?1  RGR  was  thus  transformed  into  the  organ  of  those 
Radicals  who,  under  Faure's  leadership,  chose  to  fight  the  1956  election  in 
alliance  with  MRP  and  CNIP  rather  than  with  the  Socialists.  The  new  party 
contested  32  constituencies  and  won  12  seats.28  It  was  soon  to  be  over- 
shadowed by  a  bigger  Radical  split,  but  personal  rivalries  impeded  close  co- 
operation between  the  various  dissidents.29 

Even  before  Herriot  faced  his  troubles  with  RGR  nationally  he  had  had  to 
meet  a  local  challenge  in  his  own  Lyons  fief.  There  the  RGR  secretary  was  a 
rich  businessman,  L£on  Chambaretaud,  who  recruited  individual  members 
into  RGR  in  opposition  to  the  old  leader.  Not  until  May  1951  could  Herriot 
persuade  the  Radical  party  to  expel  Chambaretaud  and  his  friends.  They 
retaliated  by  setting  up  the  Rassemblement  des  groupes  rfyublicains  et  inddpen- 
dantsfran$ais  (R GRIP)  a  sham  'national  party'  to  which  isolated  candidates 
could  attach  themselves  so  as  to  form  electoral  alliances.30  In  some  areas 
dissident  Radicals  and  Socialists  joined  it,  in  others  extreme  right-wingers; 
some  of  its  lists  fought  alone,  but  most  were  allied  either  with  the  Third  Force 

26.  Monde,  7-8  and  9  May  1950.  And  see  above,  pp.  120-1. 

27.  De  Tarr,  pp.  133-4;  Bardonnet,  pp.  158-9. 

28.  In  two  seats  sitting  Radical  and  RGR  deputies  fought  one  another :  in  Seine-et-Oise  north 
the  former  doubled  his  share  of  the  poll  (from  6^  to  13*%)  while  the  latter  raised  his  from  9£ 
to  10  %  ;  in  Vienne  the  former  gained  2,000  votes  while  the  latter  lost  6,000  (two-fifths  of  his  1951 
poll)  and  his  seat.  In  Sarthe  the  1951  Radical  candidate  stood  as  RGR  and  dropped  from  13,000 
to  under  5,000  votes,  while  a  Mendesist  newcomer  polled  nearly  19,000.  Four  RGR  leaders 
won  a  smaller  share  of  the  vote  than  in  1951,  while  Mendesist  rivals  almost  overtook  them.  Faure 
increased  his  own  share  from  about  25  %  to  35  % ;  so  did  Mendes-France.  See  also  Pierce,  no.  180, 
p.  415. 

29.  See  above,  pp.  129-30. 

30.  For  the  subterfuges  it  used  to  claim  the  required  total  of  30  lists  see  below,  p.  506-7.  On 
Lyons  see  De  Tarr,  p.  94. 


THE  MINOR  PARTIES  179 

or  with  Conservatives  (and  one  -  in  Yonne  -  with  the  Socialists).  RGRIF 
won  5%  of  the  vote  in  ten  scattered  departments  and  elected  one  Socialist 
member  and  five  Conservatives;31  Chambaretaud  in  Lyons  polled  enough 
votes  to  prevent  the  government  parties  securing  an  absolute  majority  and  all 
the  seats.  RGRIF  made  a  fleeting  reappearance  in  1956  as  a  satellite  of 
RGR,  and  Chambaretaud  himself  stood  as  an  RGR  candidate,  saying  'I 
chose  the  serious  one'. 

The  'national  party'  rule  was  responsible  for  the  creation  of  yet  another  ad 
hoc  conservative  group  in  1951  :  a  Taxpayers'  Defence  movement  (Defense  des 
contribuables)  based  on  the  small  business  pressure-group  Petites  et  moyennes 
entreprises  (PME).32  It  opposed  the  government  coalition  and  its  lists  mostly 
fought  in  isolation,  but  one  accepted  an  alliance  with  other  Conservative 
groups,  two  with  RPF  and  four  with  the  government  parties;  these  seven 
included  all  the  five  departments  in  which  its  vote  was  over  5  %  .  Its  one  deputy 
(Abel  Bessac,  of  Lot)  was  an  MRP  member  at  odds  with  his  party  -  but  he 
still  fought  in  alliance  with  the  government  coalition.  The  group  disappeared 
in  1956  as  its  grievances  were  expressed  by  the  Poujadists,  who  seem  to  have 
taken  over  most  of  its  votes.33 

Of  all  the  oddities  of  French  public  life  perhaps  the  most  engaging  is  the 
royalist  movement.  During  most  of  the  twentieth  century  the  driving  force 
behind  what  was  left  of  French  monarchism  came  from  the  passionately 
nationalist  and  reactionary  Action  fran$aise.  But  a  new  pretender,  the  Comte 
de  Paris,  broke  with  family  tradition.  In  the  1930's  he  disavowed  Action 
frangaise,  and  though  he  declared  his  support  for  Marshal  P6tain  in  1940  (and 
for  General  de  Gaulle  in  1958)  he  always  insisted  that  a  restored  monarchy 
must  repudiate  authoritarianism  and  social  and  economic  privilege.  His 
political  bulletin  gave  steady  support  to  Third  Force  governments,  called  for 
better  treatment  of  the  working  class,  condemned  EDC  and  favoured  de- 
colonization. His  moderation  and  responsibility  earned  him  widespread 
respect;  indeed  the  pretendership  was  said  to  be  the  most  ably  filled  political 
post  in  the  Fourth  Republic.34  In  1950  Parliament,  against  opposition  from 
the  Communists  and  the  Socialist  senators,  repealed  the  law  of  1886  which 
had  forbidden  pretenders  or  their  eldest  sons  to  reside  in  France.  Members  of 
former  reigning  families  could  now  stand  for  Parliament,  but  were  still 
ineligible  (under  Article  44  of  the  constitution)  for  the  Presidency  of  the 
Republic.  The  hereditary  pretender's  negligible  chances  of  being  called  to 
power  legally  were  improved  when  in  1958  the  French  people  in  fear  of  civil 
war  turned  to  their  self-made  pretender,  General  de  Gaulle.  For  the  ban  on 
Pretender-Presidents,  retained  in  the  first  draft  of  the  Fifth  Republic's  consti- 
tution, was  dropped  in  the  final  version  -  allegedly  at  de  Gaulle's  wish. 

31  On  the  Socialist  (Arthur  Conte  of  Pyre"ne"es-Orientales),  see  below,  p.  328.  Some  of  the 
Conservatives  (who  sat  for  Aisne,  Loire,  Basses-Pyrenees,  Haute-Saone  and  Gironde^  west)  were 
open  Petainists.  Another  RGRIF  candidate  was  Houdet,  the  rebel  Gaulhst  in  the  1949  Melun 

Mondel5  June  1951;onPME  see  below,  pp.  361  f. 


o  , 

33.  Elections  1956,  p.  404  (on  Aisne).  Bessac  joined  CNIP,  and  did  not  stand  in  1956. 

34.  S,  M.  Osgood,  French  Royalism  under  the  Third  and  Fourth  Republics  (Tne  Hague, 
p.  204.  On  rival  royalists  see  also  Girardet,  no.  99a. 


180  THE  PARTIES 

5.   COLONIAL  GROUPS 

Although  developments  in  the  French  Union  are  not  discussed  in  this  work, 
colonial  representation  in  Parliament  had  an  impact  on  party  politics  which 
requires  brief  mention.  The  majority  of  overseas  members  joined  major 
French  parties;  those  representing  native  electorates  preferred  the  Com- 
munists, Socialists  or  MRP,  while  settler  members  and  pro-administration 
native  deputies  usually  chose  MRP  in  1946,  RPF  in  1951,  or  the  Radical 
party  at  any  time.  Their  allegiance  to  their  group  was  generally  less  close  than 
that  of  their  metropolitan  colleagues.  Extreme  nationalists  from  Algeria, 
Madagascar  and  West  Africa  formed  parties  of  their  own  which  usually 
maintained  loose  links  with  the  French  Communists.  During  the  life  of  the 
Fourth  Republic  moderate  nationalists  also  set  up  several  independent  par- 
liamentary groups. 

The  second  Constituent  Assembly  included  a  dozen  representatives  of  the 
Union  democratique  du  Manifests  algerien  (UDMA);  a  decade  later  their 
leader  Ferhat  Abbas  became  the  first  prime  minister  of  the  provisional 
government  of  rebel  Algeria.  Although  still  a  moderate  in  1946,  he  protested 
against  the  colonial  provisions  of  the  new  constitution  and  refused  to  contest 
the  November  elections.  Most  of  the  Algerian  native  seats  then  went  to 
administration  puppets  or  to  moderate  nationalists  -  who  formed  a  short- 
lived separate  group  but  soon  drifted  away  into  larger  parties.  But  the  ex- 
treme Mouvement  pour  le  triomphe  des  libertds  dgmocratiques  (MTLD)  of 
Messali  Hadj  elected  half  a  dozen  deputies,  who  usually  voted  with  the  Com- 
munists (though  in  November  1947  they  supported  L6on  Blum  for  the 
premiership).  They  were  all  eliminated  in  the  notoriously  dishonest  elections 
of  1951.  The  three  nationalists  from  Madagascar  also  lost  their  seats  at  this 
time;  they  had  been  jailed  since  1947,  after  a  dubious  trial,  for  instigating  the 
great  rebellion  of  that  year.35 

The  chief  moderate  nationalist  groups  were  the  Overseas  Independents 
(Independants  d'outre-mer,  IOM)  whose  leaders  had  often  been  trained  in 
Catholic  missions,  and  R  D  A  which  had  a  predominantly  Moslem  leadership.36 
IOM  was  formed  in  1948,  mainly  by  dissatisfied  MRP,  Socialist  and  Pro- 
gressive deputies;  for  committee  representation  it  affiliated  to  MRP.  RDA 
broke  its  links  with  the  fellow-travelling  Progressives  in  1950,  and  its  members 
then  affiliated  to  UD  S  R  which  they  eventually  came  to  dominate.37 

In  the  1956  elections  the  colonial  administrators  no  longer  tried  to  obstruct 
RDA  (as  they  had  still  done  in  1951  in  spite  of  its  parliamentary  alliance 
with  the  colonial  minister,  Mitterrand).38  IOM,  Socialists  and  conservatives 
all  lost  ground  to  it,  and  RDA  further  strengthened  its  position  in  the 

35.  Tunisia,  Morocco  and  Indo-China  were  protected  states,  so  their  native  inhabitants  had 
no  parliamentary  representation  (though  Cochin- China  was  till  1954  a  colony  and  could  -  but 
never  did  -  elect  a  deputy) ;  but  see  below,  pp.  209n.,  294.  For  the  French  Union  in  the  two  1946 
constitutions  see  below,  p.  293. 

36.  On  African  representation  see  Guillemin,  no.  114.  At  RDA's  1957  conference  70% 
of  the  delegates  were  Moslem :  A  Blanchet,  L'itinfraire  des  partis  africains  depuis  Bamako 
(1958),  p.  26. 

37.  See  above,  p.  176.  Gabriel  d'Arboussier,  in  1950  secretary  of  RDA  and  leader  of  its  pro- 
Communist  minority,  changed  his  mind  and  rejoined  his  old  comrades  seven  years  later. 

38.  Blanchet,  pp.  18-19. 


THE  MINOR  PARTIES  181 

territorial  assemblies  elected  in  1957  under  the  new  liberal  loi-cadre.  This  law, 
by  granting  home  rule,  was  to  accelerate  subsequent  political  evolution. 

RDA's  success  drew  all  its  opponents  together.  Early  in  1958  a  new  *  Parti 
du  regroupement  africain  (PR A)  was  formed  by  the  fusion  of  eight  parties: 
IOM,  recently  renamed  Convention  africaine;  the  Mouvement  socialiste 
africain,  which  had  just  formally  separated  from  SFIO;  and  half-a-dozen 
parties  confined  to  particular  territories,  which  each  faced  RD  A  competition 
at  home.  RDA  was  in  office  and  had  to  compromise;  PR  A  was  not.39  It 
could  outbid  its  rival  by  radical  demands  -  for  early  independence,  and  for  a 
Franco-African  federation  based  on  big  regional  units  rather  than  separate 
territories  -  which  found  much  favour  within  RDA  itself.  In  1958  the  differ- 
ences between  the  cautious  RDA  leader  Houphouet-Boigny  and  his  im- 
patient rivals  in  and  outside  his  own  party  dominated  the  debates  on  the 
Community  provisions  of  the  Gaullist  constitution. 

The  overseas  deputies  naturally  took  a  detached  view  of  much  French  par- 
liamentary business.  They  behaved,  with  growing  effect,  like  territorial 
spokesmen  in  a  federal  senate.40  Their  efforts  to  influence  developments  north 
of  the  Sahara  were  unsuccessful;  there  they  could  never  offset  the  parlia- 
mentary, still  less  the  extra-parliamentary  power  of  the  settlers.  But  in  Black 
Africa  the  electoral  law  was  modified  by  their  pressure  as  early  as  1951,  and 
from  1956  their  views  were  decisive  in  policy-making  for  the  tropical  terri- 
tories. Here,  therefore,  overseas  representation  in  Parliament  played  an 
important  part  in  the  success  of  French  decolonization.  Through  it  the 
leaders  who  took  over  after  independence  acquired  an  invaluable  political 
training,  an  intimate  acquaintance  with  the  political  system  of  the  metro- 
politan power,  and  an  opportunity  to  work  with  her  leaders  and  spokesmen 
as  equal  colleagues. 

Looked  at  from  within  that  political  system,  the  role  of  the  overseas  parties 
illustrated  the  activities  of  minor  groups  in  general.  Those  that  were  unwilling 
to  compromise  were  driven  -  like  the  Progressives  at  home,  and  MTLD  or 
the  early  RDA  abroad  -  into  accepting  the  patronage  of  the  great  party  of 
all-out  opposition,  and  so  became  identified  in  the  public  mind  with  Com- 
munism. If,  however,  they  were  prepared  to  use  their  votes  for  bargaining, 
they  could  exploit  the  advantages  that  the  system  conferred  on  all  marginal 
groups.  Because  of  the  antagonism  between  natives  and  settlers,  the  net 
advantage  to  be  gained  from  their  support  was  nearer  fifteen  votes  than 
eighty.41  But  the  Constituent  Assemblies  had  shown  that  fifteen  overseas 
votes  could  well  be  decisive  when  the  metropolitan  members  were  evenly 

39.  Guillemin,  no.  114,  p.  877;  cf.  Grosser,  p.  352,  Blanchet,  pp.  75-7,  84,  95-6,  102. 

40.  Guillemin,  loc.  cit. 

41.  There  were  75  overseas  deputies  in  1946,  77  in  1949,  83  in  1951 ;  but  only  52  in  1956  as 
Algeria  did  not  vote  (see  below,  p.  209n.).  Native  voters  usually  chose  native  members,  but  in 
1951  the  colonial  undersecretary  Dr.  Aujoulat  transferred  from  the  white  constituency  in  his 
colony  to  the  native  one,  proclaimed  *  His  face  may  be  white  but  his  heart  is  as  black  as  a  black 
man's',  and  was  triumphantly  elected.  In  1956  Roger  Duveau  successfully  followed  the  same 
course  in  Madagascar  -  though  Aujoulat  was  defeated.  Gabriel  d'Arboussier  (son  of  a  French 
colonial  governor  and  a  Soudanese  mother)  won  seats  for  RDA  in  Moyen-Congo,  Niger  and 
Ivory  Coast  and  later  became  a  Senegalese  minister ;  Blanchet,  p.  5 ;  T.  Hodgkin,  African  Political 
Parties  (1961),  p.  103. 


182  THE  PARTIES 

divided.42  In  the  Fourth  Republic  the  moderate  nationalists  tended  steadily  to 
support  successive  cabinets  in  return  for  policy  concessions,  material  advan- 
tages for  their  constituencies,  and  office  for  their  leaders:  IOM  held  a 
colonial  under-secretaryship  in  seven  cabinets  and  a  full  ministry  in  one, 
Houphouet-Boigny  was  a  senior  minister  in  the  last  four  administrations  of 
the  Fourth  Republic.  Without  the  excitement  and  panache  of  violent  agitation, 
the  uninspiring  process  of  bargaining  quietly  helped  both  sides.  To  their 
clients  in  Africa  the  native  deputies  brought  steady  if  sometimes  slow  material 
and  political  progress.  To  French  governments  in  trouble  they  brought  a  slight 
but  useful  reinforcement  of  ministerial  stability.  In  these  Negro  leaders  the 
traditional  pivot  parties  of  the  Third  and  Fourth  Republics  had  found  apt 
pupils. 

42.  See  below,  p.  191. 


III 

THE     INSTITUTIONS 


Chapter  14 
THE  CONSTITUTIONAL  PROBLEM 

1.  THE  THIRD  REPUBLIC 

Political  and  institutional  factors  acted  on  one  another  to  produce  the 
governmental  instability  which  characterized  the  Third  Republic.  But  among 
its  complex  causes  the  most  fundamental  was  the  structure  of  political 
opinion  in  the  country.  For  the  politics  of  most  Frenchmen  were  negative. 
They  feared  the  revival  of  the  reactionaries,  the  return  to  power  of  the  groups 
which  stood  for  a  hierarchical  society:  the  landlord,  the  Church,  the  great 
capitalist.  They  feared  that  a  strong  centralized  administration  would  corrupt 
those  who  wielded  power;  ministers  of  the  Left  were  as  distrusted  as  those  of 
the  Right.  They  supported  the  Left  politically,  yet  many  of  them  feared  social 
and  economic  experiment  and  opposed  positive  government. 

Shaped  to  serve  the  purposes  of  this  negative  majority,  the  political  institu- 
tions of  the  country  had  in  turn  increased  its  influence.  Together  the  suspicion 
of  governmental  power  and  the  fear  of  social  change  worked  against  strong 
parties  and  in  favour  of  an  electoral  system  which  encouraged  negative  and 
individualist  politics.1  The  single-member  constituency  allowed  the  deputy  to 
entrench  himself  through  local  services  in  a  stronghold  from  which  he  was 
hard  to  dislodge.  The  double  ballot  permitted  every  individualist  politi- 
cian and  splinter  group  to  gain  publicity  by  contesting  the  first  round  without 
much  risk  of  presenting  the  seat  to  the  other  side,  and  at  the  second  it  helped 
the  negative  voter  to  block  the  most  dangerous  candidate,  whether  he  were  a 
political  reactionary  or  a  social  revolutionary.  The  Chamber  therefore 
usually  contained  a  chaotic  welter  of  small  groups.  While  most  members  came 
from  the  political  centre,  after  1918  they  generally  needed  either  clerical  or 
socialist  votes  at  the  second  ballot  against  a  candidate  of  the  other  extreme. 
Consequently  every  centre  group  was  internally  divided  according  to  the 
electoral  situation  of  its  individual  members. 

The  immediate  cause  of  governmental  weakness  in  France  was  the  artificial- 
ity and  instability  of  parliamentary  majorities  composed  from  this  unpromis- 
ing material.  The  moderate  supporters  of  every  government  feared  that  their 
more  extreme  associates  would  go  too  far  in  policy  and  so  compromise  their 
own  electoral  prospects;  every  majority  therefore  contained  a  minority 
awaiting  the  moment  to  change  partners  and  enter  a  new  majority.  These 
divisions  were  counteracted  by  none  of  the  factors  of  cohesion  which  reinforce 
British  party  discipline.  In  Britain  a  general  election  imposes  a  substantial  fine 
on  members  of  parliament,  even  when  they  run  little  risk  of  losing  their  seats ; 
and  the  prime  minister's  right  to  dissolve  if  he  is  beaten  gives  him  both  a 
weapon  against  rebels  in  the  house,  who  are  rarely  ready  to  risk  a  party  defeat 
at  an  election,  and  a  chance  to  appeal  to  the  country  on  a  clear-cut  issue  which 
divides  his  own  party  from  its  rival.  But  in  France  the  deputy's  re-election 
depended  much  more  on  his  personal  reputation;  expulsion  from  the  party 

1.  See  below,  pp.  307-8. 


THE  CONSTITUTIONAL  PROBLEM  185 

and  competition  from  an  official  candidate  held  few  terrors  for  a  member 
whose  following  was  so  largely  personal  that  lie  could  distance  the  intruder  on 
the  first  ballot  and  regain  the  lost  votes  on  the  second.  The  clash  of  opposing 
groups  was  never  clear-cut.  The  head  of  the  government  was  prevented  from 
dissolving  Parliament,  not  by  constitutional  law  but  by  political  convention. 

The  convention  grew  up  early  in  the  Third  Republic,  whose  royalist 
founders  had  set  up  a  regime  designed  to  be  transformed  later  into  a  monarchy. 
They  gave  the  President  of  the  Republic  the  right  to  dissolve  the  Chamber 
before  its  legal  term  was  up,  provided  he  obtained  the  consent  of  the  Senate. 
Presidency  and  Senate  would,  it  was  hoped,  be  strongholds  of  conservatism 
against  the  assaults  of  a  Chamber  based  on  universal  suffrage,  and  the  disso- 
lution would  be  their  joint  weapon  for  keeping  the  deputies  in  check.  How- 
ever, the  first  President,  the  monarchist  Marshal  MacMahon,  dissolved  the 
Chamber  in  1877  for  partisan  purposes,  tried  unsuccessfully  to  use  the 
administrative  machine  to  secure  a  conservative  majority  in  the  new  house, 
and  so  discredited  the  power  of  dissolution  for  eighty  years.  By  1879  the  vic- 
torious Republicans  controlled  both  houses  and  the  presidency.  Before  the 
constitution  was  five  years  old  the  assumptions  of  its  makers  had  broken 
down. 

After  1879  Parliament  would  normally  elect  as  President  only  a  safe  and 
mediocre  man  who  would  not  challenge  the  authority  of  the  elected  house. 
The  Senate  passed  gradually  into  the  hands  of  the  parties  which  already 
dominated  the  Chamber,  and  became  less  and  less  likely  to  consent  to  a  dis- 
solution directed  against  them.  It  was  never  asked  to,  partly  because  it  was 
sure  to  refuse  but  even  more  because  of  the  popular  reaction  to  the  crisis  of 
1877 :  thereafter  dissolution  was  associated  with  an  attempted  coup  (Fdtat.  Nor 
were  a  timid  President,  a  hostile  Senate  and  a  suspicious  public  the  only 
obstacles.  French  governments  were  too  weak  to  pass  the  budget  on  time,  and 
lived  on  appropriations  voted  monthly,  so  that  a  ministry  wishing  to  dissolve 
the  Chamber  would  probably  have  needed  parliamentary  consent  to  an 
unusually  large  credit.  In  1934,  when  Doumergue's  government  seriously 
contemplated  dissolution,  its  demand  for  a  grant  alarmed  the  Radical  party 
into  bringing  it  down.2 

Members  were  therefore  secure  for  four  years.  The  overthrow  of  a  cabinet 
did  not  threaten  their  seats  and  might  indeed  open  the  way  to  promotion, 
especially  among  the  pivotal  centre  groups  whose  marginal  position  enabled 
them  to  raise  *  a  record  crop  of  ministerial  portfolios  to  the  acre '.  So  the  slight 
shifts  of  public  or  parliamentary  opinion,  which  in  Britain  cause  a  trimming  of 
policy  or  a  government  reshuffle,  in  France  led  always  to  a  change  of  cabinet. 
But  the  practical  effect  was  much  the  same,  for  as  a  rule  most  members  of  the 
old  ministry  passed  straight  into  the  new  one.3 

Besides  the  electoral  system  and  the  deputies'  security  of  tenure,  there  were 
less  important  institutional  causes  for  the  weakness  of  French  governments. 
The  standing  orders  of  the  Chamber  handicapped  the  administration:  control 
of  parliamentary  time  was  jealously  preserved  by  the  house  itself,  and  the 

2.  Soulier,  pp.  559-60. 

3.  See  below,  p.  206.  'Record  crop* :  Siegfried,  Tableau,  p.  169  (cf.  France,  p.  83). 


186  THE  INSTITUTIONS 

right  of  interpellation  allowed  members  to  raise  a  short  debate  and  enforce  a 
vote  on  any  subject.  These  procedures  reflected  a  conception  of  politics  which 
preferred  a  ministry  safely  subordinate  to  the  representatives  of  the  peoople  to 
one  strong  and  independent  enough  to  govern  effectively.  So  did  the  com- 
mittees, which  gave  Parliament  an  alternative  leadership  to  that  of  the 
cabinet.  Each  specialized  in  a  sphere  corresponding  roughly  to  that  of  a 
government  cepartment,  and  they  developed  a  certain  corporate  sense.  Their 
rapporteurs  had  opportunities  for  informed  criticism  of  administration;  their 
chairmen  were  ex  officio  potential  ministers;  both  enjoyed  personal  influence 
and  procedural  advantages  in  the  discussion  of  bills.  In  theory  the  govern- 
ment should  not  have  suffered,  since  (from  1910)  each  committee  was  based 
on  proportional  representation  and  should  have  reflected  the  majority  in  the 
house.  But  that  majority  was  shaky  and  heterogeneous,  and  accident  might 
easily  concentrate  unreliable  members  in  particular  committees  or  positions 
of  influence. 

Yet  a  further  obstacle  to  the  power  of  the  cabinet  lay  in  the  influential  uppe 
house.4  To  the  maker  of  the  Third  Republic  the  Senate  was  the  essential  bul- 
wark of  conserative  principles  and  interests  against  the  danger  of  universal 
suffrage.  As  it  was  chosen  by  the  local  notables  under  an  electoral  system 
under-representing  the  cities,  its  composition  was  weighted  heavily  against  the 
Left;  and  though  the  Radicals  overcame  these  handicaps  by  ceasing  to  be 
radical,  the  proletarian  parties  never  secured  a  real  foothold  in  a  second  cham- 
ber far  more  powerful  than  the  British  House  of  Lords.  Unlike  a  British  peer, 
a  senator  was  not  removed  from  the  main  political  battle,  and  if  he  became  a 
minister  he  was  entitled  to  speak  in  either  house.  The  two  houses  had  equal 
rights  in  legislation  and  finance  (except  that  the  Senate  had  no  power  of 
financial  initiative).  Senators  formed  about  one-third  and  deputies  two- 
thirds  of  the  National  Assembly  of  the  Third  Republic,  which  elected  the 
President  and  could  amend  the  constitution.  And,  since  a  senatorial  seat  was 
influential,  sheltered,  and  tenable  for  nine  years,  it  often  attracted  the  ablest 
of  the  lifelong  politicians  from  whose  ranks  the  senators  -  again  unlike  the 
peers  -  were  entirely  drawn.  Skilfully  and  patiently  they  built  up  their  strength 
over  half  a  century,  never  challenging  the  Chamber  unless  they  were  sure  of 
victory.  They  hampered  unpopular  governments  by  blocking  legislation,  and 
in  the  last  decade  of  the  Third  Republic  began  to  encroach  on  the  executive 
sphere:  the  Senate  forced  three  ministries  out  of  office  between  1875  and  1929, 
four  between  1930  and  1940. 

Yet  it  was  the  political  situation  which  made  these  institutional  barriers 
serious  obstacles  to  governmental  authority.  Early  in  the  twentieth  century 
the  separation  of  Church  and  State  had  provided  a  real  programme  attracting 
a  genuine  majority.  Under  the  Combes  ministry  the  Chamber  was  managed 
by  the  Delegation  des  Gauches,  a  steering  committee  of  the  majority  parties 
which  dealt  without  difficulty  with  the  interpellation  nuisance  and  the  com- 
mittee danger.  I  terpellations  which  might  threaten  the  government  were- 
adjourned  sine  die;  the  majority  had  a  motive  for  unity  and  therefore  held 
together  to  vote  for  the  delay  proposed  by  its  leaders.  Effective  discipline  was 

4.  See  below,  pp.  276-7. 


THE  CONSTITUTIONAL  PROBLEM  187 

applied  in  committees.  The  ministry,  responsive  to  the  wishes  of  its  followers, 
fell  only  when  its  programme  had  been  put  into  force  and  their  loyalty  had 
weakened. 

The  powers  of  the  finance  committee  and  Senate  were  also  largely  a  func- 
tion of  a  particular  political  situation.  Since  electoral  necessity  attracted  the 
men  of  the  Centre  towards  the  Left,  almost  every  Chamber  opened  with  an 
apparent  left-wing  majority.  But  this  disintegrated  once  economic  and  social 
questions  came  to  the  fore,  and  the  search  for  a  new  combination  began.  The 
Senate  and  the  finance  committee  owed  much  of  their  influence  to  their  key 
roles  in  this  recurrent  struggle.  Moderate  Radicals,  republican  and  anti- 
clerical but  terrified  of  social  experiment,  occupied  a  predominant  position  in 
the  Senate  and  a  pivotal  one  in  the  Chamber.  Since  the  upper  house  was  too 
cautious  to  risk  its  prestige  by  unsuccessful  aggression,  it  moved  against  a 
government  only  when  this  crucial  group  of  deputies  was  wavering.  Apparently 
a  rival  institution,  it  behaved  in  fact  as  a  reinforcement  to  its  political  friends 
in  the  Chamber.  But  the  finance  committee  often  acted  in  the  opposite  direc- 
tion, focusing  the  opposition  of  those  Centre  deputies  who  still  preferred  the 
left-wing  connection  and  disliked  association  with  the  Conservatives.  In  the 
recurrent  manoeuvre  by  which  the  Radicals  and  their  friends  reversed  their 
alliances,  the  finance  committee  acted  as  a  brake  and  the  Senate  as  a 
goad. 

This  did  not  mean  that  the  Senate  was  always  on  the  Right.  It  expressed 
those  negative  views,  hostile  both  to  clerical  reaction  and  to  social  change, 
which  predominated  in  the  country.  In  the  1880's  it  led  the  resistance  to 
Boulangism;  and  of  the  four  governments  it  destroyed  in  the  1930's  two  were 
of  the  Right,  led  by  Tardieu  and  Laval,  and  two  of  the  Left,  under  Blum.  As 
the  balance-wheel  (or  millstone)  of  the  system,  the  Senate  prevented  policies 
or  governments  moving  too  far  from  the  political  centre  of  gravity.  It  could 
fulfil  this  traditional  -  but  rarely  achieved  -  function  of  a  second  chamber 
because  it  was  so  composed  that  its  majority  was  in  accord  with  the  dominant 
section  of  the  electorate.  The  roots  of  its  power  were  more  political  than 
institutional.  Governments  were  weak  and  programmes  hard  to  carry,  not 
because  of  the  provisions  of  the  constitution  but  because  public  opinion  -  or 
its  principal  elements  -  preferred  weak  government  and  inaction.  That  pres- 
sure determined  the  working  of  the  institutions  and  dictated  the  character  of 
the  system. 

The  Third  Republic  was  criticized  by  the  Left  because  the  popular  house  was 
too  weak,  by  the  Right  because  it  was  too  strong.  Socialists  wished  to  abolish 
the  Senate,  conservatives  to  multiply  restraints  on  the  power  of  the  Chamber. 
The  Left  looked  back  to  the  'Convention  government'  (regime  d'assemblee) 
of  the  revolutionary  period  with  its  omnipotent  single  chamber.  The  Right 
demanded  a  'parliamentary  government'  of  checks  and  balances  based  on  the 
British  constitution.  Yet  through  stressing  legal  principles  and  ignoring 
political  realities  they  had  wholly  misunderstood  the  institutions  they  so 
ardently  admired.  'Parliamentary  government'  at  Westminster  in  1850 
curiously  resembled  the  Third  Republic;  and  as  over  the  next  century 


188  THE  INSTITUTIONS 

its  bulwarks  were  shorn  away,  the  executive  emerged  far  stronger  than 
before.5 

In  Britain  between  the  reform  acts  of  1832  and  1867  there  were  always 
more  than  two  parties,  weak,  loose  and  inchoate.  At  general  elections  many 
contests  turned  on  personal  and  local  differences  rather  than  political  prin- 
ciples, and  the  majorities  that  emerged  were  highly  unstable;  only  one  of  the 
nine  Parliaments  sustained  a  single  premier  throughout.  Leaders  had  to  rely 
on  personal  followings  and  skill  in  manoeuvre  in  default  of  authority  over  an 
organized  party.  Every  ministry,  in  name  or  in  fact,  was  a  coalition  of  diverse 
groups.  Important  political  issues  remained  open  questions  on  which  ministers 
publicly  disagreed.  Cabinets  survived  or  succumbed  by  tiny  majorities,  and  a 
marginal  group  like  the  Peelites  enjoyed  preferential  treatment  in  the  distri- 
bution of  offices.  Occasionally,  as  in  the  Crimean  war,  a  surge  of  revolt  would 
sweep  the  benches  and  unite  all  elements  against  the  administration.  Despite 
the  Lords,  the  Crown  and  the  dissolution  prerogative,  the  House  of  Com- 
mons was  at  the  height  of  its  power. 

That  power  declined  as  the  nominal  authority  of  the  House  grew.  The 
advance  of  democracy  concentrated  in  the  House  more  power  than  it  could 
use  effectively,  and  obliged  it  to  impose  tight  discipline,  organize  into  rigid 
blocks,  and  transfer  its  newly-extended  authority  to  the  government  in  order 
to  get  its  business  done.  Approximating  in  theory  to  the  omnipotence  of  an 
assembly  without  a  rival,  it  fell  in  practice  to  the  dependent  status  of  a  body 
which  ratifies  the  decisions  of  the  executive,  and  from  which  the  parties  appeal 
to  the  people  and  test  their  reactions.  Today  it  only  rarely  behaves  as  an 
independent  institution,  almost  always  as  a  necessary  link  between  cabinet 
and  electorate.  The  distinction  between  'Convention  government'  and  'par- 
liamentary government'  was  therefore  largely  a  legal  fiction.  Based  on  consti- 
tutional forms  divorced  from  political  realities,  the  concepts  ignored  the 
crucial  factor :  the  rise  of  organized  parties.6 

2.  THE  DEBATE  AT  THE  LIBERATION 

The  makers  of  the  Fourth  Republic  gave  themselves  the  impossible  task  of 
solving  by  constitutional  arrangements  a  problem  set,  not  by  the  forms  of  the 
law,  but  by  the  divisions  of  the  people.  French  Republics  had  always  lived 
dangerously.  Since  1871  the  regime  had  been  threatened  first  by  a  counter- 
revolutionary Right,  then  by  a  revolutionary  Left  and  finally  by  both.  Because 
of  the  country's  turbulent  history  and  the  power  of  the  administration,  re- 
publican tradition  subordinated  the  executive  to  the  legislature  and  accepted 
the  high  price  of  this  settlement  in  governmental  weakness  and  instability. 
Other  democratic  great  powers  have  tried  to  avoid  these  disabilities.  The 

5.  See  the  lament  in  Economist,  23  April  1853  (quoted  Economist,  25  April  1953)  and  Disraeli's 
speech  of  30  August  1848  (Hansard ci,  col.  705-6).  In  French  discussion  'Convention  government* 
concentrates  all  power,  judicial  as  well  as  executive,  in  a  single  chamber;  *  parliamentary  govern- 
ment' has  an  irresponsible  chief  of  state,  ministers  responsible  to  a  legislature  which  can  be 
dissolved  by  the  executive,  and  (normally)  a  second  chamber  and  an  independent  judiciary. 

6.  Realistic  French  critics  themselves  found  the  concepts  inapplicable:  see  quotations  in 
Williams,  p.  167n.  For  useful  discussions  see  Th6ry,  Le  Gouvernement  de  la  IVe  Rtpublique 
(1949),  Chapter  5;  Duverger,  Demain,  pp.  27-31,  59-61,  102-3,  and  VIet  pp.  42-4. 


THE  CONSTITUTIONAL  PROBLEM  189 


British  solution  uses  strict  party  discipline  to  transform  the  nominal 
authority  of  the  House  of  Commons  over  the  government  into  the  practical 
control  of  the  government  over  the  Commons;  the  American  solution 
separates  executive  and  legislature  constitutionally,  leaving  each  as  master 
within  a  sphere  which  the  other  cannot  conquer.  But  in  France  neither  the 
strong,  disciplined  party  nor  the  strong,  independent  executive  was  acceptable, 
for  each  aroused  disquieting  historical  memories,  and  each  was  sponsored 
by  a  group  whose  democratic  good  faith  was  contested  by  its  opponents. 

General  de  Gaulle  was  alone  in  advocating  a  solution  restricting  parlia- 
mentary control  over  the  executive.7  The  Left  demanded  the  omnipotent 
assembly  of  revolutionary  tradition;  the  Right  and  Centre  feared  that  it 
would  be  abused  by  the  parties  which  sponsored  it  -  at  worst  by  the  Com- 
munists to  impose  their  own  dictatorship,  at  best  by  the  Socialists  to  keep  the 
executive  in  intolerable  subjection.  With  the  moderate  parties  insisting  on 
checks  and  balances  and  the  Left  fearing  that  any  prolonged  dispute  would 
play  into  de  Gaulle's  hands,  the  Fourth  Republic  finally  came  into  being  as  a 
patchwork  compromise,  based  on  Socialist  conceptions  but  tempered  by 
concessions  to  the  supporters  of  'parliamentary  government'.  By  1947  its 
Socialist  and  MRP  creators  had  to  rely  on  the  friends  of  the  Third  Republic 
for  support  against  the  Communist  and  Gaullist  assaults,  and  the  men  of  the 
old  order,  as  they  gradually  regained  influence  and  courage,  attempted  to 
adjust  the  system  to  their  own  purposes. 

The  Communist  constitutional  solution  derived  from  the  Convention  of 
1793  and  the  Paris  Commune  of  1871.  It  concentrated  power  in  a  single 
Assembly  unchecked  by  any  rival  authority,  electing  the  President,  controlling 
the  government,  dominating  executive,  legislature  and  judiciary  alike.  This 
arrangement  gave  legal  authority  to  the  Assembly  but  effective  power  to  the 
government.  For  a  legislature  bearing  such  responsibility  would  have  to 
discipline  itself,  and  amid  several  loose  and  conflicting  parties  a  single  co- 
herent group,  following  a  deliberate  strategy  and  recognized  leaders,  would 
soon  establish  its  preponderance. 

If  the  Communist  party  accepted  the  rules  of  democracy,  this  solution 
would  have  many  advantages.  To  compete  with  its  power  and  numbers  its 
opponents  would  have  to  coalesce  into  an  equally  powerful  block,  endowing 
France  at  last  with  a  two-party  system.  For  the  Communist  constitutional 
answer  (taken  at  face  value)  was  very  much  the  same  as  the  British:  a  legally 
omnipotent  elected  house  which  made  its  theoretical  powers  effective  by 
handing  them  over  to  a  committee  of  the  majority.  As  in  Britain,  party  dis- 
cipline was  the  essential  element  in  this  arrangement,  without  which  its 
advantages  and  drawbacks  cannot  be  understood. 

Such  a  system  is  tolerable  only  when  there  is  confidence  that  the  party  m 
power  will  not  subvert  the  democratic  system;  and  Frenchmen  feared  that  a 
two-party  system  with  the  Communists  as  one  contestant  would  soon  lead  to 
civil  war  Yet  many  good  democrats  were  attracted  to  a  similar  constitutional 
solution  -  with  safeguards  against  Communist  predominance.  In  particular 
the  Socialist  party,  which  also  accepted  the  revolutionary  tradition  and  the 
7.  On  it  see  below,  pp.  191-2.  He  did  not  campaign  for  it  until  1946. 


190  THE  INSTITUTIONS 

single  Assembly,  joined  the  Communists  in  supporting  the  first  draft  constitu- 
tion in  April  1946.  When  that  draft  was  rejected  at  the  May  referendum  the 
parties  of  the  Left  had  to  compromise  with  MRP;  but  the  October  constitu- 
tion was  nevertheless  based  on  Socialist  ideas.  Many  of  its  principles  and 
details  could  be  found  in  L6on  Blum's  early  work  on  governmental  reform 
and  Vincent  Auriol's  proposals  for  post-war  reconstruction.8 

The  Socialists  condemned  the  Third  Republic  for  buttressing  the  power  of 
conservative  interests  and  encouraging  a  politics  centred  on  personal  and 
parochial  squabbles  rather  than  on  a  fundamental  clash  of  policies.  To  meet 
the  first  fault  they  wanted  to  abolish  the  checks  to  the  lower  house  by  destroy- 
ing the  Senate's  power  and  eliminating  the  Presidency  of  the  Republic.  To 
meet  the  second  they  advocated  proportional  representation  in  order  to 
extend  the  politician's  horizon,  weaken  local  ties,  end  the  demoralizing 
alliances  of  the  second  ballot,  and  elevate  the  tone  of  public  life.  They  hoped 
to  replace  the  old  shifting,  incoherent  groups  by  powerful  parties,  each  with  its 
distinctive  outlook  and  its  disciplined  following  in  and  out  of  Parliament.9 
Elections  would  be  fought  on  clear  issues,  so  a  definite  majority  would  emerge 
and  solve  the  problem  of  governmental  stability.  The  Assembly  would  elect  a 
prime  minister  whose  government  would  represent  the  majority  that  had 
chosen  him.  This  community  of  outlook  would  guarantee  the  security  of  the 
government,  and  it  would  no  longer  need  means  of  pressure  on  the  Assembly 
such  as  the  vote  of  confidence  so  prodigally  employed  in  the  Third  Republic. 
The  executive  being  a  projection  of  the  legislature,  the  two  would  normally 
be  in  harmony  and  the  stability  of  the  former  would  be  happily  combined 
with  the  final  authority  of  the  latter. 

In  case  of  a  clash  the  Assembly  was  to  be  able  to  turn  the  government  out 
by  a  vote  of  no  confidence;  but  to  restrain  the  irresponsibility  which  had 
sometimes  marred  the  Third  Republic,  a  government  defeat  would  lead 
automatically  to  the  dissolution  of  the  Assembly.  In  minor  matters  the  deputies 
could  instruct  the  government  to  change  its  policy,  and  the  cabinet,  unable  to 
call  for  a  vote  of  confidence,  would  be  obliged  to  give  way.  This  system  would 
have  secured  the  executive's  stability  at  the  price  of  its  authority,  for  a  govern- 
ment would  have  been  subject  to  the  pressure  of  its  followers  without  effective 
counter-pressures  against  them.  The  plan,  reflecting  the  traditional  French 
democratic  distrust  of  power  and  its  holders,  formed  a  natural  basis  for  com- 
promise in  1946  when  government  through  a  strong  party  seemed  to  imply 
Communist  domination  and  a  strong  presidency  meant  power  for  de  Gaulle. 

Among  the  other  democratic  parties,  the  Radicals  simply  wished  to  retain 
as  much  as  possible  of  the  Third  Republic.  All  Conservatives  wanted  to 
strengthen  the  executive  and  to  impose  barriers  against  the  principal  Assembly. 
MRP  favoured  constitutional  provisions  reflecting  its  Catholic  and  corpora- 
tive outlook:  one  characteristic  suggestion  was  to  give  extra  votes  to  parents 

8.  Blum,  La  Rgforme  gouvernementale,  especially  pp.  39,  62-3,  150-3,  163,  167-9,  175-9,  218, 
222-7 ;  Auriol,  Hier  . . .  Demain,  ii.  21, 23,  31,  33,  38,  51,  142,  197-8, 208,  223,  239-40,  249,  261, 
2fjt  28j. 

9.  See  below,  pp.  387-8.  Like  the  founders  of  the  United  Nations  they  built  a  constitutional 
structure  on  political  sand,  wrongly  postulating  that  the  *  great  powers'  of  the  moment  would 
continue  in  alliance.  (I  owe  this  point  to  Professor  Wahl.) 


THE  CONSTITUTIONAL  PROBLEM  191 

according  to  the  number  of  their  (legitimate)  children.  Like  the  Conservatives 
and  Radicals  it  waged  its  main  constitutional  fight  to  preserve  checks  and 
balances  and  allow  the  executive  some  independence. 

The  debate  took  place  under  a  provisional  regime  planned  by  de  Gaulle 
before  the  Liberation.  Both  he  and  the  politicians  had  known  that  its  structure 
might  well  influence  the  shape  of  the  final  constitution,  and  as  the  parties  were 
unanimous  in  demanding  that  the  provisional  government  must  be  responsible 
to  the  Constituent  Assembly  (if  in  nothing  else),  the  General  gave  way  to  their 
insistence.10  In  the  first  Assembly  the  Left  parties  had  a  majority,  and  after  de 
Gaulle's  resignation  they  carried  their  draft  constitution;  it  was  rejected  at 
the  referendum  of  May  1946.  In  the  second,  the  struggle  turned  on  the  selec- 
tion and  powers  of  the  President  and  second  chamber,  the  electoral  law,  the 
machinery  for  constitutional  amendment,  and  the  independence  of  the 
judiciary.  As  MRP  generally  sided  with  the  Right,  the  balance  was  very  even 
and  several  major  issues  were  decided  by  tiny  majorities;  the  votes  of  a  few 
colonial  members  were  crucial,  and  disgruntled  conservatives  bitterly  attacked 
the  'Madagascar  constitution'. 

Paul  Coste-Floret,  the  MRP  rapporteur  of  the  second  constitutional  draft, 
warned  that  in  France  presidential  government  would  mean  dictatorship 
(pouvoir  personnel)  and  Convention  government  like  that  of  1793  would  lead 
to  revolution;  democracy  would  work  only  in  a  compromise  system  where 
Parliament  and  executive  were  balanced.11  The  constitution-makers  were  thus 
neither  able  nor  willing  to  erect  a  new  structure,  and  tried  only  to  repair  the 
faults  that  the  old  one  had  revealed  in  its  years  of  decline.  Article  13  was  sup- 
posed to  prevent  the  Assembly  delegating  its  legislative  power,  since  timid 
Chambers  in  the  1930's  had  often  abdicated  and  left  the  government  free  from 
parliamentary  control.  Article  94  forbade  constitutional  amendment  when 
part  of  France  was  under  enemy  occupation ;  it  belatedly  denied  validity  to 
the  vote  of  10  July  1940  conferring  full  powers  on  Marshal  P6tain,  but  did  not 
prevent  another  Republic  committing  suicide  quite  constitutionally,  in  1958, 
under  threat  of  'military  usurpation'.12 

3.   THE  FOURTH  REPUBLIC  AND  AFTER 

The  campaign  to  amend  the  new  constitution  began  before  it  was  adopted.  At 
Bayeux  in  June  1946  de  Gaulle  warned  his  countrymen  that  the  new  institu- 
tions were  wholly  misconceived.  In  French  conditions  an  executive  dependent 
on  Parliament  could  not  be  stable;  therefore  the  executive  must  be  indepen- 
dent of  Parliament.  In  normal  times  this  was  the  only  way  to  remove  power 
from  the  feeble  and  factious  parties,  and  in  a  crisis  like  that  of  1940  it  would 
permit  a  President  to  go  into  exile  as  a  National  Assembly  of  nine  hundred 
men  could  not.13  The  President  would  be  chosen  by  an  electoral  college 

10.  Thery,  pp,  15-16;  Wright,  Reshaping,  pp.  82-4;  and  cf.  below,  p.  200  and  n. 

11.  JO  20  August  1946,  p.  3185.  He  summed  up : '. . .  if  we  condemn  presidential  government 
and  rule  out  Convention  government,  we  are  obliged  to  revert  to  ...  parliamentary  government*. 

12.  *  Usurpation' :  de  Gaulle's  broadcast  of  8  June  1962.  On  Arts.  13  and  94  see  below,  pp.  270- 
275,302. 

13.  AP  1946,  p.  163.  Under  Article  45  of  the  1946  constitution  ministers  could  be  appointed 
only  after  the  election  of  the  premier,  'except  when  a  ca&  of  force  majeure  prevents  the  meeting 

[aver 


192  THE  INSTITUTIONS 

comprising  the  two  houses  of  Parliament  supplemented  -  or  swamped  -  by 
representatives  of  various  aspects  of  the  national  life.  Rooted  in  French  his- 
tory, this  was  a  presidential  conception  resembling  George  Washington's 
and  not  Franklin  Roosevelt's.  The  Founding  Fathers  of  the  United  States, 
who  had  wished  to  shelter  the  President  from  popular  pressures  and '  factions ', 
were  frustrated  by  the  rise  of  parties.  Now  de  Gaulle  was  determined  to  weaken 
the  parties  by  instituting  an  electoral  college  which  they  could  not  control.14 

While  the  proposed  President  would  choose  and  dismiss  his  ministers,  they 
would  also  be  responsible  to  Parliament  -  a  contradiction  resolved  neither  in 
the  General's  sketchy  statements  nor  later  in  the  Fifth  Republic  (where  peace 
in  Algeria  was  promptly  followed  by  a  trial  of  strength).  He  could  submit  to  a 
referendum  a  bill  on  which  the  government  suffered  parliamentary  defeat,  and 
in  case  of  political  deadlock  he  could,  with  his  ministers'  consent,  dissolve 
the  Assembly.15  But  the  deputies  would  be  unable  to  rid  themselves  of  a 
chief  executive  enjoying  both  the  American  President's  security  of  tenure  and 
the  British  premier's  power  to  coerce  Parliament.  Where  the  first  is  weak  in 
dealing  with  Congress  and  the  second  must  watch  for  shifts  in  the  floating 
vote,  he  would  enjoy  the  advantages  of  both  offices  without  suffering  the 
checks  imposed  upon  either. 

Such  a  regime  had  many  precedents  in  French  history.  In  its  theoretical 
structure  it  had  affinities  with  both  the  Second  and  Third  Republics.  In  its 
popular  support  it  reflected  that  Bonapartist  demand  for  a  republic  with  real 
authority  which,  as  Siegfried  remarked  seventeen  years  before  the  sudden 
ascent  of  RPF,  was  a  latent  force  always  liable  to  explode  with  eruptive 
violence.16  But  the  General  failed  to  impose  his  constitution  as  the  Commu- 
nists failed  to  introduce  theirs,  since  until  1958  most  Frenchmen  feared  an 
overweening  President  no  less  than  a  preponderant  party. 

Although  the  Gaullist  campaign  for  major  reconstruction  failed,  the  consti- 
tution of  the  Fourth  Republic  was  nevertheless  amended,  like  that  of  the 
Third,  before  it  was  ten  years  old.  The  underlying  reason  in  both  cases  was  a 
shift  of  power  away  from  the  groups  which  had  held  it  in  the  aftermath  of 
war:  royalist  advocates  of  immediate  peace  in  1871,  disciplined  parties  of  the 
Left  in  1946.  Each  of  these  had  enjoyed  an  artificial  parliamentary  majority 
and  shaped  a  constitution  to  fit  its  own  purposes;  when  the  excluded  groups 
returned  in  force  they  set  about  changing  the  new  institutions  to  suit 
themselves.  The  National  Assembly  of  the  Fourth  Republic  resolved  on 

of  the  National  Assembly';  the  proviso  was  introduced  in  answer  to  de  Gaulle's  criticisms: 
Thery,  p.  117n.  (see  La  France  sera  la  France,  p.  41,  for  de  Gaulle's  statement  of  27  August  1946, 
and  cf.  above,  p.  132n.). 

14.  In  the  constitution  of  the  Fifth  Republic  the  electors  were  parliamentarians,  members  or 
delegates  of  local  authorities,  and  overseas  representatives.  In  1962  de  Gaulle,  by  referendum, 
introduced  direct  election  of  the  President. 

15.  Asked  what  would  happen  if  President  and  ministers  disagreed,  he  replied  that  in  his  system 
this  could  not  happen:  La  France  sera  la  France,  p.  49,  quoted  Williams,  p.  162n.  In  the  Fifth 
Republic  the  President  could  dissolve  without  ministers'  consent,  and  the  referendum  provisions 
were  also  slightly  different. 

16.  See  above,  p.  141n.  For  the  Gaullist  constitution  in  practice  see  Williams  and  Harrison, 
Part  III;  D.  Pickles,  The  Fifth  French  Republic  (2nd.  ed.,  1962). 


THE  CONSTITUTIONAL  PROBLEM  193 

30  November  1950  to  amend  eleven  articles  of  the  constitution;  four  years 
later  to  the  day,  after  elaborate  negotiations  to  assemble  an  adequate  major- 
ity, it  finally  passed  the  specific  amendments.17  Following  the  post-war  trend, 
these  changes  marked  a  partial  return  to  the  constitutional  practice  of  the 
Third  Republic,  particularly  over  the  choice  of  a  premier  and  the  powers  of 
the  second  chamber.18 

They  did  not  satisfy  the  revisionists,  and  within  eight  months  both  houses 
called  for  further  amendments  to  28  articles:  23  affecting  the  French  Union 
and  5  others,  notably  those  regulating  the  election  or  ejection  of  a  prime  minis- 
ter by  the  Assembly.  Nothing  effective  was  done  for  two  years,  although  in  the 
last  weeks  of  the  Fourth  Republic  frantic  but  ineffective  efforts  were  made  to 
amend  these  five  articles.  But  members  of  parliament  were  prepared  to  con- 
sider only  marginal  adjustments  to  the  details  of  the  existing  system,  while 
opinion  in  the  country  was  growing  increasingly  critical  of  the  structure  itself. 
Domestic  reformers  feared  that  without  a  major  institutional  change,  in- 
genious schemes  to  prevent  the  deputies  overthrowing  a  cabinet  every  six 
months  would  merely  lead  them  to  install  as  prime  minister  a  man  who  would 
offend  nobody  -  and  therefore  achieve  nothing  -  even  if  he  survived  for  five 
years.19  Nationalists  were  convinced  that  the  overseas  empire  was  doomed 
unless  the  central  power  in  Paris  could  be  greatly  strengthened.  Critics  on  all 
sides  denounced  'the  System'  by  which  a  Parliament  of  multiple  parties  and 
shifting  coalitions  excluded  strong  personalities  from  power,  and  deprived 
the  ordinary  citizen  of  any  sense  of  participation  in  the  government  of  his 
country. 

Although  presidential  government  had  long  been  anathema  to  good 
republicans,  it  attracted  some  support  during  the  second  world  war,  notably 
from  L£on  Blum.  In  1956  the  cause  was  revived  by  Professors  Vedel  and 
Duverger,  who  pointed  to  significant  similarities  between  the  structure  of 
French  and  American  opinion  and  argued  that  the  people  could  regain  a 
sense  of  political  participation  only  if  they  directly  elected  the  chief  executive. 
Gaullist  critics  contended  more  bitterly  that  the  self-seeking  parliamentarians 
had  filched  sovereignty  from  the  people  in  whose  name  they  claimed  to 
exercise  it.  Ren6  Capitant  pointed  to  their  aversion,  not  only  to  the  referen- 
dum, but  to  any  electoral  law  which  might  allow  the  voters  to  designate  a 
government  or  express  a  clear  political  demand.  Michel  Debr6,  de  Gaulle's 
chief  constitutional  adviser,  accused  the  politicians  of  the  System  of  deliberately 
dividing  the  nation,  raising  false  controversies  and  obstructing  reforms:  he 
threatened  them  with  imminent  revolution  unless  they  promptly  mended 
their  ways.20 

Within  months  the  regime  had  collapsed  under  the  strain  of  the  Algerian 

17.  See  below,  pp.  302-3. 

18.  On  the  trend  see  above,  p.  35.  On  the  reform,  Campbell,  no.  46,  Goguel,  no.  110, 
Macridis,  no.  151,  Pickles,  no.  175,  Pierce,  no.  179,  Williams,  no.  221 ;  Poutier,  La  Reforme  de 
la  Constitution ;  Drevet,  La  procedure  de  revision  de  la  Constitution  du  27-10-1946;  and  below, 
pp.  210,  212,  216-17, 226-9,  237,  239-40,  283-5. 

19.  See  below,  p.  241. 

20.  See  Goguel,  no.  Ill ;  Capitant,  preface  to  Hamon,  De  Gaulle  dans  la  Republique,  pp.  iii-vi ; 
Debre\  Ces  princes  qui  nous  gouvernent;  Lavau,  no.  140;  Duverger,  Demain,  passim.  Most  of 
these  critics  were  more  'presidential'  than  de  Gaulle  himself. 


194  THE  INSTITUTIONS 

war.  The  Gaullists  came  to  power  and  Debr6  became  the  main  architect  of 
the  new  hybrid  system,  the  only  variant  of  presidential  government  to  enjoy 
organized  political  backing.  The  parties  which  had  hesitated  to  make  con- 
stitutional amendment  too  easy  were  now  coerced  into  letting  the  ministry 
draft  its  own  proposed  constitution ;  and  after  refusing  to  consider  a  normal 
presidential  system  with  an  independent  legislature,  they  had  now  to  accept  a 
deviant  form  overwhelmingly  dominated  by  the  executive.  In  September  1958 
four-fifths  of  the  voters,  disillusioned  with  the  parliamentary  republic  which 
had  twice  failed  within  twenty  years,  yet  still  opposed  to  the  Communists, 
turned  to  de  Gaulle  and  accepted  the  constitutional  solution  which  he  had 
vainly  proposed  in  1946. 

As  general  staffs  are  sometimes  said  to  prepare  for  the  last  war,  the  politi- 
cians who  made  the  Fourth  Republic  in  1946  had  prepared  for  the  last  con- 
stitutional crisis.  Later  parliamentarians  who  tried  to  reform  the  system  did  so 
within  the  same  narrow  limits,  and  as  early  as  1948  the  results  of  their  efforts 
were  summed  up  in  the  phrase,  'The  Fourth  Republic  is  dead,  it  has  been 
succeeded  by  the  Third'.  In  terms  of  constitutional  practice  Part  III  of  this 
book  is  a  commentary  on  that  contemptuous  verdict.  Nevertheless  historical 
experience  -  and  indeed  the  sequel  -  give  little  ground  for  believing  that  a 
stronger  regime  would  have  survived  without  disruption  and  disaster  the 
tremendous  shock  of  decolonization  and  the  diminution  of  French  power  in 
the  world. 


Chapter  15 
THE  PRESIDENT  AND  THE  CABINET 

The  makers  of  the  Fourth  Republic  were  anxious  to  diminish  the  importance 
of  the  President  of  the  Republic  who  was  not  responsible  to  Parliament,  and 
increase  that  of  the  prime  minister  who  was.  In  this  aim  they  failed  com- 
pletely. Although  the  President  s  powers  were  strictly  limited  by  the  constitu- 
tion, Vincent  Auriol  became  more  influential  than  any  of  his  predecessors  and 
Ren6  Coty,  though  less  active;,  intervened  spectacularly  in  the  crisis  of  1958. 
But  while  the  presidency  proved  stronger  than  had  ever  been  intended,  the 
premiership  never  became  the  driving  force  for  which  the  constitution-makers 
had  hoped.  The  political  foundations  on  which  they  relied  proved  shifting 
and  unstable,  and  instead  of  the  leader  of  a  united  team,  almost  every  premier 
had  to  be  a  broker  between  rivals  over  whom  he  had  little  control. 

1.   THE  PRESIDENCY 

The  royalists  who  created  tie  Third  Republic  had  designed  it  to  be  trans- 
formed into  a  monarchy  as  scon  as  they  could  agree  on  a  king.  Prominent 
among  the  bulwarks  which  tkey  established  against  the  menace  of  democracy 
was  the  Presidency  of  the  Republic.  But  because  of  its  imposing  nominal 
powers,  it  was  feared  and  restrained  in  a  number  of  ways.  There  was  legal 
restriction:  every  official  act  of  the  President  except  his  resignation  required 
the  countersignature  of  a  minister.  There  was  political  convention:  after  1877 
no  President  ventured  to  ask  tie  Senate  to  approve  a  dissolution  of  the  Cham- 
ber. There  was  also  the  sileikt  "but  effective  method  of  keeping  dangerous  men 
out  of  the  office.  Profess-or  Bn  ogan  observed  of  the  first  four  incumbents  that 

Thiers  had  been  chosen  as  the:  greatest  living  French  statesman,  MacMahon  as  the 
most  honourable  French  soldier:  Gr6vy  had  been  elected  in  1879  because  of  what 
he  had  said  in  1848,  Carnot  was.  elected  in  1887  because  of  what  his  grandfather  had 
done  in  1793. x 

In  the  Second  Republic  direct  election  by  the  people  had  made  Louis  Bona- 
parte President  and  then  Emperor.  In  the  Third  such  dangers  were  avoided; 
the  President  was  elected  for  seven  years  by  the  two  houses  of  Parliament 
sitting  together  as  a  National  Assembly.  Its  members  sometimes  made  a  mis- 
take and  chose  an  assertive  man  who  had  to  be  removed,  like  Casimir-Pe"rier 
in  1895  and  Millerand  in  1924;  even  Poincare"  might  not  have  survived  without 
the  first  world  war.  More  commonly  *a  deep  instinct'  led  Parliament  to  cast 
its  secret  ballot  against  any  st  rong  leader,  and  Gambetta  was  beaten  by  Gre"  vy, 
Ferry  by  Carnot,  Waldeck-Rousseau  by  F61ix  Faure,  Clemenceau  by 
Deschanel  and  Briand  by  Oo-umer.  As  J.  J.  Weiss  remarked  in  1885,  'The 
fundamental  principle  of  tike  constitution  is  or  ought  to  be  that  the  President 
hunts  rabbits  and  does  tot  govern'.2 

1.  The  Development  of  ffiodern  Frmce,  p.  198. 

2.  Quoted  Thery,  p.  29,  and  Datsette,  Histoire  des  Presidents,  p.  353.  *  Deep  instinct' :  Siegfried, 
De  la  IIP,  p.  36. 

H 


196  THE  INSTITUTIONS 

In  this  tradition  the  Left  in  1945-46  regarded  his  office  as  either  useless  or 
dangerous.  The  first  draft  constitution  reflected  its  desire  for  a  puppet  Presi- 
dent, who  was  to  be  elected  by  an  open  ballot  of  the  National  Assembly.  When 
this  draft  was  rejected  at  the  referendum  of  May  1946  the  Left  made  conces- 
sions, agreeing  to  election  by  a  clear  majority  in  a  secret  ballot  of  members  of 
both  houses,  as  in  the  Third  Republic.3  This  seemed  unimportant  politically, 
for  although  the  senators  had  enabled  the  Right  to  dominate  the  presidential 
electorate  in  the  past,  the  new  Council  of  the  Republic  was  to  be  so  chosen 
that  its  political  composition  would  reflect  that  of  the  Assembly.  But  in  1948, 
when  the  conservative  parties  had  grown  stronger,  they  adopted  a  method  of 
electing  the  upper  house  more  advantageous  to  themselves.  Their  victory  over 
the  presidential  electoral  college  thus  acquired  new  importance.4 

There  was  another  struggle  over  the  President's  powers.  The  Third  Repub- 
lic had  made  him  both  formal  chief  of  the  state  and  nominal  head  of  the 
executive,  but  had  robbed  him  of  prestige  by  subjecting  him  to  nomination  by 
Parliament,  and  of  power  by  requiring  a  ministerial  countersignature  for 
everything  he  did.  An  adroit  President  could  aifect  domestic  affairs  by  skill  in 
picking  prime  ministers,  and  foreign  policy  by  advice  to  which  his  status, 
experience  and  long  tenure  gave  weight.  But  his  paper  authority  far  exceeded 
his  real  influence.  The  makers  of  the  Fourth  Republic  set  out  to  correct  this 
discrepancy. 

The  President  was  still  to  sign  treaties,  receive  ambassadors,  remain  nominal 
commander-in-chief  and  preside  over  the  National  Defence  Council.  He  took 
the  chair  in  the  cabinet,  and  was  to  keep  its  minutes  (a  politically  crucial 
innovation  in  France  as  in  Britain).6  High  officers  and  officials  were  appointed 
by  him  in  a  cabinet  meeting.  He  kept  some  prerogatives  which  had  lain  dor- 
mant in  the  Third  Republic:  the  right  to  address  messages  to  Parliament, 
which  was  to  prove  unexpectedly  important  in  1958,  and  to  refer  bills  back 
for  a  second  deliberation,  which  was  soon  found  very  useful.  No  bill  was  ever 
referred  back  in  the  Third  Republic,  but  a  dozen  were  under  the  provisional 
government  (where  there  was  no  revising  chamber,  and  no  risk  of  friction 
when  the  premier  was  himself  acting  head  of  the  state),  and  a  dozen  more  in 
the  Fourth  Republic.6 

The  President  granted  pardons  in  the  High  Council  of  the  Judiciary,  a  new 
body  over  which  he  presided  and  of  which  he  chose  two  members  out  of 

3.  The  Left  had  feared  that  a  secret  ballot  would  help  de  Gaulle  to  win  by  allowing  their  mem- 
bers to  break  party  discipline,  as  they  had  done  in  the  past.  They  wanted  to  require  a  two-thirds 
majority  (or  three-fifths  from  the  fourth  ballot).  The  Right  would  have  liked  half,  and  the  Gaullists 
a  large  majority,  of  the  electoral  college  to  be  non-parliamentary. 

4.  See  below,  p.  277  (and  cf.  n.  29).  Even  without  the  change  the  two  houses  would  have  differed 
politically  once  they  were  elected  at  different  times ;  but  it  was  the  first  election  which  might  have 
installed  de  Gaulle. 

5.  He  presided  at  the  conseil  des  ministres  but  not  the  conseil  de  cabinet,  at  which  the  premier 
took  the  chair  and  junior  ministers  attended;  it  met  rarely  in  the  Fourth  Republic,  except  under 
Mendes-France.  See  F.  de  Baecque  (who  was  on  Coty's  staff)  in  Les  Institutions  politiques  de  la 
France  (henceforth  cited  as  Institutions},  i.  201,  234-8,  264-5;  Arn6,  Le  President  du  conseil, 
pp.  77-9,  90-1 ;  Drago,  no.  76;  on  minutes  also  Dansette,  Presidents,  p.  324,  Siegfried,  De  la  IIP, 

6.  See  below,  pp.  198  (appointments),  203  (messages),  200  (bills  referred  back);  on  the  pro- 
visional government,  Thery,  p.  66. 


THE  PRESIDENT  AND  THE  CABINET  197 

fourteen.  Together  with,  the  President  of  the  Council  of  the  Republic  he  could 
initiate  the  procedure  for  deciding  whether  a  new  law  was  in  conformity  with 
the  constitution.7  Above  all  he  could  nominate  candidates  for  the  premiership, 
and  not  merely  (as  in  the  first  draft  constitution)  transmit  possible  names  to 
the  President  of  the  Assembly.  But  since  almost  all  his  other  acts  needed  a 
ministerial  countersignature,  he  seemed  to  have  gained  more  in  formal  status 
than  in  real  power.8 

2.  VINCENT  AURIOL 

The  constitution-makers  failed  to  weaken  the  Presidency;  instead  its  influence 
increased,  thanks  to  the  vigour  and  determination  of  the  first  incumbent  -  who 
had  once  advocated  abolishing  the  office  he  was  to  fill  so  successfully.9  Vincent 
Auriol,  the  first  Socialist  President,  had  entered  the  Chamber  in  1910,  served 
under  Blum  as  minister  of  finance  in  1936,  and  voted  against  Marshal  P6tain 
in  1940.  While  interned  by  Vichy  he  sketched  proposals  for  constitutional 
reform  which  'the  constitution  of  the  Fourth  Republic  followed  more  closely 
than  any  French  constitution  had  ever  followed  a  theoretical  work'.10  At 
Algiers  in  1943  he  became  the  chief  mediator  between  General  de  Gaulle  and 
the  politicians,  and  after  the  return  to  France  he  was  President  of  both  Con- 
stituent Assemblies  and  acted  as  unofficial  President  of  the  Republic  in  minis- 
terial crises.  In  the  interminable  conflicts  of  constitution-making  he  was  a 
tireless  producer  of  compromise  solutions.11  It  was  appropriate  that  the  man 
most  responsible  for  the  conception  and  delivery  of  the  new  Republic's  con- 
stitution should  become  its  first  official  head. 

More  unexpected  was  the  position  he  built  up,  unlike  any  previous  Presi- 
dent, as  the  most  influential  personality  in  France.  An  astute  and  gregarious 
southerner,  Auriol  was  at  his  best  in  managing  the  parliamentarians,  whom 
he  understood  and  esteemed.  The  multiplicity  and  weakness  of  the  parties  and 
the  inexperience  of  the  new  leaders  gave  Mm  advantages  which  he  neither 
abused  nor  neglected.  Disliking  some  of  the  policies  and  personalities  of  his 
old  party,  he  developed  into  a  'governmental  Radical';  and  without  flouting 
the  proprieties  he  emerged  as  a  vigorous  public  defender  of  French  interests 
abroad  and  the  Fourth  Republic  at  home: 

Above  the  ministers,  urging  one  on  and  blocking  another,  having  his  favourites  and 
often  choosing  them  badly,  advancing  easily  through  the  parliamentary  jungle, 
striving  as  if  he  revelled  in  the  task  to  find  a  compromise  between  men,  parties,  bills 
or  programmes ;  involving  himself  in  public  affairs  beyond  his  constitutional  powers, 
creating  a  presidency  to  his  own  measure,  on  occasion  relieving  a  minister  of  a 

7.  See  below,  pp.  299,  305.  Le  droit  de  grdce  covers  reprieves  and  commutations  as  well 
as  pardons  stricto  sensu.  • 

8.  No  countersignature  was  needed  for  these  nominations,  which  were  not  effective  until 
approved  by  the  Assembly:  ThSry,  p.  Ill,  Fabre,  no.  88,  p.  197n.,  Arne",  p.  44;  nor  for  some  of 
his  acts  as  chairman  of  the  High  Council  of  the  Judiciary  and  Constitutional  Committee  and  as 
President  of  the  French  Union :  see  p.  199  below  and  nn.  15, 17, 19. 

9.  Auriol,  ii.  234ff.  Similarly  Jules  Gr6vy,  twice  President  of  the  Third  Republic,  had  in  1848 
proposed  a  republic  without  a  president.  For  Auriol's  term  see  Dansette,  Presidents,  Chapter  16 ; 
Arne,  pp.  67-8,  76-7,  81-2 ;  Pickles,  no.  176 ;  Merle,  no.  158. 

10.  Priouret,  Partis,  p.  45 ;  and  see  above,  p.  109n. 

11.  Wright,  Reshaping,  pp.  151-216  passim. 


198  THE  INSTITUTIONS 

difficult  file  or  bombarding  him  with  a  technical  note,  bullying  officials,  presiding, 
travelling,  proclaiming,  talking  a  great  deal,  listening  less  often,  the  chief  of  state  : 
M.  Auriol.12 

As  a  chairman  who  was  more  informed  and  experienced  than  the  ministers, 
he  could  play  a  major  part  in  cabinet  debate.  One  observer  records  a  foreign 
policy  discussion  which  President  Auriol  concluded  by  turning  to  the  silent 
prime  minister  to  ask  his  views;  another  says  it  was  occasionally  hard  to  tell 
where  presidential  advice  ended  and  ministerial  decision  began.  A  minister 
notes,  'his  natural  dynamism  sometimes  overcame  his  perfect  courtesy'.  In 
January  1950  it  was  the  President  who  insisted  that  the  government  must  act 
against  Communist  sabotage  of  national  defence  and  the  Indo-China  war.  On 
all  major  appointments  his  advice  had  to  be  heard,  and  in  practice  he  generally 
enjoyed  a  veto.  Outside  the  cabinet  room  he  had  ample  opportunity  to 
influence  individuals,  delegations  and  audiences.13 

His  views  carried  most  weight  in  the  traditionally  presidential  fields  of 
foreign  affairs  and  defence.  In  the  Fourth  Republic,  unlike  the  Third  at  times, 
the  President  had  full  access  to  all  diplomatic  documents.  He  was  chairman 
of  the  National  Defence  Council,  a  consultative  body  which  met  rarely,  and 
of  the  defence  committee  of  ministers  and  soldiers;  and  he  gained  unexpected 
influence  simply  by  continuing  in  office  through  the  frequent  changes  in  the 
premiership  and  defence  ministry  and  the  many  reorganizations  of  the  defence 
departments.  Auriol  used  foreign  visits,  like  that  to  the  United  States  in  April 
1951,  for  a  vigorous  public  and  private  presentation  of  the  French  case.  He 
did  not  conceal  his  opposition  to  German  rearmament  and  his  irritation  with 
America  for  supporting  it.  And  he  was  violently  attacked  by  Communists  for 
denouncing  the  Cominform's  subversive  activities,  defending  the  Atlantic 
pact,  condemning  the  'iron  curtain'  and  advocating  effectively  controlled  dis- 
armament. In  a  vigorous  defence  of  his  conception  of  the  office,  Auriol 
refused  to  become  a  silent  figurehead  and  argued  for  a  'moral  magistracy' 
entitled  to  advise,  warn  and  conciliate;  impartiality  was  not  indifference, 
'Never',  a  perspicacious  observer  of  his  conduct  had  written  early  in  his 
term,  'would  the  Third  Republic  have  tolerated  a  First  Magistrate  departing 
so  far  from  his  position  of  arbiter.'14 

Auriol  was  particularly  active  in  two  fields  where  he  enjoyed  specific 
constitutional  authority:  the  imperial  and  the  judicial.  'Beyond  the  vicissi- 
tudes of  ministries/  wrote  Dansette,  there  was  'an  filysde  policy  of  the  French 
Union'.  Though  Auriol  was  a  Socialist,  and  was  later  to  oppose  Guy  Mollet 
over  Algeria,  this  policy  was  not  always  particularly  liberal.  Nor  was  it 

12.  Fauvet,  11",  p.  130.  See  also  Dumaine,  pp.  190,  515;  Merle,  no.  158,  p.  295;  Dansette, 
Presidents,  pp.  267-8  ('most  influential'),  325  ('Radical'). 

13.  Ibid.,  pp.  267-8  (silent  premier);  Bertrand,  Les  techniques  du  travail  gouvernemental,  p.  37 
(advice  and  decision) ;  AP  1950,  p.  9  (Indo-China) ;  Siegfried,  De  la  Hle,  p.  230,  Goguel,  Rtgime, 
p.  52,  and  Georgel,  i.  91-2  (appointments);  Dumaine,  p.  157  (delegations);  Arne,  pp.  71,  74-7, 
81-3,  137.  Auriol  failed  in  an  epic  struggle  with  Robert  Schuman  over  one  appointment  (of  a 
cultural  director  at  the  Quai  d'Orsay):  Grosser,  pp.  44-5.  'Dynamism':  Buron,  p.  223. 

14.  Dumaine,  p.  190.  See  also  Suel,  no,  206 ;  Grosser,  pp.  44-6 ;  Arne,  pp.  68,  84-2 ;  Baecque  in 
Institutions,  i.  196-8;  Goguel,  Regime,  p.  51;  Merle,  no.  158,  pp.  300-1;  AP  1951,  pp.  291-2, 
669.  'Moral  magistracy' :  Dansette,  Presidents,  p.  270;  Georgel,  i.  88-9;  Pickles,  no.  176,  p.  Ill ; 
Ara6,  p.  68 ;  Drago,  no.  76,  p.  167. 


THE  PRESIDENT  AND  THE  CABINET  199 

invariably  decisive,  but  it  was  actively  pursued,  especially  in  his  later  years. 
Auriol's  talks  with  the  ex-emperor  Bao  Dai  over  Vietnamese  independence  in 
1949  were  described  as  the  most  personal  presidential  conduct  of  a  negotiation 
for  decades,  and  three  years  later  he  received  the  same  sovereign  alone  in  the 
absence  of  the  responsible  minister,  Jean  Letourneau.  He  dispensed  with 
ministerial  countersignature  for  his  later  letters  to  other  heads  of  state,  in- 
cluding the  monarchs  of  the  protectorates ;  and  in  the  Tunisian  crisis  of  March 
1952  he  both  proposed  and  drafted  an  important  letter  to  the  Bey.15 

His  second  special  interest  was  the  administration  of  justice.  The  committee 
on  the  first  draft  constitution  had  reached  unwonted  unanimity  in  assigning 
to  the  head  of  the  state  the  presidency  of  the  new  High  Council  of  the  Judiciary. 
Within  it,  he  had  a  casting  vote  on  disciplinary  matters  and  a  virtual  veto  on 
judicial  appointments  and  promotions.  President  Auriol  watched  carefully 
over  the  High  Council's  development,  which  was  difficult  both  because  the 
ministry  of  justice  resented  being  partly  superseded  by  the  Council,  and  be- 
cause some  governments  brought  pressure  on  it  over  specific  cases.  His  sup- 
port was  indispensable  to  its  independence.  In  April  1950,  for  example,  when 
the  cabinet  wished  to  discuss  the  acquittals  of  accused  Communists,  the  Presi- 
dent insisted  that  these  were  matters  for  the  High  Council  alone.  Occasionally 
he  took  bolder  action,  as  in  October  1948  when  he  intervened  both  with  the 
High  Council  and  the  senior  judges  to  urge  rigour  in  applying  the  laws  against 
speculation  in  foodstuffs.16 

In  1946  the  Communists  had  tried  unsuccessfully  to  deprive  the  President 
of  the  right  of  pardon,  which  at  that  time  (as  later  in  the  Fifth  Republic)  had 
great  political  importance.  The  first  draft  constitution  transferred  this  right  to 
the  High  Council;  the  second  provided  that  the  President  should  exercise  it  in 
that  body.  In  practice  he  was  bound  neither  by  the  ministerial  countersigna- 
ture, which  was  automatic,  nor  by  the  High  Council's  views.  While  he  always 
followed  these  in  lesser  cases,  reprieve  from  a  death  sentence  was  recognized 
as  his  personal  prerogative;  he  commuted  two-thirds  of  those  passed  between 
1948  and  1953.  Auriol  was  to  use  the  right  of  pardon  very  liberally  in  amnesty- 
ing minor  offenders  from  the  occupation  period  and  correcting  the  sharp  dis- 
crepancies in  sentences  awarded  by  different  courts  and  at  different  dates.  He 
used  it  also  in  one  major  political  case  to  reprieve  the  Malagasy  deputies 
implicated  in  the  rising  of  1947.  Like  de  Gaulle  he  took  these  duties  very 
seriously;  they  were  estimated  to  occupy  a  third  of  his  time,  and  he  called 
them  *  my  most  onerous  responsibility  ',17 

15.  'filysSe  policy' :  Dansette,  Presidents,  pp.  325-6 ;  qualifications  in  Grosser,  p.  47.  Bao  Dai : 
ibid   p.  46,  for  1952  and  Berlia,  no.  13b,  pp.  910-1,  for  1949.  Countersignature :  ibid. ;  Institutions, 
i.  205,  210;  Merle,  no.  158,  p.  301 ;  but  cf.  Arne,  pp.  72,  73n.  It  was  clearly  not  required  for  ap- 
pointments to  his  own  cabinet  or  to  the  new  French  Union  secretariat,  headed  by  a  Moslem 
Algerian  prefect,  which  he  set  up  in  March  1952.  On  Auriol's  Indo-China  policy  see  Fauvet, 
IVe,  pp.  253,  255.  ,-..,- 

16.  On  the  High  Council  see  below,  pp.  293-4;  also  Institutions,  i.  206  (discipline  and  appoint- 
ments), 210  (countersignature);  Arne,  pp.  76-7;  AP  1950,  p.  76,  and  Monde,  24  April  1950 
(Communists);  ibid.,  16  October  1948  (speculation). 

17.  ]  

i.  196, 


fast  Constituent  Assembly^  cited  as  SCCT),  p.  124.  Malagasies :  see  below,  p.  211  (but  even 
v  [over 


200  THE  INSTITUTIONS 

These  functions  were  conferred  on  the  President  because  he  was  supposed 
to  stand  above  party  quarrels  and  watch  over  the  permanent  interests  of  the 
state.  Similarly  he  was  the  natural  spokesman  in  a  national  emergency,  and  in 
1947  he  presided  over  a  committee,  representing  every  party  and  religious 
denomination,  which  appealed  to  the  peasants  to  send  wheat  quickly  to  the 
hungry  towns.18  His  services  could  be  called  upon  in  a  constitutional  dead- 
lock, and  he  was  chairman  of  the  new  Constitutional  Committee  which 
decided  whether  a  newly-voted  law  infringed  the  constitution.19  Paul  Coste- 
Floret,  rapporteur  of  the  second  Constituent  Assembly,  described  him  as 
'guardian  of  the  constitution'.20 

In  this  unwritten  role  Auriol  always  acted  circumspectly.  He  never  used  his 
right  to  send  special  messages  to  Parliament.21  He  refused  to  intervene  during 
the  1947  strikes,  when  CGT  asked  him  to  refer  back  to  Parliament  the  drastic 
public  order  bill  which  had  just  been  voted  against  furious  Communist 
obstruction;  in  January  1948,  when  the  Communists  objected  to  the  allocation 
of  vice-presidencies  in  the  Assembly;  and  in  July  1949,  when  Herriot  as  its 
President  protested  against  alleged  unconstitutional  behaviour  by  the  second 
chamber.22  Although  Coste-Floret  had  spoken  of  his  right  to  refer  bills  back 
for  a  second  deliberation  as  'fundamental',  Auriol  knew  that  its  abuse  might 
merely  provoke  the  Assembly  to  reassert  its  own  view  and  so  damage  the 
prestige  of  the  presidency.  He  found  it  a  useful  way  out  of  political  difficulties, 
notably  to  resolve  two  conflicts  between  the  houses  (once  at  the  request  of  the 
Constitutional  Committee  and  once  as  an  alternative  to  it).  But  both  he  and 
his  successor  were  wary  of  using  it  on  matters  of  political  controversy.23 

While  Auriol  did  not  try  to  extend  his  powers  for  the  benefit  of  his  office  or 
his  party,  he  did  employ  all  his  personal  and  constitutional  influence  on  behalf 
of  the  parliamentary  Republic  which  he  believed  he  had  been  elected  to 
defend.  In  1947  he  encouraged  (if  he  did  not  suggest)  Ramadier's  dismissal  of 
his  Communist  ministers.  At  the  height  of  the  Gaullist  challenge  he  emerged 
both  publicly  and  privately  as  the  leader  of  the  Third  Force,  denouncing 
RPF's  agitation  for  new  elections  as  fatal  to  political  stability,  insisting  that  in 
a  republican  constitution  ministers  must  be  responsible  to  Parliament,  and 
encouraging  conservative  politicians  to  split  the  attacking  forces.24  Whenever 

Auriol  could  not  overcome  proconsular  arrogance,  and  the  leading  witness  was  deliberately 
executed  before  the  reprieve  could  arrive:  Grosser,  p.  47).  Two-thirds:  Pickles,  no.  176,  p.  112 
(624  out  of  988).  'Most  onerous' :  Auriol  to  Figaro,  9  December  1953,  quoted  ibid. 

18.  AP  1947,  p.  104;  Arne",  p.  81. 

19.  See  below,  pp.  305-6.  He  needed  no  countersignature  to  summon  it  or  sign  its  minutes,  but 
did  to  inform  the  Assembly  of  its  decision :  Soulier,  no.  203,  p.  213. 

20.  JO  20  August  1946,  pp.  3187-8  (quoted  Arne",  pp.  57,  66). 

21.  Below,  p.  203.  All  Presidents  sent  an  inaugural  message. 

22.  Pickles,  no.  176,  p.  109 ;  also  AP  1947,  p.  243  and  Arne,  p.  80  (CGT;  the  non-Communists 
supported  the  appeal);  below,  pp.  237  (Communists),  281  (Herriot). 

23.  It  was  proposed  by  the  government  (Baecque  in  Institutions,  i.  207)  and  ministers  had  to 
countersign:  Soulier,  no.  203,  p.  213,  and  Drago,  no.  75,  p.  405.  Coste-Floret:  JO  13  September 
1946,  p.  3701.  For  the  conflicts  between  the  houses  below,  pp.  305-6.  Eight  bills  were  referred 
back  in  the  first  Parliament,  three  in  the  second  and  one  in  the  third :  Baecque,  loc.  cit.  Only  one 
was  important;  it  was  not  discussed  again  for  four  years  (Arn6,  p.  71,  and  below,  p.  21  In.)  and 
some  never  were:  see  Williams,  p.  177  and  n. 

24.  Communists :  Dumaine,  p.  170;  Siegfried,  De  la  IIIe,  p.  155,  De  la  IVe,  p.  208.  Gaullists: 
at  Quimper  on  31  May  and  at  Bordeaux  on  14  June:  AP  1948,  pp.  332-3 ;  Arn6,  pp.  67,  81-2; 
below,  p.  433. 


THE  PRESIDENT  AND  THE  CABINET  201 

a  government  fell  it  was  his  duty  to  find  a  new  premier  who  could  command  a 
majority;  and  Auriol  probably  had  more  success  in  getting  the  man  he 
wanted  than  any  other  President.  In  November  1947  he  chose  a  leader  of 
MRP,  which  had  just  suffered  a  catastrophic  electoral  defeat;  in  July  1948  he 
announced  the  designation  of  Andr6  Marie  in  a  statement  which  committed 
the  nominee  to  a  specific  political  programme,  and  he  persuaded  SFIO  to 
reverse  its  decision  not  to  join  the  government.  Repeatedly  he  protected  'his' 
majority  by  refusing  the  resignation  of  a  cabinet  or  putting  pressure  on  the 
parties,  especially  his  own.  In  1952  he  put  forward  Pinay,  who  split  RPF  ;  and 
in  his  last  long  crisis,  in  1953,  he  incurred  severe  criticism  both  by  his  choice  of 
candidates  and  by  his  unprecedented  communiques  urging  Socialists  and 
Gaullists  to  refrain  from  wrecking  tactics:  'veritable  appeals  to  public 
opinion  '  over  the  heads  of  the  angry  and  resentful  parties.25 

Communists  and  -  ironically  -  Gaullists  accused  him  of  breaking  the  tradi- 
tion of  a  non-controversial  presidency,  condemned  him  for  behaving  as  the 
leader  of  the  System  and  not  of  the  nation,  and  vented  their  resentment  by  a 
disreputable  slander  campaign  against  his  family  and  associates.  The  other 
parties,  including  his  own,  attacked  him  for  interventions  which  they  found 
inconvenient.  But  admirers  could  claim  that  'Auriol  was  a  great  President  of 
the  Republic;  no  President  of  the  Third  Republic  participated  so  directly  and 
so  effectively  in  the  life  of  the  state'.26 

3.  RENE  COTY 

Vincent  Auriol's  tenure  of  the  Presidency  won  him  great  popularity  in  the 
country,  raised  the  status  of  the  office,  led  to  an  unprecedented  struggle  for  an 
unexpectedly  desirable  succession  -  and  damaged  his  own  hopes  of  winning  a 
second  term  from  politicians  suspicious  of  men  with  extra-parliamentary 
reputations.  Moreover,  his  handling  of  his  last  ministerial  crisis  had  offended 
MRP,  Gaullists,  Mendesists  and  SFIO;  the  Socialists  did  propose  his  re- 
election to  break  a  deadlock,  but  they  found  no  support  at  all.27 

The  'parliamentary  congress'  which  elected  Auriol  in  1946  had  been 
governed  by  conventional  rules:  personal  voting  without  proxies,  secret 
ballot,  an  absolute  majority  required  for  victory.  Two  weeks  before  the  new 
election  these  arrangements  were  passed  into  law,  notwithstanding  warnings 
that  an  absolute  majority  might  prove  hard  to  find.  It  did.  Thirteen  of  the 
seventeen  previous  contests  had  been  settled  on  the  first  round  and  four  on 
the  second;  that  of  December  1953  took  13  ballots.  The  successful  candidate 
was  in  the  Third  Republican  tradition,  unknown  to  the  public  but  esteemed  in 
Parliament;  many  of  his  predecessors  had  presided  over  the  upper  house,  of 
which  he  was  senior  vice-president.  He  was  personally  so  modest  that  he 
brought  no  tail-coat  to  Versailles  on  the  day  of  his  election,  and  politically 

25.  Fabre,  no.  88,  p.  211  ('more  success*);  Dansette,  Presidents  pp.  269  CapP«*O,  324;. 
Merle,  no  158,  pp.  296-9  ;  Georgel,  i.  94-6;  Arne,  pp.  45-6,  98-9;  Fauvet,  pp.  23  6f.,  Williams, 


2  P.  42  ;  of.  Roche,  no.  193a,  p.  4  ;  Pickles,  no.  176,  p.  108  : 

•o^ofto^^ 

by  his  attack  on  the  Fifth  Republic  ('where  there  are  no  ministerial  crises  there  is  no  liberty  )  . 

^  27  .9See  below!  p.  416,  and  Williams,  p.  413  (crisis)  ;  Melnik  and  Leites,  pp.  177-9  (re-election). 


202  THE  INSTITUTIONS 

inoffensive,  since  he  had  never  been  a  controversial  figure  and  had  been  ill 
during  the  bitter  EDC  debates.28  Once  again  the  senators  seemed  to  have 
swayed  the  decision  in  favour  of  a  moderate  conservative  from  their  own 
ranks.29 

As  an  unobtrusive  conservative  in  the  old  tradition,  Ren6  Coty's  conception 
of  his  office  differed  from  his  predecessor's.  He  considered  he  had  a  duty  to 
express  the  feelings  of  the  great  majority  of  Frenchmen,  but  had  no  right  to 
speak  publicly  on  questions  within  the  province  of  Parliament.  Enunciating 
only  governmental  policies,  he  put  forward  no  personal  views  except  to 
demand  constitutional  reform  which  was  (in  theory)  common  ground  among 
supporters  of  the  regime.  In  cabinet  he  appears  to  have  participated  actively, 
speaking  less  briefly  and  forcefully  than  Auriol.  In  ministerial  crises  he  did  not 
fight  for  his  own  preferences.  The  pro-European  Conservative  President  re- 
sumed consultations  with  the  Communist  leaders  whom  his  Socialist  pre- 
decessor had  recently  refused  to  see ;  and  instead  of  indulging  his  personal 
preference  for  cautious  and  comfortable  senior  politicians,  he  had  instead  to 
bring  to  the  front  a  new  political  generation.30 

He  was  also  less  active  in  the  imperial  and  judicial  fields  that  had  attracted 
Auriol.  In  1949  negotiations  with  Bao  Dai  were  conducted  by  the  President, 
in  1954  by  the  government.  In  accord  with  successive  ministries  Coty  spoke 
out  repeatedly  against  'sacrificing  a  new  Alsace-Lorraine  across  the  Mediter- 
ranean'; and  throughout  the  Algerian  war  notorious  judicial  abuses  met 
from  an  filys6e  preoccupied  with  the  immediate  problem  of  the  army's  loyalty 
only  a  'heavy  and  oppressive  silence  [which]  has  contributed  to  the  dissolu- 
tion of  the  state'.  Yet  it  was  under  this  conscientious,  conventional,  self- 
effacing  President  that  the  first  dissolution  for  nearly  eighty  years  took  place, 
and  in  his  final  crisis  he  was  to  display  a  more  audacious  and  controversial 
initiative  than  any  of  his  predecessors.31 

In  his  inaugural  message  President  Coty  had  paid  a  warm  tribute  to  Charles 
de  Gaulle.  As  early  as  1954  he  made  contact  privately  with  the  General,  and  as 
the  Fourth  Republic's  crisis  developed  he  came  increasingly  to  believe  that 
the  way  out  lay  through  Colombey-les-Deux-£glises.  Early  in  May  1958  he 
secretly  approached  de  Gaulle,  who  refused  to  appear  before  the  Assembly  as  a 
candidate  for  the  premiership.  But  the  circumstances  soon  changed  dramatic- 
ally. On  14  May  the  President  vainly  ordered  the  army  in  Algeria  to  obey  the 
legal  government;  on  the  29th,  believing  that  an  airborne  invasion  from 
Algiers  was  imminent  and  that  only  one  man  could  avert  civil  war,  he  informed 
Parliament  by  message  that  he  was  sending  for  de  Gaulle,  and  that  if  the 

28.  For  Coty's  personality,  R.  Triboulet,  Monde,  28  November  1962;  and  Melnik  and  Leites, 
pp.  251,  262,  272-3,  277,  280  (no  tail-coat).  Though  his  name  was  never  canvassed  publicly,  he 
was  so  classic  a  candidate  that  M.  Goguel  had  privately  predicted  his  success:  ibid.,  p.  283. 

29.  Radical  deputies  preferred  a  Socialist,  Radical  senators  a  right-wing  colleague:  ibid., 
p.  175;  cf.  Institutions,  i.  214.  Auriol,  the  only  left-wing  President,  had  been  chosen  at  the  one 
moment  when  the  upper  house  was  not  biased  against  the  Left  by  its  electoral  system :  Duverger, 
VP,  p.  101  (cf.  above,  p.  196;  below,  pp.  277,  289).  On  the  politics  of  Coty's  election  see  above, 
pp.  41-2. 

30  Dansette,  Presidents,  pp.  335-40,  AP  1955,  pp.  598,  600  (presidential  statements);  Arn6, 
pp.  45-6,  55-6,  76n.  ('forcefully'),  236  and  n. ;  above,  p.  13  and  below,  p.  416. 

31  Bao  Dai:  see  n.  15.  'Silence':  Duverger,  Remain,  p.  117.  Algeria:  AP  1957,  pp.  544-5, 
cf.  1955,  pp.  598-9,  1956,  p.  480,  and  Arn6,  p.  83.  Dissolution:  below,  pp.  238-9. 


THE  PRESIDENT  AND  THE  CABINET  203 

deputies  rejected  his  nomination  he  would  resign.  Andre  Le  Troquer,  Presi- 
dent of  the  Assembly,  would  then  become  acting  President  of  the  Republic  and 
presumably  send  for  an  anti-Gaullist  leader  to  form  a  Popular  Front  govern- 
ment.32 

The  presidential  right  of  message,  authorized  by  Article  36  of  the  consti- 
tution, had  seemed  such  a  dead  letter  that  only  two  years  earlier  Andre"  Sieg- 
fried had  thought  it  unlikely  to  be  invoked  even  in  the  gravest  of  crises.33  Only 
Millerand  in  1924  had  ever  used  it  for  a  political  purpose,  and  he  was  to 
resign  within  forty-eight  hours.  But  now  a  President,  though  not  responsible 
to  Parliament,  was  threatening  resignation  as  a  political  weapon.  He  could 
justly  claim  that  by  doing  so  he  was  offering  the  Assembly  a  choice  of  alter- 
native policies.  But  constitutionally  his  action  (like  the  circumstances)  was 
unprecedented ;  rightly  or  wrongly  it  was  resented  as  illegitimate,  especially  by 
the  Socialists  without  whose  votes  de  Gaulle  could  not  be  elected;  and  there- 
fore politically  it  was  a  blunder  which  harmed  the  General's  chances.  It  was 
only  after  reading  an  exchange  of  letters  between  Auriol  and  de  Gaulle  that 
many  Socialist  deputies  came  round.34 

After  the  General's  election  as  premier  Coty  remained  President  for  seven 
months,  but  at  the  end  of  1958  he  retired  two  years  before  the  normal  end  of 
his  term.  Describing  himself  soon  after  his  election  as '  still  a  counsellor  of  the 
Republic',  he  had  exercised  less  influence  than  Auriol  though  more  than  many 
of  his  predecessors  before  1940.  He  preferred  instead  'a  moral  magistracy  in 
which  Frenchmen  of  all  views  could  see  themselves',  and  he  was  rewarded  by 
unexampled  popularity.35 

4.  THE  PREMIER  AND  THE  CABINET 

The  presidency,  at  least  under  Auriol,  had  developed  potentialities  which  the 
constitution-makers  had  not  expected.  The  premiership  failed  to  fulfil  their 
hopes  of  real  executive  leadership.  Following  Blum  in  1919,  they  looked  for- 
ward to  stronger  parties  which  would  enable  a  united  government  to  com- 
mand the  support  of  a  coherent  parliamentary  majority ;  then  the  prime  minis- 
ter could  lead  both  executive  and  legislature  in  pursuit  of  common  purposes. 
But  they  hoped  that  the  prestige  and  power  he  would  need  could  be  conferred 
on  his  office  without  waiting  for  the  slow  growth  of  an  effective  party  system. 
Blum  wished  to  bring  the  French  system  nearer  to  the  British ;  and  by  strength- 
ening the  lower  house  against  the  upper  and  the  premier  against  the  President, 
the  framers  of  the  constitution  were  consciously  pursuing  the  same  objective.36 

32.  The  April  1946  draft  constitution  would  have  given  Le  Troquer  a  veto,  for  under  it  messages 
needed  the  prior  consent  of  both  the  premier  and  the  President  of  the  Assembly :  Institutions, 
i.  207,  Thery,  p.  62.  Coty's  message  was  countersigned  by  Pflimlin  and  Lecourt,  MRP  minister  of 
justice,  to  authenticate  the  signature:  J.  R.  Tournoux,  Secrets  d'Etat  (1960),  p.  388n.  For  Coty's 
earlier  dealings  with  de  Gaulle  see  ibid.,  pp.  85,  242-5 ;  Fauvet,  IVe,  p.  345 ;  Dansette,  Presidents, 
pp.  340-1.  His  inaugural  message  is  in  AP  1954,  pp.  51-8. 

33.  De  la  IIP,  pp.  230-1. 

34.  Text  of  the  letters  and  of  Coty's  message  in  AP  1958,  pp.  538-40,  cf.  Arne,  pp.  68-9 ;  for 
the  parliamentary  reactions  see  Williams,  no.  220,  p.  38  and  Dansette,  Presidents,  pp.  342-5. 

35.  Ibid.,  pp.  330,  357;  Grosser,  p.  48  ('moral  magistracy');  Arn6,  p.  68,  and  Berlia,  no.  13b, 
p.  910  (*  counsellor ');  cf.  above,  pp.  55-6.  _        . 

36.  *  Our  aim  has  been  to  create  a  real  head  of  the  government,  a  prime  minister  in  the  English 
sense  of  the  term' :  P.  Coste-Floret,  JO  5  September  1946,  p.  3552.  Cf.  Blum,  pp.  151-3. 

H* 


204  THE  INSTITUTIONS 

The  title  of  president  du  conseil  had  never  been  mentioned  in  previous  con- 
stitutions; it  appeared  fourteen  times  in  that  of  the  Fourth  Republic.37  He 
alone  was  chosen  by  the  representatives  of  the  people,  and  other  ministers 
were  appointed  by  him  under  Article  46.  A  series  of  articles  asserted  his 
political,  legislative  and  executive  supremacy  as  Blum  had  demanded  in  1919.38 
In  the  Third  Republic  a  government  could  be  destroyed  by  the  rashness  of  a 
subordinate,  since  any  minister  could  make  a  matter  a  question  of  confidence; 
now  Article  49  reserved  this  right  to  the  prime  minister  alone.  Under  Article 
14  every  government  bill  had  to  bear  his  signature.  Article  38,  enacting  past 
practice,  required  two  ministers  to  countersign  the  acts  of  the  President  of  the 
Republic;  the  prime  minister  had  now  to  be  one  of  them,  though  this  intended 
source  of  strength  carried  an  additional  responsibility  which  might  prove 
inconvenient.39 

Article  47  specified  that  the  prime  minister  was  responsible  for  ensuring  the 
execution  of  the  laws,  which  in  the  Third  Republic  had  been  the  duty  of  the 
President  (though  he  needed  a  minister's  countersignature).40  Most  official 
appointments,  but  not  the  most  important  ones,  were  made  by  the  prime 
minister  instead  of  the  President.41  A  third  paragraph  of  Article  47  gave  the 
prime  minister  specific  responsibility  for  defence,  though  after  1948  his  powers 
were  delegated  to  the  defence  minister.42  But  while  the  premier  had  far  more 
legal  authority  than  in  the  Third  Republic,  his  great  powers  were  never 
exercised  alone.43  For  his  acts  under  Articles  38  and  47  he  needed  the 
countersignature  of  another  minister,  and  major  decisions  under  Articles  30, 
49  and  51  (senior  appointments,  seeking  the  Assembly's  confidence,  and  dis- 
solution) had  to  be  settled  in  cabinet  under  the  President  of  the  Republic. 

Perhaps  of  more  practical  importance  than  the  legal  changes  was  the 
creation  of  a  prime  minister's  office.  Blum  had  regarded  this  as  crucial,  since 
without  it  the  premier  must  either  overburden  himself  by  holding  an  extra 
ministry,  or  weaken  himself  by  having  no  departmental  staff.  After  repeated 
changes,  in  1934  Flandin  set  up  an  office  du  president  du  conseil  at  the  Hotel 
Matignon,  and  Blum  strengthened  it  in  1936.44  In  the  Fourth  Republic  a  far 
stronger  department  was  given  permanent  control  of  the  civil  service  and 

37.  The  council  of  ministers  was  mentioned  twice  in  the  1875  constitution  and  five  times  in  that 
of  1946,  which  also  spoke  at  four  points  of  the  cabinet :  Thery,  p.  120. 

38.  Blum,  pp.  62-3. 

39.  In  May  1948  Schuman's  cabinet  was  divided  over  a  decree  issued  by  Mme  Poinso-Chapuis, 
MRP  minister  of  health,  which  indirectly  allowed  church  schools  to  be  subsidized;  as  his  signa- 
ture had  had  to  appear  on  the  decree,  he  was  badly  placed  to  mediate.  Gf.  Th6ry,  p.  59,  on  past 
practice. 

40.  The  highway  code,  instituted  in  1899  by  the  President,  was  revised  in  1954  by  the  premier  : 
Arn6,  p.  148  (cf.  pp.  143-51). 

41.  The  President  in  cabinet  appointed  members  of  the  Conseil  d'&at,  ambassadors,  university 
rectors,  prefects,  generals,  colonial  governors,  and  other  senior  officials  (Art.  30);  judges  were 
named  in  the  High  Council  of  the  Judiciary  (Art.  84) ;  the  prime  minister  chose  his  ministers  under 
Art.  46,  and  made  all  other  appointments  under  Art.  47. 

42.  Ramadier  kept  close  control  over  his  Communist  defence  minister,  but  some  later  ministers 
(notably  Moch)  had  a  very  free  hand.  Cf.  Suel,  no.  206 ;  Institutions,  i.  255-8 ;  Arn6,  pp.  1 14-15, 
136-40.  In  1948  large  powers  for  the  defence  of  West  Africa  were  delegated  to  the  High  Com- 
missioner, but  this  was  attacked  as  unconstitutional :  AP  1948,  p.  224. 

43.  Except  (in  theory)  in  introducing  government  bills  under  Art.  14 ;  Thery,  pp.  87-8, 132.  But 
cf.  Arne,  pp .  170-2. 

44.  Thdry,  pp.  123-4;  Arne,  pp.  28-30,  130-43.  Soulier,  p.  567,  contests  its  importance. 


THE  PRESIDENT  AND  THE  CABINET  205 

temporary  responsibility  for  several  vital  problems.45  But  many  premiers  still 
held  a  major  department  also :  four  took  the  foreign  office,  three  Finance,  two 
Defence  and  one  (twice)  the  Interior.46 

These  four  departments,  together  with  Justice  (traditionally  the  second  post 
in  the  government)  were  recognized  informally  as  the  senior  ministries.  Their 
holders  were  potential  prime  ministers  and  they  could  be  held  by  an  ex- 
premier  without  loss  of  dignity.47  But  above  them  in  the  elaborate  ministerial 
hierarchy  stood  the  two  dignified  ranks  of  vice-premier  (vice-president  du  con- 
seil)  and  senior  minister  without  portfolio  (ministre  d£taf).  A  vice-premier 
was  almost  always  a  leading  figure  in  his  party  and  sometimes,  especially 
under  tripartisme,  he  acted  as  an  *  overlord'  co-ordinating  all  its  ministries;  he 
might  serve  either  without  portfolio  or  in  a  major  office.  But  a  ministre  d'£tat 
had  no  department,  except  under  Mollet ;  generally  he  took  responsibility  for  a 
special  problem  such  as  constitutional  reform,  Council  of  Europe  affairs,  Indo- 
China,  or  Tunisia  and  Morocco.  Next  to  these  senior  ministers  stood  the 
heads  of  ordinary  departmental  offices,  of  which  some  were  ancient  and 
powerful,  others  new  but  well-established,  and  a  few  transient  creations, 
invented  for  parliamentary  rather  than  administrative  advantage. 

From  1920  to  1945  the  creation  or  merger  of  ministries  had  nominally 
required  legal  sanction,  but  under  the  Fourth  Republic  premiers  could  alter 
the  ministerial  structure  at  will  and  often  did.  Usually  they  merely  restored  a 
dormant  ministry  like  Economic  Affairs,  or  created  one  for  a  new  problem, 
like  the  Sahara.  Occasionally  a  once-only  office  was  invented  and  abolished, 
like  Population  in  1946  or  Youth,  Arts  and  Letters  in  1947.  But  a  few  re- 
organizations were  sweeping;  in  1956  Guy  Mollet  suppressed  nine  depart- 
ments and  grouped  six  of  them  under  a  single  minister.  Flexibility  was  in- 
creased by  the  use  of  ministers  of  state  (secretaires  d'Jitat)  to  assist  the  premier, 
replace  a  full  minister  whose  department  had  lost  political  status  but  not 
administrative  identity,  or  take  responsibility  for  a  group  of  services  within  an 
old  ministry;  they  reduced  the  need  for  under-secretaries  (sous-secretaires 
d'fitaf)  of  whom  there  were  few  in  the  Fourth  Republic.  These  two  junior 
offices  provided  both  opportunities  for  training  and  selecting  politicians  on 
their  way  up  to  full  cabinet  rank,  and  patronage  to  attract  marginal  votes  to 
buttress  a  faltering  majority.48 

Despite  constant  complaints  the  ministerial  inflation  was  no  greater  in 

45.  Including  food,  broadcasting,  information  and  atomic  energy :  Arne1,  pp.  129-32 ;  Bertrand, 
Techniques,  and  no.  16,  pp.  435ff. ;  Marcel,  no.  154,  pp.  452-99  (reprinted  in  Institutions,  i.  221-59) ; 
Macridis,  no.  150.  The  premier  also  controlled  SDECE  (see  below,  p.  348). 

46.  Foreign  office:  Bidault  (1946),  Blum,  Schuman  (September  1948),  Mendes-France.  Bidault 
and  Schuman  had  held  it  in  the  preceding  government ;  similarly,  Queuille  kept  the  Interior  on 
becoming  premier  in  1950  and  1951.  Defence:  de  Gaulle  (1944,  1945  and  1958)  and  Gouin. 
Finance :  Queuille  (in  1948  only),  Faure (1952)  and  Pinay.  Cf.  Georgel,  i.  260-4;  Arne,  pp.  89-90. 

47.  See  below,  p.  415.  One  premier  came  from  Transport  (Pinay)  and  one  went  to  Education 
(Marie). 

48.  Mollet:  see  below,  p,  378.  For  the  hierarchy  and  number  of  ministers  of  different 
ranks  see  G.  Galichon  in  Institutions,  i.  261-8 ;  Dogan  and  Campbell,  nos.  72  and  73,  pp.  313-45 
and  793-824;  Arn<§,  pp.  90-3,  101,  104-5.  Secretaires  d'Etat  attended  the  conseil  du  cabinet  (see 
n.  5)  but  not  the  conseil  des  ministres  unless  specially  summoned  (except  for  those  attached  to  the 
premier).  Sous-secretaires  d*£tat  normally  attended  neither.  A  few  premiers  appointed  a  full 
minister  (ministre  deUgue  a  la  presidence  du  conseil)  to  assist  them. 


206  THE  INSTITUTIONS 

France  than  in  Britain.  In  each  country  only  about  a  quarter  of  the  600  mem- 
bers seriously  aspired  to  office,  Though  the  velocity  of  circulation  was  far 
greater  in  France,  the  'fiduciary  issue'  (the  number  of  ministers  surplus  to 
those  whose  intrinsic  worth  creates  public  confidence  in  the  government)  was 
so  much  larger  in  London  that  the  ministerial  masse  monetaire  was  about  the 
same  on  each  side  of  the  Channel.  British  ministries  usually  have  over  seventy 
members,  almost  all  French  ones  had  from  twenty  to  forty  varying  inversely 
with  the  premier's  prestige ;  a  full  minister  of  commerce  or  the  merchant 
marine  was  a  harbinger  of  political  storms.49  While  commentators  were  often 
dismayed  to  find  that  a  third  or  a  quarter  of  the  deputies  (excluding  the 
Communist  or  Poujadist  enemies  of  the  regime)  had  held  ministerial  office, 
this  proportion  was  always  lower  than  in  Britain.  But  while  most  British 
ministrables  from  the  majority  held  office  simultaneously,  French  ones  rotated 
frequently.  The  large  size  of  a  British  ministry  helped  to  keep  the  majority 
together,  while  the  smallness  of  the  French  one  was  a  liability;  for  at  West- 
minster a  quarter  of  the  majority  MP's  were  in  office  at  any  time,  at  the  Palais 
Bourbon  rarely  a  tenth.  Even  in  the  House  of  Commons  the  ex-minister  is  a 
potential  danger,  but  there  he  is  a  rarity,  while  in  the  National  Assembly  ex- 
ministers  always  far  outnumbered  the  holders  of  office.  Politically,  if  not 
administratively,  French  governments  had  far  too  few  members  for  their  own 
good.50 

The  rotation  of  ministers  did  not  prevent  a  surprising  degree  of  continuity. 
In  every  French  Parliament  about  twenty  senior  ministrables  each  served  in 
several  governments.  They  provided  the  core  of  every  cabinet.  Around  them 
clustered  the  newcomers  and  the  transients  who  were  more  numerous  (usually 
about  fifty)  but  often  less  weighty.  The  six  highest  governmental  posts  were 
held  between  1944  and  May  1958  by  48  men  in  Paris,  27  in  London  and  30  in 
Washington.  Over  a  period  of  years  the  new  men  introduced  to  office  by 
French  cabinet  crises  were  no  more  numerous  than  those  brought  in  by 
British  government  reshuffles,  so  that  from  1945  to  1957  there  were  over  half 
as  many  full  cabinet  ministers  in  Britain  as  in  France  (72  against  122)  and  far 
more  including  juniors  (295  against  208).  As  in  a  major  reshuffle  at  West- 
minster, in  an  average  cabinet  change  in  Paris  about  half  the  ministers  kept 
their  old  posts,  half  the  rest  moved  to  new  ones,  and  a  quarter  were  replaced  - 
mostly  by  promoted  ministers  of  state.  When  Clemenceau  was  criticized  for 
overthrowing  so  many  governments  he  had  answered  that  they  were  all  the 
same.  His  successors  could  echo  the  complaint51 

The  difference  between  the  two  countries  was  that  the  British  premier 
could  weather  any  but  the  most  extraordinary  political  tempest  (if  necessary 
by  throwing  his  colleagues  overboard)  while  in  France  the  captain  was  more 
vulnerable  than  the  crew  to  shifts  in  the  parliamentary  wind.  Once  the  brief 

49.  Ramadier  had  most  full  ministers  (26)  when  he  formed  his  cabinet  in  January  1947,  and 
fewest  (12)  after  reconstructing  it  in  October ;  in  1952  Edgar  Faure  had  26  in  his  government  of  40, 
and  in  1957  Bourges-Maunoury  had  46  altogether:  14  full  ministers,  25  ministers  of  state  and 
7  under-secretaries.  Cf.  Georgel,  i,  265-6;  Arn6,  pp.  101  (full  figures),  105 ;  below,  pp.  418-9. 

50.  Below,  pp.  426,  432;  and  Dogan  and  Campbell,  no.  72,  especially  pp.  325-7. 

51.  Ibid.,  especially  pp.  318,  340;  Campbell,  nos.  39-41;  cf.  Williams,  pp.  375-6.  Six  posts 
(named  p.  205) :  my  calculation. 


THE  PRESIDENT  AND  THE  CABINET  207 

episode  of  tripartisme  was  over,  the  political  conditions  familiar  in  the  Third 
Republic  reappeared.  The  premier  escaped  from  bondage  to  three  rigid  par- 
ties, but  could  not  command  loyalty  from  a  majority  made  up  of  several  loose 
ones ;  both  his  cabinet  and  his  parliamentary  support  were  constantly  threat- 
ened by  disruption  through  conflicts  of  personal  ambitions,  party  politics  or 
electoral  interests.  Almost  every  premier  was  worn  down  in  six  months  by  the 
physical  strain  of  shouldering  heavy  executive  responsibilities  while  fighting 
daily  for  parliamentary  survival.52 

Every  possible  legal  text  had  been  provided  to  make  the  prime  minister  a 
real  leader.  But  by  strengthening  his  nominal  powers  the  constitution-makers 
had  transferred  to  him  the  suspicions  which  had  once  been  concentrated  on 
the  presidency.  In  the  Fourth  Republic  as  in  the  Third,  Parliament  chose 
bargainers  and  conciliators  for  the  office  in  which  a  strong  man  might  have 
proved  dangerous ;  and  a  prime  minister  who  wanted  to  act  decisively  could 
be  thwarted  by  the  refusal  of  his  divided  majority,  and  deterred  by  fear  of  the 
deputies'  hostility  to  him  next  time  he  sought  their  votes.  Weak  premiers 
meant  a  weak  premiership,  and  strong  ones  were  rare  because  positive 
leadership  was  at  a  discount.53  The  legal  reforms  did  not  lead  to  the  con- 
stitutional revolution  that  Blum  had  hoped  for,  since  the  expected  revolution 
in  the  party  system  occurred  neither  in  the  country  nor  in  the  National 
Assembly. 

52.  Siegfried,  De  la  III6,  pp.  239-40;  George!,  i.  261  and  n. ;  Arn£,  pp.  112n.,  246.  Significantly 
Mollet,  with  a  strong  party  behind  him,  was  not. 

53.  Soulier,  pp.  565-74,  for  the  Third  Republic ;  below,  Chapters  17,  28  and  30,  for  the  Fourth. 


Chapter  16 

THE  NATIONAL  ASSEMBLY 
(1):  MACHINERY  AND  METHODS 

Under  Article  3  of  the  constitution  the  sovereign  people  delegated  power 
(except  in  constitutional  matters)  to  the  popularly  elected  house  of  Parliament, 
which  was  renamed  National  Assembly  to  denote  its  superiority  over  the 
three  advisory  bodies,  the  Council  of  the  Republic,  Assembly  of  the  French 
Union  and  Economic  Council.  The  Assembly  had  the  final  word  in  passing 
laws,  voting  the  budget  and  supervising  the  government.  Under  Article  45  it 
elected  the  prime  minister,  and  Article  48  made  ministers  responsible  to  it 
individually  and  collectively;  while  the  formal  procedure  for  expressing  con- 
fidence or  censure  was  laid  down  in  Articles  49  and  50,  the  Assembly  exercised 
its  day-to-day  supervision  by  questions  and  interpellations  and  through  its 
committees,  which  were  also  its  main  instruments  in  legislation  and  finance. 
These  primary  functions  are  discussed  in  the  three  following  chapters.1 

The  Assembly  was  also  an  electoral  college.  Under  Article  6  it  could  choose 
by  proportional  representation  up  to  one-sixth  of  the  members  of  the  Council 
of  the  Republic;  this  right  was  fully  exercised  under  the  Council's  original 
electoral  law  in  1946,  but  waived  when  the  system  was  changed  in  1948.2  The 
six  hundred  deputies  and  three  hundred  councillors  of  the  Republic  sat 
together  at  Versailles  to  elect  the  President  of  the  Republic.  The  deputies  for 
France  proper  also  chose  two-thirds  (68)  of  the  metropolitan  councillors  of 
the  French  Union.  Under  Article  83  the  Assembly  chose  nearly  half  the  High 
Council  of  the  Judiciary,  which  advised  the  President  on  pardons ;  under 
Article  19  an  amnesty  to  a  class  of  convicted  persons  could  be  granted  only  by 
law.  The  Assembly  could  impeach  the  President  or  a  minister  before  a  High 
Court  of  Justice  chosen,  under  Article  38,  from  its  own  ranks.  Under  Article 
91  it  elected  a  majority  of  the  Constitutional  Committee.  Constitutional 
amendments  had  to  be  passed  by  a  special  procedure;  unless  it  voted  them 
by  a  two-thirds  majority  they  required  approval  by  the  Council  of  the  Repub- 
lic (and  perhaps  by  a  referendum).  It  had  to  ratify  many  kinds  of  treaty  under 
Article  27,  and  under  Article  28  to  consent  to  their  denunciation.3  Under 
Article  7  the  Assembly  had  to  vote  a  declaration  of  war  and  the  Council  of  the 
Republic  had  to  be  consulted  on  it. 

These  varied  tasks  were  performed  by  a  body  which  had  no  coherent 
political  majority.  The  deputies  would  accept  leadership  neither  from  the 
government  like  the  House  of  Commons,  nor  even  from  their  own  officers  and 
committees  like  the  House  of  Representatives.  Jealously  preserving  their 
control  over  the  arrangement  of  business,  they  used  their  powers  so  fitfully 
and  inconsequentially  that  they  often  frustrated  themselves  as  well  as  their 

1.  On  Parliament,  especially  procedure,  see  Lidderdale,  The  Parliament  of  France,  and  Camp- 
bell, no.  45.  On  prestige  and  titles  see  below,  pp.  280-1,  286n. 

2.  See  below,  p.  279. 

3.  See  below,  pp.  225  (treaties),  298-300  (impeachment,  Judiciary),  302-6  (constitutional). 


NATIONAL  ASSEMBLY  (1):  MACHINERY  AND  METHODS  209 

natural  enemy,  the  executive.  The  standing  orders  of  the  National  Assembly 
were  among  the  institutional  causes  for  the  failings  of  the  regime.  But  the 
rules  survived  because  the  politicians  had  no  common  purpose  to  induce  them 
to  sacrifice  their  personal  freedom  and  prominence.  Fearing  that  strong 
authority  might  reduce  their  own  power  or  damage  causes  they  believed  in, 
they  allowed  parliamentary  procedure  to  be  used  for  obstructive  rather  than 
constructive  purposes.  The  ordinary  Frenchman  was  disillusioned  by  the 
impotence  of  government,  and  in  the  end  the  parliamentarians  who  had  feared 
an  authority  subject  to  their  own  control  found  themselves  subordinated  to 
one  which  they  could  not  influence. 

In  the  Third  Republic  a  Chamber  of  Deputies  had  sat  for  four  years ;  in  the 
Fourth,  a  National  Assembly  sat  for  five.  Under  Article  6  of  the  constitution 
the  term  was  fixed  by  an  ordinary  law.  It  was  not  clear  whether  a  sitting 
Assembly  could  properly  extend  or  shorten  its  own  life,  but  it  could  unques- 
tionably dissolve  itself  by  a  two-thirds  majority,  and  General  de  Gaulle 
urged  this  course  on  the  deputies  in  October  1947  when  he  claimed  that  they 
no  longer  represented  the  country.4  They  rejected  his  advice,  but  on  12  May 
1951  the  first  National  Assembly  did  vote  a  premature  end  to  its  own  life.  The 
second  was  elected  five  months  early,  on  17  June  1951,  and  was  dissolved  by  a 
defeated  premier,  Edgar  Faure,  on  2  December  1955.  The  third  relinquished 
its  power  to  de  Gaulle's  government  on  1  June  1958.5 

1.  MEMBERSHIP 

The  National  Assembly  had  627  members  in  1951,  of  whom  544  represented 
metropolitan  France  (including  Corsica),  30  sat  for  Algerian  constituencies 
and  53  for  overseas  departments  and  territories.6  Deputies  had  to  be  23  years 
old  and  to  have  completed  military  service;  they  might  not  be  serving  officers 
or  have  held  within  the  last  six  months  certain  appointive  positions  of 
authority  within  their  constituency.7  Bankrupts  and  felons  were  ineligible  for 
election;8  so  were  members  of  former  reigning  families,  until  1950,  and 

4.  Constitutional  amendment  required  either  a  two-thirds  majority  in  the  Assembly,  three- 
fifths  in  both  houses,  or  popular  approval  in  a  referendum;  see  below,  p.  302.  The  April  draft 
constitution  had  expressly  provided  for  dissolution  by  a  two-thirds  majority. 

5.  See  below,  pp.  275,  313-14,  315-16.  The  1951  bill  passed  the  Assembly  by  362  to  219  and 
the  upper  house  by  278  to  35,  sufficient  to  carry  a  constitutional  amendment  without  referendum; 
but  that  procedure  required  delay  (see  below,  p.  302)  which  would  have  made  the  bill  pointless. 
It  therefore  went  through  as  an  ordinary  law,  which  terminated  the  powers  of  that  Assembly  on 
.4  July  1951  and  of  future  ones  on  31  May  in  their  fifth  year, 

6.  The  two  Constituent  Assemblies  had  586  members:  522  for  metropolitan,  26  for  Algerian 
and  33  for  overseas  constituencies  (and  5  others  representing  Frenchmen  in  Tunisia  and  Morocco). 
In  June  1946  these  became  544,  30  and  45,  a  total  of  619.  Three  African  members  were  added  in 
1947  and  six  in  1951 ;  one  seat  was  lost  in  1949  and  another  in  1954,  by  the  cession  of  Cochin- 
China  to  Vietnam  and  French  India  to  India.  But  the  1956  Assembly  had  only  596  members,  as  the 
war  prevented  elections  in  Algeria.  Three  overseas  departments  (Guadeloupe,  Martinique  and 
Reunion)  had  three  members  each  and  French  Guiana  had  one.  Fifteen  Algerian  and  five  other 
African  deputies  represented  French  citizens  (almost  all  white  settlers). 

7.  M.  Rastel,  elected  UDSR  member  for  Eure-et-Loir  in  1951,  was  unseated  because  he  had 
resigned  too  late  as  prefect  of  the  department:  Campbell,  no.  43,  p.  70;  L,  Philip,  Les  Contentieux 
des  flections  aux  Assemblies  politiques  frang, aises  (1961),  pp.  39-40. 

8.  The  Assembly  could  expel  deputies  sentenced  after  election;  but  three  Malagasy  members 
convicted  of  sedition,  and  M.  de  R6cy,  convicted  of  fraud,  continued  until  1951  to  count  as  mem- 
bers for  the  purpose  of  reckoning  the  absolute  majority  even  though  they  could  not  vote. 


210  THE  INSTITUTIONS 

persons  sentenced  to  *  national  disgrace '  for  their  wartime  activities,  until  1 953. 9 
If  a  member  of  one  of  the  four  assemblies  was  elected  to  another,  he  had  to 
choose  within  a  month.  Similarly,  a  parliamentarian  in  most  posts  paid  by  the 
state  (ministers  were  the  chief  exception)  had  to  resign  one  or  other  position.10 
Each  Assembly  judged  the  eligibility  and  verified  the  credentials  of  its  own 
members;  the  rules  were  tightened  in  1952  when  a  deputy  killed  in  a  car  crash 
was  found  to  have  two  identity  cards  and,  under  his  real  name,  to  be  due  for 
trial  as  a  collaborationist. 

Like  most  parliaments  which  settle  their  own  election  disputes,  the  Assembly 
was  accused  of  misusing  its  power.  In  1951  several  seats  in  two  constituencies 
depended  on  a  difficult  point  of  electoral  law,  which  the  majority  parties 
decided  in  their  own  favour  in  Seine-Inf6rieure  but  against  themselves  in  Bas- 
Rhin  (where  they  were  reluctant  to  unseat  the  Gaullist  war  hero  General 
Koenig).  In  another  legal  dispute  in  1956  eleven  Poujadists  were  unseated  by 
the  left-wing  majority,  which  gained  eight  seats,  against  the  votes  of  the  Right 
which  could  hope  for  only  two;  MRP  voted  first  for  invalidation  and  then 
against,  changing  after  it  had  gained  its  one  seat.  Public  opinion  was  too 
shocked  by  this  behaviour  to  recognize  the  strong  legal  case  against  the  Pou- 
jadists.11 

Under  Article  21  of  the  constitution  a  member  enjoyed  immunity  from 
prosecution  or  arrest  for  his  speeches  or  votes  in  Parliament.  Under  Article  22 
he  could  not  be  arrested  at  all  except  with  permission  of  the  house  or  when 
caught  in  a  criminal  act  (en  flagrant  delit);  before  the  war,  and  after  the  con- 
stitutional amendment  of  1954,  this  privilege  covered  only  periods  when  Par- 
liament was  sitting.  In  1949  a  permanent  committee  on  immunities  was  set  up 
to  deal  with  the  growing  number  of  applications  to  prosecute  deputies,  par- 
ticularly Communists  ;12  a  bill  was  introduced  obliging  newspapers  edited  by  a 
deputy  to  name  another  person  to  take  responsibility  in  libel  cases;13  and 

9.  Even  those  whose  indignit£  nationals  had  been  remitted  for  later  services ;  this  clause  was 
directed  against  P.  E.  Flandin  (but  in  Yonne  in  1952,  307  of  the  932  senatorial  electors  nevertheless 
voted  for  him).  Before  the  1951  general  election  prefects  were  told  to  count  votes  for  ineligibles  as 
spoiled ;  this  discouraged  several  from  standing,  though  some  persuaded  relatives  to  do  so  instead 
(cf.  n.  37).  Despite  the  1953  amnesty,  in  1956  only  fifteen  ex-ineligibles  stood  and  only  four  won: 
Dogan  in  Elections  1956,  p.  445.  Among  them  were  Georges  Bonnet  (the  foreign  minister  at 
Munich)  and  Tixier-Vignancour.  On  reigning  families  see  above,  p.  179. 

10.  On  leaving  Parliament  an  official  regained  his  post  and  pension  rights.  A  deputy  might  not 
take  directorships  in  certain  types  of  business.  For  details  see  Williams,  p.  192n. ;  Lidderdale, 
pp.  82-5;  Meynaud,  pp.  143,  317. 

11.  See  Institutions,  i.  116-18;  Philip,  pp.  37-57;  Campbell,  no.  43;  below,  Appendix  vi. 
In  December  1945  the  Assembly  refused  to  seat  Camille  Laurens  because  of  his  Vichyite  past. 
But  in  June  1946  it  accepted  him,  and  rejected  Communist  attempts  to  unseat  Daladier  and 
Reynaud  as  political  undesirables;  and  in  1951  it  seated  Jacques  Isorni  (Petain's  counsel),  against 
the  Communists'  opposition,  and  Maurice  Thorez  against  RPF's. 

12.  Between  1902  and  1940  there  were  102,  between  1945  and  1951  about  350:  see  J.  Duclos, 
JO  22  June  1949,  p.  3639 ;  J.  Minjoz,  JO  8  November  1951,  p.  7725 ;  and  n.  13.  The  eleven  bureaux, 
between  which  deputies  were  divided  by  lot,  had  nominated  all  committees  until  1910  and  an  ad 
hoc  committee  for  each  immunity  case  until  1949;  thereafter  their  only  functions  were  verifying 
credentials.  The  Fifth  Republic  restored  ad  hoc  committees  for  each  immunity  case. 

13.  It  passed  in  1952  after  prolonged  Communist  obstruction  and  evidence  that  90  %  of  immu- 
nity cases  concerned  communist  editor-deputies :  Minjoz,  he.  cit.  A  Communist  paper  in  Dakar 
had  once  announced,  *  As  frequent  prosecutions  for  libel  have  been  causing  us  serious  expense, 
we  have  entrusted  the  management  of  our  newspaper  to  a  member  of  Parliament.  It  will  no 
longer  be  possible  to  sue  us  for  libel  without  first  obtaining  the  leave  of  the  house' :  quoted  London 

[over 


NATIONAL  ASSEMBLY  (1):  MACHINERY  AND  METHODS  211 

another  bill  tried  to  guard  against  any  repetition  of  the  Madagascar  affair  of 
1947,  when  the  Assembly  had  waived  the  immunity  of  three  nationalist 
deputies  charged  with  non-capital  offences  and  the  government  then  prosecuted 
them  for  treason.14 

In  interpreting  flagrant  delit  the  courts  favoured  the  accused.  At  Brest  in 
1950  the  judges  refused  to  try  two  Communist  deputies  arrested  for  rioting, 
and  in  1952  a  Paris  court  severely  criticized  the  police,  who  had  arrested 
Jacques  Duclos  during  a  riot  and  charged  him  with  conspiring  against  the 
safety  of  the  state;  the  case  collapsed  in  ridicule  when  the  'carrier-pigeons* 
found  in  his  car  turned  out  to  be  his  dinner.  Parliament,  too,  was  reluctant  to 
authorize  prosecution  except  for  grave  crimes ;  the  first  Assembly  allowed  only 
15  applications  out  of  328,  and  in  1953  the  second  refused  by  11  votes  to 
permit  five  leading  Communists  to  be  prosecuted  for  the  sedition  imputed  to 
their  party.  In  May  1958,  as  the  Corsican  coup  sent  the  Fourth  Republic 
tottering,  the  Assembly  consented  to  the  prosecution  of  the  insurgent  deputy 
Pascal  Arrighi  -  though  not  to  his  immediate  expulsion  as  the  government 
wished.  Its  corporate  feeling  safeguarded  rioters  and  rebels,  but  also  un- 
popular minority  members.15 

Article  23  allocated  to  deputies  an  'indemnity'  for  loss  of  other  earnings, 
related  since  1938  and  equal  since  1950  to  the  salary  of  a  conseiller  d'£tat.  In 
1955  it  amounted  to  about  £2,500,  double  the  figure  four  years  earlier;  rather 
less  than  half  was  taxable.  A  contributory  pension  varied  with  length  of  service 
up  to  three-quarters  of  the  current  indemnity.  A  member  could  frank  letters 
from  the  house;  make  free  telephone  calls  within  Paris;  and  travel  by  rail  and 
in  Paris  and  bring  his  wife  to  the  capital  free  or  at  very  low  fares.16  To  deal 
with  his  fifteen  letters  a  day  (but  up  to  three  times  as  many  if  he  was  in  the 
public  eye)  he  probably  shared  a  secretary  with  two  or  three  colleagues ;  and  in 
preparing  his  bills,  amendments  and  reports  he  might  get  help  from  the 
secretary  of  his  official  committee  or  his  party  group.17 

Times  >  11  July  1949.  After  one  editor  escaped  prosecution  on  grounds  of  insanity,  concern  was 
expressed  that  Communist  papers  might  evade  the  new  law  by  appointing  mad  co-editors :  see 
JO  13  March  1952,  pp.  1274-5  (and  cf.  Institutions,  i.  121). 

14.  The  upper  house  opposed  it,  the  President  referred  it  back,  and  it  was  revised,  reintroduced 
and  passed  only  in  1953:  see  Drago,  no.  75;  Berlia,  no.  12b;  M.  Lesage,  Les  interventions  du 
legislateur  dans  le  fonctionnement  de  la  justice  (1960),  pp.  152-67;  and  below,  pp.  247  n.  24,  306. 

15.  Pickles,  French  Politics,  pp.  269-70,  293-4;  Institutions,  i.  122;  Goguel,  Regime,  p.  40; 
Drago,  nos.  74  and  75.  The  Brest  court  claimed  that  by  Third  Republican  custom  flagrant  delit 
justified  arrest  but  not  prosecution  without  leave  of  the  house;  the  Assembly  disavowed  this :  AP 
1950,  pp.  74-7,  285-6.  Duclos's  birds  were  solemnly  pronounced  to  be  eating-pigeons  by  a  jury 
consisting  of  a  professor  of  natural  history,  a  military  communications  expert  and  the  President 
of  the  National  Federation  of  Pigeon-Fanciers;  his  release  showed  that  at  the  height  of  French 
'McCarthyism'  the  courts  were  not  intimidated;  cf.  AP  1952,  pp.  50-1,  75-6,  1953,  pp.  80-1; 
but  see  below,  p.  351.  The  proposed  bill  to  expel  Arrighi  could  have  been  used  against  any 
member  advocating  the  independence  of  Algeria.  He  escaped  prosecution  because  the  regime  fell. 

16.  After  essential  expenses  were  met  the  deputy  had  about  £1,000  to  maintain  himself,  his 
family  and  his  home  in  the  constituency:  Muselier,  Regards  neufs  sur  le  Parlement,  pp.  54-60. 
See  also  above,  p.  80;  and  Hamon,  no.  121,  pp.  553-5. 

17.  On  party  groups,  below,  pp.  214-6.  Each  day  from  8,000  to  15,000  letters  were  received 
and  rather  more  sent  out  from  the  Palais  Bourbon:  Muselier,  p.  142.  Figaro,  27  and  28  March 
1950,  estimated  that  the  average  member  spent  half  his  working  time  on  his  mail  of  thirty  letters 
a  day.  Some  came  of  course  from  epistolary  lunatics;  in  1953  one  Parisian  deputy  heard  weekly 
from  an  enthusiastic  constituent  that  national  salvation  lay  in  paying  half  of  all  wages  in  national 
lottery  tickets.  See  also  below,  pp.  329,  340,  374,  429  n.  5 ;  and  Lancelot,  no.  136. 


212  THE  INSTITUTIONS 

Each  Friday  night  he  would  take  the  train  for  his  constituency  to  hold  his 
'surgeries',  visit  the  prefecture  and  the  local  mayors  and  notables,  attend 
party  meetings,  agricultural  shows,  festive  or  sporting  events,  and  deal  with 
the  affairs  of  the  town  of  which  he  was  often  mayor  or  the  canton  which  he 
represented  on  the  departmental  council.  On  Monday  night  he  returned  to 
Paris.  Probably  he  would  attend  parliamentary  party  meetings  on  Tuesdays, 
committees  on  mornings  later  in  the  week,  and  the  chamber  itself  relatively 
infrequently,  for  two-thirds  of  the  sittings  were  detailed  and  dull  and  attracted 
only  specialists.  At  some  point  in  the  week  he  had  to  find  time  for  his  visits 
to  the  ministries  on  his  constituents'  behalf;  his  job,  if  he  had  one;  his  con- 
tacts, not  least  with  the  press;  his  reading;  and  his  family.18 

2.  THE  SITTINGS 

Normally  the  Assembly  sat  at  3  p.m.  on  Wednesdays,  Thursdays  and  Fridays, 
but  it  often  met  in  the  morning  and  evening  and  sometimes  at  the  weekend. 
Up  to  1951  it  averaged  297  sittings  a  year,  afterwards  219,  compared  to  only 
about  140  for  the  pre-war  Chamber  of  Deputies.  But  then  the  Chamber  had 
had  to  sit  for  no  more  than  five  months  in  the  year  (though  extraordinary 
sessions  were  usually  needed  to  vote  the  budget)  ;  and  its  sessions  were  closed, 
in  theory  by  the  President  of  the  Republic,  and  in  fact  by  the  government  of 
the  day.  The  deputies*  standard  outcries  when  they  were  'sent  on  holiday' 
were  neither  meant  nor  taken  very  seriously. 

In  1946  this  cloture  power  was  abolished.  Under  Article  9  of  the  new  con- 
stitution Parliament  sat  permanently  in  theory  and  for  at  least  eight  months 
of  the  year  in  fact.  The  session  began  on  the  second  Tuesday  in  January  and 
should  have  finished  by  31  December,  though  the  time-honoured  practice  of 
prolonging  the  final  sitting  into  early  January  still  had  to  be  employed  when 
the  budget  was  late.19  Brief  extraordinary  sessions  were  usually  held  in 
January,  not  always  for  budgetary  purposes.  The  right  to  adjourn  was  trans- 
ferred from  the  government  to  the  Assembly  itself,  which  found  it  politically 
difficult  to  exercise  and  rarely  began  the  summer  recess  on  time.  The  consti- 
tutional amendment  of  1954  therefore  made  the  session  begin  in  October 
instead  of  January  (so  that  the  annual  re-election  of  bureau  and  committees 
should  not  delay  the  final  voting  of  the  budget)  and  restored  the  government's 
right  to  close  it  after  seven  months.20 

During  the  Munich  crisis  Parliament  had  been  in  recess  and  the  government 
did  not  recall  it.  Article  12  of  the  new  constitution  entitled  the  bureau  to  con- 
vene the  house  if  it  considered  this  necessary,  and  obliged  it  to  do  so  on  the 
denjand  of  either  the  prime  minister  or  a  third  of  the  deputies.  In  September 
1949,  when  France  followed  Britain  in  devaluing  the  currency,  the  Com- 
munists tried  unsuccessfully  to  have  the  Assembly  recalled;  in  August  1953  a 
Socialist  and  Communist  attempt  narrowly  failed,  and  Parliament  discussed 

18.  On  this  paragraph  see  Hamon,  no.  121,  pp.  554-63  C  a  professional  exercising  a  badly 
organized  piofession*);  Pineau,  passim  ;  Muselier,  pp.  133-65  ;  Buron,  pp.  27-34,  71-90,  114-15, 
,  134,  142. 


,       ,       . 

19.  But  M.  Goguel  informs  me  that  the  clocks  in  the  Chamber  were  not,  as  often  stated,  stopped 
at  five  murates  to  midnight  on  31  December  (though  the  calendar  was). 

20.  AcHorarmsents  up  to  ten  days  before  1954,  and  eight  afterwards,  counted  in  the  session. 


NATIONAL  ASSEMBLY  (1):  MACHINERY  AND  METHODS  213 

neither  the  great  strikes  nor  the  deposition  of  the  Sultan  of  Morocco.  The 
1954  constitutional  amendment  required  over  half  instead  of  a  third  of  the 
deputies  to  make  recall  obligatory.  In  1957  the  agricultural  pressure-groups, 
reinforced  by  the  Communist  party,  seemed  likely  to  rally  a  majority  for 
recall ;  the  government  therefore  itself  summoned  the  Assembly  to  meet  early.21 

When  the  deputies  gathered  in  their  semicircular  chamber,  the  Com- 
munist benches  were  on  the  President's  left  while  Gaullists  and  Poujadists 
were  seated  (violently  protesting)  on  his  right.  Committee  and  government 
spokesmen  had  special  benches  in  front.  Ministers,  whether  or  not  they  were 
members  of  parliament,  could  speak  when  they  chose  in  either  house. 
'Government  commissioners'  could  advise  and  even  speak  for  them;  in!956 
two  high  officials  put  the  case  for  Euratom  and  one  of  them  enjoyed  a  parlia- 
mentary triumph.22  The  deputies  often  spoke  from  their  places,  but  long  set 
speeches  were  made  at  the  tribune  under  the  President's  desk.  Voting  might  be 
by  show  of  hands,  by  Ayes  and  Noes  respectively  rising  in  their  places,  or  by 
recorded  ballot;  each  member  had  white  (Aye)  or  blue  (No)  cards  with  his 
name  on  them  to  place  in  the  urns  brought  round  by  the  attendants.  Proxy 
voting  was  usually  allowed,  and  all  the  cards  of  each  party  were  kept  by  its 
whip  (boitier),  so  that  a  handful  of  deputies  often  recorded  several  hundred 
votes.23  A  personal  vote  (scrutin  public  a  la  tribune)  took  an  hour  and  a  half 
and  became  a  dangerous  weapon  of  Communist  obstruction.  From  1947 
successive  amendments  to  standing  orders  restricted  its  use  until  in  1952  it 
was  abolished,  except  on  verification  of  credentials.  But  in  1955  there  was  a 
reaction  against  proxies,  which  were  forbidden  on  votes  of  confidence  and 
censure,  the  election  of  a  premier,  and  (if  the  house  so  chose)  on  a  vote  to 
ratify  a  treaty.24 

By  this  revolt  against  proxies  the  deputies  were  breaking  with  an  old- 
established  tradition  which  had  a  profound  effect  on  their  work  and  outlook. 
Without  proxies  members  could  not  have  indulged  in  the  absenteeism  of 
which  their  constituents  so  often  complained;  one  critic  estimated  the  average 
attendance  at  fifteen  in  the  morning,  forty  in  the  afternoon,  fifty  or  sixty  for  a 
major  foreign  policy  debate,  and  a  full  house  only  for  a  question  of  party  or 
electoral  importance.  Proxies  permitted  many  deputies  and  more  senators^  to 
combine  their  functions  with  those  of  local  councillor  or  mayor,  to  which 
they  often  attached  more  importance  and  which  inevitably  coloured  their 

21    This  enabled  the  government  to  decide  the  agenda  for  the  special  session,  but  failed  to 
prevent  its  defeat  two  weeks  later:  AP  1957,  pp.  86-9,  See  also  AP  1949,  p.  159;  1953,  pp.  61-3 
67  •  Arne,  p.  245.  In  1953  the  Left  was  frustrated  by  the  postal  strike  and  the  delaying  tactics  of 
the  majority  of  the  bureau,  which  gained  six  weeks  by  obstruction  and  finally  recalled  the  house 
only  a  week  before  the  normal  date. 

22.  Isorni,  Silence,  pp.  66-7;  cf.  Arne,  p.  185 ;  AP  1956,  p.  70.  Advisers  hardly  ever  spoke,  but 
often. attended;  one  ministry  had  23  'administrative  prompters'  authorized:  Boissane,  no.  22, 

P*23.'  For  example,  on  27  March  1952  two  dozen  deputies  carried  one  amendment  to  the  new 
standing  orders  by  343  to  247,  another  by  352  to  236,  and  the  proposals  as  a  whole  by  378  to  100 
with  1 10  abstentions.  To  vote  against  his  party  a  member  put  in  two  cards  of  the  wrong  colour ; 
I  have  heard  an  experienced  parliamentarian  admit  that  he  did  not  know  which  colour  meant 
Aye  and  which  No,  only  whether  he  was  voting  with  or  against  his  bottler. 

24.  For  methods  and  rules  of  voting  see  Lidderdale,  p.  141 ;  Blamont,  Les  techniques  parle- 
mentaires,  pp.  69-75.  In  the  Fifth  Republic  proxies  were  restricted  severely,  though  m-altogether 
effectively  and  electronic  voting  was  installed ;  for  the  results  see  Monde,  27  November,  1963. 


214  THE  INSTITUTIONS 

outlook  and  behaviour.  Through  proxy  voting  members  were  encouraged  in 
their  illusion  that  they  could  carry  out  their  external  duties  effectively  and 
still  keep  Parliament  permanently  in  session  to  guard  against  executive 
abuses.25  Nor  was  its  effect  confined  to  those  who  normally  stayed  away. 
Lobbying  was  easier  when  attendances  were  small.  When  specialists  cast  the 
votes  of  their  absent  colleagues,  life  was  easier  for  the  crank  or  the  pressure- 
group,  the  assiduous  committeeman  or  the  disinterested  expert.  It  was  easier 
for  the  party  leader  to  withstand  revolts,  since  the  boitier  voted  on  behalf  of 
absentees.  Thus  the  system  might  distort  the  result  of  an  individual  division, 
and  over  a  period  it  inevitably  diminished  the  member's  sense  of  individual 
responsibility.26 

3.  THE  PARTY  GROUPS 

The  parliamentary  parties,  or  groups,  were  far  more  important  in  the  National 
Assembly  than  in  the  pre-war  Chamber.  In  well-organized  parties  like  SFIO 
and  MRP,  one  senior  deputy  was  made  responsible  for  the  work  of  each 
committee;  study  groups  met  with  non-parliamentarians  to  formulate  policy; 
and  deputies  were  not  supposed  to  ask  questions,  make  speeches  or  bring  in 
bills  or  resolutions  without  the  group's  consent.  On  the  Right  and  Centre  (and 
in  the  Council  of  the  Republic)  the  groups  were  looser,  though  in  the  later  years 
Conservatives  voluntarily  informed  their  group  of  their  bills  and  questions. 
All  groups  gave  their  members  moral  support  and  material  help,  such  as 
secretarial  assistance,  in  return  for  a  monthly  levy  which  varied  by  party 
from  £3  to  £9;  at  the  end  of  the  Fourth  Republic  each  group  also  received  £4 
per  member  per  month  from  the  Assembly's  own  funds.27  Even  an  ill- 
organized  party  like  the  Radicals  met  far  more  often  than  before  the  war.  At 
these  private  meetings  argument  could  be  serious  and  not  demagogic,  and 
party  interests  could  be  discussed  with  a  frankness  impossible  in  public 
debate.  Here  the  deputy  had  a  real  opportunity  to  change  votes  and  perhaps 
alter  the  decision  of  Parliament.28 

Among  the  looser  political  formations,  parliamentary  groups  had  never  had 
any  necessary  link  with  parties  in  the  country.  In  the  Third  Republic  there 
were  parties  with  no  group  and  groups  with  no  party,  and  except  on  the  Left 
ttie  groups  in  the  Chamber  and  Senate  were  quite  different.  Radicals  had  not 
always  formed  a  single  group  in  the  Chamber,  and  never  did  so  in  the  Senate. 


NATIONAL  ASSEMBLY  (1):  MACHINERY  AND  METHODS  215 

On  the  Right  a  politician's  electoral  connections  often  bore  little  relation  to 
his  parliamentary  allegiance.  In  1928  the  110  deputies  supporting  Alliance 
democratique  belonged  to  six  groups  ranging  from  the  far  Right  to  the 
moderate  Left.29  Even  after  1945,  when  the  political  structure  of  the  groups 
was  more  straightforward,  and  Communist,  Socialist  or  MRP  groups  were 
merely  the  parliamentary  expression  of  their  parties,  a  group  like  U  D  S  R  was 
still  the  general  staff  of  an  army  without  troops. 

At  the  beginning  of  the  Third  Republic  groups  were  regarded  with  sus- 
picion, for  each  deputy  was  supposed  to  represent  the  country  as  a  whole  and 
not  a  geographical,  political  or  social  segment  of  it.  At  first  they  could  not 
announce  meetings  through  the  Chamber's  services  or  hold  them  on  its 
premises,  and  their  members  could  not  speak  in  their  name  in  the  house.  But 
Presidents  of  the  Republic  had  to  consult  their  chairmen  over  cabinet-making, 
and  in  1910  they  at  last  acquired  formal  status  when  the  Chamber  decided  to 
choose  its  committees  proportionately  from  them,  and  obliged  deputies  to 
join  one  group  only.  Still  they  existed  only  for  the  committee  elections.  In 
1930  a  member  whose  group  did  not  re-elect  him  to  the  finance  committee 
formed  a  new  group  solely  to  regain  his  place  (he  did) ;  and  a  group  of  deputies 
who  would  not  join  a  group  ranged  from  dissident  Communists  to  intransigent 
royalists.30  A  resolution  of  the  Chamber  in  1932  required  all  members  of  a 
group  to  sign  a  political  declaration,  but  this  failed  to  enforce  unity  upon  them.31 

Their  powers  grew  if  their  cohesion  did  not.  They  selected  the  committees, 
they  arranged  seating  in  the  Chamber,  and  their  chairmen  sat  on  the  presidents' 
conference  which  settled  the  order  of  business.  After  1945  the  rights  of  groups 
and  chairmen  were  expanded  to  the  detriment  of  the  individual  deputy, 
especially  the  independent.  The  groups  were  mentioned  in  eighteen  of  the 
Assembly's  standing  orders  and  (until  1954)  in  three  articles  of  the  constitu- 
tion.32 Many  parliamentary  initiatives  were  formally  considered  as  party  acts; 
thus  an  absent  proposer  of  an  interpellation  was  replaced  by  a  colleague  from 
his  group.  The  presidents'  conference  was  given  more  authority,  debates  in  the 
house  were  more  and  more  often  'organized',  and  sometimes  the  only  mem- 
bers called  to  the  tribune  were  those  who  spoke  in  the  name  of  the  group  which 
once  they  had  been  forbidden  to  mention.33 

29.  Middleton,  French  Political  System,  p.  128. 

30.  For  years  it  returned  to  the  foreign  affairs  committee  the  distinguished  Conservative 
Georges  Mandel,  once  Clemenceau's  associate  and  later  the  chief  opponent  of  appeasement: 
Barthdlemy,  Essai  sur  le  travail  parlementaire  et  le  systeme  des  commissions,  pp.  92,  94, 101. 

3 1 .  Ibid.,  p.  93,  for  an  apocryphal  (or  perhaps  typical)  declaration :  'Ni  Reaction  ni  Revolution. 
Ni  Rome  ni  Moscou.  Le  Progres  dans  1'Ordre,  la  Paix  dans  la  dignit6.  La  Main  Tendue,  mais  la 
Porte  gardee.  La  deflation  budgetaire  dans  le  progres  social.  La  repression  de  la  fraude  fiscale  sans 
inquisition  ni  vexation.  La  reduction  du  nombre  des  fonctionnaires  dans  le  respect  des  droits 
acquis.* 

32  The  Assembly  had  to  elect  its  bureau  (until  1954)  and  its  representatives  on  the  Constitu- 
tional Committee  by  group  PR ;  until  1954  a  caretaker  cabinet  in  case  of  dissolution  had  to  contain 
representatives  of  all  groups  (Articles  11,  91  and  52).  See  also  Waline,  no.  213,  pp.  1189-91; 
Lidderdale,  pp.  115-16,  141, 144,  and  238;  and  Arrighi,  Le  Statut  des  partis  politiques,  pp.  14-19. 

33  See  below,  pp.  219-20  (presidents'  conference,  organized  debate),  223-4  (interpellation). 
The  MRP  patriarch  Francisque  Gay  once  described  a  committee  rapporteur  as  'That  colleague 
who  has  been  given  the  task,  in  the  name  of  the  MRP  parliamentary  group,  to  make  a  report  to 
the  committee,  and  to  defend  it,  who  has  expressed  the  MRP  position  and  who  on  most  points 
has  won  the  day  for  the  views  of  our  party  . .  / :  JO  11  August  1947,  p.  4233. 


216  THE  INSTITUTIONS 

The  party  groups  brought  some  much-needed  discipline  into  the  individual- 
ist disorder  of  the  old  Chamber.  But  members'  allegiance  to  them  was  never 
exclusive  and  rarely  complete.  In  the  Third  Republic  groups  for  the  defence  of 
private  local  and  professional  interests  had  flourished;  in  the  Fourth  they  were 
forbidden  (by  Standing  Order  13)  but  the  ban  was  easily  evaded.34  Many 
deputies  -  especially  from  the  Gaullist,  RGR  and  Conservative  benches  - 
joined  'inter-groups'  which  promoted  various  causes,  afforded  presidencies 
and  vice-presidencies  to  impress  constituents,  and  sometimes  cut  across  party 
lines  by  reproducing  in  Parliament  the  electoral  alliances  which  members 
formed  in  the  country.  In  these  loose  parties  of  the  Right  and  Centre,  with 
their  divided  interests  and  loyalties,  the  leaders  found  it  very  difficult  to  im- 
pose their  views;  and  in  the  last  months  of  the  regime  the  engagements  they 
made  in  the  'round  table'  meetings  of  party  chairmen  were  repeatedly  broken 
by  their  followers.35 

It  was  hard  to  use  the  whip  when  a  rebellious  faction  could  freely  set  up  its 
own  group,  with  representation  on  all  committees  and  in  settling  the  agenda. 
Late  in  1957  the  Assembly  decided  to  check  this  proliferation  in  the  next 
session  by  recognizing  only  groups  with  28  members,  instead  of  14;  but  in  the 
Fifth  Republic  the  Radicals  soon  found  a  way  round  by  adhering  to  a  vague 
combination  for  committee  elections  which  split  into  two  wholly  autonomous 
(and  undisciplined)  sections  for  all  other  purposes.36  Thus,  though  the  groups 
were  far  more  important  in  parliamentary  life  after  the  war  than  before,  they 
could  not  cure  the  congenital  individualism  of  the  French  politician.  Where 
the  party  leaders  had  failed,  the  officers  of  the  Assembly  had  little  hope  of 
success. 

4.  THE  CONTROL  OF  BUSINESS 

Unlike  the  House  of  Commons  or  the  House  of  Representatives,  the  Assembly 
elected  its  officers  in  each  annual  session.  At  the  first  sitting  the  oldest  deputy 
presided  and  the  six  youngest  acted  as  secretaries  to  supervise  the  counting  of 
votes  and  drafting  of  the  official  record,37  The  Assembly  proceeded  at  once  to 
choose  an  executive  committee  (bureau)  consisting  of  a  President,  six  vice- 
presidents  who  relieved  him  in  the  chair,  fourteen  secretaries,  and  three 
stewards  (questeurs)  who  organized  the  administrative  and  financial  services. 
Until  the  1954  constitutional  amendment  these  24  members  had  to  represent 
the  parties  proportionately,  and  even  afterwards  the  majority  continued  to 
elect  CoHmunists  to  junior  posts  in  the  bureau.  Since  1920  the  President  and 
viee-presl(leiit&,  the  party  and  committee  leaders  had  also  sat  as  a  business 
committee  of  the  house,  the  presidents*  conference.38 

34.  See  below,  pp*  374-5. 

35.  Andrews,  BO.  3;  Maurice  Deixonne,  SFIO  chairman,  JO  18  February  1958,  p.  890. 

36.  Waliae,  no.  213,  p.  1218;  and  see  below,  p.  433. 

37.  When  the  Communist  veteran  Marcel  Cachin  was  doyen  d'dge,  standing  orders  had  to  be 
aiaeaded  to  limit  his  rights.  In  1951  he  was  junior  to  a  new  Conservative  member,  Eugene  Pebellier, 
an  octogenarian  haberdasher  from  Le  Puy  who  first  left  his  native  town  to  come  to  Paris  in  place 
of  Ills  ineigible  son  and  namesake  (a  former  deputy  who  had  voted  for  Petain).  The  son  wrote 
aa$  tlse  ikt&er  delivered  an  inaugural  speech,  praising  the  Marshal  and  condemning  ineligibility, 
wfejefe  contrasted  oddry  with  Cachin's  revolutionary  discourses. 

38.  On  it  see  below,  pp.  219-20;  on  committees,  Chapter  18 ;  on  the  change  about  the  bureau, 
p,  237,  and  Berfia,  no.  12b,  pp.  685-6. 


NATIONAL  ASSEMBLY  (1):  MACHINERY  AND  METHODS  217 

The  Fourth  Republic  made  the  President  of  the  Assembly  a  vice-president 
of  the  Republic  in  all  but  name.  If  the  filysee  fell  vacant  he  became  acting 
President  and  took  the  chair  at  the  parliamentary  congress  which  met  within 
ten  days  (but  up  to  six  months  if  Parliament  had  been  dissolved)  to  elect  a 
successor.39  He  promulgated  laws  if  the  President  neglected  to,  sat  on  the  Con- 
stitutional Committee,  and  was  consulted  before  a  prospective  premier 
was  nominated  or  Parliament  dissolved.  A  dissolution  made  him  premier 
automatically  before  1954,  but  afterwards  only  if  the  government  that  dis- 
solved had  previously  been  censured  by  the  Assembly.40 

The  new  duties  did  not  prevent  a  resumption  of  old  traditions.  French 
deputies  have  always  preferred  a  prominent  political  leader  to  preside  over 
their  debates,  rather  than  a  non-partisan  Speaker  of  the  British  type.  Three 
Presidents  of  the  Chamber  (and  five  of  the  Senate)  had  been  elected  direct 
to  the  filys6e,  and  several  had  become  prime  minister.  In  1946  the  first  Presi- 
dent of  the  Constituent  Assembly,  F61ix  Gouin,  resigned  to  replace  de  Gaulle 
as  head  of  the  provisional  government;  the  second,  Vincent  Auriol,  became 
President  of  the  Republic;  and  the  National  Assembly  then  chose  a  party 
leader,  ex-premier  and  ex-President  of  the  Chamber,  fidouard  Herriot.  When 
he  retired  in  January  1954  the  Communists,  seeking  allies  for  the  fight  against 
EDC,  helped  to  elect  the  Socialist  Andre  Le  Troquer  against  the  strongly 
'European'  Pierre  Pflimlin.  Next  year  German  rearmament  dislocated  this 
fragile  Left  majority  and  Le  Troquer  was  defeated  by  a  new  MRP  candidate, 
Pierre  Schneiter.  After  the  1956  election  the  Republican  Front  restored  him  to 
the  post  he  coveted.41 

Its  potential  importance  was  shown  in  May  1958,  when  President  Coty's 
resignation  would  have  brought  Le  Troquer  to  the  filysSe,  a  Popular  Front 
premier  to  the  Hotel  Matignon  -  and  probably  the  parachutists  to  Paris.  Even 
in  less  dramatic  circumstances  the  President  of  the  Assembly  could  wield 
great  influence.  In  a  recess  he  could  help  or  hamper  a  party  which  wanted  the 
house  recalled.  Being  in  close  touch  with  the  deputies  he  could,  if  he  chose, 
suggest  to  the  President  of  the  Republic  a  strong  candidate  for  the  premier- 
ship (or  one  of  whom  he  himself  approved)  and  indicate  where  the  marginal 
votes  were  and  how  best  to  woo  them.  It  has  been  said  that  in  December  1953 
Le  Troquer  influenced  the  presidential  election  by  adjourning  at  a  psycho- 
logical moment;  and  that  two  years  later  Schneiter  by  his  formal  advice 
decided  the  government  to  dissolve,  and  then  by  delaying  tactics  prevented 
the  opposition  recalling  the  house,  before  the  dissolution  could  be  pro- 
nounced, to  vote  a  new  electoral  law  or  motion  of  censure.  The  constitution- 
makers  of  1946  had  meant  to  weaken  the  executive  by  strengthening  the 
President  of  the  Assembly;  but  if  parliamentary  rights  are  opposition  rights, 

39.  In  the  Third  Republic  the  President  of  the  Senate  had  presided.  'Vice-president* :    see 
Sauvageot,  no.  196,  and  Soubeyrol,  no.  202. 

40.  Arts.  41,  11,  40,  36,  91,  45  (implied),  51  and  52  respectively.  No  law  ever  fell  to  him  to 
promulgate.  The  1954  constitutional  revision  made  him  less  likely  to  become  a  dissolution  premier 
but  more  powerful  if  he  did,  since  he  would  control  the  police  (as  minister  of  the  interior)  as  well 
as  the  army  (as  premier) :  Soubeyrol,  no.  202,  p.  555,  cf.  p.  561.  It  also  gave  him  in  practice  more 
influence  on  the  recall  of  the  Assembly  in  recesses :  ibid.,  p.  561 . 

41.  Cf.  below,  p.  433.  In  the  eleven  years  of  the  Fourth  Republic  there  was  an  opposition  Presi- 
dent of  the  Assembly  for  only  six  months  in  early  1954  and  one  month  in  early  1955. 


218  THE  INSTITUTIONS 

the  way  the  new  powers  were  used  confounded  their  authors  by  making  him 
in  a  crisis  almost  a  President  against  the  Assembly.42 

In  normal  times  the  President  was  much  less  partisan  than  the  American 
Speaker,  though  more  so  than  the  British.  By  custom  he  neither  spoke  nor 
voted,  nor  did  a  vice-president  at  sittings  over  which  he  presided  (but  Herriot 
broke  tradition  twice  in  the  Third  Republic  and  once  in  the  Fourth,  on 
30  December  1949  when  he  saved  Bidault's  budget  from  defeat  by  Radical 
defections).  His  authority  was  far  weaker  than  that  of  his  Anglo-Saxon 
counterparts.  The  deputies  treated  him  with  decent  respect  but  no  special 
deference,  often  contesting  his  decisions,  continuing  to  speak  when  ruled  out 
of  order,  or  ignoring  the  five-minute  time-limit  imposed  by  standing  orders  on 
certain  speeches.43  The  chair  could  do  little  to  check  the  irrelevance  which 
was  always  the  cardinal  sin  of  French  parliamentary  debate.  Like  the  old 
Chamber,  the  Assembly  disliked  binding  precedents;  it  preferred  to  take 
important  procedural  decisions  itself  and  repudiate  them  later  because, 
emanating  from  a  transient  political  majority,  they  lacked  moral  authority.44 

The  Assembly  would  not  strengthen  its  President  (especially  if  he  were  a 
prominent  party  leader)  because  suspicion  of  power  was  inbred  in  the  politi- 
cians of  a  deeply  divided  country.  Yet  those  divisions  confronted  him  with  a 
problem  no  British  or  American  Speaker  faced.  Unlike  Congress  or  the 
House  of  Commons,  the  National  Assembly  always  had  many  members  who 
would  cheerfully  destroy  the  parliamentary  system  to  achieve  their  political 
aims.  Communists  might  not  filibuster  as  systematically  as  Irish  nationalists 
or  as  freely  as  southern  senators,  but  they  exploited  procedural  loopholes  with 
persistence  and  ingenuity.  In  1950  they  used  the  quorum  rules  to  delay  for  a 
month  and  finally  force  the  withdrawal  of  a  bill  that  had  been  expected  to 
pass  in  a  few  hours.  In  the  six  months  after  the  1951  election  they  spoke  on 
the  average  half  as  long  again  as  other  deputies,  and  among  the  six  most 
loquacious  members,  four  were  Communists.  At  critical  moments  they  went 
beyond  verbal  obstruction.  During  the  general  strike  of  November  1947  they 
fought  the  government's  drastic  public  order  bill  for  1 14  hours,  one  member  - 
protected  by  his  party  colleagues  -  occupying  the  tribune  all  one  night.  When 
their  campaign  against  the  Indo-China  war  reached  its  peak  in  March  1950,  a 
deputy  spoke  for  five  and  a  half  hours  on  one  sub-amendment  to  a  bill  against 
sabotage,  quoting  Soviet  price  statistics  in  minute  detail;  later  fighting  broke 
out  and  the  house  was  cleared  by  the  guards.  (Yet  both  the  disputed  bills  were 
speedily  passed^  though  with  substantial  concessions  to  those  non-Commu- 
nists who  thought  them  harsh.)  The  Poujadists  also  provoked  some  angry 
iinideiits,  especially  when  their  colleagues  were  unseated  by  the  votes  of  their 
opponents.45 

42.  Sonbeyrol,  no.  202,  pp.  554-63  passim.  On  recesses  see  n.  21 ;  and  on  May  1958,  above, 
pp.  202-3. 

43.  Once  when  Jean  Dtdes  wanted  to  speak  at  length,  Le  Troquer  agreed  privately  to  stretch 
but  not  to  'forget'  the  limit  of  5  minutes;  reminded  him  after  15 ;  failed  repeatedly  to  stop  him; 
and  suspended  the  sitting  in  disorder  after  35,  with  Dides  still  demanding  just  5  more :  JO  25  Feb- 
ruary 195&,  pp.  997-8. 

44.  Generally,  Blum,  pp.  171-2  (see  n.  56) ;  Lidderdale,  pp.  77,  151,  155-6 ;  Noel,  p.  169. 

45.  Blamont,pp.63-6;Soubeyrol,no.202,pp.  533-4 ;  Lidderdale,  p.  156n,  (1947);  R.  Lamps, 
JO  3  March  1950,  pp.  1859-81 ;  AP  1950,  pp.  51-3,  1957,  pp.  24-6,  38-9,  47-8 ;  G.  Loustanau- 

[over 


NATIONAL  ASSEMBLY  (1):  MACHINERY  AND  METHODS  219 

Obstruction  and  violence  obliged  a  reluctant  Assembly  to  tighten  its  rules. 
Personal  voting  was  first  restricted  and  then  (for  a  time)  eliminated.  The 
quorum  rule  was  changed,  after  some  delay  owing  to  the  absence  of  a  quorum. 
Standing  orders  were  amended  in  1952  against  vigorous  Communist  opposi- 
tion. Dilatory  motions  like  the  previous  question  were  limited,  and  only  four 
speakers  allowed  on  them.  The  President  was  authorized  to  subject  members 
who  defied  his  rulings  to  stiflfer  penalties,  including  financial  sanctions,  with- 
out seeking  the  leave  of  the  house;  and  if  these  were  rarely  imposed  in  the 
latter  years  of  the  Fourth  Republic  this  was  partly  because  warnings  were 
more  effective.46  Interpellations  and  urgent  discussions  were  permitted  only 
when  proposed  by  the  presidents'  conference.  More  and  more  major  debates 
were  'organized',  as  in  the  United  States  Congress,  with  the  conference  dis- 
tributing the  time  available;  for  instance  in  a  debate  on  family  allowances  in 
May  1951  it  allotted  one  hour  for  voting  and  5£  for  discussion:  three  com- 
mittees had  20  minutes  each,  the  government  30,  the  Communists  50,  MRP 
44,  S  FI O  29  and  eight  other  groups  15  each.47  This  was  an  invaluable  device 
for  saving  time,  and  indeed  for  improving  discussion. 

The  deputies  accepted  procedural  changes  with  reluctance,  for  they  feared 
discipline  more  than  disorder.  Their  tradition  equated  presidential  firmness 
with  discourtesy;  so  no  vice-president  liked  to  incur  needless  odium  by  his 
severity,  while  a  weak  President  was  apt  to  remember  that  he  faced  re- 
election within  the  year  and  a  strong  (or  tactless)  one  easily  alienated  sup- 
porters.48 In  theory  a  majority  could  end  debate  by  closure,  but  this  had 
become  a  dead  letter.49  Even  organized  debate  was  no  panacea,  for  members 
were  not  always  checked  when  their  party's  time  was  up  ;50  and  if  the  total 
time  was  inadequate  the  purpose  of  the  debate  might  be  frustrated,  or  the 
whole  arrangement  might  collapse.51  Above  all,  no  rules  of  debate  could  check 
the  most  dangerous  form  of  obstruction,  which  was  to  attack  the  order  of 
parliamentary  business. 

The  agenda  of  the  house  had  at  one  time  been  proposed  by  the  bureau,  but 
since  1920  by  the  presidents'  conference.  This  was  a  business  committee 

Lacau,  JO  27  March  1952,  p.  1528  (RPF  members  had  spoken  42,000  lines  to  about  48,000  for 
each  of  the  other  major  groups  and  75,000  for  the  Communists).  Another  noisy  debate  early  in 

1950  had  turned  violent  when  a  member  shouted  'le  mutin'  at  Andre"  Marty,  and  the  Communists 
thought  he  had  called  Jeannette  Venneersch  'la  putain':  JO  27  January  1950,  p.  623.  Their 
violence  converted  many  reluctant  members  to  changing  the  electoral  law. 

46.  Soubeyrol,  no.  202,  pp.  536-8,  561.  But  cf.  n.  43. 

47.  JO  9  May  1951,  p.  4903.  Time  was  not  always  distributed  in  this  rough  proportion  to 
numbers;  the  Communist  opponents  of  standing  orders  reform  in  March  1952  had  much  more 
than  their  strict  share  (see  Williams,  p.  201n.). 

48.  Travail,  pp.  699-701  (Goguel),  860,  863.  Personal  as  well  as  political  opposition  defeated 
Le  Troquer  after  his  first  year:  AP  1955,  p.  5.  M.  Goguel's  proposal  to  strengthen  the  President 
by  electing  him  for  a  whole  Parliament  was  adopted  in  the  Fifth  Republic. 

49.  Lidderdale,  pp.  137-8. 

50.  As  Le  Troquer  admitted:  JO  3  December  1954,  p.  5747,  cf.  p.  5757,  'It  really  is  curious 
that  one  arouses  protests  every  time  the  Assembly's  decisions  have  to  be  applied'.  On  11  April 

1951  a  debate  on  civil  expenditure,  planned  for  2$  hours,  took  12.  But  members  did  speak  (or 
read)  faster  in  organized  debates:  Isorni,  Silence,  pp.  127-8. 

51.  In  the  debates  on  the  Schuman  Plan,  tax  reform,  and  the  second  economic  Plan  the  indus- 
trial production  committee  had  only  15  minutes  to  put  its  view :  Harrison,  Commissions  de  I*  Assem- 
ble (unpublished),  p.  218. 


220  THE  INSTITUTIONS 

consisting  of  the  President  and  vice-presidents,  the  chairmen  of  the  party  groups 
and  of  the  nineteen  standing  committees,  the  rapporteur-general  of  the  finance 
committee,  and  a  government  representative.  It  met  weekly  to  arrange 
business  for  two  weeks  ahead.  But  its  programme  was  often  upset  by  a  vote  of 
confidence  (which  meant  delay),  the  absence  of  a  committee  report,  or  some 
other  unexpected  development.  Much  time  was  lost  discussing  the  agenda, 
which  from  1948  was  made  progressively  harder  to  change.  Worse  still,  the 
conference  -  in  which  each  member  had  one  vote  -  under-represented  the 
opposition,  which  usually  held  relatively  few  committee  chairmanships  and 
included  few  of  the  smaller  party  groups;  consequently  its  recommendations 
were  often  defeated  in  the  house.  In  1955,  therefore,  conference  votes  were 
adjusted  to  party  strengths,  ministers  forming  a  little  'party'  of  their  own. 
After  this  change  its  proposals  were  less  likely  to  be  upset  in  the  Assembly 
(though  in  1956  the  house  twice  refused  to  debate  repeal  of  the  Barang6  law 
subsidizing  church  schools)  but  more  likely  to  go  against  a  government  whose 
majority  was  melting  away.  In  November  1955  Edgar  Faure  was  beaten  first 
in  the  conference  and  then,  when  he  made  rejection  of  its  proposed  agenda  a 
matter  of  confidence,  in  the  Assembly.52 

A  disgruntled  party  would  rebel  on  a  matter  of  parliamentary  priority  even 
more  readily  than  on  a  question  of  substance,  since  an  indifferent  public  was 
less  apt  to  notice  and  blame  it;  and  all  deputies  were  tempted  to  postpone 
uncomfortable  subjects  like  taxes  and  debate  popular  topics  like  higher 
pensions.  The  government  could  resist  only  by  demanding  votes  of  confidence 
on  priority  for  its  own  business,  like  Queuille  in  May  1951,  Pinay  in  Decem- 
ber 1952,  Faure  in  November  1955  and  Gaillard  in  January  1958.  Even  a 
premier  who  survived  this  test  (and  only  two  of  these  did)  found  that  the  more 
he  used  his  heavy  weapons  the  faster  they  wore  out.  Thus  the  determination  of 
the  Assembly  to  control  its  agenda  was  a  godsend  to  demagogues  and  obstruc- 
tionists, and  a  threat  to  governmental  authority. 

Accepting  no  leadership,  the  Assembly  easily  fell  into  chaos,  beginning  far 
too  many  tasks  and  then  leaving  them  unfinished.  In  April  195  1  the  agenda  of 
the  dying  Assembly  still  included  a  constitutional  amendment  proposed  five 
months  before;  two  major  bills  of  which  half  had  been  voted,  and  four  which 
had  been  abandoned  -  one  of  them  back  in  December  1949;  and  140  bills 
adopted  in  committee  but  not  yet  discussed  by  the  Assembly,  three-quarters  of 
them  opposed  measures.  The  budget  was  three  months  late,  and  the  credits 
for  twelve  government  departments  still  had  to  be  voted.  The  contentious 
electoral  law  for  metropolitan  France  was  due  to  return  from  the  Council  of 
the  Republic,  and  that  for  the  overseas  territories  had  not  been  begun.  But 
the  Assembly  was  most  unwilling  to  give  priority  to  the  budget  and  electoral 


859>  Gcorgd,  i.  234,  241-2;  Arn£,  pp.  180-2;  Cotteret, 

tK  /  AP  I955'  pp'  88~9>  1956>  PP-  27>  89«  Til1  1948  a*y  50  members  could 

to  change  the  conference's  proposals.  Afterwards,  to  hamper  the  Communists,  only  the 
I?™3??  ?  a  committee  or  30  members  from  three  different  parties  could  move  a  change  and 
oe^aa  aosotate  majority  of  the  house  could  carry  it;  and  from  1950  it  was  out  of  order  to  propose 
to  change  «&  agnda  accepted  by  the  Assembly,  or  to  add  an  interpellation,  an  urgent  discussion, 
ora;  m  on  which  there  was  no  committee  report.  Before  1955  PR  in  the  conference  had  been 
*  **  P°*^  •<*«»*  L  241n.,  Williams,  p.  207.  The  conference  'was  an 
s':  Buron,  p.  113. 


NATIONAL  ASSEMBLY  (l):   MACHINERY  AND  METHODS  221 

law,  which  had  to  be  passed  if  a  general  election  were  to  take  place  before  the 
summer  holidays.53 

Yet  in  refusing  a  minimum  of  discipline  the  deputies  stultified  themselves, 
for  their  attention  was  distracted  to  minor  matters  and  major  policy  frequently 
escaped  their  control.  When  the  Assembly  recessed  in  July  1953  it  had  not 
debated  European,  North  African,  or  Indo-Chinese  affairs  for  over  a  year  (not 
that  debates  would  necessarily  have  given  much  guidance  to  the  government).64 
In  domestic  policy  parliamentary  and  administrative  responsibilities  were  con- 
fused, and  while  the  legislature  had  to  decide  the  number  of  donkeys  in  the 
national  stud,  the  currency  could  be  devalued  or  the  national  economic  Plan 
adopted  without  reference  to  Parliament.  But  these  absurdities  were  unlikely 
to  be  remedied  while  the  deputies  insisted  on  managing  their  affairs  so  badly. 
*  What  a  fatal  contradiction  for  the  regime :  all  power  in  the  hands  of  a  power- 
less Assembly,  powerless  by  its  nature,  powerless  by  its  rules,  powerless  by  its 
composition.'55 

Back  in  1919  Blum  had  denounced  the  Chamber's  habits  in  an  attack  which 
had  lost  none  of  its  force  in  the  next  Republic.56  All  parties  agreed  that  drastic 
changes  were  required,  and  many  felt  that  standing  orders  stood  more  in  need 
of  reform  than  the  constitution  itself.  Measures  were  indeed  taken  to  meet 
Communist  obstruction  (inevitably  restricting  the  rights  of  the  individual 
deputy)  but  they  could  not  deal  with  the  root  of  the  trouble  while  the  mem- 
bers cared  less  for  the  rational  conduct  of  public  business  than  for  their  private 
right  to  change  their  minds  and  repudiate  their  leaders  at  will.  Government 
supporters  were  less  concerned  to  get  business  through  than  to  protect  their 
personal  freedom  to  dissent  whenever  they  chose,  and  to  prevent  stricter 
regulations  which  might  be  used  against  them  when  they  were  next  in  opposi- 
tion. Fearing  leadership,  they  tolerated  anarchy;  impeding  governmental 
action,  they  also  crippled  effective  parliamentary  criticism.57  The  real  de- 
ficiency was  one  of  will,  not  of  technical  devices,  and  it  was  the  division  of 
purpose  within  the  majority  that  gave  the  obstructionists  the  opportunities 
they  exploited  so  skilfully. 

53.  Monde,  I  April  1951.  For  the  subjects  the  deputies  preferred  see  below,  p.  249. 

54.  The  deputies  had  considered  the  main  lines  of  policy  in  five  recent  investiture  debates,  in 
which  the  prospective  premier  appeared  without  colleagues  or  staff  to  answer  a  confused  succes- 
sion of  questions  great  and  trivial ;  these  were  a  poor  substitute  for  orderly  parliamentary  discus- 
sion. On  Tunisia  in  June  1952,  they  had  found  no  majority  and  rejected  six  successive  ordres  du 
jour:  AP  1952,  pp.  228-9.  (M.  Mitterrand  pointed  out  that  in  1881  the  Chamber  had  rejected 
23  ordres  du  jour  on  the  same  subject:  JO  4  June  1953,  p.  1952.) 

55.  Isorni,  Ainsi,  p.  53.  For  criticisms  by  senior  parliamentary  officials  see  Goguel,  Fourth 
Republic,  pp.  167-9,  and  no.  107,  pp.  853-61 ;  Blamont,  no.  18,  pp.  393-7. 

56.  '. . .  permanent  vices  of  organization  and  method.  Two  or  three  questions,  discussed  together, 
alternate  from  one  sitting  to  the  next.  On  each,  numberless  amendments,  endless  speakers  drag- 
ging out  their  interminable  remarks  amidst  universal  apathy  .  .  .  [at]  the  slightest  incident  the 
Assembly  moves  abruptly  from  indifference  to  rowdy  excitement . . .  [The  President]  has  nothing 
to  say  when  four  different  discussions  are  begun  at  once,  when  the  day's  business  is  upset  at  the 
last  minute,  when  the  same  speech  is  begun  again  for  the  tenth  time,  when  a  question  that  had  been 

settled  is  reopened  on  a  new  pretext,  when  a  debate  wanders  into  the  most  futile  digression All 

that  is  needed  is  a  break  with  tradition.  That  is  essential,  but  it  would  be  enough.'  Blum,  pp.  158-9, 
171-2  (fuller  in  Williams,  pp.  207n.,  209n.).  Cf.  R.  Lecourt,  JO  25  March  1952,  pp.  1461-2. 

57.  But  the  government  was  not  blameless  and  the  deputies  had  some  grounds  for  mistrusting 
it.  Gaillard  tried  in  1957  to  use  procedural  devices  to  stifle  debate  on  his  Algerian  reforms;  but 
the  Communists,  with  support  from  the  rest  of  the  opposition,  warned  that  'if  you  play  that  game 
all  150  of  us  will  make  speeches  "explaining  our  votes'":  JO  28  November  1957,  pp.  5026-7. 


Chapter  17 

THE  NATIONAL  ASSEMBLY 
(2):  GOVERNMENT  AND  PARLIAMENT 

The  Fourth  Republic  proved  no  more  successful  than  the  Third  in  solving  the 
essential  problem  in  working  a  democratic  constitution:  the  relationship 
between  legislature  and  executive.  Before  1940  French  cabinets  had  little 
control  over  the  shifting  moods  of  a  Chamber  which  by  constitutional  con- 
vention they  could  not  dissolve.  But  the  Socialist  leaders  who  largely  inspired 
the  new  constitution  wanted  to  break  with  the  traditions  of  the  Third  Repub- 
lic. They  hoped  and  believed  that  the  political  system  would  be  transformed  by 
the  rise  of  a  few  strong  and  disciplined  parties.  Chamber  and  government 
would  cease  to  be  rival  powers  and  become  complementary  instruments  of  a 
common  purpose:  the  executive  would  not  need  to  coerce  a  majority  which 
shared  its  objectives,  nor  the  majority  wish  to  upset  its  own  leaders  pn  trivial 
points  of  difference.  Both  would  normally  survive,  as  in  Britain,  throughout 
the  life  of  a  Parliament.  A  prime  minister  would  be  elected  individually,  to 
enhance  his  authority,  and  by  an  absolute  majority,  to  ensure  that  he  had 
solid  support.1  He  could  be  removed  only  by  an  absolute  majority  of  the 
deputies  in  a  formal  and  deliberate  decision  sanctioned,  if  it  was  repeated,  by 
the  automatic  dissolution  of  the  Assembly.  Irresponsible  voting  would  thus  be 
checked,  and  the  stability  of  government  which  France  needed  would  be 
reconciled  with  the  tradition  of  parliamentary  supremacy  which  she  cherished.2 
These  rules  failed  to  achieve  their  objects,  largely  because  the  constitutional 
doctrine  was  applied  before  its  political  foundation  had  been  laid.  Weak  and 
loose  parties  soon  regained  influence  in  Parliament.  Men  and  measures  were 
found  to  be  inseparable ;  the  leader  could  not  be  distinguished  so  sharply  from 
his  team.  An  absolute  majority  was  assembled  more  easily  for  mutual  obstruc- 
tion than  for  any  common  constructive  aim.  Dissolution  was  made  subject  to 
strict  conditions,  and  the  deputies  tried  hard  to  see  that  these  were  never  ful- 
filled. Governments,  though  as  precarious  as  ever,  rarely  fell  in  the  manner 
prescribed  in  the  constitution.  A  return  to  the  pre-war  methods  was  begun  in 
practice  in  1948  and  extended  by  constitutional  amendment  in  1954,  but  it 
solved  nothing. 

1.  PARLIAMENTARY  SCRUTINY 

Hie  National  Assembly  spent  much  more  time  and  energy  than  most  Parlia- 
ments on  mating  and  unmaking  governments,  but  it  also  needed  milder 

1.  In  reckoning  the  absolute  majority  seats  legally  vacant  like  the  unfilled  Cochin-China  seat 
<fed  not  count;  but  three  Malagasy  deputies  did,  who  were  in  prison  after  the  1947  rising  and  could 
H0t  vote.  Sec  JO  21  November  1947,  pp.  5113-4,  and  Drevet,  pp.  44-5.  The  absolute  majority 
was  about  294  m  the  two  Constituent  Assemblies,  31 1  in  the  first  National  Assembly,  314  in  the 
second  and  299  in  the  third. 

2,  Bta*,  especially  pp.  150-3,  219-23;  Auriol,  ii.  50,  244,  249;  Thery,  pp.  188-92;  Wright, 
Res&apw^  pp.  85-9.  Article  45  of  the  constitution  had  a  premier  chosen  for  each  Parliament  in 
paragraph  I,  ignoring  other  occasions  (resignations,  etc.)  until  paragraph  4 :  Sauvageot,  no.  195, 
p.  242. 


NATIONAL  ASSEMBLY  (2):   GOVERNMENT  AND  PARLIAMENT     223 

procedures  for  influencing  their  day-to-day  activities.  It  could  express  views 
through  its  committees,  by  questions  and  motions,  and  in  foreign  affairs  it  had 
to  ratify  many  treaties. 

The  committees  were  the  most  effective  instrument  of  scrutiny.  Ministers 
were  often  asked  to  appear,  especially  before  those  like  Foreign  Affairs  and 
Defence  which  were  more  concerned  with  checking  administration  than  with 
legislating.  Others,  like  Finance,  were  active  in  both.  The  government 
gradually  gained  new  powers  to  issue  decrees  applying  budgetary  bills,  but 
Parliament  required  consultation  with  the  finance  committees  of  both  houses 
and  sometimes  the  consent  of  the  Assembly's  committee;  after  1956  a  new 
budgetary  procedure  and  the  use  of  the  lot-cadre  extended  and  formalized 
this  practice.3  Some  aspects  of  administration  were  supervised  by  statutory 
sub-committees  representing  several  standing  committees.  One  on  defence 
expenditure  had  existed  since  the  early  Third  Republic;  another  on  public 
enterprises  proved  an  effective  and  acceptable  instrument  of  general  oversight 
without  vexatious  interference.4  Special  committees  of  inquiry  might  be  use- 
ful on  administrative  questions,  but  not  for  probing  political  scandals.5 

In  the  chamber  itself  members  could  ask  questions  or  introduce  motions, 
called  interpellations,  seeking  an  explanation  of  ministerial  acts  or  policies. 
Written  questions  were  very  numerous  but  unimportant,  'free  legal  advice  for 
the  citizen  rather  than  close  control  of  the  civil  service'.  Oral  questions  were 
really  short  debates  limited  to  five-minute  speeches  by  the  minister  and  then 
the  questioner.  They  never  enjoyed  the  esteem  and  importance  they  have  in 
Britain,  for  there  were  no  supplementaries  to  give  opportunities  to  the  deputy; 
yet  ministers  disliked  them  because  the  attacker  had  the  last  word.6 

The  traditional  weapon  of  the  house  against  the  executive  was  the  inter- 
pellation, which  could  make  the  reputation  of  a  politician  who  used  it  skil- 
fully: Clemenceau  in  the  Third  Republic,  Debr6  in  the  Fourth.  Unlike  a 
debate  on  the  adjournment  in  the  House  of  Commons,  it  ended  with  a  vote  - 
either  of  a  simple  resolution,  *  The  House,  having  heard  the  minister's  explana- 
tion, passes  to  the  order  of  the  day'  or  of  a  motion  qualified  (motivf)  by 

3.  See  below,  pp.  242-3,  268-9,  272-3. 

4.  On  it  see  Ridley,  no.  189;  Lewis,  no.  145;  Lescuyer,  no.  143  (cf.  below,  p.  374n.);andhis 
Le  contrdle  de  V&at  sur  les  entreprises  nationalises,  Chapters  6, 7  and  1 1.  In  1953  two  ex-chairmen 
of  the  sub-committee,  Ren6  Mayer  as  premier  and  J.  M.  Louvel  as  minister  of  industry,  issued 
decrees  ending  the  autonomy  of  the  nationalized  industries,  but  in  1955  Parliament  reversed  these 
by  law.  In  the  third  Assembly  another  sub-committee  was  set  up  on  parafiscalitl  (compulsory 
levies,  such  as  social  security  contributions,  which  are  not  part  of  the  state  revenue). 

5.  The  Council  of  the  Republic's  sub-committee  on  nationalized  industries  had  one  set  up, 
successfully,  when  Jules  Ramarony,  minister  of  state  for  merchant  shipping,  tried  to  obstruct  its 
inquiry  into  the  faulty  construction  of  two  liners :  Georgel,  L  84-5.  But  political  inquiries  usually 
led  nowhere  after  much  acrimony.  For  instance,  on  the  committee  investigating  the  *  scandal  of 
the  generals*,  the  Communist  member  released  confidential  documents  to  UHumanite>  the 
Gaullist  chairman  and  two  friendly  colleagues   interviewed  an  important  witness  privately, 
several  members  resigned,  and  the  MRP  and  SFIO  survivors  disputed  bitterly:  see  Williams, 
no.  218.  A  later  committee  on  exchange  dealings  with  Indo-China  had  little  more  success.  A  law 
in  1953  made  their  proceedings  secret.  Generally,  see  Biays,  no.  17;  Pactet,  no.  171,  pp.  165-71. 

6.  Blamont,  Techniques,  p.  109,  and  no.  18,  p.  391 :  supplementaries  would  inevitably  have  led 
to  impromptu  debates  and  upset  business.  In  the  first  Assembly  about  140  oral  questions  a  year 
were  asked  and  in  the  second  200,  but  only  about  half  were  answered.  Nearly^  all  the  4,000 
written  questions  asked  annually  were  answered:  Campbell,  no.  45,  p.  361;  Noel,  p.  9.  'Free 
advice' :  M.  Prelot  in  Travail,  pp.  863-^t.  Also  see  Buron,  p.  205. 


224  THE  INSTITUTIONS 

expressions  of  confidence  in  or  disapproval  of  the  government's  attitude.  Nearly 
half  the  governments  overthrown  by  the  Chamber  of  Deputies  were  beaten 
on  interpellations,  and  some  members  and  even  ministers  subordinated  their 
loyalty  to  the  old  cabinet  to  their  hopes  of  promotion  in  the  new.  Often 
governments  were  upset  by  an  accidental  aggregation  of  opposites,  incapable 
of  sustaining  a  successor.  Yet  the  procedure  was  not  a  cause  but  an  expression 
(at  most  an  aggravation)  of  ministerial  instability.  A  disciplined  majority 
could  always  refuse  to  debate  dangerous  motions,  as  the  anticlericals  early 
in  the  century  obediently  did  at  the  behest  of  their  steering  committee,  the 
Delegation  des  Gauches.1 

Increasingly,  after  1918,  the  growing  number  and  triviality  of  interpellations 
impaired  their  effectiveness.  Members  used  them  to  force  a  debate  on  a 
cherished  subject,  rather  than  to  attack  the  government.  After  1946  legislation 
took  more  and  more  time,  and  the  presidents*  conference  accepted  fewer 
interpellation  debates,  usually  grouping  several  motions  together.8  The 
second  National  Assembly  held  full  debates  on  316  out  of  1,549,  mostly 
grouped,  and  brief  ones  on  220  more  in  which  a  speaker  from  each  party  had, 
in  theory,  five  minutes  to  discuss  the  date  for  the  main  debate.9  In  February 
1953  Ren6  Mayer  was  interpellated  on  his  choice  as  minister  of  health  of 
Senator  Andr6  Boutemy,  a  former  Vichy  prefect  and  the  current  distributor 
of  the  employers'  political  funds:  when  the  Assembly  voted  for  a  debate  at  an 
early  date,  the  minister  resigned.  LanieFs  defeat  was  clearly  imminent  when 
five  of  the  six  interpellations  on  the  fall  of  Dien-Bien-Phu  came  from  deputies 
belonging  to  the  majority.  But  if  crises  occurred  during  a  recess,  Parliament 
might  well  be  confronted  with  a  fait  accompli,  as  it  was  when  the  Sultan  of 
Morocco  was  deposed  in  the  summer  of  1953  and  when  his  successor  abdicated 
in  1955.  When  the  house  reconvened  in  October  1955  Faure  faced  eighteen 
interpellations  on  Morocco.10 

Foreign  policy  was  a  special  case.  It  aroused  little  attention  among  voters  or 
members  of  parliament  unless  the  question  was  exceptionally  controversial.  In 
the  first  and  second  Assemblies  only  a  fifth  of  the  votes  of  confidence  related 
to  any  external  question  (even  including  military  expenditure).  The  few  inter- 
pellations on  foreign  affairs  usually  came  from  a  handful  of  Communists, 
^fellow-travellers',  or  extremists  of  the  Right.11  But  Parliament's  potential 
great,  since  it  had  to  ratify  many  treaties  -  for  instance,  all  those 


7,  Speger,  pp.  332,  342,  345  (no  solidarity);  227-8,  244  (discipline)  ;  237  (opposition);  119  and 
Prelot'spreCaee  (fall  of  cabinets).  In  the  Fourth  Republic  5  governments  were  defeated  on  inter- 
pellates^ omtfpaacaal  and  2  on  other  bills.  On  Debr6  cf.  below,  p.  281  and  n. 

&  BlasjQKt,  T$cipwjae$»  pp.  103-6  ;  'in  practice  the  Assembly  no  longer  discusses  interpellations 
mess  il  was*s  to  safely  pai>lic  opinion  by  holding  a  debate  on  a  subject  of  general  interest  and 
eo*&sra*;  d  ma,  1&,  pp.  $90,  393  ;  Georgel,  i.  232  ;  Goguel  in  Travail,  pp.  705,  863. 

9.  Of  coarse,  little  was  heard  of  the  date:  cf.  Le  Troquer,  JO  10  March  1955,  p.  1274.  On 
nwtesseeftloa*  pp.  18-19;  cf.  Campbell,  loc.  cit.  At  first  about  200  a  year  were  put  down,  but 
bf  1952  tfefcre  were  almost  twice  as  many. 

!&  Bontay:  Musdier,  pp.  95-6.  Laniel:  AP  1954,  p.  28.  Recesses:  cf.  Georgel,  i.  232,  and 
Giosser,  pp.  87-8;  before  Dim-Bien-Phu  fell  the  chairman  of  the  foreign  affairs  committee, 
£to^  Mayer*  lew  to  Geoeva  to  warn  the  foreign  minister  (Bidault)  against  asking  for  American 
«eleaFin*emetio%  and  in  1955  the  chairman  of  the  defence  committee,  Pierre  Montel,  went  to 
Morocco  to  tirge  Ben  Arafa  not  to  abdicate.  Faure:  Arne,  p.  252n. 

IK  OrassejF  pp.  79-83.  Cf.  Blamont,  no.  18,  p.  390;  Georgel,  i.  232.  On  votes  of  confidence, 
,  pp.  234—5. 


NATIONAL  ASSEMBLY  (2):   GOVERNMENT  AND  PARLIAMENT     225 

dealing  with  European  union  needed  ratification,  though  not  those  granting 
independence  to  Morocco  or  Tunisia,  or  treaties  of  alliance.12 

On  the  most  controversial  treaties  the  government  consulted  Parliament 
before  signature.  In  1948  the  deputies  imposed  impossible  conditions  for  the 
setting  up  of  a  central  German  government;  they  did  not  have  to  ratify  the 
treaty,  and  Schuman's  cabinet  ignored  them,  so  next  year  Parliament  insisted 
that  it  and  not  the  government  must  give  the  French  consent  required  by  the 
Atlantic  pact  before  a  new  partner  (i.e.  Germany)  could  join.  Before  the  ED  C 
negotiations  began  in  1952,  Edgar  Faure  consulted  the  Assembly;  his  succes- 
sors vainly  pressed  its  terms  on  France's  partners,  who  were  misled  into  over- 
confidence  by  the  French  'Europeans'  and  were  amazed  when  the  deputies 
rejected  the  treaty  in  1954.  Mendes-France,  under  allied  pressure  to  admit 
Germany  into  NATO  instead,  also  consulted  the  Assembly  first;  ninety 
*  European'  MRP  and  CNIP  deputies  first  consented  to  the  policy,  then 
voted  against  the  treaty;  it  passed  on  a  second  vote,  but  to  get  it  through  the 
upper  house  Edgar  Faure  had  to  promise  to  work  for  the  aims  sought  in  the 
senators'  proposed  amendments.  In  1957  the  Assembly  easily  accepted  the 
Common  Market,  both  before  the  treaty  was  signed  and  when  it  needed  to  be 
ratified.  In  general  foreign  policy  was  imposed  on  an  occasionally  indignant 
Parliament,  rather  than  made  by  it  or  even  with  it.13  The  real  influence  of  the 
deputies  was  felt  less  on  the  conduct  of  policy  than  in  the  frequent  ministerial 
crises  when  they  could  select  the  men  who  made  it,  altering  the  balance  of 
power  in  a  cabinet,  blackballing  a  foreign  minister,  and  above  all  choosing  a 
premier. 

2.  THE  INVESTITURE  OF  THE  PREMIER 

When  a  government  fell  in  the  Third  Republic,  the  President  named  a  new 
prime  minister  who  appointed  his  colleagues  and  then  came  before  the  Cham- 
ber of  Deputies  for  its  approval.  The  President  could  do  something  to  help 
candidates  he  favoured  and  much  to  hinder  those  he  disliked,  for  timing  was 
vital  and  he  need  not  propose  his  enemies  unless  they  were  sure  to  fail.  Critics 
argued  that  if  his  choice  coincided  with  the  Chamber's  it  was  superfluous;  if 
not  it  was  undemocratic.  The  provisional  regime  of  1945-46  therefore  pro- 
vided that  while  the  new  constitution  was  being  drafted,  prospective  prime 
ministers  were  to  be  designated  by  the  Assembly  itself  (as  in  1848  and  187 1).14 
There  were  two  votes,  one  on  the  man  and  another  on  his  team.  The  Left's 
first  draft  constitution  kept  this  system,  in  the  hope  that  future  Presidents  of 
the  Assembly  would  take  the  initiative  in  crises,  as  Vincent  Auriol  had  in  the 
provisional  regime;  that  ministries  so  chosen  would  be  in  harmony  with  Par- 
liament; and  that  premiers  would  thus  be  better  able  to  resist  the  mistrusted 
President,  whose  name  might  be  Charles  de  Gaulle.  But  this  constitutional 

12.  See  Arts.  27  and  28  of  the  constitution.  Treaties  adding,  abandoning  or  exchanging  territory 
also  required  the  consent  of  the  peoples  concerned ;  but  French  India  was  ceded  in  1954  with  no 
plebiscite  (only  a  vote  by  local  councillors)  and  the  treaty,  signed  in  1956,  was  not  ratified  until 
1962 :  cf.  Georgel,  i.  248  and  n.  Parliament  ratified  the  NATO  but  not  the  SEATO  pact. 

13.  Grosser,  pp.  88-101 ;  Corail,  no.  60,  especially  pp.  780-816,  837-53. 

14.  Thery,  pp.  90-111 ;  cf.  Soulier,  pp.  496-7.  Ibid.,  pp.  275-302,  on  pre-war  Presidents;  for 
their  critics,  P.  Cot,  JO  17  April  1946,  p.  1968. 


226  THE  INSTITUTIONS 

draft  was  defeated  at  the  referendum  of  May  1946,  and  M  RP  then  urged  that 
the  Assembly  should,  like  the  old  Chamber,  vote  only  after  the  government 
had  been  formed.15 

The  final  compromise  form  of  Article  45  satisfied  the  Left  by  keeping  the 
'investiture5  vote  on  the  leader  alone,  and  MRP  by  allowing  the  President  to 
propose  candidates.  With  Auriol  and  not  de  Gaulle  at  the  £lys£e  the  premier, 
working  in  harmony  instead  of  conflict  with  the  head  of  the  state,  could  wield 
his  new  authority  against  recalcitrant  ministerial  colleagues.  The  Commu- 
nist ministers  who  joined  their  followers  against  the  government  on  a  vote  of 
confidence,  in  May  1947,  would  have  brought  down  a  Third  Republican 
premier.  But  Ramadier,  supported  or  instigated  by  the  President,  maintained 
that  the  Assembly  had  chosen  him  and  not  the  cabinet,  and  that  its  vote  con- 
firmed its  confidence  in  him  ;  when  the  Communist  ministers  would  not  resign, 
Auriol  signed  a  decree  stating  that  their  'duties  .  .  .  had  terminated  as  a  con- 
sequence of  their  vote  '.16  In  October  Ramadier  called  for  the  resignation  of  all 
his  ministers  (and  halved  their  number)  without  himself  vacating  office.17  In 
February  1950  the  Socialists  left  Bidaulf  s  government  and  were  replaced.  In 
1954  Mendes-France  twice  lost  three  colleagues,  and  in  1955  Edgar  Faure  dis- 
missed his  RS  (Gaullist)  ministers;  both  premiers  filled  the  vacant  posts  and 
stayed  in  office.18 

Although  the  prime  minister's  right  to  reconstruct  his  cabinet  became 
accepted,  the  Assembly  was  uneasy  when  it  had  to  choose  a  captain  without 
knowing  his  team.  The  early  premiers  accepted  interpellations  on  the  com- 
position and  policy  of  their  cabinets  ending  with  informal  votes  of  confidence  ; 
and  in  September  1948  Robert  Schuman  was  defeated  by  six  votes  because  he 
had  appointed  a  Socialist  minister  of  finance.19  The  Radical  premiers  of  1948 
informally  revived  the  old  procedure;  Andr6  Marie  made  known  the  main 
lines  of  his  cabinet  in  advance,  and  Henri  Queuille  formed  his  before  the 
-investiture  debate.  In  October  1949  first  Jules  Moch  and  then  Ren6  Mayer  was 
elected  premier  but  failed  to  form  a  ministry,  while  Georges  Bidault  went  to 
the  investiture  debate  with  a  cabinet  in  his  pocket  and  was  safely  elected.20  On 
his  fall,  Queuille  was  invested  as  premier  by  363  votes  to  208,  but  chose  a 
cabinet  too  conservative  for  the  Socialists  or  MRP's  left  wing;  the  Assembly 

15.  They  threatened  to  oppose  the  second  draft  constitution  unless  satisfied  on  this  point  and 
on  the  secret  balot  for  presidential  elections  (above,  p.  196  and  n.) 

16.  See  above*  p.  200.  Georges  Marrane,  the  Communist  minister  of  health,  had  not  voted 
(being  a  member  of  the  upper  house)  and  was  not  dismissed,  but  he  resigned  at  once. 

17.  Since  tfee  new  status  belonged  to  the  premiership  and  not  to  its  holder,  the  minister  of 
state  (secretaire  <T&af)  attached  to  the  prime  minister's  office  did  not  resign  either  :  Sauvageot, 
no,  195,  pu  245, 

18.  Contrast  Third  Republican  doctrine  :  Soulier,  p.  79n.,  But  in  1950  Blum  said  it  was  Bidault'  s 

as  weS  as  his  constitutional  right  to  stay  in  office  :  Populaire,  4-5  February  1950. 
in  May  195S  when  his  Conservative  ministers  left  him,  but  this  was  a  pretext.) 


This  was  cited  as  a  weakness  of  the  new  procedure,  but  the  same  had  often  happened  under 
the  old:  see  Soldier,  pp.  119-2L 

20.  Both  Marie  and  Queuille  refused  a  debate  on  composition  and  policy  (but  allowed  a  short 
discussion  and  vote  on  their  refusal).  Bidault  refused  any  debate  or  vote  and  the  house  upheld 
Him  by  a  show  of  hands;  but  when  the  Socialists  resigned  in  February  1950  he  accepted  a  debate 
and  narrowly  survived  it  (they  abstained).  The  rapporteur  of  the  constitution,  Paul  Coste-Floret, 
had  anticipated  both  the  formation  of  cabinets  before  investiture  and  the  later  debate  :  JO  28  Sep- 
tember 1946,  p.  4200,  quoted  Thery,  p.  Ill,  and  Williams,  p.  181n. 


NATIONAL  ASSEMBLY  (2):   GOVERNMENT  AND  PARLIAMENT     227 

insisted  on  a  debate  and  overthrew  him  by  334  to  221.  The  Radicals  now 
announced  that  they  would  vote  for  no  premier  without  knowing  his  cabinet; 
Pleven  was  elected  after  conforming  to  their  demand;  and  a  constitutional 
amendment  initiated  in  November  1950  proposed  to  revert  to  the  Third 
Republic's  rules.  To  reinforce  the  lesson,  Guy  Mollet  in  March  1951,  Ren6 
Mayer  in  July  and  Maurice  Petsche  in  August  all  stood  without  first  forming 
governments  -  and  all  lost.21 

Yet  in  the  new  Parliament  the  constitutional  procedure  returned  to  favour; 
the  first  six  cabinets  after  the  1951  general  election  were  all  formed  after  the 
investiture  of  the  premier.  Ren6  Pleven  in  1951  might  have  lost  the  Socialist 
vote  by  naming  his  government,  which  had  to  follow  the  election  returns  in 
shifting  to  the  Right.  In  1952  Edgar  Faure  was  hardly  thought  a  serious  can- 
didate until  his  investiture  speech,  or  Antoine  Pinay  until  the  vote  was 
announced.  In  January  1953  Georges  Bidault  tried  -  as  in  1949  -  to  form  a 
cabinet  before  the  vote  but  this  time  had  to  abandon  the  attempt,  while  Rene 
Mayer  again  refused  to  look  beyond  the  investiture  debate  and  at  last  was 
successful.  In  the  next  crisis,  shock  treatment  from  the  early  candidates  failed 
but  the  parties  took  it  from  Laniel  because  of  the  long  interregnum;  and 
in  1954,  after  the  fall  of  Dien-Bien-Phu,  Mendes-France  disdained  to  negotiate 
with  them  at  all.22  But  by  the  constitutional  amendment  passed  at  last  in  1954, 
the  Assembly  was  not  to  vote  on  a  premier  until  he  had  formed  his  government, 
and  he  would  no  longer  need  an  absolute  majority  of  the  Assembly. 

Of  the  first  five  prime  ministers  elected  after  the  Liberation,  four  had  had 
200  votes  more  than  the  absolute  majority,  and  even  Bidault,  with  no  Com- 
munist support,  polled  90  more  than  he  needed.  But  in  December  1946 
neither  'Bidault  without  Thorez*  nor  'Thorez  without  Bidault'  won  an 
absolute  majority,  and  after  Communists  and  Gaullists  went  into  opposition 
the  rule  became  an  obstacle.  Two  more  candidates  failed  to  clear  it  in  the  first 
Assembly  and  six  in  the  second.  Of  sixteen  premiers  elected  before  the  con- 
stitutional reform,  seven  had  fewer  than  50  votes  to  spare  and  only  Schuman 
(in  1947)  and  Mendes-France  had  over  100.23 

The  proposers  of  the  1954  constitutional  amendment  believed  that  the 
Third  Republic's  procedure  would  shorten  crises  and  make  them  easier  to 
solve.  But  Gaullists  and  MRP  warned  that  more  governments  would  fall  if 
successors  were  easier  to  find;  they  favoured  the  absolute  majority  rule 
because,  if  a  smaller  majority  sufficed,  a  government  might  be  formed  without 
them  and  decide  against  them  on  the  all-important  question  of  EDC.  The 
rule  made  them  both  indispensable  (and  so,  as  their  views  were  fundamentally 
opposed,  ensured  that  nothing  whatever  could  be  decided).24  But  the  Socialists 

21.  See  Arne,  pp.  189-208 ;  also  Fabre,  no.  88  (only  up  to  1950).  Queuille  was  elected  in  March 
1951  after  telling  the  Assembly  he  would  keep  the  old  cabinet,  but  offered  Bidault  a  vice-premier- 
ship ;  the  Socialists  then  insisted  that  Ramadier  must  have  one  too,  and  only  Ramadier  himself 
made  them  give  way. 

22.  Only  he  and  Faure  accepted  debates  on  the  composition  and  policy  of  their  cabinets ;  see 
Arn6,  pp.  197-200.  'Shock  treatment' :  above,  p.  40. 

23.  Details  in  Appendix  n,  and  in  Arne,  pp.  45,  198,  207. 

24.  MRP  senators  favoured  the  change  of  rule;  their  spokesman  on  the  constitution  (who 
opposed  his  party  over  EDQ  argued  that  narrower  majorities  would  be  more  coherent  and  less 
subject  to  mutual  obstruction  than  broader  ones:  L.  Hamon,  JO  (CK)  10  March  1954,  p.  365, 

[over 


228  THE  INSTITUTIONS 

were  now  adamant  that  it  must  go.  The  Assembly  suppressed  it  only  by  309  to 
300,  MRP  and  Gaullist  ministers  voting  against  their  parties;  but  when 
SFIO  threatened  to  oppose  the  whole  amendment  bill  if  this  vote  were 
reversed,  the  suppression  was  confirmed  by  321  to  237.  In  the  upper  house  the 
Gaullists  restored  the  absolute  majority  and  the  Socialist  senators  duly  voted 
against  the  bill;  the  Assembly  removed  it  again  (by  412  to  207)  and  seventy 
MRP  deputies  failed  to  vote  for  the  bill's  final  reading.25 

Neither  the  hopes  nor  the  fears  were  fulfilled.  The  prospective  premier  was 
handicapped  by  having  to  form  a  cabinet  before  the  vote,  for  expectant 
deputies  produced  about  forty  more  favourable  votes  than  disappointed 
ones.26  In  the  first  crisis  under  the  new  system  Pflimlin  failed  to  form  a  cabinet, 
Pineau's  attempt  to  do  so  contributed  to  his  defeat,  and  Edgar  Faure  succeeded 
only  by  evading  the  new  rules:  he  duly  chose  his  senior  ministers  who  could 
bring  him  votes,  but  made  no  appointments  to  the  junior  posts  to  which 
wavering  *  back-benchers*  might  aspire  until  he  was  safely  installed. 

The  absolute  majority  rule  had  been  a  scapegoat  and  not  a  cause.  While 
abstentions  blocked  a  candidate's  election,  hostile  votes  were  cast  only  by 
parties  keeping  their  distance  from  the  majority  (as  the  Communists  voted 
against  every  prospective  premier  from  1947  to  1953  and  the  Socialists  against 
six  in  1952-53)  or  from  some  particular  bugbear  (as  right-wingers  voted 
against  Socialists  and  Mendes-France,  and  Gaullists  against  Queuille). 
Ordinary  opponents  abstained,  as  the  Socialists  did  on  one  investiture  vote 
in  the  second  Assembly,  the  Conservatives  on  two,  MRP  on  three,  and  the 
Gaullists  on  six.  *  Investiture  courtesy9  might  even  lead  members  who  had 
an  eye  to  future  reciprocity  to  vote  for  a  candidate  they  hoped  and  believed 
would  fail;  and  Pinay  owed  his  unexpected  success  as  much  to  his  'courtesy 
majority'  of  MRP  and  Radical  enemies  as  to  the  27  defecting  Gaullists  -  who 
confounded  the  prophets  by  turning  it  into  a  real  one. 

The  new  rules  brought  new  habits,  and  courtesy  disappeared  as  soon  as  it 
might  cost  something.  The  first  nominee  who  could  have  been  elected  by  a 
relative  majority  was  also  the  first  not  to  be  given  one.  When  Christian 
Pineau  stood  in  February  1955,  after  the  reform,  there  were  fewer  abstentions 
than  on  any  previous  unsuccessful  aspirant  (except  Blum  in  1947);  fewer 
favourable  votes  than  for  any  candidate  since  1946  (except  Mayer  in  1951); 
and  a  record  hostile  vote  of  312.  In  all,  nine  nominees  stood  from  1955  to 
1958;  tlie  new  rule  did  not  save  the  three  who  were  in  a  minority,  or  help  the 
four  wlio  had  an  absolute  majority.  It  elected  two  men  who  (given  identical 
voting)  would  have  failed  under  the  old  rule:  Bourges-Maunoury,  one  of  the 
weakest  premiers  of  the  Fourth  Republic,  and  Pierre  Pflimlin  who  presided 
over  Its  collapse.  It  still  permitted  divided  cabinets  like  Faure's  in  1955  and 

aad  Probt&mes  constitutionneb  et  r&alitts  politiques,  pp.  19,  28-30.  Others  feared  that  only 
colkmrfess  premiers  would  win  absolute  majorities:  Goguel,  Rtgime,  p.  55  (cf.  Arne,  p.  194). 

25.  H»  senators  also  wanted  ministers  to  appear  with  the  premier  when  the  Assembly  voted : 
tf«  deputies  overruled  them. 

m  26.  Bedia,  no,  12a>  p.  440n.  In  the  first  Assembly  the  average  premier  lost  41  supporters,  and 
IJJJr6  ^?£ ll*  betweeo  the  two  dekates.  Only  Queuille  (in  1951)  and  Mendes-France  gained, 
and  oiityEKlaiat  avoided  a  second  vote.  Schuman  was  beaten  on  it  in  1948  and  Queuille  in  1950. 
Most  cafcinets  also  had  more  opponents  than  the  premier  alone.  See  Appendix  n ;  Arne,  pp.  197-8 . 


NATIONAL  ASSEMBLY  (2):   GOVERNMENT  AND  PARLIAMENT     229 

Gaillard's  in  1957,  whose  members  were  mainly  concerned  to  prevent  their 
colleagues  taking  action.  It  did  not  even  shorten  ministerial  crises:  before  the 
reform  three  crises  out  of  twelve  lasted  longer  than  three  weeks,  after  it  three 
out  of  five  did  so.27 

The  investiture  experiment  had  at  least  strengthened  determined  prime 
ministers,  enabling  several  to  dismiss  dissentient  colleagues  and  one,  Mendds- 
France,  to  pick  a  united  team  independent  of  party  control.  But  the  professors 
of  law  who  invented  it  had  unhappily  combined  proportional  representation 
in  the  election  of  deputies  with  an  absolute  majority  rule  for  the  choice  of 
premiers.28  This  curious  conjunction  might  not  have  mattered  if  a  few  dis- 
ciplined parties  had  continued  to  dominate  the  Assembly  as  in  1945-47;  but 
once  the  looser  groups  regained  their  influence  it  provoked  difficulties,  and 
before  long  the  old  arrangements  were  restored.  This  reversion  to  the  Third 
Republic  did  not  remedy  the  weaknesses,  which  had  been  political  and  not 
procedural.  Crises  were  not  solved  faster,  stronger  men  were  not  elected 
premier,  and  majorities  were  no  more  coherent.  The  frequency  with  which 
governments  called  on  their  doubting  followers  to  reaffirm  their  confidence 
showed  once  again  that  they  knew  it  to  be  precarious. 

3.  VOTES  OF  CONFIDENCE 

Third  Republican  governments  could  usually  get  their  way  in  the  Chamber 
only  by  seeking  numerous  votes  of  confidence  even  on  trivial  matters.  A  pru- 
dent leader  might  even  resign  as  soon  as  his  majority  dropped  and  before  it 
disappeared  -  for  he  would  need  the  deputies'  goodwill  in  his  future  career, 
and  must  not  seem  to  cling  to  office  against  their  wishes.29  These  traditions  of 
a  Parliament  of  individualists  were  always  deplored  by  the  Socialists,  who 
condemned  both  the  governments  for  coercing  the  Chamber  by  votes  of  con- 
fidence on  minor  questions  and  the  deputies  for  upsetting  cabinets  on  them.  In 
the  new  regime,  with  real  parties  and  a  real  majority,  they  hoped  that  new 
constitutional  rules  could  change  the  old  habits.  Their  remedy,  however, 
rested  both  on  an  insecure  and  temporary  political  foundation  and  on  a  basic 
misunderstanding  of  the  British  example  that  inspired  it:  for  Blum  imagined 
that  a  British  government  could  not  seek  a  vote  of  confidence  from  the  House 
of  Commons.30  A  French  cabinet  without  this  weapon  -  and  lacking  any 
coherent  majority,  any  common  purpose  shared  with  its  following,  or  any 
tradition  of  parliamentary  acceptance  of  cabinet  leadership  -  would  be  help- 
less against  the  pressure  of  the  deputies  and  obliged  to  trim  before  every 
breeze  of  parliamentary  feeling.  Few  premiers  would  hold  office  at  the  price 
of  sacrificing  all  authority  and  all  consistency  of  policy. 

While  the  new  constitution  was  being  drafted  the  provisional  regime  was 
established  by  an  ordinance  of  2  November  1945,  which  reflected  the  Socialist 

27.  Arne",  pp.  201-8,  303-5;  Georgel,  i.  105.  Five  crises  before  but  only  one  after  1954  were 
settled  in  less  than  a  fortnight.  For  the  votes,  see  Appendix  u,  and  Arn6,  p.  207. 

28.  Hamon,  Probl&mes,  p.  23. 

29.  Soulier,  pp.  239,  248.  Ibid,,  pp.  114,  233,  etc.  for  complaints  of  too  many  confidence  votes 
in  the  Third  Republic ;  cf.  Lidderdale,  p.  37 ;  J.  Meyer,  La  question  de  confiance  (1948),  pp.  17-19 ; 
Williams,  p.  21 2.  Tardieu  asked  for  60  in  eight  sitting  months  in  1929-30,  but  this  was  exceptional : 
A.  Tardieu,  Le  Souverain  captif  (193 6),  p.  49. 

30.  Blum,  p.  222  (cf.  Williams,  p.  214n.). 


230  THE  INSTITUTIONS 

conception.  The  government  had  to  resign  on  defeat  on  a  motion  of  censure, 
but  not  on  losing  a  bill  or  an  estimate,  and  it  was  not  expected  to  stake  its  own 
existence  on  a  vote  of  confidence.  Within  two  months  these  rules  led  to  a 
direct  clash,  for  when  the  Socialists  proposed  to  reduce  military  credits, 
General  de  Gaulle  unconstitutionally  (in  their  view)  treated  the  vote  as  one  of 
confidence.  The  quarrel,  briefly  patched  up,  led  to  his  resignation  three  weeks 
later.31  In  the  new  constitution  the  Socialists  had  to  compromise,  and  both  the 
April  and  the  October  drafts  allowed  governments  to  seek  a  vote  of  confidence. 
But  for  use  in  ministerial  self-defence  the  weapon  was  blunted  by  the  con- 
ditions S  FI O  imposed. 

Installed  by  an  absolute  majority  of  the  Assembly,  a  prime  minister  was  to 
be  removed  only  in  the  same  way.  This  caused  no  problem  if  he  won  a  vote  of 
confidence,  or  if  he  lost  by  an  absolute  majority.  But  he  might  be  defeated  by 
less.  Then,  by  the  Assembly's  standing  orders,  the  government  was  beaten  on 
the  point  at  issue  but  had  not  lost  the  confidence  of  the  house.  But  whatever 
the  rules  no  leader,  after  declining  responsibility  for  governing  unless  the 
deputies  accepted  his  policy,  was  likely  to  stay  in  office  when  they  refused  him 
satisfaction.32 

Articles  49  and  50  endeavoured  to  make  procedure  reinforce  the  position  of 
the  ministry.  The  occasions  on  which  its  life  was  at  stake  were  to  be  limited, 
defined,  and  proclaimed  to  Parliament  and  the  country.  The  government  need 
resign  only  if  defeated  on  a  vote  of  confidence  sought  by  the  prime  minister 
(Article  49)  or  of  censure  tabled  by  the  opposition  (Article  50).  The  govern- 
ment's decision  must  be  deliberate:  the  prime  minister  must  consult  the 
cabinet  before  demanding  a  vote  of  confidence.  The  deputies'  vote  must  be 
deliberate  also:  one  clear  day  must  elapse  between  the  demand  for  confidence 
or  censure  and  the  vote  upon  it.33  The  ballot  must  be  public,  and  a  govern- 
mentneed  resign  only  if  an  absolute  majority  of  the  Assembly  voted  against 
it.  It  was  therefore  expected  that  ministers  would  wield  votes  of  confidence 
less  prodigally,  and  deputies  treat  them  less  lightly,  than  in  the  Third 
Republic. 

These  hopes  rested  on  an  unreal  political  foundation.  The  Socialists 
expected  politics  to  be  dominated  by  three  great  parties  and  majorities  to  be 
formed  by  their  own  choice  of  an  ally.  But  tripartisme  collapsed  in  France 
when  co-operation  broke  down  between  the  international  great  powers.  With 
a  majority  as  heterogeneous,  divided  and  undisciplined  as  in  the  Third 
Republic,  there  was  no  clear  clash  between  loyal  supporters  and  firm  oppo- 
Bents  of  the  government.  As  before,  the  marginal  members  of  the  majority 

31,  The?y,  pp.  1&8-92;  Arne,  pp.  268-9 ;  Solal-Celigny,  no.  200,  pp.  732-3. 

32.  The  second  Constituent  Assembly,  unlike  the  first,  recognized  that  a  defeated  government 
might  resign  instead :  Thery,  p.  193,  Georgel,  i.  55-7.  But  if  it  did,  it  nullified  other  constitutional 
provisions  (below,  pp.  237-8).  That  governments  should  not  use  votes  of  confidence  to  coerce  the 
Assembly  was  held  by  all  parties  when  they  were  in  opposition:  JO  16  May  1947,  pp.  1656-7 
(GucoM*,  Gaullist) ;  24  June  1950,  p.  5263  (Lussy,  SFIO) ;  18  February  1958,  p.  844  (Triboulet, 

^fJ^  ?P;51  and  1I3  (Bo&te.  CNI,  Viatte,  MRP,  and  Begouin,  Radical);  Arn6, 
!£«  (^«P;  J  £*?van  and  Mendte-Rrancc).  Cf.  Meyer,  pp.  119,  127;  and  JO  12  March 
1958,  pp.  1551-2,  for  Tnboulef  s  attempt  to  ban  votes  of  confidence  on  bills. 

33:  On  the  origins  of  the  delay  period  (which  was  two  days  in  the  provisional  regime)  see 
Soulier,  pp.  245-6 ;  Georgel,  i.  61-2  and  n. ;  cf.  Meyer,  p.  1 14. 


NATIONAL  ASSEMBLY  (2):   GOVERNMENT  AND  PARLIAMENT     231 

prized  their  freedom  to  switch  their  votes  and  allegiance  when  they  chose. 
Commanding  the  political  decision,  they  transformed  the  procedural  prob- 
lem. For  they  neither  needed  nor  desired  the  opposition  to  determine  by  a 
vote  of  censure  the  moment  for  their  defection  from  the  majority:  that  pro- 
cedure therefore  became  superfluous  and  inoperative.  They  did  not  have  to  be 
coerced  into  supporting  the  government  on  great  clashes  of  principle  with  the 
opposition;  on  these  their  allegiance  was  safe.  But  the  vote  of  confidence  was 
often  needed  to  keep  individual  waverers  and  hesitant  parties  loyal  to  un- 
popular decisions  or  unpalatable  compromises  without  which  the  majority 
would  crack  and  the  government  fall.  It  thus  became  a  common  event  instead 
of  a  rare  and  solemn  one.  When  the  formalities  were  a  nuisance  they  were 
evaded  or  disregarded  entirely;  when  they  were  convenient  the  vote  of  con- 
fidence was  used  as  a  procedural  device.  As  the  politics  came  to  resemble  those 
of  the  Third  Republic,  the  procedure  did  so  too. 

The  hopes  of  the  constitution-makers  broke  down  as  soon  as  the  majority 
proved  unstable.  The  first  vote  of  confidence  was  asked  in  March  1947  to 
compel  the  Communists  to  observe  ministerial  solidarity  or  else  resign.  The 
second,  in  May,  put  pressure  on  the  Socialists  who  had  said  they  would  not 
stay  in  office  without  the  Communists ;  after  voting  with  the  government  it  was 
harder  for  them  to  leave  it.  MRP  then  urged  Ramadier  to  ask  for  votes  of 
confidence  against  Socialist  demands  on  civil  service  wages  in  July,  and  on  an 
Algerian  government  bill  in  August;  meanwhile  the  other  parties  persuaded 
him  to  seek  one  against  MRP  over  the  municipal  election  law.  In  September 
MRP,  having  got  satisfaction  over  Algeria,  voted  confidence  in  the  govern- 
ment over  a  coal  subsidy  which  they  opposed,  while  the  Communists  (who 
approved  of  it)  voted  against  it  to  show  no  confidence  in  the  cabinet.34 

If  friction  was  too  serious,  a  vote  of  confidence  might  so  strain  relations 
between  parties  as  to  shatter  the  majority  instead  of  consolidating  it.  In 
February  1951  Pleven's  compromise  electoral  reform  instituted  a  double 
ballot  which  MRP  detested.  The  prime  minister  sought  a  vote  of  confidence 
on  the  bill,  but  appeased  M  RP  by  agreeing  to  accept  the  house's  decision  on  a 
private  member's  amendment  for  a  single  ballot.  On  28  February  the  Assem- 
bly voted  confidence  with  most  MRP  members  abstaining;  next  day  it 
rejected  the  single  ballot,  ministers  not  voting.  Now  the  Radicals  demanded 
that  Pleven  ask  a  vote  of  confidence  on  the  double  ballot  clause  in  the  bill;  he 
would  lose  their  ministers  if  he  refused  and  MRP's  if  he  agreed,  and  to  avoid 
bitterness  which  would  make  the  next  government  harder  to  form,  he  himself 
resigned.35 

When  major  parties  clashed  the  vote  of  confidence  might  fix  (or  shift) 
responsibilities,  or  even  postpone  the  fall  of  a  cabinet.  Its  everyday  use  was 
less  dramatic.  Free  of  pressure  from  the  government,  the  Assembly  would 
often  overwhelmingly  reject  its  measures  or  carry  popular  proposals  which  it 

34.  Meyer,  pp.  152, 158, 161, 165, 175 ;  cf.  Colliard,  no.  58,  pp.  222, 225-6 ;  and  Arn6,  pp.  275-6, 
for  similar  cases  later. 

35.  He  had  already  done  so  on  28  February  when  he  won  the  vote  of  confidence  by  only  27; 
the  President  refused  his  resignation  then,  but  accepted  Pleven's  arguments  for  it  on  1  March. 


232  THE  INSTITUTIONS 

considered  impracticable.36  A  vote  of  confidence  protected  not  only  the 
ministers  but  also  the  deputy,  who  could  tell  his  critical  constituents  that  he 
had  opposed  their  favourite  demand,  or  accepted  the  government's  utterly 
inadequate  compromise,  only  to  avoid  a  cabinet  crisis.  The  less  certain  the 
majority,  the  more  votes  of  confidence  were  needed:  46  in  the  first  Parliament, 
73  in  the  second  and  45  in  the  short  life  of  the  third. 

When  the  formal  safeguards  were  inconvenient  they  were  evaded  or  laxly 
interpreted.  A  premier  wanting  to  use  this  procedural  weapon  against  obstruc- 
tion might  not  have  cabinet  authorization;  he  was  likely  to  protect  himself  for 
the  future  by  securing  it  in  advance,  which  eliminated  both  its  inconvenience 
and  its  advantages.37  He  might  find  the  day's  delay  helpful  -  or  a  nuisance.38 
In  January  1948  Schuman  faced  forty  amendments  to  unpopular  tax  pro- 
posals; he  grouped  them  by  article  and  subject  and  held  five  votes  of  con- 
fidence after  one  day's  delay.  This  practice  permitted  unlimited  inflation,  and 
on  27  February  1952  Edgar  Faure  asked  for  twenty  votes  of  confidence.  Yet 
even  a  laxly  interpreted  delay  clause  slowed  the  passage  of  bills  -  notably  the 
old  age  pension  fund  bill  of  1956.39 

The  constitutional  safeguards  were  wholly  abandoned  when  a  premier  in- 
formed the  Assembly  that  he  would  not  formally  seek  a  vote  of  confidence  but 
meant  to  resign  unless  he  got  his  way.  This  practice  put  less  strain  on  relations 
between  government  parties  when  the  demand  for  confidence  was  really 
directed  against  one  of  them.  Ramadier  used  it  to  bring  pressure  on  the 
Socialists  over  civil  service  pay  in  July  1947,  and  over  the  Algerian  govern- 
ment bill  in  August  (the  SFIO  conference  had  insisted  that  the  formal  con- 
fidence vote  should  not  be  used).  Schuman  employed  it  frequently,  for  instance> 
in  March  1948  to  evade  the  delay  rule  when  he  feared  that  after  a  weekend  in 
their  constituencies  deputies  would  be  likelier  to  vote  against  him.40  In  June 
1948  his  cabinet  decided  to  use  it  on  the  ratification  of  the  London  agreements 

36.  The  government  lost  in  December  1949  on  ex-service  pensions  by  a  unanimous  vote;  in 
May  1950  on  a  bonus  for  railwaymen  by  541  to  27,  and  on  teachers'  salaries  by  540  to  27;  in 
Apnl  1  951  on  a  30%  increase  in  family  allowances  by  551  to  34.  (The  minorities  were  the  ministers.) 

37.  As  Quemlle  did  in  December  1948  and  in  May  1951,  and  Pleven  in  December  1951  : 
Colaard,  no.  58,  pp.  222-3  ;  JO  24  April  1951  ;  Monde,  2  May  and  9-10  December  1951  ;AP  1952, 
p.  19;  GeorgeJ,  i.  108-9;  Arae\  pp.  262-6,  270-1,  276;  Solal-Celigny,  no.  200,  pp.  722-3,  735-6. 
So  QueoiIIe  could  caH  for  a  vote  of  confidence  (with  proxies)  later  in  May  1951  when  the  Commu- 
Bisi  beaefafis  began  filling  up  at  5  a.m.  in  an  empty  house.  Pleven  had  no  authorization  in  Decem- 
A    ^S?®  ***  Conservatives  calkd  a  snap  vote  on  the  Schuman  Plan  late  at  night,  President 
Aunoi  bad  to  be  roused  and  driven  forty  miles  into  Paris  to  preside  at  the  cabinet  which  gave  it. 
soap  voles  of  ojfrfldence,  censure  or  investiture  were  impossible  as  they  all  required  notice,  so 
me  »  Assembly  could  safely  ban  proxies  on  these  in  1955:  see  Solal-Celigny,  no.  201,  pp.  305-9 
and  above,  p.  213.  ' 

3&  It  helped  to  save  governments  in  December  1949  and  December  1950,  and  to  gain  a  majo- 
rity ftatfee  Eroopeaa  army  in  February  1952  :  Figaro,  24-25  December  1949  ;  AP  1950,  pp.  232-3  ; 

PJ    *    ;  P'  73?*  ***  n°'  m*  pp'  314>  320'  But  sometimes  it  strengthened  the  hostile 
:  BaauKjat,  p.  118. 


'       '  Pp*  724~7  (cf<  no*  201»  pp'  30I~4)-  On  1948>  Colliard, 

*2^2*f  afe°  Geoi»ci-  *>  109»  *ri  Arne,  pp.  264-6.  Many  of  Faure's  20  votes  were  on 
!5~1-  °*£  been  discmsed  -  for  midnight  was  approaching  and  he  wanted  the  'clear 
rather  ^a  the  day  after  (but  he  was  beaten  on  an  early  vote). 

**"  ml 


^Mo^foo^wtes  of  confidence  (60%)  were  held  before  the  weekend,  except  by  Pinay  and 
Meades-France,  wfoo  were  popular  m  the  country  and  had  10  of  their  1  3  on  a  Monday  or  Tuesday. 


NATIONAL  ASSEMBLY  (2):  GOVERNMENT  AND  PARLIAMENT     233 

on  Germany;  in  August  Andr6  Marie  did  so  on  Paul  Reynaud's  bill  for 
financial  special  powers ;  in  December  Queuille  used  it  three  times  in  a  day, 
and  by  the  end  of  his  long  ministry  the  constitutional  procedure  seemed  to 
have  fallen  into  disuse.41 

Queuille  preferred  the  informal  procedure  because  it  interfered  less  obviously 
with  members'  independence  of  judgment.42  But  this  was  a  sign  of  strength, 
for  the  unofficial  demand  for  confidence  was  normally  less  effective  as  well  as 
less  obnoxious,  as  it  attracted  little  publicity  and  did  little  to  screen  the  deputy 
from  his  critical  constituents.  Bidault,  who  succeeded  Queuille,  could  afford 
no  concessions ;  he  needed  every  weapon  to  save  his  budget.  Besides,  all  his 
predecessors  were  old  parliamentary  hands  and  two  were  traditionalist 
Radicals;  Bidault  was  a  parliamentary  newcomer  and  founder  of  MRP. 
Determined  to  force  the  Assembly  to  take  the  responsibility  of  ejecting  him,  he 
remained  undeterred  when  his  majority  fell  to  6, 4  and  0  on  formal  confidence 
votes.43  For  if  two  governments  were  defeated  in  this  way  the  second  might  be 
able  to  dissolve  the  Assembly :  a  prospect  far  more  distasteful  to  Radicals 
who  wanted  a  new  electoral  law  than  to  MRP  who  preferred  the  existing  one. 
The  formal  vote  of  confidence,  with  its  contingent  threat  of  dissolution,  was 
thus  a  handier  weapon  for  an  MRP  premier  harassed  by  rebellious  Radicals 
or  Conservatives  than  for  a  Radical  premier  facing  MRP  recalcitrance.44 

In  March  1951  Queuille  came  back  to  power  leading  a  very  weak  cabinet. 
But  an  election  was  imminent  and  the  budget  months  overdue,  so  that  the 
party  responsible  for  his  fall  would  provoke  resentment  which  could  quickly 
be  expressed  at  the  polls.  Queuille  now  needed  the  formal  vote  of  confidence, 
and  while  in  1948-49  he  had  used  it  only  once  in  ten  sitting  months,  in  1951  he 
employed  it  nine  times  in  only  ten  weeks.  His  successor,  Pleven,  sought  no 
vote  of  confidence  for  months.  But  this  denoted  weakness:  in  the  new  Parlia- 
ment the  cabinet  could  not  take  sides  on  Barang6's  bill  subsidizing  church 
schools  without  a  split,  or  stake  its  existence  on  the  bill  tying  wages  to  the  cost 
of  living  (which  it  openly  opposed)  without  courting  defeat  and  playing  into 
RPF's  hands. 

The  vote  of  confidence  was  thus  both  a  procedural  and  a  political  weapon. 
Procedurally,  the  formal  vote  put  more  pressure  on  the  deputies,  gave  time  for 
negotiation,  and  raised  the  spectre  of  dissolution.  It  enabled  the  government 
to  regain  the  parliamentary  initiative  from  the  committees,  the  opposition  or 
rebellious  back-benchers,  and  to  choose  the  time  and  ground  for  battle.45 

41.  On  this  paragraph  see  Georgel,  L  108;  Meyer,  p.  152  (civil  service);  Colliard,  no.  58, 
pp.  222,  225-7  (coal,  Algeria,  Schuman);  AP  1948,  pp.  95  (Germany),  133  (Reynaud),  226 
(Queuille),  326  (Schuman),  and  1949,  pp.  129,  325  (Queuille  on  a  holiday  bonus  in  My  and  on 
petrol  rationing  in  May). 

42.  His  cabinet  had  authorized  formal  votes  on  new  taxes  in  September  1948,  on  the  aircraft 
industry  in  June  1949,  etc.:  AP  1948,  p.  157, 1949,  p.  98.  (Queuille,  Faureand  Mollet  were  formally 
authorized  to  ask  for  informal  votes  of  confidence,  and  Gaillard  demanded  one  against  a  proposal 
to  restrict  the  use  of  the  formal  procedure :  Arne,  p.  270.) 

43.  On  3 1  January  1950  Bidault  won  four  such  votes  on  the  budget  but  lost  a  fifth  by  293  to  293 
(a  tie  is  negative  in  French  procedure) :  AP  1949,  p.  223,  and  1950,  pp.  2-5. 

44.  For  dissolution  see  below,  pp.  236-8.  Bidault  asked  for  eleven  votes  of  confidence  to  protect 
his  budget  from  Radical  and  Conservative  attacks,  but  none  (despite  cabinet  authorization)  to 
prevent  Socialists  and  MRP  rewriting  his  collective  bargaining  bill:  AP  1949,  p.  203. 

45.  Cf.  Arne,  pp.  270-2;  and  see  Solal-Celigny,  no.  201,  pp.  312-5,  320  (cf.  no.  200,  p.  737). 


234  THE  INSTITUTIONS 

Politically,  it  subordinated  the  specific  question  to  the  fate  of  the  cabinet  and 
so  altered  votes,  rallying  waverers  to  the  government  but  alienating  oppo- 
nents who  agreed  with  the  particular  policy;  consequently  Edgar  Faure  in 
November  1955  did  not  use  it  on  his  Moroccan  policy,  with  which  the  Left 
opposition  sympathized,  and  Guy  Mollet  similarly  refrained  after  Suez  when 
he  wanted  an  impressive  majority  for  his  foreign  policy,  which  the  Right 
approved.46 

Political  behaviour  depended  on  political  circumstances.  The  first  four 
premiers  of  the  regime  asked  only  15  confidence  votes  in  almost  three  years. 
But  their  successors  had  difficulty  carrying  increased  taxation  against  Radical 
and  Conservative  opposition;  the  next  three  premiers  sought  31  votes  of  con- 
fidence (18  of  them  budgetary)  in  twenty  months,  and  in  the  first  sixteen 
months  of  the  new  Parliament  three  prime  ministers  asked  for  53,  all  but  ten 
on  their  budgets.47  In  November  1950  Ren6  Pleven's  first  cabinet  was  severely 
shaken  by  a  vote  on  Indo-China  in  which  its  majority  was  150,  because  the 
omission  of  the  word  'confidence'  was  the  price  of  the  victory.48  A  year  later 
Pleven  changed  an  unofficial  vote  of  confidence  (on  economies)  into  an  official 
one  because  President  Auriol  wanted  him  to  stay  until  constitutionally 
ejected.  His  successor  Edgar  Faure  formally  staked  the  life  of  his  government 
on  a  motion  on  the  European  army,  which  he  then  withdrew  to  win  Socialist 
support.  When  Antoine  Pinay  tried  to  avoid  votes  of  confidence,  he  suffered 
massive  defeats;  as  opposition  grew  stronger  he  had  to  resort  to  them.49 

After  his  fall  the  decisive  issues  were  those  of  external  policy,  which  pro- 
voked major  clashes  between  parties  rather  than  contests  over  details  with 
groups  of  recalcitrant  individualists.  The  vote  of  confidence  was  both  less 
essential  and  less  available:  no  cabinet  could  agree  to  stake  its  life  on  EDC. 
In  January  1953  Rene  Mayer  won  the  Gaullist  vote  and  the  premiership  by  a 
pledge  not  to  do  so  (for  which  he  was  scathingly  criticized  even  by  Edgar 
Faure).  In  June  when  Paul  Reynaud  refused  to  repeat  this  pledge,  Pierre  Cot 
protested  amid  applause  that  so  grave  a  decision  ought  not  to  be  taken  under 
a  threat  of  dissolution.  Mendes-France  then  promised  not  to  dissolve  if 
beaten,  but  affirmed  that  no  government  could  retain  authority  unless  it  en- 
gaged its  existence  on  so  vital  a  question;  yet  when  he  became  premier  a  year 

46.  Simaariy,  Pleven  was  reluctant  to  alienate  RPF  by  using  it  on  the  Schuman  Plan  in  Decem- 
ber 1951,  tmt  be  Bad  to  do  so  to  avoid  a  snap  vote.  Conversely,  Pinay  was  beaten  on  his  amnesty 
for  tax  frauds,  but  reversed  the  decision  by  making  it  one  of  confidence :  ibid.,  pp.  723,  727,  735. 
For  Fauns,  ibid.,  1956,  p.  315;  for  Mollet,  AP  1956,  p.  118 ;  for  Pleven  also  AP  1951,  pp.  321-2; 
cf.  Ame,  pp.  273,  275-6.  In  June  1950  Bidault  was  defeated  in  the  Assembly  on  a  financial  point, 
and  made  it  a  matter  of  confidence :  30  R  G  R  and  I O  M  rebels  now  voted  for  him,  whije  30  P  R  L 
aad  Peasans  who  had  supported  him  now  obstained.  (He  lost;  below,  p.  254.) 

47.  Only  5  of  tie  first  15  confidence  votes  were  budgetary,  but  11  of  Bidault's  13,  7  of  Pleven's 
9  m  his  first  cabinet  and  9  of  13  in  his  second,  20  of  Faure's  23  and  14  of  Pinay's  17.  Queuille's 
9  were  al  on  priority  for  government  business  or  electoral  reform  before  the  1951  election.  Of 
toe  next  53,  less  than  half  were  voted  on,  as  Pleven,  Faure  and  Pinay  all  fell  with  several  pending. 
For  details  see  Appendix  n,  and  tables  in  Ame,  p.  274,  and  in  Solal-Celigny,  nos.  200-1 ;  both  omit 
the  vote  of  1  December  1950. 

4^AP  1950,  pp.  229, 233;  cf.  AP  1957,  pp.  22-4  for  Molfet's  similar  Pyrrhic  victory  on  agri- 
cultural policy  shortly  before  his  fall.  An  interpellation  debate  often  ended  with  the  Assembly 
expressing  its  confidence  in  the  government ' ;  if  it  did  not, '  suppressing  its  mistrust  of  the  govern- 
ment might  be  the  impression  conveyed. 

/A49*  iPP?l*2'  ™7  Q^ve*),  ^52>  PP-  H  SO,  83  (massive  defeats);  below,  pp.  238  and  n. 
(Auool);  SoM-Ceiigny,  no.  200,  pp.  729  (Faure),  727,  736-7  (Pinay). 


NATIONAL  ASSEMBLY  (2):  GOVERNMENT  AND  PARLIAMENT     235 

later  he  stayed  neutral  on  the  treaty  for  fear  of  breaking  up  his  cabinet.  Ger- 
many, Indo-China  and  North  Africa  had  pushed  the  budget  into  the  back- 
ground of  politics,  and  from  1953  to  1955  there  were  only  twenty  votes  of 
confidence :  twelve  on  external  affairs  and  only  four  budgetary.50 

At  the  end  of  that  Parliament  it  was  pointed  out  that  the  duration  of  govern- 
ments seemed  to  be  inversely  related  to  their  predilection  for  votes  of  con- 
fidence.51 Yet  the  next  premier,  whose  party  doctrine  forbade  governments  to 
use  this  weapon,  wielded  it  more  vigorously  than  any  predecessor  -  and  lasted 
longer.  For  though  Guy  Mollet  had  only  minority  support  in  Parliament,  few 
of  his  nominal  opponents  wanted  to  bring  him  down.  At  first,  MRP  and  the 
Conservatives  feared  to  leave  SFIO  dependent  on  Communist  support  and 
perhaps  encourage  a  Popular  Front;  when  the  Communists  had  turned 
against  him,  the  Right  preferred  him  to  take  responsibility  for  waging  (and 
paying  for)  the  Algerian  war.  This  allowed  him  to  use  constitutional  votes  of 
confidence  to  force  his  hesitant  critics  to  turn  him  out  or  accept  his  domestic 
policy.  Algeria  was  not  yet  the  most  controversial  parliamentary  problem, 
and  of  Mollet's  34  formal  votes  of  confidence  15  were  on  social  policy  and  1 1 
(plus  several  unofficial  ones)  were  on  finance. 

Under  his  successors  liberals  and  diehards  clashed  bitterly  over  North 
African  affairs,  while  the  domestic  disputes  between  Socialists  and  Conser- 
vatives became  more  envenomed.52  Struggling  for  survival,  Bourges-Maunoury 
and  particularly  Gaillard  expanded  the  scope  of  their  votes  of  confidence  to 
paralyse  parliamentary  debate  by  asking  for  a  single  vote  to  open  and  close 
discussion  on  the  whole  text  of  a  bill  with  all  its  clauses.  Hitherto  Presidents  of 
the  Assembly  had  resisted  governments  which  tried  to  limit  their  difficulties  in 
this  way,  but  now  Le  Troquer  allowed  the  dying  Fourth  Republic  to  set  a 
dangerous  precedent  -  thoroughly  exploited  by  its  successor.53 

The  formal  vote  of  confidence  was  most  freely  used  by  leaders  of  pro- 
gressive majorities  facing  attack  from  the  Right :  Bidault  in  the  first  Parliament, 
Mendes-France  in  the  second  and  Mollet  in  the  third  drew  the  lines  of  con- 
flict sharply  and  repeatedly  challenged  their  critics.  More  conservative  leaders 
preferred  to  minimize  differences  and  lower  the  political  temperature:  a 
Queuille,  Pinay  or  Laniel  used  the  informal  confidence  vote  whenever  he  could 
and  the  constitutional  form  only  when  he  had  to.54  Their  formal  votes  were 

50.  AP  1953,  p.  4  (Mayer);  Monde,  27  March  1953  (Faure);  JO  27  May  1953,  pp.  2867  (Cot), 
2870  (Reynaud),  3  June  1953,  pp.  2910-1  (Mendes-France) ;  Arn6,  pp.  272-3;  Solal-Celigny, 
no.  201,  pp.  310-1. 

51.  Ibid.,  p.  311,  cf.  p.  321. 

52.  Of  the  eleven  votes  of  confidence  after  Mollet's  fall,  four  were  on  Algeria  and  six  were 
budgetary. 

53.  Arn6,  p.  276 ;  Blamont,  pp.  115-17.  Without  impeding  debate,  a  'legitimate*  vote  of  confi- 
dence might  be  quite  complex.  Edgar  Faure' s  on  electoral  reform  on  12  November  1955  was  by 
no  means  the  most  elaborate:  'against  the  discussion  of  M.  Meunier's  or  any  other  counter- 
proposal, for  the  adoption  of  the  one  clause  of  the  bill  as  reported,  and  against  any  motion, 
amendment  or  new  clause  which  would  reduce  its  scope  or  delay  its  application'.  If  in  the  first 
two  Assemblies  a  premier  asked  for  one  vote  of  confidence  on  several  items,  the  President  would 
announce  it  as  several  distinct  votes ;  only  three  times  did  he  allow  one  vote  on  two  or  three  con- 
nected clauses:  Solal-Celigny,  no.  201,  p.  313. 

54.  Ibid,  (see  n.  45),  on  their  respective  advantages;  Blamont,  p.  119,  on  the  deputies'  growing 
dislike  of  the  unofficial  form.  But  on  3  June  1958  it  was  used  for  the  last  vote  of  the  National 
Assembly  of  the  Fourth  Republic  by  Charles  de  Gaulle. 


236  THE  INSTITUTIONS 

usually  concentrated  in  the  last  few  weeks  when  the  premier  was  trying  to 
stave  off  impending  disaster.  Ren6  Pleven  and  Edgar  Faure  each  led  one 
government  which  was  attacked  by  the  Left  and  another  which  was  criticized 
by  the  Right;  each  preferred  the  light  artillery  in  the  former  and  the  heavier 
weapons  in  the  latter.  F£lix  Gaillard's  sweeping  votes  of  confidence  offended 
the  conservative  elements  in  his  divided  majority.  The  marginal  members  on 
whom  the  government  most  needed  to  put  pressure  were  also  those  who  most 
resented  it,  for  they  came  from  the  parties  of  weak  discipline  and  individual- 
ist tradition,  and  with  no  solid  organization  behind  them  they  had  most  to 
fear  from  a  dissolution. 

4.  DISSOLUTION,  DEFEAT  AND  CENSURE 

To  the  makers  of  the  constitution  dissolution  was  the  ultimate  sanction  against 
parliamentary  irresponsibility.  They  hoped  by  Articles  49  and  50  to  dis- 
courage unnecessary  votes  of  confidence  and  restrict  cabinet  crises  to  the  rare 
occasions  when  a  majority,  drawn  from  a  few  disciplined  parties,  turned 
decisively  against  its  own  leaders.  But  parliaments  with  no  coherent  majority 
had  been  common  in  the  past,  and  Articles  51  and  52  allowed  for  their  re- 
appearance by  organizing  the  dissolution,  under  strict  conditions,  as  an 
emergency  exit  from  deadlock.  Although  the  deputies  tried  hard  to  prevent 
the  conditions  ever  being  fulfilled,  in  1955  a  French  Parliament  was  dissolved 
by  the  executive  for  the  first  time  for  nearly  eighty  years. 

In  the  Third  Republic  the  Chamber  could  be  dissolved  by  the  President 
with  the  consent  of  the  Senate.  But  by  convention  the  power  was  never  used 
after  1877,  so  that  deputies  who  felt  secure  for  four  years  had  upset  govern- 
ments without  fear  of  electoral  penalties.  The  Right  wanted  the  cabinet  to 
have  power  to  dissolve;  the  Left  would  not  hear  of  dissolution  as  an  executive 
weapon,  but  only  as  an  escape  from  parliamentary  irresponsibility  or  in- 
coherence. The  Socialist  solution  was  automatic  dissolution.  It  presupposed  a 
coherent  majority  normally  working  in  harmony  with  the  executive;  two 
clashes  would  mean  the  end  of  both  ministry  and  Assembly.  But  the  constitu- 
tion-makers were  or  professed  to  be  more  afraid  of  futile  general  elections 
than  of  frequent  changes  of  government.55  The  first  draft  constitution  com- 
promised on  *a  kind  of  annual  ration  of  crises'.56  If  the  Assembly  threw  out 
two  governments  in  a  session  the  prime  minister  could  dissolve,  after  con- 
sulting both  the  President  of  the  Assembly  (the  best  judge  of  whether  another 
government  could  find  a  majority)  and  his  own  cabinet  (which  would  hand 
over  to  the  caretaker  ministry  described  below).  But  these  cautious  provisions 
applied  only  in  the  second  half  of  the  Assembly's  five-year  term. 

After  their  referendum  defeat  the  Left  made  a  few  concessions :  the  care- 
taker rules  were  modified,  the  'close  season'  was  reduced  from  a  Parliament's 
first  thirty  months  to  eighteen,  and  the  two  government  defeats  could  occur 
within  eighteen  months  instead  of  twelve.57  Article  51,  then,  allowed  the 

55.  JO  10  April  1946,  p.  1679,  and  17th,  p.  1952  (Cot) ;  22  August  1946,  p.  3246  (Ramadier) ;  27 
May  1953,  pp.  2S59  (Lecourt),  2S68  (Cot) ;  Auriol,  ii.  249 ;  Triery,  Chapter  4 ;  Georgel,  i.  66,  74-7 ; 
Ara6,  pp.  289-91 ;  Williams,  p.  227cu  In  1 93 1  Blum  had  urged  dissolution  of  a  conservative  Chamber. 

56.  Ree6  Coty,  JO  12  April  1946,  p,  1770. 

57.  Another  compromise:  MRP  wanted  two  years,  the  Left  six  months. , 


NATIONAL  ASSEMBLY  (2):   GOVERNMENT  AND  PARLIAMENT     237 

cabinet  to  dissolve  (after  consulting  the  President  of  the  Assembly)  when  two 
crises  had  occurred  within  eighteen  months,  provided:  first  that  both  govern- 
ments were  constitutionally  defeated  under  Article  49  or  50  by  an  absolute 
majority  on  a  vote  of  confidence  or  censure;  secondly,  under  Article  45,  that 
they  were  more  than  two  weeks  old;  and  thirdly  that  the  Assembly  that  de- 
feated them  was  over  eighteen  months  old.  It  was  not  to  be  penalized  for 
upsetting  ministries  early  in  its  own  life,  before  a  majority  had  crystallized,  or 
early  in  theirs,  since  it  had  chosen  not  a  cabinet  but  a  premier  alone. 

The  power  of  dissolution  was  thus  made  hard  to  use  -  or  misuse.  Article  52 
ruled  out  manipulations  like  MacMahon's  in  1877  by  laying  down  a  minimum 
and  maximum  period  (twenty  to  thirty  days)  between  the  dissolution  and  the 
election,  and  a  date  (the  third  Tuesday  after  the  poll)  for  the  new  house  to 
meet.  It  also  installed  a  caretaker  cabinet  to  supervise  the  administration  and 
especially  the  prefects,  who  could  influence  a  local  contest  by  urging  a  politi- 
cian to  stand  or  withdraw,  to  make  or  refuse  an  alliance,  or  to  support  one 
candidate  rather  than  another.58  In  the  first  draft  constitution  the  Assembly's 
President  and  committee  chairmen  took  over  from  the  ministers  who  had 
dissolved.  In  the  final  draft  the  President  of  the  Assembly  became  caretaker 
premier,  chose  a  new  minister  of  the  interior  in  consultation  with  the  bureau 
(elected  by  PR  under  Article  1 1),  and  appointed  new  ministers  without  port- 
folio from  all  groups  unrepresented  in  the  government.  By  a  curious  paradox 
France  was  to  acquire  a  cabinet  of  national  union  at  a  moment  of  bitter  con- 
troversy. 

Some  consternation  was  caused  by  the  fear  that  these  arrangements  might 
bring  Communists  back  to  power.  They  provoked  an  incident  in  January 
1948,  when  Herriot  was  due  for  re-election  as  President  of  the  Assembly.  His 
health  would  not  stand  the  strain  of  an  emergency  premiership,  and  if  de 
Gaulle  succeeded  in  forcing  a  dissolution  he  might  resign.  The  obvious  sub- 
stitute premier  was  the  senior  vice-president  of  the  Assembly,  who  in  a  bureau 
elected  by  PR  represented  the  largest  party,  the  Communists:  thus  a  dissolu- 
tion might  allow  Jacques  Duclos  to  become  caretaker  premier  and  appoint  a 
minister  of  the  interior  controlling  the  prefects  and  the  police.  He  was  there- 
fore demoted  to  third  vice-president,  behind  members  of  SFIO  and  MRP; 
the  Communists  refused  to  serve  on  the  bureau  and  appealed  to  President 
Auriol  as  guardian  of  the  constitution,  but  he  declined  to  intervene.  Even  so, 
many  parliamentarians  thought  the  caretaker  arrangements  made  a  dissolu- 
tion impossible,  and  the  constitutional  amendment  of  1954  abandoned  them. 
If  a  dissolution  was  not  the  result  of  a  vote  of  censure  the  old  administration 
was  now  to  stay  in  power;  if  it  was,  the  President  of  the  Assembly  would 
become  both  premier  and  minister  of  the  interior.59 

During  the  life  of  the  first  Assembly  ten  ministries  went  out  of  office,  but 

58.  In  1956  prefects  were  said  to  have  intervened  in  half  a  dozen  of  the  103  constituencies,  not 
always  to  help  pro-government  candidates ;  in  three  of  these  seats  an  ex-minister  of  the  interior 
was  standing:  Williams,  no.  168,  p.  153 ;  and  cf.  Pineau,  pp.  18-21.  On  1877  see  Soulier,  p.  49. 

59.  Institutions,  i.  186-7,  Georgel,  i.  115-18;  on  the  1948  incident,  Lidderdale,  p.  104n.  By 
1954  the  Radicals,  back  in  power,  favoured  keeping  the  old  government  which  in  1946  (in  oppo- 
sition) they  had  wanted  to  remove.  Many  people  thought  the  old  Art.  52  required  a  cabinet 
formed  by  PR  (cf.  Georgel,  i.  115  and  n.) ;  in  fact  one  Communist  minister  without  a  department 
would  have  been  enough.  Some  criticisms  of  the  constitution  could  have  been  met  by  reading  it 


238  THE  INSTITUTIONS 

only  one  crisis  qualified  under  the  strict  conditions  of  Article  51.  Instead  of 
staying  until  ousted  constitutionally,  most  cabinets  fell  apart  internally  or 
resigned  on  defeat  by  a  simple  majority.  Two  cabinets  left  office  on  the  election 
of  a  new  President  of  the  Republic  (Blum's)  and  National  Assembly  (Queuille's 
third)  as  tradition  and  Article  45  respectively  required.  Two  were  defeated  on 
first  meeting  the  house,  Schuman's  second  by  a  simple  and  Queuille's  second 
by  an  absolute  majority.  Ramadier's,  Marie's  and  Queuille's  first  govern- 
ments 'rotted  from  within'  with  no  vote  in  the  Assembly,  and  Pleven's  first 
after  a  vote  in  which  it  was  neutral.  Schuman's  first  ministry  fell  because 
SFIO  defected;  the  premier  insisted  on  a  vote,  but  it  was  not  a  constitutional 
vote  of  confidence  and  he  lost  only  by  a  relative  majority.60  President  Auriol 
tried  in  vain  to  encourage  premiers  to  stay  in  office  until  constitutionally 
defeated;  he  dissuaded  several  from  premature  resignation,  but  could  not 
prevail  when  the  prime  minister  warned  that  a  formal  vote  would  exacerbate 
the  divisions  of  a  majority  on  which  any  government  must  necessarily  be 
based,61  So  of  the  ten  premiers  only  Bidault  was  constitutionally  overthrown, 
by  an  absolute  majority  on  a  vote  of  confidence  when  the  Socialists  moved 
from  abstention  to  opposition. 

The  seven  premiers  of  the  second  Parliament  proved  much  more  determined 
to  use  their  constitutional  rights,  perhaps  because  they  came  from  a  new 
political  generation.62  Only  Pinay  resigned  without  a  vote,  when  MRP's 
decision  to  abstain  made  defeat  inevitable.  Faure  (in  1952)  and  Laniel  were 
beaten  by  relative  majorities,  but  Pleven,  Mayer,  Mendes-France  and  Faure 
(in  1955)  all  had  absolute  majorities  against  them  on  votes  of  confidence. 
After  Mayer's  fall  in  May  1953  the  deputies  had  to  beware  of  possible  disso- 
lution. When  they  overthrew  Laniel  by  a  relative  majority,  he  wanted  to 
await  a  constitutional  defeat  and  then  dissolve,  but  he  was  foiled  by  the 
defection  of  the  Radicals,  led  by  Edgar  Faure  and  Martinaud-D6plat,  who 
were  against  dissolution  in  1954  though  for  it  in  1955.63  Until  eighteen  months 
after  Mayer's  fall  Mendes-France  could  have  dissolved  on  defeat;  his  difficul- 
ties with  the  Assembly  therefore  began  only  in  November  1954.  A  few  weeks 
later  he  was  ousted  by  an  absolute  majority,  so  that  when  Edgar  Faure  was 
ejected  in  the  same  way  ten  months  afterwards  he  was  entitled  to  dissolve. 
The  deputies  had  miscalculated,  for  the  new  standing  order  banning  proxies 

60.  He  asked  for  a  formal  vote  of  confidence  against  a  Radical  amendment  to  reduce  the  army 
estimates,  which  was  withdrawn ;  he  was  beaten  on  a  similar  Socialist  amendment  after  an  infor- 
mal threat  to  resign  if  defeated  (cf.  below,  p.  254n.).  The  Socialist  ministers  moved  to  their  party's 
beaches  during  the  debate ;  this  traditionally  indicated  resignation. 

61.  As  QpeuiHe  did  in  October  1949  and  Pleven  in  March  1951.  Auriol  accepted  Marie's 
resignation  in  1948,  but  said  later  he  had  been  wrong.  He  dissuaded  Ramadier  in  September  1947 
(his  majority  had  fallen  below  fifty),  Pleven  in  November  1950  (the  Assembly  had  humiliated  a 
leading  minister,  see  p.  299  below),  and  Queuille  in  April  1951  (the  deputies  had  failed  to  carry 
electoral  reform,  p.  288n.  below) ;  and  he  kept  Pleven's  second  cabinet  in  office  until  its  constitu- 
tional defeat  (cf.  above,  p.  234).  See  AP  1949,  pp.  169-70,  338 ;  1950,  pp.  231-2 ;  1951,  pp.  39-40, 
287;  Mo**d«, 29-30  April  1951  and  18-19  November  1951 ;  Flory,  no.  93,  pp.  851-9 ;  Drago,  no.  76, 
p.  166;  Georgd,  1 93-4 ;  Arne,  pp.  57-63.  Auriol's  views  were  shared  by  many  of  his  predecessors 
{SouEer,  pp.  75-6,  98,  131,  171)  and  by  his  successor  (cf.  Georgel,  i.  92-4). 

62.  See  above,  p.  13.  On  resignations  with  or  without  votes  in  Parliament  see  Arne,  pp.  279, 

63.  For  periods  when  dissolution  threatened,  and  for  Laniel,  see  ibid.,  pp.  280-1  •  for  the  dura- 
tion of  governments,  see  Appendix  H. 


NATIONAL  ASSEMBLY  (2):   GOVERNMENT  AND  PARLIAMENT     239 

on  votes  of  confidence  had  made  it  harder  for  the  tacticians  to  do  their 
sums.64 

The  decision  to  dissolve  was  taken,  exceptionally,  by  a  vote  of  the  cabinet.65 
Neither  the  prime  minister  nor  the  President  of  the  Republic  originally 
favoured  it,  but  it  was  strongly  urged  by  the  President  of  the  Assembly,  Pierre 
Schneiter  of  MRP,  whose  advice  was  constitutionally  required.  Five  Radical 
ministers  had  their  resignations  refused  as  unconstitutional  because  the  old 
cabinet  now  had  to  retain  office  during  a  dissolution.  Schneiter  stopped  the 
opposition  parties  recalling  the  Assembly  before  the  decree  dissolving  it  was 
published  -  on  the  anniversary,  as  they  proclaimed,  of  Napoleon  Ill's  coup 
d'etat.  But  their  attack  on  the  dissolution  failed.  The  Communists  did  not  join 
in,  and  the  critics,  finding  that  public  opinion  welcomed  Faure's  action, 
quickly  abandoned  their  campaign.66 

Unhappily  the  dissolution  proved  no  more  effective  as  an  escape  from  dead- 
lock than  as  a  means  of  governmental  pressure.  It  gave  neither  Faure  nor  his 
opponents  a  secure  majority,  and  the  new  Assembly,  like  the  old,  offered  no 
basis  for  stable  government.  Ministries  still  resigned  in  disregard  of  the  con- 
stitutional forms.  Mollet  and  Bourges-Maunoury  were  defeated  by  relative 
majorities,  and  Gaillard  by  an  absolute  majority  but  on  an  informal  vote  of 
confidence.  Pflimlin  took  the  defection  of  three  Conservative  ministers  as  a 
pretext  to  resign,  despite  his  comfortable  majority,  because  he  feared  insurrec- 
tion by  the  army. 

The  attempt  to  regulate  the  fall  of  governments  therefore  failed  entirely, 
although  President  Auriol  and  some  premiers  tried  to  make  it  work.  At  best, 
the  formal  rules  might  have  kept  a  cabinet  in  office  without  power:  a  leader 
who  did  not  resign  on  defeat  by  a  simple  majority  could  not  get  his  measures 
passed,  might  have  humiliating  motions  carried  against  him,  and  risked 
offending  Parliament  and  harming  his  future  career;  'the  problem  was  not 
only  to  attain  and  retain  the  premiership,  but  to  become  premier  again'. 
Bidault  took  the  absolute  majority  rule  seriously,  and  Laniel  wished  to  do  so ; 
but  six  premiers  resigned  after  defeat  by  a  simple  majority,  and  none  ever  kept 
office  after  being  in  a  minority  on  a  vote  of  confidence.67 

The  constitutional  amendment  proposals  of  1950  would  have  required 

64.  Solal-Celigny,  no.  201,  pp.  307-9;  surprisingly,  the  new  rule  had  thus  made  dissolution 
more  likely.  *  Inside  dopesters',  who  often  exaggerated  the  cunning  of  the  wire-pullers,  alleged 
that  Faure  had  told  some  loyal  supporters  to  vote  against  him  and  ensure  a  constitutional  defeat : 
cf.  Georgel,  i.  120;  New  Statesman,!  December  1955.  But  of  the  21  defectors,  12  were  staunch 
Mendesists,  8  were  Moroccan  diehards,  and  1  was  a  local  rival  of  Faure  (who,  resenting  his 
vote,  refused  a  profitable  electoral  alliance  with  him). 

65.  P.  H.  Teitgen,  preface  to  Georgel,  i.  rv  (4the  only  vote  in  my  experience');  cf.  Blamont, 
no.  19,  pp.  113-14.  For  the  political  reasons  for  it  see  above,  p.  47,  and  below,  pp.  315-16. 

66.  Blamont,  no.  19,  states  that  the  President  could  not  refuse  a  dissolution  (p.  113),  that 
Schneiter's  opinion  was  personal,  written  and  secret  (p.  112),  that  ministers  could  not  resign 
(p.  124),  and  that  a  censure  motion  would  have  been  out  of  order  (p.  1 18).  Cf.  Institutions,  i.  184-7; 
and  Arn6,  pp.  282-9.  On  Coty's  and  Faure's  hesitation,  AP  1955,  p.  92  (cf.  Teitgen,  he.  czY.,  for 
Faure) ;  on  Schneiter,  above,  p.  217;  on  the  public  reaction,  Elections  1956,  pp.  4-5  (Duverger), 
122  (Grosser);  generally,  Pierce,  no.  180,  pp.  398-401;  J.  R.  Tournoux,  Cornets  secrets  de  la 
politique  (1958),  pp.  41-61;  J.  Georgel,  La  dissolution  du  2.12.1955  (1958).  Bourges-Maunoury 
as  unwilling  minister  of  the  interior  would  take  no  part  in  organizing  the  election. 

67.  Six:  Schuman  (twice  in  1948),  Faure  (in  1952),  Laniel,  Mollet  and  Bourges-Maunoury. 
Quotation:  from  Duverger,  Demain,  p.  46. 


240  THE  INSTITUTIONS 


governments  so  defeated  to  resign.  This  would  have  made  it  easier  to  remove 
them  but  also  costlier,  for  dissolution  would  have  come  much  nearer.  In  1950 
this  proposal  seemed  to  command  general  support,  but  by  1953  MRP  and 
RFP  both  strongly  dissented;  both  parties  were  stronger  in  that  house  than 
they  were  likely  to  be  in  the  next.  They  argued  that  the  absolute  majority 
clause  checked  'orange-peel  crises'  (contrived  by  the  parliamentary  tacticians 
rather  than  willed  by  most  members  of  the  house)  and  MRP  threatened  to 
oppose  the  whole  amendment  bill  if  it  were  dropped.  It  was  therefore  restored 
(by  show  of  hands)  as  the  bill  was  going  through  the  Assembly;  the  Council  of 
the  Republic  cut  it  out  by  31 1  to  3,  but  the  deputies  finally  overruled  them  by 
500  to  1 17  and  easier  dissolution  again  receded.  An  alternative  adumbrated  by 
MRP  members  in  these  discussions  was  proposed  in  1957  by  the  Assembly's 
franchise  committee,  taken  up  in  1958  by  Gaillard's  government,  and  adopted 
in  the  Fifth  Republic:  that  any  proposal  which  the  government  made  a  matter 
of  confidence  should  pass  unless  the  opposition  carried  a  censure  motion  by  an 
absolute  majority.68 

The  censure  motion  had  been  taken  seriously  only  by  the  constitution- 
makers,  who  envisaged  it  as  the  opposition's  principal  weapon.  But  the  1947 
standing  orders  did  not  mention  it.  In  1949  Ren6  Capitant,  the  Gaullist  leader 
and  a  professor  of  law,  used  it  to  force  a  debate  on  his  interpellations  on 
Indo-CMna;  as  on  a  vote  of  confidence,  only  five-minute  'explanations'  were 
allowed,  and  he  was  easily  defeated.  The  Communists  seized  on  the  new 
device,  but  the  house  voted  to  debate  a  censure  motion  by  Duclos  in  eight 
months'  time  (which  meant  never)  and  three  later  ones  were  similarly  balked. 
Early  in  the  next  Parliament  the  Gaullists  put  down  three  censure  motions 
and  the  Communists  two.  One  was  never  discussed,  two  were  defeated,  and 
two  were  lost  with  no  vote  cast  against  them;  they  were  intended  to  force  a 
vote  on  an  unpopular  increase  in  the  petrol  tax,  but  as  only  an  absolute 
majority  could  pass  them,  the  government's  supporters  abstained. 

As  a  procedural  weapon  the  censure  motion  therefore  failed,  though  the 
Communists  still  tried  occasionally  to  use  it.  In  1952  the  Socialist  leaders 
introduced  a  motion  against  Pinay's  economic  and  social  policies,  which  was 
more  in  accord  with  the  intentions  of  the  constitution-makers ;  and  in  1957  one 
was  proposed  on  Tunisia,  by  Tixier-Vignancour,  and  three  on  Bourges- 
Maunoury*s  agricultural  policy,  by  the  Communists,  the  Conservatives  and 
Zl1*^?1  lobb?'  Both  g°vernments  fell  before  any  of  the  censures  could  be 
debated."  Thus  in  eleven  years  of  the  Fourth  Republic  fewer  than  twenty 
ensure  motions  were  proposed,  only  five  were  discussed,  and  none  passed. 
Bci^governments  always  find  time  for  a  censure  debate ;  but  the  Assembly 
allowed  inmstnes  to  treat  them  as  a  tiresome  but  unimportant  kind  of  inter- 
pellation. The  marginal  deputies  wanted  to  choose  their  own  moment  for 
defection,  and  had  no  need  to  bring  dissolution  nearer  by  censuring  the 


NATIONAL  ASSEMBLY  (2):   GOVERNMENT  AND  PARLIAMENT     241 

government  by  an  absolute  majority  when  they  could  so  easily  deny  it  their 
confidence  by  a  simple  majority. 

Experience  thus  gave  no  reason  for  hoping  that  procedural  gadgets  could 
solve  political  problems.  Yet  the  tireless  search  for  new  ones  continued.  Some 
of  their  sponsors  wished  to  prohibit  abstention  -  which  was  the  recourse  of 
cowardly  opponents,  but  also  of  members  unable  (from  conviction  or  electoral 
necessity)  to  support  the  government  yet  unwilling  to  bring  it  down.  The 
Socialists  Jules  Moch  and  Francis  Leenhardt  favoured  a  Swiss-type  system  by 
which  the  house  would  choose  for  two  years  a  premier  whom  it  could  not 
remove.  At  the  end  Pflimlin's  cabinet  tried  to  disallow  negative  majorities  by 
permitting  a  premier  to  remain,  as  in  West  Germany,  until  ousted  by  a  censure 
motion  naming  his  successor.  There  were  renewed  suggestions  to  make  dis- 
solution automatic  on  a  government  defeat,  as  Paul  Reynaud  had  proposed  in 
1953. 

These  'gadgets'  attacked  the  wrong  problem.  For  the  need  was  not  just 
stability  but  authority;  and  if  premiers  were  safe  for  two  years  or  five,  only  a 
man  guaranteed  to  offend  no  one  (and  therefore  do  nothing)  would  ever  be 
elected.  By  1958,  therefore,  the  alternative  to  ministerial  instability  seemed  to 
be  'Queuilles  in  perpetuity',  and  a  growing  body  of  press  and  academic 
opinion  was  turning  to  the  presidential  system.70  Authority  and  democracy 
seemed  incompatible  under  parliamentary  government,  where  the  sovereign 
and  suspicious  deputies  contested  the  executive's  right  to  determine  policy, 
and  an  alternative  and  sometimes  hostile  leadership  was  institutionalized  in 
the  committee  system. 

70.  '  Queuilles' :  Duverger,  VIe>  p.  121.  On  all  these  ingenious  devices  see  ibid.,  pp.  114-24,  and 
his  Demain,  pp.  44-51 ;  Pickles,  no.  175;  Georgel,  i.  147-53,  320-1;  Berlia,  no.  15;  AP  1955, 
pp  41  44-6,  62;  1957,  p.  27;  1958,  pp.  15-16,  20-1,  28-9,  33,  64,  72-4,  543-4. 


Chapter  18 

THE  NATIONAL  ASSEMBLY 
(3):  THE  COMMITTEE  STRUCTURE 

The  standing  committees  were  the  central  feature  of  French  parliamentary 
procedure.  All  bills,  before  the  house  debated  them,  went  to  committees  which 
killed  the  majority  and  redrafted  the  remainder.  For  some  committees  like 
Foreign  Affairs,  legislation  was  less  important  than  parliamentary  control 
over  the  executive.  One,  the  finance  committee,  reviewed  every  ministry's 
budget  and  scrutinized  the  whole  administrative  field. 

It  was  through  its  committees  above  all  that  Parliament  asserted  legislative 
and  encroached  on  executive  power.  But  committees  and  cabinets  were  not 
autonomous  political  forces,  they  were  battlefields  where  the  groups  which 
clashed  openly  in  the  Assembly  fought  out  their  differences  away  from  public 
view.  In  the  ministerial  arena,  however,  only  the  moderate  parties  were  present  ; 
in  Parliament  and  its  committees  the  extremists  could  manoeuvre  to  upset  the 
carefully  balanced  compromises  by  which  coalitions  live.  Thereby  respon- 
sibilities, always  hard  to  establish  in  a  multi-party  system,  were  still  further 
obscured;  and  governments  had  to  wage  an  endless  uphill  battle  which 
drained  their  energies  and  diminished  their  authority. 

1.   ORIGINS  AND  ORGANIZATION 

In  1875  there  were  only  three  'permanent'  committees,  Finance,  Army  and 
Foreign  Affairs;  the  rest  were  elected  by  the  bureaux  (themselves  chosen  by 
lot)  to  deal  with  each  bill  presented.1  The  Left  fought  for  permanence  and 
proportional  representation,  while  the  Right,  remembering  the  revolutionary 
Committee  of  Public  Safety,  feared  that  'little  parliaments'  would  undermine 
executive  authority.  But  the  growing  mass  of  bills  made  ad  hoc  committees 
impracticable.  By  1898  there  were  eleven  permanent  committees,  which 
handled  most  legislation.  The  Chamber  made  all  committees  permanent  in 
1902  and  accepted  PR  in  1910;  the  Senate  took  a  decade  longer  in  each  case. 
Although  criticisms  persisted  from  conservatives  and  others,  the  Fourth 
Republic's  founders  and  leaders  favoured  strong  committees,  to  which  Article 
15  gave  constitutional  status.2 

Article  53  formalized  the  Third  Republic's  custom  that  ministers  could 
appear  at  their  request  before  any  committee.  More  commonly  the  com- 
mittees invited  them.  They  came  much  more  frequently  in  the  Fourth  Repub- 
hc  than  in  the  Third:  often  to  the  finance  committee,  about  once  a  month  to 
Foreign  Affairs  and  Defence,  and  perhaps  quarterly  to  most  of  the  others. 
Officials  could  represent  their  minister,  and  private  persons  came  occasionally 


S6e  Lidderda^  Chapter  7,  and  BartMtamy. 
1935X  3.     d  M  D  ar^^y  Committee  System  (New  York, 

w.  oetow,  pp.  268,  273n.  In  the  Fifth  Republic  committees  were  severely  restricted. 


NATIONAL  ASSEMBLY  (3):   COMMITTEE  STRUCTURE  243 

(for  instance,  spokesmen  of  accident  victims  on  a  workmen's  compensation 
bill);  but  the  functions  of  an  American  committee  hearing  in  preparing 
legislation  were  fulfilled  (if  at  all)  by  the  private  consultations  of  the  bill's 
rapporteur.  A  committee  could  extend  its  ordinary  scrutiny  of  governmental 
activities  by  seeking  special  investigatory  powers;  each  year  there  were  about 
ten  such  inquiries  from  committees  of  one  or  the  other  house.  It  was  also  the 
committees  which  usually  chose  Parliament's  representatives  on  about  fifty 
consultative  bodies.3 

Wednesdays  and  Thursday  mornings  were  reserved  for  committee  meetings. 
Each  committee  had  its  room  and  its  secretary  from  the  Assembly's  staff.4 
The  finance  committee  met  twice  a  week  or  more,  and  divided  its  work  among 
rapporteurs ;  the  others  usually  met  weekly  or  less  often,  and  chose  a  rappor- 
teur for  each  bill.  In  the  chamber  the  committee  chairman  and  rapporteur  had 
a  privileged  position  in  debate.  The  chairmen  formed  about  half  of  the 
presidents'  conference  which  proposed  the  Assembly's  agenda. 

In  the  Fourth  Republic  there  were  normally  nineteen  standing  committees 
(and  also  two  smaller  permanent  committees  on  Accounts  and  Parliamentary 
Immunities).5  No  deputy  sat  on  more  than  two,  finance  committee  members 
usually  on  only  one,  and  some  party  leaders  (such  as  Thorez,  Mollet  and 
Queuille)  on  none.  Each  had  44  members,  one-fourteenth  of  the  whole 
Assembly;  so  each  party  group  had  a  committee  place  for  every  fourteen 
members.  Groups  of  less  than  fourteen  and  deputies  belonging  to  no  party 
had  to  affiliate  (s'appar  enter)  to  a  larger  group.6  After  1952  a  member  who 
changed  his  party  automatically  lost  his  committee  places.  Parties  chose  their 
own  representatives  and  could  trade  seats  in  different  committees,  but  the 
main  parties  were  hardly  ever  more  than  one  seat  up  or  down.  Nominations 
went  to  the  house  as  a  single  agreed  list,  though  fifty  deputies  could  challenge 
it.7 

3.  Bromhead,  no,  32,  pp.  152-4;  Campbell,  no.  45,  p.  361 ;  Grosser,  pp.  85-6;  Pactet,  no.  171, 
pp.  160-6,  170-1.  In  1947  the  labour  committee  offered  to  hear  strikers*  representatives  and  nego- 
tiate with  the  government:  ibid.,  p.  166.  In  1956  the  finance  committee  held  American-style 
*  hearings'  on  fiscal  reform:  Meynaud,  p.  105.  Committees  might  meet  jointly;  in  1954  Pierre 
Mendes-France  addressed  the  defence,  foreign  affairs  and  overseas  territories  committees  together 
on  his  vain  attempt  to  amend  the  EDC  treaty.  On  the  attention  paid  to  hearings  by  ministers 
see  Buron,  pp.  203-4. 

4.  But  few  committees  had  even  a  typist  of  their  own ;  M.  Prelot  in  Travail,  p.  854  (though  see 
below,  p.  251).  Cf.  Buron,  p.  155. 

5.  Economic  Affairs ;  Foreign  Affairs ;  Agriculture ;  Alcoholic  Beverages ;  Defence ;  Education ; 
Family,  Population  and  Health;  Finance;  Interior;  Justice  and  Legislation;  Merchant  Marine 
and  Fisheries;  Communications  and  Tourist  Industry;  Pensions;  Press;  Industrial  Production; 
Reconstruction  and  War  Damage ;  Franchise,  Standing  Orders  and  Petitions ;  Overseas  Territories ; 
Labour  and  Social  Security  (1952  titles).  Beverages  replaced  Food  in  1949.  The  Assembly  would 
never  agree  to  fewer  committees  or  places:  cf.  Williams,  p.  23 6n.  Special  co-ordinating  commit- 
tees sometimes  dealt  with  a  treaty  interesting  several  standing  committees  (see  Grosser,  pp.  88-9, 
Arne,  p.  252)  but  had  not  for  decades  been  used  for  a  bill  (Goguel  in  Travail,  p.  687). 

6.  In  1951  Pleven's  finance  minister  Maurice  Petsche,  an  independent  Conservative,  affiliated 
for  a  week  to  UDSR  (which  had  only  thirteen  members)  and  then  withdrew  again.  This  timely 
gesture  enabled  his  prime  minister's  group  to  keep  its  representation  on  every  committee. 

7.  Assignments  were  usually  made  by  party  leaders  (but  in  S  FI O  by  annual  election).  Members 
occasionally  joined  a  party  to  obtain  a  committee  assignment.  In  1954  an  ex-chairman  of  the 
foreign  affairs  committee,  Jacques  Bardoux,  was  dropped  from  it  by  the  Republican  Independents 
(CNI)  but  regained  his  place  by  becoming  a  Peasant.  Inter-party  trading  allowed  I O  M  and  RD  A 
members  to  concentrate  in  the  overseas  territories  committee;  this  caused  a  contest  over  its 

[over 


244  THE  INSTITUTIONS 

Committees  of  44  were  too  big  for  efficiency,  but  the  penalties  for  absentee- 
ism were  not  applied  and  the  quorum  of  22  was  rarely  enforced.  On  most 
committees  a  nucleus  of  a  dozen  or  fifteen  members  attended  regularly, 
drafted  most  reports,  and  spoke  often  in  the  house  on  the  committee's  sub- 
ject.8 In  the  Fourth  Republic  absent  deputies  were  allowed  to  send  substitutes, 
but  these  could  be  casually  chosen  for  a  single  meeting  and  weakened  the 
expertise  and  common  purpose  which  the  committee  system  was  supposed  to 
foster.  On  important  bills  more  deputies  attended,  from  interest  or  at  a  sum- 
mons from  their  party;  on  others  they  often  stayed  away  because  much 
activity,  especially  on  minor  committees,  was  futile.  Paradoxically,  attendance 
was  best  at  the  committees  which  met  most  frequently  and  made  most  de- 
mands on  their  members.9 

Each  committee  elected  a  chairman  and  a  small  bureau,  limited  (except  for 
Finance  and  Overseas  Territories)  to  two  vice-chairmen  and  two  secretaries  so 
as  to  check  the  traditional  inflation  of  these  sinecure  titles.10  While  there  was 
no  seniority  rule,  chairmen  of  important  committees  were  always  men  of 
standing  in  the  house  and  party.  Those  who  were  not  already  ex-ministers 
became  ministrdbles  by  virtue  of  their  election;  indeed,  Poincar6  once 
attacked  them  as  *  would-be  ministers  setting  ambushes  for  the  present 
ministers'.  There  was  little  evidence  of  this  tendency  in  the  Fourth  Republic, 
although  twenty-four  committee  chairmen  resigned  to  take  office.11  Many 
others  preferred  to  remain  as  chairmen,  several  became  chairmen  because 
they  were  ex-ministers,  and  few  used  their  positions  to  oppose  or  embarrass 
governments,12  Most  chairmen  were  drawn  from  the  parties  of  the  majority, 
some  from  the  'loyal  opposition ',  few  if  any  from  the  enemies  of  the  regime.13 

membership  in  1950.  Some  colonial  deputies  affiliated  to  a  major  party  solely  to  get  a  seat  there, 
while  conversely  an  Algerian  member  could  ensure  a  place  on  the  interior  committee  by  joining 
IOM. 

8.  Pr&ot  in  Travail,  pp.  852-3.  In  four  busy  committees  in  six  months  of  1952  one-eighth  of 
the  members  (23)  took  five  or  more  bills  to  report  and  five-eighths  (109)  took  one  or  none :  from 
Broinhead,  no.  32,  p.  148.  See  also  1954  figures  in  Harrison,  Commissions,  pp.  72-5,  196-7 ;  I  am 
most  grateful  to  Dr.  Harrison  for  allowing  me  to  use  this  abundant  unpublished  material. 

9.  ./Mi,  pp.  77-82,  93-4,  97-9.  During  1956  average  attendance  varied  from  19  (Pensions) 
to  35  (Agriculture) :  ibid.,  p.  72.  Foreign  Affairs  also  had  good  attendances  but  the  substitutes 
deprived  it  of  cohesion:  Grosser,  p.  84  (but  cf.  Noel,  pp.  108-9).  Unless  specially  whipped, 
Commimfets  were  no  more  assiduous  than  others:  ibid.,  and  Harrison,  pp.  97-8 ;  but  cf.  Isorni, 
Amsf*  p.  55. 

10.  The  pre-war  beverages  committee  had  a  bureau  of  21 :  Barthelemy,  Essai,  p.  121. 

1L  Hve  in  the  first  Parliament,  eighteen  in  the  second  and  one  in  the  third.  Only  five  stepped 
straigtit  from  a  committee  chair  to  the  corresponding  ministerial  post :  Louvel  (industry)  in  1950, 
Pan!  Cosle-Floret  (constitutional  reform)  in  1953,  General  Koenig  (defence)  in  1954,  Juglas 
Ccojooies}  and  Badie  (pensions)  in  1955 ;  only  two  of  them  held  the  new  office  for  three  months. 
A  lew  otfeers  made  the  move  after  an  interval.  Poincard:  in  1933,  quoted  Soulier,  p.  194n. 

!2.  Pierre  Moatd  (Defence)  was  expelled  from  Morocco  in  1955  for  intriguing  against  the 
jra^iBiniste^s  policy  -  but  he  had  been  sent  there  for  the  purpose  by  the  defence  minister: 
Ar  1955,  p.  7O. 

*^B;  J1*5  ^pwBfHUust  elected  was  Midol  (Communications)  who  resigned  in  protest  against 
the  defeat  of  his  colleagues:  AP  1949,  p.  3.  Not  until  1951  did  the  finance  committee  remove 
s  from  its  sub-committees  and  posts  as  rapporteurs  of  departmental  budgets.  The 
committee  set  up  a  sub-committee  without  Communists  or  Progressives  to  deal 
EDC  treaty  (Grosser,  p.  88)  and  in  March  1953  non-Communist  members  of  the 
roimttee  formed  themselves  into  a  very  large  sub-committee.  (This  had  also  been  done 


NATIONAL  ASSEMBLY  (3):   COMMITTEE  STRUCTURE  245 

There  were  no  Communists  after  1949,  no  Gaullists  in  1951  and  no  Poujadists 
ever;  but  two  RPF  chairmen  were  elected  by  important  committees  in  1952, 
when  still  in  opposition,  and  a  year  later  the  majority  conceded  six  chairs 
(including  Foreign  Affairs,  Justice  and  Interior)  to  their  Socialist  opponents. 
When  SFIO  returned  to  power  in  1956  they  concentrated  parliamentary  as 
well  as  governmental  responsibilities  in  their  own  hands.14  But  normally  few 
chairmen  were  opposed  and  very  few  defeated  when  they  came  up  for  their 
annual  re-election.15 

Parties  accepted  this  continuity  because  the  chairman's  power  was  far  less 
than  in  the  United  States  Congress.  He  was  expected  to  guide  his  colleagues 
(who  did  not  admire  ineffectiveness)  but  not  to  dominate  or  thwart  them. 
He  had  to  fight  in  the  presidents'  conference  for  priority  for  their  proposals. 
During  recesses  he  might  urge  their  views  on  officials  or  ministers.  Survival 
increased  his  influence,  for  he  might  outlast  many  ministers  and  gain  an 
expert  knowledge  of  his  subject.  But  unless  his  committee  supported  him  he 
had  little  personal  opportunity  to  help  or  obstruct  legislation.16 

The  committee  itself,  however,  had  great  power.  If  hostile  it  could  bury  a 
private  member's  bill  altogether;  if  favourable  it  could  redraft  even  a  govern- 
ment measure  and  pilot  it  through  the  house.  Consequently,  when  a  bill  over- 
lapped committee  boundaries  its  title  might  be  chosen  so  as  to  steer  it  in  the 
right  direction,  and  indeed  the  ability  tojouer  les  commissions  was  one  of  the 
skills  of  experienced  parliamentarians  (not  least  of  ministers).  In  1950  the 
Communists  persuaded  the  press  committee,  with  its  large  contingent  of 
editors,  unanimously  to  claim  jurisdiction  over  the  bill  against  libel  in  journals 
edited  by  members  of  parliament,  and  charged  the  committee  on  justice  and 
legislation  with  'imperialism'  when  it  resisted  the  claim;  but  the  Assembly 
ruled  against  them.  The  Left  had  more  success  in  extending  the  jurisdiction 
of  the  traditionally  anticlerical  education  committee,  to  which  in  1950  they 
managed  to  send  a  school  medical  service  bill  which  the  health  committee 
had  unanimously  claimed.  In  the  second  Parliament,  however,  they  were 
weaker:  Barang6's  bill  subsidizing  church  schools  was  assigned  to  Finance  in 
1951,  and  a  contentious  bill  on  agricultural  instruction  to  Agriculture  in 
1954.17 

14.  Besides  half  the  cabinet  they  provided  the  rapporteur-general  and  thirteen  committee 
chairmen,  leaving  only  five  chairs  for  the  whole  opposition-  in  accordance  with  their  old  doctrine, 
'Toutes  les  places  et  tout  de  suite!'  But  they  were  indignant  when  the  Gaullists  did  the  same  in 
1962. 

15.  Of  the  21  chairmen  in  1951,  six  soon  became  ministers  and  two  soon  died.  Of  the  other  13 
and  the  8  successors,  nine  were  re-elected  (generally  unopposed)  till  the  end  of  the  Parliament, 
and  five  till  they  became  ministers ;  five  were  beaten,  but  two  won  again  later;  one  retired;  one 
lost  his  seat  on  changing  his  party.  Only  one  committee  (Justice)  had  a  contest  every  year. 

16.  Bromhead,  no.  32,  p.  149n.;  chairmen  rarely  reported  on  bills.  But  in  1948,  when  RPF 
strongly  opposed  postponing  local  elections,  a  bill  to  do  so  was  sent  to  the  interior  committee 
because  Franchise  had  a  Gaullist  acting  chairman:  AP  1948,  p.  134.  On  guidance  see  Prelot  in 
Travail,  pp.  853-4,  and  Isorni,  Silence,  p.  135;  on  influence  in  recesses,  Grosser,  pp.  87-8;  on 
powerful  pre-war  chairmen,  Barthelemy,  Essai,  pp.  124-30, 245-5 ;  on  the  presidents'  conference, 
Buron,  p.  113.  ^ 

17.  JO  I  March  1950,  p.  2126  (press),  22  June  1950,  pp.  5130-4,  5143-4  (medical);  5Cno.  81, 
23  March  1954,  pp.  2091,  2094  (agriculture;  on  this  bill  see  Paysans,  pp.  275-80).  In  1951  Educa- 
tion proved  to  have  a  pro-clerical  majority  after  all,  and  refused  to  claim  the  Barange  bill.  On 
procedure  see  Galichon  in  Travail,  pp.  810-1 ;  and  below,  pp.  256-9.  On  ministerial  techniques 
for  dealing  with  committees,  Buron,  pp.  203-7. 


246  THE  INSTITUTIONS 

An  interested  committee  which  was  not  given  charge  of  a  bill  could  ask  to 
present  an  advisory  report  offering  amendments  or  criticisms.18  On  a  major 
proposal  many  committees  would  usually  have  views,  and  sponsors  -  or 
governments  -  could  sometimes  neutralize  one  by  favourable  reports  from 
others.  Six  committees  reported  on  the  Coal  and  Steel  Community,  nine  on 
the  Common  Market  and  Euratom  treaties;  in  each  case  only  the  defence 
committee  was  opposed.  But  the  defeat  of  EDC  was  presaged  by  six  com- 
mittee reports,  all  hostile.19 

A  solidly-based  government  could  call  party  discipline  to  its  aid,  though  not 
with  equal  effect  at  all  times,  in  all  parties  or  in  all  committees.  After  1902  the 
whip  of  the  Delegation  des  Gauches  was  as  potent  in  committee  as  in  the 
chamber,  and  even  the  undisciplined  Radical  party  of  the  inter-war  years 
occasionally  reacted  against  flagrant  individualism  in  committee.  In  the 
Fourth  Republic  the  government  had  more  chance  to  use  pressure  because  the 
well-organized  parties  were  more  important.  Communists  never  broke  dis- 
cipline in  committee,  though  their  Progressive  allies  occasionally  did.  Socialist 
discipline  was  also  good.  On  the  Centre  and  Right  there  was  less  party  cross- 
voting  in  committee  than  in  the  house,  for  since  each  party  had  very  few 
representatives  individual  defections  were  less  probable  (though  more 
damaging).20 

The  effectiveness  of  discipline  varied  between  committees  as  well  as  between 
parties.  It  was  greatest  in  those  which  dealt  with  matters  of  major  political 
importance,  least  in  the  specialist  committees  which  concentrated  on  a 
limited  subject.  These  were  more  likely  to  oppose  the  government,  since  they 
tended  to  attract  members  with  a  special  interest  -  personal,  professional  or 
constituency.  But  their  opposition  was  less  dangerous,  since  they  enjoyed  less 
parliamentary  prestige. 

2.  'SPECIALIST*  COMMITTEES  AND  'POLITICAL'  COMMITTEES 
In  theory  the  more  technical  committees  offered  many  advantages  as  a  legisla- 
tive device.  They  afforded  to  all  deputies  a  training  which  the  House  of  Com- 
mons denies  to  the  majority  who  never  obtain  office.21  Members  could  be  re- 
elected  to  the  same  committee  and  so  gain  knowledge  and  experience  in  their 
subject  Bills  could  be  carefully  examined  in  a  small  expert  group,  rather  than 
rushed  through  a  large  assembly  incapable  of  dealing  usefully  with  detail.  A 
non-partisan  approach  was  possible  since  committee  work  attracted  little 
publicity  (very  brief  official  reports,  hardly  any  newspaper  space  and,  by 

18,  Tfeere  were  advisory  reports  on  9  of  the  86  government  bills  and  7  of  the  53  private  members' 
bats  which  became  law  in  1956. 

19.  AP 1951,  p.  319 ;  1954,  pp.  428-9 ;  1957,  pp.  71-2.  In  the  upper  house  in  1951  the  right-wing 
opfwsiiiQii  was  stronger  and  every  specialist  committee  opposed  the  coal  and  steel  plan,  only  the 
foreign  aiMrs  committee  favouring  it. 

20v  See  figures  in  Bromhead,  no.  32,  pp.  154-7,  for  1952  (Pinay's  year,  in  which  MRP  were 
mudi  more  and  the  Radicals  much  kss  divided  than  usual).  Harrison,  p.  36,  analyses  124  divisions 
in  1954  and  shows  the  Socialists  cross-voting  in  11,  MRP  in  15,  Gaullists  in  16,  Peasants  in  18, 
Riepobicaji  Independents  in  28,  and  Radicals  in  30,  almost  every  party  having  abstentions  but 
no  cross-voting  in  about  as  many  divisions  again.  On  inter-war  Radicals  see  Barth61emy,  EssaL 
pp.  107, 145.  **  > 

,21.  See  Bfogan  in  Parliament:  a  Survey,  pp.  80-3.  The  Communists  did  most  to  maintain 
coBtmmty  and  tram  specialists :  Harrison,  pp.  63-5,  cf,  Isorni,  Silence,  pp.  1 32-3. 


NATIONAL  ASSEMBLY  (3):   COMMITTEE  STRUCTURE  247 

custom,  no  discussion  on  the  floor  of  the  house).22  In  practice  there  were  so 
many  bills  that  they  were  not  always  thoroughly  scrutinized,  and  a  high  turn- 
over of  members  reduced  specialization.23  Even  where  the  committees  worked 
best  technically,  there  was  a  high  political  price  to  be  paid.  For  the  stronger 
their  corporate  sense,  the  more  vigorously  they  challenged  the  government's 
leadership. 

Proportional  representation  did  not  necessarily  ensure  a  government 
majority  in  each  committee.  Even  in  Britain  the  whips  feel  safer  on  the  floor 
than  'upstairs',  where  an  individual  absence  is  more  serious  and  the  strong 
views  of  deeply  interested  members  may  prevent  the  committee  being  a  micro- 
cosm of  the  house.  In  France  the  majority  was  probably  smaller  and  certainly 
less  cohesive,  party  discipline  was  less  effective,  and  committees  were  per- 
manent (in  Britain  most  members  have  long  been  appointed  by  the  whips  for  a 
particular  bill).  The  opposition  might  hold  influential  committee  posts. 
Parties  often  re-elected  dissident  deputies  who  had  a  reputation  in  their  sub- 
ject. And  all  'technical'  committees  inevitably  approached  problems  differ- 
ently from  the  lay  majority,  as-  the  parliamentary  immunities  committee 
showed  in  1949  over  the  Madagascar  prosecutions.24  Some  expressed  or 
intensified  a  general  discontent  with  the  government:  the  perennial  demands  of 
Pensions,  and  Reconstruction's  defence  of  the  housing  programme,  spelt 
votes  for  every  deputy.25  Above  all,  these  committees  provided  an  institutional 
fagade  for  the  operation  of  pressure-groups. 

Every  committee  attracted  members  with  a  personal,  professional  or 
electoral  interest  in  its  subject.  In  1952  MRP's  trade  unionists  went  to  the 
labour  or  industry  committee,  but  its  extreme  Lido-China  diehards  preferred 
to  sit  on  Defence  together  with  three  Gaullist  generals  and  one  admiral,  the 
most  nationalist  of  Socialists  (Max  Lejeune)  and  later  the  crypto-fascist 
J.  M.  Le  Pen.26  The  education  committee,  with  its  majority  of  teachers,  in- 
cluded the  most  laic  Gaullists,  the  anticlerical  zealots  of  SFIO  (Maurice 
Deixonne  and  Rachel  Lempereur),  and  both  the  priests  in  the  Assembly.  The 
medical  professions  provided  half  the  health  committee.  Agriculture  drew  all 
but  six  of  its  44  members  from  the  land,  and  no  urban  deputy  ever  stayed  on 
it.  In  1949  half  the  members  of  the  overseas  territories  committee  sat  for 
colonial  seats,  half  those  on  the  reconstruction  and  war  damage  committee 

22.  Lidderdale,  p.  169;  but  cf.  Travail,  pp.  855-6,  and  Grosser,  p.  85.        _ 

23  Harrison,  pp.  55-63, 112-13.  In  1956  139  laws  were  passed.  One  committee  (Labour)  dealt 
with  25;  five  (Justice,  Agriculture,  Defence,  Overseas  Territories,  Finance)  with  10  or  more; 
three  with  8,  four  with  3  and  six  with  fewer  (my  calculations).  ^     ^ 

24  Above  p.  21 1.  P.  H.  Teitgen  of  MRP,  a  former  minister  of  justice,  argued  that  by  pro- 
nouncing on  these  deplorable  proceedings  before  the  final  appeal  the  Assembly  would  infringe 
judicial  independence.  The  immunities  committee  unanimously  disagreed;  its  chairman  and 
spokesman  was  Teitgen's  father,  also  of  MRP :  AP  1949,  p.  120. 

25  In  July  1950  Pensions  came  within  one  vote  of  beating  the  newly-formed  Pleven  Govern- 
ment, and  in  January  1953  it  defeated  the  new  premier  Rene  Mayer  by  424  to  142;  in  November 
1956  it  led  the  house  to  reject  its  ministry's  budget,  which  was  passed  next  month  on  a  confidence 
vote  by  only  five;  in  January  1958  Gaillard  carried  a  vote  of  Confidence  agams  j  *  ^^^ 
1950,  p.  154;  1956,  pp.  108,  114;  1958,  pp.  6-7;  cf.  Georgel,  i.  233,  240,  242.  In  1952  the  recon- 
struction committee  considered  resigning  en  bloc  in  protest  against  a  housing  cut :  Monde,  29  Feb- 
ruary 1952.  Cf.  AP  1952,  pp.  90, 137  for  both  pensions  and  housing. 

26.  The  defence  committee  demanded  very  early  on  that  the  press  be  muzzled  over  Algeria. 
AP  1956,  p.  32. 


248  THE  INSTITUTIONS 


for  Normandy  and  Brittany.  In  1956  two-thirds  of  the  labour  committee 
came  from  industrial  areas;  Merchant  Marine  attracted  only  seaboard  mem- 
bers; of  18  representatives  of  the  Midi  wine-growers,  13  were  on  Beverages.27 

This  was  not  all.  Not  only  did  the  interior  committee  have  as  many  mem- 
bers from  Algeria  as  from  France  itself:  the  former  attended  when  Algeria 
was  on  the  agenda  and  the  latter  when  it  was  not.  Similarly,  the  working 
nucleus  of  a  committee  tended  to  be  dominated  even  more  completely  than 
the  full  body  by  the  strongest  interest  on  it.  Since  the  MRP  trade  unionists 
gave  the  labour  and  industry  committees  a  left-wing  majority,  conservatives 
could  achieve  little  there;  so  they  attended  rarely,  reported  on  few  bills  and 
moved  elsewhere  as  soon  as  they  could.  Again,  in  assigning  bills  for  report 
each  committee's  preferences  tended  to  accentuate  its  peculiar  character. 
Peasant  members  reported  many  bills  on  agriculture,  none  on  labour  ques- 
tions; MRP  deputies  were  favoured  in  Finance  but  ignored  in  Education; 
Socialists  reported  three  times  as  many  domestic  bills  as  Gaullists,  but  on 
defence  the  proportions  were  reversed.28 

This  sectional  outlook  of  the  committees  might  sometimes  be  an  advantage. 
Why  were  black  Africans  satisfied  by  legislation  in  1956  and  Algerian  Mos- 
lems disappointed  in  1957?  The  overseas  territories  had  deputies  of  their  own 
and  a  committee  which  they  dominated;  they  could  confront  their  metro- 
politan colleagues  with  realities,  and  substantially  modify  the  application  of 
Defferre's  loi-cadre.  With  a  similar  institutional  base  the  Moslems  might  not 
have  changed  the  Assembly's  decision,  but  at  least  they  could  have  made  it 
face  the  problem.  But  as  it  .was,  with  no  Algerian  representation  at  all  in  the 
Assembly,  ministers  and  deputies  were  so  busy  whittling  down  Lacoste's  loi- 
cadre  to  beat  off  right-wing  assaults  that  they  almost  forgot,  and  wholly 
frustrated^the  bill's  original  aim  of  conciliating  Moslem  opinion.29  In  less 
dramatic  circumstances,  too,  the  committees  sometimes  ensured  that  Parlia- 
ment saw  a  controversial  problem  from  different  sides.  In  1951  rapporteurs 
from  the  same  party,  MRP,  spoke  for  Agriculture  which  wanted  to  legalize 
pastis  (an  aperitif  popular  in  the  south)  and  tax  it  for  the  benefit  of  the 
peasantry;  for  Health  which  wanted  it  to  stay  banned;  and  for  Finance  which 
wouki  authorize  it  only  if  the  proceeds  of  the  tax  went  to  the  ordinary 
budget30  J 


<>  Harrison>  no-  122,  pp.  172-9;  Dogan  in  Pay***, 
188_9) 

fjr7^^'  W-  74^J  198'  230'  and  no'  122»  PP-  177-8/Bromhead,  no.  32, 
iSSS^^S"  I952reportedabo*t  half  the  government's  as  weU  as  the  p?ivat; 
the  Lt  on  the  labour  committee  (Commimists  SFIO 


,  SFIO,  MRP)  attended 

£-SS 


29,  Bs&are:  A?  1957,  pp.  222-3.  Lacoste:  Fauvet,  JT«,  p.  334.  Lois-cadres'  PD  273-4 


NATIONAL  ASSEMBLY  (3):   COMMITTEE  STRUCTURE  249 

The  system  might  sometimes  help  conflicting  interests  to  be  heard.  But  it 
also  allowed  one  committee,  packed  by  a  few  assiduous  defenders  of  a  pressure- 
group,  to  obstruct  a  policy  desired  by  the  majority;  or  several,  representing 
different  interests,  to  join  in  mounting  converging  assaults  on  the  public  till. 
Since  they  had  most  incentive  at  election  time  and  most  opportunity  at 
budget  time,  the  strongest  committee  pressures  occurred  when  the  two  co- 
incided in  spring  1951.  In  one  week  of  April  the  government  found  the  justice 
and  legislation  committee  attacking  requisitioning  of  buildings,  Reconstruc- 
tion trying  to  double  housing  appropriations,  Communications  unanimously 
condemning  economies  on  the  railways,  and  half  a  dozen  others  protesting 
against  insufficient  credits.  In  one  week  of  May  Labour  demanded  £250,000,000 
to  raise  family  allowances  and  provincial  wage-scales,  Education  advocated 
an  allowance  for  students,  Finance  wanted  more  money  for  civil  servants' 
salaries,  Interior  called  for  more  vigorous  action  against  slums,  Justice  saved 
63  under-worked  local  courts  from  abolition,  Press  opposed  economies  on  the 
national  film  centre,  and  Pensions  sought  to  treble  certain  war  pensions.31 

Budget  debates  in  an  election  year  are  dangerous  times  for  parliamentarians, 
even  in  a  system  without  committees,  to  demonstrate  their  courage  or  public 
spirit.  The  specialist  committees  were  no  danger  to  the  government  unless  its 
authority  had  already  been  undermined.  But  they  played  their  part  in  the 
undermining,  they  added  to  the  strain  which  exhausted  the  physical  stamina 
and  political  authority  of  premiers  in  a  few  months  of  office,  and  they  were 
often,  when  policies  were  being  determined,  a  force  for  demagogy  and  against 
responsibility.  As  a  result  their  reputation  suffered.  Specialist  committees 
normally  gained  victories  only  when  they  were  used  by  a  party  which  was  in- 
dispensable to  the  majority  -  as  the  labour  committee,  expressing  the  dis- 
content of  MRP  'back-benchers',  succeeded  over  the  collective  bargaining 
law  in  January  1950,  family  allowances  early  in  1951,  and  the  sliding  scale  for 
wages  later  in  the  year.32  A  committee  like  Press  or  Beverages,  which  remained 
the  preserve  of  a  group  of  specialists  or  the  instrument  of  a  narrow  interest, 
found  that  its  high  internal  unity  did  not  compensate  for  its  low  prestige  and 
that  the  government  could  easily  beat  it  in  the  house.33  It  was  from  the 
'political'  and  not  the  'specialist'  committees  that  the  greatest  danger  came. 

The  defence,  foreign  affairs,  franchise  and  interior  committees  were  clearly 
'political';  so  at  times  were  Justice  and  Education.  Having  most  prestige 
(apart  from  Finance)  they  enjoyed  most  continuity  of  membership;  for  mem- 
bers of  lesser  committees  had  no  seniority  rule  to  encourage  them  to  stay  there, 
and  preferred  to  graduate  into  bodies  with  more  reputation  and  importance. 
A  few  specialist  committees  were  coveted,  especially  Agriculture/but  Mer- 
chant Marine  interested  few  deputies.  Every  party  sent  its  best  men  to  Defence, 

31.  References  in  Williams,  pp.  241-2nn.  See  below,  pp.  353-8, 373-7  for  the  direct  influence 
of  pressure-groups ;  pp.  26 1-3  for  some  important  reservations.  The  1956  budgetary  reform  ham- 
pered this  pressure:  Blamont,  p.  98,  and  below, p.  269. 

32.  A  compromise  on  family  allowances  in  February  1951  failed  in  the  committee  where  six 
MRP  members  rebelled,  and  almost  failed  in  the  Assembly  where  32  did  so.  In  September  all 
MRP  committeemen  and  four-fifths  of  *  back-bench'  MRP  deputies  voted  for  a  sliding-scale  bill 
opposed  by  a  government  including  MRP  ministers. 

33.  See  below,  p.  262.  Cf.  Buron,  pp.  206-7. 


250  THE  INSTITUTIONS 


Foreign  Affairs  and  Finance,  to  which  the  ordinary  'back-bencher'  could 
rarely  aspire.34  On  the  major  committees  the  party  leaders  sat,  party  divisions 
were  mirrored  and  party  discipline  was  best.  They  were  therefore  potentially 
the  most  dangerous  to  the  government. 

These  *  political'  committees  had  more  status  than  the  specialist  ones  -  but 
less  solidarity.  When  Interior  fought  Ramadier's  government  in  August  1947 
over  the  municipal  election  and  Algerian  government  bills,  and  Schuman's  in 
1948  over  dismissals  from  the  civil  service,  there  was  no  agreed  committee 
view  on  any  of  these  matters:  the  hostile  majorities  were  made  up  of  Com- 
munists reinforced  first  by  MRP,  then  by  Socialists  and  Algerian  Moslems 
over  Algeria,  and  lastly  by  everyone  but  MRP.  Franchise,  in  December  1950, 
rejected  every  proposed  electoral  reform  by  differing  majorities,  so  that  the 
rapporteur  was  obliged  to  invert  normal  practice  and  appeal  to  the  Assembly 
to  give  the  committee  a  lead,  and  the  crucial  compromises  had  to  be  made 
outside  the  committee  in  informal  negotiations  between  ministers  and 
majority  party  leaders.  Again  in  1957  the  government  called  a  'round  table' 
(excluding  Gommunists  and  Poujadists)  to  work  out  acceptable  terms  for  its 
Algerian  framework-law  (lot-cadre);  the  interior  committee  promptly 
destroyed  the  compromise  in  a  series  of  contradictory  votes.35 

The  foreign  affairs  committee  voted  rarely,  except  to  express  outraged  dig- 
nity. But  when  it  did  it  was  often  less  representative  of  the  Assembly  than  the 
other  major  committees.  In  the  first  Parliament  it  was  well  to  the  Left,  as  a 
Socialist,  an  MRP,  an  IOM  and  even  a  Conservative  member  (Marin)  often 
voted  with  the  Communists;  later,  its  Conservative  members  were  unusually 
liberal.  The  European  army  dispute  as  usual  upset  all  the  ordinary  conven- 
tions: ten  SFIO  and  four  MRP  members  of  the  foreign  and  defence  com- 
mittees opposed  the  treaty  to  which  their  parties  were  pledged.  At  the  1954 
committee  elections  two  M  RP  rebels  were  turned  off  (a  third  had  already  been 
expelled  from  M  RP)  but  all  but  one  of  the  Socialists  remained  to  speak  and 
vote  against  party  policy.36  Yet  this  division  in  committee  only  reflected  the 
situation  in  the  house,  for  EDC  had  corroded  party  discipline. 

On  these  bitterly  controversial  issues  the  government  itself  might  be  as 
divided  as  Parliament.  In  1948  the  Assembly  had  an  anticlerical  majority 
(reflected  in  the  education  committee)  which  was  small  enough  to  be  upset 
if  the  Radical  aad  Socialist  ministers  voted  against  their  parties.  When  the 
committee  won  on  two  problems  involving  church  schools,  it  did  so  first 

• 


3d.  See  WMams,  pp.  239n.,  412n.  ;  Grosser,  p.  86. 


NATIONAL  ASSEMBLY    (3):   COMMITTEE  STRUCTURE  251 

because  the  Socialist  ministers  would  not  let  the  premier  cast  their  votes,  and 
again  next  month  through  Socialist  and  Radical  support  and  the  weakness  of 
a  ministry  which  had  just  been  defeated  in  six  committees  in  a  single  week.37 
The  'specialist'  committees  might  sometimes  lead  strong  forces  on  to  the 
parliamentary  battleground;  the  'political'  committees  were  battlegrounds 
themselves. 

3.   THE  FINANCE  COMMITTEE 

The  finance  committee  was  at  once  highly  political,  since  it  expressed  the  out- 
look of  Parliament  against  the  executive,  and  technically  specialized,  though 
its  scope  was  all-embracing.  For  while  the  competence  of  its  rivals  was 
restricted  to  one  sphere  of  policy,  its  own  jurisdiction  extended  over  all  the 
activities  of  the  state.  As  the  Assembly's  watchdog  against  both  the  miserly 
ministry  and  the  extravagant  spending  committees,  it  always  played  a  dual 
role:  the  scourge  of  every  finance  minister  when  it  opposed  higher  taxes,  but 
his  valued  ally  against  the  increased  expenditure  demanded  by  private  mem- 
bers and  sometimes  by  his  own  colleagues.  Permanent  and  specialized  for  over 
a  century,  it  was  approved  even  by  critics  of  the  committee  system.38 

In  investigating  departmental  budgets  the  finance  committee  never  pedanti- 
cally limited  its  sphere.  In  three  successive  Republics  it  was  assigned  bills  to 
re-establish  a  Vatican  embassy  (1920),  subsidize  church  schools  (1951)  and  set 
up  a  nuclear  striking  force  (1960).  Enjoying  the  same  broad  view  as  a  govern- 
ment, it  attracted  rising  men  of  ministerial  calibre:  more  than  half  its  original 
non-Communist  members  obtained  office  by  the  end  of  the  first  Parliament, 
one  (Pleven)  as  premier,  five  as  finance  minister,  and  four  in  junior  economic 
posts.39  Elder  statesmen  might  prefer  the  foreign  affairs  committee  with  its 
lighter  agenda,  but  ambitious  majority  'back-benchers'  and  able  young 
opposition  critics  generally  made  their  way  to  Finance. 

On  it  there  were  few  passengers.  In  1952  the  39  estimates  on  which  it  re- 
ported were  assigned  to  27  rapporteurs.  In  half  the  year  it  dealt  with  285  bills 
(while  four  other  busy  committees  together  took  only  414).  It  met  three  times 
as  often  as  its  most  assiduous  rivals  (Defence,  Justice  and  Foreign  Affairs)  and 
a  very  heavy  burden  fell  on  its  rapporteur-general,  who  alone  reported  on  1 15 
of  the  285  texts,  and  on  its  chairman.  To  cope  with  the  work  the  finance  com- 
mittee, like  Defence  and  Pensions,  had  civil  servants  permanently  seconded 
to  it  and  allowed  (against  regulations)  to  attend  its  meetings.  This  'sometimes 
transformed  the  dialogue  of  Government  with  Parliament  into  a  discussion 
between  two  coteries  of  the  administration ' .40 

As  the  focal  point  of  most  parliamentary  pressures,  the  committee's 

37.  AP 1948,  pp.  76-83, 92-5, 224.  Cf.  above,  p.  34. 

38.  Blum,  p.  187;  Auriol,  ii.  214. 

39.  Every  finance  minister  of  that  Parliament  came  from  it,  except  Schuman  (an  ex-chairman 
of  it)  and  Queuille. 

40.  Goguel,  no.  107,  p.  856.  On  officials  cf.  his  Fourth  Republic,  pp.  166-7;  Pactet,  no.  171, 
p.  170  and  n. ;  Travail,  pp.  693,  814,  854-5.  On  meetings,  Harrison,  Commissions,  Table  8 ;  on  bills 
and  budgets,  Bromhead,  no.  32,  pp.  148, 150.  Mendes-France  claimed  that  as  chairman  he  worked 
a  fifteen-hour  day  and  a  seven-day  week ;  every  day  he  received  2-300  letters,  only  half  from 
constituents  and  three-quarters  asking  favours ;  and  as  up  to  fifty  visitors  or  deputations  tried  to 
see  him  daily,  he  was  bound  to  offend  most  of  them :  in  Schoenbrun,  As  France  Goes,  p.  148. 


252  THE  INSTITUTIONS 

cohesion  was  constantly  under  strain.  Consequently  the  new  rule  allowing  sub- 
stitutes to  replace  absent  members  at  committee  meetings  harmed  it  far  more 
than  other  committees;  while  their  unity  was  somewhat  impaired,  its  character 
was  wholly  transformed.  In  the  past  when  it  had  discussed  the  agriculture  or 
education  estimates,  the  relevant  standing  committee  sent  its  rapporteur  to 
advise;  now,  half  the  specialist  committee  might  sit  as  substitute  members  of 
the  finance  committee  itself.  A  reform  of  standing  orders  in  1952  checked  this 
abuse  by  requiring  each  party  to  present  a  list  of  names,  not  exceeding  half  its 
quota  of  places,  from  which  Finance  substitutes  had  to  be  drawn.  This  change 
enabled  the  committee  to  regain  some  of  its  old  coherence.41 

Because  it  dealt  with  the  whole  field  of  politics,  the  finance  committee 
caniedmuch  more  weight  than  the  others  and  acquired  many  more  responsibi- 
lities. It  enforced  the  checks  set  up  by  standing  orders  against  the  deputies' 
pressure  for  spending  (and  they  sometimes  drafted  proposals  as  resolutions 
rather  than  bills  so  as  to  escape  its  scrutiny).  At  the  end  of  the  Fourth  Repub- 
lic, Parliament  even  agreed  to  leave  detailed  examination  of  government 
expenditure  to  the  finance  committees  of  the  two  houses.42 

Made  prudent  by  its  budgetary  bias,  the  finance  committee  tended  to  oppose 
overdue  but  expensive  social  reforms;  and,  like  the  house  as  a  whole,  it  was 
kinder  to  farms  than  to  factories.  In  the  first  Parliament  it  tried  to  divert 
investment  credits  from  coal-mining  to  agriculture,  but  the  minister  of  indus- 
try resisted  successfully  with  the  help  of  the  industry  and  economic  affairs 
committees,  both  urban  strongholds.  In  the  second  Assembly  it  whittled 
down  and  delayed  the  industry  committee's  proposals  to  raise  the  inadequate 
miners'  pensions,  and  in  the  third  it  reduced  the  scope  of  the  government's 
old-age  pensions  bill,  which  the  labour  committee  wanted  to  widen,  and 
rejected  the  taxes  by  which  it  was  to  be  financed.  But  its  caution  also  made  the 
committee  an  indispensable  barrier  against  the  flood  of  demagogic  proposals. 
Only  when  the  majority  was  determined  (in  a  good  or  bad  cause)  did  the 
finance  committee  side  with  the  spenders  -  as  in  1951,  when  the  finance 
ministry  demanded  educational  economies,  the  ministry  of  education  publicly 
appealed  for  support  to  the  finance  committee,  it  unanimously  condemned 
the  cuts^  and  they  were  dropped.43 

The  finance  committee  was  therefore  a  rival  centre  of  leadership  to  the 
cabinet:  the  most  'governmental'  committee  of  all  in  outlook,  but  also  the 
most  dangerous  if  it  decided  to  oppose.  In  the  Third  Republic  it  was  accused 
of  being  a  *  committee  of  successors'  with  a  bias  towards  criticism.  In  the 
Fourth  it  harassed  and  hampered  most  governments,  and  some  of  its  early 
qiieiriiioiisfcess  was  due  to  rising  young  politicians  using  it  as  a  springboard  for 

41.  Btemont,  pp.  49-50,  90. 

KJi^"af?lS^>PP*2l8rr  ;  and  °n  resolutions»  Harrison,  p.  41  (they  were  easier  to  pass  than 
Ms  aed  ataost  as  ussfal  for  propaganda,  though  they  had  little  or  no  effect). 

43.  ^vestments:  JO  26  April  1950,  pp,  2904-8,  2912-15,  2921-2;  the  minister  and  all  the 
3^^^?^  MRP*  ***"**  Pensi°ns:  Harrison,  pp.' 221-31;  MRP  members 
J/Zfe 1  H£ r^Si°T C^S^  again&t  * the  other'  Old  a*e :  Blamont,  P-  51.  Education  : 
c^S^f  ±±^?  ^Pnl  \?51'  *C>  n°*  149'  29  April  1951>  P-  465°-  When  the  education 
cwraatee  f^^mst  earlier  cuts,  the  minister  thanked  the  Assembly  for  its  valuable 

26  ^  195°>  PP*  4016-17'  *"  -o  ^ V  246n!; 


NATIONAL  ASSEMBLY  (3):   COMMITTEE  STRUCTURE  253 

promotion.  Edgar  Faure  and  Maurice  Petsche  were  the  leading  critics  of  Ren6 
Mayer,  Schuman's  finance  minister,  who  suffered  four  major  defeats  in  the 
committee  in  three  months  (though  he  usually  got  his  way  later  in  the  Assem- 
bly). Soon  Petsche  was  finance  minister  in  Bidault's  cabinet,  Faure  was  his 
minister  of  state  for  the  budget,  and  their  Radical  critics  were  led  by  Felix 
Gaillard  and  Maurice  Bourges-Maunoury;  in  December  1949  the  committee 
threw  out  the  budget,  substituted  an  unbalanced  one  of  its  own,  rejected  three 
compromise  plans,  supported  most  of  the  wrecking  senatorial  amendments 
and  was  defeated  only  by  lavish  use  of  votes  of  confidence  in  the  house.  Before 
long  the  new  rebels  were  ministers,  and  under  fire  in  their  turn.44 

Governments  generally  beat  off  these  *  young  Turk'  assaults.  Sometimes 
party  discipline  persuaded  the  committee  to  reverse  its  own  decision,  as  it  did 
over  Ramadier's  budget  in  June  1947  and  Pleven's  rearmament  budget  in 
December  1950.45  If  the  committee  members  would  not  make  public  con- 
fession of  error,  ministers  could  usually  defeat  them  in  the  house  where  the 
marginal  deputies  had  no  previous  vote  to  live  down.  In  December  1949 
Bidault  used  six  votes  of  confidence  to  insist  that  the  Assembly  consider  his 
original  budget  instead  of  the  committee's  version  and  to  save  its  essential 
points  -  but  was  beaten  four  times  when  he  did  not  bring  this  weapon  into 
play.  When  Bourges-Maunoury  and  Gaillard  became  premiers  themselves,  they 
to  found  that  only  by  wielding  the  whip  could  they  rally  a  reluctant  majority.46 

Appearances  were  often  misleading.  Governments  fell  when  their  support 
was  disappearing  through  the  defection  of  either  a  major  party,  or  individuals 
from  the  loosely-organized  groups.  Because  the  finance  committee  had  so 
wide  a  sphere  of  activity  it  was  often  the  arena  in  which  these  weaknesses  first 
became  apparent ;  its  members  therefore  seemed  to  overthrow  governments 
to  which  in  fact  they  had  no  special  hostility.  This  was  particularly  true  of  the 
committee's  five  leaders:  its  two  rapporteurs-gdnfral,  Charles  Barang6  of 
MRP  until  his  retirement  and  Francis  Leenhardt  from  1956,  and  its  three 
chairmen,  first  J.  R.  Guyon  till  1951,  then  Paul  Reynaud,  and  Pierre  Mendes- 
France  while  Reynaud  was  in  Laniel's  cabinet.  Guyon  and  Leenhardt  belonged 
to  a  disciplined  party,  SFIO,  which  was  in  the  majority  throughout  their 
terms.  Reynaud  and  Mend&s-France  were  conspicuous  among  French 
politicians  in  their  contempt  for  office  for  its  own  sake.  Barange  repeatedly 
refused  it,  and  he  and  Reynaud  were  the  government's  best  (and  sometimes 
only)  friends  on  the  committee.47  Mendes-France,  once  a  scourge  of  cabinets, 
gave  Laniel  every  help  on  becoming  chairman  in  1953;  and  overthrew  him 
next  year  because  of  Indo-China,  not  finance. 

Sometimes  the  committee's  assaults  helped  wear  down  a  government  but 

44.  Details  in  Williams,  pp.  243-4;  the  committee's  resentment  had  technical  reasons  as  well, 
for  it  was  belatedly  and  often  inadequately  informed  by  an  administration  which  had  acquired 
bad  habits  under  Vichy.  "The  day  when  detailed  estimates  of  expenditure  are  laid  before  Parliament 
in  good  time,  governments  will  regain  the  confidence  of  the  committee  which  they  have  obviously 
lost':  Fauvet  in  Monde,  16  December  1949.  (Finance  committee  Radicals  had  been  equally 
rebellious  in  the  1930's,  when  they  were  on  the  Left  of  the  party.) 

45.  AP  1947,  p.  117;  1950,  pp.  258-62.  (In  1950  the  sub-committee  members  who  had  first 
successfully  proposed  economies  abstained  on  the  second  vote,  which  cancelled  them.) 

46.  AP  1949,  pp.  214-19,  221-3;  1950,  pp.  1-5,  10;  1957,  pp.  65-7,  117-18,  140,  161-2 

47.  On  Pleven's  tax  increases  in  December  1951  they  were  2  against  37:  AP  1951,  p.  330. 


254  THE  INSTITUTIONS 

did  not  directly  overthrow  it,  as  in  January  1952  when  it  rejected  Pleven's 
budget  and  substituted  an  unbalanced  one.  The  government  won  this  battle 
in  the  Assembly,  which  agreed  to  discuss  its  original  budget  instead  of  the 
committee's,  but  was  destroyed  in  another  -  over  railway  reorganization  -  in 
which  the  leaders  of  the  committee  were  on  its  side.48  Again,  when  party 
alignments  were  moving  against  the  government  the  shift  was  more  often 
under-represented  than  exaggerated  in  the  committee.  Thus  in  July  1948 
Schuman  was  defeated  on  the  military  budget.  The  finance  committee  had 
rejected  it  by  13  Communist  votes  to  0,  government  supporters  abstaining; 
but  next  day  Conservatives  and  MRP  had  changed  their  minds  and  passed 
the  budget  by  23  to  13.  When  it  was  defeated  in  the  house  the  criticism  came 
from  the  defence  and  not  the  finance  committee,  and  the  vote  was  on  strict 
party  lines,  the  Gaullist  and  Communist  oppositions  being  joined  by  SFIO 
but  by  no  other  member  of  either  committee.49  Bidault  was  overthrown  on  a 
confidence  vote  in  June  1950,  when  he  challenged  under  Parliament's  financial 
rules  a  Socialist  bill  affecting  civil  service  salaries,  which  both  committee  and 
Assembly  had  passed.  But  this  was  a  party  division  in  which  the  chairman 
(Guyon)  spoke  for  S  FI  O  and  not  for  the  committee,  and  those  of  its  members 
who  defied  their  groups  did  so  to  support  the  government,  not  to  oppose  it.50 
When  Rene  Mayer  fell  in  May  1953  its  members  were  again  somewhat  more 
favourable  to  him  than  their  colleagues. 

Only  twice  did  the  finance  committee  participate  directly  in  a  government's 
defeat  In  rejecting  Faure's  tax  increases  in  March  1952  the  Assembly  was 
following  its  lead,  and  its  members  were  disproportionately  hostile  to  the 
government;  yet  even  on  this  occasion  Barang6  voted  for  the  government 
(Reynaud  was  abroad).  After  1953,  when  external  affairs  came  to  dominate 
politics,  the  only  premier  overthrown  on  a  financial  question  was  Mollet.  The 
finance  committee  severely  mauled  the  budget  in  December  1956,  but  he 
carried  it  by  six  votes  of  confidence.  In  March  1957  Reynaud  condemned  his 
economic  and  financial  policy,  in  May  the  finance  committee  rejected  98%  of 
Ramadier's  proposed  new  taxes,  and  a  few  days  later  Mollet  was  beaten  on  a 
vote  of  confidence.  The  Centre  representatives  on  the  finance  committee  were 
much  less  favourable  to  him  (but  the  Conservatives  slightly  less  hostile)  than 
other  members  of  their  parties.51 

Politically,  therefore,  although  Finance  was  a  more  dangerous  opponent 
for  the  cabinet  than  any  other  committee  its  opposition  usually  only  registered 

and  Barans6  V0ted  for  ^  £°vemmeilt  and  no  cxjmmitteeman  from  a  government 

P-  1I5-17:  four  amendments  to  reduce  military  credits  had  been  proposed  by 
iT6  COI?mittJf>  token  ones  by  te  Radical  chairman  and  a  Conservative 
StSd^SSH^tS68  y  a  Communi?t  W*  a  Socialist;  the  first  two  were  withdrawn  and 
tae  tnntf  defeated,  but  the  government  was  beaten  on  the  fourth 

*-  263~5'  Tho  ^  PRL  and  P^ant  members  and  one  Repub- 
80Verament  ***>*  their  S^PS-  See  AP  1950,  pp.  123-6,  and 


Republican  Independents,  and  moderate  Peasants,  half  the 
y      °  °f  their  ten  ^ance-committee  men  ;  one  of  the  four 
tf  Vermnent  was  on  ^  committee.  A  majority  of  Conservatives 
/    ^  com^ltteemen  abstained,  including  Reynaud;  two-thirds  of 
uties  voted  for  him,  but  only  one  of  their  five  conmiitteemen. 


NATIONAL  ASSEMBLY  (3):   COMMITTEE  STRUCTURE  255 

the  disintegration  of  the  majority;  it  was  no  longer  the  'hotbed  of  intrigues 
against  the  government'  it  had  been  in  the  Third  Republic.52  Technically,  it 
was  often  a  help  to  the  ministry,  beating  off  many  specialist  committee  assaults 
which  might  otherwise  have  strained  either  the  budget  or  the  majority.  Its 
worst  offence  was  to  consume  far  too  much  of  the  scarce  commodity  it 
existed  to  save:  parliamentary  time.  Repudiating  budget  after  budget,  but  in 
the  end  repudiated  by  the  house  it  was  supposed  to  represent,  the  finance 
committee  rarely  overthrew  cabinets  but  often  helped  to  exhaust  them  in  the 
endless  war  of  attrition  between  executive  and  legislature. 

It  was  not  committee  intransigence  but  party  incoherence  that  ensured  par- 
liamentary preponderance.  Committees  were  strong  because  majorities  were 
weak,  and  meddlesome  because  governments  were  timid  and  divided.  Their 
'mother-in-law'  behaviour  was  an  irritant  rather  than  a  threat,  and  a  deter- 
mined cabinet  could  almost  always  persuade  the  house  to  disavow  a  recal- 
citrant committee.53  This  did  not  justify  the  system;  the  cumbrous  machinery 
for  examining  bills  took  much  of  members'  time  and  energy,  but  often  wasted 
them  on  measures  with  no  chance  of  success,  or  allowed  a  bill  to  be  dis- 
creetly smothered  in  committee  by  a  pressure-group  which  might  not  have 
dared  to  oppose  it  in  the  house.54  But,  since  the  deputies  would  not  put  up 
with  the  crude  methods  of  selection  and  rigid  government  control  which  pre- 
vail in  the  House  of  Commons,  some  variant  of  it  was  inevitable.  The  ad  hoc 
committees  of  the  early  Third  Republic  could  never  have  dealt  with  the 
modern  volume  of  legislation  (and  those  created  early  in  the  Fifth  were  some- 
times even  more  influenced  by  pressure-groups  than  the  regular  standing  com- 
mittees). Moreover,  without  committees  Parliament  would  have  exercised  its 
powers  of  scrutiny  blindly  and  haphazardly.  Short-lived  ministers  all  too 
easily  became  spokesmen  of  the  bureaucracy  in  Parliament,  not  of  the  citizen 
in  the  administration.  Committee  supervision  allowed  the  representatives  of 
the  ordinary  man  to  criticize  and  perhaps  influence  the  operations  of  govern- 
ment. The  results  of  admitting  his  influence  were  sometimes  bad,  but  the 
results  of  excluding  it  might  well  have  been  worse.55 

The  system  also  had  effects  on  the  deputies  themselves.  Committee  work 
was  less  publicized  and  less  partisan  than  debate  in  the  Assembly,  and  built  up 
that  spirit  of  camaraderie  which  is  a  virtue  and  not  a  vice  of  parliamentary 
government.  The  club  atmosphere  moderated  passions  and  allowed  opposition 
members  to  work  usefully  with  their  colleagues.  It  was  in  committee  that 
Gaullists  and  even  Poujadists  grew  accustomed  to  bargains  and  compromises 
with  the  System,  and  the  Communists  themselves  frequently  made  genuine 
concessions  to  achieve  unanimity.56  Any  supporter  of  the  majority  or  'loyal 

52.  Duverger,  Institutions  financieres,  p.  348. 

53.  Pactet,  no.  171,  pp.  171-2.  Also  in  the  Third  Republic:  Barth61emy,  Essai,  pp.  53, 233,  334; 
Soulier,  p.  222;  Blum,  p.  192.  'Mother-in-law':  Wright  hi  Cole,  European  Political  Systems, 
p.  625. 

54.  See  below,  pp.  262-3,  373. 

55.  Blamont,  no.  18,  pp.  388-9.  For  a  more  critical  view  see  Goguel,  he.  cit.  (above,  n.  40). 

56.  Isorni,  Silence,  pp.  134-8;  Grosser,  p.  86;  Dogan  in  Paysans,  p.  222;  Harrison,  pp.  182-3, 
234-5.  (They  discuss  five  different  committees.)  Cf.  Hamon  in  Travail,  p.  851,  and  no.  117, 
pp.  387,  390/406. 


256  THE  INSTITUTIONS 

opposition'  could,  unlike  the  frustrated  British  back-bencher,  make  a  con- 
structive contribution  to  policy  if  he  chose  (not  all  did).  The  committee  sys- 
tem therefore  encouraged  able  men  to  enter  Parliament  and  work  hard  within 
it,  and  gave  them  a  better  appreciation  of  the  executive's  problems.  'To 
educate  our  parliamentary  masters,  as  well  as  the  voters,  is  one  of  the  functions 
of  Parliament  which  is  better  done  (at  high  cost)  in  the  American  and  French 
systems.  Assiduity,  application  to  a  special  field,  mastery  of  procedure  and  of 
subject-matter,  all  these  virtues  are  more  automatically  rewarded  in  Congress 
or  the  National  Assembly  than  they  are  at  Westminster.'57  Yet  though  the 
deputies  could  do  so  much  more  than  MPs  to  scrutinize  the  budget  and 
amend  the  laws,  they  were  often  even  more  discontented  with  the  working  of 
Parliament  and  their  own  part  in  it  than  legislators  across  the  Channel. 

57.  Brogan  in  Parliament;  a  Survey  (1952),  p.  82. 


Chapter  19 

THE  NATIONAL  ASSEMBLY 
(4):  LEGISLATION  AND  FINANCE 

The  French  Parliament  was  never  an  efficient  legislative  machine.  A  flood  of 
private  members'  bills  competed  vainly  for  time  and  attention  with  the  govern- 
ment's measures.  The  Assembly  spent  far  too  much  time  on  the  bills  that 
failed,  too  little  on  those  that  passed.  Since  deputies  could  propose  to  spend 
public  money,  cabinets  exhausted  much  of  their  political  credit  in  resisting 
assaults  on  the  budget,  which  absorbed  half  the  house's  time  and  left  it  unable 
to  fulfil  its  other  tasks.  Cumbrous  procedure,  shortage  of  time  and  dispersed 
leadership  meant  that  controversial  measures  had  little  hope  of  success  unless 
there  was  exceptional  pressure  behind  them. 

Major  reforms  could  pass  only  in  a  major  crisis.  When  there  was  no  secure 
majority,  Parliament  could  palliate  the  consequences  of  its  own  omnipotence 
only  by  abandoning  its  power  to  the  government.  Yet  the  politicians  made 
more  effort  than  in  the  past  both  to  tackle  substantive  problems  and  to 
improve  the  machinery  for  dealing  with  them.  They  streamlined  budgetary 
procedure,  restricted  the  deputy's  right  to  propose  expenditure  and,  when 
obliged  to  delegate  legislative  power  to  the  government,  exacted  far  more 
effective  safeguards.1 

1.   LEGISLATIVE  METHODS 

By  common  consent  Parliament  sat  too  long  and  legislated  too  much.  The  450 
sitting  hours  of  1902  had  doubled  by  1954.  Fewer  than  a  thousand  bills, 
resolutions  and  reports  were  presented  annually  to  the  last  Chamber  before 
1914;  1,800  to  the  one  ending  in  1936;  2,700  a  year  to  the  first  National 
Assembly  of  the  Fourth  Republic,  3,000  to  the  second  and  3,600  to  the  third. 
Parliament  dealt  annually  with  over  1,300  bills ;  the  first  Assembly  passed  276 
a  year  into  law,  its  successors  199.2  This  was  four  times  as  many  as  in  Britain 
at  the  same  periods,  but  a  single  British  bill  might  correspond  to  many  French 
ones;  at  one  time  there  were  forty  bills  in  a  French  budget.  Private  members 
introduced  far  more  bills  in  France,  and  many  matters  needed  legislation 
which  in  Britain  the  executive  could  settle.  All  bills  were  presented  to  the 
bureau  of  the  Assembly  or,  after  1954,  of  the  upper  house;  printed  and  cir- 
culated with  an  explanatory  note  (expose  des  motifs) ;  and  at  once  referred  to  a 
committee  which  had  three  months  to  report.3  This  time-limit  was  a  dead 

1.  Radical  reformers  proposed  to  remedy  executive  weakness  by  ^P0^8/^.^0^ 
British  devices  as  more  delegated  legislation,  government  control  of  business,  and  limitation  of 
amendments :  Travail,  pp.  679,  697,  701,  847.  raninhdl 

2.  Fullest  statistics  in  Cotteret,  Le  Pouvoir  legislatif  en  France -pp.  46-9   See  also  Campbell, 
no.  45,  pp.  352-3 ;  Travail,  pp.  681-2,  809 ;  Georgel,  i.  236,  247;  Arn6  p. 169. 

3.  After  the  1954  constitutional  amendment  a  member  sent  bills  to  his  own  hou^e   and  the 
government  to  either  house  (but  all  money  bills  went  to  the  Assembly) :  see  below  p.  ^™ 
Assembly's  bureau  once  refused  a  bill  declaring  its  author  s  descent  from  Joan  of  Arc ^M^her, 
p.  68),  and  its  President  rejected  a  few  for  unconstitutionahty ;  Hernot  r^^o^ej^aj^^. 
dum  on  the  electoral  law,  and  Le  Troquer  rejected  Poujadist  bills  to  call  the  States-General. 
Blamont,  pp.  30-1  (cf.  Institutions,  i.  137). 


258  THE  INSTITUTIONS 

letter,  but  the  government  could  extract  bills  from  a  dilatory  committee  if  it 
really  wanted  to  -  though  it  might  not  like  the  shape  in  which  they  emerged.4 

The  author  of  a  private  member's  bill  often  sat  on  the  relevant  committee 
and  was  frequently  chosen  to  report  on  it;  if  he  did  not,  he  could  attend  for 
the  discussion,  though  not  for  the  vote.  But  on  a  government  bill  the  minister 
had  to  withdraw  before  the  committee  deliberated,  and  it  could  and  usually 
did  rewrite  the  bill  completely  -  and  often  badly.  The  government  could  not 
move  amendments,  and  had  to  find  a  friendly  deputy  to  act  for  it;  in  the 
Fourth  Republic  it  had  the  new  and  rarely  exercised  right  to  ask  the  Assembly 
to  reject  the  report  and  discuss  its  own  original  draft  -  though  the  committee 
could  then  re-examine  the  text  and  move  amendments.  The  bill  was  taken 
clause  by  clause,  and  committee  members,  being  specialists  in  the  subject, 
usually  dominated  the  debate.  The  President,  unlike  the  British  Speaker,  had 
no  right  to  select  amendments  (except  to  stop  duplication).  On  each,  in  prin- 
ciple, only  a  proposer,  an  opponent,  a  minister  and  a  committee  spokesman 
could  speak  and  the  proposer  reply;  other  deputies  (unlike  senators)  could 
not  'explain  their  votes'.  TTiere  was  no  equivalent  of  the  British  'guillotine', 
for  time-limits  were  not  always  respected,  even  in  an  'organized  debate',  and 
did  not  require  a  vote  on  a  named  clause  at  a  fixed  time.  Deliberate  obstruc- 
tion by  a  flood  of  amendments  could  be  met  only  by  rejecting  them  en  bloc, 
which  was  occasionally  done.5 

The  decision  on  the  whole  bill  was  preceded  by  members'  short  'explana- 
tions of  their  vote'.  The  measure,  if  passed,  was  sent  to  the  Council  of  the 
Republic;  once  the  two  houses  had  agreed  or  the  lower  had  overruled  the 
upper,  it  went  to  the  President  of  the  Republic  to  be  promulgated  within  ten 
days  (or,  very  rarely,  referred  back  for  a  second  deliberation).  This  procedure 
could  be  delayed  or  accelerated.  A  motion  for  the  previous  question  (ques tion 
prdalable)  meant  rejection  of  the  proposal  before  any  debate ;  this  was  how  the 
Assembly  defeated  the  European  army  treaty  on  30  August  1954,  and  the 
repeal  of  Barange's  law  subsidizing  church  schools  (after  debating  the  pre- 
vious question  itself)  on  8  November  1956.  The  motion  prejudicielle,  which 
delayed  discussion  until  some  prior  condition  had  been  fulfilled,  was  used  by 
the  Communists  to  obstruct  bills  they  disliked  by  demanding  priority  for 
popular  proposals  of  their  own.6  A  bill  could  be  referred  back  (r envoy e)  to  the 

4.  Btemont,  p.  50 ;  Galichon  in  Travail,  p.  822 ;  Harrison,  pp.  107-8 :  after  the  three  months  the 
government  or  50  members  could  demand  an  urgent  debate  on  an  unreported  bill,  though  this 
was  veryjare  (but  CNIP  tried  it  in  June  1957  on  their  bill  to  ban  the  Communist  party).  Goguel 
in  Trawilt  pp.  695-6,  858-9  thinks  the  committees  had  more  power  to  obstruct,  and  cites  three 
biBs  of  1948  against  alcoholism  in  the  colonies  which  were  never  reported.  Cf.  Malignac  and  Colin, 
UcOcoo&sme*  p.  88 ;  Arne,  pp.  179-80 ;  and  below,  pp.  262,  3 73 . 

5  For  instance  at  the  peak  of  Poujadist  pressure  in  1955:  H.  George,  Le  droit  ^initiative 
parle?neK$cure  m  matifrefinanctere depuis . . .  1946  (1956),  pp.  1 53^.  Later,  amendments  to  money 
biHs  were  normally  required  four  days  hi  advance :  ibid.,  and  Blamont,  p.  69.  On  bad  amendments 
m  committee,  Travail,  pp.  857-8,  and  in  the  house,  n.  12  below;  on  time  limits  and  organized 
debate,  above,  pp.  218,219.  See  also  Blamont,  pp.  31-2,  53,  66-9 ;  Campbell,  no.  45,  pp.  829-30; 
Arae,  pp.  184-5.  *** 

6.  IJdderdale,  p.  186;  Blamont,  pp.  62-3.  The  bill  against  libels  by  editor-deputies  (above, 
p.  21QQ.)  was  obstructed  to  the  limit  of  the  rules  by  the  Communists,  who  delayed  it  for  18  months 
m  committee,  tried  to  stop  debate  with  a  motion  prljudicielle  (on  the  unpopular  increase  in  the 
price  of  petrol),  and  extorted  much  extra  speaking  time  by  threatening  a  flood  of  amendments : 
JO  8  November  1951,  pp.  7702-36. 


NATIONAL  ASSEMBLY  (4):   LEGISLATION  AND  FINANCE          259 

committee,  which  itself  could  insist  on  a  reference-back  at  any  time.  Parts  of 
the  bill  could  be  separated  (disjoint)  to  form  a  new  measure.  On  dilatory  and 
procedural  motions,  as  on  amendments,  only  four  speakers  were  allowed. 

The  procedure  for  urgent  discussion  was  intended  to  speed  up  the  process, 
but  was  so  abused  by  the  deputies  that  it  had  to  be  restricted  out  of  existence. 
In  the  National  Assembly's  first  session  a  majority  of  the  bills  passed  went 
through  under  it,  and  in  its  second  session  nearly  a  third  did.  In  1948  urgency 
procedure  provoked  a  protest  by  the  Council  of  the  Republic,  whose  meagre 
rights  were  seriously  infringed  by  it.  After  this,  it  had  to  be  asked  for  by  either 
the  government  or  the  relevant  committee ;  but  the  Assembly  wasted  so  much 
time  deciding  between  them  that  in  1950  the  rules  were  tightened  until  *  urgent* 
bills  were  often  dealt  with  more  slowly  than  others.7 

Minor  and  uncontentious  measures  could  be  dealt  with  by  an  unopposed 
bills  procedure,  vote  sans  debat,  by  which  after  the  committee  report  the 
Assembly  passed  each  clause  and  then  the  whole  bill  without  any  discussion. 
It  was  used  extensively:  in  1947  two-fifths  of  the  bills  passed,  and  in  1956  over 
half,  went  through  in  this  way.8  It  was  proposed  by  either  the  government  or 
the  committee  to  the  presidents'  conference;  the  government  could  stop  it 
there,  and  any  deputy  before  it  came  to  a  vote  in  the  house;  three-quarters  of 
the  objections  came  from  the  government.9  If  the  committee  again  asked  for  a 
vote  sans  debat,  only  the  government  or  fifty  members  could  object;  if  either 
did,  the  committee  could  by  an  absolute  majority  apply  for  a  'restricted 
debate'  (dibat  restreinf).  But  the  debates  on  which  that  procedure  could  be 
used  would  never  have  been  long  ones,  and  it  was  not  allowed  on  major  bills. 
On  these  debate  was  normally '  organized '  .10 

The  first  Assembly  passed  about  three-fifths,  the  second  over  half  of  the 
government  bills  introduced  (compared  to  98%  in  Britain).  More  than  70% 
of  the  bills  they  passed  were  of  governmental  origin,  though  in  the  third 
Parliament  the  percentage  fell  to  62.11  The  failure  rate  was  largely  due  to  the 

7.  In  1947  (January-August)  88  'urgent'  and  73  normal  bills  passed;  in  the  rest  of  1947,  42 
and  64 ;  in  1948  (January-August),  59  and  178 ;  in  the  rest  of  that  Parliament,  19  and  495.  After 
1950  urgency  had  to  be  voted  by  an  absolute  majority  of  the  committee,  which  was  hard  to  get, 
and  approved  by  the  presidents'  conference;  urgent  bills  were  debated  on  Fridays  (a  bad  day) 
and  one  even  came  up  on  successive  Fridays  for  six  months.  So  the  procedure  virtually  lapsed  except 
for  government  bills.  In  1956  (my  calculations)  one  private  member's  bill  out  of  53,  2  treaty 
ratification  bills  out  of  14  and  6  other  government  bills  out  of  72  went  through  under  it,  including 
longer  paid  holidays,  old  age  pensions,  and  special  powers  in  Algeria.  See  also  F.G.,  no.  105, 
pp.  345-6;  Bruyas,  no.  36,  p.  549;  Galichon  in  Travail,  pp.  823-4;  Lidderdale,  pp.  192-200, 
272-3 ;  Harrison,  p.  83 ;  Williams,  pp.  208-9. 

8.  Government  bills:  in  1947,  81  of  207;  in  1956,  10  of  14  treaties  and  40  of  72  bills.  Private 
members'  bills:  in  1947,  33  of  66 ;  in  1956, 27  of  53.  Ten  of  the  53,  and  4  government  bills,  needed 
more  than  one  reading  in  the  Assembly.  For  1947  figures  see  Lidderdale,  pp.  201-2. 

9.  Andre  Mercier,  JO  25  March  1952,  p.  1464  (cf.  Raymond  Triboulet,  JO  12  March  1958, 
p.  1551). 

10.  On  organized  debate  see  above,  p.  21 9.  Restricted  debate  allowed  no  general  discussion,  no 
amendments  except  ones  already  rejected  in  committee,  no  speech  longer  than  five  minutes,  and 
only  one  speaker  per  party  on  the  final  vote.  It  could  not  be  used  on  constitutional,  electoral, 
financial  or  some  judicial  matters,  amnesties,  treaties,  bills  referred  back  by  the  President  or 
Constitutional  Committee,  or  amendments  to  standing  orders.  On  it  see  Blamont,  p.  40;  Noel, 
p.  191 ;  Travail,  pp.  702  (Goguel),  824  (Galichon).  Eight  bills  passed  in  1956  had  had  only  res- 
tricted debate;  only  one  was  a  government  bill. 

11.  Cotteret,  pp.  47-9;  Campbell,  no.  46,  pp.  352-3.  Fewer  government  bills  were  defeated 
than  the  figures  suggest,  as  a  later  government  often  abandoned  them,  or  reintroduced  them  in  a 
new  form. 

K 


260  THE  INSTITUTIONS 

parliamentary  log-jam,  for  which  ministers  themselves  had  some  responsibility. 
Since  1930  the  administration  had  grown  contemptuous  of  Parliament;  it  laid 
its  bills  at  the  last  moment,  and  under  urgency  procedure  which  impeded 
their  examination.  The  government  also  encouraged  Parliament  to  act,  and 
later  acted  itself  under  special  powers,  on  matters  which  did  not  need  legisla- 
tive authority.  Although  it  had  advice  from  consultative  committees  and  the 
Conseil  cT&at,  its  bills  were  sometimes  so  badly  drafted  by  harassed  and 
transient  ministers  that  Pinay  in  1952  reproached  the  departments  with  relying 
on  Parliament  to  make  them  workable.  In  fact  the  amendments  often  made 
them  worse,  though  they  usually  improved  private  members'  bills.12 

Above  all  Parliament  dealt  with  too  many  bills  in  too  little  time,  since  it 
spent  half  its  sittings  on  the  budget  and  perhaps  a  quarter  on  general  political 
debates.  Even  an  uncontentious  measure,  passed  sans  debat  but  amended  in 
the  upper  house,  might  take  a  year  from  introduction  to  promulgation.13 
Bills  referred  back  by  the  President  of  the  Republic  for  correction  of  technical 
deficiencies  sometimes  disappeared  for  years  or  for  ever.  It  took  seven  years  to 
pass  a  minor  measure  against  socially  dangerous  alcoholics,  four  for  the  over- 
seas labour  code,  two  for  penal  law  reform.  A  really  controversial  proposal 
could  be  imposed  only  by  a  determined  government  with  a  loyal  majority  (and 
these  were  rare),  an  exceptionally  powerful  interest-group  (a  weak  minority 
could  obstruct  but  only  a  majority  could  legislate),  or  an  external  crisis  that 
made  Parliament  and  public  conscious  of  the  need  for  action.  The  constitution 
foreshadowed  organic  laws  on  the  presentation  of  the  budget  (Article  16)  and 
on  local  government  (Article  89);  Parliament  remitted  the  first  to  the  govern- 
ment in  1955,  and  never  attempted  the  second.  Successive  governments  vainly 
strove  to  carry  legislation  reforming  education,  co-ordinating  transport,  re- 
modelling the  fiscal  system.  Procedure,  wrote  an  expert  in  1953,  gave  no 
encouragement  to  efficiency  or  to  making  bills  coherent,  either  internally  or 
with  other  legislation;  everything  in  it  tended  to  slowness  of  action,  narrow- 
ness of  view,  dilution  of  responsibility  and  frittering  away  of  authority.14 

Major  reforms  required  a  real  majority.  The  Constituent  Assemblies,  with 
their  rigid  parties,  could  nationalize  industries  and  institute  social  security; 
the  second  National  Assembly  voted  subsidies  to  church  schools;  the  third 
passed  major  social  and  colonial  measures,  but  relapsed  into  impotence  or 
arbitrariness  when  it  turned  to  finance  or  Algerian  reform.  When  there  was  no 
majority  the  deficiencies  of  procedure  accentuated  parliamentary  chaos  and 
irresponsibility.  During  the  Fourth  Republic  some  of  these  faults  were  remedied 


P'  849-5°  '  °n  the  Conseil  d^tat,  also  Bertrand, 
secretariat,  ,W.,pp.  62-9;  Institutions,  i.  242-3 
Marcel  Prelot  »  Travail,  p.  859;  F.G.,  no.  105 
qu^  p-  201;  Btanont,  no/18,  pp.  395-7,  who  cites 
n.  1«  ;  !t  WaS  ^  °n  29  April  1947  «  '"*«*%  theA  amended 

"**"''  "»«>"»«»  ploWBapMas  or  tarad. 

s^a«iiEisftis±E 

ns  a  better  reforming  record  on  transport,  etc?) 


NATIONAL  ASSEMBLY  (4):   LEGISLATION  AND  FINANCE          261 

by  stricter  rules,  especially  financial.  Rules  were  no  substitute  for  political 
driving  force  and  could  make  little  difference  on  major  matters.  But  in  the 
absence  of  a  majority  they  did  limit  the  cost  and  consequences  of  political 
disorder. 

2.  PRIVATE  MEMBERS'  PROPOSALS 

For  250  years  the  British  MP  has  been  unable  to  make  any  proposal  costing 
money.  Although  in  the  last  century  his  bills  were  often  important  (the  first 
factory  acts  were  among  them),  there  are  today  few  major  topics  open  to 
private  members.  MPs  who  do  well  in  the  ballot  for  places  often  take  an 
innocuous  measure  from  a  colleague,  party  or  government  department,  or  fall 
back  on  an  animal  welfare  bill.  But  the  French  member  in  the  Third  and 
Fourth  Republics  (though  not  the  Fifth)  could  propose  expenditure  of  public 
funds :  a  remarkable  stimulus  to  his  own  imagination,  to  his  constituents,  and 
to  the  pressure-groups  which  wrote  so  many  of  his  bills.  In  the  first  Parliament 
4,800  private  members'  bills  were  introduced  (900  by  senators)  and  in  the 
second,  4,000.  They  accounted  for  a  quarter  of  the  acts  passed  by  those  two 
Parliaments,  and  for  over  a  third  of  those  voted  in  1956-58.  Much  government 
legislation  was  stimulated  by  their  pressure.15 

Their  number  was  misleading.  A  topical  grievance  might  evoke  a  separate 
bill  from  each  party  if  it  were  national,  or  from  each  local  member  if  it  were 
not.  Communist  bills  on  war  damage  compensation  or  hydro-electric  develop- 
ment differed  only  in  the  name  of  the  department  to  which  they  were  to  apply. 
Most  such  bills  were  short  (only  a  third  had  more  than  one  clause)  and  they 
were  often  assigned  in  batches  to  a  single  rapporteur.16  But  they  were  a  grow- 
ing threat  to  the  budget,  for  when  the  elector  voted  for  a  list  in  a  large  con- 
stituency instead  of  a  man  in  a  small  one,  the  deputy's  fate  depended  far  more 
on  his  party  and  far  less  on  his  local  services.  'Rivers  and  harbours'  expendi- 
ture was  therefore  outstripped  by  the  competitive  pressure  of  the  parties,  and 
the  sums  demanded  by  deputies  in  a  pre-war  session  might  now  be  proposed  in 
a  week  or  two.17 

The  flood  was  barely  retained  by  a  number  of  dykes  -  procedural  checks 
applying  to  all  bills,  and  financial  rules  protecting  the  budget  against  members' 

15.  Buron,  p.  104.  Statistical  sources:  n.  11.  Pressure-groups:  below,  pp.  373-5.  In  the  first 
session  of  the  second  Assembly  the  most  popular  subjects  of  private  members'  proposals  were, 
in  order :  budgetary  matters ;  prosecutions  of  deputies ;  protection  of  local  products  from  wicker- 
work  to  seaweed  and  from  cauliflowers  to  sandals;  the  wine  industry;  compensation  for  storm  or 
flood ;  tax  exemptions ;  keeping  open  local  railway  lines ;  housing.  There  were  bills  for  a  campaign 
against  porpoises,  a  higher  clothing  allowance  for  customs  officials,  regulating  the  profession  of 
ju-jitsu  instructor,  and  reorganizing  the  band  of  the  Garde  republicaine\  Monde,  4  October  1952, 
quoted  London  Times,  same  date.  On  the  third  Parliament  see  Cotteret,  pp.  50-3,  and  De  Tarr, 
p.  28.  In  1958  one  of  the  few  proposals  not  involving  expenditure  authorized  juges  de  paix  to  try 
persons  prosecuted  for  not  destroying  thistles:  Yves  Peron,  JO  20  February  1958,  p.  919. 

16.  Harrison,  pp.  100-1,  199  (21  identical  hydro-electric  bills  were  presented  together;  none 
was  ever  reported).  Cf.  Buron,  p.  155. 

17.  Private  members  demanded  15  milliard  francs  (£1,800  million)  of  expenditure  hi  1930 : 
A.  Tardieu,  La  Profession  parlementaire  (1937),  pp.  194,  199.  In  May  1951  the  Communist  bills 
alone  would  have  cost  £2,000  million:  Queuille,  JO  11  May  1951,  p.  5079;  and  Pickles,  French 
Politics,  p.  96n.  On  the  budget  for  1953,  £1,200  million  was  demanded  within  a  week:  Duchet, 
minister  of  posts,  quoted  Monde,  5-6  April  1953.  On  the  new  electoral  law  see  below,  pp.  307-9. 
On  the  comparatively  responsible  handling  of  'rivers  and  harbours'  pressures,  Huron,  pp.  77-8. 


262  THE  INSTITUTIONS 

bills  or  amendments.  Of  the  2,000  or  so  private  members'  bills  introduced  each 
year,  the  committees  reported  only  about  700;  of  the  700  reports  only  about 
250  were  submitted  for  discussion  in  the  Assembly  by  the  presidents'  con- 
ference ;  these  250  had  still  to  face  the  finance  committee  and  the  government.18 
This  preliminary  slaughter,  which  killed  seven  bills  out  of  eight  without  debate, 
was  carried  out  with  the  knowledge  or  even  complicity  of  sponsors  who  had 
often  meant  them  for  the  local  newspaper  or  election  address  rather  than  the 
statute  book:  NL  Henri  ThSbault,  Peasant  deputy  and  mayor  of  Angoul&ne, 
probably  expected  no  action  on  his  resolution  to  ban  tourist  cars  from  by- 
passes during  shopping  hours.  Rural  members  and  Communists  were  par- 
ticularly prone  to  demagogy.  Of  seven  hundred  agriculturalists'  bills  and 
resolutions  on  marketing,  wine  legislation  and  compensation  for  natural 
disasters  in  the  second  Assembly,  only  a  hundred  were  adopted  (and  those 
usually  the  least  important).  But  the  authors  of  the  others  spread  them  over 
columns  and  pages  at  election  time  to  lend  credibility  to  their  familiar  but  still 
serviceable  promises.  For  this  purpose  a  bill  had  only  to  be  published,  not 
pressed,  and  even  Communist  rapporteurs  often  killed  off  their  colleagues' 
measures  once  they  had  been  safely  recorded  in  UHumanitf™ 

A  first  and  sometimes  feeble  barrier  was  the  specialist  committee.  The 
alcoholic  beverages  committee  might  water  down  an  outrageous  proposal  but 
hardly  ever  rejected  one,  since  all  its  members  sat  for  the  wine  and  cider  dis- 
tricts and  none  could  openly  oppose  a  popular  proposal.  The  house  therefore 
treated  this  institutionalized  raiding  party  with  a  contempt  which  safeguarded 
the  members*  time  and  taxpayers'  money.  Government  bills  were  drafted 
to  avoid  it,  and  its  private  members'  bills  were  kept  off  the  agenda  by  the 
presidents*  conference.20  If  ever  the  committee  wanted  to  legislate  rather  than 
make  propaganda,  it  needed  a  vote  sans  debat;  this  meant  prior  appeasement 
of  any  opponents  and  above  all  of  the  government,  for  an  opposed  bill  might 
get  no  second  chance  from  the  presidents'  conference  even  if  the  committee 
later  satisfied  the  objectors.21 

The  real  dykes  against  the  flood  were  thus  the  rapporteurs  and  the  presi- 
dents' conference,  who  each  stopped  far  more  bills  than  the  committees  and 
the  Assembly  put  together.  The  presidents'  conference  was  at  once  a  'baro- 
meter' for  political  pressure,  a  'market*  for  deals  between  parties  or  com- 
mittees and  the  government,  and  a  'lightning  conductor'  against  the  wrath  of 


3'°°°  reports  were  never  debated*  E-  Moisan,  quoted 
**  process  is  ^P^Hshed  :  Harrison,  pp.  100-13. 
.comnuttee  assigned  49  proposals  to  Communists 
nac?tod  Only  One'  Most  of  **  Deported  27  were 
*""•  pp'  233~7»  ***  edif>rin»  quotation* 
,  n°-  5,197  of  20  June  1957. 

J?  ^nference),  172-6  (the  Coca-Cola  struggle,  cf.  below, 


rx  Sn         «  ,       -  -oa  srugge,  c.    eow, 

o^o^fa^to^tS^f  *£F»  fa  "*  house:  one  went  to  restricted  <*«*  and 


NATIONAL  ASSEMBLY  <4):   LEGISLATION  AND  FINANCE          263 

pressure-groups.  It  checked  undue  generosity  by  members  and  committees 
without  making  electoral  disaster  the  reward  for  political  responsibility.  It 
distinguished  serious  bills,  intended  either  to  pass  or  to  provoke  the  govern- 
ment to  act,  from  crankish,  irresponsible  or  purely  propagandist  proposals. 
But  the  system  obliged  conscientious  rapporteurs  to  spend  time,  goodwill  and 
hard  work  on  measures  that  were  doomed  to  disappear  instead  of  those  that 
had  a  chance  of  passing.22 

The  financial  barriers  were  the  strongest  of  all,  and  each  rampart  depended 
on  the  ones  behind  it.  The  presidents'  conference  would  turn  down  bills  that 
flouted  the  financial  rules  (unless  the  pressure  was  very  strong  and  it  wanted  to 
give  the  government  a  sharp  warning:  for  the  same  reasons  it  occasionally  put 
forward  a  Communist  proposal  for  debate).  It  was  thus  really  these  rules  which 
gave  the  government  the  last  word:  Articles  16  and  17  of  the  constitution,  the 
Assembly's  standing  orders  48  and  68,  and  the  so-called  hi  des  maxima  (first 
voted  in  the  budget  for  1949  and  thereafter  repeated  each  year  as  clause  1  of 
the  finance  act).  Article  16  confined  the  budget  to  financial  matters,  but  it  was 
constantly  broken  because  the  government  as  well  as  the  deputies  found  that  a 
budgetary  clause  or  amendment  always  passed  more  quickly  and  often  more 
easily  than  a  separate  bill;  however,  the  finance  committee  maintained  some 
check,  and  after  1955  standing  orders  were  changed  to  make  this  'tacking' 
more  difficult.  SO  68,  reinforcing  Article  16,  banned  any  proposed  new  clause 
in  budget  bills  unless  it  created  or  released  new  resources  or  enforced  parlia- 
mentary control.23 

Paul  Reynaud  complained  that  Article  17,  which  forbade  any  proposal  to 
spend  money  during  debates  on  the  budget  or  supplementary  estimates,  still 
allowed  members  to  play  the  fool  eleven  months  out  of  twelve.24  It  did  help  to 
check  log-rolling  -  deputies  voting  constituency  favours  to  one  another  - 
which  was  much  harder  when  proposals  came  as  separate  bills,  reported  at 
intervals,  instead  of  all  together  as  amendments  to  the  budget.  But  its  main 
object  was  to  save  time  rather  than  money,  and  it  did  not  rule  out  moves  to 
reduce  taxes.25  These  were  barred  by  SO  48,  which  was  strictly  enforced  by 
the  finance  committee;  any  amendment  increasing  expenditure  or  reducing 
revenue  was  disjoint  to  become  a  separate  bill  (and  no  such  bill  was  ever  re- 
ported on).  This  rule  was  wider  than  Article  17  in  including  tax  reductions 
and  applying  at  all  times,  but  narrower  in  checking  only  'back-bench' 
amendments  in  the  house,  not  those  moved  in  committee  or  reported  by  a 
committee.  More  general  still,  the  lot  des  maxima  disallowed  proposals  from 
any  quarter  which  raised  expenditure  or  lowered  revenue  without  creating 
additional  resources  to  cover  the  gap.26 

22.  Harrison,  pp.  111-13.  Cf.  Buron,  pp.  104-5,  109-10, 112-13. 

23.  H.  George,  pp.  42-5  (on  Art.  16),  175-80  (on  SO  68),  226-7  and  passim  on  the  origins, 
scope,  advantages  and  drawbacks  of  each  rule.  See  also  Louis-Lucas,  no.  147. 

24.  JO  11  September  1946,  p.  3652. 

25.  George,  pp.  49-50  on  its  purpose,  51-71  on  its  application.  It  may  even  have  lost  tune,  for 
an  amendment  was  less  profitable  electorally  than  a  bill,  and  one  bill  less  than  two :  cf.  L.  deTinguy, 
no.  209,  pp.  491-2.  As  long  as  any  fifty  members  could  have  a  bill  discussed  as  *urgent',  the 
Communists  had  evaded  Article  17  by  interrupting  budget  debates  with  popular  proposals;  this 
was  stopped  by  restricting  urgency  procedure. 

26.  George,  pp.  157-75  (SO  48) ;  180-217  (hi  des  maxima} ;  159, 166, 172, 174, 212  (no  proposal 

[over 


264  THE  INSTITUTIONS 

These  ramparts  sometimes  reinforced  one  another  but  often  protected 
different  sectors  of  the  front.  All  were  in  constant  use.  In  two  days  m  Decem- 
ber 1949  seven  popular  proposals  from  different  parties  and  committees  were 
checked  under  Article  1 7  and  six  more  under  S  O  48 ;  and  on  that  year's  budget 
the  newly-invented  loi  des  maxima  stopped  proposals  (mostly  Communist)  to 
spend  £775  million  and  reduce  taxes  by  £200  million.  In  May  1951,  a  month 
before  the  general  election,  half  the  200  amendments  to  the  loi  de  finances  and 
34  of  36  new  clauses  were  disallowed.  In  December  1952  the  Communists 
tried  successively  but  vainly  to  exclude  from  the  scope  of  the  loi  des  maxima 
social  security,  war-damage  credits,  low-cost  housing,  education,  war  pen- 
sions, and  unemployment  pay.27  m 

The  rules  did  not  have  to  be  invoked  by  a  minister.  Exceptionally,  in  1951, 
the  Assembly's  presiding  officer  used  Article  17  against  a  proposal  accepted  by 
both  committee  and  government  (the  spending  minister  was  present,  the 
finance  minister  not);  in  1955,  the  MRP  chairman  of  the  health  committee 
appealed  (in  vain)  to  the  loi  des  maxima  against  a  finance  committee  proposal 
to  prolong  the  full  tax  exemption  of  the  bouilleurs  de  cru*8  But  almost  in- 
variably it  was  the  ministry  which  called  them  into  play.  Their  enforcement 
then  depended  on  the  finance  committee,  and  they  were  effective  only  because 
it  showed  'much  wisdom  and  courage  [and]  a  rigour  which  the  Third  Repub- 
lic never  knew'.29  Usually  it  was  an  invaluable  buffer  for  the  government,  but 
when  the  pressure  was  so  strong  that  its  members  shared  the  feelings  of  the 
house,  a  wise  minister  knew  it  was  time  to  compromise.  Thus  in  April  1949 
the  cabinet  proposed  a  14%  increase  in  war  pensions ;  the  pensions  and  finance 
committees  both  voted  unanimously  for  16J% ;  the  government  first  invoked 
Article  17,  then  accepted  15%.  In  April  1951  the  pent-up  pressure  for  higher 
family  allowances  became  irresistible  as  the  general  election  drew  close.  The 
government  offered  a  15%  increase;  the  labour  committee  demanded  40,  but 
dropped  to  30  to  win  the  finance  committee's  support;  a  Communist  pro- 
posal for  50  was  disjoint;  the  government  raised  its  bid  to  20%,  was  beaten  by 
551  to  34,  invoked  the  loi  des  maxima  against  the  two  committees,  but  finally 
agreed  to  the  finance  committee's  offer  of  25%.30 

In  such  cases  the  premier  had  either  to  accept  the  finance  committee's  terms 
for  compromise  or  spend  some  of  his  political  credit  by  demanding  a  vote  of 
confidence.  A  strong  leader  might  prefer  the  riskier  course,  but  Georges 
Bidault  was  overthrown  in  June  1950  when  he  appealed  to  the  loi  des  maxima 
(which  the  finance  committee  had  refused  to  apply)  against  a  Socialist 

disallowed  under  either  was  ever  revived,  except  with  the  government's  consent).  Cf.  Lidderdale, 
pp.  221-4;  Emerges;  Institutions  financitres,  p.  352;  Galichon  in  Travail,  p.  825  on  its  progres- 
sively tighter  drafting. 

27.  JO  26,  27  and  28  December  1949,  pp.  7241,  7261,  7298,  7493 ;  Monde,  20-21  May  1951 ; 
JO  9  December  1952,  pp.  6086-90,  and  George,  pp.  189-90. 

28.  JO  25  October  1955,  pp.  5261-2;  he  sat  for  Paris  and  had  no  bouilleur  constituents.  Art. 
17:  George,  pp.  72-3. 

29.  Jfefit,  p.  221 ;  on  earlier  failures  to  enforce,  pp.  72, 157-8,  184-7,  and  Thery,  pp.  150-3. 
3d  References  in  Williams,  p.  260nn. ;  also  for  the  government  using  Article  17  and  the  loi  des 

maxima  against  tlie  committee ;  and  for  the  finance  minister  giving  way  over  compensation  for 
German  requisitionrag,  despite  the  loi  des  maxima^  after  bitter  protest  from  M  R  P,  S  F I  O,  R  P  F, 
Cororminists,  and  a  unanimous  reconstruction  committee. 


NATIONAL  ASSEMBLY  (4):   LEGISLATION  AND  FINANCE          265 

proposal  concerning  civil  service  salaries.  On  20  December  1952,  with  several 
votes  of  confidence  pending,  Pinay  warned  the  Assembly  that  its  356  amend- 
ments would  add  £190  million  to  expenses  while  taking  £200  million  off  taxes; 
next  day  SO  48  was  invoked  sixty-eight  times  and  SO  68  twenty-three  times; 
the  following  night  he  was  out  of  office.  For  all  their  procedural  defences,  as 
long  as  home  affairs  were  the  main  political  battleground  it  was  on  the  budget 
that  ministers  faced  the  hardest  fight,  had  most  need  to  call  upon  their  fol- 
lowers to  show  confidence,  and  were  likeliest  to  be  disappointed.  Up  to  1953 
financial  questions  were  fatal  to  all  the  six  governments  turned  out  by  the 
Assembly  (though  after  1954  they  caused  the  defeat  of  only  one  out  of  six).31 

There  was  nothing  sacrosanct  about  the  financial  rules.  Their  force  de- 
pended on  political  circumstances.  In  1946  Pierre  Cot  insisted  both  that  mem- 
bers of  the  Assembly  must  have  the  right  to  propose  expenditure  and,  for  fear 
of  demagogy,  that  members  of  the  upper  house  must  not.  In  1950  the  deputies 
overrode  the  senators  and  decided  that  Article  17  applied  to  the  'special 
treasury  accounts';  in  1951  they  reversed  their  own  ruling  when  the  Left 
invoked  it  against  Barang6's  bill  to  subsidize  church  schools.  In  1953  RPF 
voted  for  the  lot  des  maxima  after  opposing  it  in  the  past,  while  SFIO,  having 
supported  it  when  in  the  majority,  was  now  in  opposition  and  voted  against 
it.32 

The  rules  could  not  be  divorced  from  their  political  context,  for  expenditure 
was  not  always  a  vice  or  parsimony  a  virtue.  Some  conservative  economy 
campaigns  were  quite  as  demagogic  as  the  pressure  for  spending  which  they 
helped  governments  to  resist.  Many  deputies  who  favoured  reducing  state 
expenditure  were  against  any  specific  economies,  so  that  ministers  found  it 
even  harder  to  cut  expenses  than  to  raise  taxes.33  Some  demands  for  spending, 
such  as  the  Mendesist  insistence  on  developing  research  and  scientific  facili- 
ties, were  of  no  electoral  profit  to  their  sponsors.  The  Communists  attacked 
the  loi  des  maxima  for  allowing  government  supporters  to  make  demagogic 
promises  that  they  knew  were  out  of  order,  and  warned  that  an  administration 
freed  of  parliamentary  pressure  would  never  undertake  social  legislation.34 
Even  politicians  trying  to  protect  their  electoral  rear  against  the  demagogues 
often  acted  more  responsibly  than  they  spoke,  and  a  manoeuvre  staged  for  the 
voter's  benefit  did  not  always  develop  into  a  real  assault  on  the  treasury.  After 
all,  the  loi  des  maxima  could  at  any  time  have  been  superseded  by  a  new  law  if 
Parliament  had  not  tacitly  accepted  its  superior  authority.35 

After  1953  ministries  were  less  vulnerable  on  financial  questions  because, 
when  financial  prudence  clashed  with  electoral  necessity,  the  deputies  often 

31.  AP  1950,  p.  125,  1952,  p.  92;  JO  22  June  1950,  p.  5161,  20-21  December  1952,  pp.  6690, 
6692,  6851;  George,  pp.   175,  179n.  (SOs),  81  (votes  of  confidence;  cf.  above,  pp.  234-5, 
252-5). 

32.  George,  pp.  46  and  89  (Cot),  57  (BarangS),  189  (maxima).  On  'special  treasury  accounts' 
see  below,  p.  343  and  n. 

33.  Fauvet  in  Monde,  28  December  1949;  Edgar  Faure  in  ibid.,  25  April  1950,  and  in  Figaro, 
15  December  1950;  Duverger,  op.  cit.,  pp.  27,  346,  371-2.  Cf.  George,  pp.  78,  106. 

34.  JO  14  February  1958,  p.  785  (Ballanger),  19th,  p.  909  (Duclos),  20th,  pp.  918-19  (Peron), 
cf.  913-14  (Pleven  and  Cot),  924  (Edgar  Faure);  also  28  December  1949,  p,  7493  (Pronteau).  And 
see  Goguel,  Regime,  p.  59 ;  Buron,  p.  104. 

35.  To  emphasize  its  importance,  Vincent  Auripl  referred  back  a  bill  in  1949 ;  George,  pp.  195-6, 


266  THE  INSTITUTIONS 

gave  the  government  special  powers  to  take  action  they  could  not  face,  or  to 
undo  harm  they  had  already  done.  In  March  1958  they  accepted  the  logic  of 
their  own  restraint  and  agreed,  with  little  opposition,  to  renounce  by  constitu- 
tional amendment  their  right  to  propose  higher  expenditure  or  lower  taxation. 
Few  deputies  of  the  Fourth  Republic  were  political  heroes,  but  most  cared  for 
the  public  interest  as  well,  and  some  even  as  much,  as  for  their  own  electoral 
survival. 

3.  BUDGETARY  PROCEDURE 

It  was  in  the  budget  debates  that  members  had  been  most  prone  to  generosity 
at  the  taxpayer's  expense,  and  that  the  restrictions  therefore  bore  most 
heavily.  The  Assembly's  ingenuity  in  evading  the  rules  was  a  perverse  tribute  to 
the  new  determination  with  which  they  were  enforced,  and  good  evidence 
that  they  were  effectively  impeding  traditional  demagogy.  Their  gradual  re- 
inforcement throughout  the  Fourth  Republic  culminated  in  1956  in  the  belated 
adoption  of  a  new  budgetary  procedure  which  left  Parliament  free  to  criticize 
and  reject  the  budget,  but  sharply  reduced  its  capacity  for  irresponsible  mis- 
chief. 

French  Parliaments  always  considered  the  budget  both  as  the  most  con- 
troversial kind  of  legislation  and  as  their  own  best  weapon  for  controlling 
governmental  policy.  In  theory  all  expenditure  and  all  taxation  had  to  be 
passed  in  a  single  bill  by  31  December;  expenditure  was  voted  in  detailed 
'chapters*  between  which  transfers  of  credits  (virements)  were  forbidden; 
revenues  were  not  earmarked  for  particular  expenses.  Under  the  new  consti- 
tution the  budget  was  to  include  only  financial  matter,  and  its  presentation 
was  to  be  regulated  by  an  organic  law.  These  aims  were  rarely  achieved.  The 
regulation  took  ten  years  and  was  the  work  of  the  government,  not  Parlia- 
ment Budgets  were  presented  in  many  bills,  discussed  in  a  disorderly  way  and 
(at  first)  voted  very  late, 

To  allow  the  upper  house  to  deal  with  the  budget  in  better  time,  it  was  split 
up  into  an  appropriation  bill  for  each  major  service ;  a  lot  de finances  imposing 
taxes  (and  sometimes  amending  the  expenditure  already  voted);  monthly 
credits,  known  as  *  provisional  twelfths',  for  departments  whose  expenditure 
was  voted  late;  supplementaries;  and  special  treasury  accounts.36  After  in- 
ordinate delays  on  the  budgets  for  1947  and  1948,  expenditure  for  1949  was 
authorized  en  bloc  for  each  ministry;  with  fifteen  items  to  vote  instead  of 
5,000,  the  main  credits  were  voted  on  3  January.37  But  Parliament  resented 
seeing  BO  detailed  appropriations  until  the  money  had  been  spent.  Eleven 
votes  of  confidence  were  needed  to  force  through  the  next  budget  in  February 
1950,  and  the  later  detailed  bills  took  longer  than  before  the  war.  The  Cour  des 
Canptes  warned  that  administrative  efficiency  and  parliamentary  control 

3&  In  1951  the  Assembly  voted  76  budget  bills  -  4J  for  the  current  year  and  35  for  the  next: 
Campoel,  no,  45,  p,  357.  There  were  33  bills  in  the  budget  for  1953  and  31  for  1955:  Muselier, 
V*  89,  Biamont,  p.  $8;  cf.  his  no.  1&,  p.  401,  quoted  Williams,  p.  255n. 

37.  For  precedents  in  the  Third  Republic  see  Lidderdale,  p.  212n. ;  cf.  Duverger,  op.  cit.,  pp.  333- 
334;  a  simlar  procedure  was  followed  in  1946.  Later  budgets  facilitated  parliamentary  control 
by  smpier  presentation.  The  civil  budget  for  1953  had  only  1,200  chapters  and  8,000  pages 
f^fe^t  i^QOO  two  years  earlier);  in  1955  the  whole  budget  had  4,000  pages:  see  George,  p.  31. 


NATIONAL  ASSEMBLY  (4):  LEGISLATION  AND  FINANCE          267 

both  suffered  when  budgetary  bills  were  spread  over  the  whole  year  and  well 
over  half  the  expenditure  was  authorized  by  provisional  credits.  'France*, 
complained  Edgar  Faure,  'is  the  only  democratic  country  where  the  budget  is 
discussed  at  such  time-consuming  length  that  it  prevents  Parliament  voting 
substantial  and  indispensable  bills.'38 

Simplified  procedure  soon  became  a  liability.  In  the  Korean  crisis  of  late 
1950  Ren6  Pleven  passed  his  new  taxes  in  a  separate  rearmament  budget  in 
January,  while  the  rest  of  the  budget  was  voted  only  just  before  the  June 
general  election.  Next  year  he  carried  all  the  civil  credits  before  the  end  of 
1951,  an  unprecedented  achievement;  but  the  deputies  then  baulked  at  both 
the  economies  demanded  by  his  cabinet  and  the  taxes  proposed  by  his 
successor.  For  two  months  the  deficit  mounted  until  Pinay  became  prime 
minister,  pronounced  it  over-estimated,  raised  a  loan  (on  outrageously 
generous  terms)  instead  of  new  taxes,  and  obtained  powers  to  cancel  by 
decree  expenditure  already  authorized  by  the  Assembly.39  His  successors 
were  given  even  greater  discretionary  powers,  as  described  in  the  next 
section. 

These  powers  were  in  part  the  executive's  answer  to  a  spendthrift  Parlia- 
ment. For  the  deputies  found  ingenious  ways  round  the  rules  against  pro- 
posing expenditure  during  the  budget  debates.  The  oldest,  commonest  but 
weakest  was  to  move  token  reductions.  Poor  party  discipline  made  these  easier 
to  carry  than  in  the  House  of  Commons,  but  they  had  little  effect  on  the 
government.  To  evade  the  hi  des  maxima,  which  forbade  new  spending  in 
the  current  year,  in  1951  a  proposal  was  made  to  take  effect  a  year  later ;  it  was 
accepted  by  the  finance  committee  and  the  government,  and  was  at  once 
imitated  for  other  popular  causes.  This  technique  was  revived  in  the  next 
Parliament  and  led  Paul  Reynaud  to  complain  that  every  budget  had  a  hidden 
time-bomb  with  a  twelve-month  fuse.  Pinay  and  Mayer  then  sought  and  Laniel 
obtained  powers  to  limit  next  year's  expenditure  to  the  current  year's  level.40 
The  deputies  promptly  found  a  new  manoeuvre:  they  refused  to  discuss  chap- 
ters they  thought  inadequate  until  the  government  made  a  better  offer,  or  they 
adjourned  consideration  of  an  entire  departmental  estimate  until  it  was 
'  rectified  Mn  December  1951  the  government  vainly  tried  to  invoke  Article  17 
against  this  procedure,  which  soon  became  very  popular.  Four  estimates  for 
1953  were  adjourned,  and  seven  for  1954.  Mend&s-France  met  a  proposal  to 

38.  AP  1950,  pp.  133-4  (Cour);  JO  18  May  1951,  p.  5499  (Faure).  The  Assembly  spent  112 
sittings  and  383  hours  on  the  budget  in  1950,  against  a  pre-war  record  of  28  sittings  and  93  hours ; 
later  the  total  number  of  sittings  dropped  (above,  p.  212),  so  the  proportion  taken  by  the  budget 
rose  from  a  third  to  nearly  half;  cf.  also  Williams,  pp.  254-5,  and  n.  47  below.  On  the  Cour  des 
Comptes  see  below,  p.  338. 

39.  Cf.  Goguel,  no.  107,  p.  858n.  The  Third  Force  governments  had  faced  severe  political 
unpopularity  to  maintain  high  investment  for  reconstruction.  Between  1938  and  1951  state 
expenditure  rose  by  less  than  half  but  taxes  by  80  % ;  in  1938  40  %  of  expenditure  had  been  met 
by  borrowing  or  inflation,  in  1951  22  %  was  covered  by  loans,  American  aid  and  'other  resources* : 
Edgar  Faure,  quoted  Monde,  17  May  1951,  cf.  JO  18  May,  p.  5498 ;  Wilson,  p.  353n.  It  was  the 
Conservative  champions  of  sound  finance  who  reduced  investments,  increased  borrowings  -  and 
gained  votes. 

40.  See  references  in  Williams,  p.  259n. ;  cf.  George,  pp.  71,  204.  For  Reynaud,  JO  27  May 
1953,  p.  2847,  cf.  2871  (contrast  Mitterrand,  p.  2866);  also  P.  Courant,  JO  14  February  1958, 
p.  782.  For  Pinay,  etc.,  cf.  Chapus,  no.  52,  pp.  978-9;  George,  pp.  192-4;  Galichon  in  Travail, 
pp.  826-7. 

K* 


268  THE  INSTITUTIONS 

adjourn  the  first  estimate  presented  for  1955  (the  post  office)  by  a  successful 
confidence  vote  against  this  breach  of  'the  letter  as  well  as  the  spirit  of  the 
constitution*.  Three  months  later  it  became  clear  that  he  had  lost  his  majority 
when  two  estimates  were  adjourned  (one,  pensions,  by  a  unanimous  vote).41 

The  new  rules  protected  governments  against  direct  pressure  for  expendi- 
ture. The  presidents'  conference  effectively  discouraged  dilatoriness:  after 
1952,  in  any  week  when  the  house  fell  behind  on  the  budget  it  had  to  meet  at 
midnight  on  Friday  to  catch  up.  The  premier  could  usually  rely  on  the 
deputies'  esprit  de  corps  to  overcome  senatorial  obstruction,  and  on  party 
discipline  to  defeat  opposition  from  the  finance  committee  (though  this  used 
up  some  of  his  political  authority).  But  in  adjourning  estimates  the  Assembly 
had  found  a  dangerous  loophole.  To  close  it  was  one  aim  of  the  new  budgetary 
procedure  instituted  in  1956.42 

Parliament  had  delegated  to  Edgar  Faure's  government  its  constitutional 
task  of  regulating  the  presentation  of  the  budget;  and  Faure's  ideas,  formu- 
lated in  1951  and  based  on  earlier  procedural  experiments,  inspired  the 
'organic  decree*  of  19  June  1956  which  Guy  Mollet's  cabinet  enacted  with  the 
approval  of  the  finance  committees  of  both  houses.43  A  single  budget  bill  was 
to  be  laid  by  1  November,  accompanied  by  economic  and  financial  reports, 
and  arranged  in  economic  rather  titan  administrative  categories.  No  amend- 
ment was  allowed  unless  it  reduced  expenditure,  increased  revenue  or  enforced 
parliamentary  control.  Unless  the  whole  bill  passed  the  Assembly  by  10  Decem- 
ber, Part  1  (which  authorized  taxes  and  loans  and  classified  total  expenditure 
into  civil  and  military,  capital  and  current)  was  to  go  by  the  15th  to  the  upper 
house  under  urgency  procedure.  Part  2,  which  could  not  be  begun  till  Part  1 
was  voted,  divided  expenditure  first  into  broad  types  (Litres,  such  as  ordinary 
expenses,  investments,  subsidies,  or  war-damage  reconstruction)  and  then  by 
ministry.  The  Assembly,  like  the  House  of  Commons,  had  about  150  items  to 
vote.  If  these  were  not  passed  by  the  new  year  the  government  could  make 
appropriations  for  continuing  services  (services  vot&,  rather  like  the  British 
consolidated  fund),  takingaccount  of  changes  already  approved  by  Parliament. 
This  meant  no  more  provisional  twelfths,  and  far  fewer  supplementary  esti- 
mates. As  the  new  credits  were  voted  the  government  allocated  them  to  chap- 
ters by  decree.  Unless  either  of  the  two  finance  committees  declared  its 
opposition,  the  money  could  be  spent  after  two  weeks  and  the  decrees  were 
approved  after  two  months.44  Only  if  the  Assembly's  finance  committee  re- 
jected the  decrees  (the  Council's  committee  gave  only  an  advisory  opinion) 

41.  B&L,  pp.  827-3  (on  1951),  and  p.  706  (Goguel);  Blamont,  pp.  93-4;  George,  pp.  62-7; 
Dowager,  op.  cit.,  pp.  353-4;  Arae,  pp.  175-6 ;  Georgel,  i.  293-5 ;  AP  1954,  pp.  89-90.  'Rectifica- 
tSOi!f  5*-?** Itod  k*^1^  had  corrected  printing  and  drafting  errors,  but  in  the  Fourth  they 
made  ctoages  of  substance ;  Laniel  needed  five  to  cany  the  education  estimates. 

42.  Biamont,  p.  94,  on  1956;  George,  pp.  152-3  (Fridays),  222-3  on  the  breaches  of  classical 
Jmdgetary  rales  which  were  the  price  of  the  procedural  improvements.  See  above,  pp.  252-3  on 
tfee  finance  committee,  and  below,  pp.  286-7,  on  the  upper  house. 

^C^BS?^™  9^*>Insiituti°r%  i-  393-441 ;  Duverger,  op.  cit.,  pp.  301,  303,  332-40, 
195U>P 5498^9  ^  PP'  Cart°U'  n°*  48<  °n  FaUre*S  ideas'  J0  1S  May 

44.  For  precedents  over  military  virements  and  war  damage  reconstruction  see  Blamont,  p.  60, 
a^lowr  budgetary  adjustments  see  below,  nn.  62  and  65.  The  ministry  of  finance  was  allowed 
under  strict  conditions,  to  authorize  virement  between  chapters. 


NATIONAL  ASSEMBLY  (4):   LEGISLATION  AND  FINANCE          269 

was  Parliament  called  upon  to  allocate  the  new  credits  by  a  bill  discussed,  if 
the  government  wished,  under  urgency  procedure.45 

The  organic  decree  did  not  guarantee  an  easy  passage  for  the  budget.  Mollet 
needed  six  votes  of  confidence  for  his,  and  both  he  and  Gaillard  were  nearly 
beaten  on  pensions.46  But  the  deputies  now  had  to  take  responsibility  for 
accepting  or  rejecting  estimates  without  procedural  manoeuvres.  The  specialist 
committees  lost  influence,  since  each  ministry's  estimate  was  dispersed  over 
several  litres  and  the  debate  was  therefore  directed  to  problems  of  finance 
rather  than  general  policy;  their  rapporteurs  might  still  influence  the  finance 
committee,  but  their  weight  in  the  whole  house  was  so  reduced  that  the  chair- 
man of  the  defence  committee  (Pierre  Montel)  protested  that  the  finance 
minister  was  already  the  government  of  France  and  now  the  finance  committee 
was  to  become  its  Parliament.  For  while  the  Assembly  could  no  longer 
examine  expenditure  in  detail,  the  finance  committee  could  still  do  so.  It  had 
no  less  opportunity  to  oppose  the  budget,  but  much  less  to  obstruct  it. 

The  decree  saved  much  time  at  its  first  trial,  when  the  hi  de finances  for  1957 
passed  its  first  reading  on  10  December  and  its  last  on  the  29th;  there  were  104 
amendments  instead  of  994,  and  29  sittings  of  the  Assembly  instead  of  122. 
The  administration  benefited,  for  the  new  rule  about  'continuing  services' 
protected  it  against  political  disturbance:  although  the  long  ministerial  crisis 
of  autumn  1957  prevented  the  budget  for  1958  being  laid  on  time,  Part  1  was 
duly  voted  before  the  end  of  the  year.  In  the  past,  very  detailed  parliamentary 
examination  had  often  hampered  governmental  responsibility  and  coherence 
of  policy.  The  new  procedure,  without  depriving  Parliament  of  its  authority, 
gave  the  administration  more  chance  to  function  and  the  government  more 
chance  to  govern.47 

4.  DECREE-LAWS  AND  FRAMEWORK-LAWS 

The  new  budgetary  procedure  was  only  an  exceptionally  important  instance  of 
Parliament's  growing  tendency  to  abandon  legislative  authority  to  the  govern- 
ment. It  could  do  this  either  by  distinguishing  major  spheres  of  policy,  with 
which  only  Parliament  could  deal,  from  minor  ones  which  might  be  left  to 
governmental  regulation;  or  else  by  authorizing  the  executive  to  act  on 
matters  which  Parliament  specified.  The  first  alternative  had  support  among 
some  Resistance  jurists,  whose  constitutional  plans  were  to  be  realized  in  the 
Fifth  Republic.  The  second  had  been  used  extensively  between  the  wars,  when 
Parliament  repeatedly  abdicated  its  powers  to  the  executive.48 
Between  1919  and  1939  eleven  governments  had  obtained  special  powers  to 

45.  The  Council  was  dissatisfied,  for  its  committee  had  only  ten  days  on  the  first  reading  and 
five  on  the  second ;  the  Assembly's  committee  had  a  month,  then  ten  days,  then  five  days  to  decide 
finally  on  third  reading.  If  either  acted  faster  it  had  more  time  on  the  next  round,  if  slower  it  had 
less  (and  if  the  Assembly  took  over  a  month  on  the  first  reading  its  consent  was  presumed). 

46.  See  above,  p.  247n. 

47.  On  its  working  see  Blamont,  pp.  98-101,  AP  1956,  pp.  89,  107-8,  120;  for  Montel,  JO 
20  November  1956,  p.  4941.  In  the  Fifth  Republic  the  time  spent  soon  increased  again,  to  43 
sittings  and  162  hours  on  the  first  reading  of  the  budget  for  1962  (cf.  n.  38). 

48.  On  the  whole  problem  see  Soubeyrol,  passim;  Cotteret,  pp.  36-45,  65-83;  Galichon  in 
Travail,  pp.  793-809;  Goguel,  no.  107,  pp.  853-5;  Georgel,  i.  297-305;  Arne,  pp.  152-60; 
Freedeman,  Conseil  d'Etat,  pp.  84-91 ;  Huron,  pp.  117-19. 


270  THE  INSTITUTIONS 

override  existing  legislation  by  'decree-laws'.  These  theoretically  needed 
eventual  parliamentary  approval,  but  they  could  operate  without  it  and,  as 
their  purpose  was  often  to  transfer  the  blame  for  unpopular  decisions  from 
Parliament  to  the  government,  members  were  not  always  eager  to  approve 
them.  While  decree-laws  enabled  the  executive  to  act  where  the  legislature 
would  not,  they  encouraged  evasion  of  responsibility  by  the  deputies  and  of 
parliamentary  control  by  the  administration.  After  the  early  years  the 
authority  given  was  very  widely  drawn  and  still  more  widely  interpreted: 
Laval  prohibited  foreigners  keeping  carrier-pigeons  under  powers  given  him 
to  defend  the  franc.  Daladier's  special  powers  enabled  him  to  go  through 
the  Munich  crisis  without  summoning  Parliament  and,  a  year  later,  to  ban 
the  Communist  party  by  decree-law.  After  the  defeat  Parliament  abdicated 
all  its  powers,  including  that  of  drafting  a  new  constitution,  to  Marshal 
P&ain.49 

The  Resistance  movement  reacted  against  these  abuses,  and  in  the  two 
Constituent  Assemblies  only  Paul  Reynaud  defended  decree-laws.  Article  13 
of  the  constitution  enshrined  this  hostility :  'The  National  Assembly  shall  vote 
the  law.  It  cannot  delegate  this  right.5  But  jurists  held  that  these  words  did  not 
prevent  ministers  being  authorized  to  alter  existing  legislation  by  decree,  and 
the  constitutional  drafting  committees  seem  to  have  known  this.50  Indeed, 
Ren6  Capitant  warned  them  that  unless  the  new  Parliament  was  capable  of 
acting  rapidly,  decree-laws  would  soon  revive.  But  the  new  Assembly  dealt  no 
better  than  the  old  Chamber  with  matters  requiring  speed  or  technical 
expertise  or  secrecy  (such  as  tax  changes).  Deputies  still  feared  the  electoral 
consequences  of  many  measures  they  knew  to  be  necessary,  and  procedure 
still  hampered  leadership  and  facilitated  obstruction.  Supporters  of  Third 
Republican  institutions,  including  decree-laws,  regained  influence  after  1948. 
So,  *torn  by  its  double  complex  of  powerlessness  and  sovereignty',  Parliament 
alternated  between  delegating  its  powers  to  the  government  and  throwing  out 
cabinets  which  tried  to  use  them.  Three  distinct  techniques  were  used :  first  the 
separation  of  spheres,  as  in  Reynaud's  law  of  17  August  1948;  secondly,  in 
1953-55,  special  powers  like  those  of  the  inter-war  years,  but  with  stricter 
limits  of  time,  authority  and  subject-matter;  thirdly  the  framework-laws  (lois- 
cadres)  by  which  Parliament  after  1956,  instead  of  transferring  a  specified 
subject  to  governmental  regulation,  passed  legislation  laying  down  principles 
and  invited  the  executive  to  fill  in  the  details.51 

The  Reynaud  law  conferred  both  temporary  and  permanent  powers.52  'To 
make  [the  administration]  more  efficient  and  less  costly'  (Art.  1)  and  to 

49^%&  The  Destiny  of  France,  p.  152  (pigeons) ;  M.  Sieghart,  Government  by  Decree  (1950), 
pp.  273-304;  Scute,  pp.  162-5, 184-9;  Galichon  in  Travail,  pp.  800-2;  Soubeyrol,  pp,  21-7. 

50,  mi*  pp.  60-1,  64,  70,  cf.  56-71,  74,  183-4;  Arae,  pp.  154-5;  Pinto,  no.  181;  but  cf. 
Georgel,  L  298.  Article  13  was  meant  to  exclude  from  legislative  power  the  Council  of  the 
Republic  and  the  Assembly's  own  committees  as  well  as  the  government. 

51"t£SF  y* I(?2"3  ^P113111)  J  J-  Donnedieu  de  Vabres,  quoted  Institutions,  i.  140  (*  double 
mqtaO;  *>«"*£  «*  (Oklichon),  cf.  p.  847  (Hamon);  Cottar*,  pp.  40-2,  66-8,  78-9; 
oonDeyroa,  pp.  4-o,  15,  37. 

™S^!J?ct  °f  ^  kwin  ****•  PP-  215~18'  and  m  AP 1948,  p.  363  (of  the  original  bill,  ibid ,  p  339) 
01  2*f\f«*  ****  *  *ran.  R  is  My  discussed  by  Pinto,  no.  iS/anST by  Soubeyrol' 
^.77-90,  Mane  sent  his  ministers  a  circular  (printed  in  Cotteret,  pp.  70-1),  asking  them  not  to 
introduce  bills  where  regulations  would  now  suffice. 


NATIONAL  ASSEMBLY  (4):  LEGISLATION  AND  FINANCE          271 

ensure  profitability  and  encourage  individual  responsibility  in  the  nationalized 
industries  (Art.  2),  the  government  was  instructed  to  reorganize  them;  for 
equally  vague  objectives  it  was  to  reform  the  social  security  system  and  fiscal 
structure.  These  powers  were  subject  to  time-limits;  many  decrees  under  them 
needed  parliamentary  approval;  and  they  could  not  be  used  to  denationalize 
an  industry,  give  up  the  state's  controlling  interest  in  a  mixed  company,  or 
reform  the  army  or  judiciary.  Reynaud's  proposed  use  of  them  broke  up  one 
government  (Marie's),  and  the  next  (Schuman's  second)  was  slaughtered  at 
birth  by  the  Right  because  they  would  have  been  wielded  by  a  Socialist  finance 
minister.  QueuUle  then  took  office  and  used  them  little,  though  he  did  invoke 
them  to  introduce  an  unpopular  fiscal  reform.53 

Other  powers  under  this  law  were  unlimited  in  time,  but  restricted  in  scope 
to  matters,  enumerated  in  detail,  'of  a  nature  to  be  dealt  with  by  regulations'. 
On  these,  which  covered  much  the  same  fields  but  excluded  taxation,  broad- 
casting and  the  press,  governments  could  override  existing  (but  not  future) 
legislation  by  decrees  which  needed  no  parliamentary  approval,  though  Par- 
liament could  always  regain  its  authority  by  passing  a  new  law.  By  the  end  of 
1954,  350  decrees  had  been  issued.  These  permanent  powers  were  used  by 
Pleven  in  October  1950  to  remove  the  social  services  of  the  gas  and  electricity 
industries  from  Communist  control,  and  by  Ren6  Mayer  in  1953  to  abolish  - 
temporarily  -  the  autonomy  of  the  nationalized  industries.54 

Reynaud's  bill  was  attacked  as  unconstitutional  by  the  opposition,  Ren6 
Capitant  arguing  strongly  for  the  loi-cadre  against  the  d£cret-loi.™  Over  the 
next  five  years  governments  frequently  obtained  powers  to  carry  out  economies, 
or  reduce  or  even  increase  taxes  by  decree.  But  Parliament  would  not  repeat 
the  1948  precedent  on  a  large  scale.  Queuille  in  April  1951  and  Pleven  in 
January  1952  sought  powers  to  reorganize  the  nationalized  railways:  the  for- 
mer was  unanimously  opposed  by  the  Assembly's  communications  committee 
and  the  latter  (who  had  also  wanted  to  reform  the  social  services)  was  over- 
thrown on  a  vote  of  confidence.  Pinay  was  driven  to  resign  when  in  the  budget 
for  1953  he  too  sought  powers  to  reform  the  fiscal  and  social  security  systems. 
But  six  weeks  later  Ren<§  Mayer  was  authorized  to  do  so  unless  Parliament 
dealt  with  them  by  bill  within  three  months.56 

Asked  by  Mayer's  government  for  an  advisory  opinion  on  the  scope  of 
Article  13,  the  Conseil  d'fitat  on  7  February  1953  enunciated  *a  solution  of 
compromise  and  expediency'.  It  approved  the  conception  (which  it  had  itself 
invented)  of  matters  'of  a  nature  to  be  dealt  with  by  regulations*.  But  it 
condemned  as  unconstitutional  any  delegation  of  power,  either  on  the 
'essential  rules'  governing  matters  reserved  to  the  law  by  the  constitution 
itself  or  by  the  republican  tradition  expressed  in  its  preamble,  or  so  general 

53.  This  went  into  force  unless  modified  by  Parliament  within  twenty  days ;  of  962  clauses  one 
was  abrogated  and  one  amended:  Soubeyrol,  pp.  88,  141,  cf.  126. 

54.  The  spheres  of  law  and  regulations  are  conveniently  summarized  in  Travail,  pp.  797-9. 
See  also  Cotteret,  pp.  41-4;  Soubeyrol,  pp.  89  and  n.,  131, 171 ;  Lescuyer,  pp.  115-16, 142-70. 

55.  In  1946  Capitant  had  argued  as  a  jurist  that  Article  13  would  not  prevent  decree-laws 
(cf.  n.  51).  But  in  1948,  as  RPF  leader,  he  maintained  impressively  that  it  did :  JO  9  August  1948, 
pp.  5566-70. 

56.  Soubeyrol,  pp.  91-105, 141-3 ;  Travail,  p.  804;  Cotteret,  p,  41 ;  BC  no.  148, 23  April  1951, 
p.  4634;  AP  1952,  pp,  7-9;  below,  nn.  62,  65,  and  pp.  343-4. 


57 


272  THE  INSTITUTIONS 

or  imprecise  as  to  amount  to  an  abdication  of  parliamentary  sovereignty- 
Later  governments  tried  not  to  flout  these  limits  too  blatantly,  and  after  one 
more  revolt  Parliament  accepted  the  inevitable.  In  May  1953  Mayer  was 
refused  powers  to  impose  by  decree  economies  and  higher  taxes*  which 
offended  in  particular  the  powerful  alcohol  interest.  But  Laniel,  coming  to 
office  after  a  seven-week  ministerial  crisis,  won  a  striking  revenge  for  the 
executive.  His  law  of  11  July  1953  temporarily  included  military  and  judicial 
administration  and  civil  service  promotions  and  retirements  within  Reynaud's 
matters  for  regulation.  It  allowed  his  own  government  powers  to  promote 
productivity,  exports  and  full  employment,  and  also  to  defer  the  operation  of 
any  bill  costing  money  (refused  to  Mayer)  and  to  co-ordinate  the  transport 
system(refusedto  Pleven).58  After  1953  decrees  submitted  to  the  Conseil  d'Etat 
under  special  powers  quadrupled  in  number.59 

Under  the  next  premier,  Mendes-France,  the  Left  abandoned  its  opposition 
to  decree-laws.  The  Socialists  voted  for  his  law  of  14  August  1954,  the  Com- 
munists abstained,  and  (despite  some  criticism  from  MRP  members  who  had 
voted  for  the  earlier  bills)  Article  13  of  the  constitution  was  'formally  laid  to 
rest  in  an  atmosphere  of  good  humour  and  opportunism'.  Though  his  powers 
were  confined  to  his  own  government,  Parliament  renewed  them  to  his  succes- 
sor Edgar  Faure  -  for  longer  than  Faure  had  asked,  and  without  even  a  vote 
of  confidence  -  and  indeed  extended  them  widely.  There  was  no  more 
opposition  on  constitutional  grounds.  Laniel,  Mendfcs-France  and  Faure 
issued  over  450  decrees  in  less  than  two  years.60 

Up  to  1955, 31  bills  delegated  power  to  the  government,  in  terms  less  vague 
than  in  the  Third  Republic  but  really  precise  in  only  ten  cases.  However,  there 
were  more  genuine  safeguards  against  abuse  (though  they  differed  confusingly 
from  law  to  law).  Under  three  acts,  decrees  could  be  issued  only  by  a  specific 
government;  under  most,  they  had  to  be  approved  by  the  cabinet;  under  all 
the  important  ones,  they  went  to  the  Conseil  d'fitat,  a  new  and  welcome 
assurance  that  they  were  intra  vires.*1  Usually  (unless  'of  a  nature  to  be  dealt 
with  by  regulations')  they  required  eventual  parliamentary  approval,  which 
was  a  more  real  check  than  before  the  war  -  though  the  decrees  Parliament 
rejected  were  too  often  the  better  ones,  especially  on  the  subject  of  alcohol. 
Serious  parliamentary  criticism  was  frequently  appeased  by  requiring  decrees 

57.  Tbe  opinion  is  translated  in  Freedeman,  pp.  1 69-70,  and  the  original  is  in  RDP  69. 1  (1953), 
pp.  170-1;  for  comments  see  Monde,  20  February  1953;  Travail,  pp.  804-5  (*...  expediency'). 
Guy  Petit,  as  minister  of  state  assisting  Pinay,  had  recently  drafted  a  bill  defining  the  *  domain  of 
tlie  law*,  but  the  Conseil  refused  to  give  an  opinion  on  it  then,  and  in  1956  disapproved  Petit's 
private  member's  bfll  embodying  it:  Cotteret,  pp.  71-7  (reprints  the  later  bill  and  opinion).  The 
CoasdTs  responsibility  for  the  idea  of  matters  *by  nature*  not  legislative  is  asserted  by  Pinto, 
no.  181,  pp.  518,  531,  and  by  Freedeman,  p.  87,  and  hinted  by  Soubeyrol,  p.  166. 

58.  Sonbeyrol,  pp.  107-16,  218-20;  Chapus,  no.  52  (both  giving  incomplete  texts);  Travail, 
ppj,  805-6.  Where  the  law  of  1948  had  prudishly  authorized  the  government  to  modify  *les  dispo- 
sitions en  vigiieuT*,  that  of  1953  frankly  specified  'les  dispositions  legislatives '. 

59.  The  annual  average  was  nil  up  to  1 948, 59  in  the  next  five  years  (with  a  peak  of  1 00  in  1 948-9) 
and  241  after  1953  (with  a  peak  of  460  in  1954-5) ;  but  from  1956  many  were  applicable  in  Algeria 
and  the  colonies  but  not  in  France.  See  table  in  Freedeman,  p.  90  and  n. 

6a  Soobeyroi,  pp.  1 17-31.  The  1954  law  dropped  all  reference  to  the  two  spheres  (p.  120),  and 
the  extension  authorized  the  government  to  establish  taxes,  penalties  and  courts  (p.  127). 

61.  md.3  pp.  159-61,  166,  181-2  (10  of  33);  Blamont,  pp.  80-2;  Travail,  p.  804;  Cotteret, 
pp.  43-5. 


NATIONAL  ASSEMBLY  (4):   LEGISLATION  AND  FINANCE          273 

to  be  submitted  for  the  advice  of  the  finance  committee  of  each  house  and 
sometimes  for  the  consent  of  the  Assembly's;  occasionally  other  committees 
were  added.62  After  1953  all  the  major  bills  followed  the  Conseil  d>£tat  by 
expressly  excluding,  first  matters  reserved  to  Parliament  by  the  constitution  or 
its  preamble,  and  secondly  the  goods  and  liberties  of  the  citizen.  But  this 
distinction  ominously  implied  that  the  constitution  did  not  protect  civil 
liberties.  It  foreshadowed  the  encroachments  which  the  Algerian  war  was 
soon  to  bring,  across  the  Mediterranean  in  Mollet's  special  powers  law  of 
March  1956,  and  in  France  itself  with  Bourges-Maunoury's  law  of  June 
1957.63 

Jurists  disliked  the  special  powers  bills  of  1953-55,  despite  the  new  safe- 
guards, and  preferred  the  lois-cadres  invented  by  Blum  in  1936  and  revived  - 
again  by  Socialists  -  in  1956.64  Gaston  Defferre's  great  colonial  reform  of 
23  June  1956  had  nine  clauses  enunciating  principles,  to  be  applied  by  decrees 
laid  before  Parliament.  Economic  and  administrative  decrees  went  into  force 
at  once,  political  decrees  (unless  amended  or  abrogated)  after  four  months. 
The  two  houses  agreed  on  amendments  to  all  the  17  political  decrees  and  to 
23  of  the  28  others,  accepted  four  unchanged,  and  let  only  one  go  into  force  by 
default.  This  method  satisfied  the  upper  house,  and  it  took  only  four  months 
to  pass  the  bill  into  law  and  thirteen  to  bring  all  the  decrees  into  force.  Thus 
a  determined  government  and  majority  could  still  work  the  parliamentary 
machine  efficiently.65 

Unlike  ordinary  legislative  procedure,  this  method  concentrated  parlia- 
mentary discussion  on  the  principles  and  not  on  the  details  which  usually 
attracted  the  local  pressures.  Even  when  the  decrees  needed  approval  the 
government  was  protected,  for  unless  both  houses  agreed  in  good  time  it 
could  enforce  its  own  text.  Unlike  the  decree-law,  which  gave  a  blank  cheque 

62.  For  instance,  the  consent  of  the  finance  committee  of  the  Assembly  was  required  for  tax 
reductions  under  a  law  of  8  August  1950,  and  for  budgetary  virements  between  ministries  under 
Laniel's  law  (there  were  precedents  as  early  as  December  1945).  That  of  the  reconstruction  and 
defence  committees  was  also  needed  for  changes  in  their  credits  (laws  of  31  December  1953  and 
of  2  April  1954):  Soubeyrol,  pp.  45ffl,  96,  113,  115.  Cf.  Blamont,  pp.  59-60;  Williams,  p.  237n. 

63.  Cf.  Soubeyrol,  pp.  112,  127.  The  Conseil  d'Etat  (like  Anglo-Saxon  courts)  interpreted  the 
government's  powers  more  widely  during  war  or  grave  disorder  (pp.  149-53)  and  the  constitution 
itself  extended  them  overseas,  including  Algeria  (pp.  154-8).  The  state  of  urgency,  invented  by  a 

1955  law,  was  invoked  only  by  Pflimlin  in  1958 :  see  Arne,  p.  158,  and  Drago,  no.  77.  The  laws  of 

1956  and  1957  had  no  legal  or  political  safeguards  at  all,  except  that  they  had  to  be  renewed  when 
a  new  government  took  office;  on  them  see  Petot,  no.  174,  and  Charpentier,  no.  54,  p.  259. 

64.  Ibid.  (pp.  220-70) ;  Cotteret,  pp.  66-8 ;  cf.  M.  Prelot  in  Travail,  p.  846;  L.  Hamon,  JO  (CR), 
25  January  1951,  p.  236;  R.  Capitant,  JO  9  August  1948,  p.  5566;  G.  Liet-Veaux  in  Institutions, 
i.  140;  and  the  opinion  of  the  Conseil  d^tat  (n.  57).  On  1953-5,  also  Blamont,  pp.  80-1 ;  Duverger, 
System,  p.  58;  cf.  Goguel,  no.  107,  p.  854n.  On  both,  Soubeyrol,  pp.  180-6. 

65.  Charpentier,  no.  54,  pp.  230-5,  251,  253,  255,  260-3 ;  cf.  Blamont,  pp.  82-3.  The  bill  had 
seven  other  clauses  on  the  electoral  system:  a  matter  for  the  law.  Decrees  accepted  unchanged  by 
the  overseas  territories  committees  were  not  debated  in  the  house.  The  solitary  decree  put  into 
force  by  default  had  been  approved  by  the  Assembly,  but  the  Council  thought  it  unfair  to  property. 
On  Mollet's  political  strength  see  above,  p.  235.  Defferre's  *tacit  consent*  procedure  had  prece- 
dents (with  less  generous  time-limits)  in  Queuille's  fiscal  reform  of  9  December  1948  and  Mayer's 
law  of  7  February  1953  (above,  n.  53  and  p.  271) ;  also  in  the  rearmament  budget  of  8  January 
1951,  by  which  Parliament  authorized  the  cabinet  to  increase  existing  taxes  by  £25  million  unless 
within  a  month  it  had  voted  corresponding  economies:  Soubeyrol,  pp.  98-9,  142-3;  cf.  Louis- 
Lucas,  no.  147,  p.  746.  Under  it  the  cabinet  raised  the  petrol  tax;  the  finance  committee  voted 
against  it  by  40  to  1 :  BC  no.  9,  13  November  1951,  p.  142, 


274  THE  INSTITUTIONS 

to  a  man,  title  loi-cadre  allowed  and  indeed  required  the  collaboration  of 
government  and  Parliament  on  a  precise  programme.  But  this  closer  contact 
meant  greater  political  risks,  which  could  be  run  only  by  a  strong  cabinet, 
and  once  political  conditions  ceased  to  favour  this  co-operation  the  new  pro- 
cedure worked  less  well  or  was  abandoned  altogether.66  The  housing  act  of 
August  1957,  for  all  its  62  clauses,  still  left  the  government  undue  discretion 
over  aims  as  well  as  methods;  and  the  Algerian  institutions  law  of  February 
1958  disappointed  the  Moslems  without  conciliating  the  Right,  whose  par- 
liamentary assault  was  only  postponed  until  the  decrees  were  laid  before  the 
house.  Two  more  enabling  bills  on  agriculture  and  the  Common  Market  were 
never  passed.67  And  Mollef  s  successors  preferred  Laniel-type  decree-laws  for 
their  financial  legislation,  since  those  deputies  who  wanted  to  avoid  respon- 
sibility for  voting  on  the  details  of  a  law  had  no  desire  to  pronounce  on  the 
decrees  which  followed.68 

Delegation  had  great  political  advantages.  First,  it  limited  Parliament's 
opportunities  to  wear  down  governmental  authority.  If  the  premiers  of  1953- 
1955  demanded  far  fewer  votes  of  confidence  than  their  predecessors,  this 
was  partly  because  special  powers  freed  them  from  the  need  to  whip  thek 
supporters  into  line  on  every  contentious  point.  But  while  a  ministry  with  a 
stable  majority  could  make  constructive  use  of  Parliament,  a  weak  and  vul- 
nerable one  needed  special  powers  to  restore  the  balance  of  the  system.69 
Secondly,  on  some  contentious  questions  a  parliamentary  minority  had  such 
opportunities  to  obstruct,  or  a  majority  so  feared  the  electoral  repercussions  of 
its  votes,  that  special  powers  gave  the  only  hope  of  action.  But  the  deter- 
mination of  the  executive  could  not  be  inferred  from  the  impotence  of  the 
legislature.  Parliament  showed  conspicuous  cowardice  over  all  aspects  of  the 
alcohol  problem  -  beets,  bars  and  bouilleurs;  yet  the  reversal  of  Mayer's 
proposals  under  Laniel  and  of  Mend&s-France's  decrees  under  Faure  showed 
that  ministers,  too,  might  lack  political  courage.  If  governments  sought 
special  powers  to  avoid  a  legislative  battle,  they  often  failed  to  get  them  like 
Pleven  and  Mayer,  broke  up  over  them  like  Marie,  or  met  a  violent  reaction 
when  they  tried  to  use  them,  like  Laniel.70 

The  parliamentary  bottleneck  often  made  delegation  necessary  even  on 
uncontroversial  matters.  When  the  overloaded  Conseil  d'fitat  was  breaking 
down  in  1953,  Mayer's  government  introduced  a  bill  to  transfer  the  lesser 
cases  to  lower  administrative  courts  ;  it  was  so  delayed  by  other  measures  and  a 
government  crisis  that  only  Laniel's  special  powers  brought  it  into  force  that 
year.  In  the  same  Assembly  the  industrial  production  committee,  which  was  on 
excellent  terms  with  its  ministers,  buried  7  of  their  19  bills  for  sheer  lack  of 
time.  Unfortunately  special  powers  might  make  the  worst  of  both  worlds,  for 
too  often  the  civil  service,  unprepared  with  major  reforms,  used  its  delegated 

66.  Oiaipeotier,  no.  54,  pp,  252-7,  260-70;  cf.  Capitant,  JO  9  August  1948,  pp.  5566,  5570. 
*  '  diflfered  on  «**  m'  See  Charpentier,  no.  54, 

n  n  *"**•  Cottere^  PP-  67-8;  no.  161,  p.  846 

,  no.  54,  pp.  259-60  ;  Cotter*,  p.  44  ;  Georgel,  i.  300. 

<>•  *».  P*  3H.  On 


70,  Sonbeyrol,  p.  7  (revolts)  ;  below,  pp.  356-7  (alcohol). 


NATIONAL  ASSEMBLY  (4):   LEGISLATION  AND  FINANCE  275 

authority  for  hasty  and  piecemeal  enactment  of  minor  projects  which  had 
been  on  its  shelves  for  years.  Ten  weeks  before  the  regime  collapsed  a  Socialist 
complained  that  'more  and  more  we  tend  to  administer  from  the  Palais  Bour- 
bon, while  more  and  more  the  departmental  bureaucracy  spends  its  time 
legislating  in  our  place'.71 

The  grievance  was  genuine  but  the  trend  was  not,  for  in  the  third  Parlia- 
ment real  progress  was  made  in  tackling  the  problem.  While  the  flood  of  bills 
somewhat  abated,  a  higher  proportion  of  private  members*  measures  was 
passed.  Within  metropolitan  France  even  the  governments  which  abdicated 
to  the  military  in  Algeria  made  less  use  than  their  predecessors  of  their 
delegated  powers  to  alter  the  law.  The  genuine  loi-cadre  was  better  than  either 
the  uncontrolled  decree-laws  of  the  thirties  or  even  the  improved  model  of  the 
fifties,  and  in  different  political  conditions  might  have  increased  Parliament's 
output  without  diminishing  its  authority.  But  no  technical  reforms  could 
solve  the  inextricable  political  deadlock  over  the  Algerian  war;  and  the  Fourth 
Republic  ended,  like  the  Third,  with  the  most  sweeping  delegation  of  all  when 
Parliament  abandoned  its  authority  to  change  the  laws  and  the  constitution 
into  the  hands  of  a  national  hero.72  These  capitulations  were  ratified  both  by 
the  deputies  and  by  their  colleagues  who  manned  that  last  bastion  of  republi- 
can traditionalism,  the  upper  house. 

71.  Ren6  Dejean,  JO  18  March  1958,  p.  1636.  On  the  courts  bill,  Soubeyrol,  p.  114;  on  the 
committee,  Harrison,  pp.  213-14;  onfonds  de  tiroirs  reforms,  Brindillac,  no.  29,  p.  58. 

72.  Of  the  three  laws  passed  on  3  June  1958,  one  gave  de  Gaulle  the  same  Algerian  special 
powers  as  previous  governments.  Another  gave  him  full  powers  for  six  months,  except  over:  matters 
reserved  for  the  law  by  the  constitutional  preamble;  civil  and  trade  union  liberties;  the  definition 
of  and  penalties  for  criminal  offences;  *the  fundamental  guarantees  accorded  to  citizens';  and 
the  electoral  law.  The  third  (on  which  see  above,  p.  56,  and  below,  p.  303)  allowed  the  govern- 
ment to  draft  a  new  constitution  to  be  approved  by  referendum.  This,  in  its  last  Article  (92), 
empowered  the  government  during  the  next  four  months  to  dp  anything  necessary  for  the  life 
of  the  nation,  protection  of  the  citizens,  or  safeguarding  of  liberties;  and  also  to  settle  the  electoral 
law.  See  AP  1958,  pp.  71-4,  542-4,  561. 


Chapter  20 
THE  COUNCIL  OF  THE  REPUBLIC 

The  Senate  had  been  a  political  bastion  of  the  Third  Republic,  but  its  social 
and  economic  conservatism  made  it  unpopular  in  1946.  The  constitution- 
makers  reduced  its  powers  and  changed  its  method  of  election;  but  when  the 
conservative  forces  revived  they  restored  the  old  type  of  electoral  system,  in 
1948,  and  some  of  the  lost  powers,  in  the  constitutional  amendment  of  1954. 
That  compromise  settlement  ended  the  guerrilla  warfare  between  the  houses, 
for  while  the  new  second  chamber  was  no  more  progressive  than  the  old  it  was 
weaker  and  less  obstructive. 

1-  THE  BACKGROUND 

The  Senate  of  the  Third  Republic  was  the  chief  obstacle  placed  by  the  founders 
in  the  way  of  a  majority  of  the  Left.  They  took  every  precaution  to  make  it 
safely  conservative.  It  was  elected  by  delegates  of  the  local  authorities  whose 
numbers  were  weighted,  against  the  great  cities,  to  favour  the  countryside  and 
later  the  small  provincial  towns.1  These  local  authorities  were  often  less  pro- 
gressive than  their  constituents,  for  many  villages  which  voted  Left  in  national 
elections  chose  as  mayor  a  Conservative  with  the  time  and  experience  to  run 
local  affairs:  Aisne,  for  example,  returned  seven  deputies  of  the  Left  and  four 
senators  of  the  Right,  Senators  were  chosen  for  nine  years,  a  third  retiring  at  a 
time;  as  the  local  councils  had  themselves  been  elected  earlier,  the  Senate 
represented  the  out-of-date  opinions  of  an  excessively  conservative  consti- 
tuency. The  minimum  age  was  40  and  the  average  much  higher.2  A  quarter  of 
the  members  were  to  be  chosen  for  life  by  the  monarchist  lower  house  elected  in 
1871. 

Although  the  Senate  seemed  an  impregnable  bastion  of  conservatism,  the 
Rightsoon  lost  control  of  it  by  internecine  quarrelling.  In  18  84  the  Republicans 
forced  through  a  constitutional  amendment  which  abolished  life  senatorships 
as  the  incumbents  died  off,  and  altered  the  electoral  colleges  to  strengthen  the 
small  country  towns  (though  not  the  great  cities)  at  the  expense  of  the  rural 
areas.  By  1900  the  Senate  and  Chamber  were  both  passing  from  the  hands  of 
the  moderate  Republicans  into  those  of  the  Radicals.  Thus  the  twentieth- 
century  Senate  did  not  stand  openly  on  one  side  of  the  party  battle  like  a 
French  House  of  Lords  ;  it  kept  squarely  in  the  centre.  It  consistently  opposed 
proportional  representation,  which  was  favoured  by  both  Socialists  and  Con- 
servatives but  disliked  by  the  groups  between  them.  The  typical  senator  was 
characterized  as  a  professional  man  from  the  provinces,  'a  moderate  and 
ardently  patriotic  Radical;  against  the  Left  which  threatens  his  savings;  yet 


24  dele*ates  '  ^  rest  °f  *«  department  with 

*»  dozen 

Cf  HSriS'^T  ^Km  W0te>  'By  definition  &  «™tors  ««  old'  :  Le  Po'litique  (1923),  p.  35. 

1  -  267n 


THE  COUNCIL  OF  THE  REPUBLIC  277 

afraid  of  being  governed  by  "Reaction";  liberal  but  conservative,  anti- 
socialist  but  timid;  a  subscriber  to  Le  Temps,  an  anticlerical  . . .  whose  wife 
attends  7  a.m.  mass'.3  He  and  his  colleagues  were  decisive  in  maintaining  the 
negative  policy  (ni  reaction  ni  revolution)  to  which  the  majority  of  the  elec- 
torate was  wedded :  and  this  was  the  secret  of  their  power. 

The  Senate  differed  from  the  House  of  Lords  in  authority  as  well  as  in  out- 
look. Because  its  members  sat  for  a  long  term  and  were  generally  re-elected,  it 
tended  to  attract  the  ablest  parliamentarians  -  who  in  turn  reinforced  its 
power  and  increased  its  attractiveness.  The  senators,  unlike  British  peers,  had 
all  undergone  a  regular  political  apprenticeship  and  were  elected  by  active 
local  politicians.  More  skilful  than  the  Lords,  they  rarely  rejected  bills  out- 
right: those  they  disliked  were  buried  in  committees  and  never  emerged.4 
They  never  challenged  governments  fresh  from  a  general  election;  they  did 
not  need  to.  For  majorities  of  the  Left  were  always  unstable,  since  their 
marginal  members  tended  to  seek  a  change  of  allies  when  the  elections  were 
past  and  the  budget  had  to  be  dealt  with.  When  the  moderate  Radicals  in  the 
Chamber  began  to  contemplate  switching  from  working  with  Socialists  to 
working  with  Conservatives,  their  friends  in  the  upper  house  would  intervene 
to  hasten  their  decision. 

Instead  of  defying  public  opinion,  the  senators  tried  to  circumvent  it  or 
waited  for  it  to  change.  Before  a  surge  of  popular  feeling  like  that  of  1936  they 
would  bow  gracefully,  accepting  legislation  which  they  detested  in  the  justi- 
fiable confidence  that  their  revenge  would  not  be  long  delayed.  In  the  later 
years  of  the  Third  Republic  they  extended  their  power  to  government-making, 
although  constitutionally  their  right  to  do  so  was  not  clear.  After  ejecting  only 
three  ministries  in  the  first  55  years,  they  overthrew  four  in  the  last  decade  -  of 
which  they  found  two  unduly  clerical  and  two  dangerously  socialist. 

The  senators  exercised  a  cautious  influence  on  policy  by  hampering  pro- 
gressive legislation,  wearing  down  and  occasionally  destroying  governments, 
and  keeping  the  £lys£e,  through  the  presidential  electoral  college,  in  safe  and 
conservative  hands.  With  so  clear  a  political  bias  the  Senate's  status  was 
naturally  controversial.  The  Radicals  wanted  to  abolish  it,  until  it  came  under 
their  control ;  Antonin  Dubost  wrote  a  book  against  it,  ended  life  as  its  presi- 
dent, and  was  succeeded  in  the  chair  by  the  first  premier  overthrown  by  the 
upper  house,  L£on  Bourgeois.  But  the  demand  for  its  abolition  was  taken  up 
by  the  under-represented  Socialists,  and  at  the  Liberation  the  end  seemed  to 
have  come.5 

With  tripartisme  in  the  ascendant  and  Radicals  discredited,  the  old- 
fashioned  anticlerical  conservatism  of  the  Senate  was  thoroughly  unpopular 
in  October  1945;  and  the  25-to-l  referendum  vote  against  a  return  to  the 
Third  Republic  was  partly  a  vote  of  censure  on  it.  Accordingly  there  was  no 

3.  W.  d'Ormesson,  Qifest-ce  qifunFrancais? . . .  Clemenceau,  Briand,  Poincare  (1934),  pp.  52-3. 
I  owe  this  and  the  Barthou  reference  to  Dr.  D.  B.  Goldey. 

4.  Woman  suffrage  and  real  proportional  representation  were  blocked  until  the  end ;  effective 
secrecy  of  the  ballot  for  nine  years,  income  tax  for  eight,  a  weekly  rest-day  in  industry  for  four, 
pensions  for  railwaymen  for  twelve:  Sharp,  p.  127;  Barthelemy,  Goitvernement,  p.  82.  Cf. 
above,  p.  1 1 8  (woman  suffrage) ;  below,  p.  308  (PR). 

5.  Forms  of  influence:  Duverger,  VIe,  pp.  98-100;  cf.  above,  p.  196.  Dubost  and  Bourgeois: 
E.  M.  Sait,  The  Government  and  Politics  of  France  (New  York,  1920),  p.  125. 


278  THE  INSTITUTIONS 

second  chamber,  but  only  two  advisory  bodies  not  forming  part  of  Parlia- 
ment, in  the  draft  constitution  which  was  defeated  at  the  second  referendum  of 
May  1946.  In  the  new  Constituent  Assembly  three  tendencies  clashed.  The 
Radicals  and  their  allies  favoured  a  return  to  the  old  Senate.  M  RP  (like 
General  de  Gaulle)  wanted  a  broadly  corporative  chamber  representing  pro- 
fessional interests,  colonial  territories,  and  local  authorities.  The  Communists 
and  Socialists  recognized  that  there  had  to  be  a  second  chamber  if  the  new 
constitution  was  to  be  accepted  at  the  polls,  but  hoped  to  keep  it  feeble  and 
submissive;  they  prevailed  at  the  time,  but  had  to  concede  that  while  the 
powers  of  the  new  body  were  laid  down  in  the  constitution,  its  composition 
should  be  left  to  an  organic  law  and  reconsidered  two  years  later,6  A  new 
electoral  law  in  1948  and  a  constitutional  amendment  in  1954  partially 
restored  the  old  Senate. 

The  Council  of  the  Republic  passed  through  three  phases.  The  first  Council 
was  similar  to  the  Assembly  in  party  complexion,  and  stilled  some  suspicions 
by  its  cautious  determination  not  to  overstep  the  bounds.  For  a  time  it  was 
disregarded,  but  within  a  couple  of  years  it  had  defended  itself  successfully 
against  encroachment  by  the  deputies,  helped  the  government  resist  their 
demagogic  pressure,  and  acquired  a  reputation  as  a  genuine  'house  of  second 
thoughts'.  The  second  Council,  based  on  a  rural  and  conservative  consti- 
tuency very  like  that  of  the  old  Senate,  was  elected  when  Radicals  and  Con- 
servatives were  fellow-travelling  with  RPF;  and  by  trying  to  regain  the 
Senate's  powers,  revive  its  conservative  role  and  destroy  the  Third  Force 
majority,  it  reawakened  old  suspicions  and  damaged  its  cause.  But  the 
absorption  of  the  Gaullists  into  'the  System'  reduced  party  friction,  and  when 
procedural  concessions  were  no  longer  likely  to  lead  to  political  deadlock 
it  became  possible  to  remedy  the  technical  faults  of  the  1946  constitution. 

2.  COMPOSITION  AND  POWERS 

The  Council's  composition  was  laid  down  by  Article  6.  It  was  elected  by 
'universal  mdirect  suffrage'  on  a  territorial  basis  by  local  and  departmental 
communities  -  a  vague  formula  open  to  many  interpretations;  it  was  to  have 
from  250  to  320  members,  renewable  by  halves;  and  up  to  a  sixth  might  be 
elected  by  the  National  Assembly  by  proportional  representation.  A  com- 
pEcated  law  of  27  October  1946  feed  its  membership  at  315,  one  more  than  in 
the  old  Senate.  Most  (200)  were  chosen  by  electoral  colleges  in  each  depart- 
ment of  metropolitan  France.  These  included  the  local  deputies  and  depart- 
mental council  (very  roughly  like  a  county  council)  and  an  overwhelming 
majority  of  elected  delegates.7  First  the  citizen  cast  his  vote  for  a  list  of  *  grand 
electors*  which  he  could  not  alter;  between  lists  the  seats  were  distributed  by 
PR.  The  electoral  colleges  then  chose  the  Councillors  of  the  Republic:  68  by 
ample  majority  vote  in  departments  which  had  only  one  councillor  apiece  •  59 
by  PR  in  the  22  larger  departments.  Another  73  seats  were  allocated  between 


£r  matter  °f  S°VOTm^tal  organization  (e.g.  presentation 


30° 


THE  COUNCIL  OF  THE  REPUBLIC  279 

parties  to  achieve  PR  (based  on  the  first-stage  voting)  over  the  whole  country, 
and  to  the  unelected  candidates  of  each  party  who  had  the  highest  proportion 
of  votes  polled  in  their  constituencies.  The  local  government  bodies  of  Algeria 
chose  14  members,  and  those  of  French  territories  overseas,  51.  The  last  50 
councillors  were  elected  by  the  National  Assembly:  3  to  represent  Frenchmen 
living  abroad  and  5  those  in  Tunisia  and  Morocco;  7  assigned  to  ensure  still 
more  accurate  nation-wide  PR;  35  allocated  proportionately  between  parties 
in  the  Assembly.  These  elaborate  provisions  ensured  that  party  strengths  in 
the  first  Council  almost  reproduced  those  in  the  first  National  Assembly. 

Article  102  required  the  whole  Council  to  be  renewed  within  two  years,  after 
the  election  of  new  local  authorities.  By  that  time  the  Communists  were  in 
active  opposition  to  the  regime,  and  Gaullism  had  attracted  a  great  following. 
PR  had  now  lost  favour  with  the  parliamentary  majority,  to  whom  it  would 
give  only  a  minority  of  seats.  Article  6  was  therefore  reinterpreted,  and  a 
different  electoral  system  was  introduced.  Under  the  new  law  of  24  September 
1948,  the  term  of  membership  was  six  years;  half  still  had  to  be  renewed  at  a 
time.  As  in  1946  there  was  a  minimum  age  of  35.  A  candidate  might  not  stand 
in  more  than  one  constituency  at  a  time  (as  he  could  for  the  old  Senate).  There 
were  246  metropolitan  councillors  (four  extra)  and  74  from  overseas  (one 
extra):  in  all  320,  the  constitutional  maximum.8  Each  department  had  a  seat 
for  its  first  154,000  inhabitants  and  another  for  each  subsequent  250,000  or 
fraction  thereof.9  Nation-wide  PR  and  partial  election  by  the  National 
Assembly  were  abandoned. 

In  the  electoral  colleges  P  R  was  now  to  operate  only  in  the  1 1  departments 
with  a  population  above  654,000  and  four  or  more  seats,  which  elected  72 
councillors.  The  remaining  79  departments,  with  174  seats,  elected  by  majority 
vote  and  two  ballots.10  The  electoral  colleges  were  revolutionized.  With  the 
deputies  and  departmental  councillors  there  now  sat,  instead  of  the  85,000 
grand  electors,  100,000  representatives  of  the  municipal  councils  according  to 
their  size  (which  rises,  not  proportionately,  with  population).  The  1,312 
councils  of  communes  with  over  3,500  inhabitants  elected  their  delegates  by 
PR;  the  other  37,000  used  a  majority  vote  with  three  ballots.  Thus  the  1946 
system  of  thinly  disguised  direct  election  was  replaced  by  an  indirect  method 
which,  as  in  the  Third  Republic,  favoured  small  communities  against  large. 
As  Communists  and  RP  F  were  strongest  in  the  cities,  this  electoral  law  helped 
the  parties  supporting  the  regime.11 

The  weighting  was  slightly  less  extreme  than  before.  The  rural  half  of  the 

8.  After  French  India  was  ceded  there  were  319.  The  members  were  divided  alphabetically  by 
constituencies  into  two  equal  groups;  one,  chosen  by  lot,  was  renewed  in  May  1952  and  the  other 
in  May  1955. 

9.  The  curious  limit  of  154,000  gave  a  second  member  to  Lot,  the  new  constituency  of  the 
Council's  President  Gaston  Monnerville :  Intgalitts,  pp.  216-1 8, 259-61 .  The  allotment  gave  Lozere 
one  councillor  for  90,000  inhabitants  and  Seine  one  for  every  240,000 :  Goguel,  Rtgime,  p.  35n. 

10.  As  usual  with  a  double  ballot  system,  for  election  on  the  first  ballot  the  majority  required 
was  more  than  half  the  votes  cast  and  more  than  a  quarter  of  those  on  the  register ;  on  the  second 
ballot  it  was  a  simple  plurality.  The  Assembly  was  still  to  elect  councillors  representing  Frenchmen 
abroad  (three),  in  Morocco  (three),  and  (provisionally)  in  Vietnam  (one,  a  newcomer) ;  the  two 
from  Tunisia  were  now  chosen  locally. 

11.  Intgalitts,  pp.  1 12-34,  334-6,  on  the  motives  of  the  1946  and  1948  laws  and  the  way  they 
were  framed. 


THE  INSTITUTIONS 


population  elected  two-thirds  of  the  municipal  delegates  and  the  urban  half 
(in  communes  of  more  than  3,500  inhabitants)  chose  one-third.  Even  in  a 
department  with  no  big  city  like  Oise,  nearly  two-thirds  of  the  delegates  were 
elected  by  tiny  communes  with  less  than  1,000  inhabitants  and  under  half  the 
total  population.  In  Nord,  Lille  had  180,000  voters  and  64  delegates,  Lamber- 
sart  18,000  and  27,  and  Arleux  1,800  and  5.  Yet  the  large  cities  were  under- 
represented  rather  less  than  in  pre-war  senatorial  elections  ;  with  three-quarters 
of  the  population  Marseilles  elected  7%  of  the  departmental  delegates  in  the 
Third  Republic,  25%  in  the  Fourth.  Paris,  with  a  reduced  share  of  the  popula- 
tion of  Seine,  chose  more  delegates.  The  eleven  next  largest  towns,  with  one- 
sixteenth  of  the  national  population,  had  264  delegates  before  and  900  now 
out  of  100,000.12 

The  new  law  weakened  those  parties  which  were  strongest  in  the  great 
cities  and  also  those  with  few  allies,  hampered  by  the  double  ballot;  the  Com- 
munists were  doubly  handicapped,  and  elected  only  sixteen  metropolitan 
councillors  in  the  eleven  PR  departments.  MRP  lost  votes  to  RPF  and  seats 
to  Socialists  and  Radicals,  who  allied  against  it.  The  two  defeated  parties  had 
had  a  majority  in  the  old  Council  (as  in  the  Assembly),  but  returned  only  40  of 
the  320  new  members.  The  Socialists  with  60  held  their  own,  and  the  rest  went 
to  overlapping  groups  of  Radicals,  Conservatives  and  RPF.  In  later  years  the 
Gaullists  lost  and  the  Radicals  gained  slightly,  but  the  party  balance  changed 
remarkably  little.13  & 

The  constitution-makers  insisted  on  the  subordinate  status  of  the  upper 
house.  Its  composition  was  left  to  be  settled  by  law  (and  so,  in  the  last  resort, 
by  the  National  Assembly).  In  1946  it  was  organized  in  the  political  image  of 
the  Assembly  so  that  it  would  not,  and  its  powers  were  restricted  so  that  it 
could  not,  challenge  the  sovereign  house.  The  first  safeguard  was  removed 
after  two  years,  the  second  after  eight.  But  the  1954  constitutional  amendment 
satisfied  both  houses  and  settled  their  conflict. 

Under  Article  5  the  Council  of  the  Republic  was  part  of  Parliament.  It  had 
the  same  immunity,  salary  and  ineligibility  rules  as  the  Assembly,  judged  the 
validity  of  its  members'  election,  and  chose  its  bureau  by  PR  Against  the 
wishes  of  the  Left,  it  was  housed  (like  the  old  Senate)  in  the  Luxembourg 
Palace.  But  precautions  were  taken  to  discourage  a  revival  of  the  senatorial 
tradition.  The  National  Assembly  was  given  that  title,  denoting  sovereignty 
wtoch  had  formerly  belonged  to  the  two  houses  meeting  jointly  to  elect  a 
Prudent  or  amend  the  constitution.  Its  President  became  the  second  person 
m  the  state,  and  under  Article  11  its  bureau  acted  in  a  joint  session  (in  the 
Third  Repubhc  the  Senate's  bureau  had  acted  and  its  President,  as  in  the 


in  Infealites  nn  214-91   vr>  <i    «V  A   T    „   *  *ysiem>  pp.  /i-2,  ana 


r 

gates,  tea  tosmoret&an  Toulouse  where  most  people  lived?/6«?.p  345  pT^verlresentation 


THE  COUNCIL  OF  THE  REPUBLIC  281 

Fifth,  had  precedence).  Article  37  allowed  the  President  of  the  Republic  to 
communicate  directly  with  the  Assembly  but  not  the  Council.  Article  9  re- 
quired the  Council's  sessions  to  coincide  with  those  of  the  Assembly.  But 
despite  all  precautions  the  tradition  proved  too  strong,  and  in  December  1948 
the  new  majority  of  the  Council  voted  themselves  the  title  of  *  Senators,  mem- 
bers of  the  Council  of  the  Republic'. 

Under  Article  29  the  new  senators,  like  their  predecessors,  joined  the 
deputies  in  electing  a  President  of  the  Republic;  they  had  about  a  third  of  the 
votes.  They  also  chose  a  third  of  the  metropolitan  members  of  the  Assembly  of 
the  French  Union,  by  Article  67,  and  four  out  of  thirteen  members  of  the 
Constitutional  Committee,  by  Article  91.  But  they  had  no  representative  on 
the  High  Council  of  the  Judiciary  or  the  High  Court  which  tried  political 
cases  (a  task  performed  in  the  Third  Republic  by  the  Senate).  They  could 
initiate  no  constitutional  amendment;  but  they  could  block  one  unless  either 
a  referendum  or  two-thirds  of  the  Assembly  approved  it,  and  if  the  President 
of  the  Republic  agreed  they  could  alert  the  Constitutional  Committee  to  sur- 
reptitious amendment.14  They  had  to  be  consulted  (but  not  necessarily  to 
consent)  before  war  was  declared,  under  Article  7,  a  treaty  ratified,  under 
Article  27,  or  a  law  passed,  under  Article  20. 

In  June  1949  the  new  majority  of  the  Council  argued  that  their  duty  to 
advise  on  declarations  of  war  or  ratifications  of  treaties  implied  a  right  to  dis- 
cuss ministerial  policy.  They  therefore  introduced  interpellations,  in  all  but 
name,  by  modifying  their  standing  orders  on  'oral  questions  with  debate'.15 
The  Assembly  objected  that  by  Article  48  the  government  was  not  responsible 
to  the  Council,  and  so  should  not  be  interpellated  there;  Herriot  officially 
protested  to  the  President  of  the  Republic,  but  Auriol  refused  to  intervene, 
saying  that  the  Constitutional  Committee  existed  only  to  protect  the  upper 
house  against  the  lower.16  A  few  Radical  premiers  even  disregarded  Article 
48  altogether.  In  August  1948  Andr6  Marie  threatened  to  resign  if  the  Council 
amended  Paul  Reynaud's  special  powers  bill;  in  March  1955  Edgar  Faure 
sought  its  approval  for  his  foreign  policy,  including  German  rearmament;  and 
in  June  1957  Maurice  Bourges-Maunoury  in  effect  asked  for  its  confidence 
over  special  financial  powers.  But  such  cases  were  very  rare.17 

In  legislation  the  Council's  powers  were  closely  restricted  until  the  con- 
stitutional amendment  of  1954.  Although  its  members  might  introduce  bills  of 
their  own,  under  Article  14  these  had  to  go  to  the  National  Assembly  before 
being  debated  in  the  Council.  But  in  June  1949  the  upper  house  decided  in  its 

14.  On  these  institutions  and  functions  see  Chapter  21. 

15.  Previously  only  a  committee,  a  party  leader  or  30  members  could  initiate  these  *  questions*, 
and  no  vote  was  taken. 

16.  Lidderdale,  pp.  267-9 ;  Bruyas,  no.  36,  pp.  568-70 ;  Georgel,  i.  85-7 ;  Blamont,  p.  107 ;  below, 
p.  305 ;  cf.  n.  23 ;  and  for  the  Herriot  and  Auriol  letters,  AP  1949,  p.  219.  From  10  to  25  oral 
questions  with  debate  were  raised  in  a  year:  Campbell,  no.  45,  p.  361.  In  fact,  if  not  in  law, 
interpellations  did  threaten  the  life  of  the  government;  and  as  constitution-drafter  and  premier 
of  the  Fifth  Republic  Michel  DebrS  carefully  ruled  out  the  procedure  which  he  had  himself 
invented  and  skilfully  exploited.  On  the  Council's  scrutiny  of  governmental  actions  see  also 
Georgel,  i.  84-5  (on  a  committee  of  inquiry) ;  Grosser,  pp.  89-90;  Marcel  Plaisant,  chairman  of 
its  foreign  affairs  committee,  no.  182. 

17.  Bruyas,  no.  36,  p.  571,  JO(CJR}  13  August  1948,  p.  2402,  and  AP  1948,  p.  132  (Marie); 
AP  1955,  pp.  29,  359, 691  (Faure);  cf.  Vedel  in  Institutions,  i.  180,  Arne,  pp.  232-4, 256-7, 270-K 


282  THE  INSTITUTIONS 

new  standing  orders  that  its  committees  should  examine  these  bills,  unless  the 
author  objected,  before  sending  them  to  the  Assembly.  The  Communist, 
Socialist  and  MRP  deputies  promptly  revived  the  old  majority  of  tripartisme 
and  voted  by  429  to  150  (Radicals,  Conservatives  and  RPF)  to  receive  no  bill 
after  its  consideration  by  senators.18 

Once  a  bill  passed  the  Assembly  it  became  law,  under  Article  20,  if  the 
Council  did  not  deal  with  it  within  two  months.  But  for  budget  bills  the  Coun- 
cil could  take  no  more  time  than  the  Assembly  had  taken,  and  for  bills 
classed  as  'urgent*,  only  as  much  as  the  Assembly  allowed  itself  by  its  own 
standing  orders.  The  deputies  were  naturally  wary  of  the  senators'  traditional 
delaying  tactics,  but  they  committed  an  opposite  abuse  by  applying  urgency 
procedure  to  half  the  bills  passed  in  1947,  and  so  preventing  proper  examina- 
tion in  the  Council's  committees.19  At  last,  in  June  1948,  the  Assembly  left 
the  Council  only  33  hours  (including  two  nights)  to  consider  an  urgent  but 
difficult  bill;  the  Council  decided  unanimously,  except  for  the  Communists, 
to  overrun  its  time-limit ;  the  Assembly,  with  the  agreement  of  all  parties  in  it, 
demanded  that  the  bill  be  promulgated  under  Article  20.  The  Council  pro- 
tested to  the  Constitutional  Committee  and  won  its  point.  The  rules  of  urgency 
procedure  were  then  relaxed  to  allow  the  Council  at  least  three  days'  grace; 
and  the  procedure  itself  gradually  fell  into  disuse.20 

A  bill  which  passed  the  Council  unchanged  was  promulgated  forthwith  as 
law.  If  the  Council  voted  amendments,  the  Assembly  might  reject  them,  or 
accept  them  in  whole  or  in  part.21  There  could  be  no  further  amendments 
aiming  at  an  agreed  compromise,  as  in  the  Third  Republic's  'shuttle'  system 
of  several  readings  (navette).  But  under  the  last  paragraph  of  Article  20,  if  the 
Council  rejected  a  bill  or  voted  an  amended  version  in  public  ballot  by  an 
absolute  majority,  the  Assembly  could  overrule  it  only  in  the  same  conditions. 
This  'veto'  seemed  unimportant  until  the  law  of  September  1948  created  a 
Council  politically  very  different  from  the  Assembly.  In  finance  there  were 
further  restrictions.  By  Article  17  only  the  deputies  could  initiate  expenditure. 
By  Article  14  the  Assembly  could  not  receive  senators'  bills  increasing  expen- 
diture or  reducing  revenue,  so  that  no  one  could  discuss  these.  By  their  own 
standing  orders  senators  might  not  move  amendments  to  increase  an  amount 
proposed  in  the  Assembly  by  the  government  or  the  finance  committee.22  In 
1950  they  were  prevented  from  introducing  new  material  into  financial  bills  by 
way  of  amendments.23 

18.  Lidderdate,  pp.  259-60;  JO  28  June  1949,  pp.  3801-9,  3836-7 

* J9'  2*  l^47 'Cbnuaiy-Angust)  the  Council  amended  only  27  of  the  88  'urgent '  bills  but  39  of 
™^7-lF;G*>110* 105' pp*  345~6- See  a*80  Ger**r,  no.  97,  pp.  407-9;  above,  p.  259  and  n. 

fe^f^^Tt^5  ^19^Pi\98'  336;  SouHer'  n°  *>3>  pp-  19Sff.  The  Assembles 
to«*tat  j^cjKied,  the  Council's  included  time  spent  in  committee.  Only  half  a  dozen  bills 

am^S^S^  «T  ^SS*1  WitMn  **  A^Uy'5  strict  interpretation  of  the  rules:  S. 
GTKmbach,  JO{CR)  15  June  1948,  p.  1504  (cf.  below,  n.  29). 

21.  Interpreted  to  include  a  compromise  figure  between  different  amounts:  see  Blamont,  no. 
2Q»  pp.  305-6.  * 

to^cr^r^^  26S ;  GaHdl011  m  TravaU> p*  833'  Umike  Pre-war  senators  they  could  move 

b^^^t^f!9^"^^7 *  ^  Practice  and  oral  ^tion  with  debate  were  both  banned 
^fee^gmal  draft  of  the  1954  constitutional  amendment:  cf.  Williams,  p.  279n.,  and  the  speech 
and  report  of  Mme  Peyrotes,  rapporteur  (JO  29  November  1950,  p.  8267;  AN  doc.  no.  11  431) 


THE  COUNCIL  OF  THE  REPUBLIC  283 

Experience  revealed  serious  technical  faults  in  these  legislative  arrange- 
ments. One  flaw  followed  from  the  constitutional  rules:  the  Council  could  not 
deal  with  bills  till  they  had  passed  the  Assembly,  but  both  houses  had  to 
begin,  end  and  interrupt  their  sessions  together.  The  Council's  agenda  was 
therefore  empty  when  it  assembled  and  crowded  just  before  it  recessed,  and 
the  senators  suffered  alternately  from  frustrating  idleness  and  gross  over- 
work.24 Another  flaw  was  the  rigidity  of  Article  20,  under  which  any  com- 
promise between  the  houses  required  unsatisfactory  subterfuges.25  Again, 
after  1948  the  new  Council  often  used  its  'veto'.  Nearly  one  in  ten  of  the  bills 
voted  in  the  first  Parliament  was  amended  or  defeated  by  an  absolute  majority 
of  the  Council.  If  the  Assembly  then  reaffirmed  its  own  view  by  a  simple 
majority  only,  the  bill  was  neither  accepted  nor  rejected.  This  deadlock 
occurred  on  six  bills,  including  major  measures  like  the  electoral  law  and  the 
budget  for  1951;  they  had  to  be  sent  back  to  the  Assembly's  committee,  or 
withdrawn  and  a  new  version  substituted,  while  a  compromise  was  worked 
out  in  private  negotiations.26  The  old  navette  had  been  much  more  convenient. 

The  constitutional  amendment  introduced  by  the  centre  parties  in  Novem- 
ber 1950  was  intended  (inter  alia)  to  remedy  both  these  weaknesses.  But  the 
Council's  political  attitude  delayed  its  passage.  Socialist  and  MRP  deputies 
were  willing  to  improve  the  machinery  for  co-operation  between  the  houses, 
but  not  to  help  the  upper  house  regain  its  lost  political  power;  they  demanded 
the  abolition  of  the  'veto'  as  the  price  of  reform.  Conversely  the  conservative 
senators  feared  that  without  that  safeguard  the  deputies  would  ignore  them 
entirely.  It  took  four  years  to  appease  these  suspicions,  for  the  technical  prob- 
lem could  not  be  solved  while  a  left-wing  Assembly  jealous  of  its  prerogatives 
confronted  a  conservative  Council  with  which  the  Gaullists  were  trying  to 
shatter  the  Third  Force  majority.  In  1951  the  Right  won  control  of  the 
Assembly  also,  and  when  RPF  disintegrated  the  Radicals  and  Conservatives 
could  hope  to  amend  the  constitution  -  provided  they  conciliated  MRP  and 
the  Socialists,  ensured  a  three-fifths  majority  in  the  Assembly,  and  so  avoided 
the  referendum  which  all  the  centre  parties  regarded  as  unthinkable.  By  the 
final  compromise  Articles  14  and  20  were  completely  changed.27 

The  new  Article  14  allowed  any  bill  to  be  introduced  in  the  upper  house,  by 
the  government  or  a  senator,  except  for  treaty  ratification  bills  under  Article 
27  and  bills  entailing  lower  revenue  or  higher  expenditure  (the  Council  failed 

24.  Ibid.  Cf.  Edmond  Barrachin,  minister  for  constitutional  reform,  JO  21  July  1953,  p.  3595. 

25.  *. . .  you  can  watch  the  deputies  falling  furiously  upon  the  amendment  with  big  sdsorrs 
and  a  pot  of  glue,  trying  to  suppress  a  few  words  . . .  without  adding  a  comma  or  a  syllables  (of 
that  would  be  a  breach  of  Article  20)  and  to  reconstruct  a  draft  which  still  does  not  violate  syntax 
too  outrageously' :  Waline,  Les  Partis  contre  la  Rfyublique,  p.  156.  For  the  subterfuges  see  Mme 
Peyroles'  report,  pp.  7-8 ;  Bruyas,  no.  36,  p.  560;  Berlia,  no.  11,  p.  682  h.l. 

26.  Blamont,  no.  20,  p.  309;  and  cf.  below,  n.  47.  The  first  Assembly  passed  1,360  bills;  the 
Council  accepted  774,  amended  or  rejected  540  (121  by  an  absolute  majority),  and  had  46  out- 
standing in  1951 :  ibid.,  pp.  298,  302.  By  March  1953  the  121  had  risen  to  168,  with  no  more 
deadlocks :  Berlia,  no.  12a,  p.  437.  The  Council  altered  two-fifths  of  all  bills,  and  saw  all  its 
amendments  accepted  on  about  a  third  of  these,  some  accepted  on  half,  and  none  on  the  rest: 
Campbell,  no.  45,  p.  356.  But  cf.  n.  41  below. 

27.  See  above,  p.  193  ;  and  on  referendum-phobia,  below,  p.  302  and  n.  MRP  was  more  in- 
transigent than  S  FI O  (it  was  weaker  in  the  upper  house).  In  November  1954,  21  of  its  deputies 
voted  against  the  reform  and  50  abstained;  cf.  above,  p.  228, 


284  THE  INSTITUTIONS 

to  limit  the  last  restriction  to  bills  'directly'  causing  expense).  On  Article  20  a 
complicated  bargain  restored  the  navette,  subject  to  safeguards  against 
obstruction.,  in  return  for  the  abandonment  of  the  'veto '.  An  absolute  majority 
of  the  Assembly  was  therefore  no  longer  needed  to  override  an  absolute 
majority  in  the  upper  house,  but  bills  could  now  be  read  repeatedly.  An 
ingenious  system  of  time-limits  encouraged  both  houses  to  act  promptly,  and 
the  Assembly  kept  its  right  to  the  last  word.28 

For  its  first  reading  the  Council  had  no  more  time  than  before  for  ordinary 
bills  (two  months)  or  finance  bills  (the  time  taken  in  the  Assembly),  but  twice 
as  much  for  bills  under  urgency  procedure  (double  the  time  the  Assembly 
gave  itself  by  its  own  standing  orders)  -  though  these  limits  were  not  strictly 
enforced.29  The  major  change  came  with  a  bill's  second  passage  through  the 
Assembly,  which  opened  a  navette  period :  a  hundred  sitting  days  for  ordinary 
bills,  a  month  for  budget  bills,  and  two  weeks  for  urgent  measures.  After  this 
the  Assembly  could  either  pass  its  own  version  of  the  bill  or  add  some  or  all  of 
the  Council's  amendments.  At  each  reading  within  these  periods,  each  house 
had  as  much  time  as  the  other  had  taken  on  its  last  reading  (but  at  least  one 
day  for  financial  or  urgent  bills,  and  seven  for  others).  The  Council  could  have 
extra  time  if  the  deputies  consented,  and  automatically  did  if  they  overstepped 
their  own  time-limits.30  These  complicated  arrangements  proved  far  more 
satisfactory  than  those  of  1875  or  1946.  The  navette  restored  flexibility  with- 
out encouraging  delay,  since  the  Council  wanted  several  readings  and  the 
Assembly  feared  to  extend  the  time-limit.  Impatient  deputies  could  no  longer 
get  their  way  by  ignoring  the  upper  house,  and  stubborn  senators  could  be 
overruled  in  the  end;  for  both  there  was  a  premium  on  co-operation.  The 
Council  lost  its  'veto*  on  a  bill  but  gained  opportunity  and  time  (two  months 
plus  100  days)  to  publicize  its  case.31 

The  compromise  was  an  immediate  success.  Most  of  the  budget  for  1955 
was  passed  in  1954  under  the  newly-voted  rules.  The  Council  did  not  obstruct 
and  the  Assembly  often  allowed  it  extra  time.  Old  jealousies  did  not  prevent 
an  amicable  agreement  between  the  Presidents  of  the  two  houses  on  the  inter- 
pretation of  the  new  rules,  or  unofficial  contacts  on  most  controversial  bills.32 

No  flood  of  bills  swamped  the  Council  when  it  won  the  right  of  first  reading. 
In  1955,  when  Edgar  Faure  led  a  conservative  majority,  41  government  bills 
were  introduced  there  but  only  one  passed;  in  1956-58  with  the  Socialists  in 

28.  An  ©artier  version  limited  not  the  time  but  the  number  of  readings  to  three  in  the  Council 
and  four  in  the  Assembly:  the  senators  disliked  this.  The  Gaullists  tried  to  save  the  'veto*,  but 
were  beaten  in  the  Council  itself  by  197  to  98. 

29.  Wtee  the  old  draft  had  said  a  time-expired  bill  'est  promulguee',  the  new  one  said  it  *est 
en  etm  d'etre  prooralgoee*.  See  also  above,  n.  20,  and  below,  pp.  305-6. 

30.  This  last  provision  nearly  wrecked  the  compromise;  the  deputies  accepted  it  only  by  307 
to  305  after  an  appeal  by  the  premier,  Mendes-France.  They  also  wanted  a  right  to  add  new 
material  without  allowing  the  Council  a  new  reading.  Conversely  the  Council  failed  to  secure  an 

ED  C  clause'  that  no  treaty  ratification  bill  could  be  classed  as  urgent  without  its  consent. 

J~:J5*^  £*??*"*!?  J*f  Poutier'  pp*  77~1Q2*  The  nght-wing  Radical  senator  Laffargue 
atotted  that  the  Council  had  never  expected  the  deputies  to  concede  so  much :  /O(CJ?)  16  March 
1954,  p.  422.  On  the  premiums'  cf.  Gilbert  Jules,  rapporteur:  ibid.,  p.  425. 

32.  Poutier,  pp.  37-8  on  the  first  month;  Blamont,  Techniques,  p.  77  on  tteprotocole  d> accord 
(fliere  was  another  on  the  working  of  the  lois-cadres,  ibid.,  p.  78,  cf.  p.  84) ;  and  see  AP  1957 


THE  COUNCIL  OF  THE  REPUBLIC  285 

office,  only  37  were  laid  before  the  upper  house  but  25  became  law.  Once  the 
senators  could  debate  their  own  measures  they  brought  in  fewer,  but  passed 
more.33  Discussion  was  not  dilatory,  and  the  time-limits  worked  well;  only 
once  did  the  Assembly  vote  a  bill  which  the  Council  had  failed  to  consider  in 
time.  Out  of  500  bills  passed  only  six,  none  of  them  politically  controversial, 
were  decided  by  a  'Waterloo'  after  the  hundred  days  -  the  Assembly  re- 
affirmed its  own  text  on  five  of  them  and  accepted  the  Council's  amendments 
on  the  sixth.34  But  its  right  to  the  last  word,  though  so  rarely  exercised,  was 
decisive  in  preventing  obstruction.  Mollet's  old  age  pension  fund  set  up  in 
1956,  was  financed  in  ways  disliked  by  the  Right  and  many  Radicals:  the 
Council  twice  voted  wrecking  amendments,  but  gave  way  when  the  Assembly 
reasserted  its  view  for  the  third  time,  and  the  bill  (which  was  classed  as 
urgent)  finally  passed  on  fourth  reading  97  days  after  its  introduction.35  Here 
was  proof  that  a  determined  government  and  majority  could  overcome 
senatorial  opposition  without  undue  difficulty  or  delay.  The  Council's  tech- 
nical grievances  had  been  remedied  without  the  Assembly's  political  supremacy 
being  impaired. 

3.  POLICY  AND  INFLUENCE 

'The  Right  has  social  preoccupations  but  pretends  to  think  only  of  technical 
considerations,  while  the  Left  proclaims  its  social  repugnances  and  refuses  to 
pay  attention  to  technical  considerations.'36  This  double  problem  bedevilled 
discussion  of  the  weaknesses  of  the  1946  arrangements.  But  the  second  cham- 
ber's case,  already  endangered  by  the  black  social  record  of  the  old  Senate  and 
the  rural  and  conservative  bias  of  the  reconstructed  Council,  was  for  years 
further  imperilled  by  the  irresponsible  ways  in  which  some  opposition  senators 
sought  advantage  for  their  party  or  their  house.  They  provoked  the  deputies 
into  jealousy  of  the  Council's  prestige,  suspicion  of  its  intentions  and  con- 
tempt for  its  proposals,  and  they  frustrated  their  own  colleagues  who  tried 
conscientiously  to  perform  a  more  modest  role. 

The  first  Council  of  the  Republic  had  made  no  attempt  to  challenge  a 
National  Assembly  controlled  by  the  same  parties.  At  first,  'complacently 
listening  to  the  echo  of  its  own  voice',  the  Assembly  often  ignored  the  sugges- 
tions of  the  Council,  which  was  said  to  have  little  more  political  importance 
than  the  Academic  franfaise.37  But  from  June  1947  onwards  the  deputies 
became  more  accommodating;  the  Communists  were  in  opposition,  and  the 
Council  explained  its  proposals  by  personal  contacts  between  committee 
rapporteurs  or  through  the  good  offices  of  the  government.  Amendments 

33.  Figures  from  Cotteret,  p.  48.  Until  1954,  senators  introduced  74  bills  in  an  average  year 
and  passed  4 ;  afterwards,  46  and  8. 

34.  Blamont,  pp.  77-8,  for  the  Assembly's  decisions,  with  list  of  bills.  Edmond  Barrachm  said 
there  were  eleven  '  Waterloos'  and  not  six:  JO  12  February  1958,  p.  743.  In  1956  all  but  6  of  the 
86  government  bills  which  passed,  and  all  but  8  of  the  53  private  members'  bills,  took  two  readings 
or  fewer  in  each  house ;  only  3  and  1  took  more  than  three  readings  (my  calculations). 

35.  AP  1956,  pp.  57-8,  63-4,  125. 

36.  Hamon,  ProbUmes,  p.  25  (from  Combat,  13  March  1954). 

37.  Duverger,  Manuel  de  droit  constitutionnel,  p.  355  ('echo');  Priouret,   Partis,  p.   263 
('Academic').  In  March  1947  the  Council  unanimously  rejected  a  series  of  changes  in  tenancy 
laws;  they  were  reaffirmed  by  the  Assembly  unanimously  and  without  debate:  Gerber,  no.  97, 
p.  407. 


286  THE  INSTITUTIONS 

clarifying  the  Algerian  government  bill  and  modifying  the  municipal  election 
bill  were  accepted  by  the  Assembly.38 

The  Council  first  acted  on  the  political  stage  in  November  1947,  when  the 
Communists  -  though  bitter  opponents  of  a  strong  upper  house  -  used  it  to 
obstruct  the  government's  public  order  bills  during  the  general  strike.  In 
December  1947  and  August  1948  the  Council  helped  the  government  by 
restoring  its  original  drafts  of  Ren6  Mayer's  special  levy  bill  and  Paul  Rey- 
naud's  special  powers  bill  (which  the  deputies,  having  shifted  the  responsibility, 
then  accepted).  In  September  the  Council  was  allowed  to  amend  the  new  law 
on  its  own  composition.  But  when  the  Communist  councillors  nearly  upset 
the  government  by  carrying  a  vote  for  early  departmental  council  elections, 
they  showed  the  Gaullists  how  easily  the  second  chamber  could  be  used  as  a 
weapon  against  the  first.39  The  entire  upper  house  faced  re-election  in  Novem- 
ber 1948;  if  RPF  won  an  absolute  majority  it  could  block  all  legislation  for 
which  an  absolute  majority  of  the  Assembly  could  not  be  found,  and  might 
well  be  able  to  force  an  election. 

This  strategy  narrowly  failed.  Though  RPF's  inter-group  claimed  150  of 
the  320  senators,  only  58  joined  the  separate  RPF  group  and  many  '  bigamists  * 
proved  unreliable.  In  the  first  test,  on  budgetary  procedure,  Pierre  de  Gaulle 
mustered  only  132  votes  (including  21  Communists)  against  154.  The  govern- 
ment thus  kept  a  precarious  margin  against  the  opponents  of  the  regime  in  the 
supposedly  sober  'house  of  second  thoughts'.  But  the  success  of  Gaullists  and 
Radicals,  and  the  defeat  of  Communists  and  M  RP,  meant  that  on  opposition 
and  government  benches  alike  the  social  and  economic  conservatives  were  far 
stronger  in  the  second  chamber  than  in  the  first.40 

The  new  majority  promptly  set  out  to  increase  the  Council's  powers,  failing 
over  legislation  but  succeeding  over  oral  question  with  debate;  to  exert  a  con- 
servative pressure  on  policy;  and  to  embarrass  government  supporters  by 
taking  up  questions  which  divided  them.  The  Third  Force  and  left-wing 
deputies  retreated  -  predictably  -  into  a  watchful  and  jealous  suspicion,  and 
when  the  Council  amended  a  bill  they  often  reaffirmed  their  original  view  with 
little  discussion  and  by  a  larger  majority.  The  senators  tried  to  alter  the  con- 
stitution de  facto  and  were  then  aggrieved  that  the  deputies  became  wary  of  de 
Jure  amendment;  they  mounted  a  party  political  assault  and  then  complained 
that  their  friendly  advice  received  insufficient  attention.41 

The  opposition  senators  celebrated  their  election  victory  by  first  amending 
the  hi  des  maxima  for  1949  and  then  rejecting  it  by  105  to  0;  the  Gaullists 
voted  against  the  bill  they  had  themselves  reshaped,  while  207  government 

3S.  Brayas,  no.  36,  p.  547. 


PP' 
mes,  p.  26. 


THE  COUNCIL  OF  THE  REPUBLIC  287 

supporters  abstained  rather  than  support  the  mutilated  measure;  and  the 
Assembly  restored  the  original  provisions.  On  the  lot  de  finances  RPF 
changed  tactics  ;  the  right-wing  opposition  amended  the  bill  and  then  carried 
it  by  150  (less  than  an  absolute  majority)  to  23  (mainly  Communists)  with  the 
governmental  senators  again  abstaining.  The  Assembly  once  more  easily 
restored  its  own  version,  and  the  manoeuvres  damaged  the  prestige  of  both  the 
Council  and  RPF,  which  had  so  self-righteously  denounced  the  parties  for 
their  complex  and  crafty  parliamentary  intrigues.42  "The  power  of  the 
senators  is  not  so  much  themselves  to  reconsider,  as  to  get  the  deputies  to 
reconsider.  The  reproach  against  them  is  precisely  that  they  act,  or  at  least 
talk,  in  a  spirit  which  is  likely  to  lead  to  exactly  the  opposite  result.  Brandish- 
ing its  standing  orders  as  a  weapon  against  the  Assembly,  the  government  and 
the  regime,  the  Council  of  the  Republic  awakens  a  reflex  of  self-defence  in 
those  it  seeks  to  combat  and  destroy.'43 

Many  senators  learned  the  lesson.  Next  year  they  were  indignant  that 
Georges  Bidault  had  included  no  senator  in  his  ministry,  and  reluctant  to  vote 
his  proposed  tax  increases.44  Yet  29  Radicals,  after  unbalancing  the  lot  de 
finances,  abstained  to  let  it  pass  without  an  absolute  majority  (its  158  sup- 
porters were  three  too  few).  Deadlock  was  avoided,  the  Assembly's  finance 
committee  made  compromise  proposals,  the  Council's  amendments  were  duly 
defeated,  and  the  leader  of  the  Radical  senators  (Charles  Brune)  soon  entered 
Bidault's  cabinet.  The  Council  again  had  to  be  overruled  by  the  Assembly  in 
January  1951,  when  it  unbalanced  Pleven's  budget,  but  thereafter  it  made  less 
difficulty  for  the  government.45 

After  1948  the  Council  gave  a  small  majority  to  the  cabinet  when  its  life 
was  threatened,  and  a  much  larger  one  to  conservative  policies  at  other  times. 
In  January  1950  the  senators  amended  the  bill  restoring  collective  bargaining, 
to  the  detriment  of  the  trade  unions,  and  in  June  they  tried  to  switch  30  mil- 
liard francs  (£30  million)  of  investment  funds  from  the  nationalized  to  the 
private  sector;  in  both  cases  the  old  majority  of  Communists,  Socialists  and 
MRP  revived  in  the  Assembly  to  restore  the  original  proposals.  Even  after 
the  1951  election  they  were  more  conservative  than  the  deputies;  they  helped 
the  government  to  block  the  sliding  scale  for  wages,  obstructed  Pinay's  anti- 
trust bill,  and  led  the  way  in  demagogic  attacks  on  the  nationalized  industries. 
In  1956  they  tried  unsuccessfully  to  upset  the  financing  of  major  bills  on 
housing  and  old  age  pensions.  Socially  and  economically  the  upper  house  was 
still  a  bourgeois  and  peasant  weapon  against  the  town  workers.46 


42.  Ibid.,  p.  557;  JO(CR)  31  December  1948,  pp.  3826,  3897-8  ;AP  1948,  pp.  227-8;  cf. 
p.  233. 

43.  Fauvet  in  Monde,  4  June  1949  (over  petrol  rationing)  ;  cf.  ibid.,  6  January  1951  ;  AP  1949 
p.  81  (petrol). 

44.  Radical  deputies  feared  to  vote  for  higher  taxes  lest  a  Radical  senator  from  their  department 
rejected  them  and  so  became  a  more  popular  and  dangerous.  rival  at  the  next  election  (whereas 
in  the  Third  Republic  senators  had  feared  competition  from  deputies)  :  Fauvet,  Monde,  22  Decem- 
ber 1949,  1  February  1950.  See  also  above,  pp.  253  and  n. 

45.  Arne",  pp.  233-4;  AP  1950,  pp.  3-4,  1951,  p.  2.  In  1957  it  won  some  concessions  from  Gail- 
ard,  whose  majority  in  the  Assembly  was  unreliable. 

46.  AP  1950,  pp.  11,  133;  1951,  pp.  121-2,  136,  335;  1956,  pp.  57-8,  63-4;  1957,  p.  17; 
Meynaud,  p.  266,  Arne;  p.  234n.  (anti-trust)  ;  Lescuyer,  no.  143,  pp.  1181-2  (nationalized  indus- 
tries), though  cf.  his  book,  pp.  250-1  ;  Ehrmann,  Business,  pp.  251-2*  352-3,  383,  387-8  (both). 


288  THE  INSTITUTIONS 

In  constitutional  matters  the  senators,  elected  by  the  local  politicians  of  the 
countryside,  preferred  the  institutions  of  the  Third  Republic  and  especially 
the  single-member  constituency  system  favoured  by  rural  France.  In  April 
1951  they  nearly  killed  any  electoral  reform  by  voting  overwhelmingly  (206  to 
37)  for  scrutin  d'arrondissement*1  This  had  no  chance  in  an  Assembly 
dominated  by  Communists  and  MRP.  In  the  new  house,  however,  it  won 
Socialist  and  left-wing  Radical  support,  and  in  1955  a  strange  alliance  de- 
veloped between  progressive  Mendesists  and  conservative  senators  (countered 
by  an  even  odder  combination  of  Edgar  Faure's  right-wing  followers  with  the 
Communist  party).  The  premier,  who  wanted  early  elections  with  no  change  of 
electoral  system,  was  nearly  frustrated  by  the  Council's  new  powers  -  for  the 
senators  could  now  both  stop  legislation  over  a  limited  period,  and  repeatedly 
oblige  the  deputies  to  go  on  record  against  the  system  which  the  country  was 
believed  to  favour.  But  he  was  saved  by  a  miscalculation  of  his  adversaries 
which  unexpectedly  allowed  him  to  dissolve  the  Assembly.48 

On  external  affairs  the  Council's  reputation  was  nationalist.  The  opponents 
of  EDC  were  confident  that  the  treaty  would  never  pass  the  upper  house 
(though  Edgar  Faure  unexpectedly  induced  it  to  accept  the  agreement  on  Ger- 
man rearmament  which  eventually  took  EDC's  place).  The  senators,  on 
whose  benches  sat  some  of  France's  richest  colonial  capitalists,  had  no  liking 
for  emancipation  overseas.  In  May  1951  they  were  able,  because  of  the  immi- 
nence of  the  general  election,  to  prevent  a  wide  extension  of  the  colonial 
franchise  which  the  Assembly  had  accepted.  They  made  difficulties  over  the 
Tunisian  negotiations  of  1956  and  the  mild  Algerian  reform  bill  of  1958. 
But  they  displayed  unwonted  liberalism  over  the  loi-cadre  for  the  African 
territories ;  the  colonialist  spokesman  (Luc  Durand-R6ville)  found  him- 
self isolated,  the  Council's  amendments  were  limited,  and  the  Assembly 
accepted  them  in  order  that  the  bill  should  become  law  before  the  summer 
recess.49 

Being  nationalist  and  conservative  the  Council  was  strongly  defence- 
minded.50  These  preoccupations  did  not  foster  liberal  values.  In  July  1953  the 
deputies  agreed  but  the  senators  refused  to  extend  to  conscientious  objectors 
the  amnesty  they  did  not  hesitate  to  grant  to  former  collaborators.  The  Coun- 
cil was  more  alert  to  the  perils  of  untimely  progress  than  to  the  risks  of  arbi- 
trary repression.  In  January  1958  it  further  mutilated  the  Algerian  reform  bill 
which  had  already  been  disastrously  emasculated  to  appease  the  Right  in  the 
Assembly.  When  internment  camps  for  suspected  FLN  terrorists  were  set  up 
in  France  in  1957,  the  special  powers  bill  authorizing  them  was  fought  line  by 

47.  AP  1951,  pp.  97, 100;  the  deputies,  owing  to  Socialist  defections,  mustered  only  308  votes 
to  override  it  —  three  short  of  an  absolute  majority.  The  government  was  about  to  resign  when 
Herriot  proposed  to  refer  the  bill  back  to  committee;  eventually  a  'new'  but  hardly  altered  bill 
was  brought  in,  pressure  put  on  the  rebels  by  SFIO  (below,  p.  400)  and  an  absolute  majority 
found. 

48,  AP  1955,  pp.  85-90 ;  above,  pp.  238-9,  and  below,  pp.  3 1 5-16. 

_  49.  AP  1951,  pp.  121-2, 136, 335 ;  1956,  pp.  64-5,  214;  1957,  pp.  16-17 ;  1958,  pp.  7-8.  Despite 
its  anti-European  reputation  the  Council  accepted  the  Common  Market  and  Euratom  treaties 
by  a  three-to-one  majority. 

50*  In  March  1949  the  senators,  though  in  opposition,  voted  the  defence  minister  a  third  pro- 
visional twelfth  when  the  deputies  bad  allowed  him  only  two :  AP  1949,  p.  39. 


THE  COUNCIL  OF  THE  REPUBLIC  289 

line  in  the  'hasty  and  irresponsible'  lower  house,  where  the  left-wing  opposi- 
tion secured  some  important  concessions;  the  'sober  and  reflective'  senators 
voted  it  with  little  discussion  and  no  important  amendment  by  a  majority  of 
ten  to  one.51  Not  until  the  Fifth  Republic  used  the  same  powers  and  the  same 
camps  for  right-wing  Frenchmen  suspected  of  the  same  crimes  did  the 
enthusiasts  for  severity  begin  to  view  with  alarm  the  menace  to  freedom. 

The  conservatism  of  the  upper  house  reflected  that  of  its  electorate.  Occu- 
pationally  the  Council  was  drawn  from  much  the  same  groups  as  the  Assembly, 
except  that  as  it  had  few  Communists,  only  five  manual  workers  were  elected 
in  1948.  The  56  lawyers  equalled  the  agricultural,  industrial  and  trading 
interests  together,  and  60%  of  the  senators  were  professional  men.  Like  their 
predecessors  they  were  active  in  local  government;  20  were  chairmen  and  124 
members  of  departmental  councils,  and  107  were  mayors.  They  were  rather 
younger,  for  the  Fourth  Republic  lowered  the  minimum  age  from  40  to  35  and 
the  average  dropped  from  61  in  1939  to  50  in  1948.52  As  in  the  past  they  prided 
themselves  on  maintaining  a  higher  standard  of  dignity  and  courtesy  than  the 
deputies.  Speeches  tended  to  be  shorter  and  obstruction  rarer  in  the  Council. 
Angry  scenes  were  frowned  upon.  To  a  traditionalist  of  moderate  temper  like 
Ren6  Coty,  the  second  chamber  had  less  need  of  powers  than  of  the  pomp  and 
precedence  which  would  attract  elder  statesmen.  He  told  a  young  colleague  in 
1 948, 6  Your  house  is  too  noisy  for  me  ...  the  other  day  I  caught  myself  shout- 
ing "Go  to  Moscow !"  at  the  Communists.'  It  was  his  apology  for  his  own 
decision  to  become  a  senator.53 

To  anyone  but  the  most  ambitious  ministrable  the  Council  offered  many 
advantages  as  a  political  base.  A  senator's  seat  in  the  provinces  could  not  be 
won  without  strong  roots  in  local  government,  but  once  won  it  was  far  safer 
than  the  deputy's.  Some  of  the  sixty  overseas  seats  (a  fifth  of  the  total)  were 
almost  rotten  boroughs ;  twelve  votes  were  cast  to  elect  Luc  Durand-R6ville 
senator  for  Gabon  in  1948,  and  fourteen  to  re-elect  him  without  opposition  in 
1952.  Pierre  Bertaux  won  a  seat  in  Soudan  by  13  to  10  in  1953,  then  lost  it  by 
15  to  5  in  1955.  Interest-groups  took  full  advantage  of  these  anomalies.  Henri 
Borgeaud,  the  leader  of  the  Algerian  colons,  was  for  years  chairman  of  the 
Radical  senators.  His  RPF  colleague  Antoine  Colonna  represented  the 
French  of  Tunisia.  At  home,  peasant  organizations  naturally  had  many 
spokesmen  in  the  *  chamber  of  agriculture' ;  their  leader  was  Rene  Blondelle. 
Andr6  Boutemy,  the  employers'  political  paymaster,  was  one  of  several  par- 
liamentary friends  of  business  who  preferred  the  upper  house.  It  was  also  a 
convenient  refuge  for  senior  party  officials  like  Roger  Duchet,  secretary  of 
CNIP,  Pierre  Commin,  assistant  secretary  of  SFIO,  and  Vincent  Delpuech, 
the  Radical  treasurer  until  1955.  But  Andre  Diethelm,  who  handled  RPF's 
finances,  migrated  to  the  Assembly  in  1951. 

51.  XP  1949,  p.  39;  1953,  p.  59;  1957,pp.  78, 131;  1958,  pp.  7-8.  Isorni,  who  worked  devotedly 
for  a  reform  disliked  by  the  Church  (legitimizing  children  by  the  subsequent  marriage  of  their 
parents)  says  it  could  never  have  passed  if  the  upper  house  had  kept  its  old  powers:  Ainsi,  p.  46. 

52.  Occupations :  Le  Figaro,  16  November  1948.  Local :  Monnerville,  JO(CK)  17  January  1950, 
p.  20.  Age:  Hamon,  no.  121,  p.  553.  On  the  deputies  see  below,  p.  332. 

53.  Raymond  Tribouletin  Monde,  28  November  1962. 


290  THE  INSTITUTIONS 

The  passage  of  time  made  this  step  less  necessary  for  the  career-minded 
politician.  The  senator  had  always  enjoyed  influence  in  his  constituency  and 
local  party,  and  gradually  he  acquired  it  on  the  national  level.  Unrestricted 
access  to  the  Palais  Bourbon  enabled  him  to  meet  and  persuade  his  colleagues 
there.  At  first  the  senators  were  *  outsiders',  and  some  of  them  like  Michel 
Debr6  in  RPF  and  L6o  Hamon  in  MRP  always  remained  intransigent  or 
isolated  in  their  own  parties.  But  not  all  did.  The  Socialist  senators  obeyed  the 
whip  over  EDC  when  the  deputies  would  not  (and  in  1953  SFIO  amended 
its  constitution  to  give  them  equal  status).  When  Mendes-France  tried  to  turn 
the  Radicals  into  a  party  of  principle  rather  than  of  compromise,  the  resis- 
tance to  him  centred  at  the  Luxembourg.  In  CNIP,  Roger  Duchet  was  a 
strong  force  for  moderation  as  long  as  he  was  in  office. 

Ministerial  promotion  was  indeed  a  cause  as  well  as  a  consequence  of  the 
armistice  between  the  houses.  The  senators  gave  the  budget  for  1950  a  hard 
passage  partly  because  none  of  them  had  office  under  Georges  Bidault;  later 
premiers  learned  from  his  mistake.  By  1951  a  senator  was  minister  of  the 
interior,  and  Guy  Mollet  made  even  socialism  palatable  by  inviting  eight  to 
serve  under  him.  Seven  years  after  Bidault  the  upper  house,  its  appetite 
whetted,  taught  F61ix  Gaillard  a  similar  lesson  for  appointing  only  four  (in 
junior  posts).  In  1958  the  premiership  itself  was  offered  to  a  senator,  Jean 
Berthoin.  Nor  was  it  only  in  appointments  that  their  influence  was  felt.  In 
1953  the  choice  of  a  Conservative  rather  than  a  Socialist  President  seems  to 
have  been  due  to  the  Radicals  of  the  Luxembourg,  and  Coty's  personal 
success  to  the  general  confidence  of  his  colleagues  there.  In  1958  it  was  the 
senators  who  carried  SFIO  in  support  of  de  Gaulle  when  both  deputies  and 
executive^were  still  mostly  against  him,  and  in  that  decisive  crisis  Gaston 
Monnerville  played  a  crucial  part.64 

The  legal  and  constitutional  concessions  to  the  upper  house  were  thus  only 
a  recognition  of  its  growing  political  weight.  Early  in  the  Fourth  Republic  the 
second-chamber  controversy  had  provided  '.  .  .  a  good  example  of  our  bad 
methods  ...  a  brilliant  theoretical  debate  on  the  advantages  of  two  solutions 
and  a  compromise  settlement  combining  the  weaknesses  of  both'.65  But  in 
time  even  men  of  the  Left  came  to  see  advantages  in  bicameralism.  An  upper 
house  which  was  not  distracted  by  the  fascinating  game  of  making  and  un- 
making governments  could  give  more  time  to  legislation.  More  time  should 
mean  not  only  closer  scrutiny,  but  also  less  dependence  for  information  on  the 
administration,  a  party,  or  private  pressure-groups.  A  constituency  of  ex- 
perienced local  politicians  might  predispose  its  representatives  to  reasonable 
compromise  rather  than  ideological  intransigence,  and  encourage  them  to 
offer  a  psychological  as  well  as  a  technical  corrective  to  the  feverish  agitation 
of  the  deputies.56  & 

lA£  Sde^V^m^  Tr*  n°*  m-PP*  3WO  ^nnerville,  SFIO);  above, 
^p^fcik  (Bldmdt)*  For  seQat°rs  in  office  see  Georgel,  i.  83,  and  below, 

55,  Ramon,  PrM&mes,  p.  27  (from  Combat,  15  March  1954). 

25  Janlmry  1951> 


THE  COUNCIL  OF  THE  REPUBLIC  291 

The  constitution-makers,  then,  had  set  out  to  establish  a  second  chamber 
which  should  have  neither  the  first  word  nor  the  last,  but  whose  word  must 
always  be  spoken.  It  could  not  initiate  and  its  advice  could  always  be  rejected 
but  the  sovereign  Assembly  must  always  hear  from  the  'house  of  second 
thoughts'  before  making  up  its  own  mind.  But  as  long  as  the  Council  was 
being  used  as  a  weapon  against  the  regime,  these  aims  could  not  be  achieved 
When  it  accepted  its  role  as  a  chambre  de  reflexion,  the  technical  faults  were 
remedied  and  a  working  relationship  between  the  two  chambers  at  last 
established.  The  constitution-makers  failed  to  correct  the  conservative  bias  of 
the  upper  house,  but  they  did  undermine  its  obstructive  power  and  so  achieved 
a  major  part  of  their  objective.  In  some  of  their  other  experiments  even  this 
qualified  success  was  denied  them. 


Chapter  21 

SUBORDINATE  INSTITUTIONS  AND 
CONSTITUTIONAL  AMENDMENT 

The  makers  of  the  new  constitution  tried  to  improve  on  the  old  one  by  intro- 
ducing several  subsidiary  institutions.  A  new  High  Court  was  to  dispense 
political  justice,  and  a  new  High  Council  to  supervise  ordinary  justice.  The 
referendum  made  a  timid  and  ineffectual  appearance  in  the  normal  process  of 
constitutional  amendment,  while  surreptitious  changes  were  checked  by  a  new 
Constitutional  Committee.  There  were  new  subordinate  assemblies  to  advise 
on  colonial  problems  and  on  economic  and  social  affairs.  The  preoccupation 
of  the  constitution-makers  with  these  questions  was  also  reflected  in  a  Pre- 
amble which  set  forth  the  political  principles  professed,  if  not  always  practised, 
by  the  regime. 

The  declaration  of  rights  took  up  nearly  a  quarter  of  the  time  spent  by  the 
first  constitutional  drafting  committee.  But  in  the  referendum  of  May  1946 
the  product  of  their  labours  was  denounced  by  the  opposition  as  a  menace  to 
property,  the  freedom  of  the  press,  and  the  Church's  rights  in  education.1  The 
second  drafting  committee  therefore  substituted  a  short  declaration,  which  was 
also  vigorously  criticized.  It  reaffirmed  the  1789  declaration  of  rights  which 
its  authors  were  simultaneously  violating.2  It  appealed  to  'fundamental  prin- 
ciples recognized  by  the  laws  of  the  Republic'  -  but  open  to  interpretation 
in  precisely  opposite  ways.3  It  added  supplementary  principles :  equality  of 
women,  the  right  of  asylum,  the  nationalization  of  public  services  and  de 
facto  monopolies,  and  a  workers'  share  in  management  (which  no  attempt 
was  made  to  realize).  It  enunciated  respectable  but  vague  aspirations 
such  as  the  nation's  solidarity  in  meeting  natural  calamities,  and  hopefully 
announced  controversial  legislation  for  a  misty  future:  'the  right  to 
strike  is  exercised  within  the  framework  of  the  laws  which  regulate  it'.4  And  it 
failed  -  apparently  through  inadvertence  -  to  promise  the  freedom  of  associa- 
tion which  had  been  deliberately  omitted  in  1789  by  men  who  detested  inter- 
mediary bodies  between  the  citizen  and  the  state. 

The  declaration  renounced  wars  of  conquest  and  announced  France's 
willingness,  given  reciprocity,  to  limit  her  sovereignty  in  the  cause  of  peace.5 
It  proclaimed  equality  of  opportunity  throughout  the  French  Union  and  an 
intention  to  lead  subject  peoples  towards  democratic  self-government.  These 
principles  commanded  no  universal  assent,  and  if  a  new  political  majority 

I.  Wright,  Reshaping,  pp.  135,  156-61. 

Z  The  purge  kgislation  violated  non-retroactivity,  and  some  nationalization  acts  conflicted 
with  the  principles  of  compensation :  Duverger,  Manuel,  p.  371 ;  Waline,  pp.  125-7. 

3.  Ibid.  Waline  thought  this  phrase  protected  lay  education,  Duverger  the  church  schools; 
they  agreed  that  it  was  the  most  obscure  phrase  in  the  constitution. 

4.  Cf.  Pickles,  French  Politics,  pp.  233-5 ;  Noel,  p.  132n.  As  the  Fourth  Republic  got  no  further 
than  banning  police  strikes,  the  Conseil  d'Etat  acted  in  default  of  Parliament;  Arne,  pp.  158-9. 
The  Fifth  also  showed  reluctance  to  attempt  major  legislation. 

5.  In  October  1952  Heniot  attacked  ED  C  as  unconstitutional  because  there  was  no  reciprocity, 
Germany  not  being  a  sovereign  state:  AP  1952,  pp.  66-7,  70. 


SUBORDINATE  INSTITUTIONS  293 

chose  to  ignore  them,  no  method  of  enforcement  was  provided.  The  individual 
citizen  could  not  rely  on  them  in  court.  Yet  there  was  perhaps  a  case,  in  a 
country  where  there  was  bitter  dispute  over  the  fundamentals  of  politics  and 
conspicuous  bargaining  and  manoeuvre  over  detail,  for  a  solemn  and  formal 
statement  of  the  ends  which  democratic  political  activity  is  ultimately  sup- 
posed to  serve. 

1.  THE  INSTITUTIONS  OF  THE  FRENCH  UNION 

Even  before  the  constitution  was  adopted  it  became  clear  that  the  liberal  pro- 
fessions of  the  Preamble  rested  on  an  insecure  political  foundation.  For,  in  the 
first  draft  proposed,  native  inhabitants  were  to  enjoy  full  equality  with  French- 
men and  the  French  Union  was  to  be  founded  on  free  consent.  At  the  referen- 
dum of  May  1946  this  draft  was  approved  in  the  few  'old  colonies*  where 
native  voters  were  in  the  majority.  But  wherever  citizenship  was  restricted  to 
white  men  it  was  rejected,  and  settler  deputies  were  sent  back  to  Paris  to 
impose  a  different  arrangement.  General  de  Gaulle  in  his  Bayeux  speech 
helped  them  by  warning  against  the  disintegration  of  the  empire,  and  MRP, 
urged  on  by  Radicals  and  Conservatives,  set  out  to  whittle  away  what  the 
Left  had  granted.  Colonial  nationalists  and  their  French  sympathizers  wanted 
self-governing  local  assemblies  to  precede  federal  institutions ;  instead  Bidault 
as  prime  minister  insisted  on  creating  a  strong  centralized  structure,  cautiously 
parcelling  out  local  autonomy  from  Paris,  and  giving  white  settlers  separate 
representation  almost  everywhere.  In  the  new  version  of  the  French  Union 
little  was  left  of  the  original  liberal  approach,  except  for  the  mildly  pro- 
gressive phrases  of  the  Preamble.  Free  consent  disappeared,  and  *the  pious 
gesture  [was]  replaced  by  the  fait  accompli' * 

The  Union  was  to  consist  of  the  French  Republic  (comprising  Algeria  and 
the  overseas  departments  and  territories  as  well  as  France  itself)  and  those 
*  associated  states'  which  chose  to  join;  Tunisia,  Morocco,  Vietnam,  Cam- 
bodia and  Laos,  although  governed  by  France,  were  legally  foreign  countries. 
It  was  to  have  an  assembly  of  its  own  (which  was  approved  both  by  federalists 
and  by  conservatives  like  Herriot,  who  feared  that  the  traditional  assimilation 
policy  would  bring  more  and  more  overseas  deputies  until  France  became  '  the 
colony  of  her  colonies').  The  President  of  the  Republic  was  ex  officio  Presi- 
dent of  the  Union,  though  the  Associated  States  had  no  say  in  his  election ;  and 
the  Union's  High  Council  was  to  'assist  the  government',  which  was  respon- 
sible to  the  French  Parliament  alone.7 

These  institutions  had  little  life  in  them.  The  rulers  of  Tunisia  and  Morocco 
would  not  join  for  fear  of  prejudicing  their  nominal  independence.  There  was 
resentment  against  the  centralized  constitution,  especially  at  Article  62  by 
which  the  Union's  resources  were  pooled  for  a  defence  policy  controlled 
exclusively  from  Paris.  When  the  High  Council  met  after  five  years'  delay, 
three  Indo-Chinese  delegations  led  by  their  premiers  sat  for  two  days  with 

6.  Wright,  Reshaping,  w.  179-80,  201-5,  213-15.  Cf.  Grosser,  pp.  247-51, 

7.  For  a  useful  short  summary  of  the  large  literature  see  K.  Robinson,  The  Public  Law  of 
Overseas  France  since  the  War.  For  the  overseas  departments  see  ibid.,  pp.  21-2,  and  above, 
p.  209n.  Algeria  had  a  separate  (settler-dominated)  Assembly  from  1948  till  its  dissolution  in  1956. 


294  THE  INSTITUTIONS 

seven  French  cabinet  ministers  under  Vincent  AurioFs  presidency  to  settle 
procedure  and  discuss  common  military,  diplomatic  and  economic  problems.8 
But  in  June  1953  the  Kong  of  Cambodia  fled  to  Siam  and  demanded  indepen- 
dence, and  in  October  a  Vietnam  national  congress  -  opposed  to  the  pro- 
Communist  Vietminh  -  rejected  participation  in  the  French  Union  (adding 
later  'in  its  present  form').  Although  Georges  Bidault,  now  foreign  minister, 
and  President  Auriol  opposed  constitutional  concessions,  France  offered  on 
3  July  to  negotiate  new  Indo-Chinese  treaties,  and  promised  in  January  1954 
that  the  French  Union  would  be  based  on  the  liberal  Preamble  rather  than  the 
centralizing  text  of  the  constitution.  It  was  too  late  to  undo  the  harm  done 
in  1946.  Soon  only  Laos  remained  within  the  Union;  South  Vietnam  in  1954, 
Cambodia  in  1955,  and  Morocco  and  Tunisia  in  1956  became  fully  indepen- 
dent The  old  constitutional  structure  lay  in  ruins,  but  it  was  still  hoped  that  a 
new  one  could  accommodate  the  African  territories.  The  Algerian  war 
destroyed  the  Fourth  Republic  before  this  could  be  built.9 

Less  shadowy  than  the  High  Council,  the  Assembly  of  the  French  Union 
was  mainly  concerned  with  tropical  Africa,  where  French  colonial  policy  was 
most  successful.  At  its  first  meeting,  at  Versailles  on  10  November  1947, 
75  members  from  metropolitan  France  sat  with  75  from  'overseas  France*  of 
whom  40  came  from  western  and  equatorial  Africa.  Cambodia  and  Laos 
joined  in  1948  and  Vietnam  in  1950;  with  their  27  delegates  and  the  27 
balancing  Frenchmen  there  were  204  members  (there  would  have  been  250  if 
Tunisia  and  Morocco  had  attended).10  The  Frenchmen  were  elected  by  pro- 
portional representation  of  parties,  68  by  the  metropolitan  deputies  and  34  by 
the  senators.11  Among  them  were  a  few  experts  like  the  colonial  historian 
C.  A.  Julien,  and  many  former  or  intending  members  of  parliament,  not  all  of 
them  interested  in  or  qualified  for  their  task.12  Although  the  Assembly  was  not 
part  of  Parliament  its  members  enjoyed  parliamentary  status,  under  Article  70. 

The  Assembly  of  the  Union  had  to  be  consulted  on  laws  settling  the  consti- 
tution or  changing  the  status  of  an  overseas  territory,  under  Articles  74  and 

&  AP 1951,  pp.  303-5,  391 ;  1952,  pp.  282-3 ;  1953,  pp.  302-3,  307 ;  Robinson,  p.  19 ;  Lachar- 
riere,  nos.  133-4;  G.  Peureux,  Le  Haut-ConsetideV  Union  Francaise  (1960),  pp.  7-9, 36-52, 168-72. 
The  first  annual  session  set  up  and  the  second  formalized  a  presidential  secretariat  drawn  from 
both  Associated  States  and  French  ministries.  On  Auriol  and  Coty  as  Presidents  of  the  Union 
above,  pp.  1 98-9, 202 ;  and  on  the  Union  up  to  1951 ,  Pickles,  French  Politics,  Chapters  10  and  1 1. 

9.  AP  1953,  pp.  247-50,  253-8,  272-4,  282-91,  570-93;  1954,  pp.  176-7,  189-90,  202-4,  258, 
601 ;  1955,  p.  282;  1956,  pp.  178-80.  Cf.  Grosser,  pp.  284-90,  300-3. 

10.  The  Indo-Chinese  were  chosen  by  then*  governments,  the  other  75  from  overseas  by  the 
local  elected  assemblies  set  up  throughout  the  Union  under  Article  77.  Among  the  40  tropical 
Africans  were  six  from  the  two  UN  trust  territories,  Togo  and  Cameroons.  Of  the  other  35,  18 
represented  Algeria,  7  Madagascar,  4  the  Indian  Ocean  territories  (Reunion,  Comores,  Somali- 
tend,  French  India),  4  the  American  (Guadeloupe,  Martinique,  Guiana,  St  Pierre-and-Miquelon) 
and  2  the  Pacific, 

11.  Overseas  parliamentarians  voted  in  some  party  meetings  to  choose  candidates  for  formal 
election  later:  Institutions,  i.  152.  In  several  parties  counsellors  of  the  Union,  like  parliamentarians, 
were  represented  on  their  governing  bodies. 

12.  In  July  1952  Raymond  Dronne  (RPF)  denounced  the  *  flotillas  of  candidates'  intriguing 
in  the  lobbies  and  proposed  to  suppress  altogether  this  *  asylum  for  defeated  parliamentarians, 
party  officials  and  personal  cronies'.  A  week  later  the  senators  elected  among  their  34  representa- 
tives eight  colleagues  (four  of  them  Gaullists)  who  had  just  lost  their  seats :  Monde,  6-7  and  12 
July  1952;  JO  4  July  1952,  p.  3543;  cf .  Arne,  pp.  231-2  and  n.;  J.  Raphael-Leygues,  no.  186a, 
p.  120.  Yet  some  of  the  Assembly's  best  members  were  recruited  in  this  way,  for  example  Georges 
Gocse,  a  Socialist  defeated  in  the  1951  election,  who  specialized  on  Moslem  questions. 


SUBORDINATE  INSTITUTIONS  295 

75,  and  on  decrees  applying  a  French  law  generally  overseas  or  to  a  specific 
territory,  under  Article  72.  Before  voting  a  law  to  apply  overseas,  the  National 
Assembly  was  expected  -  but  not  obliged  -  to  consult  it.  It  could  send  resolu- 
tions of  its  own  to  the  French  government,  the  High  Council  or  the  National 
Assembly.  Associated  States  could  seek  its  views,  though  none  ever  did;  and 
so  could  the  government  in  Paris,  which  sometimes  modified  decrees  in  the 
light  of  its  advice.13 

Three-quarters  of  the  Assembly's  activity  was  self-generated.14  Repeatedly 
it  complained  of  neglect  and  humiliation:  in  1948  because  it  was  kept  in- 
sufficiently informed,  in  1949  because  the  government  stopped  its  mission  of 
inquiry  into  social  services  in  the  overseas  departments,  in  1951  because  the 
deputies  voted,  without  debate,  that  Algeria  was  outside  its  competence.15  In 
1951  the  disillusioned  President  of  the  Versailles  Assembly  migrated  to  the 
Palais  Bourbon  and  his  successor  Albert  Sarraut  mourned  its  'sumptuous  and 
glacial  exile  . . .  definitely  too  far  from  the  other  assemblies,  the  government, 
the  press,  and  the  man  in  the  street'.16  In  the  Tunisian  crisis  of  1951-52  its 
voice  was  not  heard.  It  discussed  the  decrees  applying  the  1956  loi-cadre  for 
the  overseas  territories  -  but  not  the  Togo  statute  which  became  a  yardstick 
for  the  others.  The  resolution  by  which  Parliament  decided  to  amend  the 
French  Union  clauses  of  the  constitution  was  submitted  to  it,  but  no  amend- 
ment bill  followed.17  It  worked  or  stagnated  amid  'the  general  indifference  of 
public  opinion,  Parliament  and  the  government',  while  the  Negro  leaders  pre- 
ferred the  National  Assembly  where  power  lay.18 

2.  THE  ECONOMIC  COUNCIL 

As  the  Assembly  of  the  Union  had  been  intended  to  give  the  colonial  peoples  a 
louder  voice  in  Paris,  the  Economic  Council  was  similarly  envisaged  as  a 
forum  for  groups  -  notably  the  workers*  and  peasants'  organizations  -  whose 
views  had  often  had  an  inadequate  hearing.  But  though  it  undertook  more 
useful  work  than  the  Assembly  of  the  Union,  it  suffered  almost  equally  from 
the  inattention  of  Parliament  and  public. 

Under  Article  25  of  the  constitution,  the  Economic  Council  was  the  lowest 
in  status  of  the  four  assemblies ;  its  members  had  ho  parliamentary  advantages 
except  a  salary.  The  government  had  to  consult  it  on  the  national  economic 
Plan,  and  it  gave  advisory  opinions  before  the  Assembly  debated  bills  within 
its  sphere.  By  an  organic  law,  this  included  all  economic  and  social  bills 
except  the  budget,  and  any  bill  ratifying  an  economic  or  financial  treaty.  It 
could  examine  these  bills  on  its  own  initiative,  and  could  be  sent  others  by  the 
Assembly  or  its  committees,  or  by  the  government.  The  Council  had  twenty 

13.  See  Pickles,  French  Politics*  pp.  229-31  on  its  activity  and  legal  competence. 

14.  Wright,  in  Cole,  p.  651.  Even  on  its  best  days  its  atmosphere  was  that  of  a  powerless 
debating  body  like  the  Paris  municipal  council:  P.  Fr6d6rix,  Monde,  29  August  1951. 

15.  Institutions,  i.  157-8;  AP  1948,  p.  100;  JO(AUF)  7  April  1949,  pp.  427-32,  and  15 
February  1951,  pp.  126-39.  (But  it  did  discuss  a  major  bill  on  Saharan  administration:  AP  1956, 
p.  235.)  Cf.  Arae",  pp.  232,  250-1. 

16.  AP  1951,  p.  185;  JO(AVF)  12  July  1951,  p.  665. 

17.  Togo:  Institutions^  i.  157,  and  Robinson,  no.  192.  Loi-cadre:  ibid.',  above*  pp.  50,  273. 
Amendment:  AP  1956,  p.  180;  Drevet,  p.  97;  Coret,  nos.  61-2. 

18.  On  African  deputies  see  above,  pp.  180-2*  'Indifference' :  Goguel,  Regime,  p.  77. 


296  THE  INSTITUTIONS 

days  (but  only  two  on  urgent  bills)  for  its  report,  which  was  circulated  to  all 
deputies;  its  rapporteur  could  speak  in  committee  and,  if  the  minister  or 
committee  so  requested,  in  the  house.  It  had  to  be  consulted  on  decrees  and 
orders  applying  bills  it  had  dealt  with  (and  could  be,  on  others).  From  1951  it 
had  to  present  a  twice-yearly  report  on  the  national  income  and  on  means  of 
increasing  production,  consumption  and  exports.  Disputants  could  seek  its 
arbitration  in  an  economic  or  social  conflict.  In  general  it  dealt  with  special 
subjects  specifically  referred  to  it,  major  current  problems  like  the  Coal  and 
Steel  Community  or  fiscal  reform,  and  broad  general  inquiries  -  into  the 
national  accounts,  or  the  housing  problem.19 

All  sections  of  Resistance  opinion  had  wanted  an  Economic  Council, 
though  their  conceptions  of  it  differed.  The  new  body  fell  between  the  con- 
sultative committee  of  trade  unionists  demanded  by  the  Left,  and  the  cor- 
porative sub-parliament,  representing  professions  and  regions,  which  MRP 
favoured.  Its  members  were  chosen  by  national  organizations  of  workers  or 
employers  to  represent  their  side,  rather  than  as  technical  or  industrial 
specialists,  and  its  committees  were  proportionate  (for  example,  only  a  third 
of  the  agriculture  committee  was  rural).20  Although  the  backward  sectors  of 
the  economy  were  denied  the  inflated  representation  they  enjoyed  in  Parlia- 
ment, the  weighting  of  interests  was  arbitrary,  and  was  not  improved  by  the 
changes  made  for  political  reasons  in  195 1 .21 

The  CounciTs  methods  of  work  were  also  unsatisfactory.  It  met  fortnightly 
at  the  Palais  Royal  for  discussions  that  were  often  hurried,  especially  at  first 
when  it  had  only  two  days  for  the  many  'urgent'  bills.  In  1947  no  private  dis- 
putant consulted  it;  the  deputies  ignored  three-quarters  of  its  reports;  the 
government  sent  it  no  decrees,  and  modified  the  Monnet  Plan  without  refer- 
ence to  it;  and  when  it  was  asked  to  report  on  wages  and  prices  it  succumbed 
to  wrangling  between  rival  experts.  'When  the  Assembly  refers  a  bill  to  the 
Council  the  explanation  is ...  lack  of  interest  in  it  at  the  Palais  Bourbon ;  or ... 
a  desire  to  delay  a  vote,  or  to  be  covered  by  an  independent  opinion.'22  Yet 
even  the  deputies  were  less  jealous  of  it  than  of  the  Assembly  of  the  Union, 
since  it  reported  on  bills  they  had  not  examined  and  so  did  not  threaten  their 
prestige.  And  in  time  the  government  if  not  the  Assembly  began  to  find  the 
Council  mildly  useful.  In  1952  it  submitted  3  statutory  reports,  29  on  its  own 
initiative,  and  5  requested  by  the  government.23 

19.  Cadart,  no.  38,  for  its  status;  B.  Chenot  in  Institutions,  i.  164-5;  Aubry,  no.  8a,  for  a 
MI  formal  account,  and  no.  8b  for  its  procedure. 

20.  Cnavagnes,  no.  55 ;  Archambeaud,  no.  4;  By6,  no.  37.  An  Economic  Council  dominated  by 
cm!  servants  had  existed  from  1925  to  1940. 

21.  Dwerger,  System,  p.  76;  Meynaud,  p.  218  and  n.,  and  no.  161,  p.  851.  Of  its  164  original 
members  45  represented  trade  unions  (26  workers,  9  black-coated,  10  staff) ;  40  industry  and 
commerce  (6  nationalized  industry,  8  large  and  6  small  private  industry,  10  commerce  similarly 
divided,  10 artisans);  35  agriculture,  including  5  workers;  10  were  government-appointed  econo- 
mists and  scientists  (Pensee  Jranfaise),  9  co-operators  of  various  sorts,  8  spokesmen  of  the  family 
associations,  2  of  war-damage  victims,  and  15  of  overseas  territories.  The  law  of  1951  added  five 
members  and  instituted  regional  corresponding  members ;  reduced  CGTs  seats  by  half,  to  equal 
the  other  unions;  gave  27  of  CG  A's  30  seats  to  its  constituent  units,  which  were  more  influential 
and  less  left-wing;  and  substituted  classes  moyennes  spokesmen  for  two  intellectuals.  Half  the 
members  changed. 

22.  By4  no.  37;  quotation  from  p.  597. 

23.  Etepnties:  Goguel,  no.  105,  p.  349,  and  Rtgirne,  p,  50;  but  cf .  Lavau,  no.  138a,  p.  826.  In 

[over 


SUBORDINATE  INSTITUTIONS  297 

The  Council  was  a  useful  sounding-board  for  an  interest  without  much 
parliamentary  influence.  Big  business  used  it  to  obtain  a  hearing  at  a  time 
when  its  views  enjoyed  little  political  sympathy.  But  when  the  climate  changed 
after  the  end  of  tripartisme,  employers  soon  came  to  regard  the  Council  as  an 
undesirably  public  forum  in  which  the  Left  was  too  well  represented.24 
Organizations  rarely  sent  their  most  influential  leaders  there,  not  wishing  their 
votes  to  commit  them  too  completely;  they  often  preferred  abstention  to  the 
bad  publicity  of  opposing  a  popular  proposal;  on  issues  of  little  direct  interest 
they  sometimes  traded  their  votes  for  future  favours;  and  they  tried  to  avoid 
discussing  problems  on  which  a  major  interest  was  split.  Consequently  a  pro- 
posal strongly  disliked  by  a  big  group  often  met  almost  universal  hostility. 
Thus  in  1949  the  trade  unions  wanted  a  return  to  free  collective  bargaining; 
they  got  the  Council  to  debate  it  in  April,  and  in  November  to  reject  by  137 
to  0  the  government  proposal  for  compulsory  arbitration  (which  was  later 
defeated  in  the  National  Assembly).  In  June  1950  another  government  pro- 
posal -  for  a  special  court  to  deal  with  cartels  -  was  thrown  out  by  105  to  4. 
During  1952  unanimity  was  complete  on  5  reports  out  of  37,  almost  com- 
plete on  3  more,  and  complete  except  for  the  pro-Communist  members  on 
another  7.25 

In  Council  voting  there  were  three  broad  coalitions:  labour;  business  and 
agriculture,  which  tended  to  agree;  and  the  smaller  intermediary  groups  - 
such  as  family  associations,  industrial  staffs,  artisans,  nationalized  industries 
and  Penseefran$aise  (government-appointed  intellectuals,  who  wrote  many  of 
the  major  reports).  Generally  agriculture  found  it  easiest  and  CGT  hardest  to 
make  friends  and  win  votes.  Thus  in  1952  agricultural  and  nationalized- 
industry  members  almost  always  voted  in  the  majority,  while  CGT  did  so 
only  half  the  time,  and  in  between  these  extremes  business  was  on  the  losing 
side  more  often  than  non-Communist  labour.  The  bigger  organizations  dis- 
liked displaying  their  internal  divisions  (except  at  times  within  agriculture)  or 
their  differences  with  their  allies  (except  between  CGT  and  non-Communist 
unions).  But  they  needed  support  from  the  middle  groups,  which  often  split 
their  votes;  and  some  cross-voting  did  occur  at  times.  In  1950  CGT  allied 
with  the  employers  to  defeat  a  profit-sharing  proposal  favoured  by  the  middle 
groups  and  other  unions,  and  with  CGA  and  some  small  employers  against 
the  Franco-Italian  customs  treaty  (which  passed  easily).  In  1951  CGT  and 
CFTC  supported  higher  family  allowances  against  opposition  from  agricul- 
ture and  FO  (which  feared  they  would  prejudice  wage  claims).  In  1952  labour 


1948  the  government  refused  to  send  Reynaud's  special  powers  bill  to  either  the  Council  or  the 
Assembly  of  the  Union  (Soubeyrol,  p.  80) ;  and  its  creation  of  a  special  commission  on  the  national 
accounts  suggested  some  mistrust  of  the  Council.  On  the  Council's  early  working  see  Pickles, 
French  Politics,  pp.  230-3,  and  later  Meynaud,  pp.  217-21,  255-6,  316-17;  Arne",  p.  232  and  n. ; 
Seligson,  no.  197 ;  Lewis,  no.  144  (p.  167  for  reports  in  1952). 

24.  Ehrmann,  Business,  pp.  253-6,  and  no.  84,  pp.  468-9;  Duverger,  loc  cit.  L6on  Jouhaux  was 
the  Council's  first  President,  and  £mile  Roche  its  second.  For  the  unions*  attitude  to  and  use  of 
it  see  H.  Lesire-Ogrel,  *Les  syndicats  et  le  Conseil  economique',  in  A.  Tiano  et  alt  Experiences 
francaises  fraction  syndicate  ouvriere  (1956),  pp.  356-428. 

25.  AP  1949,  pp.  64,  203 ;  JO(ACE)  1949,  p.  408, 1950,  pp.  236-9;  Lewis,  no,  144,  pp.  167-9. 
For  other  massive  abstentions  see  Williams,  pp.  299-300  and  nn.s  and  cf,  Ehrmann,  loc.  cit. 


298  THE  INSTITUTIONS 

joined  either  business  or  agriculture  in  the  minority  on  12  of  the  37  re- 
ports.26 

Although  the  Council's  reports  were  often  thorough  and  informative,  the 
public  and  parliamentary  nature  of  its  proceedings  diminished  its  utility  either 
as  a  technical  advisory  chamber  or  as  a  focus  for  the  pressure-groups  them- 
selves.27 They  had  to  show  solidarity  because  they  were  open  to  the  public 
gaze,  and  were  naturally  tempted  to  combine  against  the  consumer  for  whom, 
at  a  generous  estimate,  not  more  than  a  sixth  of  the  councillors  spoke.  But  on 
major  issues  the  Council  behaved  responsibly.  It  passed  by  111  to  15  Andr6 
Philip's  report  on  the  Coal  and  Steel  Community,  which  for  once  had  a  great 
influence  in  the  National  Assembly  -  partly  because  he  was  a  prominent  ex- 
deputy.28  It  may  have  played  a  useful  part  in  improving  the  economic  educa- 
tion of  the  pressure-groups,  whose  claims  and  attitudes  in  the  later  years  of  the 
Fourth  Republic  were  often  less  outrageous  than  in  the  past.29  And  there  was 
perhaps  some  advantage  in  a  direct  confrontation,  without  the  refracting 
medium  of  Parliament,  between  the  spokesmen  of  workers,  peasants  and 
businessmen.  But  these  spokesmen  were  rarely  the  most  powerful  or  represen- 
tative. The  Palais  Royal  quite  failed  to  attract  the  lobbyists  away  from  the 
Palais  Bourbon.  The  Council's  detractors  therefore  maintained  that  its 
debates  were  too  political,  its  reports  came  too  late,  its  views  commanded  no 
attention,  and  it  cost  more  for  less  benefit  than  a  proper  legislative  reference 
service.  Yet  it  had  some  staunch  defenders,  even  in  the  National  Assembly.30 

3.  POLITICS  AND  JUSTICE 

Impeachments  in  France  are  tried  before  a  High  Court  of  Justice.  In  the  Third 
Republic  the  Senate  sat  in  this  capacity  to  judge  persons  impeached  by  the 
Chamber  of  Deputies  (and  also  those  indicted  for  threatening  the  security  of 
the  state).  At  the  Liberation  an  exceptional  High  Court  was  created  to  try 
former  Vichy  ministers  and  high  officials.  Consisting  of  members  of  the 
Assembly  (chosen  originally  by  lot,  later  by  PR),  it  sat  from  1945  to  1949, 
heard  108  cases,  and  pronounced  18  death  sentences  and  38  of  imprisonment 
or  'national  disgrace'.  Its  prestige  was  never  high.31 

In  the  Fourth  Republic  Article  57  of  the  constitution  regulated  impeach- 
ments, and  Article  58  set  up  a  new  High  Court  including  many  deputies.  Im- 
peachments were  preferred  by  the  National  Assembly,  voting  in  secret  by  an 
absolute  majority  of  its  members  excluding  those  who  would  have  to  try  the 
case.  The  new  Court  was  elected  by  each  National  Assembly  when  it  first  met; 

iw  -?3  \%fr  E*£f^1£'ff **'  PP-  357~9'  404j  and  J°(ACE^  1^50,  pp.  197,  221 ;  and  on 
J^L*  ^  '  Pm?;  °n  l?52> LeWlS'  n°' 144' pp'  167~71 ;  on  a  similar  voting  Pattem  m  1953-6, 
Oo^z-Gny,  no.  101 ;  on  tbe  importance  of  the ' middle  groups'  cf.  Lesire-Ogrel,  p.  367. 

27. ^Cf.  L^au,  80.1388,  p*  826-7;  Bye,  no.  37,  pp.  603-4  ('each  group  brings ...  its  own 
files,  its  own  figures,  its  own  desires  for  light  and  for  shadow') ;  Meynaud,  p.  220;  but  cf.  no.  161, 

28.  'AP  1951,  p.  298 ;  JO(ACE)  1951,  p.  269. 

n^fiSS11>-^ditkSI  PressufeS  *  Fmnce' m  Ehrmann»  «U  to**™*  Croups  on  Four  Continents 
™^^Y  al£:5*£?)'  PiP^!P"lj  and  m  nJ?'  141» pp'  36"7'  <*  Lesire-Ogrel,  pp.  424-71. 
30 •  ajwwj,  pp.  848-9  (Marcel  Prelot  against,  fidouard  Bonnefous  for).  A  prominent  deputy 

once  told  me  how  much  he  regretted  having  never  had  time,  in  his  year  on  the  economic  affairs 

committee,  to  read  a  single  report  of  the  Council. 

'  Mamtel>  PP'  333-5»  Guerin,  no.  116.  (Only  Brinon,  Darnand  and  Laval  were 


SUBORDINATE  INSTITUTIONS  299 

a  detailed  law,  under  Article  59,  was  passed  in  October  1946  at  the  same  time 
as  the  constitution  itself.  The  deputies  chose  by  a  two-thirds  majority  in  a 
secret  ballot:  a  President,  two  vice-presidents  and  20  judges  from  their  own 
ranks  by  proportional  representation  of  parties;  10  more  judges  who  could 
not  be  sitting  (but  were  often  former)  members;32  30  alternates  in  the  same 
conditions;  3  prosecutors  who  might  be  members  of  the  Assembly  (in  1953 
only  one  was) ;  and  6  deputies  who,  with  a  chairman  and  two  members  named 
by  the  High  Council  of  the  Judiciary,  formed  the  committee  of  preliminary 
inquiry  (commission  d'instruction).  The  Court  judged  impeachments  of  minis- 
ters for  offences  in  office,  or  of  the  President  of  the  Republic  for  high  treason.58 
Its  deliberations  were  normally  public,  its  final  decision  taken  in  secret  and  by 
an  absolute  majority. 

Two  motions  came  before  the  National  Assembly.  On  29  March  1950  the 
Communists  failed  to  impeach  three  Socialist  leaders  (Gouin,  Moch  and 
Pineau)  over  the  wine  import  scandals  of  1946.  On  30  November  1950  they 
again  attacked  Moch  over  the  1949  *  scandal  of  the  generals',  and  obtained 
235  votes  against  203,  many  members  apparently  wishing  to  strike  a  safely 
secret  political  blow  at  the  minister,  his  party,  or  the  government.  The  premier 
got  a  vote  of  confidence  from  the  Assembly  in  a  public  ballot;  and  as  the  Com- 
munist motion  was  fifty  short  of  an  absolute  majority  the  incident  had  no 
sequel.34 

The  constitution-makers  were  agreed  on  the  principle  that  the  judges  should 
no  longer  be  supervised  by  the  ministry  of  justice,  but  by  a  new  body  in- 
dependent of  the  executive.  Like  so  many  of  the  new  institutions  this  was  a 
compromise.  Conservatives  and  Radicals  had  wanted  a  Council  chosen  by  and 
from  judges,  to  avoid  political  influence;  Pierre  Cot  and  the  Communists 
opposed  a  close,  self-administering  judicial  corporation  and  favoured  a 
Council  elected  by  (and  perhaps  from)  the  deputies;  Socialists  and  MRP 
shared  both  fears.  The  final  composition  of  the  High  Council  of  the  Judiciary 
(Conseil  suplrieur  de  la  magistrature)  was  prescribed  in  Article  83,  and  its 
functions  in  Articles  35  and  84.  The  President  of  the  Republic  and  the  minister 
of  justice  became  ex  officio  chairman  and  vice-chairman,  and  of  the  twelve 
members,  who  sat  for  six  years,  half  were  professional  and  half  political 
representatives.  Four  grades  of  judges  (juges  depaix  and  courts  of  first  instance, 
appeal  and  Cassation)  chose  one  each,  and  two  were  appointed  by  the  Presi- 
dent of  the  Republic  from  the  other  judicial  professions ;  these  six  were  not  re- 
eligible.  The  other  six  were  chosen  by  the  National  Assembly  by  a  two-thirds 
majority  from  outside  its  own  ranks.  For  every  full  member  an  alternate  was 
chosen  in  the  same  way.35 

The  political  representatives  had  been  advocated  as  an  element  free  from 
professional  cliques  and  jealousies  -  and  also,  as  their  term  was  longer  than 
the  deputies'  own,  from  their  own  *  constituents'.36  At  the  first  election  in 

32.  Five  of  the  ten  elected  on  28  August  1951  had  just  lost  their  seats. 

33.  Not  defined  in  the  penal  code,  by  which  the  High  Court  was  normally  bound. 

34.  AP  1950,  pp.  50,  229-31 ;  cf.  Williams,  no.  218,  and  above,  pp.  37, 238  n.  61. 

35.  SCC  i,  pp.  127-32, 615 ;  n,  pp.  87-92  (principles),  Waline,  no.  214  (rales). 

36.  P.  Cot,  SCC  I,  p.  129  and  n,  pp.  89  and  91 ;  P.  Ramadier,  SCC  n,  p.  88. 


300  THE  INSTITUTIONS 

March  1948  the  Assembly's  justice  committee  drew  up  an  agreed  list,  and  all 
parties  picked  jurists  rather  than  politicians;37  in  1950,  when  the  Communist 
nominee  broke  with  the  party  and  offered  to  resign,  President  Auriol  refused.38 
A  two-thirds  majority  was  preferred  to  PR  as  a  way  to  ensure  balanced 
representation;39  this  invited  deadlock,  and  in  1952  a  struggle  for  a  vacant 
seat  lasted  without  a  decision  over  twelve  months  and  thirteen  ballots. 

Under  Article  35  of  the  constitution  the  President  exercised  his  right  of 
pardon  in  the  High  Council,  which  met  weekly  at  the  filys^e.  He  had  to  ask 
but  not  to  take  its  advice ;  in  practice  he  diverged  from  it  only  by  clemency. 
In  its  first  three  years  the  Council  considered  75,000  cases  (often  in  groups), 
and  by  April  1949,  27,000  out  of  the  38,000  imprisoned  under  the  Liberation 
purge,  and  1 5,000  of  the  40,000  sentenced  to  *  national  disgrace ',  had  benefited 
from  a  pardon.40  In  1952  the  butchers'  association  advised  15,000  of  its  mem- 
bers sentenced  for  price-fixing  offences  to  appeal  for  clemency  to  the  Council; 
by  threatening  to  paralyse  it,  they  extorted  concessions  from  the  government.41 

The  Council  also  supervised  the  judges  (the  magistrature  assise)  though  not 
public  prosecutors  and  State  attorneys  (the  magistrature  debout  or  parquet).  It 
was  responsible  both  for  then*  discipline,  replacing  the  Court  of  Cassation  (the 
highest  civil  court  in  France,  which  had  performed  this  function  under  pre- 
vious regimes),  and  for  their  promotion,  taking  over  from  the  ministry  of 
justice;  so  that  the  semi-political  High  Council  of  the  Judiciary  was  substi- 
tuted for  a  branch  of  the  judiciary  in  one  sphere  and  of  the  executive  in 
another.  Disciplinary  action  was  rare,  promotion  frequent:  in  1949  the  Coun- 
cil made  a  thousand  appointments.42  Article  84,  which  made  the  judges 
constitutionally  irremovable,  required  the  High  Council  of  the  Judiciary  to 
ensure  (assurer)  their  discipline  and  independence. 

A  bitter  struggle  developed  around  this  verb  between  the  Council  and  a 
ministry  of  justice  unreconciled  to  losing  its  powers.  The  ministry  held  that  it 
was  against  French  tradition  for  an  irresponsible  organization  -  and  President 
-  to  control  the  judiciary;  that  the  minister's  countersignature  (though  never 
likely  to  be  refused)  was  therefore  necessary  before  the  Council's  decisions 
could  be  enforced;  and  that  the  Council  should  perform  its  supervisory 
activities  from  a  remote  and  ineffective  height.  A  tiny  staff,  inadequate 
acconjmodation,  and  dossiers  prepared  by  the  ministry  circumscribed  the 
independence  of  the  Council.43  Yet  it  was  determined  to  administer  its  allotted 

37.  Except  that  SFIO  asked  Blum,  who  refused,  and  then  nominated  Andr6  Hauriou,  a 
professor  of  law  and  a  senator.  In  1952  SFIO  proposed  a  former  deputy  (a  barrister)  for  the 
vacant  seat  (see  n.  38). 

38.  Bat  be  lost  his  seat  after  all  when  the  party  published  a  confidential  Council  document  he 
was  suspected  of  having  given  them  earlier:  Monde,  20  October  1951. 

39.  P.  Coste-Floret,  SCC  i,  p.  617. 

40.  For  the  meaning  of  *  pardon'  and  the  President's  role  see  above,  pp.  197n.,  199 ;  for  the 
75,000,  C.  Anbert  in  Monde,  16  June  1950;  for  the  other  figures,  ibid.,  14  April  1949.  Numbers 
tried  and  punished  were  relatively  much  higher  in  Belgium,  Holland  and  Norway :  see  Williams, 
p.  302n. 

41.  Meynaud,  p.  224. 

42.  Anbert,  he.  cit.  In  six  years  Auriol's  candidates  were  defeated  only  three  times:  Monde, 
9  May  1953  (but  cf.  p.  199  above).  Coty  seems  to  have  had  less  influence :  ibid.,  24  November  1962. 

43.  'Busily  the  High  Council  manufactures  bills.  Methodically  the  Ministry  buries  them.  Or 
rather  it  does  not  bury  them ;  bureaucratic  routine  takes  care  of  that.  It  simply  fails  to  dig  them 
out* :  Anbert,  fac.  cit.  The  High  Councirs  committees  met  in  the  ministry's  library  -  in  overcoats, 

[over 


SUBORDINATE  INSTITUTIONS  301 

sphere  and  indeed  extend  it  to  the  parquet.  In  April  1948  the  cabinet  approved 
a  bill  giving  the  upstart  body  even  less  scope  than  the  minister  had  conceded, 
but  this  stayed  buried  in  the  Assembly's  justice  committee.  A  year  later 
President  Auriol  announced  a  bill  to  remove  the  examining  magistrates 
(Juges  d9  instruction)  from  the  parquet's  supervision;  three  days  later  the  minis- 
ter of  justice,  Robert  Lecourt,  retorted  that  the  ministry  would  deal  with  the 
problem  itself;  the  cabinet  supported  him,  the  rest  of  the  Council  unanimously 
protested.44  But  the  shortage  of  parliamentary  time  prevented  any  far-reaching 
reform. 

The  struggle  to  take  judicial  administration  out  of  politics  was  not  con- 
cluded when  the  High  Council  was  set  up,  but  an  important  beginning  had 
been  made.  The  ministry  still  influenced  promotions  but  could  not  finally 
decide  them,  and  the  most  powerful  deputy  had  little  say  on  them.  Overt 
political  interference  was  publicized  and  checked  as  in  April  1950  when  the 
Council  (supported  for  once  by  the  minister,  Rene  Mayer)  protested  at  the 
cabinet's  threats  against  judges  who  had  acquitted  accused  Communists. 
These  advances  of  the  early  Fourth  Republic  were  largely  due  to  President 
Auriol,  under  whom  'the  centre  of  gravity  of  the  judiciary  perhaps  moved 
from  the  Place  Vendome  to  the  £ly$6e'.45 

French  judges,  though  secure  in  their  posts,  had  hitherto  been  subject  to 
political  influence  because  their  low  pay  made  them  too  dependent  on  pro- 
motion.46 The  High  Council  checked  the  consequence  without  removing  the 
cause;  the  standard  of  judges  could  not  be  improved  while  their  salaries 
remained  inadequate.  Bias,  conformity,  mediocrity  and  pusillanimity  caused 
some  shocking  abuses  during  the  Algerian  war,  especially  in  the  military 
courts  (where  civilian  judges  preside).47  Experience  in  the  Fifth  Republic 
abundantly  showed  that  the  courts  were  not  tools  of  the  government,  but  their 
other  failings  denied  them  that  public  confidence  which  has  made  their 
American  counterparts  the  accepted  protectors  of  minorities  against  the  mis- 
deeds of  men  in  power. 

4.   CONSTITUTIONAL  AMENDMENT  AND  THE  CONSTITUTIONAL 
COMMITTEE 

France  has  had  many  constitutions,  and  their  status  is  naturally  lower  than  in 
the  United  States.  Since  the  Revolution  constitutional  theory  has  insisted  on 

as  the  radiators  did  not  work :  Figaro,  28  October  1949.  When  President  Auriol  offered  a  building 
attached  to  the  filysee  this  was  stopped-  on  grounds  of  'economy*  -  for  if  the  Council  left  the 
ministry's  premises  the  dossiers  might  go  with  it :  Anbert,  loc.  cit.  The  Council  eventually  obtained 
its  own  building. 

44.  Monde,  14  April  1949.  While  judges  could  be  removed  only  for  cause  shown  after  a  hearing 
before  the  disciplinary  authority,  the  minister  could  dismiss  members  of  the  parquet  from  their 
posts  (though  not  from  the  profession).  The  parquet  claimed  to  supervise  and  promote  juges 
d*  instruction  because  of  their  investigating  functions;  but  their  dependence  on  it  encouraged 
abuses  such  as  keeping  untried  suspects  too  long  in  prison. 

45.  Siegfried,  De  la  IHe,  p.  230;  cf.  Goguel,  Regime,  pp.  70-1.  But  the  constitution  of  the 
Fifth  Republic  was  drafted  by  a  minister  of  justice,  Debr6,  and  restored  some  of  the  ministry's 
powers  at  the  High" Council's  expense:  see  Williams  and  Harrison,  p.  256,  but  cf.  pp.  167-8.  On 
1950,  Monde,.2*  April  1950;  Arne,  pp.  76-7;  and  above,  p.  211. 

46.  Cf.  R.  C.  K.  Ensor,  Courts  and  Judges  in  France,  Germany  and  England  (1933),  pp.  40-2, 
11S-21;  and  Sharp,  pp.  196-7.  But  cf.  above,  p.  211n.  15. 

47.  See  below,  pp.  348,  351  and  n. 


302  THE  INSTITUTIONS 

the  sovereignty  of  Parliament;  courts  have  never  inquired  whether  a  law  con- 
formed to  the  constitution,  and  there  has  been  no  effective  restraint  on  rulers 
and  majorities  who  sought  to  infringe  or  alter  inconvenient  constitutional 
provisions.  Assuming  that  partisan  behaviour  would  recur,  all  the  political 
groups  wished  to  safeguard  their  own  position.  In  1946,  when  the  Left  was 
predominant,  conservatives  tried  to  erect  barriers  against  the  will  of  the 
majority.  Later  the  Right  demanded  an  easier  amendment  procedure  and  the 
Left  resisted  it. 

In  the  Third  Republic  a  constitutional  amendment  had  only  two  stages: 
first  a  resolution  passed  by  an  absolute  majority  in  both  houses,  then  a  bill 
voted  by  an  absolute  majority  of  the  two  houses  sitting  together  at  Versailles. 
In  the  Fourth,  Article  90  laid  down  three :  a  resolution  stating  the  object  of  the 
amendment  and  passed  twice  (with  three  months'  interval)  by  an  absolute 
majority  of  the  Assembly;  a  bill  voted  in  the  ordinary  way ;  and  a  referendum. 
But  the  resolution  need  not  pass  the  Assembly  twice  if  the  Council  of  the 
Republic  also  voted  it  by  an  absolute  majority,  nor  need  the  bill  go  to 
referendum  if  it  had  a  special  majority  (three-fifths  in  both  houses,  or  two- 
thirds  on  its  final  reading  in  the  Assembly).48  Referendum  or  special  majority 
were  thus  alternative  safeguards  against  abuse.  As  in  the  lifetime  of  the  Third 
Republic,  the  republican,  form  of  government  could  not  be  changed  (Article 
95);  and  because  of  its  death  in  1940,  no  amendment  might  be  initiated  or 
passed  while  all  or  part  of  France  was  occupied  by  foreign  troops  (Article 
94).49 

The  procedure  proved  unexpectedly  hard  to  operate.  In  1945  most  deputies, 
apart  from  Communists  and  Radicals,  had  favoured  the  referendum.  But 
after  a  few  years  in  Parliament  they  became  as  hostile  to  it  as  their  predecessors, 
and  by  1953  even  keen  revisionists  preferred  no  amendment  at  all  to  one 
ratified  by  the  electorate.  The  special  majorities  therefore  became  essential. 
With  the  Communists  opposed,  these  were  hard  to  attain:  a  two-thirds 
majority  required  80  or  even  90%  of  the  non-Communist  deputies,  and  for 
three-fifths  to  suffice,  75  or  80%  of  them  had  to  agree  with  a  Council  where 
party  strengths  were  different.  As  there  was  more  dissent  from  the  constitution 
than  assent  to  any  alternative,  it  proved  impossible  to  make  substantial 
changes  through  this  procedure.50 

Resolutions  for  amendment  could  be  introduced  only  by  a  deputy,  not  by  a 
senator  or  the  government.  (This  restriction,  broken  by  Pflimlin  in  the  last 
days  of  the  regime,  was  very  easily  evaded :  the  first  senatorial  motions  asking 

48.  Except  that  even  two-thirds  of  the  deputies  could  not  abolish  the  upper  house  without  a 
refereEtdiim,  an  illusory  protection  which  guaranteed  neither  its  powers  nor  its  composition : 
A,  Hriip,  JO  28  September  1946,  p.  4219,  quoted  Brevet,  p.  120,  cf.  p.  111.  The  fractions  were 
of  votes  cast,  not  of  total  membership;  ibid.t  pp.  115-16;  Goguel,  no.  110,  p.  487;  cf.  Poutier, 
p.  30,  The  initial  resolution  went  to  the  upper  house  only  if  the  lower  so  chose:  Drevet,  pp.  50-2. 

49.  But  the  constitution  was  amended  in  June  1958  while  Corsica  (and  Algeria)  were  occupied 
by  insurgent  French  troops. 

50.  As  M.  Goguel  had  predicted :  Rtgime,  p.  47.  Communist  strength  in  the  Assembly  varied 
from  16  to  30%.  On  the  referendum  debate  in  1946  see  Drevet,  pp.  99-114,  and  on  referendum- 
phobia  later  also  Ibid.,  pp.  133, 136;  Poutier,  pp.  42-3 ;  Goguel,  no.  110,  pp.  487-8.  In  1946  the 
Communists  wanted  to  ban  the  referendum,  in  1953  to  make  it  compulsory :  Drevet,  pp.  107, 109, 
112-13,  cf.  Poutier,  pp.  22, 


SUBORDINATE  INSTITUTIONS  303 

the  Assembly  to  introduce  a  resolution  dated  from  1949.51)  The  deputies 
voted  three  resolutions :  one  in  November  1950,  under  which  the  1954  amend- 
ment passed;  one  in  May  1955,  which  led  to  an  abortive  bill  in  March  1958, 
and  was  the  enabling  authority  for  transferring  the  amending  power  to  de 
Gaulle's  government  in  June;  and  Pflimlin's,  on  27  May  1958.52  The  Council 
of  the  Republic,  which  could  not  amend  the  resolutions,  voted  the  first  in 
January  1951  and  the  second  in  July  1955  with  accompanying  motions  of  its 
own:  for  it  feared  that  a  resolution  which  it  had  passed  in  order  to  increase  its 
own  powers  might  be  used  by  the  Assembly  to  reduce  them.53  This  was  possible 
because  the  Assembly  decided  in  1950  that  the  *  object'  could  be  specified 
merely  by  enumerating  the  articles  to  be  amended  (so  that  the  purpose  of  the 
changes  had  to  be  inferred  from  the  committee's  report).54  The  rapporteur  in 
1955  disagreed  with  this  interpretation;  but  his  own  resolution,  which  specified 
one  article  only,  was  amended  in  the  house  to  add  27  others  on  which  the 
committee  had  not  reported.55 

The  amending  bill  under  the  1950  resolution  was  passed  by  the  deputies  only 
on  22  July  1953,  by  the  senators  (to  whom  they  allowed  extra  time)  on  17 
March  1954,  and  in  final  form  by  the  Assembly  on  30  November  by  a  two- 
thirds  majority,  412  to  141. 56  Its  passage  was  complicated  both  by  differences 
between  the  houses  and  by  a  problem  of  procedure.  The  amending  bill  could 
alter  no  article  not  specified  in  the  resolution:  but  must  it  change  all  those 
specified?  By  1953  few  people  still  wanted  to  amend  Article  7  (on  the  state  of 
siege)  and  the  Assembly  voted  by  500  to  0  not  to  do  so.  But  the  senators  feared 
that  they  might  accept  a  resolution  in  order  to  increase  their  own  powers,  then 
see  the  Assembly  drop  the  changes  they  wanted  and  proceed  only  with  the 
rest.  They  decided  by  207  to  0  that  every  article  in  lie  resolution  must  be 
amended,  and  so  proposed  a  purely  formal  change  in  Article  7.  Proclaiming 
its  right  to  stand  firm,  the  Assembly  gave  way.  But  in  1955  it  opened  the  way 
to  similar  manoeuvres  by  a  resolution  authorizing  a  separate  discussion  and 
vote  on  the  different  articles.  Intended  to  prevent  disputes  on  the  domestic 
clauses  holding  up  amendment  of  the  overseas  ones,  that  decision  allowed 
General  de  Gaulle  in  1958  to  carry  the  Fourth  Republic's  second  constitu- 
tional amendment.  This  altered  one  Article  (90)  so  as  to  permit  his  govern- 
ment to  draft  the  whole  new  text.57 

51.  Drevet,  pp.  37-42,  Poutier,  pp.  9-11,  Georgel,  i.  18.  For  the  articles  most  deputies  wanted 
to  amend  see  ibid.,  i.  13-14,  323-5. 

52.  The  last  covered  Articles  9, 12, 13  and  45  (as  the  government  proposed)  and  48,  52  and  92 
(added  later),  which  were  to  be  joined  to  the  bill  then  before  the  upper  house;  it  passed  on  a 
vote  of  confidence  by  408  to  165,  but  Pflimlin  resigned:  Drevet,  pp.  173-5,  Georgel,  i.  320-1 
(and  above,  p.  56).  The  first  two  are  discussed  below. 

53.  Drevet,  pp.  55-8.  In  1951  the  Council  demanded  a  broader  reform  and  no  reduction  of 
its  own  rights  (see  also  AP  1951,  p.  8;  Berlia,  no.  13a,  pp.  475-6;  and  Poutier,  p.  18);  the 
Assembly's  rapporteur  said  this  motion  was  unconstitutional.  But  in  1955  the  Council  passed 
another  urging  priority  for  amendment  of  Article  90  itself. 

54.  Drevet,  pp.  60-5.  Specifying  the  'object*  was  supposed  to  avoid  the  kind  of  sweeping 
formula  used  by  Laval  in  1940;  1958  showed  it  did  not  (pp.  60,  178-9). 

55.  Ibid.,  pp.  65-8.  To  Article  90  were  added  three  articles  on  the  rise  and  fall  of  ministries 
(49-51)  which  the  committee  had  discussed  informally,  one  on  money  bills  (17)  and  twenty-three 
on  the  French  Union  (60-82)  which  it  had  not, 

56.  On  it  see  Berlia,  nos.  12a  and  13a. 

57.  Drevet,  pp,  68-77, 118, 175-81  suggests  that  Parliament  could  not  legally  be  excluded  from 

[over 


304  THE  INSTITUTIONS 

Experience  with  the  first  amendment  had  shown  that  only  ministers  could 
organize  agreement  between  the  parties.  But  their  legal  right  to  do  so  was 
doubtful.  Until  1958  everyone  agreed  that  they  could  not  propose  a  resolution 
(and  the  Communists  contended  that  they  should  not  even  speak).  When 
Ren£  Mayer's  cabinet  brought  in  an  amendment  bill  in  1953,  the  Conseil 
cFttat  advised  that  this  was  legal  but  the  Assembly's  franchise  committee 
voted  that  it  was  not.  In  1954,  however,  Mendes-France's  government  helped 
to  reconcile  the  views  of  the  two  houses  on  the  navette,  and  saved  the  critical 
clause  by  a  majority  of  only  two.  In  the  third  National  Assembly  Guy  Mollet 
called  strongly  for  an  amending  bill,  but  would  not  intervene  in  detail.  Felix 
Gaillard,  when  his  credit  was  already  wearing  thin,  introduced  an  amendment 
bill  of  his  own  which  he  emasculated  in  hopes  of  an  easier  passage:  the 
franchise  committee  decided  that  his  action  was  legal  (reversing  its  view  of 
1953)  but  threw  out  his  bill.  A  new  measure  was  reported  out,  twice  referred 
back  to  committee  (once  after  a  vote  of  confidence  in  the  government),  and 
after  thirteen  sittings  passed  the  Assembly  on  21  March  1958  by  308  to  206.58 
But  it  was  not  to  come  into  force  till  a  new  electoral  law  was  voted.  There  was 
some  reason  to  claim  that  de  Gaulle's  was  the  only  way  the  constitution  could 
be  amended,  and  some  excuse  for  the  attacks  to  which  Article  90  was  sub- 
jected.59 

Yet  procedure  was  not  mainly  to  blame.  If  the  first  amendment  took  four 
years  to  pass  and  the  second  made  little  progress  in  three,  the  delays  were  due 
partly  to  extraneous  factors  (elections,  government  crises,  ED  C,  Algeria)  and 
partly  to  disagreements  of  substance.  When  the  object  was  accepted  a  for- 
mula could  be  found;  the  French  Union  clauses,  added  to  the  1955  resolution 
at  the  last  minute  with  no  prior  discussion  in  the  franchise  committee,  were 
the  only  ones  on  which  that  querulous  body  could  agree  in  1956.60  Certainly 
the  special  majorities  meant  that  the  agreement  had  to  extend  to  every  party 
which  supported  the  regime.  But  it  was  illogical  of  conservatives  to  suppose 
that  they  could  remedy  this  situation  by  changing  Article  90  so  as  to  remove 
the  veto  that  every  'republican*  party  enjoyed:  for  either  all  these  parties 
agreed  on  the  object  of  the  revision  and  Article  90  was  no  obstacle,  or  some 
disagreed  and  clung  to  their  veto.  Controlling  the  upper  house,  conservatives 
naturally  favoured  an  easy  amendment  procedure,  which  would  allow  them  to 
carry  proposals  when  they  had  a  majority  in  the  Assembly  and  block  them 
when  the  Left  had.61  But  a  written  constitution  is  pointless  if  it  can  be  changed 

the  process  unless  Article  3  had  been  amended  (but  no  resolution  had  authorized  its  amendment). 
De  Gaulle's  bill  was  voted  by  350  to  163  in  the  Assembly,  where  some  opponents  abstained  to 
ensure  a  s|«dal  majority  and  no  referendum,  and  by  256  to  30  in  the  upper  house. 

58.  Some  politicians  amended  arithmetic  and  argued  that  308  was  three-fifths  of  514. 

59.  Brevet,  pp.  78-91,  139-40,  154-5,  170-3;  cf.  Georgel,  i.  18-21,  Arne",  pp.  173-5. 

60.  Drevet,  pp.  135-8  (delays),  139,  154-5;  its  own  rapporteur,  Paul  Coste-Floret,  admitted 
that  except  on  the  Union  clauses  its  conclusions  were  useless.  (In  June  1958  the  committee's  last 
fling  was  to  insist  that  Parliament  must  vote  on  de'  Gaulle's  draft,  and  that  it  should  not  go  to 
referendum  if  accepted  there.  But  the  General  got  his  way  by  threatening  to  resign.) 

61 .  Cf.  Pomtier,  p.  45.  For  conservative  complaints  against  the  need  for  compromise  see  Drevet, 
p.  133,  es$>ecially  Jean  Legarefs:  *a  special  majority  cannot  be  assembled  around  great  ideas 
and  great  texts*.  But  do  great  ideas  and  great  texts  make  acceptable  constitutions  in  divided 
countries? 


SUBORDINATE  INSTITUTIONS  305 

like  any  other  law,  and  in  Socialist  eyes  conservatives  had  no  divine  right  to  a 
privileged  position. 

Since  the  demand  for  constitutional  change  came  from  conservatives,  the 
Constitutional  Committee  had  no  function.  Created  in  1946  to  check  surrepti- 
tious violation  of  the  constitution  by  the  Assembly,  it  was  a  compromise 
between  the  Right  who  favoured  judicial  review  of  the  constitutionality  of 
laws,  the  Radicals  who  wanted  a  strong  second  chamber,  MRP  and  SFIO 
who  preferred  control  by  referendum,  and  the  Communists  who  opposed  any 
check  at  all.  The  Socialists,  fearing  obstruction  of  their  social  security  and 
nationalization  policies,  had  its  competence  limited  to  the  first  89  articles  of 
the  constitution  so  as  to  exclude  both  the  amendment  procedure  and  the 
Preamble,  which  thus  remained  an  abstract  pronouncement  with  no  visible 
means  of  support.62 

Under  Article  91  the  Committee  included  the  President  of  the  Republic  as 
chairman,  the  Presidents  of  both  houses  of  Parliament,  seven  members  elected 
annually  by  the  Assembly  and  three  by  the  Council  of  the  Republic  by  pro- 
portional representation  of  parties.  The  seven  and  three,  who  could  not  be 
members  of  the  chamber  which  elected  them,  were  often  professors  of  law;  in 
1946  MRP  elected  Marcel  Prelot,  once  a  university  rector  and  later  a  Gaullist 
politician,  and  the  RGR  deputies  chose  Andr£  Siegfried.  Under  Article  92  the 
Committee  could  consider  only  a  law  referred  to  it  by  an  absolute  majority  of 
the  senators  through  the  joint  agency  of  their  own  President  and  the  President 
of  the  Republic  within  the  ten  days  (five  where  urgency  was  claimed)  allowed 
for  promulgating  the  law.63  The  Committee  either  reconciled  the  two  houses 
(but  the  constitution  made  it  hard  to  arrange  a  compromise)  or  decided 
in  five  days  -  two  in  urgent  cases  -  whether  the  law  'presupposed  amendment 
of  the  constitution'.  If  not,  it  was  promulgated;  if  so,  under  Article  93  it  was 
sent  back  for  the  Assembly  to  decide  whether  to  begin  the  amendment  pro- 
cedure. 

As  the  inventor  of  the  compromise  later  affirmed,  the  Committee's  function 
was  to  protect  the  Council  of  the  Republic.64  This  was  both  futile,  since  the 
constitution  guaranteed  the  Council's  existence  but  not  its  powers  or  method 
of  election,  and  irrelevant,  since  the  upper  house  soon  proved  to  be  more 
aggressor  than  victim.  The  Committee  was  therefore  called  on  for  only  one 
ruling,  in  June  1948  when  the  second  chamber  was  still  cautious  and  co- 
operative. The  issue  was  not  the  bill  but  the  urgency  procedure  under  -which 
it  had  been  passed;  the  Communists  therefore  plausibly  claimed  that  the 

'  62.  SCC  n,  pp.  101-5.  The  first  draft  constitution  included  no  checking  authority,  which  was 
why  MRP  opposed  it :  Wright,  Reshaping,  pp.  1 55-6.  After  its  defeat  in  May  1946  S  F I O  accepted 
the  Committee  to  avoid  de  Gaulle's  alternative,  a  check  by  the  President.  Some  authorities 
thought  that  decree-laws,  though  not  laws,  could  be  challenged  in  court  for  infringing  constitu- 
tional principles :  Pinto,  no.  181,  pp.  526-7 ;  cf.  Pickles,  pp.  234, 235n. 

63,  No  countersignature  was  needed :  Goguel,  Regime,  pp.  68-9,  cf.  Soubeyrol,  no.  202,  p.  560, 
and  above,  p.  200  n.  19 

64.  On  27  July  1949  Auriol  wrote  to  Herriot,  *. . .  the  Committee  has  been  instituted  to  protect 
the  Council  of  the  Republic  against  the  encroachments  of  the  Assembly,  and  not  the  other  way 
round* :  AP 1949,  p.  335 ;  above,  pp.  200, 281 ;  Brevet,  pp.  19-21.  On  his  role  in  1946,  SCCn,  pp. 
405-6, 


306  THE  INSTITUTIONS 

Committee  had  no  jurisdiction.  But  all  the  non-Communists  in  the  Council  sup- 
ported the  appeal  to  the  Committee,  which  ruled  in  their  favour ;  the  Assembly 
accepted  the  verdict;  and  the  President  found  a  procedural  solution  by  refer- 
ring the  bill  back  to  the  Assembly  under  Article  36.65  A  year  later  relations 
between  the  houses  had  grown  much  worse.  In  July  1949  the  Assembly  over- 
ruled the  Council's  amendments  to  a  bill  on  parliamentary  immunity,  and 
then  adjourned.  Under  Article  9  the  Council  had  to  adjourn  also,  and  was 
unable  to  appeal  to  the  Committee.  Since  an  appeal  had  to  come  after  a  bill 
had  passed  the  Assembly  but  before  it  was  promulgated,  the  Assembly  could 
clearly  evade  Article  92  by  adjourning  for  ten  days  after  voting  a  bill  challenged 
by  the  upper  house.  But  the  President  of  the  Republic  came  to  the  Council's 
help  and  again  referred  the  bill  back  to  the  Assembly.66 

Other  appeals  were  occasionally  proposed.  In  August  1948  the  opposition 
challenged  Paul  Reynaud's  special  powers  bill  under  Article  13,  which  for- 
bade the  Assembly  to  delegate  legislative  power,  but  the  majority  senators 
voted  them  down.  In  September  1951  the  anticlericals  failed  to  carry  an  appeal 
against  the  Barange  bill  subsidizing  church  schools,  as  a-  breach  of  Article  1 
(La  France  est  une  Rgpublique  . . .  lalque)*1  On  such  controversial  legislation  a 
senator's  view  on  the  bill  would  often  decide  his  vote  on  the  need  for  amend- 
ing the  constitution.  Indeed  Article  93  itself,  with  its  hint  that  the  voting  of  an 
unconstitutional  law  would  very  likely  be  followed  by  a  constitutional  amend- 
ment, reflected  the  low  status  of  French  constitutions  and  the  presumption 
that  a  temporary  but  determined  political  majority  would  not  hesitate  to  over- 
ride them. 

As  it  was  assumed  that  majorities  would  misuse  their  power,  minorities 
wanted  to  be  able  to  stop  them.  The  special  majority  rules  gave  every  party 
but  the  Communists  an  effective  veto,  and  therefore  prevented  the  Fourth 
Republic  undertaking  any  important  change  by  way  of  constitutional  amend- 
ment* To  enthusiastic  revisionists  this  was  another  proof  of  the  decadence  of 
the  regime;  but  many  of  them  (most  Conservatives  and  some  Gaullists) 
wanted  a  stronger  state  only  to  entrench  immobilisme  at  home  and  abroad. 
Had  there  been  a  real  majority  there  would  have  been  little  demand  (or  need) 
for  constitutional  reform.  Without  one,  reform  agitation  was  'the  constitu- 
tional talisman  which  diverts  attention  from  political  impotence  '.68 

65»  Soulier,  no.  203,  and  see  above,  p.  284  and  n.  The  Committee's  decision  was  unanimous 
apart  from  one  abstention:  Prelot,  no.  184,  p.  727.  Cf.  Williams,  pp.  290-1. 

66.  An  appeal  under  Article  92  would  also  have  needed  his  co-operation.  See  p.  211  n.  14; 
Drago*  no*  75,  p,  404 ;  on  Art  9,  above,  p.  28 1 ;  on  relations  between  the  houses,  above,  pp.  286-7. 

67.  On  the  appeal,  the  anticlerical  senators  were  40  fewer  than  on  the  bill  itself.  Cf.  AP  1951, 
p.  224 ;  E.  Weill-Raynal  in  Popidaire,  25, 26  and  27  September  1951 ;  Lemasurier,  no.  142 ;  Pernot, 
no.  173;  and  on  Reynaud's  biH,  Pinto,  no.  181,  pp.  519-20,  and  above,  pp.  270-1* 

68.  Leo  Hamon,  quoted  Georgel,  i.  23. 


Chapter  22 
THE  ELECTORAL  SYSTEM 

Though  electoral  systems  are  often  defended  on  high  principles,  they  are 
usually  chosen  for  party  or  individual  advantage.  In  France  they  were  classical 
terrain  for  partisan  manoeuvres.  Every  great  political  change  brought  the 
adoption  of  a  wider  franchise,  larger  or  smaller  constituencies,  or  a  new  method 
of  allocating  seats.  Manhood  suffrage  was  instituted  in  1848.  Women  were 
given  the  vote  by  General  de  Gaulle  in  1945.  Large  multi-member  constituen- 
cies based  on  the  department  prevailed  from  1848  to  1852,  1871  to  1875, 1885 
to  1889,  1919  to  1927,  and  1945  to  1958;  electors  had  sometimes  to  vote  for  a 
list,  not  a  person,  and  seats  were  attributed  in  various  ways.1  In  between  there 
were  small  single-member  constituencies  based  on  the  arrondissement;  a  can- 
didate was  elected  at  once  if  he  had  over  half  the  votes  cast  and  a  quarter  of 
those  on  the  register;  if  no  one  did,  there  was  a  second  ballot  after  a  week 
(before  1914  two  weeks)  at  which  the  man  with  most  votes  won.  But  the  simple 
Anglo-American  system  with  only  one  ballot  was  unacceptable  to  Frenchmen. 
For  with  many  parties  members  would  often  be  elected  by  a  small  minority  of 
voters ;  and  if  the  system  forced  the  citizens  of  a  deeply  divided  nation  into  two 
hostile  camps,  the  consequence  (especially  if  one  camp  were  dominated  by  the 
Communist  party)  might  be  civil  war  rather  than  stable  democracy. 

1.   'SCRUTIN  D' ARRONDISSEMENT*  AND  PROPORTIONAL 
REPRESENTATION 

Thirteen  of  the  Third  Republic's  sixteen  elections  were  held  under  scrutin 
cT arrondissement  with  two  ballots.  After  1914,  few  seats  were  won  by  an 
absolute  majority  at  the  first  ballot;2  at  the  second  round  most  constituencies 
had  a  straight  fight  between  Right  and  Left,  some  had  three-cornered  con- 
tests, and  a  handful  might  have  four  candidates.3  The  system  encouraged 
small,  moderate  and  ill-disciplined  parties.  They  were  small  because  at  the 
first  ballot  every  individualist  and  splinter  group  could  spread  propaganda  and 
solicit  votes  without  risking  the  triumph  of  their  worst  enemy.  They  were 
moderate  because  at  the  second  round,  the  serious  candidate  nearest  the  centre 
was  likely  to  win  the  doubtful  voters.4  'At  the  first  ballot  you  choose,  at  the 
second  you  eliminate'.  Radicals  in  the  left-wing  Midi  could  attract  Conser- 
vative support  against  the  more  dangerous  Socialists,  while  in  the  Catholic 

1*  See  Campbell,  French  Electoral  Systems  and  Elections  (1957).  On  1958,  see  n,  21. 

2.  To  1881,  80%;  to  1914,  60%;  in  1932, 40%;  in  1928  and  1936,  30%.  Ibid.,  pp.  34-7. 

3.  Even  in  1928  and  1936  only  130  and  59  seats  had  three  second-ballot  candidates  with  over 
1,000  votes,  and  only  9  and  14  had  more:  Middleton,  pp.  95-6;  Williams,  p.  310n.  (1928); 
Inegalit&s,  p.  272  (1936).  On  the  two  blocs  see  Goguel,  Lapolitique  des  partis  sous  la  Troisieme 
RtpubUque,  passim;  Siegfried,  France,  pp.  51-2,  68-72  (and  Tableau,  pp.  24,  31-4);  SouHer,  pp. 
401-2,  406-8,  448-9;  Duverger,  Parties,  p.  216. 

4.  Under  full  PR  the  Communists  would  have  had  54  more  seats  in  1928,  38  in  1932,  and  21 
in  1936 ;  Socialists  8  more,  7  fewer  and  28  fewer;  Radicals  and  allies  36, 46  and  30  fewer;  groups 
to  their  Right  34  fewer,  21  more  and  37  more:  Soulier,  p.  516n.;  Systemes  electoraux*  p.  64; 
Lachapelle,  Les  regimes  Mectoraux,  p.  164, 


308  THE  INSTITUTIONS 

west  they  gained  Socialist  votes  against  the  friends  of  the  Church;  in  1928 
fewer  than  fifty  deputies  won  without  clerical  or  socialist  help.5  Members  of 
the  centre  groups  therefore  rejected  party  discipline,  since  ^  their  electoral 
interests  differed  regionally.  While  nominally  extreme  British  parties  are 
brought  closer  by  a  common  magnet,  the  floating  voter,  the  theoretically 
moderate  French  parties  were  pulled  asunder  by  their  members'  dependence 
on  extremist  second-ballot  support.6 

As  the  Radicals  benefited  from  the  second  ballot,  the  Socialists  and  Con- 
servatives both  demanded  proportional  representation  (PR);  occasionally 
they  made  'unnatural'  electoral  alliances  based  on  this  common  interest.7 
Even  when  the  PR  supporters  captured  the  Chamber  they  were  frustrated  by 
the  Radical  Senate,  which  before  the  1919  election  imposed  a  hybrid  com- 
promise allowing  PR  only  if  no  list  won  a  clear  majority  of  votes  within  a 
department.  This  law,  which  rewarded  electoral  discipline,  helped  the  Right 
in  1919  and  the  Left  in  1924.  Scrutin  farrondissement  was  restored  in  1927, 
but  by  1945  it  seemed  to  everyone  but  its  Radical  beneficiaries  as  discredited  as 
the  Third  Republic  itself.  Yet  it  was  not  the  cause  of  heterogeneous  majorities 
in  Parliament;  it  was  precisely  because  there  was  no  homogeneous  majority 
among  the  voters  that  most  Frenchmen  preferred  an  electoral  system  of  this 
type.  It  was  a  consequence  of  the  division  of  opinion  which  it  helped  to  per- 
petuate. 

Scrutin  d'arrondissement  enabled  the  citizen  to  choose  a  deputy  to  act  as  his 
personal  spokesman  with  the  authorities,  and  as  an  ambassador  from  his 
district  to  Paris.  Critics  complained  that  the  clash  of  political  ideas  was  lost 
amid  the  confusion  of  local  interests,  and  that  loose  parties,  shifting  majorities 
and  short-lived  cabinets  never  allowed  the  voter  to  pronounce  on  the  record 
of  a  responsible  government.  The  supporters  of  PR  believed  that  it  would  free 
the  deputy  from  the  parish  pump,  broadening  his  own  horizon  and  that  of  his 
followers.  Real  parties,  bound  together  by  loyalty  to  a  common  political  ideal, 
would  permit  a  real  majority  at  last  to  emerge.  And  in  1945  a  more  immediate 
reason  made  every  party  but  the  Radicals  welcome  PR:  it  ensured  them  all 
against  a  Parliament  dominated  by  one  rival,  particularly  the  Communists.8 

PR  was  a  device  to  make  the  citizen  choose  between  ideas  rather  than  men 
by  voting  for  a  party  list.9  If  the  lists  were  unalterable  the  deputy  would  be 
subjected  to  the  organization  which  drew  them  up ;  and  if  they  had  to  contain 
a  name  for  every  seat  at  stake,  it  might  be  hard  for  small  parties  and  impossible 
for  independent  candidates  to  stand  at  all.  The  device  was  less  effective  if  the 
lists  could  be  left  incomplete  or  altered  by  the  voter.  The  'preferential  vote* 

5,  AP  1929,  p.  419,  quoted  Siegfried,  France,  p.  179.  Thus  the  Radicals,  unlike  the  British 
Liberals,  did  not  lose  from  the  growth  of  socialism :  Duverger,  Parties,  pp.  323-4. 

6,  GeaetaHy,  tbid^  pp.  240,  318,  324,  331;  Middleton,  Chapter  4;  Campbell,  Chapter  4; 
Goguel  in  Syst&mes  tlectoraux.  On  the  Centre,  Soulier,  p.  528. 

7,  Cf.  Campbell,  p.  89.  By  this  politique  dupire  the  Right  sometimes  forced  centre  politicians 
to  terms:  see  Long,  Les  Elections  legislatives  en  Cdte  d*Or,  pp.  105-6,  204. 

8,  Gopjel,  Fourth  Republic,  pp.  61-2,  and  Regime,  p.  26. 

9,  Yet  Ireland's  single  transferable  vote  combines  PR  with  a  vote  for  men  not  lists,  and 
allows  broad  justice  between  parties  without  impeding  coalitions  among  them.  But  when  M. 
Duverger  proposed  it  in  1956,  an  ex-premier  told  him  it  was  politically  impossible  because  no 
<kputy .could  tell  how  it  would  affect  his  own  re-election:  Demaint  p.  99,  also  pp.  91-101.  Cf. 
Campbell,  p.  45,  Intgalites,  p.  Ill, 


THE  ELECTORAL  SYSTEM  309 

slightly  weakened  its  force  by  allowing  him  to  cross  names  off  his  chosen  list 
or  move  them  up  or  down;panachage  undermined  it  altogether  by  letting  him 
distribute  fractions  of  his  vote  over  candidates  on  more  than  one  list.10  But 
PR  was  also  a  means  to  ensure  that  the  conflicting  ideas  were  fairly  repre- 
sented. The  larger  the  constituency  within  which  it  operated,  the  better  this 
function  was  fulfilled.  If  the  whole  country  was  treated  as  a  unit,  as  in  Weimar 
Germany,  each  party  was  represented  proportionately  to  its  share  of  the  total 
vote  and  even  a  tiny  minority  could  win  a  seat.11  But  with  smaller  constituen- 
cies only  substantial  minorities  won  representation.  It  would  take  over  a  sixth 
of  the  votes  to  be  sure  of  a  seat  in  a  district  with  five  members,  over  a  quarter 
in  one  with  three. 

General  de  Gaulle  acceded  to  the  parties'  demand  for  PR  with  rigid  lists, 
but  he  chose  small  constituencies  without  national  pooling  of  votes  (and  with 
heavy  rural  over-representation,  later  corrected).12  In  October  1945  the  first 
Constituent  Assembly  was  elected  under  this  scheme.  In  its  constitutional 
drafting  committee  the  principle  of  PR  was  adopted  by  38  votes  to  3,  and 
against  Radical  and  Conservative  opposition  the  'big  three'  parties  agreed  to 
reject  panachage  and  the  preferential  vote,  and  to  allow  national  pooling  by 
large  parties  only.  But  their  bill  lapsed  when  the  draft  constitution  was  rejected 
by  referendum,  and  in  the  second  Constituent  Assembly  the  'big  three'  dis- 
agreed. Both  Communists  and  Socialists  favoured  national  pooling,  but  not 
M  RP ;  and  some  Socialists  wanted  panachage,  which  the  Communists  loathed. 
By  threatening  to  abstain  and  let  panachage  pass,  MRP  forced  the  Commu- 
nists to  drop  national  pooling  and  join  an  unholy  alliance  against  both 
amendments.  This  combination  imposed  the  law  of  5  October  1946.13  Most 
departments  formed  a  single  constituency,  though  seven  were  split  up;  most 
constituencies  had  three  to  five  members;  PR  operated  only  within  the  con- 
stituency; lists  had  to  have  as  many  names  as  there  were  seats;  there  was  no 
panachage,  and  only  a  bogus  form  of  preferential  vote.14 

Thus  de  Gaulle's  electoral  law,  almost  unchanged,  governed  three  post-war 
elections.  It  decisively  marked  the  politics  of  the  period.  Its  effects  on  party 
discipline  are  discussed  in  the  next  chapter.  Between  parties,  it  distributed  seats 
more  fairly  than  scrutin  (Tarrondissement  but  still  with  a  bias;  the  Centre 
had  gained  from  the  old  system,  the  new  one  now  helped  the  Left  -  for  it 
favoured  size,  and  at  each  of  these  elections  Communists,  Socialists  and 
MRP  were  the  three  strongest  parties  with  three-quarters  of  the  seats.  Large 
parties  gained  because  the  'highest  average*  system  of  allotting  seats  was  pre- 
ferred to  the  'highest  remainder'  system  (see  Appendix  VI)  and  because  most 

10.  Either  by  voting  for  a  list,  but  striking  out  some  of  its  candidates  and  writing  in  the  names 
of  rivals,  or  else  by  writing  out  a  list  of  his  own. 

1 1 .  But  special  provisions  often  debarred  it,  for  many  PR  advocates  worried  about  justice  for 
large  minorities  only. 

12.  In6galitls>  pp.  48-52;  and  for  the  maldistribution  of  seats,  pp.  177-213,  231-61.  In  1946 
the  industrial  areas  had  38  more  seats  than  de  Gaulle  had  intended,  but  they  were  still  short  and 
by  1956,  after  shifts  of  population,  were  again  badly  under-represented.  Cf.  Maps  4  and  21. 

13.  Jtaf.,  pp.  53-84;  Campbell,  pp.  103-12;  AP  1946,  pp.  72-5,  226-8.  The  alliance  revived 
for  PR  in  municipal  elections  in  1947,  and  against  a  double-ballot  system  in  1951  and  1955. 

14.  On  it  see  Appendix  vi.  Seine  formed  six  constituencies*  Nord  three,  and  5  departments 
two  each.  Of  102  constituencies  4  had  two  members,  13  had  three,  32  had  four,  16  had  five, 
11  had  six,  9  had  seven,  and  17  had  more:  3  eight,  7  nine,  5  ten,  2  eleven. 


310  THE  INSTITUTIONS 

constituencies  were  small,  so  that  at  least  one-sixth  of  the  vote  was  usually 
needed  to  ensure  election.  In  October  1945  and  June  1946  each  of  the  cbig 
three*  parties  could  win  a  seat  for  37,000  votes  at  most,  while  the  Radicals, 
half  their  size,  needed  60,000.  At  least  94%  of '  big  three '  supporters  cast  their 
votes  for  a  deputy,  but  half  the  Radicals  'wasted'  theirs  on  defeated  can- 
didates.15 

Consequently,  PR  reduced  the  number  of  parties  represented  in  Parliament. 
This  is  not  strange.  The  second  ballot  had  strongly  encouraged  multiplicity, 
and  since  PR  operated  only  over  a  small  constituency  and  favoured  big 
parties,  electors  preferred  to  'vote  usefully'.  More  important  still,  fear  of  the 
Communists  drove  them  to  seek  an  electoral  rampart.  Independently  of  the 
law,  it  reinforced  the  stronger  parties  and  impelled  them  to  organize.  But  the 
stricter  discipline  operated  not  on  a  majority  and  an  opposition  party  but  on 
several  minority  groups,  each  with  a  sectional  base  (assured  by  PR)  which  it 
had  little  incentive  to  expand ;  and  the  law  brought  about  conflict  in  the  country 
between  the  parties  which  were  obliged  to  co-operate  in  Parliament.16 

3.  BASTARD  PROPORTIONAL  REPRESENTATION,   1951  AND   1956 

The  electoral  system  of  1945^6  lost  favour  early  in  the  Fourth  Republic.  But 
PR  with  national  pooling  remained  nearly  everybody's  second  preference, 
since  it  offered  a  universal  guarantee  against  electoral  catastrophe;  and  some 
form  of  PR  was  still  the  first  choice  of  individuals  in  all  parties,  and  of  both 
Communists  and  MRP.  Both  prized  unity  and  discipline;  in  both  active 
militants  were  (at  least  in  the  early  years)  more  important  than  prominent 
local  personalities;  both  feared  that  alliances  would  be  made  more  easily 
against  them  than  with  them.  The  Communists  wanted  PR  to  reinforce  their 
internal  discipline:  to  preserve  their  deputies  from  dependence  on  support 
from  outside  the  party,  and  to  keep  their  followers  from  being  tempted  either 
to  'vote  usefully*  for  a  strong  Left  candidate,  or  to  discriminate  between  the 
leadership's  nominees  (this  was  why  they  so  bitterly  opposed  panachage).  It 
also  protected  them  against  a  majority  system,  where  alliances  would  harm 
them,  and  against  small  constituencies,  whose  boundaries  would  be  drawn 
against  them.  The  moralists  of  MRP  desired  electoral  justice  (though  not  to 
excess :  it  was  they  who  had  stopped  national  pooling).  They  were  afraid  of 
anticlerical  alliances  against  them  on  the  second  ballot  between  the  Radicals 
whom  they  despised  and  the  Socialists  whom  they  vainly  courted;  the  depart- 
mental and  senatorial  elections  of  1948  confirmed  and  strengthened  these 
fears.  The  militants  disliked  almost  equally  the  willing  embrace  of  RPF, 

15.  In  November  1946  Radicals  and  Conservatives  often  withdrew  in  the  other's  favour, 
and  so  narrowed  the  gap;  RGR  put  up  21  fewer  lists  than  in  June:  AP  1946,  p.  580,  Priouret, 
Partis,  p.  106n,  For  the  figures  cited  see  Campbell,  pp.  107-13 ;  Husson,  i.  xxxiii-v  and  ii.  xxxii-iii, 
253;  In4gafit£s,  pp.  291-2.  In  November  1946  less  than  2%  of  Communist  votes  were  *  wasted', 
3%  of  MRP,  about  10%  of  Conservatives  and  Socialists,  27%  of  RGR  and  47%  of  Gaullists; 
MRP  paid  32,000  votes  per  seat,  Communists  33,000,  Conservatives  35,000,  SFIO  38,000  and 
Radicals  43,000. 

16.  See  below,  pp.  317-18,  389.  Between  the  September  1945  majority  elections  to  depart- 
mental councils  and  the  October  general  election  under  PR,  Radical  and  Conservative  votes 
dropped  sharply:  Goguel,  Fourth  Republic,  p.  63.  Supporters  of  the  majority  system  therefore 
claimed  that  it  let  people  vote  as  they  chose  without  fear  of  wasting  their  vote  (in  Britain  it  is 
PR  supporters  who  use  this  argument). 


THE  ELECTORAL  SYSTEM  311 

which  would  prejudice  their  hopes  of  proving  themselves  republicans  of  the 
Left,  and  the  bigamous  temptations  of  local  combinations  which,  differing 
regionally*  would  wreck  the  movement's  precious  unity  and  blast  their  hopes 
of  regenerating  French  public  life.  For  these  active  Catholics  transferred  to 
politics  the  habits  of  discipline  learned  in  their  religious  organizations  as 
naturally  as  free-thinking  Radicals  tended  to  political  individualism.17 

Indifferent  to  internal  unity  and  with  no  aim  beyond  electoral  success,  the 
Radicals  were  the  champions  of  scrutin  d'arrondissement.  Over  the  years 
their  many  well-known  personalities  had  built  up  strong  local  positions,  and 
under  the  old  system  they  could  hope  to  revive  the  great  days  of  the  Third 
Republic,  when  they  sat  in  the  middle  of  the  political  seesaw  and  gained  both 
ways  at  the  second  ballot;  when  the  deputy's  personal  standing  meant  more 
than  his  policy,  and  well-repaired  local  by-roads  could  become  his  highways  to 
political  success;  when  Parliament  was  the  rampart  of  the  provincial  petty- 
bourgeoisie  and  peasantry  against  all  forms  of  organized  power,  whether 
wielded  by  bishops  or  trade  unionists,  generals  or  dictators.  This  was  among 
the  few  subjects  on  which  Radicals  of  all  wings  agreed,  and  they  were  con- 
vinced that  the  electorate  agreed  too.18 

The  other  parties  were  more  divided.  The  well-entrenched  Conservatives 
and  Socialists,  with  their  strong  local  roots,  were  both  traditional  supporters 
of  PR  among  whom  scrutin  d'arrondissement  was  fast  gaining  ground.  The 
constituency  interests  of  CNIP  parliamentarians  and  SFIO  federations 
differed  too  widely  for  either  to  have  a  strong  common  view;  but  whereas  the 
individualist  Conservative  deputy  voted  for  Ms  personal  preference,  the  dis- 
ciplined Socialists  -  having  little  to  gain  or  lose  over  the  country  as  a  whole  - 
cast  a  united  vote  for  every  proposed  change.19  For  PR  had  not  fulfilled  the 
hopes  that  it  would  improve  the  quality  of  candidates  or  the  tone  of  public 
life.  It  hampered  alliances  at  the  polls  between  parties  which  would  have  to 
co-operate  in  Parliament.  It  grew  increasingly  unpopular  with  the  electorate, 
who  preferred  to  vote  for  a  man,  not  a  list.  Above  all  it  guaranteed  180  seats  to 
SFIO's  Communist  arch-enemies;  and  in  1951  the  ministry  of  the  interior 
estimated  that  RPF  would  win  150,  since  against  the  divided  centre  groups 
the  two  oppositions  would  be  the  largest  single  parties  and  gain  the  advantage 
of  size  which  in  1945-46  had  accrued  to  the  big  three.20  PR  would  therefore 
mean  either  an  ungovernable  Assembly  or  one  in  which  General  de  Gaulle 
could  dictate  terms  for  his  co-operation. 

17.  Goguel  in  Encyclopedic,  i.  354,  and  Rtgtme,  pp.  85-6. 

18  Perhaps  wrongly:  a  poll  in  October  1950  snowed  22%  for  a  two-ballot  system,  16%  for  a 
one-ballot  majority  system,  25%  for  PR  and  37%  don't  knows:  Pouillon,  no.  183,  p.  99  (cf. 
Intgalitts,  p.  91).  By  1955  scrutin  d'arrondissement  does  seem  to  have  regained  support  as  list 
systems  lost  it:  cf.  ibid.,  p.  106.  Mendes-France  was  always  one  of  its  strongest  supporters, 
notably  at  the  Radicals'  DeauviUe  conference  in  1950  (cf.  below,  pp.  3 1 5,  33 1 ). 

19.  On  one  vital  vote  15  deputies  defected,  which  was  rare  in  SFIO:  above,  p.  288n.,  and 
below  p.  400.  But  even  this  showed  an  ideological  rather  than  a  constituency  preference :  MacRae, 
no.  149,  pp.  209,  210.  PR  was  still  favoured  in  regions  where  the  party  was  weak;  its  senators 
came  from  its  strongholds  and  were  for  scrutin  d'arrondissement. 

20.  The  ministry  (which  predicted  the  actual  results  with  striking  accuracy)  expected  from 
metropolitan  France  under  PR:  159  Communists,  146  RPF,  82  SFIO,  68  Conservatives,  64 
RGR,  25  MRP:  Carrefour,  6  February  1951 ;  for  details  see  Williams,  p.  317n,  And  cf.  above, 
p.  66n,»  on  voting  for  a  man  not  a  list 


312  THE  INSTITUTIONS 

TMs  prospect  made  PR  increasingly  acceptable  to  Gaullists.  Originally 
RPF  was  a  centralized  movement  of  new  men  who  demanded  strong  govern- 
ment and  hoped  to  build  a  real  majority  party.  Despising  parish-pump 
politics  and  believing  in  parliamentary  discipline,  they  advocated  large  con- 
stituencies and  a  majority  list  system  with  two  ballots,  hoping  to  lead  on  the 
first  and  attract  all  anti-Communist  votes  on  the  second.  But  as  their  impetus 
declined  their  preferences  changed.  If  rivals  led  on  the  first  ballot,  they  risked 
defections  among  their  own  supporters  at  the  polls  and  perhaps  in  Parliament. 
As  an  important  but  isolated  minority  instead  of  a  potential  majority  they, 
like  Communists  and  MRP,  found  in  PR  their  best  hope  of  internal  dis- 
cipline and  fair  representation;  and  by  maintaining  Communist  strength  PR 
would  ensure  their  own  bargaining  position.  In  September  1948  RPF  for  the 
first  time  demanded  immediate  dissolution  of  the  Assembly  without  prior 
electoral  reform,  and  in  1950  de  Gaulle  approved  two  *  honest'  electoral 
systems:  the  majority  list  system  and  PR.21  Opponents  concluded  that  RPF 
wanted  to  keep  PR  but  blame  M RP  for  it.22 

If  so,  it  failed.  Electoral  reform  had  a  difficult  passage  among  the  reefs  of 
conflicting  party  interests,  second  preferences,  and  minority  opinions.23  But 
MRP  was  isolated  among  the  centre  parties  in  its  defence  of  PR,  and  was 
eventually  driven  to  compromise  in  order  to  escape  unpopularity  and  an  un- 
governable (or  Gaullist-dominated)  Assembly.  Yet  it  feared  even  these  pros- 
pects less  than  the  second  ballot,  and  its  determination  finally  obliged  the 
reluctant  Radicals  and  the  indifferent  or  divided  Socialists  and  Conservatives 
to  settle  for  a  single-ballot  system  of  '* bastard  PR'.  The  most  fervently 
moralizing  of  parties  had  imposed  'the  least  honest  electoral  law  in  French 
history',24 

The  centre  parties  agreed  only  on  the  need  to  weaken  the  Communists 
without  strengthening  RPF.  The  Assembly's  franchise  committee  was  too 
divided  to  report,  and  when  it  asked  the  house  for  instructions  no  majority 
could  be  found  to  give  them.  MRP  and  many  Peasants  insisted  on  a  single 
ballot;  the  Radicals  and  most  Conservatives  demanded  two ;  the  Socialists 
voted  for  each  in  turn,  and  the  Communists  opposed  any  change.  On  21  Feb- 
ruary 1951  the  180  Communists,  with  different  allies  on  each  vote,  rejected 
eight  successive  proposals.  The  battle  lasted  six  months,  provoked  a  conflict 
between  the  houses,  and  destroyed  a  cabinet.  Many  African  deputies  were 
concerned  only  to  impose  a  wide  overseas  franchise  on  the  reluctant  Council 

21.  AP  1948,  p.  176;  1950,  p.  54.  But  in  power,  in  1958,  he  restored  scrutin  tfarrondissement. 
His  advisers*  who  often  lacked  local  roots  but  could  ensure  their  places  on  a  party  list,  were 
keener  on  PR  than  the  Gaullist  deputies,  who  had  all  been  elected  on  another  ticket  and  hoped 
to  renew  tbeir  old  alliances, 

22.  P.  H.  Teitgen,  JO  21  December  1950,  p.  9443.  But  Michel  Debr6  always  wanted  a  single- 
ballot  ma|ority  system. 

23.  Some  UDSR  and  Conservative  members  feared  that  with  two  ballots  the  extremists  would 
kad  on  the  first  and  polarize  the  centre  vote  on  the  second.  Some  MRP  'back-benchers',  too 
low  on  their  lists  to  be  re-elected  in  a  big  constituency,  had  cultivated  a  small  corner  of  it  in  hopes 
that  scrutin  (Tarr&ndissement  would  be  introduced.  Failing  it,  many  Radicals  preferred  PR  with 
national  (not  departmental)  pooling  of  votes,  Anti-GaulHst  urban  Radicals  needed  PR  to  survive. 
MRP,  allied  to  the  Coinmunists  in  defence  of  PR,  had  as  its  second  choice  a  single  ballot  with 
provision  for  party  alliances*  which  the  Communists  loathed. 

24.  As  Remy  Roure  called  it  in  Monde,  26  April  195L 


THE  ELECTORAL  SYSTEM  313 

of  the  Republic;  many  French  ones  were  obstructive  in  order  to  avoid  a  sum- 
mer election.  But  on  7  May  the  prime  minister's  patience  was  rewarded  and 
the  bill  passed  by  a  majority  sufficient  to  override  the  upper  house.25 

The  new  law  was  similar  in  principle  though  not  in  method  to  that  of  1919. 
It  amended  and  did  not  repeal  the  PR  law  of  1946,  keeping  the  same  consti- 
tuences  (except  that  Gironde  was  divided),  the  same  system  of  party  lists  with 
a  candidate  for  every  seat,  and  the  same  illusory  preferential  vote.  But  pana- 
chage  was  now  allowed;  by-elections,  abolished  in  1945,  were  restored;  and 
though  in  theory  seats  were  still  distributed  by  PR,  two  new  provisions  trans- 
formed the  working  of  the  system:  apparentements  and  the  absolute  majority 
rule.  Everywhere  outside  the  Paris  area  lists  could  form  an  alliance  or 
apparentement^  and  their  votes  were  then  counted  together  as  if  cast  for  a 
single  list.26  Any  list  or  alliance  which  won  an  absolute  majority  of  votes  took 
every  seat.  P  R  was  still  used  to  distribute  seats  both  within  an  alliance,  and 
generally  when  no  one  won  an  absolute  majority  of  votes.  This  system  enabled 
the  government  parties  to  combine  and  so  gain  the  advantage  of  size  which  in 
1945-46  went  to  the  'big  three',  and  in  1951  would  otherwise  have  gone  to  the 
two  oppositions.  Moreover,  the  combined  Centre  might  win  an  absolute 
majority,  and  could  therefore  attract  citizens  wanting  to  'vote  usefully'. 
Government  supporters  argued  that  a  vote  for  RPF  was  a  vote  for  the  Com- 
munists. 

The  system  was  not  condemned  by  its  victims  alone;  Herriot  called  it  inept 
and  monstrous.  Those  who  disliked  PR  because  they  had  to  vote  for  a  list 
instead  of  a  man  found  the  new  law  even  worse.  If  PR  had  made  the  elector  a 
puppet  of  the  party  bosses,  apparentement  encouraged  their  most  dubious 
manipulations.  In  H6rault  Jules  Moch  was  in  alliance  with  Paul  Coste-Floret, 
whose  brother  wanted  Moch  impeached.  In  Tarn  a  Catholic  might  find  his 
vote  for  MRP  returning  the  anticlerical  zealot  Maurice  Deixonne.  Such  com- 
binations, it  was  argued,  were  ineffective  as  well  as  dishonest,  since  they 
would  deter  potential  supporters :  so  government  supporters  would  either  form 
a  large  apparentement  which  might  well  lose  votes,  or  fail  to  unite  so  that  P  R 
would  still  operate  over  four-fifths  of  the  country.  Even  if  the  system  worked, 
the  electorate  would  certainly  regard  it  as  rigged  by  the  syndicat  des  sortants. 

Many  of  these  criticisms  were  borne  out.  The  voters'  choice  was  still  fet- 
tered to  a  list,  andpanachage  did  not  really  free  it.27  The  anomalies  appeared 
early.  MRP  leaders  in  industrial  areas  like  Nord  counted  on  SFIO  drawing 
its  full  vote  by  intransigent  anticlericalism,  while  the  Socialists  needed  similar 
extremism  from  their  Catholic  partners.  Paul  Ramadier  in  Aveyron  was  left 
out  of  the  conservative  alliance,  and  could  only  hope  that  RPF  would  poll 

25.  Above,  p.  288n.  See  Neumann,  no.  165;  A.S.,  no.  194;  IntgaUth,  pp.  92-101. 

26.  But  only  if  they  were  authorized  by  a  'national  party*  running  lists  in  30  departments. 
Eleven  parties  qualified  in  1951  and  eighteen  in  1956,  but  some  of  them  (and  many  of  their  lists) 
were  bogus.  The  Paris  area  had  a  form  of  PR  which  helped  the  weaker  parties,  depriving  RPF 
and  Communists  of  9  seats  in  1951  and  Communists  alone  of  10  in  1956  (7  going  to  MRP). 
On  both  these  points,  and  on  by-elections,  see  Appendix  vi.  On  technical  aspects  of  the  election 
law  see  Nicholas,  no.  167.  Gironde's  10  seats  were  split  into  6  and  4 ;  cf.  below,  p.  327n, 

27.  Jules  Moch  had  panachage  votes  from  7,000  admirers  in  other  parties,  which  he  did  not 
need  but  which  raised  the  average  of  his  list  enough  to  elect  a  third  Socialist ;  wanting  to  help  the 
man  but  not  the  party,  these  7,000  voters  had  achieved  the  reverse.  See  Appendix  vi. 


314  THfc  INSTITUTIONS 

well  and  rob  the  apparentement  of  an  absolute  majority.  Everywhere  Com- 
munists and  RPF  had  a  stake  in  the  other's  success.  At  the  count,  some 
remarkable  results  showed  that  it  was  substantial.  In  IKrault  fewer  than 
39,000  Socialists  elected  three  members  while  69,000  Communists  had  none.27 
At  Lille  107,000  Socialists  had  five  deputies  and  106,000  Communists  none; 
84,000  MRP  voters  had  four  and  94,000  Gaullists  none.  Gains  and  losses 
depended  more  on  a  party's  alliances  than  on  its  own  performance.  In  two  of 
the  three  departments  where  they  did  best  the  Communists  lost  seats.  The  two 
most  successful  Socialists  in  the  country  were  both  beaten.  A  Radical  minister 
(Andr6  Maroselli)  gained  4,000  votes  but  lost  his  seat  to  an  independent  Con- 
servative, allied  to  RPF,  who  polled  less  than  half  his  total. 

The  *  thieves'  ballot',  as  the  Communists  called  it,  achieved  the  intended 
results.  Although  critics  -  including  de  Gaulle  -  had  warned  that  disgusted 
voters  would  stay  at  home,  there  was  no  evidence  that  they  did.28  In  the  103 
constituencies  there  were  53  alliances  of  SFIO,  MRP  and  Radicals,  36  of 
which  included  Conservatives  also.  In  31  constituencies  the  governmental 
parties  won  an  absolute  majority  of  votes  and  all  the  seats.29  Throughout 
France  the  Communists  won  71  fewer  seats  and  RPF  26  fewer  than  the  1946 
law  would  have  given  them.  SFIO  profited  least,  being  kept  out  of  the  centre 
alliance  in  many  departments,  especially  in  the  west:  there  were  only  16  extra 
Socialist  seats  to  30  for  MRP,  27  for  RGR  and  24  for  the  Conservatives,  But 
arithmetical  computations  underestimate  the  Centre's  real  gains,  for  'vote 
usefully'  was  a  potent  slogan  and  the  new  law  helped  its  inventors  in  the 
polling-booths  as  well  as  at  the  count.  Nor  was  it  so  exceptionally  unjust.  In 
June  1946  PR  had  given  the  Communists  a  member  for  every  26,000  votes,  the 
Radicals  one  for  every  59,000;  the  new  law  gave  the  Radicals  a  seat  for  every 
28,000  votes  and  the  Communists  one  for  every  52,000.  Yet  PR  had  been 
vaunted  as  the  height  of  mathematical  fairness  by  those  who  vilified  the 
apparentements  law  as  a  monster  of  political  iniquity.ao 

lake  the  Anglo-American  electoral  system,  the  new  law  sacrificed  abstract 
justice  to  make  a  working  majority  possible.  The  old  system  would  have 
returned  at  least  172  Communists  and  143  Gaullists  -  together  315  members 
out  of  627.  With  less  than  half  the  votes  these  parties  would  have  held  more 
than  half  the  seats,  and  the  1946  law  would  have  endangered  a  regime  which 
for  all  its  faults  was  preferred  by  every  Frenchman  to  the  dominance  of  his 
extreme  opponents,  and  by  most  to  either  of  the  major  alternatives. 

The  new  law  found  only  few  and  shamefaced  defenders,  yet  it  was  to  remain 
in  use  for  a  second  election  in  very  different  circumstances.  The  political  con- 
flict was  less  intense  than  in  1951  but  more  straightforward  (at  least  in  outline 

28.  There  were  2%  fewer  non-voters  than  in  1946 ;  and  in  the  dozen  constituencies  where  the 
old  system  was  in  force  because  no  apparentement  was  made,  there  were  as  many  as  elsewhere. 
Spotted  papers  were  up  from  360,000  to  540,000,  probably  because  panachage  is  complicated. 

^.  In  40  constituencies  a  list  (1)  or  alliance  (39)  won  an  absolute  majority;  it  included  the 
Socialists  in  31,  the  Gaullists  in  7  and  neither  in  2,  In  2,  S  FIO  and  MRP  were  joined  by  Conserva- 
tives but  not  by  Radicals.  Of  the  31, 25  were  in  the  old  republican  zone  along  and  south  of  the 
Loire.  See  Maps  15  and  16* 

38v  Cf.  Campbell,  pp*  121-2,  and  in  no.  42;InegalMs,  pp.  304-10.  *  Wasted'  votes  were  24%, 
double  the  proportion  under  PR  but  half  that  under  pre-war  scrutin  farrondissement. 


THE  ELECTORAL  SYSTEM  315 

-  the  details  were  as  confused  as  ever)  when  towards  the  end  of  its  life  the 
Assembly,  following  an  unbroken  tradition,  began  debating  the  method  of 
electing  its  successor.  The  beneficiaries  of  apparentement  had  quarrelled  before 
they  could  begin  to  enjoy  the  unfamiliar  luxury  of  a  secure  majority.  As  the 
Gaullists  were  absorbed  by  the  System,  Pierre  Mend&s-France  gradually 
emerged  as  leader  of  the  opposition  to  conservative  immobilisme,  and  when 
his  government  was  overthrown  by  defections  among  his  fellow-Radicals  he 
set  about  reorganizing  his  party  with  a  view  to  a  close  alliance  with  SFIO. 
Always  a  staunch  defender  of  scrutin  d'arrondissement,  he  now  urged  it  more 
insistently  than  ever.31  Under  it  he  could  share  out  seats  with  the  Socialists 
and  other  allies,  distinguish  between  friends  and  enemies  in  his  own  party, 
capitalize  on  his  popularity  by  endorsing  a  single  candidate  in  each  consti- 
tuency, and  hope  that  at  the  second  ballot  some  Communist  voters  would  (as 
between  the  wars)  rally  to  the  Left  candidate  with  the  best  hope  of  victory. 

The  conservatives  frustrated  him.  Edgar  Faure,  his  successor  and  rival, 
proposed  that  the  election  which  was  due  in  June  1956  be  held  in  1955.  This 
would  minimize  'election  fever',  enable  a  fresh  Parliament  to  take  major 
decisions  over  Algeria  -  and  give  the  Mendesist  and  Poujadist  forces  less  time 
to  organize.  It  also  endangered  electoral  reform.  For  although  the  1951 
system  had  now  no  public  advocates,  many  politicians  privately  hoped  to  put 
it  to  use  once  more;  right-wing  alliances  would  win  an  absolute  majority  and 
all  the  seats  in  conservative  constituencies,  while  in  Left  strongholds  PR 
would  operate  because  the  clash  between  Communists  and  democratic  Left 
would  give  a  clear  majority  to  neither.32  In  1954  the  Right  had  used  fleeting 
Communist  support  for  Mendes-France  to  hint  that  his  policy  was  treason- 
able, yet  in  1955  they  deliberately  chose  to  weaken  him  by  strengthening  the 
Communists.  Once  again  they  had  succumbed  to  their  fatal  penchant  for  the 
politique  dupire?* 

Just  as  in  1951,  the  Assembly's  franchise  committee  could  reach  no  agree- 
ment; the  deputies  rejected  sixteen  proposals  by  contradictory  majorities;  and 
the  senators  were  overwhelmingly  for  scrutin  d'arrondissement.  But  there 
were  several  differences.  First,  in  1951  the  existing  system  (PR)  was  favoured 
by  only  one  governmental  party,  MRP,  which  held  out  for  compromise  but 
could  not  stop  change.  Secondly,  the  government  was  then  bent  on  reform, 
whereas  in  1955  its  main  interest  was  in  the  date  rather  than  the  rules  of  the 
election.  Thirdly,  conservatives  as  well  as  MRP  were  now  in  tacit  accord 
with  the  Communists,  who  knew  that  any  majority  system  meant  alliances 
against  them  and  that  under  the  1951  law  they  could  count  on  PR  operating 
over  most  of  France.  Fourthly,  the  Socialists  and  others  had  joined  the 
Radicals,  so  that  there  was  now  more  backing  anjong  the  deputies  for  scrutin 
d'arrondissement.  Lastly  its  senatorial  supporters,  who  then  had  only  a  single- 
shot  weapon,  the  absolute  majority  on  their  one  and  only  reading  of  the  bill, 

31.  Cf.  n.  18,  and  below,  p.  331. 

32.  On  these  hopes  see  Pierce,  no.  180,  pp.  395-8,  420-1 ;  Georgel,  L  118, 120;  AP  1955,  p.  82; 
Intgalit6sy  p.  102;  Fauvet,  IVe,  pp.  304-7 ;  Berlia,  no.  14,  p.  131 ;  Elections  1956,  pp.  7, 20.  Some 
Conservatives  also  feared  that  scrutin  d'arrondissement  would  weaken  their  new-found  discipline. 

33.  Ibid.,  p.  22.  By  1956  the  same  men  were  clamouring  in  patriotic  indignation  to  ban  thft 
Communist  party. 


316  THE  INSTITUTIONS 

could  now  by  the  navette  force  it  to  repeated  votes  in  the  Assembly  -  where  it 
found  a  majority  on  its  third  reading,  though  only  a  tactical  one.  The  struggle 
was  prolonged,  but  it  was  broken  off  when  the  Communists  switched  their 
tactics  and  their  votes,  and  the  opposition,  miscalculating,  defeated  the 
government  by  five  votes  too  many  and  so  allowed  it  to  dissolve  the  Assembly.3* 
Edgar  Faure  thus  got  his  early  election,  and  the  1951  law  remained  in  force. 
But  its  results  disappointed  the  Right  as  well  as  the  moderate  Left.35  For  the 
conservatives,  whose  strategy  depended  on  the  Right  vote  being  united  while 
the  Left  vote  was  split,  had  underestimated  Poujade.  Their  alliances  went 
according  to  plan  but  the  voters  did  not.  There  were  apparentements  of  the 
moderate  Right  (Conservatives,  right-wing  Radicals,  MRP,  and  most  ex- 
Gaullist  deputies)  over  two-thirds  of  the  country  and  of  the  Republican  Front 
(SFIO,  most  Radicals,  and  a  few  Gaullist  and  small-party  candidates)  over 
half  of  it.  But  only  ten  of  the  Right  and  one  of  the  Left  won  absolute  majorities ; 
89%  of  the  seats  were  distributed  by  PR,  and  in  these  the  advantage  of  size 
was  less  than  usual  since  alliances  were  narrower  and  competing  groups  more 
equally  matched.36  Paradoxically,  therefore,  on  its  second  trial  the  bastard 
PR  of  the  1951  law  gave  a  more  proportional  result  than  the  strict  PR  of 
1945-46.37 

4.  MYTHS  AND  MANIPULATIONS 

Politically  divided  on  many  questions  and  by  many  parties,  France  has 
electoral  systems  which  are  adapted  to  this  situation  and  help  to  perpetuate  it 
A  simple  majority  system  is  perhaps  unworkable  and  has  certainly  been  un- 
acceptable, since  unchecked  majority  power  is  tolerable  only  to  those  who  are 
confident  that  their  opponents  would  not  abuse  it.  In  France  a  national 
majority  has  normally  seemed  unattainable,  and  in  abnormal  times  it  has 
sometimes  loomed  as  a  threat  rather  than  a  boon.  Devices  have  therefore  been 
found  to  protect  minorities,  like  PR,  to  divide  majorities,  like  the  second 
ballot,  or  to  bolster  the  safe  parties  against  the  dangerous  ones,  like  apparente- 
ment. 

Scrutin  cTarrondissement  had  always  been  opposed  by  Republicans  until  they 
took  it  up  in  1889  to  check  Boulanger,  who  seemed  on  the  way  to  a  national 
majority  (as,  ironically,  de  Gaulle  restored  it  in  1958  to  check  Soustelle).  It 

34.  ^  On  the  dissolution,  above,  pp.  238-9.  The  pre-war  distribution  of  seats  had  always  been 
inequitable  and  was  now  hopelessly  out  of  date,  but  a  new  distribution  was  too  controversial  to 
aBow  scrutin  eTarrondissement  to  pass  quickly  (the  same  problem  had  caused  similar  difficulties 
in  1927  and  1951) :  In&galitis,  pp.  15-16,  32,  98, 105-6,  261. 

35.  However,  the  Right  would  have  fared  worse  under  any  other  system :  see  Williams,  no.  168, 
p.  170  and  n.  Cf.  Pierce,  no.  180,  pp.  405-6. 

36.  SFIO  fougfct  alone  in  48  constituencies;  it  was  allied  to  Radicals  in  48,  Communists  in 
one  (Vosges;  p.  172  and  n.)  and  Left  groups  in  six.  RS  joined  the  Left  in  11.  MRP  joined 
Conservatives  in  51  seats,  22  of  them  with  RS  also,  and  fought  alone  in  41.  The  Poujadists 
illegally  used  apparentements  to  split  their  forces  into  three  allied  'national  parties',  a  real  one 
for  shopkeepers  and  bogus  ones  for  peasants  and  consumers ;  this  was  why  1 1  of  their  deputies 
were  unseated  (see  Appendix  vi).  See  Map  16. 

37.  The  worst-off  party  (omitting  those  polling  less  than  10%  of  the  vote)  paid  27,000  votes 
per  seat  more  ton  the  best-off  party  in  1945.  It  paid  24,000  more  in  June  1946, 13,000  in  November, 
26^)00  m  1951,  and  17,000  in  1956.  For  the  worst-off  party,  the  difference  between  its  percentage  of 
seats  and  of  votes  was  44,  4-0,  3-0,  8-1  and  2-7  respectively;  and  the  average  difference  for  all 
parties  was  2-4,  2-0,  1-8,  3*6  and  1-6  (my  calculations  from  sources  given  in  n.  15), 


THE  ELECTORAL  SYSTEM  317 

was  less  just  than  PR,  but  more  effective  in  encouraging  alliances  between 
neighbouring  parties ;  and  if  the  alliances  were  temporary  this  was  part  of  its 
attraction  for  politicians  who  preferred  not  to  commit  themselves  to  legal 
rules  or  political  combinations  too  far  in  advance.  For  circumstances  might 
change  and  tactics  and  allies  with  them ;  because  of  the  multiplicity  of  divisions 
no  one  could  be  sure  where  he  would  find  his  friends  and  enemies  in  the 
future. 

PR  was  much  faker,  but  it  separated  at  the  polls  parties  which  had  to  co- 
operate in  Parliament  and  so  made  the  task  of  government  more  difficult.  For 
a  politician  tended  to  depend  for  support  on  a  restricted  social  and  ideological 
clientele,  and  if  he  tried  to  extend  it  he  found  that  the  floating  vote  was  not  a 
single  group  in  the  centre  but  a  series  of  grouplets  in  the  interstices  between 
the  main  parties.  A  Socialist  never  appealed  to  the  same  voters  as  a  Con- 
servative :  in  the  Midi  he  might  woo  away  Radicals  by  stressing  anticlericalism 
and  playing  down  collectivism  (but  then  he  must  beware  of  seeming  luke- 
warm to  his  own  supporters);  in  the  north  he  might  acquire  merit  with  the 
militants  by  outbidding  the  Communists  (but  then  he  would  risk  losing  votes 
on  his  right  flank).  The  Conservative  in  the  west  had  to  prove  himself  a  better 
defender  of  property  than  RPF,  and  of  church  schools  than  MRP.  Where 
social  issues  predominated  over  religion  MRP  might  compete  with  Socialists 
rather  than  Conservatives,  as  in  Nord,  and  Radicals  clash  with  the  Right 
rather  than  S  FI O,  as  in  Paris.  But  nowhere  was  there  a  central  pool  of  doubt- 
ful votes  open  to  every  party:  only  separate  ponds,  each  fished  by  one  or  two 
rivals.  Every  party  claimed  to  be  the  best  defender  of  some  group  interest  or 
sectional  ideology.  The  political  function  of  the  floating  voter  in  Britain  -  to 
attract  both  parties  towards  a  common  mean  -  was  not  performed  in  France. 

An  occasional  protest  movement  at  the  crest  of  the  wave  might,  like  Gaul- 
lism  in  1947  and  Poujadism  in  1956,  attract  some  votes  from  all  sides.  No  one 
else  could  hope  for  gains  at  the  expense  of  their  distant  opponents,  and  PR 
made  everyone  concentrate  his  fire  on  political  neighbours  who  were  com- 
peting for  the  same  clientele.  Under  tripartisme  hostilities  were  most  bitter 
between  Communists  and  Socialists,  and  between  MRP  and  the  Right. 
RPF  at  first  directed  its  main  attack  on  MRP.  Instead  of  exchanging  mutual 
support  as  in  a  second  ballot  system,  each  party  fought  in  isolation  from  all 
others  and  in  special  hostility  to  its  potential  allies.  The  bitterest  blows  of  a 
PR  campaign  were  exchanged  by  parties  which  would  have  to  co-operate  in 
Parliament  if  any  government  was  to  be  formed.  And  in  guaranteeing  every 
party  against  disaster  PR  ensured  the  enemies  of  the  regime  the  maximum 
opportunity  for  obstruction. 

The  apparentement  system  tried  to  palliate  these  consequences  by  putting 
co-operativeness  at  a  premium  and  intransigence  at  a  discount.  Consequently 
many  voters  complained  of  being  hoodwinked  by  the  party  bosses  who  fixed 
the  alliances ;  and  any  arrangement  which  weakens  the  sense  of  civic  responsi- 
bility should  certainly  be  scrutinized  with  suspicion  in  a  country  where 
indvisme  is  so  widespread.  Yet  the  managers  were  not  as  indifferent  to  their 
clientele  as  was  sometimes  maintained.  In  fact  apparentements  allowed  the 
elector  two  separate  choices  corresponding  to  his  political  priorities.  Over 


318  THE  INSTITUTIONS 

most  of  the  country  the  alliances  registered  the  preference  of  most  voters  for 
the  parliamentary  regime  against  either  *  presidential '  or  *  people's '  democracy, 
within  this  framework  the  moderate  voter  could  then  opt  for  his  economic, 
social  or  religious  tendency.  But  where  politics  revolved  around  a  single  issue, 
that  question  became  the  basis  of  alliances;  so  in  the  west,  preoccupied  with 
its  church  schools,  the  Catholic  voter  could  opt  first  for  the  clerical  apparente- 
ment  of  MRP  and  RPF  and  secondly,  within  it,  for  the  parliamentary  or  the 
'Bonapartist*  solution  to  the  country's  problems. 

Nor  was  the  pressure  on  the  voter  so  clearly  destructive  of  his  sense  of 
responsibility.  His  desire  for  a  party  free  of  trammels  was  wishful  thinking,  a 
Utopian  demand  and  not  a  political  preference.  To  make  the  parliamentary 
system  work  parties  had  to  compromise  in  the  Assembly :  was  an  electoral 
law  that  compelled  the  voter  to  face  the  fact  really  less  honest  than  one 
encouraging  his  illusion  that  his  party  lived  in  a  political  vacuum?  The 
passionate  socialist  hated  having  to  choose  between  intransigent  Communists 
who  outraged  his  principles,  and  a  temporizing  SFIO  which  was  for  ever 
compromising  them.  Yet  this  was  his  only  real  choice.  If,  in  his  dream  world, 
no  consequences  followed  the  fall  of  a  government  and  no  difficulties  re- 
strained his  party  from  enacting  its  programme  overnight,  there  was  some- 
thing to  be  said  for  a  mechanism  to  make  him  look  the  nasty  world  in  the 
face. 

Indeed  the  most  cogent  criticism  was  that  the  compulsion  was  still  far  too 
weak.  Apparentements  differed  from  one  constituency  to  another  and  so  might 
pull  deputies  of  the  same  party  in  opposite  directions.  They  allowed  splinter 
groups  to  try  their  luck  without  risking  any  penalty  -  for  unless  their  enemies 
had  an  absolute  majority,  the  splinter  group's  votes  would  revert  to  its  allies  at 
the  count  like  those  of  an  unsuccessful  candidate  on  the  second  ballot.38  They 
involved  no  commitment  at  all  to  united  action  by  the  allies,  and  in  1951  they 
actually  encouraged  each  partner  to  differentiate  itself  by  a  sectarian  cam- 
paign against  associates  who  might  otherwise  compromise  it  with  its  own 
followers.  They  thus  did  nothing  to  help  and  perhaps  a  little  to  hinder  co- 
operation between  the  moderate  groups  whose  individual  strength  they  in- 
flated. They  were  simply  a  negative  mechanism  against  the  advocates  of 
drastic  change.39 

Under  the  Fourth  Republic  the  voter  participated  less  than  ever  in  choosing 
his  government  Scrutin  cTarrondissement  had  returned  majorities  which  were 
clear,  though  often  loose,  unreliable  and  short-lived.  But  after  a  PR  election 
there  were  no  electoral  alliances  to  impose  a  choice  between  the  many  possible 
combinations.  Apparentement  encouraged  partnerships  in  the  distribution  of 
seats,  but  not  in  the  campaign,  so  they  were  too  negative  and  fragile  to  stand 
the  slightest  strain.  Policies  were  therefore  still  decided  and  reversed  in  Par- 
liament and  not  at  the  polls.  Majorities  were  even  less  coherent  and  fell  apart 

^  38.  M.  Goguel  advocated  a  majority  list  system  with  two  ballots  to  force  the  centre  parties 
mto  jomt  lists  and  a  joint  campaign,  thus  laying  the  foundation  in  the  country  for  parliamentary 
cooperation.  But  alliances  that  differed  regionally  would  destroy  party  discipline,  and  it  would 
fce  hard  to  find  a  legal  formula  to  prohibit  this  practice  or  a  political  majority  to  enact  it  if  found  - 
as  nc  remarked:  no.  113,  p.  294. 
39.  On  the  splintering  effect  of  apparentement,  below,  pp.  527-8.  Generally,  Buron,  pp.  44-5. 


THE  ELECTORAL  SYSTEM 


319 


even  more  rapidl^  than  in  the  Third  Republic,  and  the  voters  merely  adjusted 
the  bargaining  strength  of  each  party  by  fractional  alterations  which  mar- 
ginally influencea  the  balance  of  parliamentary  power  -  until  new  alignments 
among  the  deputies  transformed  it.  The  first  National  Assembly  opened  with 
in  office  and  the  Conservatives  in  opposition;  within  two 
were  out  and  the  latter  in.  In  1951  SFIO  joined  in  centre 
RPF;  by  1953  Gaullists  were  part  of  the  majority  and 


the  Communists 
years  the  former 
alliances  against 


Socialists  in  opposition.  At  the  1956  election  Socialists  and  Radicals  won  a 
common  victory,  yet  the  Republican  Front  of  Mollet  and  Mendes  lasted 
barely  a  month  and  the  alliance  of  their  parties  was  in  ruins  within  two 
years  -  its  normal  life-span  in  a  pre-war  Chamber. 

Both  scrutin  cTarrondissement  and  apparentement  were  devices  to  give  more 
freedom  of  manoeuvre  to  the  men  of  the  Centre  from  whom  governments  had 
to  be  formed,  strengthening  their  numbers  against  the  enemies  of  the  regime 
ajnd  allowing  them  to  choose  and  change  their  associates  according  to  the 
npeds  of  the  mon.ent.  Both  were  often  abused:  for  men  who  begin  by  accepting 
compromise  as  a  regrettable  necessity  easily  come  to  regard  it  as  a  virtue,  and 
no  group  struggling  for  power  keeps  its  original  ideals  wholly  untarnished. 
But  the  new  device  had  two  particular  drawbacks.  First,  where  scrutin 
cfcarrondissement  looked  fairer  than  it  really  was,  apparentement  seemed  to 
produce  blatantly  unjust  results  and  so  helped  to  discredit  its  authors  and  the 
regime  itself.  Secondly  it  gave  less  flexibility:  parties  were  more  rigid,  shifts  of 
alignment  more  abrupt  and  crises  more  prolonged.  Instead  of  a  brief  inter- 
regnum while  the  balance  of  petty  groups  was  slightly  adjusted,  there  was  now 
a  long  one  in  which  the  big  parties  sparred  for  advantage  -  often  ending  much 
as  they  began,  siijice  they  had  no  real  alternative.  In  Queuille's  phrase  they  were 
'bondemned  to  live  together'  by  their  fear  of  the  untouchables,  the  opponents 
qf  the  parliamentary  system. 

I  The  electoral !  system,  though  subject  to  perpetual  tinkering,  underwent 
ikajor  reconstruction  only  when  the  political  regime  itself  changed.  Because 
tjhe  stakes  of  thd  game  were  high  the  rules  were  disputed  (and  the  temptation 
tjo  cheat  on  the  deal  was  strong).  But  the  devices  used  were  all  self-attenuating. 
PR  protected  minorities,  but  only  fair-sized  ones;  scrutin  d'arrondissement 
Assembled  majorities,  but  only  disunited  ones;40  apparentements  bolstered  the 
safe  parties  agaiist  the  menacing  ones,  but  worked  only  in  times  of  clear  and 
^resent  danger.  Politicians  were  therefore  almost  always  frustrated  when  they 
^cted  on  their  Belief  (or  assertion)  that  electoral  reform  could  revolutionize 
]bolitical  behaviour.  PR  did  not  ensure  stable  disciplined  parties,  large  con- 
stituencies did  not  abolish  the  parish  pump,  apparentements  did  not  provide  a 
secure  basis  for  government,  the  return  to  scrutin  d'arrondissement  in  1958  did 
not  check  (but  helped)  the  sweeping  advance  of  a  new  party  of  largely  un- 
known candidates.  More  humdrum  calculations  went  equally  wrong.  PR  did 
not  stop  the  decline  of  MRP  from  its  peak  or  the  recovery  of  the  Radicals 
ferom  their  hollow;  scrutin  d'arrondissement  did  not  ruin  the  one  or  rescue 
&e  other;  apparentements  in  1956  did  little  good  to  the  Right  or  harm  to 
the  (^mmunis^  (or  to  the  Poujadists  either).  The  one  certainty  was  that  the 

40,  Until  1962? 


320  THE  INSTITUTIONS 

repeated  attempts  to  fabricate  in  every  Parliament  a  new  law  tailored  to  suit 
the  existing  majority  inevitably  contributed  to  the  ordinary  citizen's  dis- 
illusionment with  politics.41 

41.  Many  deputies  *  thought  it  was  premature  to  discuss ...  an  electoral  law  [which]  should  be 
devised  in  accordance  with  the  political  situation  on  the  eve  of  the  election':  Fauvet  in  Monde, 
15  January  1958.  Cf.  Campbell,  pp.  43-5. 


PART  IV 

THE  SYSTEM 


Chapter  23 
VOTERS  AND  MEMBERS 

In  the  early  years  after  the  war  the  people  were  screened  from  then*  rulers  by 
the  overweening  organizations  of  three  rigid  parties.  To  the  opponents  of 
tripartisme,  these  had  'confiscated  the  sovereignty  of  the  people'  and  it  had  to 
be  restored  by  reducing  their  power.  But  the  decline  of  strong  parties  only 
brought  back  the  Third  Republican  regime  of  shifting  majorities,  minority 
manoeuvres  and  pressure-group  obstruction;  and  though  the  shifts  and 
intrigues  were  often  designed  to  exploit  or  respond  to  the  voter's  own  changes 
of  mood,  this  system  was  as  alien  to  him  as  tripartisme  itself.  He  neither  under- 
stood nor  approved  of  the  politicians'  game,  and  denounced  its  consequences 
without  ever  realizing  his  own  share  of  responsibility  for  them.  'The  protest 
movement  is  both  the  safety  valve  of  a  society  divided  by  deep  conflicts  and  the 
traditional  French  form  of  democracy.'1 

1,  THE  MAN  AND  THE  PARTY 

At  the  Liberation  all  the  traditional  rules  and  assumptions  were  upset  by  the 
electoral  law  and  the  electorate,  which  both  favoured  the  large  parties  of  the 
Left  and  the  Resistance.  But  when  the  political  trend  was  reversed  the  laws 
were  changed  too.  The  first  Council  of  the  Republic  was  elected  in  1946  by 
PR,  which  strengthened  the  machines,  but  the  second  was  chosen  in  1948 
under  a  predominantly  majority  system  with  individual  candidatures.  Party 
lists  were  kept  for  the  National  Assembly  in  1951,  but  apparentement  removed 
the  incentive  to  vote  for  the  large  groups.  The  new  laws  were  as  much  a 
consequence  as  a  cause  of  the  new  outlook.2 

To  a  new  candidate  the  endorsement  of  a  party  was  always  important,  and 
in  1945-46  essential.  His  choice  of  party  was  not  necessarily  ideological: 
Bourges-Maunoury  became  a  Radical  because  Socialist  candidates  had  to  be 
party  members  for  a  qualifying  period,  and  Edgar  Faure  because  he  thought 
(wrongly)  that  as  MRP's  standard-bearer  in  Vaucluse  he  would  lose  to 
Daladier.3  Reputation  among  the  active  party  members  remained  the  chief 
qualification  for  endorsement  in  SFIO,  and  useful  in  MRP.  For  Commu- 
nists (and  Gaullists  in  1951)  acceptability  to  the  national  leadership  was  as  or 
more  important.  But  on  the  Right  and  Centre,  parties  were  federations  of 
local  politicians  with  few  militants  and  little  discipline ;  and  their  nomination 
did  not  confer  electoral  potency  on  a  candidate  but  recognized  that  he  had  it 
already,  usually  through  past  services  in  local  government  or  peasant  organ- 
izations. Even  in  1945-46  the  Radicals  survived,  not  in  their  traditional  strong- 
holds, but  where  a  local  leader  had  kept  his  reputation  and  his  right  to  stand. 
UD  S  R  was  never  more  than  a  coterie  of  politicians  each  with  his  local  follow- 
ing. In  1956  its  leader  Rene  Pleven  deterred  any  potential  constituency  rival  by 

1.  Hoffmann  in  Revolution  in  World  Politics,  p.  79 ;  and  cf.  below,  pp.  334-5,  383,  451 . 

2.  See  above,  pp.,  278-9,  313-14,  and  below,  pp.  388-9. 

3.  Faure  lost  in  Paris  and  MRP  beat  Daladier:  Dumaine,  pp.  27-8.  On  Bourges-Maunoury 
see  BIoch-Morhange,  p.  22. 


VOTERS  AND  MEMBERS  323 

making  a  corner  in  endorsements  and  becoming  candidate  also  of  the  Radi- 
cals, RGR  and  CNIP. 

As  most  successful  candidates  were  teles  de  lisle,  the  lower  places  were 
usually  bestowed  to  balance  the  ticket.4  Even  in  1945-46  local  feeling  had 
to  be  respected.  The  rival  towns  of  Colmar  and  Mulhouse  shared  the  top 
two  places  on  the  MRP,  Socialist  and  Radical  (but  not  RPF)  lists  in  Haut- 
Rhin  in  1951.  In  1956  there  were  men  from  Moulins,  Montlu$on  and  Vichy  on 
four  of  the  six  main  lists  in  Allier,  and  in  Seine-Maritime  west  no  party 
neglected  Le  Havre  or  Dieppe.  Protestants  expected  representation  in  Alsace 
and  Basques  in  Beam.  Veterinarians  were  at  a  premium  in  the  countryside, 
and  doctors  everywhere  -  even  in  Paris.  Peasant  leaders  were  in  universal 
demand.  Women  were  thought  useful,  but  rarely  placed  high;  conservative 
parties  sometimes  demonstrated  their  egalitarianism  by  putting  in  a  railway 
worker  (last).  A  leading  local  personality  might  lend  his  prestige  without  seek- 
ing election;  in  1956  seven  senators  stood  in  last  place  on  RS  lists,  and  Charles 
Barange  and  another  retiring  deputy  also  agreed  to  help  their  successors  in 
this  way.  Candidates  were  often  chosen  to  appeal  to  circles  not  accessible  to 
the  lele  de  lisle?  The  Radical  member  for  Seine-et-Marne  in  1951  had  a 
prominent  local  Catholic  as  his  second,  a  peasant  official  third,  and  ex- 
Gaullist  mayors  fourth  and  fifth.  Conversely,  even  SFIO  considered  it  tacti- 
cally impossible  to  head  a  list  with  two  Jews. 

Political  balance  was  a  delicate  matter.  A  party  strongly  influenced  by  its 
militants  or  anxious  to  make  a  clear  impression  on  the  voter  usually  chose  a 
fairly  homogeneous  team;  MRP  candidates  were  generally  progressive  in 
Seine  but  conservative  in  Basses-Pyrenees.  But  a  coalition  could  represent  its 
various  components,  a  divided  party  could  satisfy  both  its  wings,  and  a 
politician  whose  voters  were  of  different  views  or  traditions  could  offer  appro- 
priate homage  to  both  sides.6  It  was  harder  to  face  both  ways  in  making 
alliances,  for  these  might  decide  not  only  whether  a  party  won  or  lost  but 
whether  it  was  Right  or  Left.  In  1951  conservatives  in  many  parties  entered 
centre  coalitions  only  because  RPF  refused  their  approaches.  In  1956,  the  one 
RS  deputy  who  made  an  apparent ement  with  the  Republican  Front  had  pre- 
viously been  refused  by  their  opponents;  MRP  deputies  with  shaky  western 
seats  insisted  on  an  alliance  with  the  Right  which  the  party's  urban  militants 
detested;  and  Socialists  everywhere  were  attacked  by  the  Communists  be- 
cause their  party  had  agreed  to  a  few  local  coalitions  with  pro-clerical 
Gaullists.7 

In  the  campaign  itself  the  party  organization  played  a  far  less  important 

4.  In  1956  390  deputies  had  been  top  of  their  lists,  109  second,  31  third  and  14  lower;  only  57  % 
of  Communists  but  77  %  of  others  were  teies  de  liste :  Campbell,  p.  1 1 8,  and  Elections  1956,  pp.  429- 
430  (Dogan),  505  (Goguel). 

5.  Ibid.,  pp.  430-2, 435-6nn. ;  Partis  et  Classes,  pp.  228-30  (Gourdon  on  Radicals),  254  and  n 
(Merle  on  CNIP),  292-3,  299-300,  314-15  (Dogan  on  the  1951  Assembly);  Williams,  no.  168, 
p.  152;  Rose,  no.  169,  pp.  254-5;  Pierce,  no.  180,  p.  403n.;  Pineau,  pp.  15-17;  Paysans,  pp. 
510-1  l;Buron,  pp.  35-42. 

6.  RGR's  list  in  Indre  in  1951  had  three  Radicals,  a  member  of  UDSR  and  a  Paul  Faure 
Socialist.  Pinay's  secretary  stood  for  Tarn  in  1956  with  both  the  Gaullist  and  the  Vichyite  candi- 
dates of  1951  on  his  list. 

7.  See  above,  pp.  97n.,  121n.  also  Nicholas  et  at,  no.  168,  p.  153,  no.  169,  p.  253. 

M 


324  THE  SYSTEM 

part  than  in  Britain,  as  there  were  fewer  problems  of  getting  out  the  vote:  no 
register  to  keep,  no  canvassing,  official  dispatch  of  election  addresses,  and  on 
polling-day  (a  Sunday)  no  cars  or  party  workers  required.  Public  meetings 
were  generally  held,  since  the  voters  expected  them  (Marseilles  had  nearly  600 
in  the  1956  election),  although  many  candidates  doubted  their  utility.  Outside 
the  towns  it  was  essential  for  the  member  or  his  colistiers  to  visit  the  mayors 
and  local  notables  of  as  many  communes  as  possible;  in  Mendes-France's 
largely  rural  constituency  of  Eure,  the  lists  in  1956  averaged  72  'meetings' 
which  were  mostly  of  this  kind.  The  experienced  candidate  adapted  his  speech 
slightly  to  his  audience,  arguing  in  a  conservative  stronghold  for  strengthening 
the  moderating  influence  of  the  Senate,  and  in  a  mining  town  for  'associating 
the  second  chamber  with  the  work  of  the  sovereign  National  Assembly'. 
This  conventional  type  of  electioneering  was  common  to  all  the  democratic 
parties.  But  for  the  Communists  an  election  was  a  recruiting  campaign, 
and  they  occasionally  used  house-to-house  canvassing.  The  Poujadists 
profited  greatly  from  the  active  support  of  shopkeepers  and  commercial 
travellers.8 

Less  dependent  on  the  organization  for  money  and  propaganda  activity 
than  a  British  MP,  the  deputy  became  increasingly  important  to  it,  especially 
in  the  countryside  and  on  the  political  Centre  and  Right.  Campaigns  were 
fought  at  the  constituency  level,  for  there  was  no  nation-wide  press  and 
broadcasting  facilities  were  minimal.  In  the  organized  parties  headquarters 
might  supply  literature  and  perhaps  a  little  money,  but  candidates  from  the 
looser  groups  often  preferred  to  rely  on  their  personal  reputations  and  to 
raise  their  financial  backing  locally.9  Though  the  national  prestige  of  his  party 
affected  the  member's  chances  of  re-election,  among  the  centre  groups  it  was 
rarely  decisive. 

To  the  party  a  strong  candidate  was  vital,  for  in  spite  of  the  list  system  the 
voter  still  chose  between  men.  Even  in  1951  over  two  hundred  deputies  had 
no  colleague  elected  from  their  list.10  Occasionally  a  newcomer  exploited  the 
confusion  caused  by  the  vague  interchangeable  labels  of  the  unorganized 
groups;  but  increasingly  lists  concentrated  their  publicity  on  the  man  and  not 
the  party.11  Even  in  the  well-organized  parties  a  single  leader  in  each  consti- 
tuency came  to  personify  Ms  movement  over  a  wide  area.  When  panachage 
was  introduced  in  1951  the  elector,  while  still  supporting  his  party,  could 
repudiate  one  or  more  of  its  nominees  and  transfer  a  fraction  of  his  vote  to 
candidates  on  a  rival  list;  some  leaders  like  Jules  Moch  and  Rene  Pleven 
attracted  thousands  of  admirers,  while  others  were  crossed  off  their  own  lists 
(particularly  if  they  were  in  coalition  with  another  party).12  Five  years  later, 
when  resentment  against  the  sonants  expressed  itself  in  the  Mendesist  and 

8.  Ibid.,  pp.  152-61,  250-63, 265-80;  Elections  1956,  pp.  322-52  (C.  Prieur  on  Aveyron,  p.  325 
on  the  Senate),  353-68  (F.  Essig  on  Eure,  p.  354  on  meetings),  422  (Goguel) ;  Buron,  pp.  48-61. 

9.  See  Williams,  no.  168,  pp.  153-4;  Buron,  pp.  68-9;  above,  pp.  65-6,  below,  DD.  371-2. 

10.  In  1951,  209 ;  in  1956,  281 :  Elections  1956,  pp.  429-30,  505. 

11.  Ibid.,  pp.  422,  504-5;  also  p.  418  (on  confusion  among  independents  in  Haut-Rhin)  and 
Y.  Levy,  Le  prabltme  des  modes  de  scrutin  (1956),  p.  32  (for  Communists  voting  Trotskyist  by 
mistake  in  1951,  and  Mendesists  misled  in  1956).  And  see  above,  p.  66  n.  9. 

12.  See  Appendix  vi.  Among  leaders  who  ran  behind  their  lists  in  1951  were  Georges  Bidault, 
Pierre  de  Gaulle  (both  allied  to  Conservatives)  and  Maurice  Thorez. 


VOTERS  AND  MEMBERS  325 

Poujadist  revolts,  some  voters  loyal  to  their  old  party  nevertheless  deleted  the 
sitting  member's  name.13 

The  familiar  candidate  was  an  asset  far  more  often  than  a  liability,  and  even 
organized  parties  were  reluctant  to  lose  him.  In  1946  it  had  cost  nothing  to 
discipline  a  deputy  who  had  held  his  seat  for  only  a  year,  but  by  1951  he  had 
sat  for  five  and  the  risks  of  displacing  him  were  far  greater.  In  some  areas  and 
sectors  of  politics  voters  and  even  militants  preferred  the  man  to  the  organiza- 
tion, which  indeed  he  sometimes  dominated.  Jacques  Chaban-Delmas  took 
the  Bordeaux  Radical  party  over  to  de  Gaulle;  the  MRP  federation  of 
Charente  also  followed  its  member  into  RPF;  its  neighbour  in  Dordogne 
approved  the  local  deputy  (Andre  Denis)  in  his  repeated  revolts  and  final 
defection  to  the  Left.  In  1946  Charles  d'Aragon,  another  MRP  left-winger 
(and  a  marquis)  had  headed  the  poll  in  Hautes-Pyrenees;  five  years  later  he 
went  off  to  Paris  to  stand  as  a  neutralist,  and  the  party  lost  seven-eighths  of  its 
votes  to  the  profit  of  a  strong  new  Conservative,  Jacques  Fourcade,  the  Presi- 
dent of  the  Assembly  of  the  French  Union.  In  Somme,  where  the  MRP 
deputy  turned  Conservative  and  the  Radical  joined  RPF,  each  was  re-elected 
by  his  own  former  voters.14 

When  a  party  was  doing  well  in  the  country  it  had  little  need  to  worry  about 
discipline;  once  it  began  to  do  badly  it  could  ill  afford  to  apply  it.  For  a 
recalcitrant  deputy  could  often  ensure  his  own  political  future  by  going  over 
to  a  rising  party,  which  could  clinch  its  prospective  victory  by  adopting  the 
defector  as  its  own  candidate.  Eight  members  stood  for  their  old  consti- 
tuencies under  RP  F's  banner  in  195 1,  and  six  were  successful ;  thirteen  fought 
with  the  endorsement  of  another  party,  and  seven  won;  and  in  1956,  of  32 
Gaullists  who  had  gone  over  to  the  Conservatives  or  RGR,  26  saved  their 
seats.  The  deputy  who  stood  as  an  independent  had  less  prospect  of  success.  In 
1951  one  Conservative  dissident,  the  aged  but  formidable  Canon  Kir  in  C6te 
d'Or,  acquired  so  much  Radical,  MRP  and  even  Socialist  support  that  he  was 
triumphantly  re-elected;  in  1956  his  chastened  party  restored  him  to  the  head 
of  its  list  at  the  expense  of  a  sitting  member,  who  was  beaten.15  But  this  was 
exceptional.  Often  other  deputies  who  stood  as  independents  in  1951  only  one 
was  re -elected.16  In  1956  all  five  lost. 

However,  the  organization  could  not  lay  down  the  law  to  a  wayward  par- 
liamentarian, for  a  quarrel  usually  hurt  them  both.  A  rebel  who  could  not 
hold  his  seat  might  still  deprive  the  party  of  it.17  After  1946  only  the  Com- 

13.  Examples  in  Williams,  no.  168,  p.  I72n.  In  1956  Radical  sitting  members  put  their  vote  up 
30%,  new  Radical  candidates  80%.  CNIP  and  MRP  sortants  also  did  much  worse  than  new- 
comers, but  Socialists  and  Communists  did  much  better  and  GaulUsts  a  trifle  less  badly;  the 
electorate  discriminated  against  outgoing  deputies  from  the  old  majority  (notwithstanding  Dogan 
in  Elections  1956,  pp.  442-3).  On  conditions  favouring  new  men  or  old  see  Buron,  p.  36. 

14.  For  the  villages  of  Somme  see  J.  Bugnicourt  in  Paysans,  pp.  476-7,  480,  cf.  471 ;  also 
Professor  J.  Blondel  kindly  showed  me  his  unpublished  study  of  Amiens.  On  rebellious  local 
parties,  AP  1947,  p.  215, 1950,  p.  153 ;  Monde,  26  June  1953. 

15.  Long,  pp.  155-64  (for  other  examples  of  CNIP  flexibility,  above,  pp.  152,1 54).  Two  other 
Conservatives  quarrelled  with  their  local  parties  and  lost ;  so  did  three  Socialists.  In  all  3 1  members 
stood  for  a  new  cause  in  their  old  seat;  17  had  been  MRP,  and  so  had  5  who  stood  else- 
where ;  of  these  22  only  eight  won  (four  RPF  and  four  Conservatives). 

16.  M.  Bessac;  see  above,  p.  179.  .         . 

17.  In  1956  three  ex-MRP  independents  lost,  only  one  to  MRP.  Three  Conservatives  without 
CNIP  endorsement  lost;  one,  supported  by  the  Bordeaux  party,  cost  CNIP  the  seat. 


326  THE  SYSTEM 

munists  dared  wield  the  whip  freely.  Very  few  members  had  to  retire  from 
Parliament  because  of  political  disputes:  perhaps  half  a  dozen  MRP  deputies 
in  1951  and  three  in  1956,  and  two  or  three  Socialists  on  each  occasion.  It 
became  rare  in  the  towns  and  almost  unknown  in  the  countryside  for  a  deputy 
to  be  re-adopted  in  a  lower  place  on  the  list.  Against  35  non-Communists 
downgraded  in  1946,  in  1951  there  were  only  ten  (of  whom  three  were  beaten) 
and  in  1956  eleven  (five  lost).18  Laxer  discipline  gave  the  member  little  incen- 
tive to  break  with  his  party,  unless  it  was  on  the  wane  (of  36  deputies  who 
fought  under  a  new  banner  in  1951,  22  were  ex-MRP,  and  of  43  in  1956,  37 
were  ex-Gaullists).  The  public  reaction  against  monolithic  parties  and  the 
stronger  position  of  the  sitting  member  had  swung  the  balance  of  power  in  his 
favour  and  given  him  greater  freedom  of  action.  The  local  organization  was 
unlikely  to  cause  him  difficulty  unless  he  neglected  the  constituency,  and 
national  headquarters  would  do  so  only  against  isolated  individuals  who 
flagrantly  violated  a  cherished  party  principle:  an  MRP  rebel  could  afford  to 
abstain  on  the  Japanese  peace  treaty,  but  not  to  campaign  against  the  Euro- 
pean army. 

More  serious  problems  arose  when  the  national  party  clashed  with  a  local 
branch.  Regional  differences  of  outlook  and  interest  often  obliged  a  candidate 
to  adapt  his  party's  appeal  and  policy  to  local  needs.  This  bothered  neither  the 
undisciplined  Right  and  Centre  nor  the  opportunists  of  the  far  Left:  the  Com- 
munists cheerfully  attacked  the  high  cost  of  living  in  the  towns  and  the  low 
level  of  food  prices  in  the  country,  and  Radicals  had  flourished  for  years  by 
suiting  their  views  and  alliances  to  regional  circumstances.  But  MRP  can- 
didates were  sometimes  embarrassed  by  the  conduct  of  colleagues  from 
another  wing  of  the  party.  SFIO  was  especially  vulnerable;  its  local  alliances 
with  pro-clerical  candidates  in  1951  and  1956  were  exploited  against  it  else- 
where, while  party  headquarters  had  always  to  resist  the  desire  of  a  few 
branches  for  a  pact  with  the  Communists.19 

The  Communists  themselves  were  concerned  to  weaken  their  rivals'  dis- 
cipline and  reinforce  their  own.  At  the  Liberation  they  had  sought  immediate 
electoral  influence  and  parliamentary  strength,  and  therefore  preferred  well- 
known  candidates.  But  in  later  years  the  leadership  valued  reliability  more 
than  numbers  and  eliminated  doubtful  members,  notably  critics  of  Stalin's 
pact  with  Hitler.  Even  in  1945  the  Lot-et-Garonne  branch  was  forbidden  to 
renominate  its  hero  Renaud  Jean,  the  pre-war  peasant  leader  and  chairman 
of  the  parliamentary  group,  who  had  openly  condemned  the  pact;  and  the 
veto  was  repeated  in  1951.  Perhaps  twenty  members  at  that  election  and  fifteen 
at  the  next  were  removed  or  downgraded  for  political  reasons.20  But  even  the 

18.  Dogan  in  Elections  1956,  pp.  435-8;  Pierce,  no.  180,  pp.  403-4;  Williams,  no.  168,  p.  171. 
On  1946  see  below,  p.  388.  In  urban  areas  about  one  member  in  five  and  elsewhere  about  one  in 
eleven  was  downgraded  either  in  1946  or  1951.  But  in  1956  all  victims  but  one  were  in  urban 
areas  (or  semi-urban  ones  where  the  party  was  sure  of  several  seats,  like  MRP  in  Alsace).  The 
five  who  lost  were  2  SFIO,  2  CNIP  and  1  MRP. 

19.  By  law  a  party's  apparentements  had  to  be  authorized  nationally,  but  only  party  discipline 
could  stop  a  federation  agreeing  to  a  joint  list  with  another  party,  as  Vosges  did  in  1956.  See  above, 
pp.  97n.,  172,323. 

20.  In  1951  thirteen  Communists  were  downgraded  and  in  1956,  eight;  nine  and  two  were 
beaten.  Politics  seems  to  have  caused  most  of  the  Communist  retirements  in  both  years.  See 

[over 


VOTERS  AND  MEMBERS  327 

Communists  were  more  ruthless  in  the  towns  than  in  the  country,  and  even 
their  well-disciplined  electorate  took  some  account  of  personality.21 

One  ordinary  deputy  even  defied  the  party  and  put  it  to  rout.  Louis  Prot 
was  a  popular  veteran,  deputy  for  Somme  since  1936;  in  1949  a  younger  col- 
league tried  to  force  him  out.  Prot  resigned  from  the  party,  sent  his  parlia- 
mentary proxy  to  Thorez  to  prove  his  political  orthodoxy,  and  publicly 
accused  the  local  leaders  of  organizing  an  armed  robbery  at  the  Liberation 
and  burning  down  their  own  headquarters  to  destroy  the  evidence.  Paris 
ordered  an  inquiry.  Profs  interesting  speeches  stopped,  and  after  everyone 
had  been  mildly  censured  he  settled  down  to  nine  more  years  of  total  obscurity 
as  senior  Communist  deputy  for  Somme.  Other  Communist  politicians  also 
suffered  from  bourgeois  failings,  and  Pierre  Herve  in  Finist£re  was  the  victim 
of  a  similar  campaign  by  the  local  leader  who  had  had  to  make  room  for  him 
at  the  top  of  the  list.22 

Such  disputes  were  more  frequent  -  or  more  public  -  in  other  parties.  The 
Gironde  Radicals  followed  Chaban-Debnas  into  RPF  against  opposition 
from  both  his  predecessor  (an  ex-senator  whom  he  had  displaced  from  the 
Assembly  in  November  1946)  and  his  colleague  Marc  Dupuy,  his  senior  in  age 
but  his  junior  on  the  list.23  Louis  Marin,  the  grand  old  man  of  French 
nationalism,  was  replaced  in  1951  after  46  years  as  member  for  Nancy  by  his 
second,  the  steelmasters'  spokesman  Pierre  Andre,  who  was  barely  half  his 
age.  Madame  Brossolette,  a  highly  respected  senator  for  Seine,  was  a  dis- 
ciplined Socialist  but  supported  the  minority  in  the  party;  on  this  pretext  she 
was  downgraded  in  1958;  Georges  Dardel,  the  local  boss  who  took  her  seat, 
turned  against  Mollet  a  month  later.24 

It  was  easier  under  the  1951  electoral  law  than  under  simple  PR  for  can- 
didates to  stand  as  individuals.  As  between  two  men  of  similar  views  in  1945- 
1946,  either  one  conceded  top  place  and  the  seat  to  the  other,  or  else  they  ran 
separately,  split  their  vote,  and  both  failed.  In  1951  and  1956  they  could 
present  allied  lists,  combine  their  forces,  and  let  the  voters  choose  between 
them.  (This  partly  explains  the  great  proliferation  of  lists,  which  averaged  five 

Williams,  p.  353,  and  sources  in  n.  18.  For  Renaud  Jean,  Rossi,  p.  446 ;  Wright  in  Earle,  pp.  224-5, 
and  in  no.  228,  p.  41. 

21.  In  November  1958  they  often  polled  best,  relative  to  the  NON  vote  at  the  September 
referendum,  where  an  outgoing  deputy  was  standing.  The  fellow-travelling  Progressive  members 
proved  to  have  strong  personal  support  not  transferable  to  the  Communist  party. 

22.  Herve:  Dieu  et  Cesar,  pp.  26-7.  Prot:  Monde,  28  and  29  April,  14  and  21  May,  14  June 
1949;  Humanite,  9  September,  Figaro,  7  and  11  September.  He  may  have  had  a  still  stronger 
weapon.  According  to  Histoire,  ii.  27  the  decision  to  approach  the  Nazi  authorities  in  1940  was 
not  made,  as  the  official  line  claims,  by  local  militants  who  were  later  disgraced  for  it,  but  on 
direct  orders  from  Thorez  and  Duclos  to  a  central  committee  member  (later  killed  by  the  Germans) 
who  was  deputy  for  Somme;  he  obeyed  but  disapproved,  and  gave  the  records  to  'a  comrade 
from  the  Somme  . . .  who  has  already  made  use  of  them  by  way  of  a  shield'.  In  1958  Prot  fought 
a  hopeless  seat  'but  this  apparently  was  against  the  wishes  of  the  Paris  headquarters* ;  his  younger 
rival  (Ren6  Lamps)  was  narrowly  beaten  in  the  best  seat,  Amiens :  see  J.  Blondel  in  Elections 
Abroad,  pp.  95,  101-2. 

23.  Dupuy's  strength  lay  outside  Bordeaux,  where  Chaban-Delmas  was  mayor.  In  1951  he 
persuaded  the  Assembly  to  make  Gironde  into  two  constituencies;  but  a  party  conference 
(held  in  the  absence  of  his  supporters)  did  not  renominate  him :  Monde,  22  May  and  2  June 
195L 

24.  See  above,  pp.  93,  lOOn. 


328  THE  SYSTEM 

per  seat  in  1945-46,  seven  in  1951,  and  ten  in  1956.25)  Thus  in  1950  the 
Socialists  in  Pyrenees-Orientales  were  split  by  a  quarrel  over  control  of  the 
local  newspaper  between  the  veteran  deputy  and  president  of  the  departmental 
council,  Louis  Nogueres,  and  the  young  party  secretary,  Arthur  Conte.  The 
organization  supported  its  secretary  and  was  disaffiliated  by  Paris.  But 
apparentement  solved  the  difficulty;  at  the  1951  election  Conte  headed  a  list  of 
bis  own  in  unfriendly  alliance  with  SFIO,  Radicals  and  MRP.  He  ran  well 
ahead  of  the  official  Socialist,  affiliated  to  the  SFIO  group  in  the  Assembly, 
and  was  soon  readmitted  to  the  fold.26 

Relations  between  competitors  did  not  always  permit  this  happy  solution. 
Some  disappointed  candidates  preferred  to  fight  on  their  own  and  so  damage 
(or  coerce)  those  who  had  repudiated  them.  In  Paris,  where  the  law  allowed  no 
alliances,  a  UDSR  candidate  in  1956  was  accused  of  splitting  the  Mendesist 
vote;  he  replied  that  he  had  accepted  second  place  on  the  Radical  list  but  then 
found  it  had  been  offered  to  seventeen  others.  In  Calvados  Joseph  Laniel 
belatedly  picked  as  his  second  a  young  local  councillor  who  had  begun  a 
vigorous  campaign  against  the  sitting  members  in  general  and  his  future  leader 
in  particular. 

If  list  voting  had  not  eliminated  personality  from  general  elections,  the 
individualist  had  still  more  scope  when  by-elections  were  restored  in  1951.  In 
Paris  he  might  reach  half  a  million  voters,  which  was  cheap  publicity  for  a 
politically-minded  novelist,  a  commercially-minded  restaurant  owner  or  an 
earnest-minded  crank.  In  1952  the  founder-president  of  the  International 
League  of  Illegitimate  Children  contested  a  Paris  seat,  demanding  23  reforms 
in  the  interests  of  his  fellows  and  the  restoration  of  French  as  the  sole  language 
of  diplomacy.  Even  at  a  general  election  independents  were  not  always  deterred 
by  the  need  to  form  a  complete  list  Two  Paris  constituencies  had  nineteen 
lists  each  in  1956.  In  1951  6,000  citizens  of  Allier  voted  for  five  members  of 
one  family,  who  appropriately  called  their  list '  Republican  Concentration '.  A 
motorists'  candidate  in  Bordeaux  urged  everyone  to  strike  two  names  off  their 
own  party's  list  and  panacher  in  his  favour,  which  would  harm  nobody  and 
give  him  two  seats;  1,500  electors  (or  their  equivalent  in  fractions)  responded. 
In  north-eastern  Paris  there  were  4,500  votes  for  the  list  of  Mecontents,  anti- 
partis  et  independants  nationaux.  Five  years  later  a  similar  appeal  won  two  and 
a  half  million  votes  and  fifty  seats. 

2.  THE  CONSTITUENCY  REPRESENTATIVE 

The  function  of  a  party  within  the  regime  was  to  defend  the  values  and 
interests  of  a  group  of  prudent  and  not  too  discontented  voters ;  its  spokesman 
was  normally  a  local  man  they  knew  and  trusted.  But  the  protest  candidate 
exploited  his  fresh  appeal  and  his  freedom  from  sordid  parliamentary  habits. 

25.  Campbell,  p.  117;  Dogan  in  Elections  1956,  pp.  426-9  (the  proliferation  was  all  on  the 
Right);  Goguel  in  ibid.,  p.  504;  Intgalites,  p.  319.  Pierce,  no.  180,  p.  402  reckons  seven  'genuine' 
lists  per  seat  in  1951  and  eight  in  1956.  For  the  Poujadists  exploiting  this  provision,  see  Appen- 

26.  He  won  many  non-Socialist  votes  (and  kept  them  in  1956).  But  he  was  far  behind  the  Com- 
munist, a  champion  of  private  property,  dear  wine  and  tomatoes,  and  no  imports  from  Spain: 
see  Williams,  p.  354. 


VOTERS  AND  MEMBERS  329 

True  Gaullists  believed  with  their  leader  that  the  'higher  interests  of  France' 
were  'quite  different  from  the  immediate  advantage  of  Frenchmen*;  regard- 
ing themselves  as  representatives  of  the  nation  as  a  whole,  they  often  made  it 
all  too  plain  that  the  particular  territorial  base  into  which  the  party  leaders 
had  'parachuted'  them  was  fortunate  to  have  the  honour  of  returning  them  to 
Paris  -  an  attitude  that  cost  them  dear  in  1956.27  The  Poujadists,  in  contrast, 
were  an  ostentatiously  provincial  movement  in  revolt  against  the  wicked 
capital.  Their  candidates  combined  the  appeals  of  local  origins  and  political 
novelty-  except  in  Paris  itself  where  they  deliberately  presented  outsiders.  The 
Communists,  with  their  priceless  asset  of  a  disciplined  following,  placed  their 
men  and  their  allies  where  they  could  do  most  good:  when  Pierre  Cot's  seat  in 
Savoie  was  unsafe  they  moved  him  to  Lyons,  Pierre  Herv6  was  sent  to  head  the 
list  in  Finistere,  and  Roger  Garaudy  and  Waldeck-Rochet,  as  they  rose  in  the 
party  hierarchy,  were  promoted  from  provincial  constituencies  to  stand  in  the 
capital.  But  they  too  presented  familiar  local  figures  in  the  rural  departments. 
In  every  party  discipline  was  stricter  in  the  towns,  where  the  member's  per- 
sonality counted  for  less  than  in  the  individualist-minded  countryside. 

The  new  electoral  law  did  not  lighten  the  member's  burden  of  constituency 
duties.  Indeed  it  increased  the  pressure  on  the  government  supporter,  who 
heard  from  his  own  followers  throughout  the  department,  from  people  with  a 
claim  on  a  ministry  held  by  his  party,  and  from  opposition  voters  who  doubted 
whether  their  favourite  member  had  influence  enough  to  help  them.  In  return 
he  could  write  at  election  time  to  mayors  of  his  party  that  their  village  was  at 
last  to  have  its  new  school  or  that  the  recently  abandoned  bus  service  was  to  be 
resumed  (and  sly  mayors  with  more  partisan  fervour  than  social  conscience 
were  even  said  to  slow  up  house  building  till  their  party  came  to  power  in 
Paris).  Moreover,  the  ministerialist's  constituency  work  not  only  made  friends 
'but  above  all  it  neutralizes  enemies.  A  Communist  mayor  devoted  to  his 
rural  commune  has  become  used  to  writing  to  a  Conservative  when  he  has 
need  of  a  deputy;  they  have  come  to  work  together  on  a  non-political  basis.  It 
will  be  hard  for  the  mayor  to  denounce  the  member  and  try  to  defeat  him.  '28 

Even  Mendes-France  did  not  disdain  to  supplement  his  exposure  of  con- 
servative follies  in  Indo-China  or  North  Africa  by  pointing  with  pride  to  the 
housing  achievements  of  his  team  of  local  mayors,  A  few  national  figures  like 
Antoine  Pinay  and  Paul  Ramadier  might  say  little  about  constituency  prob- 
lems -  but  only  a  long  and  famous  record  of  local  services  allowed  them  to  do 
so.  For  the  deputy  who  neglected  his  department  was  not  lightly  forgiven, 
however  worthy  his  reasons.  M.  E.  Naegelen,  Governor-General  of  Algeria 
for  three  years  before  the  1951  election,  prudently  migrated  from  his  Alsatian 
seat  to  the  distant  Basses-Alpes.  Andre  Philip,  a  devotee  of  the  Council  of 
Europe,  was  badly  beaten  at  Lyons;  his  Strasbourg  colleague  Frangois  de 

27.  Below,  p.  429  .  Quotation:  C.  de  Gaulle,  Le  Salut,  p.  28.  Types  of  candidate:  Huron, 
p.  36. 

28.  Elections  1956,  pp.  331-2  (C.  Prieur  on  Aveyron).  Also  Waline,  p.  84,  quoting  Madame 
Vienot's  letter  resigning  her  seat  in  1947  because  the  new  system  imposed  such  a  physical  strain; 
Wylie,  pp.  215-16,  223-7,  quoting  letters  about  a  village  school  at  the  1951  election;  Lavau, 
no.  141,  p.  33,  on  sly  mayors;  Dogan  in  JPaysans,  pp.  225-7;  '"subsidyism"  is  the  basis  of  the 
electoral  life  of  our  countryside',  C.  d'Aragon  in  ibid.,  pp.  512-13 ;  Buron,  pp.  24-6. 


330  THE  SYSTEM 

Menthon  profited  from  the  popularity  of  his  second,  a  local  man  who  answered 
letters.  Ministers  were  usually  safe  at  the  head  of  their  lists  -  even  where 
panachage  and  preferential  voting  showed  that  numbers  of  their  political  fol- 
lowers regarded  office  and  fame  as  no  substitute  for  presence  in  the  district. 
Lesser  figures  were  in  much  more  danger.  An  Alsatian  MRP  member  who 
had  repeatedly  attacked  his  party's  North  African  policies  was  not  re-nomin- 
ated in  1956 :  Parisians  assumed  that  he  was  suffering  for  his  liberal  views,  but 
he  himself  explained  that  his  sin  was  his  unwillingness  to  attend  all  local 
ceremonies.29 

Particularist  feeling  was  strongest  among  the  peripheral  groups  -  Bretons, 
Basques,  Catalans,  Alsatians  -  where  a  candidate  was  handicapped  if  he 
could  not  speak  dialect.  In  1951,  when  RPF  'parachuted'  General  Koenig 
into  Strasbourg  (the  party's  birthplace),  he  had  to  'attend  his  own  meetings 
rather  than  take  part  in  them'  and  rarely  opened  his  mouth.  Five  years  later, 
still  a  *  foreigner',  he  was  thought  to  have  cost  his  declining  party  thousands 
of  votes.30  A  Gaullist  in  1951  put  out  literature  in  Yiddish  in  a  Jewish  quarter 
of  Paris,  and  in  1956  Socialists  had  handbills  in  Arabic  for  North  Africans  and 
in  Polish  for  immigrant  miners.  Other  SFIO  leaflets  were  designed  for  rail- 
waymen,  young  people,  and  Communists;  and  the  Communists  organized 
many  of  their  urban  meetings  for  particular  groups  -  women,  youth,  teachers, 
the  badly-housed,  or  transport  workers. 

Some  constituencies  or  regions  depended  on  a  single  trade  or  industry.  No 
special  pressure-group  was  needed  to  persuade  members  from  the  Midi  to 
defend  the  winegrowers.  A  doctor-deputy  from  Herault,  in  his  concern  for 
hygiene,  naturally  defended  a  ban  on  aperitifs  based  on  spirits,  likepastis,  and 
demanded  one  on  Coca-Cola.  In  the  1951  election  the  local  Radical  mem- 
ber wrote  to  the  Radical  premier  about  the  sad  state  of  the  wine  trade;  the 
Conservative  followed  suit  next  day;  their  MRP  rival  wrote  to  the  MRP 
minister  of  agriculture  the  day  after,  and  then  the  Socialist,  Jules  Moch, 
trumped  them  all  by  taking  the  matter  to  the  cabinet.  In  fruit,  beet  and  wine 
departments  in  1956  the  prudent  candidate  tempered  his  condemnation  of 
alcoholism  (women  had  votes)  with  a  repudiation  of  any  specific  measure  pro- 
posed against  it.31  Coastal  members  naturally  joined  to  support  port  improve- 
ments and  shipbuilding  subsidies,  but  quarrelled  over  their  precise  destination. 
In  the  regions  on  which  the  church  schools  conflict  centred,  the  activity  of 
A  PEL  and  the  Comtiede  defense  la'ique  was  perhaps  as  superfluous  as  it  was 
intense,  for  even  without  organized  pressure  no  candidate  could  win  support 
without  committing  himself  to  one  side  or  the  other. 

29.  Elections  1956,  pp.  335-7  (Ramadier),  362-3  (Mendes-France),  413  (Alsace);  Williams, 
no.  168,  pp.  165-6;  Monde,  16  June  1951  (Menthon);  Buron,  pp.  81-90. 

30.  Monde,  4  June  1951 :  the  general's  predecessor  (who  changed  his  constituency  at  both 
this  election  and  the  next)  'doubtless  did  not  appear  sufficiently  often  in  a  province  . . .  where 
people  insist  on  "a  flesh-and-blood  deputy",  "a  deputy  who  is  one  of  us"  '.  Cf.  F.  G.  Dreyfus 
in  Elections  1956,  p.  415.  In  Alpes-Maritimes  in  1951  the  general  who  headed  the  RPF  list  came 
from  an  old  local  family  and  it  was  his  second,  an  aircraft  manufacturer  who  allegedly  contributed 
largely  to  party  funds,  who  was  'rather  out  of  his  element'  and  had  to  be  kept  quiet 

31.  Figaro,  11  June  1951  (Herault),  cf.  Monde,  21  May.  'Enfin  nous  nous  attacherons  a  la 
formule  qui  permettra  aux  petits  bouilleurs  de  cru  de  concilier  leurs  revendications  bien  compre- 
hensibles  avec  le  programme  de  lutte  contre  1'alcoolisme':  Radical  election  address  in  Vienne, 
1956,  quoted  by  Thomas,  no.  170,  p.  270.  And  see  below,  p.  357 


VOTERS  AND  MEMBERS  331 

Large  constituencies  made  the  member's  task  of  reconciling  local  interests 
harder,  perhaps  to  the  public  advantage.  Even  in  mainly  agricultural  depart- 
ments candidates  were  wise  to  pay  attention  to  minorities  of  industrial 
workers,  who  formerly  had  often  been  confined  to  a  single  small  district.  Con- 
versely, outside  Paris  almost  every  deputy  had  some  rural  voters  in  his  area.32 
To  cover  his  wider  parish  the  member  had  to  spend  more  time  in  his  depart- 
ment than  before  the  war  -  yet  after  all  his  efforts  he  knew  his  constituents  far 
less  well  than  under  scrutin  cfarrondissement.  Mend&s-France,  who  had 
experience  of  both  systems,  favoured  the  small  area  because  the  deputy  could 
explain  his  unpopular  votes  personally  to  all  the  influential  men  of  his  district, 
and  so  build  support  which  enabled  him  to  resist  the  pressure-groups.33 

Even  in  the  cities  local  services  paid  impressive  parliamentary  dividends. 
Like  an  American  senator  with  seniority,  a  French  political  leader  was  valued 
by  his  constituents  for  his  national  reputation  which  reflected  glory  on  the  dis- 
trict, but  also  because  -  as  he  was  not  slow  to  remind  them  -  their  town  or 
department  gained  from  having  its  claims  pressed  by  an  *  ambassador  to 
Paris'  on  whom  the  fate  of  the  minister's  bills  or  the  length  of  his  tenure  might 
one  day  depend.  Lyons  was  a  Radical  bastion  while  Herriot  lived,  though  less 
secure  as  he  grew  less  efficient  as  mayor.  Rapid  Socialist  progress  in  Marseilles 
owed  much  to  Gaston  Defferre's  local  administration,  and  at  Bordeaux 
Jacques  Chaban-Delmas  kept  a  powerful  machine  when  disaster  struck  the 
Gaullist  cause  elsewhere.  Even  in  the  capital  the  mayor  of  Vincennes  saved 
his  seat  in  1956  through  the  support  of  his  own  suburb,  which  made  up  only 
one-twelfth  of  his  electorate  but  gave  him  half  his  votes;  and  no  rising  party 
of  the  Right  could  afford  (though  it  might  have  preferred)  to  reject  the  eagerly 
proffered  alliance  of  the  master  of  the  Paris  left  bank,  fidouard  Fr6d£ric- 
Dupont. 

The  successful  politician  of  the  Third  or  Fourth  Republic  established  his 
local  base  among  fellow-citizens  who  judged  him  on  his  constructive  achieve- 
ments as  well  as  his  ideology;  if  he  had  no  base  he  was  taken  much  less 
seriously  by  his  fellow-practitioners.  The  Communists  were  successful  muni- 
cipally because  they  were  efficient  and  capable  administrators;  the  Poujadists 
never  penetrated  local  government  at  all ;  many  Gaullists  who  swept  to  the 
Assembly  on  a  wave  of  protest  in  1958  were  surprised  to  see  the  'man  of  the 
System'  they  had  expelled  from  Parliament  comfortably  returned  to  his 
mayoral  chair  six  months  later.34  At  a  municipal  election  the  voter  was  elect- 
ing councillors  to  support  or  oppose  a  mayor  whose  work  he  could  evaluate 

32.  *In  my  capacity  as  a  rural  deputy  ...  I  was  often  in  conflict  with  my  colleagues  from  the 
towns.  On  the  other  hand,  when  I  was  elected  on  a  list  system  I  could  reconcile  the  interests  of 
countryside  and  town  instead  of  setting  one  against  the  other,  and  thus  I  could  defend  the  true 
general  interest':  V.  Auriol,  JO  2  August  1945,  p.  1762  (quoted  Inegalites,  p.  41).  But  not  all 
members  tried.  In  Eure  in  1956  the  CNI  candidate  was  a  peasant  leader  who  talked  of  nothing 
but  agriculture ;  his  ARS  opponent  (the  prince  de  Broglie)  concentrated  exclusively  on  the  towns : 
F.  Essig  in  Elections  1956,  p.  359 ;  cf.  Williams,  no.  168,  p,  170. 

33.  P.  Mendes-France,  La  politique  et  la  veritl  (1958),  pp.  266-7.  But  cf.  Paysans,  p.  214. 

34.  Bloch-Morhange,  pp.  175-6;  Hoffmann,  pp.  405-6  (the  Poujadist  vote  dropped  by  two- 
thirds  in  the  municipal  elections  of  early  1956,  while  it  was  still  rising  in  parliamentary  by-elections) ; 
Blondel's  study  of  Amiens  (see  n.  14);  Wylie,  p.  238;  Paysans,  pp.  42,  510-13;  Williams  and 
Harrison,  pp.  112-13 ;  Chapman,  Introduction  to  French  Local  Government,  pp.  222-3 ;  Buron, 
pp.  34,  90-7,  139. 


332  THE  SYSTEM 

from  his  own  experience.  But  at  a  parliamentary  election  Ms  attitude  was 
quite  different.  This  was  an  opportunity  to  send  to  Paris  an  envoy  either  to 
defend  his  interests  and  outlook,  or  to  express  his  resentments.  Both  to  the 
prudent  majority  and  to  the  angry  minority  the  deputy's  function  was 
negative:  protective  obstruction  for  the  one,  denunciatory  obstruction  for  the 
other.  In  each  camp  only  a  few  voters  imagined  that  the  politician  might  play  a 
more  positive  role  in  supporting  a  real  ministry  with  a  real  programme.  But 
this  was  not  because  the  ordinary  Frenchman  was  incapable  of  thinking 
constructively  about  politics.  In  local  government,  for  all  its  limited  powers, 
there  was  a  circuit  of  confidence  between  rulers  and  people.  In  the  National 
Assembly,  for  all  its  omnipotence,  there  was  none. 

3.  THE  MEMBER  OF  PARLIAMENT 

The  protest  voter  in  indignant  revolt  against  the  political  regime  was  likely  to 
turn  to  a  candidate  from  his  own  background,  who  shared  his  exasperation 
and  would  not  be  seduced  by  the  wiles  of  the  System.  Most  Poujadist  deputies 
were  small  shopkeepers,  like  the  butcher  from  Haute-Savoie  who  thought 
politics  a  *m6tier  instable*  and  kept  his  shop  open  at  week-ends  (wisely:  he 
was  unseated).  Many  Communist  members  sprang  from  the  working  class. 
But  to  voters  who  supported  the  regime,  their  deputy  was  a  spokesman  for 
their  ideas  and  an  advocate  for  their  interests;  it  was  more  important  that  he 
should  fulfil  these  roles  effectively  than  that  he  should  himself  be  one  of  them- 
selves. Professional  men  were  therefore  even  more  over-represented  in  the 
French  than  in  other  legislatures.  Bodley  remarked  long  ago  that  half  the 
deputies  came  from  the  tiny  professional  class,  and  included  more  lawyers 
than  men  engaged  -  like  five-sixths  of  their  countrymen  -  in  industry,  com- 
merce or  agriculture.  In  1946  those  three  occupations  provided  204  deputies 
out  of  544,  and  the  professions  281.  Among  the  378  non-Communists,  lawyers 
outnumbered  workers  and  peasants  by  69  to  62  and  teachers  businessmen  by 
57  to  54.  Wage-earners  were  177  in  1946,  155  ten  years  later;  under  half  were 
manual  workers,  who  were  nearly  all  Communists.  Middle-class  preponder- 
ance was  still  greater  in  the  conservative  1951  Assembly,  and  in  the  upper 
house.85 

Nevertheless,  politics  was  one  of  the  few  ways  to  rise  rapidly  in  the  stratified 
French  social  system.  Few  members  had  been  eminent  in  another  profession 
before  election  to  Parliament;  and  indeed,  ever  since  Bodley's  day,  the  old 
ruling  class  had  lamented  its  own  alienation  from  the  regime  and  the  people  by 
complaining  that  *the  best  men  keep  out  of  politics*.  In  the  Assembly  there 
was  no  social  equivalent  to  the  old  school  tie,  and  a  title  did  not  always  win 
Conservative  hearts;  one  department  was  Represented  by  the  crypto-Com- 
munist  son  of  a  marquis  and  a  small-town  solicitor  of  Eurasian  origin  who 
belonged  to  the  Peasant  party.  The  few  women,  usually  Communist  or 
MRP,  dwindled  from  32  deputies  in  1945  to  19  in  1956,  and  from  22  senators 
in  1946  to  9  in  1958.86  Though  there  was  no  locality  rule,  carpet-baggers  were 

35.  Hamon,  no.  121,  pp.  548-53 ;  Bodley,  ii.  155-63 ;  Husson,  ii.  xxx ;  Dogan's  tables(see  p.  68n.) ; 
cf.  Williams,  p.  206n. ;  overseas  members  omitted*  On  senators  see  above,  p.  289. 

36.  Hamon,  no.  121,  p.  549.  Women  and  wage-earners  were  more  numerous  among  candidates, 
to  balance  the  ticket,  but  they  usually  had  low  places  with  no  chance  of  election. 


VOTERS  AND  MEMBERS  333 

unpopular  in  the  provinces,  especially  among  the  traditional  parties.  Contrary 
to  the  popular  legend  that  politicians  were  excitable  men  from  the  Midi,  more 
northerners  represented  southern  seats  than  vice  versa;  but  outside  the  capital 
most  deputies  sat  for  the  department  where  they  had  been  born.37  The  mem- 
ber's contact  with  his  electors  often  extended  beyond  his  postbag,  his  weekly 
visits  and  his  local  government  work.  Like  American  congressmen,  many 
deputies  had  deep  roots  in  their  districts  and  were  'representative'  of  their 
people  not  only  in  politics. 

In  Parliament,  as  in  the  barrack-room,  men  from  different  classes  and 
provinces  met  and  mixed  freely.  Often  the  most  valuable  contacts  occurred 
within  the  party  groups,  and  as  these  were  sometimes  more  restricted  occu- 
pationally  than  the  Assembly  as  a  whole,  the  geographical  melting-pot  was 
more  effective  than  the  social.  But  in  so  diverse  a  country  the  lobby  fulfilled 
an  important  function  as  a  forum  for  exchanging  experiences,  for  the  prejudiced 
newcomer  soon  discovered  that  'foreigners'  from  other  regions  and  'enemies* 
with  other  faiths  had  personal  problems  and  temptations  not  unlike  his  own. 
He  learned  the  need  for  compromise  between  rival  groups,  opposing  interests, 
even  conflicting  ideals.  Even  the  famous  Gaullist  general  or  Radical  lawyer 
might  benefit  from  meeting  less  distinguished  compatriots  on  equal  terms.38 

The  lobby  kept  down  the  temperature  of  domestic  conflict.  For  Parliament 
was  a  club  in  which  success  went  to  the  man  with  many  friends  and  no  enemies : 
the  bargainer  rather  than  the  fighter.  Before  the  rise  of  the  Communist  party, 
Robert  de  Jouvenel  noted  that  'there  is  more  difference  between  two  revolu- 
tionaries, one  of  whom  is  a  deputy,  than  between  two  deputies,  one  of  whom 
is  a  revolutionary'.39  Those  who  suffered  from  the  ingratitude  of  their  'com- 
mon enemy,  the  voter'  quite  frequently  found  new  public  employment  from 
ministers  of  other  parties.  Of  the  leading  Socialists  defeated  in  1951,  Andr€ 
Philip  was  promptly  appointed  to  the  Economic  Council,  Paul  Ramadier  to 
the  ILO,  and  J.  R.  Guyon  to  the  chair  of  the  Alcohol  Commission.  Even  when 
SFIO  was  in  resolute  opposition,  Jules  Moch  represented  France  in  dis- 
armament negotiations  for  years  and  M.  E.  Naegelen  was  offered  the  Moroc- 
can residency  by  Laniel.  Though  such  political  appointments  were  usually 
criticized,  they  were  often  strictly  justified  by  merit;  and  parliamentary  life 
would  not  necessarily  have  been  healthier  if  the  livelihood  of  all  the  members  - 
and  their  families  -  had  depended  exclusively  on  their  electoral  survival. 

Members  recognized  that  many  opponents  were  also  colleagues.  Just  as  the 
governmental  parties  installed  political  mechanisms  that  were  usually  self- 
attenuating,  so  they  carried  on  most  of  their  controversies  with  moderation 
and  rarely  exploited  their  victories  to  excess.  When  Frenchmen  were  needlessly 
divided  the  quarrel  was  often  fomented  by  the  enemies  of  the  regime  to  split 
and  weaken  its  defenders.40  Yet  even  among  the  protest  parties  only  the  Com- 
munists resisted  (not  quite  completely)  the  temptations  of  the  System;  the 

37.  Under  half  of  RPF's  deputies  but  over  60%  of  CNIP  and  SFIO  were  local  born.  Only 
one  provincial  member  in  ten  was  born  in  Paris.  (My  calculations.) 

38.  See  Hamon,  no.  117,  pp.  389-90;  no.  121,  especially  pp.  559-60. 

39.  La  Rtpublique  des  camarades  (1914),  pp.  16-17. 

40.  Above,  p.  319 ;  below,  pp.  315-16,  450-2.  Even  the  insurrectionaries  of  1958  chose  to  show 
strength  rather  than  use  it. 


334  THE  SYSTEM 

others  were  absorbed  by  it  within  two  years  of  their  election.  The  parliamen- 
tary shock-absorber  thus  cushioned  the  edifice  of  French  government  from 
the  full  impact  of  waves  of  popular  discontent.  But  the  groundswell  remained, 
and  exasperation  with  the  politician  who  talked  revolt  in  his  constituency  and 
compromise  in  Paris  contributed  to  the  low  repute  of  his  profession  in  France. 

This  was  undeserved.  Most  members  of  the  Fourth  Republic's  Parliaments 
had  been  subjected  to  an  unusually  severe  test  of  patriotism  and  courage,  for 
the  Resistance  and  the  Free  French  movement  were  their  principal  recruiting 
grounds.  In  intellectual  capacity  the  National  Assembly  certainly  stood  com- 
parison with  the  House  of  Commons.  Among  leaders  and  c  back-benchers ' 
alike  the  great  majority  were  conscientious,  well-intentioned  and  honest  men.41 
If  the  deputy's  standing  was  lower  than  in  the  great  days  of  the  Third  Repub- 
lic, this  was  more  a  result  of  major  social  changes  breaking  the  traditional 
lines  of  political  communication  than  of  any  decline  in  personal  quality. 
Antoine  Pinay  thought  Ms  colleagues  in  the  Fourth  Republic  better  than  those 
of  the  Third.  Another  acute  observer  (with  little  love  for  the  regime  and  none 
for  the  Resistance)  thought  that  a  third  of  his  fellow-members  were  at  once 
able,  disinterested  and  wholly  devoted  to  their  duties;  and  that  as  human 
material  the  parliamentarians  were  much  superior  to  their  economic,  pro- 
fessional or  official  opposite  numbers.42 

But  theirs  was  a  thankless  task,  for  in  France  more  than  elsewhere  the  'fret- 
ful constituent'  clamoured  for  incompatibles  and  blamed  his  representative 
when  he  did  not  get  them.  The  cowardly  or  cynical  politician  therefore  talked 
one  language  in  his  department  and  another  to  his  colleagues;  the  conscien- 
tious member  patiently  educated  his  voters  in  compromise,  explaining  the 
limits  of  the  budget,  the  price  of  economic  progress,  the  choice  of  evils  abroad, 
or  the  legitimate  claims  of  other  classes  or  regions.43  But  since  no  party  was 
ever  clearly  responsible  for  the  government  of  the  country,  the  most  public- 
spirited  member  could  never  be  judged  on  a  clear  record :  only  on  proposals  he 
and  his  friends  would  never  have  the  power  to  execute,  eked  out  by  explana- 
tions of  the  difficulties  frustrating  them. 

This  state  of  affairs  exasperated  the  voters,  yet  they  were  themselves  largely 
responsible  for  it.  Choosing  deputies  to  oppose  authority,  they  prevented  the 
emergence  of  a  government  effective  enough  to  make  contact  with  the  people  - 
who,  having  no  contact  with  their  rulers,  chose  deputies  to  oppose,  *  using  their 
franchise  not  to  build  the  State  but  to  protect  themselves  against  it'.44  That 
choice,  rather  than  the  human  frailties  of  the  members,  ensured  that  obstruc- 
tion always  had  the  advantage  over  construction  in  the  French  Parliament. 
Yet  how  could  the  voter  be  expected  to  regard  a  general  election  as  an  oppor- 
tunity to  choose  a  government,  when  the  deputies  cherished  their  claim  to 
incarnate  -  and  interpret  -  the  will  of  the  people?  Before  1940  the  majority 

41.  Noel, pp.  102;  Hamon,  no.  121,  p.  558 ;  Priouret,  Deputes,  p.  235 ;  Isorni,  Silence,  pp.  15-16. 
Senator  Ren6  Laniel  was  expelled  for  business  irregularities ;  the  first  police  action  against  him 
had  been  taken  while  his  brother  was  premier.  Also  Buron,  p.- 107. 

42.  Isorni,  Silence,  pp.  16-17  and  (for  Pinay)  36-7.  For  the  social  changes  see  below,  pp.  445-7. 

43.  Cf.  accounts  of  meetings  in  Elections  1956  (R  Essig  on  Eure  and  C.  Prieur  on  Aveyron, 
especially  p.  340)  and  in  Nicholas  et  al  (Thomas,  no.  170,  on  Vienne,  and  Rose,  no.  169,  on 
Pas-de-Calais). 

44.  Goguel,  no.  113,  p.  298. 


VOTERS  AND  MEMBERS  335 

which  the  voters  thought  they  had  returned  never  lasted  more  than  two  years 
after  the  general  election.  After  1946  its  duration  was  shorter  still.  In  the  first 
National  Assembly  the  'big  three'  coalition  broke  up  six  months  from  the 
election,  in  the  second  the  Third  Force  was  dislocated  within  three  months  and 
RPF  disrupted  within  nine,  and  in  the  third  the  Republican  Front  never  came 
to  life  at  all. 

The  elector  therefore  felt  he  had  no  share  in  choosing  his  rulers.  So,  if  he 
belonged  to  the  large  minority  of  Frenchmen  who  were  exasperated  with  their 
own  condition  or  that  of  their  country,  he  cast  a  protest  vote  for  a  party  - 
Communist  or  Poujadist,  perhaps  Gaullist  or  Mendesist  -  which  could  express 
his  resentment  loudly  enough  to  be  heard  in  the  'house  without  windows' 
where  the  deputies  sat;  and  unless  he  was  on  the  extreme  Left  a  new  man  or 
movement  could  always  count  on  a  welcome  from  him.  If  he  belonged  to  the 
majority  which  distrusted  sweeping  changes,  or  bitter  words,  or  violent 
methods,  then  he  cast  a  defensive  vote  for  a  deputy,  preferably  a  familiar  and 
trustworthy  figure,  from  whichever  of  the  safe  centre  parties  would  best  uphold 
his  personal  ideas  or  interests  and  oppose  'adventures'. 

*  It  has  become  conventional  to  think  of  human  power  as  a  plague  to  be 
classed  with  the  plagues  of  nature :  the  odious  government,  the  levelling  mistral, 
the  flooding  Durance.'  This  was  the  heritage  of  intermittent  abuse  of  authority 
by  established  governments  or  their  revolutionary  enemies,  and  of  con- 
tinuing arbitrary  rule  by  a  remote  and  centralized  bureaucracy  which  the 
ancien  regime  had  developed  and  its  successors  perfected.  'For  several 
decades  . . .  French  voters  have  chosen  their  members  of  parliament  with  the 
idea  much  less  of  delegating  to  them  the  task  of  government  than  of  acquiring 
in  them  intercessors  with  the  mysterious  Us  who  represent  Power,  and  gaining 
protection  against  the  actions  of  Power.'45 

45.  Ibid.  *  Plague*:  Wylie,  p.  332. 


Chapter  24 
POLITICS  AND  THE  STATE  MACHINE 

Long  before  she  had  democratic  institutions,  France  possessed  an  exception- 
ally capable,  self-confident,  powerful  and  centralized  bureaucracy.  It  recruited 
many  of  her  ablest  men,  and  French  higher  education,  which  was  largely 
geared  to  its  needs,  produced  a  series  of  tightly  specialized  professional  groups 
bound  together  by  similar  social  origins,  a  common  training,  and  intense 
esprit  de  corps.  This  massive  machine  was  not  easily  controlled  by  amateur  and 
transient  ministers  handicapped  by  unstable  parliamentary  majorities  and 
divided  coalition  cabinets.  But  the  politician  had  some  help  in  penetrating 
the  bureaucratic  jungle  from  his  small  personal  staff  or  cabinet  (though  in  the 
Fourth  Republic  this  was  itself  often  drawn  from  the  higher  civil  service).  The 
officials,  conversely,  found  that  the  diffusion  of  political  responsibility  some- 
times allowed  them  to  make  counter-forays  into  the  parliamentary  field. 

The  bureaucracy  adapted  itself  to  weak  political  leadership  by  devising 
procedures  and  institutions  to  carry  on  the  nation's  government  when  minis- 
tries faltered  or  fell,  and  internal  controls  to  investigate  and  check  its  own 
abuses.1  These  tasks  of  inspection  and  supervision  were  performed  by  the 
services  with  most  prestige,  the  grands  corps  de  F&at,  which  attracted  the 
ablest  entrants  to  the  civil  service  and  gave  them  an  intimate  knowledge  of  its 
working.  Often  their  members  were  promoted  to  senior  departmental  posts  or 
seconded  to  other  important  public  duties.  They  imposed  some  unity  on  a 
bureaucratic  empire  made  up  of  many  ancient  and  autonomous  baronies. 

Some  old  ministries  like  Justice,  War  and  Education  had  for  years  been  the 
official  Parisian  bastions  of  closed  and  proud  professions,  which  jealously 
guarded  their  ramparts  against  interfering  outsiders  -  such  as  ministers  with 
minds  of  their  own.2  History  sometimes  gave  a  department  a  pronounced 
political  character.  Education  was  once  a  missionary  ministry  of  the  anti- 
clericals,  and  the  rural  schoolteachers  were  the  'republican  clergy';  Interior 
was  responsible  for  the  defence  of  the  regime  and  was  kept  out  of  Catholic 
hands;  but  the  foreign  office  was  a  stronghold  of  the  old  Catholic  families  who 
would  serve  the  state  only  in  a  military  or  diplomatic  capacity.  Under  tri- 
partite these  departmental  differences  were  accentuated  by  the  parties,  which 
each  *  colonized'  the  ministries  it  controlled.  And  for  all  its  great  administra- 
tive reforms  the  Fourth  Republic  never  brought  under  proper  control  the 
state  machine  overseas.  Reflecting  the  outlook  and  interests  of  each  local 
European  colony,  this  imperial  bureaucracy  was  protected  by  political  defences 
in  depth  as  solid  as  those  of  the  'corporative'  ministries  in  Paris.  Its  resistance 
to  reforms  helped  to  provoke  the  colonial  wars  which  sapped  the  loyalty  of 
the  army  and  police,  and  finally  undermined  the  regime  itself. 


D  IV01??3?**  n°*  7°^PP'  147~66>  and  i*  w-  J-  Siffin,  ed.,  Toward  the  Comparative  Study  of 
Public  Administration  (Bloomington,  Indiana,  1959),  pp.  182-218. 

2.  Cf.  Lavau,  Pressures,  pp.  63,  87n.;  and  below,  p.  378.  These  'corporative'  ministries 
remained  resistant  to  outside  control  in  the  Fifth  Republic. 


POLITICS  AND  THE  STATE  MACHINE  337 

1.  THE  'GRANDS  CORPS*  AND  THE  'CABINETS' 

After  the  war  a  reform  inspired  by  Michel  Debre  set  up  an  £cole  nationale 
d*  administration  (EN  A)  through  which  all  entrants  to  the  higher  civil  service 
had  to  pass.  It  did  not  go  far  to  democratize  recruitment,  since  French  higher 
education  remained  beyond  the  reach  of  sons  (though  not  grandsons)  of 
manual  workers  and  peasants.  A  separate  entry  competition  for  lower-grade 
civil  servants  went  some  way  to  alter  the  balance,  but  the  grands  corps  of  the 
Fourth  Republic  continued  to  be  staffed  by  the  sons  of  the  comfortably-off- 
often,  indeed,  of  higher  civil  servants.  But  EN  A  did  break  down  the  co- 
option  which  had  flourished  in  certain  grands  corps  in  the  past,  when  each 
service  controlled  its  own  entry  through  scores  of  separate  examinations;  and 
perhaps  it  helped  to  diminish  the  conservatism  which  had  made  the  higher 
civil  service  so  suspect  to  the  traditional  Left.  Other  factors  contributed  to 
the  change.  The  climate  of  public  and  especially  student  opinion  had  altered 
greatly,  and  the  conservative  £cole  libre  des  sciences  politiques,  through  which 
almost  every  high  official  had  passed,  was  incorporated  into  the  university  of 
Paris  and  lost  its  right-wing  bias.3  The  higher  civil  service  of  the  Fourth 
Republic  therefore  embraced  every  shade  of  political  opinion  (though  Com- 
munism was  under-represented).  The  commonest  attitudes  were  a  pragmatic 
zeal  for  efficiency  and  modernization,  an  exasperation  with  the  political 
defenders  of  the  incapable  and  the  backward,  and  a  sense  of  duty  to  uphold 
the  general  interest  of  the  community  amid  the  clamour  of  the  pressure- 
groups  and  the  competitive  demagogy  of  the  parties.  The  high  officials  'feel 
they  make  history  more  than  the  politicians,  unstable,  incompetent  and  con- 
demned to  superficiality'.4 

In  the  absence  of  effective  and  respected  political  controls  the  bureaucracy 
had  developed  powerful  institutions  to  check  its  own  abuses.  Legal  super- 
vision was  exercised  by  a  jurisdiction  separate  from  the  ordinary  courts,  the 
Conseil  d'£tat,  which  tried  cases  involving  the  state.  Originally  subject  to 
governmental  pressure,  it  became  completely  independent  early  in  the  Third 
Republic.  There  were  purges  in  1879, 1940  and  1945,  but  otherwise  no  member 
was  ever  removed  until  1960.  Protected  by  this  independence  and  fortified  by 
their  personal  experience  of  administration,  its  members  made  the  Conseil 
into  a  tribunal  affording  the  French  citizen  better  remedies  against  misuse  of 
power  by  public  authorities  than  Englishmen  enjoyed  under  Dicey's  rule  of 
law.  Its  jurisprudence  frequently  made  law  on  highly  controversial  matters.  In 
the  Third  Republic  a  conservative  Conseil,  in  tune  with  prevailing  political 
opinion,  for  years  prevented  any  development  of  municipal  socialism;  and  in 
the  Fourth  it  defined  limits  on  the  right  to  strike  of  state  employees,  which 
according  to  the  Preamble  to  the  constitution  should  have  been  laid  down  by 

3.  Brindillac,  no.  28,  pp.  865-7;  R.  Catherine  in  Partis  et  Classes,  pp.  112-21.  Also  Bottomore, 
no.  25;  Feyzioglu,  nos.  91-2;  Diamant  (n.  1),  pp.  159-62  and  195-7;  Bertrand  in  Robson,  ed., 
The  Civil  Service  in  Britain  and  France,  pp.  170-84;  Chapman,  The  Profession  of  Government, 
pp.  80-3,  88-94,  115-24;  C.  Chavanon  in  Aspects,  pp.  161-5;  P.  Lalumiere,  V Inspection  des 
finances  (1959),  pp.  15-21,  28-49. 

4.  Brindillac,  no.  28,  pp.  869-77  (quotation,  p,  870).  Ehrmann  is  more  pessimistic  in  Business* 
pp.  257-71,  a  little  less  so  in  no.  85,  pp.  534-55.  Cf.  Catherine,  loc.  cit.t  pp.  133-6;  and  below, 
pp.  343,  345-6. 


338  THE  SYSTEM 

law.5  While  the  Conseil,  like  British  and  American  courts,  was  willing  to  allow 
the  government  wider  freedom  of  action  in  war  or  major  civil  emergency,  it 
frequently  found  against  the  authorities  in  normal  times.  It  was  the  recognized 
protector  of  the  rights  of  civil  servants  against  the  state,  and  in  1 954  it  declared 
illegal  the  government's  attempt  to  exclude  five  students  suspected  of  Com- 
munism from  the  entrance  examination  to  EN  A.  Besides  its  judicial  functions 
it  was  often  called  on  to  advise  the  government  on  the  legal  aspects  of  adminis- 
tration, and  occasionally  on  major  points  such  as  the  extent  to  which  Parlia- 
ment could  constitutionally  authorize  the  government  to  alter  a  law.  In  the 
Fourth  Republic  yet  another  of  the  Conseil's  many  tasks,  that  of  advising  on 
the  drafting  of  new  government  bills  and  decrees,  took  on  an  importance  it 
had  rarely  enjoyed  in  the  Third.8 

The  bureaucracy  also  developed  checks  on  its  own  financial  abuses.  One 
of  the  most  powerful  and  closely-knit  of  the  grands  corps  was  the  Inspection 
des  finances,  on  whose  ability  and  cohesion  the  power  of  the  finance  ministry 
largely  rested.  Its  members  were  in  constant  demand  for  key  posts  elsewhere 
in  the  civil  service  -  and  in  private  business,  which  often  tempted  them  to  leave 
their  ill-paid  government  employment  at  about  forty.7  Politicians  of  the  Left 
suspected  them  of  collusion  with  the  *  money  power',  and  in  1946  the  Socialist 
party  proposed  to  abolish  the  corps  altogether.  But  as  SFIO's  influence  de- 
clined the  inspecteurs  soon  regained  their  grip  on  most  of  the  key  economic 
positions,  wrested  influence  in  the  nationalized  industries  from  the  technicians, 
and  even  annexed  leading  posts  in  the  most  exclusive  and  jealous  rival  corps, 
the  diplomatic  service.  'Under  the  Fourth  Republic  as  under  the  Third,  we 
are  governed  by  the  Inspection  des  finances.** 

Another  powerful  inspectorate  was  the  Cour  des  Comptes,  an  ancient 
administrative  tribunal  which  gained  status  and  influence  in  the  Fourth 
Republic  through  the  constitution  (Article  18  authorized  the  Assembly  to  use 
it  for  inquiries  into  public  finance)  and  the  Assembly's  standing  orders  (which 
encouraged  direct  co-operation  between  it  and  the  leaders  of  the  finance  com- 
mittee). Expanding  its  activities  and  extending  its  inquiries  more  widely  out- 
side Paris,  the  Cour  also  audited  the  public  accounts  more  promptly  than  it 
had  done  before  the  war.  In  the  early  post-war  years  vigorous  reports  criticiz- 
ing extravagance  and  lax  administration  gave  unprecedented  publicity  to  its 
work,  provided  opposition  parties  with  political  ammunition,  and  led  to  some 
important  improvements.  Parliament  specifically  protected  its  activities  from 
governmental  restriction  under  the  special  powers  law  of  August  1948,  and 

5.  The  most  comprehensive  of  the  many  accounts  is  Freedeman;  see  also  Chapman,  op.  cit., 
pp.  229-41,  and  on  the  judicial  side,  C.  J.  Hamson,  Executive  Discretion  and  Judicial  Control 
(1954).  For  municipal  socialism  see  Freedeman,  pp.  105-6,  160-1 ;  for  the  right  to  strike,  ibid., 
pp.  157-8,  Soubeyrol,  pp.  152-3,  Arne,  pp.  158-9,  and  cf.  above,  p.  294n. 

6.  Hamson,  pp.  22-41  (ENA);  for  legislation,  Institutions,  i.  314-24;  above,  pp.  260,  271-3. 

7.  Brindillac,  no.  128,  pp.  863-4,  867-8;  Ehrmann,  Business,  pp.  263-4,  267-70;  Lalumiere, 
pp.  7,  62-91,  127-75.  This  pantouflage  seems  to  have  diminished  in  the  Fourth  Republic:  see 
Ehrmann,  no.  85,  p.  552  and  n. ;  Entreprise,  no.  384  (19  January  1963),  p.  35 ;  Brindillac,  no.  28, 
p.  870.  Cf.  below,  p.  379. 

8.  M.  Waline,  'Les  resistances  techniques  de  radministration  au  pouvoir  politique',  in  Poll- 
tique  et  Technique,  p.  171.  SFIO:  Lalumiere,  pp.  7-8;  Catherine,  he.  cit.,  p.  146.  Diplomatic; 
Williams,  p.  264,  Grosser,  pp.  49,  70.  And  see  Huron,  pp.  216-7;  below,  p.  343. 


POLITICS  AND   THE  STATE  MACHINE  339 

through  its  subsidiaries  they  were  extended  over  the  social  security  system  and 
the  nationalized  industries.9 

The  influence  of  the  grands  corps  was  widely  felt  in  the  many  detached 
duties  to  which  their  members  were  constantly  called,  especially  in  the  cabinet 
of  a  minister.  This  was  a  small  private  office,  restricted  in  191 1  to  seven  mem- 
bers and  in  1948  to  ten  (these  limits,  often  evaded  in  the  Third  Republic,  were 
broadly  observed  in  the  Fourth,  though  not  in  the  post-war  interregnum).10 
Few  French  government  departments  were  subordinated  like  British  ones  to  a 
single  official  head ;  so,  if  contacts  between  the  different  divisions  (directions) 
were  not  to  resemble  diplomatic  dealings  between  independent  powers,  the 
cabinet  had  to  co-ordinate  them.  It  also  performed  liaison  duties  with  other 
ministries.  But  the  regular  officials  often  resented  its  activities.  Its  members 
inevitably  thought  in  terms  of  their  minister's  plans  and  career  rather  than 
longer-term  interests ;  were  properly  concerned  with  parliamentary  and  tactical 
considerations,  and  harassed  and  hurried  a  machine  that  was  rarely  rapid  and 
sometimes  lethargic;  insisted  on  taking  over  politically  difficult  questions  for 
which  they  were  not  always  technically  qualified;  and  frequently  proved  more 
sympathetic  to  pressure-groups  than  their  regular  colleagues.11 

These  grievances  partly  reflected  the  very  variable  quality  of  cabinets.  A 
minister  could  and  did  choose  them  from  his  family,  party  or  home  town, 
especially  for  liaison  tasks  with  the  press,  Parliament  or  constituency  for 
which  such  political  nominees  were  best  qualified.12  Some  politicians  were 
ruined  by  their  bad  appointments.  Some  of  Felix  Gouin's  collaborators,  re- 
cruited from  his  Marseilles  local  base,  used  his  authority  to  traffic  illegally 
in  Algerian  wine;  and  Roger  Peyr6,  the  contact-man  of  the  'scandal  of  the 
generals ',  plied  his  trade  with  cabinets  rather  than  with  ministers  themselves.13 
Yet,  rightly  used,  the  cabinet  was  a  valuable  if  not  indispensable  instrument 
for  the  politician,  who  without  it  would  have  found  it  hard  to  resist  the  per- 
suasive advice  of  his  'mandarins'.  The  system  allowed  able  young  men  to 
shake  the  complacency  of  their  comfortable  elders.  Some  political  leaders 
formed  'brains  trusts'  of  expert  advisers,  who  worked  with  them  out  of  office, 
came  in  with  them,  and  followed  them  from  one  post  to  another.  The  directeur 
or  chef  de  cabinet  of  a  senior  minister,  like  Jacques  Duhamel  under  Edgar 
Faure  or  Abel  Thomas  under  Bourges-Maunoury,  could  wield  much  more 
power  at  an  earlier  age  than  a  parliamentarian  in  junior  office.14  But  ministers 

9.  Details  in  Duverger,  Institutions  financieres,  pp.  411-7,  420-2,  429-31;  Institutions,  i.  325- 
333 ;  Williams,  pp.  265-6. 

10.  Institutions,  i.  270-4,  277;  Seurin,  no.  198  (on  numbers,  pp.  1223-8),  and  King,  no.  131, 
pp.  436-7;  Buron,  p.  181. 

11.  Massigli,  Sur  quelques  maladies  de  VEtat,  Chapter  3 ;  R.  Catherine,  Le  fonctionnaire  franfais 
(1961),  pp.  300-21,  329-31 ;  Seurin,  no,  198,  pp.  1284-6;  Meynaud,  pp.  201-2;  Lavau,  Pressures, 
p.  85 ;  Wahl  in  Beer  and  Ulam,  pp.  202-3 ;  Pay  sans,  p.  249  and  n. 

12.  The  surnames  of  seventeen  ministers  (nine  of  them  Socialists)  occur  among  the  members 
of  cabinets  between  1945-55  (cf.  n.  21) ;  and  five  Corsicans  served  in  the  cabinet  of  one  minister 
from  that  island:  Seurin,  no.  198,  p.  1234  nn.  Young  politicians  frequently  moved  from  a  cabinet 
to  Parliament,  like  Leon  Blum,  Edgar  Faure  and  Maurice  Faure.  Cf.  Buron,  pp.  176-9,  183-4. 

13.  'Generals*:  see  below,  p.  348.  Cf.  Brogan,  France,  p.  660. 

14.  In  1954-55  the  directeur s  de  cabinet  of  Mendes-France  and  Mitterrand  investigated  the 
leakages  affair'  (on  which  see  below,  p.  348);  Pinay's  organized  the  return  of  the  Sultan  of 
Morocco :  and  Bourges-Maunoury's  planned  the  redistribution  of  constituencies  for  an  (abortive) 

[over 


340  THE  SYSTEM 

in  the  Fourth  Republic  tended  much  more  than  in  the  past  to  choose  for 
senior  cabinet  posts  high  civil  servants  who  combined  a  modicum  of  political 
sympathy  with  administrative  expertise.15  In  some  'technical'  ministries  an 
official  might  make  his  career  in  the  minister's  cabinet,  passing  from  one 
politician  to  his  successor.  These  trends  minimized  the  risk  of  corruption  and 
the  danger  of  friction  with  the  permanent  staff,  but  they  reduced  the  advan- 
tages as  well  as  the  drawbacks  of  the  system.16 

2.   PARTY  POLITICS  AND  DEPARTMENTAL  RIVALRIES 

Political  influence  on  the  administration  came  through  many  channels  besides 
the  cabinet.  The  tradition  of  parliamentary  intervention  to  obtain  minor 
favours  was  long-established.  In  1949  a  minister  of  justice  received  in  nine 
months  11,700  requests  from  deputies  for  pardons  or  promotions  for  their 
clients,  or  one  per  member  per  fortnight.  In  1957  a  minister  of  the  interior 
found  that  of  800  candidates  for  twenty  posts  as  police  commissioner,  600  had 
the  support  of  a  member  of  parliament.17  Yet  this  pressure  was  a  nuisance 
rather  than  a  menace;  deputies  often  forwarded  requests  which  they  hardly 
pretended  to  support,  and  officials  treated  these  in  the  spirit  in  which  they 
were  sent.18 

Much  more  serious  was  the  influence  of  party  politics  on  senior  appoint- 
ments, which  became  systematic  under  tripartisme  when  the  three  govern- 
ment parties  parcelled  out  the  administration  between  them.  But  the  worst 
of  the  abuses  were  caused  by  the  Communists*  bid  to  set  up  a  state  within  the 
state,  and  ended  with  their  departure.19  Some  of  their  appointees  were  re- 
moved, and  many  other  officials  who  had  been  chosen  through  political  in- 
fluence later  allowed  their  party  connections  to  lapse.  Some  ministers  tried 
conscientiously  to  undo  the  damage.  Gradually,  as  the  new  institutions  were 
consolidated,  the  administrative  reforms  of  the  Liberation  began  to  improve 
recruitment  to  the  higher  civil  service  under  guarantees  of  entrance  by  merit. 

The  open  spoils  system  was  checked,  but  politics  could  not  be  wholly 
excluded  from  appointments  to  policy-making  posts.  Rigid  party  spheres  of 
influence  disappeared  with  tripartisme,  but  the  Fourth  Republic  revived  the 
loose  allotment  of  ministries  characteristic  of  the  Third.  Interior  and  Education 
remained  Socialist  and  Radical  fiefs,  while  the  foreign  office,  traditionally  a 
Catholic  stronghold,  was  monopolized  by  MRP  until  1954.  The  parties 
generally,  and  MRP  in  particular,  were  charged  with  trying  'not  merely  to 

electoral  reform:  Seurin,  no.  198,  p.  1268n. ;  cf.  Grosser,  pp.  57-8.  Membership  of  Chaban- 
Dehnas*  cabinet  gave  L£on  Delbecque  facilities  for  organizing  the  13  May  insurrection  in  Algiers. 

15.  Between  1945  and  1955  over  85%  of  cabinet  members  whose  professions  were  published 
came  from  the  civil  service:  Seurin,  no.  198,  pp.  1236-7,  cf.  pp.  1267-70;  King,  no.  131,  pp.  439- 
440;  Lalumiere,  pp.  163-4.  The" main  reasons  were  apparently  financial  at  first,  technical  later: 
no.  198,  p.  1286;  Buron,  p.  181,  cf.  p.  216. 

16.  No.  198,  pp.  1286-93;  no.  131,  pp.  442-3;  Waline  (see  n.  8),  pp.  168-9;  cf.  Catherine, 
op.  cit.,  p.  317.  On  cabinets  generally  see  Buron,  pp.  176-88. 

17.  R.  Lecourt  (Justice),  quoted  Figaro,  27-28  March  1950;  G.  Jules  (Interior),  U Express, 
1  February  1957.  Paul  Delouvrier  spoke  of  these  personal  interventions  as  *the  immense  army 
of  ants*:  in  Crise,  p.  80.  For  a  defence  see  Buron,  pp.  27-34,  cf.  p.  87. 

18.  Massigli,  62-4;  Catherine,  op.  cit.,  pp.  343-7;  cf.  Siegfried,  De  la  III6,  p.  219,  on  the 
deputy's  powerlessness  to  influence  nominations. 

19.  On  these  see  below,  pp.  347,  391-2. 


POLITICS  AND  THE  STATE  MACHINE  341 

ensure  the  "loyalty"  of  the  officials  who  had  to  work  with  the  minister,  but 
also  and  perhaps  especially  to  build  up  gradually  a  network  of  judiciously- 
placed  political  friends  who  will  remain  devoted  to  the  party's  policy  and  to 
this  or  that  leader  for  the  moment  out  of  office'.20 

In  1956  more  systematic  'colonization'  revived  when  the  Socialists,  return- 
ing to  office  after  five  years  without  influence  on  appointments,  set  about 
making  up  for  lost  time.  They  brought  in  the  largest  and  most  partisan 
cabinets  since  tripartisme;  and  a  long  ministry  with  few  coalition  partners 
gave  them  exceptional  opportunities  to  influence  appointments.21  Yet,  as 
their  tenure  showed,  colonization  might  defeat  its  own  ends  by  provoking 
counter-colonization  of  the  party  by  the  administration  itself.  If  political 
allegiance  affected  a  civil  servant's  career  he  would  be  tempted  to  join  a  party, 
as  in  some  ministries  in  the  Third  Republic  he  had  become  a  freemason,  to 
improve  his  chances  of  promotion.  Between  1956  and  1958  there  were  more 
signs  that  SFIO's  official  and  police  recruits  were  influencing  the  outlook  of 
the  party  than  that  they  were  reinforcing  its  grip  on  the  state  machine.22 

Ministers  often  found  or  felt  that  officials  with  a  different  outlook  from  their 
own  were  a  poor  instrument  for  their  policies.  The  ministry  of  economic 
affairs  so  retained  the  impress  of  its  first  incumbents,  Pierre  Mendes-France 
and  Andr<§  Philip,  that  until  1952  only  Socialists  and  MRP  left-wingers  held 
the  office;  conservatives  preferred  to  suppress  the  department's  separate 
identity  rather  than  fight  the  views  of  the  civil  servants.  MRP  ministers  found 
some  officials  and  most  army  officers  bitterly  hostile  to  the  ED  C  treaty;  con- 
versely Mendes-France  and  Christian  Pineau,  taking  over  a  foreign  office 
occupied  for  ten  years  by  MRP  ministers,  found  little  sympathy  for  their 
policies  among  their  subordinates.  In  June  1956  Pineau  made  sweeping 
changes  which  aroused  opposition  both  in  the  department  and  among  the 
politicians  who  counted  most  friends  there.  Even  so,  a  few  months  later  he 
and  his  colleagues  (like  their  British  opposite  numbers)  conceived  and  planned 
the  Suez  expedition  without  consulting  their  civil  servants.23 

If  a  minister  deeply  distrusted  his  staff,  he  had  the  last  word.  After  the  break- 
up of  tripartisme  most  Communists  and  some  fellow-travellers  were  removed 
from  sensitive  posts  (though  Bidault  was  criticized  for  dismissing  Frederic 
Joliot-Curie  from  the  atomic  energy  authority,  and  the  defence  leakages  of 
1953-55  showed  that  the  purge  had  been  limited  in  scale  and  effect).  Mendes- 
France's  government  transferred  out  of  Algeria  high  police  officials  who  had 
used  the  FLN  revolt  as  an  excuse  to  strike  at  all  Moslem  nationalists.  A 
determined  and  politically  secure  minister  would  not  be  deterred  from  his 

20.  Catherine  in  Partis  et  Classes,  pp.  127-40;  quotation,  p.  139.  Cf.  Buron,  pp.  239-40. 

21.  Previous  ministries  had  had  250-275  members  in  their  cabinets,  Mollet's  had  350  -  and 
more  of  them  were  party  appointments:  King,  no.  131,  pp.  437,  441n.  Officials  were  fewer  than 
at  any  time  since  the  previous  Socialist-led  ministry:  table  in  Lalumiere,  p.  163.  One  directeur  de 
cabinet  was  allegedly  appointed  before  his  minister:  Seurin,  no.  198,  p.  1235.  Colonization  was 
especially  active  in  broadcasting. 

22.  On  SFIO,  above,  p.  99  and  n. ;  generally,  Massigli,  pp.  71-3 ;  Noel,  p.  135;  Meynaud  and 
Lancelot,  pp.  54-5.  Cabinet  members  in  the  Cadillac  committee  might  decide  Radical  policy: 
Seurin,  no.  198,  p.  1273. 

23.  Grosser,  pp.  67-8,  72;  Massigli,  pp.  22-3,  51,  67-71;  Planchais,  pp.  54-7;  for  Pineau, 
Diamant  (n.  1),  pp.  150n.  and  211  n.  14. 


342  THE  SYSTEM 

policy  by  official  disapproval;  the  finance  ministry  could  not  stop  Pinay's 
amnesty  for  tax  frauds  or  his  cuts  in  investment.  But  it  might  be  a  different 
story  if  the  minister  suffered  from  weakness  of  character  or  political  situation, 
and  a  politician  whose  course  was  very  obnoxious  to  his  advisers  sometimes 
found  unexpected  difficulties  in  his  way.24 

The  senior  civil  servants  were  able,  well-informed  and  tactful  men.  Unless 
there  were  internal  conflicts,  like  that  between  the  road  and  rail  divisions  of 
the  ministry  of  transport,  they  could  generally  persuade  their  ministers  to 
adopt  most  if  not  all  of  the  department's  attitudes  and  policies.  (There  was  a 
striking  if  trivial  instance  in  February  1950  when  a  deputy  who  was  demanding 
cheap  fares  for  students  in  Paris  became  minister  of  transport  and  rejected  his 
own  motion.)  But  an  agreed  departmental  policy  was  not  enough,  for  there 
were  always  battles  with  other  ministries,  even  those  controlled  by  the  same 
party.  In  1949  the  minister  of  labour  clashed  with  the  minister  of  transport 
over  the  dismissal  of  railwaymen  in  May,  and  with  his  colleague  who  dealt 
with  the  civil  service  over  salaries  in  September :  all  three  men  were  Socialists. 
In  the  same  year  Pflimlin  resigned  the  ministry  of  agriculture  after  opposing 
his  Economic  Affairs  colleague,  also  of  MRP,  over  the  guaranteed  price  of 
sugar-beet,  French  administrators,  like  others,  appreciated  a  docile  political 
master  less  than  one  who  could  win  their  departmental  and  parliamentary 
battles  for  them.25 

In  the  thick  of  interdepartmental  conflict  was  the  ministry  of  finance, 
the  most  powerful  department,  the  most  impervious  to  external  pressures,  and 
the  focus  of  most  resentment.26  Every  spending  department  from  Education  to 
Defence  complained  of  the  miserly  treasury  which  so  unjustly  rejected  its  own 
reasonable  demands  (and  so  conveniently  refused  those  of  its  client  pressure- 
groups  which  it  thus  escaped  the  odium  of  opposing).  For  instance,  in  the 
third  Parliament  a  Socialist  finance  minister,  Paul  Ramadier,  was  opposed  by 
the  Right  for  overspending  and  by  his  own  party  over  his  tax  policy.  His 
Radical  successor  Felix  Gaillard  clashed  violently  over  the  defence  budget 
with  Andr6  Morice,  and  over  social  expenditure  with  Albert  Gazier.  When 
Pierre  Pflimlin  of  MRP  took  over  in  1957,  his  attempt  to  cut  the  education 
estimates  was  successfully  resisted  by  a  minister,  Ren6  Billeres,  who  (though 
a  Radical)  was  well  known  to  be  a  practising  Catholic.27 

To  the  political  parties  the  finance  ministry  was  a  natural  target  and  scape- 
goat. Socialists  and  MRP  left-wingers  saw  it  as  a  stronghold  of  bourgeois 
reaction,  threatening  social  reform  and  a  controlled  economy,  needing  to  be 
dismantled  and  subjected  to  a  new  ministry  of  economic  affairs ;  and  while 

24.  Purges:  AP  1950,  pp.  73-4,  286;  cf.  1954,  p.  290,  1955,  p.  179;  on  leakages  see  below, 
p.  348.  Brindillac,  no.  28,  p.  869,  suggests  that  certain  high  officials  brought  about  Faure's  defeat 
in  1952.  (Cf.  Chavanon  in  Aspects,  p.  176,  on  Bidault's  fall  in  1950.)  See  also  nn.  25,  38. 

25.  On  relations  between  ministers  and  civil  servants  generally,  see  Meynaud,  pp.  200-6; 
Buron,  pp.  132,  189-91,  195-9,  205-10;  and  n.  38. 

26.  Meynaud,  pp.  207-9.  *  If  you  want  to  act  effectively  in  this  field,  become  a  civil  servant  in 
the  Budget  Division  and  not  a  deputy' :  Chavanon  in  Aspects,  p.  176.  On  the  ministry  see  Duverger, 
op.  c/r.,  pp.  317-20,  344;  the  budget  division  in  Paris  had  11  administrative  class  officials  (the 
budget  bureau  in  Washington  has  200).  On  its  reputation,  Buron,  pp.  72,  208-9,  215-7 ;  Paysans, 
pp.  253-9. 

27.  AP  1957,  pp.  39,  80-1,  124. 


POLITICS  AND  THE  STATE  MACHINE  343 

intransigent  Gaullists  like  Michel  Debr6  accused  it  of  treating  France  as  a 
business  run  by  the  petty-cash  clerk,  to  Peasants  and  Poujadists  it  was  the 
bastion  of  ruthless  modernizing  technocracy.28  The  fears  of  the  Left  seemed  to 
be  borne  out  by  de  Gaulle's  disastrous  decision  in  1945  to  prefer  the  advice  of 
its  minister  (Pleven)  and  the  Bank  of  France  to  that  of  the  economic  affairs 
minister,  Mendes-France.  They  were  reinforced  by  the  policies  of  most  of  the 
Radical  and  Conservative  ministers  who  held  the  office  from  1947  to  1955. 
But  these  politicians  were  often  much  more  restrictionist  than  their  officials, 
who  unlike  their  predecessors  were  'New  Dealers',  Keynesian  expansionists 
with  no  doctrinaire  hostility  to  state  intervention  in  the  economy.29 

With  acceptance  of  an  active  role  for  the  state  went  a  tendency  to  extend 
their  own  powers.  The  finance  ministry  campaigned  vigorously  against  the 
administrative  irregularities  which  flourished  in  the  upheavals  after  the 
Liberation.  It  sharply  curtailed  the  growth  of  the  'special  treasury  accounts', 
which  had  proliferated  after  the  war  when  departments  were  struggling  for 
autonomy,  and  were  threatening  to  make  coherent  financial  policy  im- 
possible.30 It  also  pressed  for  more  influence  over  the  new  institutions  -  the 
nationalized  industries,  the  Planning  Commission  and  the  social  security 
system  -  which  were  set  up  just  after  the  war  to  fulfil  the  new  economic  and 
social  functions  of  the  state.  But  here  it  faced  opposition  from  the  Left  which 
favoured  keeping  them  autonomous,  both  on  theoretical '  democratic  *  grounds 
and  because  of  its  fear  of  the  conservatism  of  the  traditional  bureaucracy.  The 
social  security  structure,  defended  by  all  the  trade  unions  and  their  political 
friends,  survived  with  minor  changes ;  but  the  nationalized  industries,  at 
first  a  preserve  of  the  engineers  and  technicians,  were  gradually  subjected 
to  stricter  financial  control  after  the  political  pendulum  swung  Right  in 
1947.31 

Such  changes  of  organization  were  often  a  means  for  the  executive  to 
introduce  changes  of  policy  without  reference  to  Parliament.  But  members 
might  revolt.  In  1951  Pleven  was  brought  down  by  the  Socialists  for  seeking 
special  powers  to  reorganize  the  railways  and  social  security  system;  and 
though  in  1953  Rene  Mayer  was  given  them,  and  tightened  ministerial  control 
over  the  nationalized  industries,  his  principal  decrees  were  reversed  by 

28.  SFIO :  above,  p.  338.  Peasants :  AP  1952,  p.  20.  Debr6,  La  mort  de VEtatrlpublicain^  p.  19. 

29.  Lalumiere,  pp.  179-200,  221 ;  Brindillac,  no.  28,  pp.  873-5;  Ehrmann,  Business,  p.  266. 
In  1948  Jean  Monnet  had  to  mobilize  MRP  and  Socialist  support,  and  to  threaten  resignation, 
to  prevent  Queuille  cutting  the  investments  which  Marshall  Aid  had  been  given  to  sustain: 
Fauvet,  IV6,  p.  154.  In  1952  the  finance  ministry  vainly  opposed  Pinay's  similar  short-sighted 
policy.  (Yet  Socialist  ministers  had  few  inspecteurs  des  finances  in  their  cabinets :  Lalumiere, 
p.  165,  and  cf.  above,  n.  21.) 

30.  They  covered  expenditure  ranging  from  the  state  lottery  to  the  railway  deficit  and,  from 
1951,  the  subsidies  to  church  schools.  Parliament  had  always  fought  them,  as  they  frustrated  its 
control ;  the  ministry  had  once  encouraged  them  (for  the  same  reason)  but  opposed  them  after 
the  war.  By  1950  the  300  special  accounts  of  1946  had  been  reduced  to  60  and  brought  under 
proper  control.  See  Tinguy,  no.  209,  p.  495 ;  J.  Blocquaux,  JO  25  April  1950,  pp.  2807-8 ;  Duverger, 
op.  cit.,  pp.  63,  233-4,  330-2;  Williams,  p.  265;  Wilson,  p.  340n. 

31.  On  the  nationalized  industries,  see  Lalumiere,  pp.  105-8,  154-8;  Ehrmann,  Business, 
pp.  264,  349;  Lescuyer,  Chapters  5-7;  B.  Chenot,  Les  Entreprises  nationalises  (1956),  pp.  98, 
110-1 1,  and  in  no.  56,  p.  733.  The  Planning  Commission  was  transferred  in  1954  from  the  prime 
minister's  office  to  the  ministry  of  finance:  Institutions,  i.  258.  Generally,  see  Brindillac,  no.  28, 
p.  875;  Donnedieu  de  Vabres,  no.  78. 


344  THE  SYSTEM 

Parliament  two  years  later  without  much  opposition.32  The  legislature  could 
thus  frustrate  attempts  at  administrative  policy-making  even  when  the 
ministers  had  special  powers ;  and  much  more  easily  when  they  had  not. 
So  when  in  1948  Madame  Poinso-Chapuis,  MRP  minister  of  health,  issued 
a  decree  indirectly  allowing  local  authorities  to  subsidize  church  schools,  it 
caused  such  a  political  storm  that  it  was  allowed  to  lapse — though  never 
formally  abrogated.33  In  this  case  the  minister  first  adopted  a  new  policy  and 
then  abandoned  it  under  political  pressure,  all  without  legislation. 

An  initiative  from  the  parliamentary  side  could  be  met  by  bureaucratic 
inertia.  Laws  could  be  limited  in  scope  by  restrictive  drafting  of  the  decrees 
applying  them,  as  the  ministry  of  education  did  in  1951  (in  opposition  to  the 
Comeil  d'Etat)  with  the  lot  Barange  subsidizing  church  schools.  They  might 
even  be  sabotaged  entirely.  Two  months  before  the  regime  fell,  Ren6  Pleven 
complained  of  'the  casual  treatment  of  laws  which  stipulate  that  the  decrees 
and  regulations  applying  them  must  be  promulgated  within  a  fixed  time-limit'. 
Sometimes,  as  with  the  press  law  of  1946,  the  party  interests  of  the  minister 
responsible  determined  whether  the  law  was  carried  out  to  the  full  or  left  as  a 
dead  letter.  Or  a  new  government  might  dislike  its  predecessor's  policies: 
Pinay,  the  hero  of  small  business,  passed  a  mild  law  against  cartels  which  his 
successor  Rene  Mayer  made  no  attempt  to  enforce.  There  might  be  resistance 
from  a  pressure-group  which  had  influence  within  the  administration,  or  from 
the  ministry  of  finance.  Occasionally  Parliament  reacted,  and  in  1957  Bourges- 
Maunoury,  who  had  not  applied  the  loi  Laborbe  (a  private  member's  bill  on 
agricultural  prices)  would  have  been  beaten  on  this  had  he  not  fallen  on 
Algeria  first.  At  least  the  milk  producers  waiting  for  the  loi  Laborbe  had  more 
political  influence  than  the  civil  servants,  whose  pay  was  supposed  to  be 
governed  by  a  law  of  1946  that  had  never  been  put  into  effect.34 

It  was  very  rare  that  a  united  administration  found  itself  ranged  in  isolation 
against  a  hostile  citizenry.  Much  more  often  there  were  fierce  interdepart- 
mental battles  in  which  both  sides  enjoyed  support  outside  the  governmental 
machine,  and  took  advantage  of  the  fragmentation  of  political  responsibility 
to  mobilize  these  external  reinforcements.  Some  departments  could  always 
count  on  widespread  parliamentary  sympathy:  Education  on  the  Left,  Defence 
on  the  Right,  Agriculture  everywhere.  Just  as  leading  politicians  had  their 
brains-trusts  of  civil  servants,  so  some  senior  civil  servants  had  their  helpful 
members  of  parliament  whom  they  could  brief  to  intervene  in  committee  or  in 
the  house.  The  debate  on  the  Sakiet  raid,  from  which  the  crisis  developed 
that  destroyed  the  regime,  was  described  by  one  observer  as  a  fight  between 
the  army's  deputies  and  those  of  the  foreign  office.35 

32.  Above,  p.  271 ;  below,  p.  361 .  The  powers  were  usually  exercised  by  the  officials :  Chavanon 
in  Aspects,  pp.  173-4. 

33.  Above,  p.  34 ;  and  Remond  in  La  Lalcit^  pp.  393-4. 

34.  Barange,  Laborbe:  Arne,  pp.  149-52.  Pleven:  JO  20  February  1958,  p.  913.  Cartels: 
Ehrmann,  Business,  p.  387.  Civil  servants:  Meynaud,  p.  229,  Duverger  in  Monde,  12  September 
1957.  See  also  below,  n.  48  (Algeria),  pp.  378-9  (pressure-groups),  392  (press  law). 

35.  Faucher,  p.  221 ;  cf.  Lavau,  Pressures,  p.  88.  An  important  tax  reform  *  was  carried  through 
singlehandedly  by  a  civil  servant  who  mobilized  some  sectors  of  the  business  community  against 
others  and  finally  used  the  lobbyists  of  his  allies  when  the  bill  seemed  to  falter  in  parliament. 
Similar  tactics  permitted  beating  back  the  alcohol  lobby  with  the  aid  of  the  oil  interests  * :  Ehrmann, 


POLITICS  AND  THE  STATE  MACHINE  345 

Administrators  who  had  developed  the  habit  of  political  manipulation  were 
likely,  when  overruled  by  their  official  rivals  (or  even  by  their  own  minister), 
to  reopen  the  debate  elsewhere.  Plans  and  projects  could  sometimes  be  killed 
before  birth  by  the  'national  industry  or  even  institution'  of  well-timed  leak- 
ages, which  allowed  ministries  to  carry  on  'private  wars  . . .  torpedoing  each 
other's  plans  prematurely  brought  to  light';  permitted  the  civil  service  unions 
to  launch  the  great  strikes  of  1953  against  decrees  not  yet  published;  and 
encouraged  officials  who  detested  governmental  policies  to  supply  ammuni- 
tion to  opposition  parties  and  politicians.  The  extravagant  precautions  some- 
times taken  to  avoid  publicity  were  a  reaction  against  a  real  danger.36  But 
conflict  within  the  official  world  was  more  memorable  than  co-operation  to 
those  engaged  in  it,  and  more  interesting  to  those  outside.  Public  attention 
was  directed  to  the  occasional  spectacular  clash  and  not  to  the  normal  routine 
of  constructive  but  unexciting  co-operation  between  officials  and  departments. 
In  fact  it  was  this  regular  bureaucratic  activity  which  kept  the  machinery  of 
French  government  working  without  disruption  in  spite  of  political  instability. 
Indeed,  the  Liberation  and  the  Fourth  Republic  saw  the  accomplishment  of  a 
silent  administrative  revolution  which,  though  it  attracted  little  attention, 
made  the  machine  far  more  efficient  than  before. 

The  central  direction  of  policy  was  reinforced  by  the  establishment  of  a 
cabinet  secretariat  and  a  stronger  prime  minister's  office.  Civil  service  recruit- 
ment was  reformed  by  the  creation  of  EN  A.  Government  bills  were  much 
improved  by  being  submitted  to  the  Conseild'fitat  for  prior  technical  examina- 
tion before  they  went  to  Parliament.  Jean  Monnet's  Planning  Commission 
and  other  new  agencies  gave  the  French  state  machinery  for  effective  inter- 
vention in  the  economic  field.  The  Cour  des  Comptes  was  given  new  financial 
scope  by  the  constitution,  and  gained  new  prestige  by  its  work.  In  local 
government  the  decentralizing  provisions  of  the  constitution  proved  a  dead 
letter;  on  the  contrary  the  new  'super-prefects'  (IGAMEs)  ensured  more 
effective  central  control  in  emergency  and  interdepartmental  co-ordination  in 
normal  times.  The  politicians  set  up  in  the  High  Council  of  the  Judiciary  an 
institution  which  proved  its  value  in  taking  justice  out  of  politics.37 

These  improvements  in  the  machinery  of  government  only  threw  into 
relief  the  problem  of  the  political  authority  which  was  to  control  them.  In  the 
absence  of  an  effective  government  they  merely  conferred  more  policy-making 
power  on  the  bureaucracy.  Its  influence  went  far  beyond  the  task  of  daily 
management  which  any  competent  civil  service  will  do  for  a  weak  or  incapable 
minister.  Some  constructive  policies  of  the  most  far-reaching  kind  were  devised 
by  officials,  who  then  took  them  out  of  ordinary  party  warfare  by  persuading 
the  rival  political  groups.  Monnet's  planning  objectives  and  machinery  were 
accepted  by  all  parties  including  the  Communists,  though  political  struggles 

no.  85,  p.  548 ;  on  alcohol  cf.  below,  p.  356.  Generally,  Meynaiid,pp.  205,  309-10;  and  cf.  above, 
p.  252,  and  below,  pp.  378-9.  Also  Buron,  pp.  74-5,  105,  206-7. 

36.  Quotation  from  Delouvrier  in  Crise,  p.  83.  Cf.  Massigli,  Chapter  1;  Grosser,  pp.  60-2, 
and  below,  p.  348.  Precautions:  cf.  Planchais,  pp.  67-8;  above,  p.  341  (Suez);  below,  p.  346 
(Schuman  plan). 

37.  Cassin,  no.  50,  and  above,  pp.  204-5,  260,  272,  299-301,  338;  below,  p.  347. 


346  THE  SYSTEM 

sometimes  occurred  when  his  policies  were  put  into  practice.  In  1952  he  went 
to  the  Coal  and  Steel  Community  to  develop  another  of  his  major  policies 
which  had  become  common  ground  among  the  parties  of  the  regime;  for  it 
was  he  who  had  devised  the  'Schuman  Plan'  with  the  help  of  his  own  sub- 
ordinates and  without  consulting  the  foreign  office,  winning  over  Robert 
Schuman  only  a  few  days  and  most  of  the  cabinet  only  a  few  hours  before  the 
decision  was  announced  to  the  world.38  Yet  the  pursuit  of  European  economic 
union  was  taken  up  by  all  the  parties  of  government,  and  though  they  divided 
and  were  defeated  when  they  tried  to  extend  it  to  the  military  sphere,  they 
soon  reunited  on  their  original  line  of  advance. 

Long-range  policies  had  been  the  work  of  officials  rather  than  politicians  in 
the  Third  Republic  as  well  as  the  Fourth.  This  situation  was  a  by-product  of 
ministerial  instability;  however  undesirable  in  theory,  it  was  preferable  to 
having  no  long-range  policies  at  all.  Both  economic  expansionism  and  Euro- 
pean co-operation  corresponded  to  strong  and  deep  desires  of  most  (not  all) 
thinking  Frenchmen,  and  were  perhaps  made  more  acceptable  to  politicians 
of  different  views  because  they  were  given  detailed  form  by  civil  servants 
rather  than  by  one  of  themselves.  But  while  the  economic  bureaucracy 
accepted  change,  their  colonial  colleagues  clung  to  routine ;  and  when  France 
faced  the  challenge  of  decolonization,  the  danger  of  political  abdication 
became  evident.  'The  French  state  reveals  its  true  face  when  it  takes  off  the 
parliamentary  mask:  Vichy,  the  occupation  in  Germany,  colonialism  have 
shown  its  authoritarian  nature.'39  Overseas,  first  the  administration  and 
then  the  army  successfully  imposed  policies  on  governments  too  weak, 
divided  or  precarious  to  develop  or  enforce  their  own.  These  policies  were  in 
the  long  run  neither  workable  on  the  spot,  nor  tolerable  internationally,  nor 
acceptable  at  home.  Tension  therefore  grew  steadily  between  an  overseas 
bureaucracy  and  army  intent  on  their  own  purposes,  and  a  Parliament  which 
gradually  became  alarmed  at  the  wider  consequences.  By  1958  the  contagion 
of  insubordination  had  spread  to  the  forces  of  the  state  at  home. 

3.  THE  DEFENCE  AND  SECURITY  SERVICES 

In  the  government's  first  line  of  defence  against  domestic  enemies  stood  the 
prefects.  They  were  direct  agents  of  the  minister  of  the  interior,  and  then- 
tenure  of  their  posts  was  at  his  discretion.  Their  main  functions  were  to 
represent  the  government  in  each  department,  co-ordinate  the  activities  of  the 
different  ministries,  supervise  the  local  authorities,  maintain  order,  and  defend 
the  regime.  In  the  nineteenth  century  they  had  also  acted  as  the  government's 
election  agents,  and  as  late  as  1924  there  was  a  'massacre'  of  prefects  when 
the  opposition  won  an  election.  But  as  the  prefectoral  corps  gradually  de- 
veloped the  habits  and  attitudes  of  a  career  service,  its  members  increasingly 
kept  their  posts  under  successive  governments  -  though  purges  still  occurred 
in  great  crises  like  1940  and  1944. 

3S.  Gerbet,  no.  98,  pp.  542-53.  On  planning  struggles  see  n.  29 ;  and  on  bureaucratic  policy- 
making,  Wahl  in  Beer  and  Ulam,  pp.  326-30.  Cf.  Huron,  p.  132. 

39.  Bnndillac,  no.  30,  p.  799.  Cf.  p.  3  n.2 ;  and  Hoffmann  in  Change,  p.  91.  On  the  army's  policy 
in  Algeria  see  Girardet  in  Military  Politics,  pp.  134-41. 


POLITICS  AND  THE  STATE  MACHINE  347 

The  Socialists  and  Communists  had  always  mistrusted  the  prefectoral 
system  and  the  men  who  manned  it.  In  the  1946  constitution  five  articles,  85  to 
89,  expressed  an  intention  to  weaken  the  prefects  and  strengthen  the  elected 
municipal  and  departmental  councils.  But  when  the  Communists  went  into 
opposition  and  launched  the  great  strikes  of  1947  and  1948,  their  former 
partners  quickly  discovered,  like  so  many  advocates  of  decentralization  on 
acceding  to  power,  that  Paris  had  too  little  rather  than  too  much  control. 
Following  Vichy  and  Liberation  precedents,  Jules  Moch  therefore  appointed 
eight  'super-prefects'  or  I  GAM  Es  (inspecteurs-genfraux  de  r  administration 
en  mission  extraordinaire)  whose  task  was  normally  to  organize  co-operation 
between  neighbouring  departments,  and  in  an  emergency  to  co-ordinate  under 
civil  control  all  forces  in  their  areas  (which  corresponded  to  the  military 
regions).  In  1953  LaniePs  government  used  its  special  powers  to  enact 
administrative  reforms  restoring  to  the  prefect  some  of  the  authority  he  had 
gradually  been  losing  to  the  local  agents  of  other  ministries.  The  constitutional 
provisions  for  strengthening  the  local  councils  were  wholly  forgotten.40 

Yet  the  local  authorities  were  not  as  weak  as  they  looked,  for  many  mayors 
and  departmental  councillors  were  also  members  of  parliament.  A  prudent 
prefect  had  to  be  attentive,  not  merely  to  the  reigning  minister  of  the  interior, 
but  also  to  the  entrenched  local  ministrable  whose  parliamentary  influence 
might  one  day  dethrone  him.  Towns  therefore  preferred  as  mayors  a  deputy 
or  senator  whose  political  influence  could  temper  the  theoretical  rigours  of 
administrative  centralization;  and  a  powerful  politician  friendly  to  the  regime 
rarely  found  an  unacceptable  prefect  sent  to  his  department.41  These  factors 
mitigated  the  effect  of  party  politics  on  the  appointment  and  transfer  of  pre- 
fects. Most  of  the  corps  leaned  towards  the  Radical  party,  which  until  1936 
had  almost  monopolized  the  ministry  of  the  interior;  pro-clerical  politicians 
never  held  it,  and  MRP  in  1951  had  no  prefect  and  few  sub-prefects  in  its 
ranks.  While  open  enemies  of  the  regime  were  not  appointed,  there  was  no 
purge  of  the  Gaullists  who  came  in  at  the  Liberation,  and  there  were  even  two 
Communist  prefects  and  one  regional  commissioner  while  the  party  was  in 
office.  Because  of  their  activities  Jules  Moch,  when  he  became  minister  of  the 
interior,  had  to  dissolve  11  of  the  65  companies  of  riot  police  (Compagnies 
republicaines  de  securite,  CRS)  which  were  over  80%  Communist.42 

In  later  years  the  struggle  against  Communist  influence  led  some  high 
security  officials  to  patronize  other  enemies  of  democracy.  Two  reactionary 
freemasons  co-operated  closely  in  'McCarthyite'  activities  between  1952  and 
1954:  the  Radical  minister  of  the  interior  L£on  Martinaud-Deplat  and  the 
Socialist  Jean  Baylot,  who  occupied  the  politically  vital  post  of  prefect  of 
police  in  Paris.  When  Mend&s-France  came  to  power  Baylot  was  removed; 

40.  Chapman  in  Local  Government,  pp.  95-106,  119-23;  Prefects  and  Provincial  France, 
pp.  61-2,  168-9,  174-7;  and  no.  51.  Panter-Brick,  no.  172;  Abbott  and  Sicard,  no.  1. 

41.  Chapman,  Prefects,  pp.  157-61,  200-6.  Isorni  quotes  as  a  sample  of  lobby  conversation 
'Get  rid  of  this  idiot  of  a  prefect  for  me  and  I'll  see  if  I  can  change  my  vote* :  Silence,  p.  184. 
Many  prefects  and  parliamentarians  worked  closely  together  on  behalf  of  the  constituency : 
Buron,  pp.  25-6,  83-4. 

42.  MRP:  Neumann,  no.  165,  p.  744n.;  cf.  Catherine  in  Partis  et  Classes*  pp.  134-5.  Mendes- 
France  in  1954  and  Mollet  in  1957  offered  MRP  the  Interior.  Moch:  in  Bulletin  interieur  SFIO 
no.  39  (February  1949),  p.  67.  Cf.  Buron,  pp.  213,  240. 


348  THE  SYSTEM 

within  an  hour  forty  members  of  parliament  (including  Le  Troquer,  the 
Socialist  President  of  the  Assembly)  had  telephoned  the  premier  to  protest. 
Baylot  and  his  collaborator  Superintendent  Dides  later  became  extreme- 
Right  deputies.  The  consequences  of  their  control  of  the  Paris  police  became 
fully  apparent  first  in  the  spring  of  1958,  and  then  under  the  Fifth  Republic.48 

Political  interference  was  particularly  damaging  in  the  intelligence  services. 
As  well  as  the  old  rivals,  the  Surete  nationals  and  the  Paris  prefecture  of 
police,  there  were  now  several  small  intelligence  organizations  attached  to 
different  ministries,  and  one  major  one  directly  under  the  premier:  SDECE 
(Service  de  documentation  exterieure  et  de  contre-espionnage),  which  was  once 
called  in  court  'the  really  secret  secret  service'.  Constantly  at  cross-purposes, 
these  agencies  arrested  and  intimidated  one  another's  informers  in  a  struggle 
which  often  seemed  more  concerned  with  party  politics  than  with  national 
security.  Repeated  reorganizations  failed  to  cure  them.  In  wartime  London 
SDECE  (then  called  Bureau  central  de  renseignements  et  d' action)  was  headed 
by  Colonel  Passy,  who  departed  with  de  Gaulle  in  1946.  The  Socialist  politi- 
cian who  took  it  over  was  utterly  isolated  in  his  own  agency.  When  the 
scandal  of  the  generals  revealed  that  defence  information  had  leaked  to  the 
Indo-Chinese  nationalists,  his  Gaullist  second-in-command,  Colonel  Four- 
caud,  allegedly  bribed  and  intimidated  witnesses  to  support  charges  of  treason 
against  two  leading  Socialist  ministers.44  But  the  counter-espionage  service  of 
the  ministry  of  the  interior  (D  S  T)  tried  to  hush  up  the  scandal,  either  for  fear 
of  American  reactions  as  ministers  claimed,  or  to  save  the  government's 
reputation  as  the  opposition  asserted. 

The  rival  services  were  amalgamated  under  a  new  head.  In  vain :  a  new 
scandal  again  broke  over  military  leakages  in  1953-54.  Two  senior  defence 
officials  who  opposed  the  Indo-China  war  passed  confidential  information  to 
papers  and  politicians  of  the  Left.  Superintendent  Dides  and  the  prefecture 
investigators  failed  to  discover  that  they  were  both  'fellow-travellers'  (though 
one  had  even  been  a  Progressive  local  candidate).  Instead  the  prefecture  led 
opposition  politicians,  the  President  of  the  Republic  and  France's  allies  to 
believe  there  was  a  traitor  in  Mendes-France's  cabinet  -  a  task  facilitated  by 
Martinaud-D6plat,  who  did  not  tell  his  successor  that  the  leakages  had  been 
going  on  for  a  year.  When  the  case  was  at  last  tried  by  a  military  court  in  1956, 
Tixier-Vignancour,  who  was  kept  well  supplied  with  confidential  documents 
by  his  friends  in  the  police  and  secret  service,  was  allowed  by  the  civilian 
presiding  judge  to  use  it  for  an  outrageous  campaign  against  the  Left  and  the 
Republic  -  while  the  highest  security  officials  in  France  helped  him  by  de- 
nouncing one  another  as  undercover  Communists.  Credulous,  unscrupulous 
and  enmeshed  in  party  intrigue,  these  services  did  much  to  discredit  the  regime 
they  were  supposed  to  serve  before  they  finally  betrayed  it  in  May  1958.45 

43.  Protests:  Faucher,  p.  115.  Also  see  above,  p.  52,  and  below,  p.  351. 

44.  Cf.  Williams,  no.  218.  A  former  cagoulard  and  later  plotter  of  May  1958,  Fourcaud  was 
described  at  the  inquiry  as  a  'cloak-and-dagger  character'  who  'conspired  morning,  noon  and 
night'.  Years  later  he  suggested  at  a  trial  of  de  Gaulle's  would-be  assassins  that  the  attack  had 
been  staged  by  the  government  -  but  denied  a  suggestion  that  he  had  himself  known  of  it  in 
advance:  Monde,  5  and  7  September  1962.  On  SDECE  also  Fauvet,  IVe,  p.  162. 

45.  See  references  above,  p.  46n. 


POLITICS  AND   THE  STATE  MACHINE  349 

Those  administrators  and  soldiers  who  served  in  French-ruled  lands  over- 
seas had  no  need  of  indirect  methods.  They  simply  defied  the  wishes  of  Paris. 
As  a  senior  minister  confessed  when  after  four  years  he  relinquished  responsi- 
bility for  the  Tunisian  and  Moroccan  protectorates:  *The/<zz7  accompli  is  the 
great  and  constant  temptation  which  it  is  to  their  credit  that  residents-general 
resist  -  in  so  far  as  they  do  not  succumb.  Moreover  they  themselves  are  in  a 
similar  situation  in  regard  to  some  services  (police,  information,  etc.).  .  .  . 
Above  the  residents-general  the  minister  for  foreign  affairs  is  responsible  for 
their  administration  which  is  reputed  to  be  in  accordance  with  his  own  views. 
This  is  one  of  the  fictions  on  which  the  democratic  regime  depends.  .  .  .'  In 
1955  a  normally  conciliatory  premier  exploded  in  Parliament  against  the 
mutinous  officials  in  Morocco:  'It  is  time  this  stopped.  These  resignations 
cancelled  and  then  repeated  -  it's  finished ! . . .  No  more  resignations  by  officials, 
obedience!  .  .  .  We  must  put  an  end  to  proceedings  which  lead  to  the  disinte- 
gration of  the  state.  It's  the  government  that  governs  and  if  this  government 
survives  tonight,  govern  it  will! ?46 

But  it  was  hard  for  ministers,  however  determined,  to  impose  their  wishes 
when  their  own  representatives  abroad  quickly  became  the  spokesmen  of  a 
local  administration  which  sprang  from  and  sympathized  with  the  local 
French  colony.  Several  ministers  and  governments  conceived  liberal  policies 
in  North  Africa;  very  few  pressed  them  hard  against  the  settlers  and  their 
military  and  parliamentary  friends,  who  could  so  easily  bring  a  cabinet  down; 
those  that  tried  found  that  the  administrative  machine  would  not  implement 
policies  which  the  local  Europeans  disliked.  The  Fifth  Republic  was  to  show 
that  the  weakness  of  will  in  Paris  had  been  only  part  of  the  problem.  Not  even 
a  determined  French  government  could  make  the  entrenched  local  community 
accept  concessions,  short  of  total  withdrawal  when  the  price  of  maintaining 
France's  position  became  too  high. 

The  local  resistance  took  several  forms:  lobbying  by  politicians  in  Paris, 
rioting  by  city  mobs  on  the  spot,  and  the  continuous  sabotage  of  the  govern- 
ment's policies  by  its  own  services.  The  Indo-China  war  finally  became 
inevitable  when  a  general  ordered  the  bombardment  of  Haiphong;  and  the 
Saigon  administration  kept  such  tight  control  over  what  Paris  was  allowed  to 
know  that  the  censor  delayed  for  ten  vital  days  Ho  Chi-Minh's  telegram  to  the 
prime  minister  (Leon  Blum)  appealing  for  negotiation.  In  Tunisia  it  was  the 
resident-general  who  decided  to  arrest  and  deport  the  Bey's  ministers;  in 
Morocco  it  was  the  resident  who  deposed  the  Sultan  against  instructions  from 
Georges  Bidault,  who  subsequently  defended  the  act  he  had  originally  for- 
bidden ;  and  in  Algeria  army  intelligence  seized  Ben  Bella  and  his  companions 
from  their  Moroccan  plane  with  the  knowledge  of  a  minister  of  state,  Max 
Lejeune,  but  not  of  any  member  of  the  cabinet.47 

Yet  these  spectacular  acts  of  insubordination  were  no  more  damaging  in  the 
long  run  than  the  electoral  manipulation,  administrative  obstruction  and 
political  intrigue  by  which  the  Algerian  authorities  and  European  community 

46.  Robert  Schuman  in  La  Nef,  March  1953,  p.  68  (quoted  Grosser,  p.  52;  Fauvet,  IVe, 
p.  215  •  AP  1953,  p.  225).  Edgar  Faure,  JO  8  October  1955,  p.  4956 ;  cf.  below,  p.  354. 

47.  Cf.  Fauvet,  IV^  pp.  95,  208,  213-17,  294,  319-21;  Grosser,  pp.  52-3,  256-7,  267,  275-6, 
365-6;  above,  pp.  41 ,  50  and  n. 


350  THE  SYSTEM 

prevented  the  reform  bill  of  1947  ever  going  into  effect.48  When  these  methods 
seemed  likely  to  fail  more  extreme  ones  were  used.  In  Morocco  the  assassina- 
tion of  nationalists  and  their  French  sympathizers  (Mendes-France  was  one 
intended  victim)  was  organized  by  the  police  in  justified  confidence  that  no 
local  judge  would  ever  convict  a  European  terrorist.49  Defeat  in  Indo-China 
added  to  the  government's  problem  a  new  dimension :  the  exasperation  of  the 
army  officers  with  the  futile  sacrifice  of  their  comrades  and  their  determination 
never  to  allow  a  repetition.  By  1956  hotheads  like  General  Faure  were  already 
conspiring  against  the  regime,  and  in  1958  President  Coty  was  officially 
warned  by  the  senior  commanders  four  days  before  13  May  that  the  army 
would  not  tolerate  a  'government  of  scuttle'.50 

By  sabotage,  blackmail  and  insubordination  the  administrators  and  soldiers 
tried  to  eliminate  and  succeeded  in  restricting  the  freedom  of  action  of  their 
political  masters.  But  these  too  bore  a  heavy  responsibility.  Ministers  never 
told  the  country  the  truth  about  Indo-China;  if  they  had,  the  army  might  not 
have  suffered  a  humiliating  defeat,  and  civil  servants  would  have  had  less 
excuse  for  betraying  official  secrets  to  help  the  anti-war  campaign.  General 
Faure's  plot  was  exposed  by  a  high  official  in  the  Algiers  prefecture,  who  very 
soon  resigned  because  his  protests  against  the  mass  'disappearances'  of  sus- 
pects arrested  by  the  parachutists  were  ignored  by  the  Socialist  ministers  who 
had  ordered  the  operation  but  preferred  not  to  know  about  its  consequences.51 

These  were  new  and  sensational  developments  in  French  government.  Not 
that  the  services  of  the  French  state  had  ever  been  free  from  political  inter- 
ference. But  hitherto  the  police  had  been  criticized  by  enemies  of  the  regime  as 
the  servile  instruments  of  the  men  in  power;  and  indeed  in  the  early  days  of 
the  Fourth  Republic  they  were  still  loyally  unravelling  plots  against  it.  The 
judges  were  always  a  conservative  body,  and  in  1940  all  but  one  had  sworn 
allegiance  to  P&ain.  But  they  had  never  shown  the  gross  anti-republican  bias 
of  their  confreres  in  Weimar  Germany,  and  they  too  had  usually  been  attacked 
for  subservience  towards  the  authorities  of  the  day  -  notably  during  and  after 
the  Nazi  occupation.52 

The  army  was  traditionally  officered  by  old  Catholic  families  with  no  great 
love  for  the  Republic,  but  despite  occasional  aberrations  it  had  loyally 
accepted  for  generations  that  its  highest  duty  was  unconditional  obedience  to 
any  legal  government  -  although  in  1940  it  was  taught  a  different  lesson.  In  the 
Fourth  Republic,  as  in  the  Third,  there  were  complaints  of  political  inter- 
ference with  military  promotions.  A  chief  of  the  general  staff  used  a  dubious 

48.  In  1955  Soustelle  as  governor  recommended  that  the  reform  bill  be  applied ;  the  government 
found  justifications  for  further  delay;  and  the  Socialist  spokesman  asked  whether  ministers 
thought  the  law  was  optional:  £douard  Depreux,  JO  29  July  1955,  pp.  4539-40. 

49.  As  the  police  chief  sent  from  Paris  to  investigate  Lemaigre-Dubreuirs  murder  admitted : 
Monde,  13  December  1962,  reporting  the  trial  for  another  offence  of  one  of  the  assassins,  now 
repentant.  (His  unrepentant  fellow-murderers  were  at  large  *  awaiting  trial'  -  after  seven  and  a 
half  years.) 

50.  See  above,  p.  5 On,  55. 

51.  Monde,  20  and  29  September,  1  October  1960.  Would  the  same  paper  have  received  (or 
published)  a  report  by  the  committee  for  safeguarding  human  rights  in  Algeria,  in  December  1957, 
if  the  government  had  acted  on  it  instead  of  hushing  it  up? 

52.  Plots:  at  one  conspiratorial  gathering  five  of  the  eight  men  present  were  officers:  Moch, 
JO  14  June  1949,  p.  3361.  Courts:  cf.  above,  pp.  211,  301. 


POLITICS  AND  THE  STATE  MACHINE  351 

contact-man  to  obtain  information  about  cabinet  meetings,  promotion  for 
himself,  and  the  appointment  as  assistant  director  of  military  personnel  of  a 
general  whom  he  called  'a  good  republican  whom,  therefore,  MRP  want  to 
send  out  of  the  way';  his  candidate  got  the  job  after  the  MRP  premier  had 
been  replaced  by  a  Radical  and  the  M  RP  defence  minister  by  a  Socialist  -  and 
MRP  deputies  charged  that  the  new  ministers  were  favouring  freemasons.53 
In  1958  similar  complaints  were  raised  against  a  Socialist  war  minister  by  a 
right-wing  deputy  (who  had  himself  tried  twenty  times  to  have  an  officer 
prot£g6  promoted).  Marshal  Juin  repeatedly  encouraged  military  opposition 
to  government  policy,  especially  over  EDC.  But  these  incidents,  however 
disagreeable  or  discreditable  for  a  government,  were  not  dangerous  for  the 
regime.54 

The  Indo-China  disaster  and  the  Algerian  war,  following  on  earlier 
humiliations,  changed  the  climate  and  falsified  the  old  certainties.  Judges 
began  to  show  a  conspicuous  bias  against  the  anti-war  Left  which  in  the  Fifth 
Republic  was  found  -  to  the  dismay  of  Gaullist  leaders  and  Socialist  ex- 
ministers  who  had  once  warmly  approved  of  it  -  to  conceal  open  sympathy  for 
the  O  AS.55  In  the  police  force,  many  in  the  lower  ranks  and  some  in  the  higher 
always  remained  reliable.  But  after  years  of  combating  the  Communists,  fol- 
lowed by  a  bitter  fight  against  the  FLN  in  which  many  policemen  lost  their 
lives,  it  became  clear  early  in  1958  that  some  branches  were  tolerant  of  or  even 
allied  to  the  fascists.  The  loyalty  of  the  army  had  been  shaken  by  military 
defeat,  German  occupation  and  bitter  internal  division.  Indo-China  taught 
the  leaders  of  military  opinion  that  warfare  could  not  be  divorced  from 
political  direction  either  in  the  field  or  in  the  capital,  and  made  them  con- 
temptuous of  politicians  who  would  neither  fight  the  war  seriously  nor  end  it 
honourably.  Algeria  taught  them  to  act  as  a  pressure-group,  urging  and  bully- 
ing the  politicians  to  muzzle  the  press,  chastise  the  Arabs,  and  defy  the  allies. 
At  last  the  soldiers  preferred  like  Georges  Bidault  *to  mourn  the  Fourth 
Republic  rather  than  Algerie  fran$aise\  By  1958  the  regime  commanded  little 
loyalty  from  the  people,  and  still  less  from  the  state  machine. 

53.  See  Williams,  no.  218,  p.  475n.;  JO  3  March  1949,  pp.  1204  (Monteil),  1214  (Ramadier), 
and  Monde,  18  February  1950. 

54.  JO  4  February  1958,  pp.  494-510;  also  Planchais,  pp.  33-4,  Faucher,  pp.  222-4.  Juin: 
Fauvet,  IVe,  pp.  263-4. 

55.  As  in  the  Morice  libel  case:  an  ex-minister  was  accused  in  the  press  of  profiting  from  build- 
ing the  Germans'  Atlantic  Wall;  the  journals  were  forbidden  to  give  their  evidence*  as  facts  over 
ten  years  old  are  no  defence  for  a  libel,  but  he  was  permitted  to  state  his  case  in  full :  Monde, 
2-3,  5,  6  and  13  November  1958.  And  in  the  leakages  case:  Williams,  no.  222,  pp.  398-400. 


Chapter  25 
INTERESTS  AND  CAUSES 

It  was  the  weakness  of  governmental  authority  which  allowed  sections  of  the 
state  machine  to  develop  their  own  policies  and  impose  them  on  their  political 
masters.  Outside  government,  private  pressure-groups  found  their  task 
facilitated  by  the  indiscipline  of  parties  as  well  as  the  weakness  of  the  executive. 
For  it  is  a  common  illusion  that  only  the  party  whip  prevents  the  politician 
searching  his  conscience  to  find  and  follow  that  nebulous  ideal,  the  general 
interest.  In  reality  party  discipline  is  a  protection  as  well  as  a  constraint, 
screening  him  from  the  vociferous  groups  which  try  to  influence  his  electoral 
fate. 

A  disciplined  party  can  withstand  pressure  better  than  an  individual 
politician,  but  it  is  more  vulnerable  and  more  easily  tempted  in  a  multi-party 
system  than  in  a  two-party  regime  where  one  rival  holds  power  and  responsi- 
bility and  the  other  hopes  to.  A  majority  party  (actual  or  potential)  dare  not 
identify  itself  exclusively  with  one  interest  for  fear  of  losing  the  floating  vote. 
But  in  France  perpetual  coalitions  obscured  responsibility.  No  party,  hopeful 
of  a  clear  majority,  was  competing  for  the  rich  prize  of  a  central  floating  vote 
which  would  give  or  withhold  power:  for  this  vote  did  not  exist.  Instead 
multiple  cleavages  split  the  nation  into  several  opposing  camps:  bourgeois 
against  worker,  peasant  against  townsman,  Catholic  against  anticlerical. 
Between  these  camps  votes  shifted  rarely,  within  them  frequently,  for  com- 
petition was  fiercest  between  rival  parties  bidding  for  the  same  clientele  and 
every  moderate  had  to  fear  a  more  extreme  defender  of  the  same  cause.  At 
elections,  parties  in  a  permanent  minority  dared  not  offend  the  group  on  which 
they  depended  -  not  for  victory,  but  for  survival.  In  a  Parliament  with  no 
majority,  manoeuvre  and  obstruction  could  often  be  practised  with  success. 

The  groups  which  exerted  pressure  on  the  politician  were  very  various.  The 
most  limited  local  interests,  which  had  been  so  potent  in  the  Third  Republic, 
lost  much  of  their  power  when  large  constituencies  were  adopted  in  1945.  But  a 
body  like  the  winegrowers,  on  whom  the  prosperity  of  a  whole  region  de- 
pended, could  command  the  support  of  every  politician  in  the  area.  Operating 
on  a  national  scale  were  some  groups  who  enjoyed  the  favours  of  all  parties  - 
ex-servicemen,  tenants  of  houses,  the  peasantry.  Workers  and  employers  had 
their  usual  range  of  political  friends  and  enemies.  Long  ago  Thibaudet  had 
warned,  'No  hope  for  a  party  which  writes  on  its  banner:  Interests.'1  But  he 
also  pointed  out  that  some  interests,  broad  and  inclusive  enough  to  generate 
political  ideologies,  could  offer  to  their  electoral  defenders  not  only  a  core  of 
committed  support  but  the  satisfaction  of  championing  immortal  principles. 

Groups  large  and  small  could  both  profit  from  the  consequences  of  the 
multi-party  system  they  did  so  much  to  engender.  Sometimes  they  pressed 
outrageous  demands  with  such  arrogance  and  stridency  that  complaints 
echoed  all  along  the  political  spectrum.  Yet  too  many  politicians  took  these 

1.  Thibaudet,  Professeurs,  p.  256;  cf.  Idees,  pp.  57-8,  181-2. 


INTERESTS  AND  CAUSES  353 

'feudatories'  at  their  own  high  valuation.  Frequently  one  group  could  be 
played  off  against  another  which  it  existed  to  fight,  or  with  which  its  interests 
conflicted  (no  other  taxpayer  wanted  the  Poujadists  to  shift  their  burden  on  to 
his  shoulders).  Even  when  an  organization  represented  a  real  common  interest 
its  power  might  be  limited:  the  workers  were  poorly  organized,  the  middle 
classes  and  sometimes  the  peasants  unwilling  to  use  direct  action.  And  where 
the  power  was  available,  it  had  to  be  used  with  discretion,  for  if  they  were 
bullied  too  humiliatingly  the  politicians  sometimes  reacted  by  defiance  instead 
of  concession. 

Resistance  to  the  pressure-groups  often  succeeded  -  or  failed  for  causes 
quite  unconnected  with  the  organization  which  trumpeted  its  victory.  The 
'technocrats'  were  so  freely  abused  precisely  because  they  often  successfully 
defended  the  general  interest  against  particular  claims.  Money  without  votes 
to  back  it  was  weaker  than  in  the  past,  and  groups  that  did  carry  excessive 
weight  rarely  had  to  thank  the  occult  Parisian  interests  denounced  by  dema- 
gogues of  Left  and  Right.  Usually  they  won  because  cabinets  were  weak  in 
Parliament  and  members  obeyed  the  injunctions  of  their  constituents,  who  saw 
no  connection  between  the  sectional  demands  they  pressed  so  impatiently  and 
the  governmental  anarchy  they  condemned  so  harshly. 

1.  THE  PRESSURE-GROUPS 

In  eighteenth-century  France  innumerable  narrow  corporations  combined  in 
fierce  defence  of  their  historic  privileges.  The  Revolution  swept  them  away, 
and  from  the  Jacobins  to  Clemenceau  and  de  Gaulle  it  was  orthodox  repub- 
lican doctrine  to  deplore  and  denounce  intermediary  bodies  which  came 
between  the  citizen  and  the  state.  Freedom  of  association  came  later  in  France 
than  in  any  other  major  democracy.  But  the  centralized  Republic  was  weak  at 
the  top,  and  loose  parties,  unmanageable  Parliaments  and  unstable  govern- 
ments gave  pressure-groups  every  opportunity  for  influence.  The  consequences 
were  deplored  by  public  figures  of  all  views  from  the  President  of  the  Republic 
to  the  royalist  pretender;  the  Pope  himself  conceded  that  Catholic  approval 
for  social  pluralism  might  need  some  qualification.2 

Among  those  whose  nefarious  activities  were  most  frequently  exposed  and 
lamented  were  the  'North  African  lobby'  in  external  affairs  and  the  'alcohol 
lobby*  in  domestic  policy.  They  shared  some  common  features.  In  each  case  a 
small  group  of  wealthy  men,  exercising  considerable  influence  on  the  loose 
parties  of  the  Right  and  Centre,  provided  a  natural  target  for  left-wing 
hostility.  Each  was  screened  from  this  attack  by  a  mass  of  poorer  allies,  who 
were  convinced  that  their  interests  were  interdependent  and  were  prepared  to 
defend  them  by  ballot  or  by  riot.  Neither  faced  a  direct  antagonist  of  similar 
dimensions.  Both  suffered  serious  setbacks  under  the  Fourth  Republic,  pre- 
cisely on  those  sectors  of  the  front  where  the  rich  men's  'lobby'  was  most 
exposed;  both  resisted  most  successfully  where  they  could  call  on  the  aid  of 
their  poorer  associates.  Each  found  some  support  in  most  parties,  and  each 

2.  In  his  letter  to  Charles  Flory  in  Crise,  p.  viii.  The  Cpmte  de  Paris  attacked  the  *  economic 
feudalists*  in  his  monthly  bulletin,  and  President  Auriol  in  his  speech  at  Pau:  Monde,  27  July 
1951  and  30  June  1953.  Cf.  below,  p.  385. 


354  THE  SYSTEM 

had  friends  as  well  as  enemies  within  the  administration.  But  the  only  protec- 
tor of  the  alcohol  interests  within  the  government  was  the  ministry  of  agricul- 
ture, which  was  no  match  for  the  ministry  of  finance;  they  had  to  redress  the 
balance  by  calling  in  the  aid  of  Parliament.  The  colons,  on  the  contrary,  con- 
trolled the  local  administration  in  North  Africa  through  which  Paris  had  to 
try  to  execute  its  policies;  and  though  their  parliamentary  influence  was  skil- 
fully and  effectively  deployed,  it  was  a  secondary  (and  by  itself  an  inadequate) 
weapon  in  a  well-stocked  armoury. 

The  failure  of  French  policy  in  North  Africa,  so  sharply  contrasted  with  its 
successes  south  of  the  Sahara,  was  plainly  due  in  part  to  the  settlers'  influence. 
Theirs  had  been  the  first  important  'lobby'  in  the  Third  Republic,  and  half  a 
century  later  they  could  still  sometimes  make  policy  and  often  veto  it.3  Paris 
was  distant  and  preoccupied,  for  Algeria  was  controlled  by  a  busy  minister  of 
the  interior  and  Morocco  and  Tunisia  by  an  overworked  foreign  minister. 
Residents  and  governors  on  the  spot  had  a  very  free  hand  unless  they  offended 
the  settler  leaders;  the  few  who  did,  like  Eirik  Labonne  at  Rabat  and  Yves 
Chataigneau  at  Algiers,  found  their  authority  undermined  by  political  pressure 
in  Paris  and  did  not  long  survive  the  return  to  office  of  the  Radicals.4  Whether 
or  not  that  party  was  financed  by  the  colons,  as  was  widely  believed,  its  leaders 
certainly  worked  closely  with  them.  Rene  Mayer  was  deputy  for  Constantine 
and  a  leading  minister.  L6on  Martinaud-D6plat  controlled  the  party  machine. 
Henri  Borgeaud  was  chairman  of  the  Radical  senators,  and  commanded  thirty 
votes  in  the  Assembly  which  were  often  enough  to  provoke  or  avert  a  minis- 
terial crisis;  the  change  from  reform  to  repression  in  Tunisia  at  the  end  of 
1951  seems  to  have  been  brought  about  by  such  parliamentary  pressure  on  the 
feeble  Pleven  cabinet.  'Here',  wrote  a  progressive  senator  in  1953,  'the 
Algerian  Radicals  are  past  masters  and  the  colonial  immobilisme  of  the  Fourth 
Republic  owes  much  to  their  understanding  of  "the  music".'5 

The  lobbying  of  the  settlers  certainly  played  an  important  part  in  the  hesita- 
tions and  reversals  of  policy  which  caused  France  to  miss  so  many  oppor- 
tunities in  North  Africa.  Yet  a  liberal  policy  faced  other  and  greater  difficulties. 
The  power  of  the  colons  had  local  rather  than  Parisian  roots;  and  the 
obnoxious  governors  might  have  defeated  their  parliamentary  critics  if  their 
efforts  had  not  been  paralysed  by  subordinates  on  the  spot  -  prefects, 
prosecutors,  policemen  -  who  were  bitter  opponents  of  reform.  But  a  deter- 
mined government  could  defeat  these  forces:  Mendes-France  reversed  the 
whole  course  of  policy  in  Tunisia,  and  the  Moroccan  diehards,  using  every 
weapon  of  administrative  sabotage,  military  disobedience  and  political 
intrigue  against  Gilbert  Grandval  in  1955,  only  accelerated  instead  of 
preventing  the  switch  from  repression  to  concession.6 

Although  the  struggle  was  so  much  more  long-drawn-out  in  Algeria,  the 
colons'  lobby  was  not  the  main  reason  for  this.  For  all  its  entrenched  local 

3.  The  first:  Priouret,  Dfyutts,  p.  172.  For  an  early,  typical  and  informed  attack  see  Bourdet, 
no.  26 ;  and  cf.  Werth,  Strange  History. 
4   AP 1947,  pp.  285-8, 1948,  pp.  19-20,  57 ;  cf.  Bloch-Morhange,  Chapter  4  (see  above,  p.  47n.). 

5.  Hamon,  no.  120,  p.  840.  On  colon  influence  on  the  Radical  party  see  above,  p.  126n.  On 
Pleven  see  references  in  Williams,  p.  190n. 

6.  Above,  p.  349  (sabotage).  Fauvet,  /K*,  pp.  296-300  (Morocco). 


INTERESTS  AND   CAUSES  355 

influence  and  its  devoted  parliamentary  friends,  the  'lobby'  alone  could  have 
been  defeated  in  Algeria  as  it  was  in  the  protectorates ;  indeed  many  of  the 
richest  capitalists  (Walter  in  Morocco  and  Blachette  in  Algeria)  were  in  favour 
of  conciliating  Moslem  nationalism.  In  1947  an  Algerian  reform  bill  was 
whittled  down  by  colon  pressure  in  Parliament,  but  it  could  still  have  trans- 
formed the  problem  if  it  had  not  been  wrecked  by  the  authorities  on  the  spot.7 
Ten  years  later  the  diehards  repeated  the  operation  against  another  reform 
bill;  the  result  was  a  parliamentary  reaction  against  them  and,  in  the  next 
ministerial  crisis,  every  political  leader  who  sympathized  with  them  found 
himself  eliminated  in  the  struggle  for  power.  In  Parliament  they  had  lost  the 
game,  and  Alain  de  Serigny's  story  of  his  efforts  to  stop  Pflimlin  only  shows 
the  weakness  of  their  hand.8 

Among  the  many  obstacles  to  a  liberal  policy  in  Algeria,  the  interests  of  the 
big  capitalists  loomed  large  only  when  the  question  was  a  minor  and  secondary 
one  in  French  politics.  Once  the  issue  was  really  joined  they  would  soon  have 
been  swept  away,  had  they  not  been  protected  by  the  fears  of  nearly  a  million 
poor  whites,  the  mutinous  mood  of  a  humiliated  and  frustrated  army,  the 
weakness  or  indifference  of  the  major  parties,  and  the  exasperated  nationalism 
of  many  French  voters  at  home.  The  proof  came  in  the  Fifth  Republic,  when 
the  old  institutions  and  most  of  the  old  leaders  had  disappeared.  De  Gaulle 
had  nothing  to  fear  from  the  colons'  parliamentary  pressure,  but  the  slow  and 
tortuous  way  in  which  his  Algerian  policy  evolved  over  four  years  showed  the 
real  difficulties  he  still  faced  even  more  than  his  own  preference  for  taking 
devious  paths  to  his  fixed  goal. 

The  powerful  and  pernicious  alcohol  interest  owed  its  influence  to  the  mil- 
lions of  Frenchmen  who  were  concerned  with  the  production  or  sale  of  alcohol. 
Between  them  they  imposed  on  the  state  a  loss  of  over  £10  million  a  year 
through  its  commitment  to  purchase  at  guaranteed  prices  more  than  twice  as 
much  alcohol  as  the  market  could  hope  to  absorb;  the  enormous  quantity 
drunk  damaged  the  nation's  health  and  caused  further  burdens  on  the  treasury. 
The  various  sections  of  the  alcohol  lobby  were  all  concerned  to  maintain  this 
system  and  to  discredit  its  critics,  though  there  were  minor  conflicts  of  interest 
between  them.  Numerically  the  most  important  groups  were:  the  three  million 
bouilleurs  de  cru,  owners  of  fruit  trees  entitled  to  distil  a  little  alcohol  for  their 
own  consumption  (who  in  fact  sold  three  times  as  much  to  the  towns);  the 
million  and  a  half  winegrowers;  and  the  half-million  who  owned  or  worked  in 
bars.  As  powerful  politically  and  far  stronger  financially  were  the  150,000 
beet-producers  and  the  rich  distillers  who  bought  their  crop.9 

The  state  began  buying  industrial  alcohol  for  munitions  in  1916,  and  after 

7, 
Mo: 

gp ^ 

923.  Generally,  Priouret,  Deputes^  p.  234. 

9  Among  many  accounts  see  Brown,  nos.  33,  35 ;  Warner,  The  Winegrowers  of  France  and  the 
Government  since  1875,  Chapter  10 ;  J.  M.  Cotteret  w-Paysans,  pp.  293-301 ;  Meynaud,  pp.  248-54, 
259-60-  Malignac  and  Colin  (especially  Chapters  9  and  11),  and  no.  153;  Ehrmann,  Business, 
pp.  244-5;  Schoenbrun,  pp.  172-3;  newspaper  and  JO  references  in  Williams,  pp.  355-6nn.; 
also  below,  pp.  375,  379. 

N 


356  THE  SYSTEM 

the  war  Parliament  prolonged  the  system  'temporarily'.  In  1922  the  political 
alliance  of  northern  beets  and  southern  wines  was  sealed  by  the  market- 
sharing  agreement  of  Be'ziers:  wine  was  protected  against  competition  in  the 
market  for  alcoholic  drinks,  while  beets  for  alcohol  were  sold  to  an  obliging 
state  at  the  same  price  as  sugar-beets.  An  outlet  for  some  of  the  surplus  was 
found  by  its  compulsory  use  in  a  motor-fuel  mixture.  From  1931  the  state  also 
relieved  the  overstocked  wine  market  by  buying  up  the  surplus  for  distilling. 
Beet  production  doubled  soon  after  the  second  war  because  the  Monnet 
planners  wanted  a  bigger  supply  of  sugar.  But  since  refineries  were  not  as 
profitable  as  distilleries,  no  more  sugar  was  produced.  The  extra  production 
merely  added  to  the  budgetary  burden  and  caused  conflict  between  the  minis- 
ters of  finance  and  agriculture.  After  Pflimlin  resigned  over  the  beet  price  in 
December  1949,  the  cabinet  reduced  it  in  order  to  force  production  down;  in 
the  ensuing  political  storm  the  government  was  assailed  by  peasant  deputies  of 
every  party  from  Conservatives  to  Communists. 

The  alcohol  surplus  and  the  budgetary  deficit  continued  to  mount.  After 
1950  the  lobby  again  got  alcohol  compulsorily  mixed  in  motor-fuel.  But  this 
made  the  fuel  both  dearer  than  petrol  and  worse  in  quality,  and  exasperated 
the  petrol  companies,  motorists  and  road  hauliers,  themselves  an  aggressive 
pressure-group.  The  subsidy  cost  the  state  in  1952  more  than  half  the  sum 
Pinay  saved  by  slashing  the  desperately  needed  housing  programme.10  Next 
year  Ren6  Mayer  tried  to  check  the  abuse;  the  peasants'  leader,  Senator  Rene" 
Blondelle,  rallied  seventy  rural  deputies  against  him  at  a  meeting  chaired  by 
the  minister  of  agriculture's  brother,  and  the  spokesman  of  the  lobby  (with 
some  exaggeration)  claimed  credit  for  the  government's  defeat.  Laniel  came  to 
power  and  obtained  the  special  powers  denied  to  Mayer,  but  he  used  them  very 
differently;  Henri  Cayre,  the  beet-growers'  secretary,  boasted  of  the  major 
part  he  himself  played  in  drafting  the  new  decree-laws  on  alcohol.11  Mendes- 
France's  efforts  were  frustrated  by  Parliament,  and  it  was  not  until  the  third 
Assembly  that  the  finance  ministry  could  first  halve  and  then  stop  the  use  of 
alcohol  in  motor-fuel.12 

On  the  human  side,  much  more  alcohol  was  drunk  in  France  than  any- 
where else,  and  doctors  claimed  that  the  toll  of  alcoholic  diseases  was  far 
worse  than  in  other  countries.  Administrators  warned  that  its  direct  cost  to  the 
state  was  at  least  £150  million  a  year,  perhaps  much  more.  But  the  producers 
either  stoutly  maintained  that  the  problem  was  an  invention  of  Anglo-Saxon 
soft-drink  and  whisky  manufacturers,  or  blamed  it  on  the  kind  of  alcohol  they 
did  not  themselves  sell.13  Under  Vichy  the  advertising,  manufacture  and  sale 

10.  J.  Cayeux,  chairman  of  the  health  committee,  JO  30  October  1952,  p.  4587.  The  Rtgie  des 
Alcools  claimed  there  was  no  loss,  as  it  valued  its  stocks  at  the  price  it  had  paid  for  them  (so  the 
more  unsaleable  alcohol  it  acquired  the  better  off  it  claimed  to  be) :  Warner,  p.  208 ;  J.  Callen, 
'Les  secrets  du  "lobby"  betteravier',  France-Observateur,  13  May  1954. 

11.  Ibid.;  when  M.  Cayre  sued  the  paper  for  libel  the  court  found  only  one  statement  not 
proven  and  awarded  him  1  franc  (a  farthing)  damages:  Monde,  19  and  20  December  1956  Also 
Meynaud,  pp.  163, 165n.,  312;  Brown,  no.  35,  pp.  988-9  (for  Mayer) ;  Lavau,  Pressures,  pp.  82-3. 

12.  Below,  p.  379;  Meynaud,  pp.  253-4  (and  in  his  M?*w?//e.y  6tudes  sur  les  groupes  de  pression 
en  France,  1962,  p.  308);  Brown,  no.  35,  pp.  985-6. 

13.  Ibid.,  pp.  983-4;  Le  Monitew  Vinicole  of  10  November  1956  solemnly  warned,  'To  drink 
water  may  be  dangerous,  fight  against  cancer  by  drinking  alcohol.  *  Cf.  Mendras,  no.  1 57,  p.  759 ; 

[over 


INTERESTS  AND   CAUSES  357 

of  certain  alcoholic  drinks  (particularly  pastis)  was  restricted  by  law;  the 
owners  of  bars  -  or  lemonade-sellers  as  they  preferred  to  call  themselves  - 
insisted  that  patriotism  required  immediate  repeal.  The  ban  was  defended  by 
urban  MRP  members  who  were  concerned  for  health  and  the  family,  and 
relied  largely  on  the  women's  vote.  But  their  rural  colleagues  deserted  when 
the  Radicals,  the  main  advocates  of  pastis,  proposed  in  an  election  year  (1951) 
that  it  be  legalized  and  taxed  to  pay  for  such  popular  agrarian  causes  as  higher 
family  allowances  for  agricultural  workers.  The  repeal  was  carried  because  the 
Communists,  who  had  hitherto  feared  that  it  might  injure  the  winegrowers, 
decided  to  change  sides  and  vote  for  it.14 

Of  all  the  alcohol  groups  the  bouilleurs  de  cru  had  the  worst  press  (they  did 
no  advertising).  They  were  blamed  by  both  the  wine  and  the  beet  interests  for 
the  problem  of  alcoholism,  so  far  as  it  was  admitted  at  all.15  In  the  towns, 
where  there  were  no  bouilleurs  and  many  women  voters,  they  faced  universal 
reprobation.  But  in  eastern  France  all  politicians  agreed  that  the  innocent 
activities  of  their  constituents  had  nothing  in  common  with  the  notorious 
frauds  of  the  Normans,  while  in  Normandy  no  candidate  (indeed  no  prudent 
man)  would  question  an  abuse  so  prized  by  the  voters  as  the  bouilleurs'  tax 
exemption.  For  two  generations  the  bouilleurs  had  met  inquiring  tax-collectors 
with  physical  violence  and  hostile  governments  by  the  ruthless  use  of  their 
votes.  As  they  numbered  half  the  adult  male  population  of  twenty  depart- 
ments, and  a  quarter  in  another  forty,  they  were  a  strong  and  arrogant  force 
which  made  deputies  tremble  (perhaps  cravenly,  for  their  leader  Andre 
Liautey  was  very  lucky  to  win  a  seat  in  the  Assembly  in  1951  and  he  was 
badly  beaten  in  1956).16  Mendes-France  aroused  the  fury  of  all  sections  of  the 
alcohol  interest  by  a  frontal  attack  in  1954,  when  he  reduced  beet  purchases, 
imposed  restrictions  on  bars,  and  limited  the  bouilleurs''  tax  exemption  to 
farmers  only.  Within  a  year  his  measures  -  though  approved  by  public 
opinion  -  had  all  been  upset  by  Parliament  or  by  his  successor,  Edgar  Faure.17 

The  alcohol  interest  was  strong  because  it  allied  money  and  numbers. 
Through  the  Regie  des  alcools  the  precarious  survival  of  poor  winegrowers  of 
the  Midi  became  dependent  on  the  comfortable  and  parasitic  prosperity  of 
the  beet-producers  and  the  distillers.  Protected  politically  by  the  northern 

Royer  in  Pay  sans,  pp.  168-9,  186-9.  Cost  in  money  and  disease:  Brown,  no.  35,  pp.  977-80; 
Malignac  and  Colin;  and  S.  Ledennann,  Alcool,  alcoolisme,  alcoolisation  (1956). 

14.  AP  1948,  p.  157;  1949,  pp.  78,  86;  1950,  p.  155.  JO  2  January  1950,  pp.  13-14;  24  and  26 
July  1950,  pp.  5868ff.,  6008ff.;  9  May  1951,  p.  4906.  Meynaud,  p.  259. 

15.  Ibid.,  p.  251 ;  Brown,  no.  35,  p.  984.  For  the  lobby's  pressure  on  newspapers  see  Malignac 
and  Colin,  pp.  83-4. 

16.  Ledermann,  pp.  44-8  (numbers,  violence) ;  Brown,  no.  35,  p.  991 ;  cf.  below,  p.  375.  On  the 
election  see  Williams,  no.  168,  p.  165 ;  Claudius  Petit,  who  campaigned  hard  against  alcoholism, 
also  lost  his  seat  (but  regained  it  in  1958);  but  Edgar  Faure,  after  voting  against  the  bouilleurs, 
was  re-elected  with  a  very  much  larger  vote  than  before.  On  the  bouilleurs'  campaign  see  Muselier, 
pp.  165-77,  with  many  edifying  quotations;  Royer  in  Paysans,  pp.  167-74,  on  Dorgeres;  cf. 
ibid.9  pp.  297-8. 

17.  Brown,  no.  35,  pp.  900,  922;  Meynaud,  p.  260;  Werth,  Strange  History,  pp.  142-5;  Hoff- 
mann, pp.  16,  57,  62-3  on  Poujadist  use  of  the  theme.  In  the  vote  on  8  November  1955  the 
bouilleurs  were  supported  by  fewer  than  a  tenth  of  the  members  from  Seine  and  Seine-et-Oise, 
but  by  three-quarters  of  the  provincial  deputies.  In  21  cases  back-benchers  from  the  same  list 
voted  on  opposite  sides :  in  12  the  bouilleurs''  supporter  was  the  lower  on  the  list,  in  4  he  was  the 
higher,  and  in  5  he  was  not  up  for  re-election.  (My  calculations.)  They  won  by  407  to  188. 


358  THE  SYSTEM 

conservatives,  including  some  stern  Gaullist  critics  of  intermediary  bodies,  the 
system  could  also  mobilize  left-wing  reinforcements  from  the  south,  where 
every  deputy  had  to  defend  the  trade  on  which  his  region  depended.  The  wine- 
growers did  so  badly  from  the  alliance  that  their  discontent  frequently  found 
expression  in  direct  action  -  from  strikes  of  mayors  to  highway  barricades  - 
or,  in  1956,  in  a  massive  vote  for  Poujade.18  The  beet-producers  did  well  only 
while  they  faced  no  opponents  stronger  than  the  medical  profession  or  the 
unorganized  women's  vote ;  the  motor  trade  and  the  finance  ministry  together 
were  at  last  too  much  for  them.  The  bouilkurs  were  influential  because  hun- 
dreds of  thousands  of  Frenchmen  were  determined  to  use  their  vote  first  and 
foremost  in  this  not  very  lofty  cause;19  if  the  spectacle  was  unedifying  it  was 
hard  to  see  why  politicians  or  institutions  (other  than  those  of  democracy 
itself)  should  be  held  responsible  for  it.  Gaullist  deputies  in  the  Fifth  Republic 
defended  the  bouilleurs  as  ardently  as  their  predecessors.20 

The  alcohol  interest  suffered  from  a  bad  public  reputation  which  made  it 
somewhat  easier  for  the  administration  and  even  for  a  determined  political 
leader  to  resist  its  pretensions ;  it  had  the  advantage  of  enjoying  support  in  all 
parties  and  organized  opposition  from  none.  The  ideal  situation  for  a  pressure- 
group  was  to  muster  equally  widespread  support  for  a  cause  that  public 
opinion  found  respectable.  It  was  for  this  reason  that  every  government  found 
the  ministry  of  pensions  budget  the  hardest  to  pass,  for  none  could  offer 
enough  to  satisfy  a  Parliament  in  which  opposition  to  the  claims  of  ex- 
servicemen  was  unthinkable.21  Rather  similarly,  from  1919  onwards,  the 
tenants'  organizations  were  strong  enough  to  maintain  rent  controls  which  in 
the  long  run  stopped  the  repair  of  old  houses  and  the  building  of  new  ones 
(though  they  were  unable  or  unconcerned  to  press  the  state  or  local  authorities 
to  provide  enough  accommodation  for  the  homeless).  In  the  Fourth  Republic, 
where  housing  had  become  a  desperate  problem,  the  property-owners  were 
still  politically  weak,  but  the  main  tenants'  league  had  come  under  strong 
Communist  influence  and  carried  less  weight  than  in  the  past.22 

The  sinister  interests  manipulated  the  politicians  more  successfully  in 
popular  demonology  than  in  reality.  At  worst,  like  the  colons,  they  might  help 
to  veto  reforms  when  these  could  still  have  achieved  a  useful  purpose.  If,  like 
the  alcohol  interests,  they  had  the  backing  of  several  million  voters  and  no 
organized  opposition,  they  might  even  be  able  to  impose  bad  policies  on  timid 
ministers.  But  wealth  alone  was  not  enough;  when  business  mounted  its  major 
parliamentary  operation  against  ratification  of  the  European  Coal  and  Steel 
Community,  it  suffered  such  a  total  defeat  that  it  never  tried  again.23  And  it 
was  rare  for  any  of  the  lesser  groups  to  have  the  numbers,  or  any  of  the  larger 

18.  For  the  winegrowers  see  Warner;  Ledennann;  and  J.  Callen  in  France-Ob  servateur,  27  May 
1954.  (Being  poor  and  on  the  Left  they  were  attacked  less  often  than  their  allies  by  'men  of  good- 
will'.) For  their  contribution  to  Poujadism  see  above,  p.  166,  Hoffmann,  pp.  335-6,  Royer  in 
Paysans,  pp.  186-9 ;  and  for  their  electoral  importance,  above,  p.  330. 

19.  Perhaps  one  in  ten  or  twenty  of  the  3  million  bouilleurs:  Goguel,  no.  113,  p.  309. 

20.  Michel  Debre"  frustrated  them,  obtaining  special  powers  by  threatening  to  enforce  Mendes- 
France*s  decree.  By  1963  the  bouilleurs  were  fighting  a  losing  rearguard  action. 

21.  Cf.  Goguel,  Regime,  pp.  97-8,  Meynaud,  pp.  75-6,1  82,  195-6,  229;  and  above,  p.  247n. 

22.  Meynaud  and  Lancelot,  no.  161 ;  on  Communism,  Brayance,  pp.  143-4. 

23.  See  below,  p.  362. 


INTERESTS  AND  CAUSES  359 

ones  the  unity,  to  wield  to  the  full  the  power  they  claimed.  Big  business  had 
different  interests  and  attitudes  from  small,  industry  from  commerce,  whole- 
salers from  retailers,  modern  firms  from  backward  ones.  Sharecroppers  did 
not  always  agree  with  owner-occupiers,  lessors  with  lessees,  rich  regions  with 
poor,  efficient  farmers  with  inefficient,  winegrowers  with  beet-producers.  Like 
the  parties,  the  pressure-groups  were  riven  by  internal  conflicts  and  differences, 
and  were  more  effective  for  negative  than  for  positive  purposes. 

2.  THE  SOCIAL  CLASSES 

No  class  suffered  more  from  its  internal  divisions  than  industrial  labour.  The 
workers  were  fewer  in  France  than  in  the  other  great  democracies,  and  harder 
to  organize  because  the  average  plant  was  much  smaller.  The  trade  unions 
were  weaker  in  numbers  and  resources,  for  only  in  brief  moments  of  excite- 
ment in  1919,  1936  and  1945  had  they  ever  succeeded  in  attracting  a  majority 
of  the  proletariat.  Faced  with  the  stubborn  and  bitter  hostility  of  their  em- 
ployers, the  workers  grew  impatient  with  the  slow  task  of  building  up  indus- 
trial bargaining  power,  and  instead  launched  sudden  and  violent  attacks  on 
entrenched  positions  which  they  had  not  the  strength  to  capture  or  hold. 
Serious  effort  to  improve  conditions  was  therefore  directed  at  the  govern- 
ment rather  than  the  employer.  But  labour's  influence  had  always  been  gravely 
impaired  by  its  inability  to  unite.  Historically,  political  disputes  had  so  harmed 
the  labour  movement  in  its  formative  years  that  in  the  twentieth  century 
abstention  from  political  activity  became  the  first  principle  of  trade  union 
philosophy.  This  did  not  prevent  the  division  of  the  labour  movement  between 
the  revolutionary  syndicalists,  who  preached  the  general  strike  to  overthrow 
the  bourgeois  state,  and  the  reformists  who  chose  to  work  within  it  -  but  with 
their  effectiveness  limited  by  the  traditional  inhibitions  against  political 
action. 

Between  the  wars  the  revolutionary  wing  of  the  movement  fell  under  Com- 
munist control,  while  the  reformist  wing  found  its  main  base  in  the  relatively 
powerful  unions  of  state  employees.  Both  had  the  state  as  target,  but  both 
were  hampered  by  the  anti-political  tradition.  After  1945  the  Communists  won 
control  of  the  unions,  but  their  violence  and  intimidation  in  the  strikes  of  1947 
provoked  most  of  the  non-Communist  minority  to  secede  from  CGT  and, 
with  active  encouragement  from  SFIO,  to  set  up  CGT-Force  ouvriere.24 
This  curious  amalgam  of  Socialist  reformists,  ultra-cautious  moderates  and 
old-style  anarcho-syndicalists  was  soon  surpassed  in  militancy  by  the  Catholic 
unions  of  CFTC,  traditionally  a  highly  conservative  body  which  by  the  end 
of  the  Fourth  Republic  had  developed  a  wholly  new  aggressiveness  and  self- 
confidence.  New  minor  groups  were  the  staff  union,  CGC,  which  was  politi- 
cally rather  conservative,  and  a  small  and  internally  divided  union,  COS  I,  in 
which  Gaullists  and  Vichy  trade  unionists  competed  furiously.  But  all  the 
unions  together  probably  organized  in  the  1950's  no  more  than  2,500,000  out 
of  about  12,000,000  employed  (6,000,000  in  industry,  mining  and  transport). 

24.  On  its  initial  'subsidy'  from  Daniel  Mayer  as  minister  of  labour  see  Meynaud,  p.  70; 
Lorwin,  p.  174n.  (CGT  and  CFTC  had  had  money  also).  See  above,  pp.  19,  34,  96-7  and  notes 
for  the  split  and  for  sources. 


360  THE  SYSTEM 

CGT  outnumbered  all  the  others  together;  CFTC  was  rather  stronger  than 
FO.  But  the  non-Communist  unions  were  more  important  than  their  numbers 
suggested,  for  many  workers  who  stayed  in  CGT  were  suspicious  of  its  Com- 
munist leadership  -  as  they  showed  in  periodical  social  security  elections  and 
in  every  political  strike.25 

The  industrial  power  of  the  unions  was  reduced  because  CGT  often  be- 
haved as,  and  was  always  suspected  of  being  a  tool  of  the  party:  many  pre- 
miers (including  Mollet  though  not  Mendes-France)  consequently  refused 
contact  with  it.  The  political  influence  of  the  industrial  workers  was  sterilized 
because  they  gave  their  votes  to  the  Communist ' untouchables',  though  the 
non-Communist  unions  had  much  influence  in  SFIO,  some  in  MRP  and  at 
times  a  little  in  RPR  Their  parliamentary  instrument  was  the  labour  com- 
mittee of  the  Assembly,  through  which  in  1950  they  defeated  the  government's 
plan  for  compulsory  industrial  arbitration.26  Yet,  weak  though  they  were 
politically,  the  unions  could  usually  achieve  more  through  a  sympathetic 
government  than  through  direct  action. 

Just  after  the  war  both  the  government  and  the  political  climate  were 
exceptionally  favourable  to  labour.  In  France,  as  in  Britain,  drastic  social 
change  seemed  both  inevitable  and  desirable.  French  business  had  been  dis- 
credited by  its  conduct  under  Vichy,  which  left  the  patronat  politically  im- 
potent and  convinced  that  its  popularity  was  irremediable :  for  years  it  shunned 
any  publicity,  indulging  a  mania  for  secrecy  which  continued  to  harm  its 
reputation.  But  Vichy  had  also  endowed  business  with  a  new  organizational 
structure  and  leadership  which  enabled  it  to  make  a  rapid  recovery  from  the 
low  point  of  1946.27 

In  the  past,  loose  parties  of  conservative  individualists  like  Alliance 
dgmocratique  had  been  powerfully  influenced  by  business  views  and  interests, 
though  few  businessmen  had  themselves  sought  a  political  career.  The  new 
party  structure,  less  easily  permeated  from  outside  than  the  old,  gave  a  new 
reason  for  tighter  pressure-group  organization  but  did  not  encourage  more 
employers  to  take  to  politics.  In  the  Assemblies  of  the  Fourth  Republic  only 
about  forty  of  the  600  deputies  were  industrialists,  and  only  twenty  of  the 
country's  500  most  important  businessmen  themselves  chose  to  enter  Parlia- 
ment.28 Because  of  the  unpopularity  of  the  great  economic  interests,  even  con- 
servative politicians  usually  avoided  too  close  association  with  CNPF,  and 
few  of  its  spokesmen  in  the  two  houses  enjoyed  much  esteem  (though  Ren6 
Mayer  and  Maurice  Petsche,  two  of  the  very  few  deputies  with  big-business 
experience,  between  them  held  the  key  finance  ministry  for  nearly  four  years 
between  late  1947  and  early  1952).  If  economic  policy  was  comparatively 
satisfactory  to  industry  during  most  of  the  period,  this  was  due  in  part  to  its 

25.  Above,  pp.  83-4.  On  numbers  in  1953  see  Lorwin,  p.  177,  and  later  Ross,  no.  193b,  p.  81. 

26.  On  the  collective  bargaining  bill  see  JO  4  January  1950,  especially  pp.  120-2;  a  year  later 
an  action  committee  of  the  unions  and  family  associations  used  the  labour  committee  to  demand 
higher  family  allowances:  Monde,  8  February  and  27  April  1951  (and  cf.  above,  p.  264). 

27.  For  fears  of  publicity  see  Ehrmann,  Business,  pp.  207-1 8,  279-84,  etc. ;  American  estimates 
of  French  profits  in  a  magazine  subsidized  by  business  were  carefully  blacked  out  before  copies 
reached  the  news-stands,  p.  216n.  For  short  accounts  of  CNPF  see  Meynaud,  pp.  45-51  •  GogueL 
Xtgime,  pp.  105-6;  Brown,  no.  33,  pp.  703-4. 

28.  Dogan  in  Partis  et  Classes,  pp.  298,  320,  and  in  Elections  1956,  p.  456. 


INTERESTS  AND  CAUSES  361 

success  in  sheltering  behind  the  smaller  and  less  efficient  businessmen,  who 
could  count  on  their  countrymen's  sympathy  for  the  *  little  manr,  and  in  part 
to  the  affinity  between  the  managers  in  the  larger  private  enterprises  and  their 
brethren  in  the  upper  reaches  of  the  administration. 

The  politicians  shunned  CNPF  but  courted  PME  (Petites  et  moyennes 
entreprises).  Conversely  the  high  civil  servants  considered  the  first  a  serious 
force  and  the  second  a  noisy  nuisance.  Leon  Gingembre,  PME's  active  leader, 
was  as  loud  in  his  denunciations  as  CNPF  spokesmen  were  discreet  in  their 
suggestions.  In  the  early  years  PME  favoured  direct  action  or  the  threat  of  it  - 
in  1947  demonstrations  (sometimes  violent)  against  rationing  and  economic 
controls,  in  1948  closing  of  shops  and  threats  of  tax  strikes  to  protest  against 
increases  in  taxation.  As  the  balance  of  power  shifted,  its  attention  turned  to 
politics.  Since  the  small  shopkeeper  vote  alone  was  estimated  at  2,500,000, 
and  the  small  man's  survival  was  considered  an  important  object  of  policy, 
Radicals  and  groups  further  to  the  Right  were  responsive  to  his  demands  and 
even  Socialists  and  Communists  bid  for  his  support.  In  November  1949  PME 
organized  an  Economic  Front  with  other  middle-class  bodies  to  co-ordinate 
opposition  to  Bidault's  budget,  and  in  the  195 1  election  this  body  tried  through 
Taxpayers'  Defence  lists  to  organize  an  opposition  Conservatism  untainted  by 
association  with  the  government  parties.  Although  this  attempt  failed,  in  the 
right-wing  Assembly  returned  at  this  election  a  majority  of  the  deputies  joined 
a  parliamentary  inter-group  pledged  to  forward  the  policies  favoured  by  the 
Economic  Front.  When  Pinay  came  to  power  PME  'greeted  the  government 
at  first  as  if  it  had  invented  it;  but  as  soon  as  some  of  M.  Pinay's  policies  in- 
curred its  displeasure,  it  took  even  more  liberties . . .  than  with  any  of  its  pre- 
decessors'.  Gingembre's  activities  were  frequently  an  embarrassment  to  the 
more  sedate  employers,  and  it  took  the  emergence  of  Pierre  Poujade  to  con- 
vert him  to  statesmanship.29 

The  structural  issues  between  these  economic  interests  were  important  only 
in  the  early  years.  The  nationalized  industries,  violently  attacked  at  first,  were 
by  1951  accepted  by  CNPF  and  its  political  spokesmen,  apart  from  one  or  two 
ideological  zealots  in  the  upper  house.  Rene  Mayer  did  try  in  1953  to  bring 
them  under  stricter  governmental  control,  but  this  move  probably  owed  as 
much  to  the  centralizing  tendencies  of  the  inspect eurs  des  finances  as  to  the 
business  connections  of  the  premier  and  his  minister  for  industry,  J.  M.  Louvel 
-  and  in  any  case  it  was  frustrated  by  Parliament.30  The  installation  of  the 
social  security  system  saw  a  series  of  battles  over  its  administrative  and 
financial  organization,  on  which  the  Left  usually  got  its  way.  But  the  Com- 
munists had  to  accept  the  election  of  administrators  instead  of  their  nomina- 
tion by  the  unions,  and  the  government  and  the  parliamentary  majority 
together  were  defeated  by  the  self-employed;  a  'Middle  Classes  Committee', 
inspired  by  Gingembre,  led  a  massive  refusal  of  contributions  which  made 

29.  See  below,  p.  379.  On  PME  see  Ehrmann,  Business,  pp.  172-84  ('Pinay*,  p.  180) ;  Meynaud, 
pp.  51-5 ;  Lavau,  no.  139,  and  in  Partis  et  Classes  (*Les  classes  moyennes'),  especially  pp.  79-80 ; 
Brown,  no.  33,  pp.  74-5.  For  the  influence  of  the  methods  and  mentality  of  the  small  firm  on  all 
French  business  see  D.  S.  Landes  in  Earle,  Chapter  19  (* French  business  and  the  businessman*) 
and  J.  E.  Sawyer  in  ibid.,  pp.  306-10. 

30.  See  above,  pp.  343-4;  Lescuyer,  pp.  115-16,  142-70. 


362  THE  SYSTEM 

Parliament  give  way  and  exclude  them  from  the  ordinary  social  security  system 
by  an  amending  law  in  1948.  Social  security  remained  a  major  PME  target, 
but  Socialists  and  MRP  defeated  all  the  right-wing  attempts  to  'reorganize' 
it.  In  the  third  Parliament  the  Socialists,  back  in  office,  succeeded  in  establish- 
ing an  old  age  pension  fund;  but  Albert  Gazier's  efforts  to  reduce  the  cost  of 
illness  to  the  sick,  though  strongly  supported  by  the  unions  and  the  social 
security  administrators,  came  up  against  the  stubborn  and  high-principled 
resistance  so  characteristic  of  doctors  everywhere.31 

In  day-to-day  politics  the  clashes  between  Right  and  Left  turned  on  the 
usual  questions:  the  burden  and  distribution  of  taxation,  which  fell  the  more 
heavily  on  the  wage-  and  salary-earner  because  the  self-employed  and  the 
professional  man  could  so  easily  evade  it;  the  size  and  objects  of  government 
expenditure;  economic  controls,  wage  and  price  policies,  industrial  relations, 
and  social  legislation.  Often  there  was  a  straightforward  clash  of  interests, 
ideologies  or  party  loyalties ;  for  instance  late  in  1 956  the  F  O  unions  protested 
bitterly  when  PME  demanded  that  Parliament  reject  without  discussion  all 
the  social  reforms  then  before  it.32  During  most  of  the  Fourth  Republic's  life 
these  matters  were  the  stuff  of  electoral,  parliamentary  and  cabinet  debate. 
Yet  often  the  divisions  were  less  clear-cut.  In  the  early  social  security  debates 
the  Catholic  party  and  union,  MRP  and  CFTC,  insisted  against  Left  opposi- 
tion on  an  autonomous  family  allowances  fund;  in  December  1952  MRP 
brought  down  Pinay's  Conservative  government  for  attempting  to  tamper  with 
it.  Under  Pinay  and  Laniel,  PME  and  the  textile  industry  fought  hard  against 
tax  changes  proposed  by  the  bureaucracy  and  supported  by  most  of  C  NP  F.33 

In  1951  the  steel  and  metallurgical  industries  launched  a  campaign  against 
the  Coal  and  Steel  Community.  L6on  Gingembre  joined  in  with  his  customary 
violence,  and  the  whole  employers*  organization  followed  with  more  restraint. 
But  the  steel  cartels  had  inherited  a  bad  reputation  from  the  Comite  des  Forges 
of  the  Third  Republic,  and  their  opponents  in  the  Monnet  organization 
exploited  it  against  them  with  great  effect.  Coal  and  railways,  their  former 
allies,  were  now  nationalized;  agriculture,  hoping  that  the  Community  would 
form  a  precedent  for  similar  arrangements  for  foodstuffs,  was  on  the  other 
side.  The  minister,  Robert  Schuman,  stood  firm  and  was  supported  by  all  the 
centre  parties,  and  although  CNPF  had  the  support  of  the  business  Con- 
servatives, the  Gaullist  nationalists,  and  the  eager  Communist  advocates  of  a 
united  front  with  *  the  patriotic  employers ',  thtpatronat  went  down  to  a  defeat 
far  heavier  than  anyone  had  expected:  the  treaty  was  ratified  by  a  majority  of 
144.  Thereafter  business  became  very  chary  of  risking  its  prestige  and  its  unity 
in  an  open  political  battle.34 

31.  Galant,  Chapters  4  and  5;  Lavau,  no.  139,  pp.  380,  383;  Meynaud,  pp.  92-4,  240-3, 
264-5,  who  quotes  the  boast  of  the  *  Middle  Classes  Committee' :  'Perhaps  for  the  first  time  in 
parliamentary  history  we  have  seen  a  law  that  was  voted,  promulgated  and  in  operation  recon- 
sidered and  entirely  modified  hy  the  same  people  who  had  drawn  it  up  *  (p.  264n.). 

32.  AP  1956,  p.  174. 

33.  Ehrmann,  Business,  Chapters  6  to  8,  for  the  employers*  attitudes  on  economic  issues  (on 
taxation,  pp.  309-20).  One  poll  among  them  (ibid.,  p.  299)  showed  that  they  thought  well  over 
half  the  budget  went  on  civil  service  salaries  (in  fact  15  %  did). 

34.  Ehrmann,  Business,  pp.  407-16,  and  no.  84;  summarized  in  Meynaud,  p.  268.  Cf.  Gerbet, 
no,  98 ;  and  below,  p.  379 . 


INTERESTS  AND  CAUSES  363 

Lines  were  particularly  blurred  in  agricultural  matters.  Few  political  groups 
tried  simultaneously  to  attract  both  workers  and  bourgeois,  and  those  that  did 
risked  their  cohesion  in  the  attempt,  as  both  RPF  and  MRP  found  in  1952. 
But  everyone  courted  the  peasant  vote,  and  from  extreme  Right  to  extreme 
Left  every  bench  contained  members  of  agriculture's  'invisible  party'.35  In  the 
later  years  of  the  Fourth  Republic  a  lobby  of  100  was  organized:  the  Amicale 
parlementaire  agricole™  Sometimes  townsmen  of  all  political  views  combined 
to  resist  the  pressure,  for  extreme  conservatives  were  as  critical  of  rural  back- 
wardness and  privilege  as  any  trade  unionist,  and  their  parliamentary 
representatives  resented  the  fiscal  advantages  which  the  peasantry  won 
through  their  political  strength.37  Parisian  politicians  who  were  notoriously 
subservient  to  urban  pressure-groups  spoke  and  voted  with  fine  Jacobin 
determination  against  the  outrageous  claims  of  the  bouilleurs  de  cru.  On  the 
other  hand  spokesmen  for  the  farmer  exalted  the  unity  of  the  peasantry, 
denounced  trade  unions,  middlemen  and  civil  servants  alike,  and  sometimes 
seemed  to  identify  economic  backwardness  with  a  higher  moral  order.38 

These  conflicts  did  not  always  take  an  economic  form.  The  countryside  led 
the  way  in  pressing  for  a  return  to  the  Third  Republic,  in  which  the  Senate 
had  been  a  fortress  of  agrarian  influence  and  the  electoral  system  had  satisfied 
the  peasantry  by  making  the  deputy  essentially  a  local  ambassador  to  the 
Paris  bureaucracy  rather  than  a  champion  of  political  causes.  Rural  leaders 
demanded  a  restoration  of  the  Senate  and  the  old  electoral  law  for  the  explicit 
purpose  of  increasing  the  political  influence  of  agriculture.39  Usually,  how- 
ever, agrarian  pressure  had  more  immediate  objects  such  as  price  supports, 
subsidies,  investments  and  tax  reliefs. 

The  German  occupation  and  post-war  shortages  had  improved  agricul- 
ture's bargaining  and  purchasing  power,  and  the  peasants  were  never  recon- 
ciled to  losing  these  advantages.40  In  1948  Andr6  Marie's  cabinet  broke  up 
when  it  offended  the  trade  unions  and  forfeited  Socialist  and  M  RP  support  by 
accepting  peasant  demands  for  higher  food  prices.  Agrarian  members,  par- 
ticularly but  not  only  in  the  Peasant  party,  were  always  suspicious  of  the 
Socialists,  and  blocked  Mollet's  election  as  premier  in  1951.  They  also  waged  a 
vendetta  against  Ren6  Mayer,  the  business  Radical  who  as  finance  minister  in 
1948  had  struck  a  blow  at  peasant  hoarding  by  calling  in  the  5,000-franc  notes. 
Their  suspicions  of  him  almost  destroyed  Pleven's  second  cabinet,  in  which  he 

35.  Fauvet  in  Monde,  1-2  January  1950. 

36.  On  the  Amicale  see  Paysans,  pp.  222,  247-8.  Edgar  Faure  was  chairman.  It  excluded 
Socialists  and  Communists  -  but  they  too  courted  rural  votes:  references  in  Williams,  p.  333n. 

37.  For  instance,  JO  29  July  1950,  pp.  6208-9,  and  16  May  1951,  pp.  5278-9,  for  attacks  on 
proposals  to  make  townsmen  pay  for  rural  family  allowances  by  Robert  Betolaud,  a  PRL 
member  for  Paris,  and  Emile  Hugues,  a  Radical  from  Alpes-Maritimes  (the  Riviera).  On  the 
fiscal  privileges  of  agriculture  see  above,  p.  26  and  n. ;  cf.  p.  252. 

38.  Mendras,  no.  157,  and  in  Paysans,  p.  251 ;  cf.  R.  Barrillon  and  J.  M.  Royer  in  ibid.,  pp.  140- 
143,  197,  206;  and  Chevallier,  pp.  141-79.  On  the  bouilleurs  see  above,  p.  357  and  n. 

39.  MM.  Lecacheux  and  Chaumie  in  the  Consultative  Assembly :  Inegalites,  pp.  40-1 .  Senators 
Andre"  Dulin  (chairman  of  the  agriculture  committee)  and  Ren<§  Blondelle  (then  president  of 
FNSEA),  reported  in  Monde,  28  February  1950,  3  March  1951,  13  April  1951  (cf.  Williams, 
p.  334n.).  Cf.  Duverger,  'Conseil  de  la  Republique  ou  Chambre  d'agriculture*,  Monde,  22  July 
1953;  Dogan  in  Paysans,  p.  214. 

40.  Agricultural  income  fell  from  17%  of  national  income  in  1949  to  12%  in  1958:  RFSP 
12.3  (1962),  p.  577.  Cf.  above,  p.  26n.  18. 

N* 


364  THE  SYSTEM 

was  finance  minister,  and  helped  to  bring  down  his  own  eighteen  months  later, 
in  May  1953.  That  summer  the  end  of  inflation  and  the  decrees  of  Laniel's 
government  provoked  the  peasant  organizations  into  blocking  the  country 
roads  as  a  means  of  pressure.  Their  success  was  not  forgotten. 

Rural  discontent  greatly  swelled  the  Poujadist  vote  in  1956,  and  in  the  third 
Assembly  the  peasant  leaders  pressed  for  'indexation '  of  agricultural  prices  (a 
sliding  scale  which,  like  *  parity '  in  the  United  States,  meant  tying  the  prices  of 
goods  sold  by  the  farmers  to  those  of  goods  they  bought).  Their  agitation 
weakened  Mollet's  government  without  extracting  any  serious  concessions 
from  it.  It  forced  Bourges-Maunoury  to  summon  a  special  session  of  Parlia- 
ment and  would  probably  have  overthrown  him  if  he  had  not  fallen  earlier 
over  his  Algerian  reform  bill.  Gaillard's  ministry  finally  acceded  to  the  demand 
for  'indexation',  but  de  Gaulle's  reversed  the  decision  a  year  later;  much  of 
the  early  domestic  history  of  the  Fifth  Republic  turned  on  the  peasants' 
struggle  to  recapture  the  ground  they  had  so  briefly  won. 

Like  business  and  labour,  the  peasants  formed  too  heterogeneous  an  in- 
terest to  be  easily  brought  within  a  single  organization.  They  too  were  an 
object  of  political  pressure  as  well  as  a  motive  force,  and  they  were  divided  not 
only  by  politics  but  by  clashes  of  interest  and  tactics  between  regions,  products 
and  economic  groups.  Because  of  these  internal  disputes  it  was  said  in  the 
Third  Republic  that  the  clamour  of  one  of  the  postmen's  unions  sounded 
louder  to  the  government  than  that  of  the  whole  agricultural  interest.41  But 
here  as  elsewhere  the  Vichy  period  saw  an  organizational  advance  which  was 
to  have  permanent  consequences.  Though  the  Vichy  Peasant  Corporation  did 
not  survive  the  Liberation,  its  conception  and  many  of  its  leaders  exerted  a 
lasting  influence  in  the  Fourth  Republic. 

Until  the  second  world  war  'the  history  of  agricultural  organization  is 
nothing  but  a  long  competition  between  the  chateau-owner  and  the  Radical 
deputy . . .  after  ten  years,  the  Fourth  Republic  sees  the  two  protagonists  once 
more  alone  on  the  field  '.42  At  the  Liberation  both  were  ousted  for  a  moment  by 
the  Confederation  generate  de  V agriculture,  CGA,  through  which  a  Socialist 
minister  (Tanguy-Prigent)  tried  to  organize  the  entire  peasantry  and  attach  it 
to  his  party.  But  the  experiment  was  brief,  for  CGA  soon  became  a  shadow 
organization  presiding  ineffectively  over  its  less  extensive  but  more  cohesive 
components,  especially  the  Farmers'  Federation,  FNSE  A  (Federation  nation- 
ale  des  syndicats  d'exploitants  agricoles)*z 

Some  departmental  farmers'  federations  favoured  the  Left  and  even  the 
Communists,  but  FNSEA  was  dominated  by  the  rich  capitalist  corn-  and 
beet-  growers  of  northern  France,  who  made  large  profits  when  prices  were 
fixed  at  a  level  to  keep  the  poor  and  marginal  producer  in  business.  Politically 
it  was  on  the  Right:  of  eighty  officials  of  peasant  organizations  returned  to  the 
1951  Parliament,  half  were  Conservatives  and  only  a  quarter  belonged  to  the 

41.  Frederix,  p.  36.  For  peasant  diversity  see  Fauvet  and  Mendras  in  Pay  sans,  pp.  1-35,  and 
Fauvet,  *Le  monde  paysan*,  in  Partis  et  Classes,  pp.  155-77. 

42.  Mendras,  no.  157,  p.  737,  and  in  Pay  sans,  p.  232. 

43.  *CGA,  where  certain  vassals  were  more  powerful  than  the  suzerain':  P.  Delouvrier  in 
Crise,  p.  78.  On  it  see  Pay  sans,  pp.  236-7  and  287-91 ;  Brown,  no.  33,  pp.  706-8;  Marabuto, 
pp.  349-59 ;  G.  Wright  in  Earle,  pp.  226-31  (on  'Communists  and  Peasantry'),  and  nos.  223,  225. 


INTERESTS  AND  CAUSES  365 

*big  three'  parties  of  the  Liberation.44  In  the  agrarian  crisis  of  1953  the  left- 
wing  leaders  of  CGA  finally  lost  all  influence  in  their  own  organization,  and 
their  attempts  to  build  a  rival  base  among  the  poorer  peasants  of  central  France 
had  little  success. 

The  Conservative  fanners  profited  little  from  their  victory.  Since  their 
political  friends  were  usually  in  power  in  the  second  Parliament,  their  leaders 
were  reluctant  to  embarrass  governments  with  excessive  demands.  This 
caution  lost  them  support,  and  in  the  three  Peasant  party  splits  the  extra- 
parliamentary  organization  always  followed  (or  preceded)  the  intransigent 
counsels  of  Paul  Antier.  But  in  stirring  up  rural  discontent  no  moderate  could 
compete  with  Pierre  Poujade  or  Henri  Dorg£res.  At  the  1956  election  the 
extremists  made  alarming  inroads  into  the  peasant  vote,  and  a  year  later  an 
alliance  of  those  three  agitators  forced  the  parliamentary  leadership  into  un- 
compromising positions  which  divided  majorities  and  disrupted  governments.45 
Less  spectacular  but  ultimately  more  serious  was  the  threat  to  Conservative 
dominance  from  the  young  Catholics  of  JAC  (Jeunesse  agricole  chretienne), 
who  in  many  of  the  regions  away  from  the  Paris  basin  were  taking  control  of 
the  local  farmers'  unions.  They  were  reformers  in  outlook,  based  on  the  poorer 
areas,  and  more  interested  in  land  law  reform,  cheap  credits  and  organized 
markets  than  in  pressure  on  government  to  fix  favourable  prices.  Early  in  the 
Fifth  Republic  their  influence  began  to  be  felt  in  legislation,  organization  and 
politics,  and  in  1961  they  took  over  the  secretaryship  of  FNSEA.46 

3.  THE  CHURCH  AND  ITS  OPPONENTS 

The  transformation  of  the  agricultural  organizations  and  Christian  trade 
unions  were  aspects  of  a  startling  development  in  French  society:  the  vigour 
and  progressiveness  of  the  Catholic  Church,  which  contrasted  sharply  with  the 
exhaustion  and  incapacity  to  adapt  displayed  among  the  freethinkers  from 
freemasons  to  Communists.  But  this  striking  political  change  was  for  some 
time  obscured  by  the  persistence  of  the  old  quarrel  over  the  church  schools. 

Traditionally  the  line  between  Catholic  and  anticlerical  had  coincided  with 
the  division  between  Right  and  Left.  The  enemies  of  the  Republic  had  their 
political  base  in  the  Church,  while  freemasonry  mustered  and  drilled  the 
opposing  camp.  The  Catholic  contribution  to  the  Resistance  went  far  to 
remove  these  memories,  which  MRP  fervently  hoped  to  erase.  But  the  con- 
flict, though  less  intense  than  in  the  past,  was  revived  and  played  an  important 
part  in  the  politics  of  the  Fourth  Republic.  The  exclusion  of  religious  teach- 
ing from  the  state  schools,  and  the  right  of  Catholic  parents  to  send  their 
children  to  denominational  schools  were  generally  admitted;  the  issue  was 
whether  private  schools  could  be  subsidized  from  public  funds.  Vichy  revived 
the  dying  quarrel  by  granting  subsidies.  But  at  the  Liberation  the  Communists 

44.  Wright,  no.  223;  Goguel,  Rtgime,  p.  104n.:  41  CNIP,  13  RPF,  8  Radicals,  8  MRP, 
7  Communists,  6  SFIO.  In  1951  CGA's  30  seats  on  the  Economic  Council  were  reduced  to  3, 
15  going  to  FNSEA  and  12  to  other  bodies.  On  FNSEA  see  Meynaud,  pp.  58-62;  Goguel, 
op.  cit.,  pp.  103-5;  and  sources  for  CGA. 

45.  R.  Barrillon  in  Paysans,  pp.  131-43  ('Les  moderes');  J.  M.  Royer,  ibid.,  pp.  149-206  (  De 
Dorgeres  a  Poujade');  and  above,  pp.  155,  166  and  mi.,  344. 

46.  Wright,  nos.  226,  228 ;  Tavemier,  no.  207;  and  above,  p.  110. 


366  THE  SYSTEM 

successfully  demanded  their  abolition  in  order  to  separate  Socialists  from 

MRP.47 

At  the  1951  election  RPF  used  the  same  issue  for  the  same  purpose.  No 
Catholic  party  could  fall  behind  its  rivals  on  this  subject  without  risking  the 
loss  of  clerical  support  and  the  defection  of  its  voters.  Throughout  the  west 
(where  the  Catholic  school  population  was  concentrated)  the  supporters  of  the 
cause  were  organized  by  the  Association  de  parents  tf&eves  de  Penseignement 
libre  (APEL),  which  successfully  sought  binding  pledges  from  candidates  and, 
rather  less  successfully,  tried  to  prevent  electoral  alliances  between  allies  and 
opponents  of  the  Church.  An  Association  parkmentaire  pour  la  liberte  de 
1'enseignement  (APLE)  organized  its  296  pledged  supporters  to  vote  only  for 
governments  which  accepted  their  programme.  In  September  1951,  helped  by 
overseas  votes,  they  easily  carried  Barang6's  bill  to  restore  the  subsidies,  which 
was  the  cause  (or  pretext)  for  the  Socialists  to  break  with  the  Third  Force 
majority  which  had  ruled  the  country  for  the  past  four  years.48 

The  opposition  centred  on  the  teachers'  unions  and  parents'  associations  of 
the  state  school  system.  The  teachers,  perhaps  the  only  really  successful  trade 
union  in  France,  had  lost  their  old  intolerant  atheism  but  not  their  fervour  for 
latcite,  which  was  shared  even  by  the  Catholic  teachers  of  the  CFTC  union. 
In  the  countryside  the  electoral  organization  of  the  Socialists  and  to  some 
extent  of  the  Radicals  relied  heavily  on  their  services.  The  anticlerical  parties 
and  organizations  were  grouped  in  a  Comite  national  de  defense  laique  along 
with  intellectual  societies  like  the  Ligue  des  drolls  de  Fhomme^ 

Foreigners  and  Parisians  might  think  this  struggle  outmoded,  but  Michel 
Debr6  was  doubly  unjust  when  he  wrote  in  1957  that  it  was  a  false  conflict 
artificially  kept  alive  for  their  own  ends  by  the  politicians  of  the  System.  For, 
far  from  wishing  to  exacerbate  the  division,  the  moderate  politicians  were 
forced  by  pressure  from  the  Communists  in  1945  and  Debr6's  Gaullist  col- 
leagues in  1951  into  a  battle  they  had  hoped  to  avoid.50  Moreover,  the 
quarrel  aroused  deep  historical  echoes  in  the  villages.  DebrS's  own  attempt 
to  settle  it  in  1960  was  met  by  an  anticlerical  petition  with  ten  million  signa- 
tures. This  had  a  more  solid  basis  than  mere  prejudice.  For  state  employment 
and  promotion  in  it  often  went  by  preference  to  those  educated  in  state 
schools,  while  many  private  employers  favoured  those  with  a  Catholic  up- 
bringing; thus  France  had  had  separate  ladders  of  social  advancement.  As  the 
church  schools  were  very  unevenly  distributed  (predominant  in  the  west,  rare 
in  the  south)  each  ladder  had  its  foot  firmly  embedded  in  the  soil  of  a  par- 
ticular region.51 

The  struggle  was  thus  waged  between  parties  and  provinces,  classes  and 

47.  The  best  short  account  is  R6mond  in  L&citt,  pp.  381-400.  And  see  above,  pp.  29,  34. 

48.  Bosworth,  Chapter  8,  especially  pp.  291-301.  APLE  included  all  MRP  deputies,  all 
RPF  but  6,  all  Conservatives  but  2,  and  14  RGR:  AP  1951,  p.  179.  See  also  Brown,  no.  34; 
Goguel,  Regime,  pp.  94-7;  below,  p.  376n.  Even  in  this  election  over  200  deputies  ignored  the 
problem  in  their  election  addresses :  Remond,  Lalcitd,  p.  398. 

49.  On  it  see  Chariot,  no.  53 ;  on  the  teachers,  below,  p.  446 ;  cf.  also  p.  98,  on  freemasonry. 

50.  Remond,  Laicite,  pp.  385,  393, 396.  Debr<§ :  Ces princes  quinousgouvernent  (1957),  pp.  44-6. 
Cf.  above,  pp.  22,  29,  39. 

51.  M.  Crozier  in  Partis  et  Classes,  pp.  88,  95-8;  cf.  above,  p.  68,  and  Map  5.  Villages: 
C.  d'Aragon  in  Pay  sans,  pp.  490-2,  504-6. 


INTERESTS  AND   CAUSES  367 

ideologies,  as  well  as  between  organizations.  But  as  the  prudence  of  the  politi- 
cians of  the  System  indicated,  it  was  far  less  intense  in  the  Fourth  Republic 
than  in  the  Third.  The  1945  and  1951  pattern  was  not  repeated  in  1956.  By  the 
Barange  law  the  church  schools  had  been  allocated  a  small  subsidy,  the  state 
schools  a  much  larger  sum;  the  hierarchy  was  content  with  its  modest  success, 
and  behaved  with  great  discretion  at  the  next  election,  while  many  anticlerical 
mayors  demanded  only  half-heartedly  the  repeal  of  a  measure  which  was  an 
offence  to  their  personal  convictions  but  a  boon  to  their  communal  finances. 
On  both  sides  other  issues,  especially  North  Africa,  overshadowed  the  tradi- 
tional conflict.  Some  freemasons  abandoned  their  enmity  to  the  Church  and 
went  over  to  the  extreme  Right.  Conversely,  Francois  Mauriac  appealed  to 
Catholics  to  support  Mend£s-France?  and  some  Catholic  trade  unionists  cam- 
paigned for  the  Socialist  party.  The  Left  had  no  wish  to  offend  these  new 
recruits,  and  though  it  won  a  large  majority  in  the  new  Assembly  repeal  of 
Barang6's  law  was  always  blocked  by  defections,  particularly  among  the  young 
Mendesist  deputies.52 

Even  on  this  question  which  had  so  long  divided  the  parties,  the  two  camps 
were  far  from  united  internally.  The  fissure  between  Communists  and  other 
anticlericals  was  deeper  than  that  between  the  two  traditional  antagonists ;  the 
debates  on  the  agricultural  instruction  bill  of  1955  revived  the  old  conflict,  but 
in  attenuated  form  because  many  rural  Radicals  now  feared  the  cure  less  than 
the  Communist  schoolteacher.53  In  some  country  areas  Socialists  still  han- 
kered after  the  traditional  alignment,  often  for  electoral  rather  than  ideological 
reasons  (in  1955  the  chief  advocate  of  permitting  local  SFIO-Communist 
alliances  was  Robert  Lacoste);  but  the  party  headquarters  successfully  for- 
bade any  such  dealings.  Most  leaders  of  anticlerical  pressure-groups  tried  to 
avoid  allowing  their  activities  to  be  exploited  by  the  Communists  against  their 
democratic  sympathizers. 

On  the  other  side  the  political  influence  of  the  Church  was  now  as  diverse  as 
once  it  had  been  uniform.  The  attitude  of  the  hierarchy  differed  sharply 
according  to  the  state  of  peasant  society  in  a  region,  the  outlook  of  the  local 
population  and  the  personal  views  of  individual  prelates:  even  in  a  conserva- 
tive diocese  where  Catholicism  was  strong,  the  bishop  of  Saint-Die  explicitly 
warned  his  flock  not  to  forget  the  need  for  social  justice  and  peace  in  the 
colonies  and  the  world  in  their  zeal  for  the  church  schools.54  Outside  the  hier- 
archy political  opinions  were  still  more  diverse.  Those  Catholics  who  refused 
to  break  with  the  Communist  party  were  indeed  sharply  disciplined  (though 
even  here  Rome  seems  to  have  been  much  more  severe  than  the  French 
church  authorities).  But  with  this  exception  the  spectrum  of  Catholic  opinion 
remained  complete,  from  the  neutralist  Left  by  way  of  the  centre  parties 
and  the  Gaullists  to  a  clerical-fascist  extreme  Right.  Some  Catholics  were 

52  Elections  1956,  pp.  131-41  (J.  Chariot  on  the  Church),  158-61  (J.  M.  Royer  on  the  anti- 
clericals),  328  (C.  Prieur  on  state  schools),  422  (F.  Goguel);  Fauvet/K*,  p.  186;  Paysans ,  p. 334. 
Among  right-wing  freemasons,  Martinaud-Deplat  relied  on  conservative  votes  m  1956  (Olivesi, 
pp.  46,  52,  60)  and  Baylot  left  SFIO  to  become  a  Conservative  deputy  in  1958 :  cf.  above,  pp.  98, 
130n.,  347-8. 

53.  R.  Leveau  in  Paysans,  pp.  269-80;  on  Radical  fears,  p.  277. 

54.  J.  Labbens  in  ibid.,  pp.  327-43,  especially  331-3,  336;  Chariot  in  Elections  1956,  pp.  132-5 
(Saint-Die). 


368  THE  SYSTEM 

the  most  resolute  defenders  of  the  rights  of  man  in  Algeria ;  others  were 
crusaders  for  French  sovereignty  at  any  price.  The  battles  within  the  ranks  of 
the  Church,  wrote  a  sympathizer,  sometimes  seemed  'the  only  really  pitiless 
struggle  being  fought  out  in  France  *.55 

Here  lay  the  political  weakness,  not  only  of  the  Church  but  of  all  the 
greatest  corporations.  Business  and  labour,  agriculture  and  anticlericalism 
suffered  from  it  equally.  Different  from  one  another  in  so  many  respects,  they 
were  all  broad  enough  in  appeal  to  form  the  basis  for  a  political  ideology 
which  often  had  a  stronger  hold  on  men's  minds  than  party  loyalty.  But  by  the 
same  token  they  were  so  heterogeneous  that  there  were  few  matters  on  which 
they  could  muster  their  full  forces  for  united  action.  Occasionally  a  major 
common  interest  would  arise:  free  collective  bargaining  for  the  unions,  price 
'indexation'  for  agriculture,  subsidies  for  the  church  schools.  But  even  on 
these  there  were  often  tactical  differences  which  reflected  differences  of  politi- 
cal outlook.  On  the  major  disputes  of  Fourth  Republican  politics  -  decoloni- 
zation, or  European  union  -  each  of  the  great  corporations  was  split  between 
the  rival  camps.  And  on  the  lesser  matters  that  directly  concerned  them  there 
were  usually  such  divisions  of  interest  within  their  own  ranks  that  common 
action  was  impossible.  Most  of  the  day-to-day  battles  were  therefore  fought 
out  between  groups  which  were  smaller  but  more  homogeneous  and  so  more 
easily  mobilized  than  the  great  representative  organizations.  *  States  within  the 
State  ...  the  great  confederations  often  suffer  from  the  same  weaknesses  as  the 
State.'56 

55.  Grosser, pp.  179-85;(' pitiless',  p.  180).  References  above,  pp.  103n.,  114n.,  161  n.  8  172n  7 

56.  Delouvner  in  Crise,  p.  78 ;  cf.  Meynaud,  pp.  48,  58-9,  etc. 


Chapter  26 
PRESSURE  POLITICS 

French  republican  tradition  mistrusted  intermediary  bodies  between  the  state 
and  the  citizen.  In  the  Third  Republic  this  disapproval  deterred  pressure- 
groups  from  acting  as  openly  as  in  other  countries.  Their  distaste  for  publicity 
contributed  to  the  widely  accepted  belief  that  the  country  was  clandestinely 
governed  by  occult  forces  -  trusts  or  freemasons,  oil  companies  or  cardinals, 
Jews,  bolsheviks  or  bankers  -  who  dominated  the  politicians,  fleeced  the 
people,  and  stood  revealed  only  when  the  conspiratorial  warfare  of  rival 
feudatories  broke  out  in  an  interminable  and  incomprehensible  political  scan- 
dal 

Vichy,  with  its  corporative  outlook,  gave  a  fillip  to  organization  in  sectors 
of  the  economy  where  it  had  been  weak.  Post-war  governments  extended  and 
strengthened  this  trend.  For  in  1945^6  the  dominant  political  forces  were 
opposed  to  individualism,  and  the  overwhelming  role  of  government  in 
economic  life  obliged  every  interest  to  organize.  Taxes  and  subsidies,  managed 
imports  and  restrictive  controls,  fixed  prices  and  allocated  investments, 
rationing  and  nationalization  made  every  trade  and  union  strive  to  become  an 
arbiter  and  not  merely  an  object  of  policy.1  In  the  Fourth  Republic  these 
activities  continued  more  openly  than  before,  but  the  traditional  suspicion  and 
mistrust  persisted  undiminished. 

The  strength  of  the  pressure-groups  reflected  the  weaknesses  of  the  French 
political  structure:  sectional  parties  dependent  on  a  narrow  electoral  base,  a 
Parliament  with  no  coherent  majority  offering  every  facility  for  obstruction, 
precarious  and  divided  coalition  governments.  The  groups  themselves  were 
often  feeble  in  number,  wealth  and  organization,  racked  by  internal  disputes, 
and  unable  to  mobilize  their  paper  forces.  One  interest  often  found  another 
obstructing  its  demands;  and  excessive  pressure  on  the  politicians  sometimes 
drove  them  to  an  indignant  and  negative  response.  The  pressure-groups  were 
therefore  far  stronger  in  defending  old  positions  than  in  attacking  new  ones, 
and  their  influence  contributed  to  immobilisme  at  home  and  abroad. 

1.  PLEDGES  AND  SUBSIDIES 

Different  pressure-groups  employed  varying  tactics.  The  beet-growers  shunned 
publicity  as  much  as  the  Abb6  Pierre's  league  to  aid  the  homeless  welcomed 
it.2  The  ex-servicemen  or  the  bouilleurs  de  cru  wielded  electoral  power  that 
guaranteed  them  wide  parliamentary  support;  other  groups  owed  their 
influence  to  money  rather  than  numbers.  The  unions  and  employers,  anti- 
clericals  and  the  Church  each  found  some  parties  more  favourable  than  others 
-  but  the  peasantry  despaired  of  no  one.  While  influence  in  Parliament  had  its 

1.  Hamon,  no.  120,  p.  844;  Priouret,  Deputes,  pp.  232-4;  Goguel  in  Aspects,  pp.  263-5;  and 
above,  p.  25-8, 

2.  Homeless :  Meynaud,  pp.  224-5,  and  in  no.  161,  p.  827.  In  1950  the  alcohol  interests  strongly 
opposed  a  bill  limiting  the  *  non-repayable  advances'  the  state  could  make  in  a  year,  lest  it  meant 
publicity  for  their  subsidy  and  led  to  a  cut :  Warner,  p.  276,  n.  77 ;  Malignac,  no.  153,  pp.  906-7. 


370  THE  SYSTEM 

uses,  especially  for  obstruction,  the  administration  had  great  power  and  un- 
popular groups  like  big  business  concentrated  their  efforts  on  it.  An  interest 
excluded  from  other  channels  of  communication  occasionally  gained  a  hear- 
ing through  direct  action. 

This  was  a  last  resort,  for  there  were  many  legitimate  opportunities  to  in- 
fluence politicians.  A  general  election  was  one  of  the  main  ones.  There  is  no 
evidence  of  pressure-groups  trying  to  influence  a  party's  choice  of  candidate, 
but  once  he  was  chosen  they  were  active  in  seeking  pledges  at  both  national 
and  local  level.  Some  demands  conflicted:  the  friends  and  enemies  of  church 
school  subsidies,  or  of  football  pools,  strove  only  to  frustrate  their  rivals. 
Some,  like  the  blind  or  the  ex-servicemen,  appealed  to  every  group.  Party 
headquarters  made  some  effort  to  help  their  men;  in  1956  the  Socialists 
circulated  official  replies  to  29  groups  ranging  from  the  students'  union  to 
PME,  the  small  businessmen.3  But  the  French  candidate  could  not  shelter  as 
safely'beneath  this  umbrella  as  his  British  counterpart.  The  Labour  or  Con- 
servative politician  in  1950  had  little  to  gain  by  pledging  support  to  the 
Catholic  Church  over  payments  to  church  schools;  first  the  party  loyalty  of 
voters  was  high,  secondly  he  would  find  it  hard  to  fulfil  his  pledge  if  he  were 
elected  and  everyone  knew  it,  and  thirdly  his  only  serious  competitor  was 
as  likely  to  resist  the  demand  as  himself.  The  Frenchman  calculated  very 
differently.  His  voters  were  more  easily  alienated,  he  was  freer  to  defend  per- 
sonal views,  and  a  united  front  of  his  competitors  against  the  pressure- 
groups  was  inconceivable. 

Yet,  surprisingly  often,  candidates  were  not  intimidated.  In  1956  in  Puy-de- 
Dome  the  Conservative  and  independent  Peasant  candidates  refused  any 
answers  at  all  until  after  the  poll.  In  Is&re  even  the  ex-servicemen  had  favour- 
able replies  only  from  the  Left,  and  the  other  parties  were  silent  or  non- 
committal. At  Nancy  seven  organizations  published  voting  recommendations 
in  the  local  press;  only  two  had  had  a  reply  (even  an  unsatisfactory  one)  from 
more  than  half  the  lists,  and  the  Conservatives,  who  won  three  seats,  gave  a 
favourable  answer  only  to  the  supporters  of  church  schools.4  However,  many 
sitting  members  (especially  men  of  the  Right  and  especially  in  rural  areas)  for 
the  first  time  systematically  used  letters  from  local  professional  groups  thank- 
ing them  for  their  services,  which  they  hoped  would  provide  a  useful  shield 
against  the  Poujadist  assault.  Nationally  the  Conservatives  and  the  Peasant 
party,  faced  with  the  same  threat,  gave  pledges  of  full  support  to  small 
business  and  shopkeeper  interests  and  were  often  rewarded  by  praise  in  the 
professional  press.  But  'the  discretion  of  these  journals  seems  to  be  exactly 
proportional  to  the  power  of  the  groups  whose  views  they  express'.5 

It  did  not  follow  that  strong  silent  groups  like  the  beet-growers,  the  road 

3.  J.  M.  Royer  in  Elections  1956,  pp.  154,  155,  162-3 ;  Rose,  no.  169,  p.  262. 

4.  Williams,  no.  168,  p.  167  and  n. ;  the  seven  were  A P EL,  the  C FTC  railwayman,  the  CGT 
technical-school  teachers,  the  European  Movement  (cf.  Meynaud,  p.  145n.),  the  tourist  trade, 
the  Ahb6  Pierre's  league  for  the  homeless  (this  was  his  old  constituency),  and  the  pro-Communist 
tenants'  league.  In  Ille-et-Vilaine  two  Poujadists  sent  personal  replies  to  A  PEL  (the  party  was 
officially  neutral),  and  eight  candidates  wrote  individually  to  the  victims  of  war  damage :  none 
gained  any  advantage  in  votes.  Lavau  holds  that  the  demands  for  pledges  are  ineffective,  but 
distract  the  candidate  from  major  problems :  Pressures,  pp.  69-70.  Cf.  Huron,  pp.  49-50. 

5.  Royer  in  Elections  1956,  pp.  154-6,  161-2  (quotation  from  p.  161,  cf.  pp.  147,  153). 


PRESSURE  POLITICS  371 

hauliers  or  CNPF  refrained  from  playing  any  role  at  elections.  Expenditure 
was  not  legally  limited.  An  adequate  campaign  cost  about  £6,000  in  Paris  and 
£2,500  in  an  average  provincial  seat,  though  in  a  small  or  poor  department 
much  less  would  do;  within  limits  these  amounts  could  usefully  be  ex- 
ceeded, but  in  1956  only  one  of  the  few  really  lavish  spenders  was  successful.6 
Deputies  therefore  had  good  reason  to  fear  a  dissolution,  for  an  election  meant 
dependence  either  on  the  party  (and  the  best-organized  were  rarely  the  wealthi- 
est) or  on  the  pressure-groups.  Although  some  basic  costs  were  paid  by  the 
state,  fully  for  lists  which  won  5%  of  the  vote  and  partially  for  others,  'the 
search  for  campaign  funds  . . .  poisons  the  life  of  democracies  and  of  all  parties 
whatsoever.  None  has  any  reason  to  envy  or  reproach  another \7 

In  secretive  France  there  was  even  less  reliable  information  about  the 
sources  of  funds  than  in  other  countries.  Now  and  then  a  little  became  known. 
In  1953,  when  Andre  Boutemy  was  driven  to  resign  from  the  cabinet  to  which 
Rene  Mayer  had  imprudently  appointed  him,  it  was  affirmed  without  contra- 
diction that  through  his  office  in  the  rue  de  Penthievre  CNPF  had  subsidized 
every  party  but  the  Communists.  No  promises  were  exacted  in  return  for  these 
subsidies,  but  the  amount  "varied  according  to  the  quality  or  the  utility  of  the 
candidatures'.  In  the  1956  campaign  the  national  president  of  the  wholesale 
clothiers,  on  behalf  of  a  unanimous  committee,  circulated  his  members  with  a 
frank  appeal  against  candidates  who  opposed  'a  free  and  private  economy', 
adding  'It  is  vital  that  we  should  be  able  to  help  those  who  support  us,  who 
may  however  belong  to  various  parties.  For  this  we  need  money,  and  money 
now.'8  It  was  alleged  that  in  the  Fourth  Republic  'all  the  previous  forms  of 
subsidy  were  employed  together'.  Business  funds  were  given  not  only  to  party 
leaders,  and  to  individual  members  for  their  election  expenses,  but  even  for 
specific  votes  on  bills,  amendments  or  the  election  of  a  premier,  though  the 
writer  admitted  that  'this  last  method  seems  at  the  present  moment  (1953) 
relatively  little  used'.9  The  member's  self-respect  was  safeguarded  by  another 
common  but  indirect  procedure:  some  groups  amiably  offered  him  the  office 
space  and  secretarial  help  which  the  American  congressman  is  given  but  the 
European  legislator  lacks.10 

6.  Estimates  given  me  at  the  time  by  several  parties:  fuller  in  no  168,  pp.  159-60.  In  1946  a 
right-wing  deputy  spent  a  modest  1,800,000  francs  (£3,000)  and  the  Communists  3,000,000  in 
the  nine-member  Arras  seat :  Fusilier,  no.  96,  with  figures  on  S  FI O  and  Communist  spending.  The 
ARS  winner  in  a  crucial  Paris  by-election  in  1952  spent  £14,000 :  Faucher,  p.  27.  Robert  Hersant 
stood  in  1956  as  a  Radical  in  Oise,  which  has  a  tradition  of  heavy  spending,  and  his  lavish 
publicity,  children's  holiday  camps,  club  subscriptions  and  film-star  visits  were  said  to  have  cost 
£100,000;  he  won,  was  unseated  (nominally  for  his  war  record),  but  was  re-elected  with  a  much 
bigger  vote.  See  Buron,  pp.  65-70;  and  above,  p.  65. 

7.  Dissolution :  Berlia,  no.  12a,  pp.  43 1-2 ;  R.  Lecourt,  JO  27  May  1953,  pp.  2859-60.  *  Poisons' : 
Isorni,  Ainsi,  p.  9.  A  list  with  under  3  %  of  the  vote  in  1945-46  (5  %  from  1951)  lost  a  deposit  of 
£20  per  candidate  and  had  to  pay  for  petrol  and  billposting ;  with  under  2£  %  (from  1951)  it  also 
had  to  pay  for  paper,  printing  and  (in  theory)  postage  of  election  addresses,  unless  it  won  a  seat. 
See  Nicholas,  no.  167,  p.  146;  Dogan,  no.  71,  pp.  88-98.  Another  expense  was  the  hire  of  profes- 
sional boxers,  who  in  1956  cost  £4  to  £5  a  night  in  the  provinces  but  £30  in  Paris  with  its  greater 
demand  and  risks :  P.  Bouju  at  International  Political  Science  Association,  Paris,  29  September  1 96 1 . 

8.  CNPF:  Isorni,  Ainsi,  pp.  9-10;  Boutemy  was  said  to  have  paid  out  a  milliard  francs 
(£1,000,000 :  Schoenbrun,  p.  149 ;  Brown,  no.  33,  p.  717)  to  over  a  hundred  deputies.  The  clothiers* 
letter  is  given  in  full  by  Royer  in  Elections  1956,  p.  164.  And  see  above,  p.  65. 

9.  Fusilier,  no.  96,  pp.  271-2. 

10.  Ehrmann,  JBusiness,  p.  233 ;  Muselier,  p.  168 ;  Priouret,  Dtputte,  pp.  233-4. 


372  THE  SYSTEM 

Being  concealed,  these  activities  aroused  suspicion  and  speculation.  Yet  a 
senior  official  well  placed  to  judge  maintained  that  the  Parliaments  of  the 
Fourth  Republic  were  freer  from  corruption  than  those  before  1940,  or  even 
perhaps  before  1914.  A  leading  parliamentary  journalist  wrote  in  1957  that 
'most  members  and  parties  have  a  hard  time  making  ends  meet'.11  Often  the 
power  of  money  was  overestimated.  In  1951  Queuille,  the  Radical  premier, 
personally  solicited  business  funds  for  Isorni's  Vichyites  in  order  to  weaken 
the  Gaullists;  the  damage  to  RPF  was  negligible.  Next  year  CNPF  seems  to 
have  encouraged  deputies  it  had  subsidized  to  desert  de  Gaulle  for  Pinay ;  but 
these  defectors  were  Conservatives  on  an  electoral  hitch-hike  rather  than  real 
companions,  the  General's  tactics  were  keeping  their  leaders  out  of  office,  and 
when  the  split  occurred  RPF's  momentum  was  already  declining  in  the  coun- 
try. Locally  as  well  as  centrally  business  seems  to  have  spread  its  manna 
widely  and  rarely  concentrated  on  a  single  candidate,  so  that  electoral  chances 
were  less  unequal  than  they  sometimes  appeared.  The  most  conservative 
parties  were  usually  the  wealthiest,  but  not  always.  When  the  Communists 
were  in  office  at  the  Liberation  they  had  no  difficulty  finding  'angels'  to  sub- 
sidize them  (if  only  to  buy  immunity  for  less  than  angelic  wartime  conduct). 
Mendes-France's  movement  did  not  seem  unduly  hampered  by  financial 
stringency.  If  money  was  often  spent  in  the  hope  of  political  influence,  in- 
fluence in  fact  or  in  prospect  attracted  money  too.12 

The  electoral  power  of  the  interest-groups  was  equally  exaggerated.  In  1956 
the  deputy  with  most  business  support  was  beaten  in  Paris,  the  leader  of  the 
bouilleurs  de  cru  lost  his  seat,  and  a  Peasant  party  member  was  ousted  in  spite 
of  the  support,  thoroughly  and  systematically  exploited,  of  all  the  local 
agricultural  organizations.13  As  in  any  Parliament  many  Right  and  Centre 
deputies  had  close  ties  to  business  and  farmers'  groups,  but  the  members  of 
the  disciplined  parties  were  little  affected  by  them.  Socialists  who  rebelled 
against  their  party  did  so  over  the  electoral  law  or  EDC.  MRP  members 
defected  spectacularly  during  the  business-supported  Pinay  government,  and 
again  to  support  Mendes-France  for  premier  in  1953  (though  not  in  1954).  In 
1955  that  leader  inspired  the  greatest  of  Radical  revolts,  which  was  directed 
against  the  interests  rather  than  for  them.  On  the  union  side,  the  opposition  of 
CFTCs  left  wing  did  MRP  little  harm  in  1956.  The  one  conspicuous  con- 
tribution of  a  pressure-group  to  a  major  change  of  policy  was  APEL's 
campaign  for  church  school  subsidies  in  1951;  yet  even  with  no  one  drilling 
the  clerical  forces  the  voters  would  probably,  under  that  electoral  law,  have 
returned  them  in  numbers  sufficient  for  victory.14 

11.  Delouvrier  in  Crise,  p.  77;  Fauvet,  Dechiree,  p.  136  (phrase  omitted  in  Cockpit,  p.  143> 
Cf.  Meynaud,  p.  161 ;  Hamon,  De  Gaulle,  p.  34,  and  no.  120,  p.  840;  Priouret,  Deputes,  p.  233 ; 
Buron,  p.  107. 

12.  Queuille:  Isomi,  Ainsi,  p.  10.  RPF:  Ehrmann,  Business,  pp.  225,  230-2;  Meynaud, 
pp.  313-14;  above,  p.  143.  Gaullist  *  angels'  later  financed  Mendes-France:  Guery,  pp.  19,  29, 
cf.  Bardonnet,  p.  268n.  Local  money  flowed  to  a  sitting  member :  Buron,  p.  68 ;  above,  p.  324. 

13.  On  M.  Denais  (Paris)  see  Royer  in  Elections  1956,  pp.  162-3 ;  on  M.  RafFarin  (the  Peasant) 
ibid.,  and  Thomas,  no.  170,  p.  275;  on  the  bouilleurs'  leader,  above,  p.  357. 

14.  Bosworth,  p.  297. 


PRESSURE  POLITICS  373 

2.  PARLIAMENTARY  LOBBYING 

Some  pressure-groups  found  in  Parliament  the  ideal  arena  for  their  activities; 
others  preferred  to  fight  on  diiferent  terrain ;  none  could  afford  to  leave  this 
sector  wholly  unguarded.  A  friendly  member  could  render  many  services. 
He  could  inform  the  group  about  party  and  governmental  intentions  and  the 
likely  reception  of  a  group  proposal  or  strategy.  He  could  introduce  accept- 
able bills  and  amendments,  and  indeed  many  private  members'  proposals 
were  drafted  by  the  groups.  PME  inspired  32  in  eighteen  months  of  the  second 
Parliament,  making  no  bones  about  announcing  publicly  that  'At  the 
Federation's  request,  MM.  Boisde  and  Frederic-Dupont  have  introduced  . . .  * 
and  even  more  precise  statements.  Yet  though  this  'indirect  initiative  in 
legislation'  was  widely  used,  the  results  were  disappointing  for  few  private 
members*  proposals  ever  passed  into  law.  Several  housing  groups  gave  up 
sending  prefabricated  bills,  not  because  they  could  find  no  introducer  but 
because  the  bills  failed;  instead  they  fed  members  with  evidence  and  argument 
and  left  them  to  draw  up  their  own  proposals,  which  in  turn  sometimes 
stimulated  government  action.15 

It  was  far  easier  to  stop  obnoxious  plans  than  to  carry  favourable  ones.  A 
few  friendly  members  of  the  right  committee,  as  assiduous  in  their  attendance 
at  the  proper  time  as  others  were  lax,  could  often  obstruct  effectively  -  and  in  a 
Parliament  chronically  short  of  time  a  bill  delayed  was  often  a  bill  deceased.  A 
government  proposal  was  harder  to  block,  but  could  often  be  amended.16  The 
cabinet  that  insisted  on  a  thoroughly  objectionable  measure  could  sometimes 
be  ousted  on  a  different  question;  its  successor  might  well  be  more  pliable. 
Even  if  the  bill  went  into  force  Parliament  could  propose  to  abrogate  the 
detailed  decrees  applying  it.  By  such  means  the  alcohol  interests  undid  all 
Mendes-France's  measures  within  a  year  -  and  the  Left,  at  the  same  period, 
upset  Rene  Mayer's  attempt  to  bring  the  nationalized  industries  under  strict 
governmental  control.17  Nor  were  these  pressures  confined  to  legislation.  In 
February  1948  all  sections  of  the  Assembly  combined  against  Ren6  Mayer's 
recent  austerity  budget  by  'log-rolling'  in  favour  of  different  categories  of 
state  employees  (but  with  the  finance  committee's  help  the  cabinet  finally  beat 
off  the  attack).  In  June  1950  the  finance  committee  itself,  only  MRP  dissent- 
ing, supported  a  Socialist  proposal  about  civil  service  salaries  and  the  Bidault 
government  was  overthrown  on  it.18  In  February  1954  PME  instructed  its 
members  to  put  pressure  on  MRP  and  other  deputies  to  oppose  any  move  to 
raise  the  general  wage  level.  Nine  months  earlier,  22  members  promised  to 
interpellate  the  government  on  the  cuts  in  investments  on  behalf  of  small 
business.19 

'The  circulars  and  the  delegations  of  unions,  federations,  confederations, 

15.  Meynaud,  pp.  191-9,  and  no.  161,  pp.  846-7  (housing);  Lavau,  Pressures,  pp.  86-7,  and 
no.  139,  pp.  371-2,  379.  On  the  bills  cf.  Dogan  in  Paysans,  pp.  223-7;  Huron,  pp.  104-5,  122, 
155. 

16.  Friends  of  the  building  companies  amended  the  loi-cadre  on  housing:  AP  1956,  p.  143. 
Bills  against  alcoholism  in  the  colonies  were  never  reported:  above,  p.  25 8n.  Cf.  Lavau,  no.  141, 
pp.  16-18. 

17.  Cf.  above,  pp.  272,  357,  361 ;  and  below,  p.  424. 

18.  AP  1948,  p.  18;  1950,  p.  123;  and  above,  p.  254. 

19.  Lavau,  no.  139,  pp.  378,  383. 


374  THE  SYSTEM 


leagues  and  associations  of  all  kinds  assail  the  deputies  from  beginning  to  end 
of  their  term  and  more  or  less  daily*,  wrote  a  former  deputy.  In  eighteen 
months  in  1953-54  PME  sent  five  letters  to  every  senator  and  twelve  to  every 
deputy  or  every  member  of  the  finance  committee,  on  whom  the  pressure  was 
heaviest.20  Some  groups  needed  to  go  no  further.  The  farmers,  the  small 
businessmen  or  the  supporters  of  church  school  subsidies  could  count  on  an 
attentive  hearing  from  members  anxious  for  re-election.  Groups  with  money 
but  not  numbers  made  the  most  of  the  assets  they  had,  and  often  supplied 
deputies  and  especially  members  of  the  committees  which  concerned  them 
with  quantities  of  well-produced  and  marshalled  information.  The  committees 
had  neither  adequate  time  nor  expert  staff;  and  by  a  curious  quirk  of  parlia- 
mentary psychology,  this  plausible  evidence  from  men  with  money  at  stake 
was  often  taken  more  seriously  than  the  information  supplied  by  a  disinterested 
but  suspect  executive.21 

Despite  all  the  opportunities  for  influencing  members  by  votes  or  subsidies, 
hospitality  or  information,  pressure-group  leaders  found  them  inadequate, 
and  after  1951  they  increasingly  sought  to  get  into  Parliament  themselves 
(some  had  doubtless  used  their  organizations  merely  as  political  stepping- 
stones).  They  were  not  very  numerous:  a  critical  left-wing  observer  reckoned 
the  known  interest-group  spokesmen  at  under  60  out  of  over  900  parliamen- 
tarians. But  a  spokesman  could  win  over  his  political  friends,  and  sometimes 
'influence  the  ministers  belonging  to  his  party  even  if  they  hold  him  in  low 
esteem'.  And  through  these  agents  the  interests  'instigated,  animated  and 
directed  groups  of  sympathetic  members  to  defend  their  cause'.22 
^  In  the  pre-war  Chamber  of  Deputies  there  had  been  an  astonishing  pro- 
liferation of  groups  for  the  defence  of  minor  interests,  from  the  concierges  of 
Paris  to  the  commercial  travellers.  They  had  only  'an  insignificant  influence 
on  the  life  of  Parliament'.23  Some  observers  criticized  themharshly,  and  though 
the  end  ofscrutin  d'arrondissement  had  weakened  their  electoral  importance, 
the  National  Assembly  of  the  Fourth  Republic  tried  to  ban  them  altogether.24 
But  the  deputies  evaded  the  rule  by  forming  groups  to  'study'  particular 
questions:  there  were  fewer  than  twenty  of  these  early  in  the  second  Parlia- 
ment but  a  hundred  in  the  third  (half  as  many  as  in  the  old  Chamber).25 
Among  the  first  were  the  forestry  groupe  d*  etude  which  campaigned  for  com- 
pensation after  the  great  forest  fires  in  Landes  in  1949,  and  the  alcohol  'study 

20.  Ibid.,  pp.  377-8  (and  cf.  above,  p.  25  In.).  Quotation  by  M.  Guerin  of  MRP  in  1953: 
Georgel,  i.  183. 

Hn  °^&  importance  and  acceptability  of  documentation,  Goguel,  Regime,  p.  105  ;  Meynaud, 
p.  159  ;  Ehrmann,  Business,  pp,  235-6  ;  Mendras,  no.  157,  pp.  747-8  ;  Hamon,  no.  121,  pp.  557-8. 
On  committees:  Brindillac,  no.  29,  p.  61,  and  above,  p.  246f.  ;  through  them  the  road  hauliers' 
spokesmen  could  influence  the  rate  structure  of  the  nationalized  railways  :  G  Vedel  quoted 
Lescuyer,  no.  143,  pp.  1178-9,  cf.  Duverger,  System,  p.  118. 

22.  Lavau,  Pressures,  pp.  67,  84.  Hospitality  :  Buron,  pp.  107-9. 

23  Barthelemy,  Essai,  p.  83  and  ff.  ;  the  film  group  wanted  free  entry  to  cinemas  for  its  180 
members.  Before  1914  there  was  said  to  be  a  group  of  deputies  dissatisfied  with  their  prefects  : 
Jouvenel,  p.  72n. 


«?4*J£tandin?  °rder  13  :  'Est  fate&te  la  constitution,  au  sein  de  1'  Assemble,  de  groupes  dits 

de  defense  d  mterets  particuliers,  locaux  ou  professionals".' 

-I5*  f  hundred:  Bardonnet,  p.  269.  Half:  cf.  Barthelemy,  p.  87.  Socialists  could  not  join  one 
without  the  parliamentary  party's  consent:  Waline,  no.  213,  p.  1211.  The  standing  order  was 
worded  more  strictly  but  taken  no  more  seriously  in  the  Fifth  Republic  :  ibid,  p  1207 


PRESSURE  POLITICS  375 

group',  set  up  that  December  with  over  a  hundred  deputies  from  the  Right  to 
the  Communists  and  four  committee  chairmen  (including  Finance)  as  vice- 
presidents;  one  of  its  professed  objects  was  to  examine  the  incidence  of 
taxation  on  the  interests  concerned  with  alcohol.26  Some  of  the  groups  held 
large  annual  banquets  attended  by  members  of  Parliament  and  often  presided 
over  by  the  minister  with  whom  they  dealt.  In  1954  PME's  groupe  delude  et 
d*  action  de  V  economic  privee  had  its  general  meeting  at  the  Palais  Bourbon, 
attended  by  both  members  and  non-members  of  Parliament  and  with  a  non- 
member  in  the  chair.  When  the  bouilleurs*  leader  Andr6  Liautey  was  elected  in 
1951  he  promptly  organized  a  'study  group'  of  24  members  which  'consti- 
tuted the  parliamentary  base  of  operations  for  the  bouilleurs  throughout  the 
life  of  the  Assembly'.  The  powerful  Amicale  agricole  played  an  active  part  in 
overthrowing  Mayer's  government  in  1953  and  proposed  its  own  vote  of  cen- 
sure against  Bourges-Maunoury  in  1957.27 

The  main  aim  of  the  groups  was  to  focus  parliamentary  pressure  during  the 
budget  debates.  'Many  groups  (particularly,  but  not  only,  the  farmers)  have 
got  into  the  habit  of  regarding  the  State  as  a  universal  insurance  fund  which 
operates  without  collecting  premiums.'28  Even  before  their  parliamentary 
organization  had  developed,  the  small  business  groups  mounted  a  powerful 
attack  on  Rene  Mayer's  special  austerity  levy  in  early  1948  and  obtained  sub- 
stantial modifications.  Some  groups  with  a  wide  base  of  parliamentary  sup- 
port could  make  trouble  for  the  strongest  government,  and  every  year  there 
was  difficulty  over  the  post  office,  education  and  above  all  war  pensions 
estimates.29  The  groups  were  strong  when  the  government  was  weak.  In  1949- 
1950  they  helped  to  bring  Bidault's  majority  down  to  single  figures.  The  well- 
organized  alcohol  and  tobacco-growing  'study  groups'  obtained  some  con- 
cessions -  with  the  active  aid  of  the  chairman  of  the  finance  committee,  and  of  a 
flood  of  constituents'  letters  and  telegrams  urging  members  to  refuse  con- 
fidence in  the  government.  But  the  still  more  vociferous  road  hauliers'  lobby 
overreached  itself;  the  government  refused  any  concession  and  was  upheld  - 
by  four  votes.  'People  were  arrogant  enough  to  bring  collective  pressure  .  .  . 
into  this  very  house.  In  the  galleries  of  the  Assembly  there  appeared  more  or 
less  qualified  representatives  of  special  interests  who  ...  in  the  midst  of  dis- 
cussion sent  .  .  .  their  injunctions  to  certain  members  of  the  Assembly.  .  .  . 
There  are  dialogues  a  regime  cannot  tolerate  unless  it  is  ready  to  sign  its  own 
death  warrant.'30 

26.  Monde,  23  November  1949  (forestry  group),  5  December  (alcohol  group,  cf.  above,  p.  356). 
The  Assembly  spent  several  sittings  on  agricultural  calamities  in  the  summer  of  1950  but  never 


taW  M4  (for  road  hauliers'  banquets),  246-7  (for 
which  included  a  third  of  MRP,  and  four  Socialists);  Lavau,  no.  139,  pp.  375-6,  ,379  ,  Brown, 
no.  35,  for  the  bouilteurs  (who  had  had  150  members  in  their  pre-war  group  :  Barthelemy,  p.  54)  , 
above*  pp.  356  ,  363  (Amicale  agricole). 

29"  TJiTp^^njDuverger,  Institutions  financier  est  pp.  143-4  (Mayer  levy)  ;  Goguel,  Regime, 

Business  o  237'  Goguel,  .Regime,  p.  106.  The  pressure  was  so  strong  that  SFIO  authorized  a 
member'  to  abstain  °^nd  so  outrageous  that  in  the  end  he  did  not.  On  earher  pressure  by&e 


376  THE  SYSTEM 

In  this  case  a  powerful  pressure-group  was  worsted  by  an  exceptionally 
shaky  government.  Six  years  later  a  rather  stronger  ministry  was  assailed  by  a 
rising  popular  movement  which  had  already  paralysed  the  administration  and 
intimidated  the  parties.  Edgar  Faure,  by  so  contriving  the  encounter  that  the 
deputies  could  not  vote  all  Poujade's  demands  without  obviously  humiliating 
themselves,  managed  to  deny  the  agitator  the  conspicuous  political  triumph 
which  he  wanted  far  more  than  limited  practical  concessions.31  But  most 
pressure-groups  had  no  such  ulterior  political  aim,  and  most  parliamentary 
battles  were  settled  by  a  compromise.  In  1957  the  tenants'  organizations 
demanded  a  2%  cut  in  the  interest  rate  on  loans  for  house  building,  and  got 
1  % ;  and  won  a  year's  postponement  of  rent  decontrol  for  vacant  ten-year-old 
houses,  after  the  justice  committee  had  asked  for  two.  Even  when  one  side 
won,  it  was  not  always  the  rich,  modern  and  powerful,  though  the  senators  - 
more  responsive  to  economic  weight  than  the  deputies  and  less  to  numbers  - 
enabled  the  business  lobby  to  prevent  effective  anti-trust  legislation  in  1953.  In 
1957,  when  a  bank  strike  won  salary  increases  for  the  clerks,  the  finance  minis- 
ter tried  to  defer  payment  but  interpellations  in  the  Assembly  made  him  give 
way.32 

Questions  of  purely  local  interest  often  cut  across  party  or  ideological  lines. 
On  the  Mont  Blanc  tunnel,  or  the  diversion  of  Loire  water  to  Paris,  consti- 
tuency interests  took  precedence  over  political  views.  All  Corsicans  (and  there 
were  many  in  Paris)  rallied  to  the  defence  of  their  perpetually  discontented 
fellows  at  home.  Gaston  Defferre  was  a  Socialist,  but  also  mayor  of  Marseilles 
and  an  ardent  and  successful  advocate  of  state  subsidies  for  private  ship- 
builders. Other  regional  divisions  had  more  far-reaching  implications.  In  1950 
a  bill  to  permit  the  teaching  of  local  languages  in  schools  outraged  the  cham- 
pions of  the  Republic  one  and  indivisible  and  provoked  a  bitter  dispute  with 
the  Basque  and  Breton  friends  of  local  autonomy.  In  1953  an  unhappy  clash 
occurred  over  the  trial  of  thirteen  Alsatians  who,  as  conscripts  in  the  German 
army,  had  participated  in  the  SS  massacre  at  Oradour  nine  years  earlier:  it 
caused  demonstrations  in  both  Alsace  and  Limousin  and  divided  even  the 
Communist  party.33  Because  of  the  geographical  concentration  of  wine- 
growing, war  damage  or  Catholic  schools,  some  long-standing  political  dis- 
putes had  an  essentially  regional  character.34 

A  wide  variety  of  cause-groups  also  operated  in  Parliament.  Some,  like  the 

same  lobby  see  the  protest  of  the  premier,  Queuille:  AP  1949,  pp.  327-9,  JO  24  May  1949, 
p.  2871.  In  1951  the  hauliers'  leader  was  elected  a  deputy. 

31.  Hoffmann,  pp.  76-84  (cf.  pp.  43-6,  65-70). 

32.  Meynaud,  p.  193n.  (banks),  and  no.  161,  pp.  847-50  (housing);  Ehrmann,  business. 
pp.  386-8  (cartels);  Arae,  p.  370  (banks). 

33.  Local  groups :  Meynaud,  pp.  231-6,  and  his  Nouvelles  Etudes  (above,  p.  356n.),  pp.  148-57. 
Defferre:  Jarrier,  no.  128,  pp.  890-1 ;  Ehrmann,  Business,  p.  246.  Languages:  articles  by  Dauzat 
in  Monde,  15  and  29  March,  26  April,  17  May  1950,  and  Duhamel  in  Figaro,  29-30  April,  5  and 

12  May.  Oradour  :JO  19  February  1953 ;  AP  1953,  pp.  10-11, 14-16;  Chapman,  Prefects,  pp.  221- 
222;  Faucher,  pp.  27-8  (on  the  Communists). 

34.  *  Every  member  from  Normandy  votes  for  apples,  every  member  for  Herault  votes  for  wine. 
For  eight  years  I  voted  for  Armagnac  wheat  and  brandy' :  Barth61emy,  Essai,  p.  86;  cf.  above, 
p.  330.  Of  the  15  departments  in  which  church  schools  taught  25%  of  primary  schoolchildren, 

13  were  in  the  west  or  in  the  Massif  Central  (see  Map  5).  So  were  14  of  the  21  in  which  they  taught 
over  half  the  secondary  schoolchildren:  Monde,  8  August  1951. 


PRESSURE  POLITICS  377 

Abbe  Pierre's  league  to  aid  the  homeless,  obtained  a  ready  hearing  even  though 
they  had  little  electoral  support  behind  them:  their  case  was  obviously  worthy 
and  faced  no  direct  opposition.  Others  like  the  anti-alcoholic  campaign 
probably  had  the  public  (especially  women  voters)  on  their  side,  but  their 
support  was  shallow  and  diffused  and  their  opponents,  backed  by  money  and 
substantial  numbers,  were  far  more  determined  and  single-minded.  Others 
again,  like  opposition  to  the  death  penalty,  were  shunned  even  by  sympathetic 
members  because  their  cause  was  considered  electorally  disastrous.35 

Some  political  causes  enjoyed  organized  support  in  several  parties.  APLE 
grouped  the  parliamentary  friends  of  the  Catholic  schools;  the  division 
between  Communists  and  others  prevented  any  similar  organization  (though 
not  co-operation)  of  their  opponents.  Less  formally,  in  the  second  Parliament, 
the  leaders  of  pro-European  opinion  met  to  concert  tactics,  and  the  non- 
Communist  opponents  of  EDC  formed  a  'shadow  cabinet'  extending  from 
Mitterrand  and  Lacoste  to  Chaban-Delmas  and  Andr6  Boutemy ;  its  secretary 
claimed  that  it  intervened  effectively  in  ministerial  crises  both  before  and  after 
the  defeat  of  the  treaty.36  As  the  Algerian  war  and  its  repercussions  came  to 
dominate  the  third  Parliament,  the  diehards  and  the  conciliators  each 
developed  habits  of  co-operation  which  cut  across  party  lines.  A  'quartet'  of 
right-wing  leaders  (Bidault,  Duchet,  Morice  and  Soustelle)  gave  full  support  to 
SFIO  ministers  like  Lacoste  and  Lejeune,  while  the  minority  Socialists  found 
themselves  far  closer  in  outlook  to  the  Mendesists  than  to  Guy  Mollet  and  the 
majority  of  their  own  party. 

On  both  sides  of  this  conflict  the  'causes'  outweighed  the  'interests*.  The 
men  who  on  progressive  or  humanitarian  grounds  condemned  repression  and 
demanded  a  political  solution  were  a  minority  in  Parliament,  but  not  an 
impotent  one.  They  were  able  to  focus  critical  opinion,  to  modify  some  re- 
pressive legislation,  and  in  April  1958  to  rout  the  diehards  in  the  Assembly 
and  drive  them  into  subversion  and  mutiny.  Many  parliamentary  voices  were 
raised  on  behalf  of  liberal  principles  or  policies,  yet  none  spoke  for  the  '  Car- 
tieriste'  businessmen  who  wanted  to  save  money  by  evacuating  Algeria. 
Conversely  the  small  North  African  lobby,  whose  manoeuvres  had  sometimes 
intimidated  governments  when  their  majorities  were  already  melting  away,  now 
became  a  real  parliamentary  force  because  the  interests  of  the  wealthy  settlers 
were  buttressed  by  the  sentiments  of  the  army  and  of  nationalist  opinion  in 
France. 

3.  BUREAUCRATS  AND  POLITICIANS 

In  the  early  years  of  the  Fourth  Republic  parliamentary  influence  was  valuable 
to  a  pressure-group  that  wished  to  obstruct  governmental  action.  But  it  was 
already  inadequate  for  positive  measures,  since  even  a  group  enjoying  general 
goodwill  found  it  hard  to  pass  a  bill  through  the  overloaded  legislative 
machine.  Subsequent  grants  of  special  powers  to  the  government  still  further 

35.  Meynaud  and  Lancelot,  no.  161,  p.  844  (homeless);  Brown,  no.  35   p.  990  (alcohol); 
Isorni,  Ainsi,  pp.  65-7  (death  penalty  -  which  is  rarely  carrie d  out  in  France)  rfMmters 

36.  Europeans:  Faucher,  p.  91.  'Shadow  cabinet':  Bloch-Morhange,  p.  101,  and  Chapters 
7—15  passim. 


378  THE  SYSTEM 

reinforced  the  bureaucracy  and  reduced  the  value  of  Parliament,  even  as  a 
defensive  instrument.  Whether  to  put  their  positive  case  or  to  avert  decisions 
harmful  to  their  interests,  groups  wishing  to  influence  policy  found  access  to 
the  executive  essential.  Increasingly  they  directed  their  efforts  to  building  up 
consultative  machinery  outside  Parliament  to  ensure  that  their  views  had  a 
hearing  at  the  time  and  place  where  they  could  do  most  good. 

Even  if  a  group  was  strong  enough  to  get  a  satisfactory  bill  through  Parlia- 
ment, the  administration  could  often  restrict  its  application  -  or,  conversely, 
help  the  group  by  narrowing  the  scope  of  a  bill  it  disliked.  When  Parliament 
was  vigilant  the  executive's  power  was  limited,  but  when  it  was  inattentive  or 
indifferent  the  administration  often  made  the  decisions.  In  1955  a  Conservative 
minister  of  agriculture  accepted  the  demands  of  the  large  and  efficient  butter 
producers  and  banned  the  preservative  which  allowed  the  small  farmer's 
butter,  produced  in  primitive  conditions,  to  be  kept  for  sale  in  the  towns;  in 
1956  his  Radical  successor  recommended  that  the  ban  be  applied  'with  the 
greatest  tolerance'  and  in  fact  it  ceased  to  operate  -  though  a  bill  to  legalize 
the  new  decision  received  only  160  votes  in  the  Assembly.  The  administration 
was  particularly  well  placed  when  Parliament  contented  itself  with  passing  a 
hi-cadre,  and  the  final  vote  of  the  housing  law  of  1957  was  rather  the  begin- 
ning than  the  end  of  the  struggle  of  the  opposing  pressure-groups  to  get  their 
respective  policies  put  into  effect.37 

The  interest-groups  therefore  usually  tried  to  establish  regular  relations 
with  the  civil  servants  dealing  with  their  problems  (though  in  a  very  few  cases 
open  warfare  prevailed,  and  Poujade  at  the  height  of  his  power  was  appeased 
by  the  transfer  of  two  civil  servants  guilty  of  devising  too-effective  checks 
against  tax  frauds).38  But  as  a  rule  the  views  of  a  branch  of  the  administration 
tended  to  reflect  those  of  its  regular  clients,  shorn  of  their  least  reasonable 
demands.  For  few  conflicts  of  interest  simply  opposed  private  greed  to  a  clear 
common  good.  More  often  there  was  a  division  of  forces  in  which  government 
departments  and  private  interests  were  ranged  on  both  sides.39  Only  one 
department,  the  ministry  of  finance,  was  occupationally  bound  to  oppose  the 
pressure-groups;  and  to  all  who  wanted  money  (and  few  did  not)  it  was  the 
fortress  to  be  stormed.  All,  therefore,  wanted  allies  within  the  official  world 
fighting  for  objectives  similar  to,  even  if  more  limited  than  their  own.  They 
valued  the  administrative  autonomy  of  these  allies,  and  when  Guy  Mollet 
reduced  the  ministries  of  health,  agriculture  and  merchant  marine  to  mere 
ministries  of  state  (secretariats  d'fctat)  subject  to  senior  *  overlords ',  there  were 
outcries  from  the  surgeries,  farms  and  ports.40 

The  interests  tried  to  influence  the  policies  of  their  bureaucratic  mentors 
through  a  proliferating  network  of  consultative  committees  whose  advice  the 
administration  was  often  required  to  ask,  though  rarely  to  take.  By  1957  over 

37.  Meynaud,  p.  240n.  (butter),  and  no.  161,  p.  846  (housing  law).  Gf.  Warner,  p.  266  n.  88, 
for  the  administration's  contradictory  rulings  ziboutpiquettes  (adulterated  wines)  in  1947;  and 
see  above,  pp.  343-4,  and  below,  p.  392. 

38.  Hoffmann,  p.  77;  Ehrmann,  Business,  p.  492n. ;  cf.  Meynaud,  p.  283n. 

39.  Meynaud,  pp,  206-11,  319-20;  Ehrmann,  no.  85,  p.  548;  above,  p.  344. 

40.  Doctors :  Meynaud,  p.  209n. ;  no.  1 60,  p.  587n.  Agriculture :  Pay  sans,  pp.  1 39n.,  249,  253-60 
C.  de  Vaugelas);  cf.  Arne,  pp.  346n,,  362,  367.  On  industry,  cf.  Ehrmann,  pp.  261-3.  Generally 
Lavau,  Pressures,  p.  72. 


PRESSURE  POLITICS  379 

four  thousand  were  operating  in  Paris,  and  though  their  importance  varied 
greatly  it  was  quite  sufficient  for  the  interests  to  try  hard  to  expand  the  num- 
ber. Some  observers  indeed  feared  that  consultation  had  become  a  euphemism 
for  the  dominance  of  private  interests  within  the  administration  itself,  and  a 
threat  to  the  official's  sense  of  responsibility.  The  Cornell  superieur  des  alcools 
gave  some  plausibility  to  this  view.  It  included  politicians  and  a  majority  of 
group  spokesmen  as  well  as  officials,  and  the  beet-growers*  secretary  Henri 
Cayre  boasted  that  through  it  he  had  personally  helped  draft  the  Laniel 
ministry's  decrees  dealing  with  alcohol  in  1953.  Yet  three  years  later,  when  its 
ex-chairman  was  himself  in  office  as  minister  of  state  for  the  budget,  its  advice 
was  overridden  by  the  minister  of  finance  (Paul  Ramadier)  and  the  lobby  was 
routed.41  And  influence  went  both  ways.  A  pedestrians'  association  with  its 
headquarters  at  the  ministry  of  transport  provided  some  slight  counterweight 
to  the  motorists  and  the  road  hauliers.  When  the  steelmasters  were  campaign- 
ing against  the  Coal  and  Steel  Community,  the  Monnet  organization  en- 
couraged the  creation  of  a  new  association  of  users  of  steel  products  to  show 
that  business  was  not  all  on  one  side.42 

On  the  executive  battlefield  the  balance  of  power  between  groups  differed 
sharply  from  that  prevailing  in  the  electoral  and  parliamentary  arenas.  The 
large  modern  firms,  on  whose  behalf  some  politicians  might  vote  but  few 
would  speak  in  public,  enjoyed  excellent  contacts  and  sympathies  among  the 
senior  officials.  Many  links  attached  the  inspecteurs  des  finances,  if  not  to  the 
capitalist  magnates,  at  least  to  their  salaried  staffs  who  shared  their  own  un- 
sentimental concern  for  efficiency,  productivity  and  modernization  and  their 
distaste  for  the  myth  of  the  'little  man*  so  dear  to  voters  and  politicians.  Pub- 
lic and  private  managers  had  the  same  educational  background  and  often 
similar  career  prospects,  for  many  rising  young  officials  went  into  private 
firms  at  forty.  This  pantouflage  gave  big  business,  unlike  its  political  com- 
petitors, an  able  staff  which  knew  exactly  how  the  official  machine  worked, 
where  to  get  information,  whom  to  approach  and  when.  'The  frontier  between 
the  public  and  the  private  sector  has  become  uncertain.  ...  It  is  becoming 
more  and  more  important  for  every  firm  of  any  size  to  have  in  its  employ  a 
manager  who  can  be  sure  of  getting  without  delay  a  friendly  interview  .  .  . 
with  the  right  senior  civil  servant.  .  .  .'43 

Small  business  used  other  methods,  for  CNPF  and  PME  had  distinct 
constituencies,  different  leadership,  and  sharply  contrasting  styles.  Big- 
business  spokesmen  preferred  quiet  negotiation  over  details  with  their  fellow 
inspecteurs  des  finances  to  the  angry  strikes  and  demonstrations  which  PME 
led  in  1947-48.  They  looked  down  on  M.  Gingembre  as  a  demagogue  and  on 
his  organization  as  a  noisy  and  tiresome  agitation  of  shopkeepers,  while  he 
despised  the  smooth  functionaries  ofihepatronat  and  denounced  the  trusts  no 

41.  Meynaud,  pp.  211-16;  on  Cayre,  above,  p.  356.  Cf.  Galichon  m  Institutions,  i.  280-2, 
and  in  Travail,  p.  849;  Waline  in  Politique  et  Technique,  p.  169;  Lavau,  Pressures,  pp,  82-4, 
93-4 ;  Ehrmann,  Business,  p.  260,  and  no.  85,  pp.  541-3 ;  Arn6,  pp.  367-8. 

42.  Ehrmann,  no.  84,  pp.  473-4;  Business,  pp.  171-2.  Pedestrians:  I  owe  this  example  to  M. 
Goguel.  cf.  above,  p.  344n. 

43.  Siegfried,  De  la  IUe,  pp.  246-7.  See  also  Brindillac,  no.  28;  Ehrmann,  Business,  pp.  257-7 1 
and  488,  and  no.  85,  pp.  550-2;  above,  p.  338  and  n. 


380  THE  SYSTEM 

less  than  the  unions  or  the  technocrats.  Yet  in  a  new  political  and  economic 
climate  even  he  was  to  discover  the  advantages  of  sobriety.  When  the  Radicals 
and  Conservatives  returned  to  office  P  M  E  had  a  better  hearing  from  ministers, 
and  soon  Gingembre  stopped  vituperating  the  technocrats  to  complain  that 
they  did  not  consult  him  enough.  But  he  was  not  strong  enough  to  prevent 
the  modernizing  businesses  and  bureaucrats  squeezing  the  marginal  shops  and 
firms  of  the  declining  regions  where  Poujadism  was  born.  Before  long 
Gingembre  in  his  turn  was  denounced  as  a  timid  tool  of  the  trusts,  and  took 
up  the  mantle  of  the  experienced  statesman,  less  noisy  but  more  effective  than 
the  excitable  agitator  from  the  south.44 

Access  to  power  thus  transformed  the  behaviour  of  the  groups.  When  their 
friends  were  in  office  they  tried  to  get  their  own  men  into  the  cabinet  of  a 
sympathetic  minister  and  ensure  that  he  took  the  important  decisions ;  when 
the  department  was  hostile  they  transferred  their  attention  to  Parliament  -  as 
the  alcohol  interests  mobilized  opposition  votes  when  Mayer  demanded 
special  powers  but  not  when  the  friendlier  Laniel  administration  obtained 
them.  In  1956  FNSEA  held  several  conversations  with  the  minister  of  finance 
and  then  the  premier.  When  these  clearly  failed  it  broke  relations,  and  in  1957 
it  helped  overthrow  two  governments  and  threatened  a  direct-action  campaign. 
At  length  the  weak  and  divided  Gaillard  government  gave  way  and  accepted 
'indexation*.45 

While  ministers  from  the  same  party  held  a  connected  group  of  offices, 
responsibilities  were  clearly  established  and  the  influence  of  the  groups  was 
limited.  But  when  several  parties  divided  up  a  single  sector  of  governmental 
activity,  the  group  had  a  good  chance  of  finding  at  least  one  sympathetic 
ministry  to  help  it  block  distasteful  proposals.46  For  most  groups  naturally 
had  more  influence  on  some  parties  than  on  others,  and  often  access  depended 
on  the  political  situation.  Force  Ouvriere  could  count  on  Socialist  sympathies 
so  completely  that  in  December  1949,  when  the  union  called  a  general  strike 
and  the  prime  minister  appealed  to  workers  to  disobey  the  call,  his  SFIO 
ministers  attended  the  party  executive  meeting  which  urged  Socialists  to 
strike.  MRP  ministers  were  naturally  favourable  to  C FTC  and  the  family 
associations.  In  the  third  Parliament  the  owners  of  house-property  kept  in 
touch  with  a  Radical  minister  personally,  with  a  Conservative  mainly  through 
his  cabinet,  with  another  Radical  in  both  ways,  but  only  with  civil  servants 
when  a  Socialist  minister  was  in  power.47  The  'liberal  professions'  relied  on 
the  conservative  groups,  especially  in  a  conflict  which  mingled  ideology  and 
interest  like  the  doctors'  opposition  to  Gazier's  bill  on  reimbursement  of 
medical  expenses.  In  many  towns  small  businessmen  dominated  the  loose  local 
Radical  and  Conservative  parties,  whose  individual  deputies  often  depended 
heavily  on  the  local  urban  or  rural  pressure-groups. 

44.  Meynaud,  p.  55;  Lavau,  no.  139,  pp.  372,  378;  Hoffmann,  pp.  310-13. 

45.  Meynaud,  pp.  163  (Mayer  and  Laniel),  225-6  (FNSEA).  Yet  FNSEA  quite  failed  to 
defeat  the  Common  Market  in  July  1957 :  Arn6,  p.  354.  On  cabinetssee  above,  p.  339.  Generally, 
Lavau,  Pressures,  pp.  72-4,  89. 

46.  Ibid.,  pp.  84-5.  But  see  below,  pp.  390-3,  on  the  drawbacks  of  party  sectors. 

47.  FO:  AP  1949,  p.  200;  Arne,  p.  127.  Mollet,  as  premier  in  May  1957,  discussed  economy 
proposals  with  all  the  major  interest-groups  except  CGT:  AP  1957,  pp.  42-3 ;  cf.  Arne",  p.  369. 
Housing:  no.  161,  pp.  851-2. 


PRESSURE  POLITICS  381 

Relations  between  interests  and  parties  showed  immense  variety.  Many 
political  disputes  grew  from  clashes  between  interest-groups,  but  some  reacted 
on  the  interests  themselves.  The  students'  union  split  in  1957  over  attitudes  to 
the  Algerian  war.  The  great  dividing  lines  in  the  ranks  of  labour  were  the 
political,  between  CGT  and  FO,  and  the  religious,  separating  CFTC  from 
both;  only  the  smallest  of  the  four  confederations  (the  staff  union,  CGC) 
found  its  exclusive  base  in  a  professional  interest.  Some  bodies  that  looked 
like  pressure-groups  were  wholly  dominated  by  a  party;  the  Communists  had 
a  whole  network  of  them  extending  into  the  ranks  of  the  bourgeoisie.  One 
peasant  organization  had  always  been  an  instrument  enabling  the  aspiring 
Radical  politician  to  provide  local  services,  attract  a  rural  clientele,  and  ad- 
vance his  political  career  through  channels  different  from  the  usual  local 
government  ones ;  it  helped  many  small-town  candidates  win  peasant  support 
but  brought  few  authentic  farmers  to  Paris.  But  another,  CGA,  forbade  its 
officials  to  sit  in  Parliament.  A  third,  FNSEA,  abandoned  a  similar  rule 
in  1951  and  turned  to  active  political  pressure;48  the  Peasant  party  neither 
wished  nor  would  have  dared  to  oppose  its  instructions.  However,  such  a 
relationship  was  not  always  static.  When  a  dynamic  group  with  an  ambitious 
leader  penetrated  far  into  a  promising  political  field,  as  La  Rocque's  Croix  de 
feu  (originally  a  league  of  ex-servicemen)  did  in  the  thirties  or  Poujade's  union 
of  shopkeepers  and  artisans  in  the  fifties,  it  sometimes  changed  its  character 
and  transformed  itself  into  a  party.  In  a  multi-party  system  it  was  not  always 
easy  to  distinguish  between  the  two.49 

4.    GROUP  REVOLT  AND  PARTY  RESISTANCE 

Some  groups  relied  on  or  dominated  a  political  party;  others  enjoyed  close 
relations  with  civil  servants  or  ministers;  yet  others  could  counter  the  un- 
friendly administration  by  mobilizing  irresistible  parliamentary  support.  But 
those  who  had  too  little  backing  among  the  voters  or  deputies  to  overcome 
the  resistance  of  officialdom  were  very  likely  to  threaten  direct  action,  and 
might  even  embark  on  it.  For  many  more  Frenchmen  than  Americans  or 
Englishmen  looked  on  the  state  as  an  enemy  to  be  frustrated  and  resisted. 

The  stubborn  selfishness  of  the  rich  had  for  generations  taught  the  poor  to 
expect  no  reforms  except  under  pressure  of  major  social  upheaval,  and  the 
French  trade  unions  had  developed  a  theory  of  direct  action  as  the  prelude  to 
the  revolutionary  general  strike.  Yet  this  conception  hopefully  relied  on  the 
fighting  spirit  of  the  troops  to  compensate  for  their  numerical  weakness  and 
poor  equipment.  Frenchmen  paid  dues  to  private  organizations  as  reluctantly 
as  they  paid  taxes  to  the  state.50  The  unions  were  weak,  poor  and  divided,  and 

48.  On  political  divisions,  Meynaud,  pp.  33-4,  67-74,  80.  On  Communist  satellites,  above, 
p.  82,  and  Brayance,  Chapters  7  to  9;  for  their  shopkeeper  groups,  Hoffmann,  pp.  315-18.  On 
peasants,  Mendras,  no.  157,  p.  746,  and  in  Pay  sans,  pp.  246-51 ;  for  Radicals,  L.  Latty  and  J.  M. 
Royer  in  ibid.,  pp.  103-8,  112-13,  cf.  Bardonnet,  pp.  215-23,  on  a  vain  attempt  to  create  Radical 
amicales. 

49.  Meynaud,  pp.  38, 185-8 ;  his  preface  to  Hoffmann,  pp.  xix-xxi ;  Hamon,  no.  120,  pp.  848-9 ; 
Lavau,  Pressures,  p.  68n.  On  the  propensity  of  ex-service  groups  to  turn  to  right-wing  politics  see 
Remond,  no.  186;  and  on  their  pressure-group  activities,  Brown,  no.  33,  pp.  712-13. 

50.  The  few  well-off  organizations  often  tapped  semi-public  subsidies  or  automatic  levies  which 
the  members  paid  without  knowing  it;  see  for  instance  Bosworth,  pp.  293-4,  on  APE  L;  Mendras 

[over 


382  THE  SYSTEM 

labour,  never  being  strong  enough  to  bargain  from  strength  with  the  employers, 
preferred  to  seek  better  wages  and  conditions  by  political  pressure  on  the 
authorities  it  theoretically  intended  to  overthrow.  The  meagre  results  of 
these  tactics  occasionally  provoked  an  explosion  of  dissatisfaction,  sudden, 
spontaneous  and  sometimes  violent,  and  the  old  revolutionary  tradition  per- 
haps contributed  to  these  relapses  into  direct  action.  But  they  were  essentially 
an  alternative  means  of  extracting  aid  or  concessions  from  a  bourgeois  govern- 
ment, not  of  organizing  its  violent  downfall.51 

France  was  peculiar  because  so  many  social  groups  resorted  so  readily  to 
methods  which  elsewhere  were  an  exclusive  weapon  of  the  industrial  workers. 
They  too  did  so  to  force  concessions  from  a  reluctant  state.  In  the  post-war 
scarcity  economy,  rival  groups  jostling  for  position  had  found  that  a  harassed 
government  listened  only  to  those  it  could  not  ignore,  and  the  lesson  that  the 
strike  was  the  best  way  to  attract  attention  was  learned  too  well  and  applied 
too  widely.  Peasants  withheld  supplies  from  the  market  to  force  the  govern- 
ment to  change  its  policy  over  taxes,  prices  or  imports.  Shopkeepers  demon- 
strated violently  against  controls,  refused  to  pay  taxes,  and  rioted  against 
proper  examination  of  their  books.  Customs  officials  became  expert  at  go- 
slow  tactics.  The  habits  persisted  after  the  scarcities.  In  a  not  particularly 
troubled  period  in  1951  there  were  serious  or  token  strikes  of  butchers  and 
bakers,  university  students  and  their  examiners,  mayors  and  milk  producers 
and  bank  clerks.  In  1950  the  bishop  of  Lu?on,  on  behalf  of  other  western 
bishops,  publicly  urged  his  flock  to  *  postpone '  tax  payments  till  their  grievances 
over  the  schools  question  were  remedied  (though  MRP  intervened  at  Rome 
and  he  was  disavowed).  Winegrowers  had  been  encouraged  by  two  victories 
over  the  authorities  in  1946-47,  won  by  withholding  supplies  and  threatening 
to  refuse  taxes  and  paralyse  local  administration;  in  August  1953,  led  by  their 
mayors  and  deputies,  they  barricaded  every  road  in  four  departments  (but 
without  much  success).52  At  the  same  time  the  public  services  were  stopped  by 
huge  strikes  erupting  spontaneously  throughout  the  country. 

Such  mass  movements  from  below  were  formidable  but  rare.  After  1948  the 
frequent  direct-action  threats  of  the  pressure-groups  contained  a  large  element 
of  bluff.  The  troops  would  not  usually  follow  their  commanders  in  serious  or 
prolonged  illegality,  and  rival  pressure-group  leaders  competing  for  the  same 
clientele,  like  Gingembre  and  Poujade,  often  led  their  forces  into  actions  for 
which  there  was  no  enthusiasm,  and  had  to  beat  a  retreat.  These  bureaucrats 
of  protest  lived  on  discontent,  canalizing  it  when  it  was  spontaneous  and 
stimulating  it  when  it  was  not,  for  they  needed  successes  to  win  members  and 
members  to  win  successes.  Such  tactics  were  risky,53  since  a  defeat  that  was 

in  Pay  sans,  pp.  241-2  (and  no.  157,  p.  742)  on  agricultural  organizations.  CGA  was  strong 
during  the  post-war  scarcity  when  it  issued  rubber  boots,  etc.,  and  lost  its  hold  with  this  function. 

51.  Lorwin,  Chapters  3,  12,  13,  16;  J.  Bowditch,  'The  concept  of  elan  vital',  a  rationalization 
of  weakness',  in  Earle,  Chapter  3. 

52.  Bishop :  Remond  in  Laicite,  p.  395 ;  Bosworth,  p.  296 ;  AP  1950,  p.  78 ;  Monde,  25  April, 
3  May  and  22  July  1950.  Wine:  Warner,  pp.  167-8,  183.  Generally,  Arne,  pp.  371-4. 

53.  Meynaiid,  p.  116,  cf.  pp.  119-21 ;  Lavau,  Pressures,  p.  94,  on  'officials  of  protestation'; 
cf.  Paysans,  pp.  250-1.  On  retreats,  Hoffmann,  pp.  69,  87-90,  135-6;  Meynaud,  pp.  157-9-  and 
Gingembre's  own  comments  in  Guy,  pp.  168-70. 


PRESSURE  POLITICS  383 

too  costly  in  prestige  or  money  might  well  destroy  the  less  solid  organizations. 
Direct  action,  therefore,  was  positively  preferred  only  by  those  who,  like  the 
Communist  groups,  had  a  vested  interest  in  revolt,  or  like  the  Poujadists 
feared  that  they  were  doomed  economically  without  artificial  support  which 
would  be  forthcoming  only  under  extreme  political  pressure.  (Their  followers 
were  often  interchangeable.)  Organizations  more  confident  of  their  own 
viability  preferred  moderate  courses  which  imposed  less  strain  on  their  unity, 
carried  less  risk  in  case  of  failure,  and  in  the  long  run  won  a  better  hearing.54 
They  resorted  to  direct  action  only  in  times  of  acute  tension  or  when  all  other 
roads  were  closed.  It  was  not  accidental  that  the  first  peasant  barricades  and 
the  first  serious  strikes  for  years  occurred  in  August  1953,  when  Parliament 
had  recessed  after  granting  Laniel  the  most  sweeping  discretionary  powers  any 
administration  had  enjoyed  since  the  war.  More  often  than  not,  strikes  and 
riots  were  an  avowal  of  political  impotence. 

Direct  action  frequently  failed.  But  if  it  won  any  concession  from  a  slow- 
moving  administration,  it  soon  found  imitators.  The  homeless  found  that  only 
illegal  'squatting'  on  unoccupied  premises  drew  public  attention  to  their 
plight.  In  the  Maurienne  valley  in  January  1958  a  main  Alpine  railway  line 
was  blocked  in  protest  against  long  delays  over  compensation  claims  -  which 
were  discussed  in  cabinet  within  a  week  and  settled  by  law  within  two  months. 
For  not  all  the  protesters  were  putting  forward  extravagant  demands  or,  like 
the  bouilleurs,  defending  an  established  but  indefensible  privilege.  All  too 
frequently  these  civic  rebels  expressed  an  angry  sense  that  their  grievances 
were  neither  understood  nor  considered  important  by  the  mysterious  They 
who  decided  their  fate;  that  richer  or  cleverer  or  more  unscrupulous  rivals 
had  the  ear  of  the  authorities;  that  Parliament  was  impotent  to  protect  their 
interests,  and  that  only  outrageous  behaviour  would  make  Them  listen.  "The 
most  important  heritage  of  our  political  history  [is]  a  permanent  tension  be- 
tween governed  and  governors  which  has  led  the  former  to  see  in  the  State 
only  a  foreign  power  -  "/&"  -  with  which  the  only  possible  contacts  are 
relations  of  force.'55 

The  intransigence  of  the  citizen  made  many  French  pressure-groups  more 
demanding,  arrogant  and  irresponsible  than  their  counterparts  elsewhere. 
(Perhaps  the  intensity  and  ruthlessness  of  the  pursuit  of  sectional  claims  by  the 
corps  intermediates  was  a  function  of  their  reputed  illegitimacy.)  In  the  Fourth 
Republic  the  problem  was  the  more  acute  because  many  more  decisions  than 
before  were  made  by  government.  Dissatisfied  groups  reacted  by  denouncing 
the  intrigues  of  their  opponents,  the  venality  of  the  politicians,  or  the  ill-will  of 
the  foreigners :  They  were  always  a  ready  scapegoat  in  misfortune  and  a  safe 
shield  against  painful  self-examination  and  adjustment.  So  cabinets  hampered 
by  internal  dissensions  and  unreliable  majorities  found  their  freedom  of 
action  still  further  restricted  by  fear  of  popular  disorders  which  could  be 

54.  The  large  representative  groups  often  hinted  to  the  civil  servants  that  they  did  not  expect 
full  satisfaction  for  the  demands  pressed  on  them  hy  their  members:  Delouvrier  in  Crise,  p.  87. 
On  the  'respectable*  style  of  action  see  Meynaud,  pp.  119-21,  128-9,  199.  In  housing  matters, 
influence  went  with  moderation:  no.  161,  pp.  859-60. 

55.  Hoffmann,  no.  125,  p.  820.  Squatting:  no.  161,  pp.  841,  854-9.  Maurienne:  Georgel,  i.  217. 
Cf.  Buron,  pp.  27-34. 


384  THE  SYSTEM 

contained  only  at  a  high  political  price.  Each  vehemently  defending  every 
particle  of  its  own  claims,  the  pressure-groups  contributed  to  the  immobilisme 
which  ensured  that  none  of  them  could  be  satisfied. 

Yet  they  were  flimsy  organizations,  nearly  always  smaller,  poorer  and  worse 
organized  than  their  foreign  counterparts.  Like  the  parties  they  suffered  from 
excessive  fragmentation;  it  was  perhaps  because  there  was  no  really  effective 
authority  on  either  side  of  the  negotiating  table  that  orderly  bargaining  so 
often  gave  way  to  shrill  agitation.  The  politicians  were  humiliated  and  the 
regime  discredited  by  sound  and  fury  which  often  far  exceeded  the  results 
obtained.  For  in  the  public  forum  the  agitators  often  failed.  The  projected 
Franco-Italian  customs  union  was  successfully  fought  by  the  cotton  industry 
led  by  Marcel  Boussac,  owner  ofL'Aurore;  yet  in  1953  a  major  tax  change, 
opposed  by  the  same  industry,  was  enacted  by  a  premier  (Joseph  Laniel)  who 
was  himself  a  textile  manufacturer.  At  the  peak  of  their  power  the  Poujadists 
could  neither  defeat  their  chosen  enemies  at  the  polls,  nor  win  all  the  tax  con- 
cessions they  demanded  from  Parliament,  nor  check  the  steady  growth  of  co- 
operatives and  chain  stores.  The  bakers  and  greengrocers  failed  completely  to 
break  the  Mollet  government's  ban  on  price  increases.56  Behind  the  scenes 
there  was  no  single  interest  which  could  destroy  governments  through  its 
financial  power,  like  the  (private)  Bank  of  France  before  the  war,  or  manipu- 
late opinion  through  the  press  as  effectively  as  the  steelmasters  of  the  old 
Comite  des  Forges*1  'If  every  group  agreed  to  publish  an  honest  balance- 
sheet  of  its  interventions  with  the  authorities,  the  "failures"  column  would 
rarely  be  empty.'58 

This  did  not  mean  the  groups  were  harmless.  The  colons  may  only  have 
delayed  evolution  in  North  Africa:  missed  opportunities  cannot  always  be 
retrieved.  The  alcohol  lobby  burdened  a  budget  which  could  never  find  enough 
for  genuine  and  urgent  needs.  Inarticulate  or  ill-organized  groups  suffered: 
the  homeless,  the  aged,  the  consumers.  The  lobbies  added  yet  another  obstacle 
against  change  to  those  already  embedded  at  so  many  levels  in  French  society 
-  for  though  few  were  strong  enough  to  impose  positive  demands,  many  were 
able  to  veto  those  of  others,  and  protect  their  own  situations  acquises.5B 

It  was  the  weaknesses  of  the  political  system  and  not  their  own  intrinsic 
strength  that  gave  most  of  the  groups  their  opportunities.  When  a  third  of  the 
electorate  opposed  the  regime,  the  basis  of  government  was  dangerously 

56.  Ehrmann,  pp.  404-7  on  Boussac  (cf.  Grosser,  p.  152,  Noel,  p.  124);  pp.  315-17  on  tax 
reform.  Hoffmann,  pp.  76-86,  Meynaud,  pp.  147,  269-70,  on  Poujadist  failures;  cf.  Lavau, 
no.  139,  p.  376,  on  PME's  lack  of  electoral  success.  AP 1956,  pp.  85, 165-7,  on  Mollet  and  prices. 
And  cf.  above,  pp.  362,  372,  375. 

57.  Delouvrier,  Crise,  p.  81.  On  the  press,  Ehrmann,  Business,  pp.  212-13.  On  the  Bank  see 
E.  Moreau,  Souvenirs  d'un  Gouverneur  de  la  Banque  de  France  (1954),  pp.  34-8 ;  cf.  Frederix, 
pp.  105-7 ;  and  Werth,  Destiny,  p.  343  on  its  arrogant  bullying  of  Flandin : '  Our  reply  will  depend 
on  whether  we  are  satisfied  with  the  actions  of  the  government  during  the  first  respite  we  have  given 
it  as  a  reward  for  its  present  determination. ' 

58.  Meynaud,  p.  269. 

59.  Victims:  ibid,,  pp.  94-8;  Lavau,  Pressures,  p.  94;  A.  Sauvy,  'Lobbys  et  groupes  de  pres- 
sion*,  in  Politique  et  Technique,  pp.  323-4.  Conservatism:  when  an  omcial  inquiry  in  1955 
found  potential  wheat  consumption  to  be  a  third  of  existing  milling  capacity,  the  millers'  lobby 
carried  a  bill  giving  each  mill  a  tonnage  quota  based  on  its  activity  in  1935 :  Schoenbrun,  p.  173, 
cf.  Meynaud,  pp.  261-2.  Uneconomic  firms  were  subsidized  for  years  to  avoid  unemployment  in 
areas  with  little  industry:  Delouvrier,  Crise,  p.  80.  Generally  Hamon,  no.  120,  pp.  841-5. 


PRESSURE  POLITICS  385 

narrow;  every  vote  was  or  seemed  marginal.60  Deputies  and  parties  dared  not 
alienate  support,  and  cabinets  which  resisted  pressure  were  almost  sure  to  dis- 
appear within  a  few  months.  Political  courage  was  never  rewarded,  for  the 
government  which  undertook  a  long-term  policy  was  unlikely  to  escape 
immediate  unpopularity  but  quite  certain  that  any  ultimate  benefit  would 
accrue  to  a  successor.  Parties  survived  at  the  polls  by  defending  some  sectional 
interest  more  effectively  than  their  political  competitors,  then  came  to  terms 
with  their  opponents  in  Parliament  in  order  to  form  a  cabinet.  Electoral 
sectarianism,  contradicted  by  governmental  compromise,  helped  to  dis- 
illusion the  ordinary  Frenchman  with  politics. 

Yet  the  contradiction  was  in  himself.  By  asking  his  party  to  maintain 
democracy,  yet  withholding  his  support  if  his  full  demands  were  not  conceded, 
the  voter  forced  on  the  politician  the  double-faced  behaviour  from  which  he 
inferred  the  rottenness  of  his  representatives  and  of  the  regime.  It  was  less 
surprising  that  the  politicians  sometimes  gave  way  to  pressure  than  that  they 
often  resisted  it.  The  man  in  the  street,  who  compounded  for  his  own  failings 
by  damning  those  of  the  rulers  he  chose  and  influenced,  frequently  enjoyed 
better  political  leadership  than  he  deserved. 

In  the  second  Assembly  complaints  of  the  power  and  importunity  of  the 
pressure-groups  were  heard  increasingly  from  all  parties.  President  Auriol 
spoke  of  Parliament  being  subjected  to  'pressures  as  impudent  as  they  are 
scandalous'.  Rene  Mayer  as  a  candidate  for  the  premiership  declared  that 
*  CNP  F  +  CO  A  +  CG  V+ PME'  was  no  more  desirable  a  foundation  for  a 
majority  than  'FO  +  CFTC  +  CGC-CGT.  As  prime  minister  he  called 
the  Assembly  a  'chamber  of  corporations',  while  Paul  Reynaud  denounced 
the  'economic  congregations'  which  'paralyse  the  State  within  these  very 
walls'.61  Yet  a  few  years  later  the  groups  seemed  less  excessive  in  their 
demands  and  more  prepared  to  recognize  the  limits  of  the  possible:  contrast 
the  violent  business  opposition  to  the  Coal  and  Steel  Community  with  the 
moderate  and  reasonable  attitude  of  even  a  Gingembre  to  the  Common 
Market.62  And  as  the  politicians  lost  credit  with  the  public,  and  the  divided 
parties  came  to  seem  increasingly  artificial,  some  pressure-groups  at  least  (the 
students,  the  young  peasant  leaders,  the  Catholic  trade  unions,  the  Jeunes 
Patrons,  and  the  non-Communists  in  CGT)  began  to  develop  a  feeling  of 
responsibility  for  the  country's  affairs  which  transcended  corporate  interests 
and  contrasted  sharply  with  the  earlier  blinkered  attitude  of  the  lobbies.  In 
the  Fifth  Republic  it  became  a  commonplace  -  inconceivable  a  few  years 
before  -  that  serious  political  activity  and  real  influence  among  the  people 
were  more  likely  to  be  found  in  the  syndicate  than  the  political  parties. 

60.  Ibid.)  p.  838 :  *. . .  every  vote  is  marginal  or  seems  to  be ;  consequently  the  threat  of  defection 
is  formidable,  and  it  is  the  organization  of  private  interests  that  makes  this  threat  count  -  by 
representations,  by  effective  publicity  given  to  the  member's  votes,  and  by  the  cultivation  of 
grievances  or  gratitudes. ' 

61.  Monde,  2  January  and  10-11  May  1953  (Mayer),  30  June  1953  (Auriol);  JO  27  May  1953, 
p.  2850  (Reynaud).  Cf.  above,  p.  353. 

62.  Lavau,  Pressures,  pp.  90-1,  cf.  Meynaud,  pp.  268-9, 


Chapter  27 

PARTIES  AND  COALITIONS: 
(1)  THE  BATTLE  OF  THE  MONOLITHS 

The  early  post-war  years  impressed  on  General  de  Gaulle  and  many  of  his 
countrymen  a  conception  of  party  politics  as  a  struggle  between  selfish  and 
irresponsible  factions  which  must  divide  and  damage  the  state.  The  electoral, 
parliamentary  and  (in  1946)  governmental  scene  was  dominated  by  three  large 
and  rigid  organizations  which  seemed  to  have  annexed  the  public  domain  and 
parcelled  it  out  amongst  them,  and  apparently  found  service  in  the  same 
government  advantageous  mainly  because  it  afforded  facilities  for  thwarting 
one  another's  policies.  Their  short  reign  soon  gave  way  to  rather  looser 
parties  and  more  flexible  coalitions,  which  marked  a  partial  return  to  the 
political  system  of  the  Third  Republic.  But  public  attitudes  towards  politics 
retained  the  imprint  of  the  brief  post-war  experiment. 

Tripartisme  was  partly  a  product  of  the  reaction  against  the  pre-war 
economic  and  political  regime.  The  Resistance  had  been  directed  against  'the 
trusts'  as  well  as  the  Germans,  and  at  the  Liberation  the  old  elites  were  swept 
into  oblivion  or  disgrace.  Power  passed  to  new  men,  parties  and  classes  who 
meant  to  carry  out  a  sweeping  programme  of  national  reconstruction.  But 
their  leaders  were  a  turbulent  group  of  wartime  and  Resistance  heroes, 
revolutionary  adventurers  and  fishers  in  troubled  waters,  who  were  often 
better  endowed  with  generosity  or  courage  than  with  political  experience ;  and 
the  need  for  unity  against  the  enemy  had  concealed  the  deep  divisions  within 
their  ranks. 

In  their  midst  one  disciplined,  aggressive  and  unscrupulous  party  was 
manoeuvring  single-mindedly  for  power.  In  1944  General  de  Gaulle  won  the 
race  to  establish  the  new  administration  over  northern  France,  and  the  Com- 
munists accepted  his  authority  in  the  south  rather  than  risk  a  violent  conflict 
while  the  European  war  was  still  raging.  But  with  a  foothold  in  central  and 
local  government,  with  control  of  the  trade  unions  without  whose  co-operation 
reconstruction  must  fail,  and  with  the  prestige  of  sacrifice  and  triumph  in  a 
cause  both  patriotic  and  revolutionary,  they  could  still  entertain  high  hopes  of 
success  by  peaceful  means. 

The  Communists  faced  disunited  opponents.  Tactically,  Gaullists  and 
MRP  welcomed  their  support  over  foreign  policy,  and  Socialists  feared  their 
competition  in  domestic  affairs.  More  fundamentally,  General  de  Gaulle 
differed  from  SFIO  and  MRP  over  their  conception  of  France's  place  in  the 
world  and  her  form  of  government  at  home.  After  eighteen  months  of  office 
the  General  found  the  constraints  imposed  by  three  rigid  and  quarrelsome 
parties  intolerable,  while  the  politicians  were  equally  exasperated  with  his 
authoritarian  temper.  A  month  after  the  first  Assembly  was  elected  the  clash 
came,  nominally  over  the  size  of  the  armed  forces  but  at  least  equally  over  the 
shape  of  the  constitution  the  parties  were  preparing. 


PARTIES  AND   COALITIONS:    (i)   BATTLE  OF   MONOLITHS  387 

After  de  Gaulle's  resignation  the  three  monolithic  parties  monopolized  the 
government  for  twelve  months  of  economic  penury  and  political  strife. 
Tripartisme  soon  became  almost  as  unpopular  with  the  parties  in  the  govern- 
ment as  with  those  outside  it.  But  the  circumstances  were  exceptionally  diffi- 
cult. By  their  drive  for  power  the  Communists  forced  their  rivals  into  a 
discipline  as  rigid  as  their  own,  compelled  them  to  take  short  views  (since 
elections  were  never  more  than  a  few  months  away)  and  diverted  their  energies 
from  constructive  reform  into  self-defence  against  the  threat  of  dictatorship. 
Even  so  the  party  politicians,  first  under  de  Gaulle  and  later  without  him, 
carried  an  overdue  programme  of  reforms  which  a  Chamber  without  a  solid 
majority  had  never  been  able  to  impose  on  a  conservative  Senate.  And,  while 
avoiding  a  violent  clash,  they  saved  Paris  from  the  fate  of  Prague.  There  was  a 
price:  the  revival  of  the  conservative  forces  they  had  hoped  to  displace.  The 
Fourth  Republic  was  the  product  of  a  half -completed  revolution,  and  as  the 
flood-waters  receded  many  submerged  political  features  began  slowly  to 
reappear  on  the  electoral,  parliamentary  and  governmental  landscapes. 

1.  THE  MEMBER  AND  THE  MACHINE 

To  both  Socialists  and  MRP  strong  party  organizations  were  indispensable  in 
an  efficient  and  honest  democratic  system.  Before  the  war  local  and  personal 
rivalries  had  confused  political  issues,  weakened  loyalties,  and  obscured 
responsibilities;  parliamentary  chaos  and  indiscipline  had  prevented  the 
electorate's  wishes  from  ever  being  translated  into  action.  But  once  each 
important  ideology  had  its  own  organization  political  life  would  be  trans- 
formed. The  electorate  would  enjoy  a  clear  choice,  Parliament  would  function 
effectively,  and  politicians  would  be  held  accountable  for  what  they  did  or 
failed  to  do.  The  Fourth  Republic  would  substitute  organized  for  unorganized, 
and  therefore  effective  for  ineffective  democracy. 

To  prevent  these  new  and  rigid  organizations  abusing  their  monopoly  of 
political  activity,  their  advocates  proposed  a  basic  law  regulating  their 
structure  and  activities,  the  statut  des  partis.  Under  it  the  parties  would 
pledge  themselves  to  maintain  fundamental  liberties  and  the  rights  of 
man,  repudiate  the  one-party  state,  adopt  a  democratic  constitution,  and 
allow  their  organization  and  finances  to  be  inspected  by  a  new  authority 
representing  the  parties  but  independent  of  the  executive.  Citizens  would 
have  to  vote,  and  candidates  on  a  party's  list  would  have  to  join  its  parlia- 
mentary group.  A  party  could  deprive  of  his  seat  a  member  who  left  it  or 
broke  its  discipline. 

Although  Radicals  and  Conservatives  naturally  opposed  a  measure  re- 
inforcing the  power  and  cohesion  of  the  detested  machines,  it  was  the  Com- 
munists who  saved  the  individualist  groups.  Sure  of  their  own  internal 
discipline,  the  Communists  did  not  want  their  rivals  artificially  strengthened; 
and  they  would  not  tolerate  inspection  of  their  funds  (which  in  1945  were  large 
and  sometimes  ill-gotten)  or  of  democratic  control  within  their  organization. 
But  they  prudently  left  the  brunt  of  opposition  to  allies  like  Pierre  Cot,  who 
could  more  convincingly  denounce  the  encroaching  state,  defend  freedom 
of  association,  and  appeal  to  western  democratic  opinion.  To  appease  them 


388  THE  SYSTEM 

the  majority  dropped  the  party  statute  from  the  committee's  constitutional 
draft,  and  the  Assembly  never  voted  on  it.1 

The  failure  of  legal  regulation  left  the  power  of  the  party  organizations 
intact.  This  power  was  largely  based  on  the  electoral  law.  Proportional 
representation  triumphed  at  last,  and  was  applied  throughout  the  new 
institutions,  even  to  the  High  Council  of  the  Judiciary.  At  an  election  the 
voter  had  to  choose  between  lists  presented  by  the  parties,  with  a  fixed  order  of 
names.  Small  parties  and  particularly  independents  were  handicapped  -  and 
indeed  forbidden  in  the  first  Constituent  Assembly's  draft,  which  lapsed  after 
the  referendum  of  May  1946.  Seats  were  attributed  to  a  party,  not  to  an  in- 
dividual. A  vacancy  in  the  Assembly  went  (until  1951)  to  the  next  person  on 
the  former  member's  list,  and  in  the  Council  of  the  Republic,  once  the  list  was 
exhausted,  to  a  party  nominee.  In  May  1947  a  defeated  MRP  candidate  for 
the  Assembly  in  Bas-Rhin  was  named  by  his  party  to  the  upper  house.2 

In  many  constituencies  the  head  of  a  major  party's  list  was  sure  of  election, 
while  his  followers  had  little  chance.  The  ambitious  politician  had  therefore  to 
placate  not  the  party  voters,  but  the  relatively  few  militants  who  ran  the 
organization  and  drew  up  the  list.  Some  even  considered  the  local  party 
secretary  as  the  keeper  of  the  deputy's  conscience,  and  in  1945-46  many 
departmental  secretaries  were  themselves  elected  to  the  Assembly,  especially 
in  SFIO  where  the  militants  were  strongest.3  The  parties  wielded  their  new 
powers  vigorously,  and  in  the  two  elections  of  1946  often  penalized  a  member 
by  not  readopting  him  or  by  downgrading  him  on  the  list  and  perhaps  en- 
suring his  defeat.  This  was  not  always  discipline  for  its  own  sake;  like  other 
revolutions  the  Liberation  had  thrown  up  many  heroes,  some  adventurers,  and 
a  few  scoundrels,  and  members  elected  in  1945  were  rarely  chosen  for  proven 
political  capacity.  During  the  following  months  some  of  them  found  them- 
selves, and  others  were  found  by  their  parties,  to  be  unsuited  to  parliamentary 
life.4  Again,  a  member  working  hard  for  the  party  in  Paris  might  find  his  local 
position  undermined  by  a  rival  who  spent  more  time  in  constituency  activities. 
Deputies  readopted  in  a  lower  place  on  the  list  numbered  31  in  June  1946 
and  10  in  November;  16  of  the  41  saved  their  seats  for  the  moment,  but 
downgrading  at  one  election  was  often  a  prelude  to  disappearance  at  the 
next.5 

Opponents  as  well  as  supporters  of  the  regime  attached  crucial  importance 

1.  On  it  see  SCC  I,  pp.  55-66 ;  Debu-Bridel,  pp.  105-7 ;  Wright,  Reshaping,  pp.  120-3 ;  Arrighi, 
pp.  37-48;  Goguel,  no.  103. 

2.  Husson,  ii.  164. 

3.  But  their  strength  was  organizational,  not  electoral.  In  1945  the  left-wing  militants  of 
Marseilles  opposed  the  alliance  with  UDSR,  and  SFIO  headquarters  dissolved  the  federation. 
The  rebels  ran  a  dissident  list  which  won  only  6  %  of  the  vote,  against  25  %  for  the  official  list 
led  by  Gaston  Defferre  and  Francis  Leenhardt. 

4.  The  Assembly  elected  in  June  1946  had  a  legal  life  of  seven  months,  that  chosen  in  November 
one  of  five  years ;  yet  members  retiring  without  a  contest  were  twice  as  many  in  June  as  in  November. 
Of  SFIO  and  MRP  members  who  withdrew  in  1946,  a  third  stood  again  for  Parliament  later. 
Clearly  politics  rather  than  age  or  health  caused  many  of  the  retirements. 

5.  In  1946  there  were  16  MRP,  9  Socialists,  6  Communists,  and  10  others  downgraded.  The 
figures  omit  those  (fairly  numerous)  who  changed  party  or  whose  party  entered  a  coalition,  and 
those  (generally  Communists)  who  moved  up  when  a  leader  withdrew,  then  dropped  back  later 
when  he  returned ;  but  include  deputies  who  were  not  moved  up  to  fill  a  vacancy  but  saw  an  out- 
sider promoted  above  their  heads.  For  later  figures  see  above,  p.  326  and  n. 


PARTIES  AND  COALITIONS:   (1)  BATTLE  OF  MONOLITHS          389 

to  the  electoral  law.  It  installed  for  five  years  deputies  subject  to  an  organiza- 
tion which  could  quickly  lose  touch  with  public  opinion,  as  was  shown  by  the 
two  referendums  of  1946  and  the  Gaullist  municipal  victories  of  October 
1947.6  But  since  the  new  regime  ruled  out  by-elections,  referendums  or  dis- 
solution except  in  most  unlikely  circumstances,  a  divorce  between  the  people 
and  their  representatives  would  rarely  become  obvious  and  never  influence 
those  in  power.  The  critics  hoped  by  amending  the  electoral  law  to  shatter  the 
new  monoliths  and  restore  political  fluidity. 

Proportional  representation  certainly  provided  a  convenient  mechanism  for 
the  party  to  exert  its  power,  and  contributed  to  the  rise  of  strong  and  dis- 
ciplined groups.  But  both  its  friends  and  its  enemies  exaggerated  its  effects,  for 
other  factors  were  also  at  work.  Even  under  scrutin  d'arrondissement  Commu- 
nists had  enforced  strict  discipline;  even  under  PR,  Radicals  were  reluctant 
either  to  impose  it  or  to  abide  by  it.  Even  without  the  legal  change  the  deputy 
could  not  have  retained  his  old  independence  in  1945  and  1946,  when  the 
elections  brought  in  new  men  without  the  personal  following  and  local  in- 
fluence of  their  discredited  or  ineligible  predecessors.  The  approach  of  these 
newcomers  to  politics  was  set  by  the  voters'  fear  of  the  Communists  and  their 
own  impatience  for  reform.  Together  with  the  electoral  law,  these  produced  an 
Assembly  dominated  by  the  three  disciplined  parties,  in  which  the  whole  tone 
of  politics  was  altered. 

Parliamentary  life  was  transformed  when  these  great  parties  together 
formed  a  cabinet  approved  by  three-quarters  of  the  deputies.  Government 
policy  became  the  highest  common  factor  of  three  party  programmes,  and 
party  discipline  carried  it  through  the  house  as  effectively  as  in  Britain.  The 
one  political  problem  was  to  reach  and  maintain  compromises  between  the 
parties,  which  in  agreement  could  impose  their  wishes  and  in  discord  could 
paralyse  government  and  Assembly  alike.  'The  National  Assembly  of  1947  is 
much  more  like  a  diplomatic  congress  than  like  its  predecessor  the  Chamber  of 
Deputies.  Parliament  is  still  a  theatre  and  so  fulfils  its  function  of  publicity; 
but  improvisation  on  the  spot  gives  way  to  a  script  written  and  rehearsed 
elsewhere.*7  Debate  atrophied,  for  members  applauded  in  unison  at  a  signal 
from  their  leaders,  and  votes,  rigidly  determined  beforehand,  echoed  the 
decisions  of  the  party  executives.  If  an  unexpected  development  occurred  the 
sitting  was  suspended  to  allow  the  parties  to  negotiate.  The  political  choices 
registered  in  the  Assembly  were  made  in  party  headquarters.  'No  longer  do 
any  political  uncertainties  reflect  specific  moves  in  Parliament.  In  committee 

or  in  the  house  each  deputy  applies  the  directives  of  his  party Individual 

crochets,  manoeuvres,  intrigues  seem  to  have  disappeared ...  we  ask  ourselves, 
is  this  disciplined  Assembly  really  a  genuine  Parliament?  However  . . .  what 
the  new  parliamentary  practice  loses  on  the  side  of  excitement  it  gains  in 
productivity.'8 

Most  observers  of  the  House  of  Commons  would  find  the  question  more 
surprising  than  the  description.  But  to  French  opinion  a  bigger  legislative 

6.  Waline,  pp.  7-8.  7.  Thery,  pp.  140-1. 

8.  Goguel,  no.  104,  pp.  135-8.  Also  Hamon,  nos.  117-18;  Goguel,  no.  106:  A.  Siegfried  in  AP 
1946,  pp.  vii-viii;  Waline,  pp.  63-7. 


390  THE  SYSTEM 

output  was  insufficient  to  justify  the  new  system,  partly  because  national 
tradition  was  different  but  even  more  because,  while  the  price  paid  for  political 
discipline  was  as  high  as  in  Britain,  the  benefits  obtained  were  far  less.  Instead 
of  a  homogeneous  party  majority,  united  by  common  outlook  and  interest 
behind  a  coherent  policy  and  single  leadership,  tripartisme  brought  together 
three  suspicious  partners  who  used  their  power  for  mutual  obstruction  as 
well,  or  as  much,  as  for  construction  in  common. 

2.  STATES  WITHIN  THE  STATE 

General  de  Gaulle's  premiership  imposed  limits  on  the  monopoly  of  the  par- 
ties and  on  the  extent  of  their  ambitions.  With  his  resignation  the  year  of 
exclusive  party  power  opened,  and  a  great  prize  was  added  to  the  stakes.  The 
contenders  found  it  wise  to  regulate  their  relations  and  the  composition  and 
policy  of  the  next  cabinet  in  an  elaborate  written  treaty. 

The  delegates  of  MRP,  the  Socialist  party,  and  the  Communist  party  met  on 
23  January  1946.  They  proceeded  to  a  broad  examination  of  the  situation,  and 
reached  agreement  in  stating  that,  given  the  development  of  the  ministerial  crisis, 
the  formation  of  a  government  with  equally  shared  responsibilities,  under  the 
leadership  of  the  President  of  the  National  Constituent  Assembly,  appeared  to  them 
as  the  solution  which  would  best  meet  their  common  preoccupations. 

The  document  condemned  recriminations  between  the  parties,  insisted  that 
they  all  support  the  decisions  of  the  new  ministry,  outlined  its  programme  and 
'mandated  their  representatives  in  the  government  to  have  these  proposals 
included  in  the  ministerial  declaration'.  But  the  treaty  was  a  scrap  of  paper. 
The  signatories  disregarded  it,  not  merely  as  an  alliance  but  even  as  a  non- 
aggression  pact.  Before  long  a  Socialist  minister  was  denouncing  the  Com- 
munist leader  as  a  deserter;  the  Communists  were  attacking  the  price  policy  of 
the  MRP  minister  of  economic  affairs;  and  MRP  and  SFIO  were  accusing 
the  Communist  minister  for  industry  of  incompetence  and  electoral  corrup- 
tion. *  France . . .  had  never  before  seen  such  flagrant  civil  war  within  a  govern- 
ment/9 

The  treaty  merely  distributed  by  agreement  the  spheres  of  influence  in 
which  the  parties  conducted  their  distinct  policies.  Proportional  representation 
was  applied  within  the  cabinet  by  a  'horizontal  separation  of  powers'.  Each 
party  bargained  with  the  others  to  control  its  own  sector  of  government, 
staffed  it  with  ministers  of  its  own  choice,  and  co-ordinated  their  work  under 
its  own  leader.  The  cabinet  seemed  to  have  sunk  into  a  diet  in  which  the  party 
plenipotentiaries  found  it  convenient  to  conduct  their  business,  and  the  prime 
minister  into  a  mere  broker  between  them.  Sometimes  he  lost  even  that  role: 
when  Ramadier  was  chosen  in  January  1947  he  found  that  the  offices  had 
already  been  filled  in  talks  between  President  Auriol  and  the  secretaries  and 
parliamentary  chairmen  of  the  parties.10 

Once  appointed,  the  antagonists  parcelled  out  the  administration  among 
themselves  and  each  exploited  his  own  sector.  To  preserve  party  control  an 

9,  Wright,  Reshaping,  p.  222.  For  the  text  of  the  'treaty*  see  AP  1946,  pp.  530-1 :  and  for  the 
disputes,  Priouret,  Partis,  p.  225;  Debu-Bridel,  p.  117;  AP  1946,  p.  214. 

10.  AP  1947,  p.  4.  P 


PARTIES  AND  COALITIONS:   (1)  BATTLE  OF  MONOLITHS          391 

absent  minister's  duties  were  usually  performed  by  a  party  colleague,  not  by  a 
minister  from  an  allied  department.  Official  appointments  were  openly  made 
in  party  interests.  This  was  not  wholly  surprising.  In  the  past,  senior  adminis- 
trative positions  had  been  the  preserve  of  a  social  class  whose  political  ties 
were  with  the  very  groups  most  discredited  at  the  Liberation.  Few  holders  of 
these  posts  supported  either  of  the  two  largest  parties,  Communists  and 
MRP,  whose  conscious  colonization  was  thus  a  corrective  to  the  effective 
monopoly  their  opponents  had  enjoyed  for  years.  Then,  many  officials  had  to 
be  removed  because  of  their  occupation  record,  and  in  an  emergency  period 
when  normal  rules  for  recruiting  civil  servants  could  not  serve,  it  was  natural 
to  choose  active  Resisters  for  these  vacancies;  but  because  of  their  political 
connections  (like  those  of  Liberation- Nor d  with  SFIO),  their  entry  into  the 
public  service  automatically  contributed  to  party  colonization.  *In  1945  there 
was  a  gulf  between  the  new  political  personnel  and  the  old  administrative 
personnel.  . . .  The  injection  of  new  blood  into  the  administration  in  1945  was 
certainly  desirable  and  even  necessary;  unhappily  it  was  done  with  too  much 
haste  and  too  little  discernment.'11 

The  pace  of  colonization  was  set  by  the  Communist  attempt  to  establish  a 
state  within  the  state.  In  the  defence  and  security  services  their  rivals  were 
wary.12  But  through  the  elected  councils  which  managed  the  social  security 
system,  the  trade  unions  who  were  represented  on  the  boards  of  nationalized 
industries,  and  the  Communist  ministers  for  the  economic  and  social  depart- 
ments, the  party  came  to  dominate  the  whole  public  sector  from  coal  to 
atomic  energy.13  As  minister  of  industry  Marcel  Paul  appointed  a  cabinet  of  70 
and  created  19  divisions  in  his  department  where  there  had  been  only  three. 
Under  Charles  Tillon  management  posts  in  the  aircraft  industry  were  adver- 
tised only  in  pro-Communist  papers,  and  non-Communist  officials  were 
purged  to  make  room  for  party  members.14 

Other  parties,  particularly  the  Socialists,  competed  actively  in  their  own 
ministries,  and  in  1948  a  very  critical  but  competent  observer  could  write, 
*. . .  in  any  given  department,  if  you  know  the  political  outlook  of  the  minister 
who  has  held  office  longest  since  1944,  you  almost  certainly  know  also  the 
party  loyalty  of  most  senior  officials  of  the  ministry  -  even  of  the  technical 
services ?.15  But  the  damage  was  limited  by  the  mutual  suspicions  of  the  parties. 
Although  Maurice  Thorez  was  vice-premier  responsible  for  the  civil  service, 

11.  Massigli,  pp.  44,  60-1.  Cf.  Grosser,  pp.  68-9. 

12.  Charles  Tillon,  de  Gaulle's  air  minister,  carried  out  a  thorough  purge  of  the  air  force;  but 
no  other  Communist  was  ever  given  control  over  military  personnel  (Francois  Billoux  was  defence 
minister  in  1947  but  did  not  decide  promotions).  On  the  police  cf.  above,  p.  347.  On  Communist 
infiltration  generally  see  Pickles,  French  Politics,  pp.  83n.,  252;  Rieber,  pp.  178,  289-92. 

13.  The  coal  industry  had  a  board  of  18,  6  each  for  workers,  consumers  and  the  state,  with  a 
majority  of  Communists :  all  six  workers,  three  officials  named  by  Communist  ministers,  and  one 
*  consumer'  -  the  secretary  of  the  railwaymen's  union,  improperly  chosen  by  Marcel  Paul  without 
consulting  either  the  railway  board  which  the  nominee  'represented'  or  the  minister  of  transport, 
Jules  Moch:  Moch,  Confrontations  (1952),  p.  240n.  Cf.  By6  in  Einaudi  et  al,  Nationalization  in 
France  and  Italy  (Ithaca,  NY,  1955),  pp.  100-4;  and  on  social  security,  Galant,  pp.  70-5,  123^5. 

14.  Paul :  see  JIPP  594  (January  1950),  p.  92.  Tillon:  Sturmthal,  no.  205,  p.  374. 

15.  Waline,  p.  69.  For  rough  confirmation  compare  Catherine's  political  estimates  in  Partis 
et  Classes,  pp.  128  and  131,  with  his  table  on  p.  138. 


392  THE  SYSTEM 

he  had  no  control  over  promotions.  The  party  holding  the  defence  ministry 
was  kept  out  of  the  service  and  supply  departments.  Ramadier  even  proposed 
in  1947  to  give  every  minister  an  under-secretary  from  another  party  (but  did 
not  do  it).  And  the  worst  abuses  of  colonization  disappeared  when  the  Com- 
munists left  office.16 

The  parties  also  sought  wider  opportunities  to  consolidate  their  influence. 
The  press  law  of  May  1946  was  an  extreme  case  of  legislation  conceived, 
opposed,  carried,  applied  and  ignored  mainly  for  its  impact  on  party  interests. 
It  was  drafted  by  the  Socialist  minister  of  information,  Gaston  Defferre,  with 
the  aim  of  perpetuating  the  changes  made  provisionally  at  the  Liberation.17 
The  plant  and  offices  of  journals  which  had  appeared  under  the  Germans  were 
transferred  permanently  to  a  government-controlled  holding  company  for 
lease  to  new  owners;  papers  not  convicted  of  collaboration  were  compensated 
(inadequately).  Radicals  and  Conservatives  fought  the  law  bitterly,  but  it  was 
carried  by  the  votes  of  the  Communists,  Socialists,  most  of  MRP  and  a  few 
UDSR  Resistance  leaders.  Its  effect  was  limited  because,  when  the  Com- 
munists went  into  opposition,  the  Radicals  held  the  balance  in  Parliament  and 
demanded  the  ministries  of  information  and  justice,  so  as  to  prevent  the  law 
being  applied.  Two  Socialist  ministers  of  information,  in  barely  one  month  of 
office  after  the  law  was  passed,  transferred  over  twenty  papers  convicted  of 
collaboration;  under  ministers  from  other  parties  the  rate  was  under  four  a 
month.  Of  papers  not  convicted,  the  Socialists  took  over  nearly  one  a  day; 
MRP  ministers  one  a  month;  and  Radical  and  UDSR  ministers  one  in  four 
months.18 

The  parties  also  used  their  political  monopoly  to  protect  their  client 
pressure-groups  and  extend  their  influence.  The  upheaval  of  the  war  had 
changed  the  structure  of  power  and  brought  new  organizations  to  the  top.  The 
trade  unions  had  greatly  increased  their  power,19  Under  predominantly 
Communist  leadership  they  made  an  essential  contribution  to  reconstruction, 
and  exasperated  many  of  their  followers  by  preaching  productivity  and  wage 
restraint  while  the  party  held  office.  The  unions,  in  broad  agreement  with  the 
*big  three'  parties  and  the  ministry  of  labour,  shaped  the  form  of  the  new 
social  security  system.  The  minority  views  of  C FTC  and  the  family  associa- 
tions gained  a  full  hearing  and  some  concessions,  since  MRP  was  in  power; 
but  those  of  the  artisans  and  small  businessmen  were  overridden  because 
their  political  defenders  were  in  opposition,  and  since  electoral  pressure  was 

16.  See  above,  p.  340.  Thorez:  Rieber,  pp.  291-2,  and  P.C.D.,  no.  66,  p.  270.  Ramadier:  AP 
1947,  p.  9. 

17.  See  above,  p.  61 ;  and  on  the  press  law,  J.  Mottin,  Histoire  politique  de  la  presse  1944-1949 
(1949). 

18.  Some  local  courts  also  limited  the  law's  scope  by  restrictive  decisions.  In  all,  136  convicted 
papers  and  60  others  were  transferred.  The  ministry  of  information  always  went  to  the  premier's 
party  (except  under  Ramadier  when  UDSR  had  it).  In  October  1949  both  SFIO  and  MRP 
refused  to  serve  under  any  premier  who  gave  it  and  Justice  to  the  same  party.  Dr.  M.  Harrison 
informs  me  that  in  the  Fifth  Republic  the  application  of  the  law  was  still  discriminatory;  the 
pre-war  owners  could  recover  their  presses  if  the  post-war  paper  closed  -  but  only  if  it  had  been 
Communist. 

19.  But  de  Gaulle  hi  1945  refused  to  receive  a  CGT  delegation  to  discuss  the  electoral  law, 
saying  unions  should  be  non-political  (though  in  1958  he  asked  union  leaders  to  join  his  cabinet)  • 
Arne,  p.  358  and  n. ;  AP  1944-45,  p.  288 ;  Inegalites,  pp.  45-7. 


PARTIES  AND  COALITIONS:   (1)  BATTLE  OF  MONOLITHS          393 

unavailing  the  objectors  were  driven  to  voice  their  protests  by  violent  demon- 
strations.20 

Business  leadership  was  divided  and  timid,  and  the  new  Conservative  party, 
P  R  L,  was  weak  and  quarrelsome ;  thepatronat  had  to  take  its  place  among  the 
many  interests  which  were  trying  to  work  through  MRP.  In  the  farming 
community,  the  old  leaders  were  mostly  compromised  in  Vichy's  Peasant 
Corporation  and  the  Left  had  high  hopes  of  filling  the  vacuum.  The  Socialists 
used  official  facilities  to  build  up  CGA  and  looked  forward  to  acquiring  a 
dominating  position  in  the  countryside;  the  Communists  also  bid  for  rural 
votes  by  strongly  opposing  Mendes-France's  plan  to  check  inflation  by 
currency  reform,  which  the  peasants  detested.  Even  the  Church  hierarchy 
found  MRP's  Resistance  record  a  greater  asset  to  the  Catholic  cause  than 
any  political  service  it  could  render  in  return. 

3.   OVER-MIGHTY  SUBJECTS 

This  defeat  or  discredit  of  the  old  elites  created  an  opportunity  for  sweeping 
social  change,  and  the  new  political  leaders  thought  of  themselves  more  as 
revolutionaries  bent  on  overturning  a  narrow  and  corrupt  political  class  than 
as  ordinary  politicians  administering  or  even  reforming  an  established  regime. 
But  before  their  revolution  was  well  under  way  they  were  faced  by  the  Com- 
munist bid  for  power,  and  by  de  Gaulle's  withdrawal  into  the  wilderness  to 
await  the  call  for  his  return.  In  the  parties'  bitter  struggle  to  carry  through 
their  reforms,  defend  the  parliamentary  system  and  preserve  their  own 
political  fortunes,  the  fraternal  feelings  of  the  Resistance  movement  were  soon 
submerged.  The  discipline  which  had  been  defended  as  essential  for  positive 
reform  was  used  also  in  frustrating  internecine  warfare  ending,  as  in  Weimar 
Germany,  in  stalemate. 

Powerful  and  rigid  parties  were  therefore  quickly  discredited  in  France. 
They  outraged  the  predominant  democratic  tradition  which  exalted  the 
Republic  one  and  indivisible  and  condemned  all  intermediary  bodies.  They 
were  denounced  for  distorting  the  political  process:  the  voter  had  a  represen- 
tative foisted  on  him  by  the  party  machines,  the  deputies  voted  not  as  they 
believed  but  as  they  were  told,  the  Assembly  merely  registered  the  pressure  of 
irresponsible  external  organizations,  ministries  became  party  fiefs,  and  the 
State,  like  a  conquered  province,  was  divided  and  despoiled.  Since  the 
cabinet  was  a  diet  where  each  faction  had  its  veto,  the  opposition  was 
concealed  within  the  government  itself  and  neither  could  perform  its  function 
properly.  Ministerial  solidarity  and  responsibility  disappeared  together, 
for  the  few  decisions  that  were  taken  derived  from  the  secret  battles  and 
bargains  of  party  bosses  unknown  to  the  electorate  and  subject  to  no  public 
control.21 

The  critics'  complaints  were  excessive.  In  retrospect  it  was  a  considerable 
success,  rivalled  only  in  Italy,  for  the  democratic  parties  to  co-operate  with  the 

20.  On  unions  and  Communists  see  above,  p.  24 ;  on  social  security,  Galant,  Chapters  3-5, 
Lavau,  Pressures,  p.  92,  and  above,  pp.  361-2. 

21.  These  criticisms  were  made  not  only  by  de  Gaulle  and  his  followers  like  Debre",  Debu- 
Bridel  and  Waline.  but  also  by  non-Gaullists  like  Arrighi;  Prioujret,  Partis',  and  Thery,  pp.  140-5, 


394  THE  SYSTEM 

Communists  to  rebuild  the  economy  without  allowing  the  state  to  fall  com- 
pletely under  their  control.  But  the  French  politicians  did  much  more,  for  the 
reforms  of  1945-46,  both  under  de  Gaulle  and  after  his  departure,  were 
greater  than  any  previous  government  had  attempted  (except  in  1936,  when 
They  did  not  succeed  or  did  not  last).  They  gave  France  an  improved  adminis- 
trative structure,  an  overdue  but  comprehensive  social  security  system,  and  a 
foundation  on  which  economic  recovery  could  be  built.  Admittedly  the  parties, 
unable  to  agree  and  unwilling  to  concede,  sometimes  failed  to  face  a  par- 
ticularly awkward  problem.  In  July  1946  they  left  employers,  farmers  and 
workers  to  negotiate  directly  on  their  differences,  and  at  the  Palais  Royal  con- 
ference the  interests  happily  agreed  to  support  both  higher  wages  and  higher 
prices  and  so  displace  the  economic  burden,  through  inflation,  on  to  the  ill- 
organized  and  politically  weak  fixed-income  groups.  This  was  a  shameful 
abdication  of  responsibility,  but  it  could  hardly  be  attributed  wholly  to  the 
malign  influence  of  organized  parties.  A  year  earlier,  de  Gaulle  himself  had 
allowed  inflation  to  take  its  course  when  he  acceded  to  the  advice  of  the 
bankers,  the  pressure  of  the  peasants,  the  clamour  of  the  Communists,  and 
the  resignation  of  Pierre  Mendes-France.22 

The  opposition  was  on  stronger  ground  in  attacking  the  political  practices 
of  the  parties,  but  its  charges  were  often  exaggerated.  Some  men  accused  of 
cynically  exploiting  their  fellow-citizens  were  in  reality  courageously  accepting 
a  dangerous  and  distasteful  responsibility.  Everyone  knew  that  the  ministry  of 
food  in  1946  was  a  graveyard  of  political  hopes :  this  did  not  stop  a  Gaulhst 
critic  absurdly  describing  the  Socialists  as  'comfortably  installed3  there.  For 
months  the  Communists  courageously  risked  their  popularity  in  the  trade 
unions  by  opposing  wage  demands.  The  impression  of  total  disintegration  of 
government  may  indeed  have  been  overdrawn.  When  men  assume  heavy 
responsibilities  in  common  in  a  situation  of  extreme  difficulty,  their  mutual 
hostility  usually  diminishes.  Did  the  party  leaders  never  dramatize  their 
difficulties  with  their  colleagues  in  order  to  ward  off  impracticable  or  embarras- 
sing demands  from  their  own  followers  ?23 

For  though  discipline  was  strong  and  no  individual  rebel  could  stand 
against  the  parties,  coalition  imposed  a  severe  strain  on  their  internal  unity. 
The  Socialists  were  the  most  vulnerable  and  electorally  least  successful  party 
of  the  three,  and  their  leaders,  after  bravely  attempting  to  educate  their  rank 
and  file  to  compromise  and  to  modernize,  were  overthrown  for  it  by  internal 
revolution  in  August  1946.  In  December  a  quarter  of  SFIO's  deputies  defied 
discipline  rather  than  support  Thorez  for  premier.  MRP  members  were 
occasionally  divided  in  the  Constituent  Assemblies,  a  few  of  them  left  to 
follow  de  Gaulle,  and  many  more  were  torn  between  their  loyalties  to  the  man 
and  the  party.  Even  the  Communist  leaders  faced  serious  criticism  from 
within,  which  mounted  as  long  as  they  were  in  office.  The  appearance  of  total 

22.  Mendes-France:  Matthews,  pp.  179-94;  Fauvet,  IV6,  pp.  37-40.  Palais  Royal  conference: 
AP  1946,  pp.  179-89;  Meynaud,  pp.  247-8;  Ehrmann,  Business,  pp.  299-300;  Delouvner 
in  Cm*,  p.  84,  and  in  Politique  economique,  pp.  312-15;  cf.  C.  P.  Kindleberger  in  Search,  pp.  1 37-9. 

23.  Cf.  Dumaine,  p.  51.  Food:  Debu-Bridel,  p.  115.  Communists:  above,  pp.  24,  74;  below, 
401.  For  the  Socialist  leaders'  moderation  on  la\cite%  above,  p.  97 ;  Matthews,  pp. 


PARTIES    AND   COALITIONS:    (1)   BATTLE  OF  MONOLITHS  395 

monolithic  unity  was  as  misleading  as  the  accusation  of  unbridled  partisan 
rapacity.  The  disciplined  giants  of  tripartisme  were  already  feeling  some  of  the 
conflicting  pressures  of  electoral  competition,  ideological  loyalty  and  govern- 
mental necessity,  which  were  to  bedevil  the  precarious  coalitions  of  loose  weak 
parties  in  the  Fourth  Republic. 


o* 


Chapter  28 

PARTIES  AND  COALITIONS: 
(2)  THE  WAR  OF  MANOEUVRE 

All  politicians  are  compelled  by  the  nature  of  their  calling  to  be  both  fighters 
and  negotiators.  But  they  stress  different  aspects  of  their  task  according  to  tem- 
perament and  circumstance,  and  the  intransigent  champion  of  all  or  nothing 
is  constantly  at  odds  with  the  shrewd  bargainer  who  prefers  a  partial  and 
inadequate  success  to  a  gallant  but  unmitigated  failure.  Usually  the  two  types 
are  in  conflict,  occasionally  each  complements  the  other's  efforts.  But  even 
when  they  co-operate  for  immediate  advantage  they  rarely  appreciate  one 
another's  outlook. 

Most  members  of  parliament,  being  nearer  the  seats  of  power,  are  readier  to 
compromise  than  the  militants  of  their  own  party  in  the  country.  But  while  in 
a  two-party  system  only  one  side  has  direct  access  to  the  government,  in  a 
multi-party  regime  every  group,  apart  from  self-excluded  revolutionaries,  can 
hope  to  enter  a  coalition,  share  power  and  influence  policy.  This  tends  to  turn 
almost  all  politicians  into  compromisers,  and  seems  to  reduce  the  parlia- 
mentary struggle  to  a  sordid  contest  for  place  in  which  the  professionals, 
within  their  closed  arena,  manoeuvre  unhindered  by  public  pressure  or  even 
concern  -  as  in  eighteenth-  and  early  nineteenth-century  Britain,  and  in  the 
Third  Republic. 

But  though  parliamentarians  became  imbued  with  the  habit  of  compromise, 
many  Frenchmen  revolted  against  it  -  or  its  results.  Parliament  often  aroused 
the  idealist's  contempt,  and  the  hatred  of  the  permanent  but  not  insignificant 
minority  for  whom  politics  were  a  kind  of  cold  civil  war.  This  minority  con- 
centrated its  activities,  not  on  elections  or  the  Chamber,  but  on  revolution- 
ary syndicalism,  royalist  or  fascist  leagues  or  conspiracies,  and  the  extremist 
journalism  of  Grmgoire  or  Action  f ran  faise.  There  was  never  any  lack  of  con- 
temporary evidence  to  remind  the  proponents  of  bargaining  politics  that 
fighting  politics  had  recently  been  the  French  style.  When  the  brief  reign  of  the 
extreme  Right  ended  in  1944,  the  extreme  Left  acquired  a  share  in  the  govern- 
ment and  could  bid  to  dominate  it. 

The  collapse  of  tripartisme  and  General  de  Gaulle's  campaign  for  power  set 
the  characteristic  conditions  of  Fourth  Republican  government.  Under 
tripartisme  the  three  partners  had  commanded  enough  votes  to  carry  any 
policy  on  which  they  agreed;  effective  action  when  they  were  united  was  some 
compensation  for  the  frequent  deadlocks  when  they  quarrelled.  But  now  the 
majority  lacked  numbers  as  well  as  unity.  A  precarious  coalition,  devoted  to 
the  parliamentary  regime  but  divided  on  everything  else,  was  opposed  simul- 
taneously by  a  powerful  Communist  party  and  an  intransigent  nationalist 
movement.  Each  of  the  oppositions  could  embarrass  or  seduce  one  wing  of  the 
disparate  alliance,  or  they  could  combine  for  its  destruction  (though  for 
nothing  else).  Within  the  majority  the  parties  of  policy  were  rather  better  dis- 
ciplined than  in  the  past,  and  the  core  of c  king's  friends '  who  supported  every 


PARTIES  AND  COALITIONS:   (2)  WAR  OF  MANOEUVRE  397 

cabinet  whatever  its  programme  was  smaller  and  steadily  diminishing. 
Negotiation  was  therefore  more  open,  exchange  of  concessions  more  obvious, 
and  responsibility  for  making,  maintaining  and  breaking  a  cabinet  easier  to 
locate.  While  the  wanton  breach  of  an  alliance  incurred  more  discredit,  sup- 
port was  given  or  withheld  in  larger  blocks  and  so  adjustments  were  less 
smooth  and  more  sudden.  Just  because  responsibilities  were  more  visible, 
every  cabinet  crisis  gave  rise  to  elaborate  manoeuvres  to  confuse  the  issue  and 
shift  the  blame.  These  might  profit  an  individual  party,  but  always  harmed  the 
regime. 

From  1947  to  1950  the  Fourth  Republic  seemed  perilously  vulnerable. 
SFIO  was  the  most  uneasy  governmental  party,  for  to  compromise  with  its 
allies  would  disrupt  its  own  unity  and  lose  ground  to  the  Communists,  and 
not  to  do  so  would  wreck  the  coalition  and  play  into  the  hands  of  de  Gaulle. 
When  the  immediate  danger  receded  the  looser  parties  had  gained  ground,  and 
soon  Parliament  again  became  an  arena  for  factional  intrigues  and  individual 
ambitions.  After  1954  external  affairs  predominated:  first  Germany,  then 
Algeria  caused  splits  in  most  parties.  By  1957  every  type  of  disruption  threa- 
tened the  majority  at  once,  and  governments  found  it  hard  not  only  to  act  but 
even  to  survive.  Sheltered  by  the  'house  without  windows',  the  deputies  had 
not  observed  that  the  sky  outside  was  darkening  again. 

1.   WHIPS  AND  REBELS 

The  end  of  tripartisme  saw  a  partial  and  incomplete  return  to  the  parliamen- 
tary practices  of  the  Third  Republic.  The  centre  governments  came  under  fire 
from  two  sides.  While  the  Socialists  had  to  fight  off  Communist  raids  on  their 
working-class  and  anticlerical  following,  their  coalition  partners  were  vul- 
nerable to  Gaullist  attack;  differences  soon  developed  between  leaders  and 
militants  in  MRP,  and  discontent  in  the  country  helped  Radicals  and  Con- 
servatives regain  their  strength.  In  Parliament  the  support  of  small  groups  and 
individualists  again  became  necessary,  and  the  precarious  majorities  and  sur- 
prise votes  of  the  Third  Republic  reappeared.  Rene  Pleven  and  his  two  dozen 
UDSR  followers  saved  the  first  Schuman  government  by  their  abstention  in 
February  1948  and  brought  down  the  second  by  their  hostile  vote  in  Septem- 
ber.1 Decisions  such  as  the  comfortable  ratification  of  the  Coal  and  Steel 
Community,  or  Pinay's  election  as  premier,  confounded  the  best-informed 
observers.  Life  and  reality  returned  to  parliamentary  sittings,  and  often  the 
cheers  and  counter-cheers  along  the  party  benches  revealed  fissures  in  the 
ranks  which  were  not  recorded  in  the  vote.2 

Yet  formal  party  discipline  was  better  than  was  often  supposed.  Under 
Pinay's  government  in  1952  only  two  groups  failed  to  poll  their  entire  strength, 
without  a  single  dissenter  or  even  abstainer,  in  two-thirds  of  the  672  recorded 
votes.3  No  group  failed  to  poll  95%  of  its  members  in  at  least  seven  votes  out 
of  eight.  These  figures  conceal  great  differences  between  parties,  discussed 

1.  Arn6,  p.  240,  lists  five  votes  in  the  first  Assembly,  four  in  the  second,  and  one  in  the  third 
where  the  government  survived  by  a  single-figure  margin.  Cf.  above,  p.  175n. 

2.  Hamon,  no.  121,  p.  563. 

3.  Radicals  in  63  %,  and  MRP,  who  were  exceptionally  divided  under  Pinay,  in  only  57% ; 
Campbell,  no.  44, 


398  THE  SYSTEM 

below.  They  slightly  overestimate  the  extent  of  indiscipline  among  French 
politicians,  for  they  include  the  overseas  members  who  were  the  most  way- 
ward. They  somewhat  underestimate  its  importance,  for  it  was  worst  on 
major  matters  when  the  government's  fate  was  at  stake;  when  no  public 
interest  was  aroused  the  deputy  might  stay  away  and  let  the  whips  cast  his 
proxy  for  him,  defying  the  party  machine  only  when  his  constituents  were 
genuinely  aroused.4  Nevertheless  the  groups  played  a  greater  role  in  the  mem- 
ber's life  than  before  the  war,  and  unless  the  compulsion  was  very  powerful, 
the  deputy  who  valued  his  influence  with  his  political  friends  preferred  not  to 
offend  their  strongly  held  feelings. 

Both  the  degree  of  discipline  and  the  attitude  to  it  varied  sharply  among 
parties.  Under  Pinay  it  was  rigid  on  the  Left,  good  on  the  Right,  and  weakest 
among  Radicals,  UDSR,  dissident  and  orthodox  Gaullists,  and  MRP.  The 
Communists  were  always  so  solid  that  a  vote  against  the  party  was  unthink- 
able, though  in  the  later  years  a  fellow-travelling  Progressive  might  occasion- 
ally abstain.  At  the  other  extreme,  the  Radicals  were  normally  found  on  both 
sides  of  any  question  and  never  imposed  discipline  de  vote.5  A  Radical  can- 
didate for  premier  could  expect  to  get  the  votes  of  his  colleagues  -  even  if  they 
urged  members  of  other  parties  to  withhold  theirs  -  but  once  elected  he  could 
not  count  on  their  support.  The  Conservatives,  who  had  also  profited  from 
the  popular  reaction  against  rigid  parties  during  and  after  the  period  of  tri- 
partisme,  were  by  1951  'abandoning  the  outworn  conception  of  individual 
independence  and  gradually  substituting  that  of  collective  independence'.6 
But  they  never  insisted  on  disciplined  voting,  merely  trying  to  persuade 
minorities  to  abstain  rather  than  vote  against  the  party.  In  1954  resentment 
against  Mendes-France's  Conservative  ministers  led  the  group  to  forbid  mem- 
bers to  take  office  when  a  two-thirds  majority  opposed  their  doing  so  -  though, 
characteristically,  the  rule  was  not  applied  to  the  offenders  who  had  provoked 
it.  Conservatives  continued,  as  in  the  past,  to  act  without  penalty  with 
Gaullists,  Mendesists  or  fascists.7 

Popular  plebiscitary  leaders  wreaked  havoc  with  discipline,  evoking  among 
ordinary  Frenchmen  strong  loyalties  which  some  members  of  parliament 
shared  and  others  felt  it  wise  to  respond  to.  General  de  Gaulle  shook  the  par- 
ties in  1947,  but  the  politicians  rightly  estimated  that  his  impact  would  not  be 
permanent.  He  won  over  a  few  devoted  followers,  mostly  from  MRP,  many 
time-servers  who  jumped  off  his  bandwagon  as  soon  as  it  slowed  down,  and  a 
handful  of  natural  rebels  or  adventurers  seeking  a  leader  against  the  System  - 
but  often  no  happier  with  Gaullist  discipline  than  with  any  other.8  RP F  could 

4.  Discipline  was  worse  in  the  upper  house  where  routine  votes  were  fewer;  there  only  5  groups 
out  of  11  voted  solidly  in  two-thirds,  and  only  3  polled  95%  in  seven-eighths  of  the  divisions; 
and  while  the  Socialist  deputies  broke  unanimity  in  only  1  %  of  the  votes,  the  senators  did  in 
33  %.  For  votes  in  the  Assembly  see  Appendix  rv;  and  in  the  old  Chamber,  Soulier,  pp.  454-76. 

5.  Once  when  they  did,  for  postponing  Barang6's  bill  to  subsidize  church  schools,  ministers 
were  exempted  and  seven  others  voted,  unpunished,  against  the  party  line:  Monde,  7  September 

6.  Yves  Florenne  in  ibid.,  26  May  1951.  Radicals:  below,  n.  9. 

7.  PRL  and  the  Peasants  expelled  members  in  the  Fourth  Republic,  but  CNIP  never  did  until 
1961 :  see  below,  pp.  407,  433.  Cf.  Waline,  no.  213,  p.  1220.  Two-thirds  rule:  above,  p.  151. 

8.  Charles  Serre  of  Oran  and  Albert  Lecrivain-Servoz  of  Rhone  were  two  MRP  members 
recruited  by  RPF  in  1947.  The  first  soon  became  a  Conservative  and  the  second  an  Overseas 

[over 


PARTIES  AND  COALITIONS:  (2)  WAR  OF  MANOEUVRE  399 

insist  on  strict  obedience  (though  at  the  cost  of  defections)  so  long  as  it  was  a 
large  party  with  hopes  of  reconstructing  the  regime.  But  in  1952  Antoine 
Pinay  captured  the  sympathies  of  conservatives  both  in  Parliament  and  the 
country,  and  when  de  Gaulle's  mass  support  evaporated  the  RPF  parliamen- 
tarians were  rapidly  absorbed  by  the  System. 

Pinay  attracted  conservatives  and  alienated  progressives  in  other  parties 
too,  notably  M  RP.  But  under  the  rule  of  the  Right  immobilisme  soon  brought 
about  a  revival  of  discontent  in  the  country,  and  the  new  mood  was  crystal- 
lized by  Pierre  Mendes-France.  Learning  from  RPF's  failure  the  difficulties  of 
launching  a  new  party,  he  set  out  at  first  to  mobilize  support  in  all  the  old  ones. 
In  1953  he  aroused  a  revolt  of  the  rank  and  file,  especially  the  younger  mem- 
bers, against  the  old  leaders.9  Next  year  he  came  to  power,  but  the  overthrow 
of  his  government  by  members  of  his  own  party  convinced  him  he  needed  a 
more  secure  base,  and  he  sought  and  won  control  of  the  Radical  organization. 
But  in  1956  the  momentum  of  Mendesism  was  halted  by  Mollet  as  that  of 
Gaullism  had  been  checked  by  Pinay;  and  the  Mendesists'  attempt  to  dis- 
cipline a  parliamentary  group  they  did  not  control  merely  led  to  two  splits  and 
an  even  worse  dispersion  than  usual  of  Radical  votes  in  the  Assembly.  Pierre 
Poujade  was  to  suffer  a  similar  disillusionment  as  a  sudden  wave  of  popular 
discontent  apparently  bore  him  forward  to  power  on  its  crest,  then  broke  and 
carried  his  hopes  away  when  the  waters  ebbed. 

In  loose  parties  like  the  Radicals  and  Conservatives,  members  could  follow 
the  demands  of  their  constituents  or  the  appeal  of  a  strong  leader  (often 
identical)  for  as  long  as  it  was  tactically  advisable  and  then  return  without 
reproach  to  the  fold.  In  the  better-disciplined  organizations  they  had  less  free- 
dom of  action :  the  Gaullists  in  M  RP  had  to  change  allegiance  altogether,  and 
Mendes-France's  friends  within  S  F I O  could  try  to  influence  party  policy  only 
by  internal  pressure.  In  general  MRP  applied  formal  rules  much  less  strictly 
than  the  Socialists.  After  August  1948,  when  twenty  MRP  deputies  refused  to 
support  Paul  Reynaud's  conservative  economic  policy,  the  party  often  had 
dissenters  of  both  Right  and  Left.  Usually  they  were  a  handful  and  their 
lapses  were  judged  more  in  sorrow  than  in  anger.  Occasionally  they  were  more 
numerous,  as  in  July  1950  when  a  third  of  the  party  rebelled  against  supporting 
Queuille's  conservative  second  (and  stillborn)  cabinet;  the  militants  sym- 
pathized with  the  protest,  and  the  party  allowed  a  free  vote.  Discipline  broke 
down  completely  when,  to  MRP's  great  embarrassment,  the  militants  and 
left-wing  deputies  strongly  opposed  Pinay  who  appealed  powerfully  to  the 
conservative  section  of  the  party's  electorate.  But  though  by  this  time  discipline 
de  vote  was  only  a  memory  in  MRP,  its  deputies  prided  themselves  on  a 
cohesion  based  on  loyalty  to  the  movement  rather  than  fear  of  sanctions.10 

Independent;  both  then  moved  through  a  small  pro-Radical  group  to  the  Gauche  ind&pendante 
and  the  fellow-travelling  Progressives;  both  lost  in  1951.  On  ex-Gaullists  in  1955  see  above, 
pp.  136,  144,  173. 

9.  The  SFIO  group  overruled  Mollet  and  its  chairman  (Lussy)  to  support  him;  UDSR  was 
for  him  but  Pleven  against;  in  MRP  he  had  the  votes  of  only  12  of  31  senior  men  (ex-ministers 
or  committee  chairmen)  but  of  40  of  the  other  58 ;  on  the  Radical  leaders'  intrigues  against  him 
see  Fauvet,  IV6,  pp.  238-9. 

10.  Melnik  and  Leites,  p.  82. 


400  THE  SYSTEM 

They  rarely  carried  their  differences  with  the  party  beyond  abstention  to  a 
hostile  vote.  In  June  1953  Mend&s-France  did  provoke  a  revolt  of  the  'back- 
benchers', who  mostly  voted  for  him  while  most  of  the  leaders  did  not;  to 
avoid  another  split,  discipline  de  vote  was  restored  when  Laniel  stood  for  the 
premiership.11  But  it  was  not  kept  up,  and  no  new  revolt  occurred  when 
Mendes-France  came  to  power  a  year  later,  for  his  Indo-Chinese  and  Euro- 
pean policies  aroused  general  hostility  in  MRP.  Subsequently  the  main  dis- 
senting group  was  on  the  Right,  and  though  it  centred  on  Georges  Bidault  it 
was  tiny  and  ineffective. 

Placing  greater  emphasis  on  external  observances,  and  with  a  constitution 
giving  the  militants  greater  influence,  the  Socialists  had  a  still  more  difficult 
problem.  To  them  a  democratic  party  was  one  which  took  decisions  by  majority 
vote  after  a  free  debate,  unlike  the  totalitarian  Communists,  and  then  voted 
unitedly  for  them,  unlike  the  careerist  Radicals.  The  mystique  of  discipline 
was  general  throughout  the  party,  not  least  among  the  men  who  were  to  lead 
the  PSA  split  of  1958.12  But  it  broke  down  on  several  major  votes  in  the 
Fourth  Republic.  In  April  1951  15  members  rebelled  over  the  electoral  law, 
though  all  but  one  came  round  after  a  sharp  warning.  German  rearmament 
caused  revolts  by  20  deputies  in  February  1952,  53  in  August  1954  (whose 
votes  defeated  EDC),  and  21  in  December;  17  were  expelled  but  readmitted 
before  the  next  election.  In  July  1957  26  members  (many  of  whom  later  joined 
PSA)  refused  to  vote  for  the  bill  allowing  internment  camps  to  be  set  up  in 
France.  The  Socialists  were  also  divided  on  the  Fourth  Republic's  first  and 
last  candidates  for  the  premiership:  in  December  1946  25  refused  to  vote  for 
Maurice  Thorez,  and  on  1  June  1958  42  supported  Charles  de  Gaulle  and  49 
opposed  Mm. 

Indiscipline,  then,  differed  widely  between  parties  both  in  its  extent  and  in 
the  reactions  it  provoked.  Its  causes  differed  too.  Conservative  and  Radical 
parliamentarians  were  individualist  notables,  whose  personal  views,  ambitions 
and  constituency  interests  were  apparently  reflected  in  a  pattern  of  dissent 
linked  more  often  to  the  fate  of  a  particular  cabinet,  or  to  personal  electoral 
considerations,  than  to  a  general  policy  alignment.  Socialist  and  MRP  in- 
discipline was  associated  less  with  specific  ministries  and  more  with  problems 
of  principle,  often  personal  and  episodic  in  MRP  but  grouping  relatively  sub- 
stantial and  continuing  factions  in  SFIO.  (Socialists  seem  to  have  judged 
even  the  electoral  law  on  general  grounds,  nearly  all  the  opponents  of 
apparentements  being  on  the  extreme  Left  of  the  party.)  But  while  the  timing 
and  motive  for  dissidence  might  differ  between  types  of  party,  neither  was 
likely  to  make  a  stable  coalition  partner.13 

11.  In  similar  circumstances  RPF  had  restored  it  in  January  for  Mayer's  candidature. 

12.  As  general  and  assistant  secretary  until  1946  Daniel  Mayer  and  Robert  Verdier  were  strong 
disciplinarians,  but  both  rebelled  over  EDC  and  Algerian  special  powers.  £douard  Depreux 
voted  for  both  policies,  which  he  opposed,  out  of  respect  for  party  discipline  (as  five  others  did 
over  EDC).  Cf.  above,  p.  93n.,  327;  and  on  Socialist  alignments  above,  p.  9 In. 

13.  These  conclusions  emerge  from  a  thorough  statistical  analysis  of  the  divisions  in  each 
party  in  Assembly  voting  throughout  the  Fourth  Republic:  MacRae,  no.  149.  The  main  splits  are 
also  cited  in  Georgel,  i.  202-7.  The  traditionalist  parties  were  also  the  most  representative  of 
'backward  France'  (p.  450n.) ;  and  their  members  had  most  chance  of  office  (p.  419n.,  cf.  p.  438). 


PARTIES  AND   COALITIONS:   (2)  WAR  OF  MANOEUVRE  401 

2.   MEMBERS  AND  MILITANTS 

Members  of  parliament  in  parties  where  they  enjoyed  exclusive  control 
behaved  differently  from  colleagues  who  had  to  consider  the  demands  and 
aspirations  of  party  militants  in  the  country.  Either  would  lose  his  seat  if  he 
failed  to  satisfy  his  voters,  but  in  a  disciplined  organization  the  deputy  might 
get  no  chance  to  fight  it  if  he  offended  the  militants.14  Yet  he  and  they  had 
very  different  preoccupations.  He  had  to  remember  that  a  ministerial  crisis 
might  weaken  the  party's  position  in  the  Assembly,  alienate  the  floating 
voter,  or  alarm  foreign  opinion  in  a  critical  international  situation  ;15  it  might 
even  threaten  the  regime  itself.  To  the  militants  and  the  party  executives  these 
were  hypothetical  dangers  which  would  be  dealt  with,  if  at  all,  by  others. 
Their  concerns  were  to  press  the  party's  demands  even  at  inconvenient 
moments,  prevent  unceremonious  treatment  of  its  sacred  cows,  and  so  protect 
the  enthusiasm  and  loyalty  of  the  faithful  which  the  compromises  of  the  par- 
liamentarians threatened  to  dissipate.  Living  in  the  closed  world  of  the  party 
and  behaving  as  if  it  were  in  a  political  vacuum,  they  could  play  the  sea-green 
incorruptible  and  win  votes  and  applause  at  party  conferences.  The  deputies 
had  the  less  glamorous  task  of  bargaining  with  other  groups  to  provide  France 
with  a  government. 

Tension  existed  even  in  the  Communist  party,  where  a  member  who  was 
assigned  to  the  post  of  deputy  gave  it  up  when  he  was  told  to  and  obeyed 
orders  while  he  held  it:  in  1948  Duclos  himself  read  to  the  Assembly  the  party 
secretariat's  authorization  to  the  deputies  to  change  tactics  and  vote  for  im- 
mediate local  elections.16  Yet  even  Maurice  Thorez  was  criticized  by  Andr6 
Marty  and  the  opponents  of  joining  the  government,  especially  when  he  was 
defeated  for  the  premiership  in  December  1946  and  the  party's  hold  on  the 
trade  unions  came  increasingly  under  challenge.17  Again,  when  Mollet  came 
to  office  in  1956  the  Communists'  support  for  his  government  pleased  their 
voters,  nostalgic  for  a  Popular  Front,  but  soon  offended  the  militants,  who 
resented  appeasement  of  the  ministry  that  sent  conscripts  to  Algeria;  and  after 
their  first  and  last  open  argument  in  the  Fourth  Republic,  the  Communists 
decided  in  June  not  to  vote  confidence  in  Mollet's  North  African  policy.  In 
1958  de  Gaulle's  attraction  for  many  Communist  voters  produced  a  heresy 
among  younger  leaders  like  Marcel  Servin,  who  wished  to  minimize  the  damage 
by  moderating  their  attacks  on  the  regime. 

Nor  did  the  most  individualist  party  escape  conflicts  between  leaders  and 
rank  and  file.  At  the  Toulouse  conference  in  November  1949  Herriot  and  the 
Radical  elders  were  savagely  assailed  by  Daladier,  the  'young  Turks',  and  the 

14.  Party  membership  and  voting  strength  were  almost  unrelated:  Duverger,  Parties,  pp.  91- 
101.  In  1951  MRP  in  Haut-Rhin  had  under  a  hundred  members  and  74,000  voters:  Fauvet, 

°\  5^But  did'he?  Andre  Siegfried  reproached  the  deputies  for  their  indifference  to  foreign  reac- 
tions both  in  1930  (Tableau,  p.  28,  France,  p.  12),  and  in  1951  (AP  1951,  p.  xi).  And  cf.  below, 
p.  423. 

16.  AP  1948,  pp.  159  and  347;  JO  20  September  1948,  p.  6737. 

17  Priouret,  Partis,  pp.  15,  200-5;  Marabuto,  p.  170;  Rieber,  pp.  152, 166-7;  Aron,  Sdusmf, 
pp.  191-2;  Dumaine,  p.  152,  writing  of  January  1947,  mentions  'one  clear  point:  the  desire  of 
the  Communist  party  to  be  in  the  next  combination  at  the  price  of  any  concession  and  of  its 
dignity*.  Cf.  above,  p.  74  and  n,  10, 


402  THE  SYSTEM 

local  bosses  who  saw  in  outright  opposition  to  the  government  the  short  road 
to  electoral  triumph.  The  old  'war  of  the  two  fidouards'  raged  again  -  so 
furiously  that  fear  of  the  party's  disintegration  shocked  the  factions  into  a 
patched-up  truce.18  But  no  compromise  followed  the  revolt  of  1955,  when 
Mendes-France  and  his  new  recruits  evicted  the  old  right-wing  leaders  with  the 
aid  of  Jean  Baylet  and  his  local  notables,  then  lost  their  allies  and  their  majority 
by  their  unpopular  stand  over  the  Algerian  war.  For  in  1949  the  Radical  party 
had  been  a  loose  confederation  in  which  rival  bosses  struggled  to  control  the 
machine,  a  prize  that  would  disappear  if  the  party  itself  broke  up.  Seven  years 
later  real  militants,  fighting  for  policy  and  not  for  place,  tried  to  impose  dis- 
cipline from  outside  on  parliamentarians  who  had  always  resisted  it;  as  soon 
as  their  views  began  to  offend  the  voters  they  alienated  their  fair-weather 
allies  among  the  traditional  Radicals,  and  so  lost  the  battle.19 

In  RP  F  a  similar  conflict  was  fought  between  the  deputies  and  the  personal 
advisers  of  the  General.  Although  a  movement  founded  on  de  Gaulle's 
prestige  had  'outside  dictation'  as  its  very  purpose,  even  RPF  parliamen- 
tarians resented  military  discipline  in  politics.  As  early  as  August  1948  the 
vice-chairman  (Pierre  Montel)  and  twelve  members  resigned  from  the  Gaullist 
inter-group  when  ordered  to  vote  against  Paul  Reynaud's  financial  policy.  A 
year  later  the  chairman,  Paul  Giacobbi,  resigned  over  a  disciplinary  problem: 
his  colleagues  gave  him  a  unanimous  vote  of  confidence.  In  1952  Antoine 
Pinay,  like  Reynaud  but  on  a  larger  scale,  won  Conservative  RPF  members 
back  to  the  ministerial  ranks  at  the  cost  of  alienating  MRP's  left  wing.20  For, 
while  the  true  Gaullist  believed  that  no  real  reform  was  possible  without  con- 
stitutional change  which  compromises  and  palliatives  merely  delayed,  the 
ex-Conservative  RPF  deputy  knew  that  most  of  his  electors  supported  RPF 
as  an  expression  of  Conservatism.  Since  the  creators  of  the  Rally  were  not 
orthodox  Conservatives,  tension  between  them  and  their  parliamentary 
representatives  was  inevitable. 

MRP  and  Socialist  parliamentarians  also  gave  more  weight  than  the  out- 
siders to  short-term  and  tactical  considerations.  In  MRP  the  party  constitu- 
tion had  been  designed  to  strengthen  the  leadership,  though  it  could  not  always 
avoid  conflicts  or  even  always  win  them.  In  May  1949  Georges  Bidault's  ap- 
proaches to  RPF  were  at  once  disavowed  by  the  party  conference,  and  six 
months  later  the  national  council  sided  with  S  FI O  against  the  M  RP  ministers 
in  insisting  (successfully)  on  a  return  to  free  collective  bargaining.21  There  was 
again  tension  with  the  militants  over  support  for  conservative  premiers  - 
Queuille  in  1950,  Pinay  and  Laniel.  But  strong  bonds  held  MRP  together:  its 
members  shared  a  common  religious  faith,  a  common  political  experience  in  the 
pre-war  and  Resistance  generation,  and  the  sense  of  a  mission  to  reconcile  the 
Church  with  the  Republic.  The  rank  and  file  therefore  felt  a  strong  sentimental 

18.  AP  1949,  p.  198;  Fauvet,  Forces,  pp.  105-6. 

19.  Having  no  militants  CNIP  escaped  these  troubles,  but  its  1954  conference,  and  the  stormy 
history  of  the  Peasant  party,  showed  that  even  the  Conservatives  were  not  wholly  immune  from 
them :  above,  pp.  151,  153. 

20.  Similarly  in  1957  he  won  the  Poujadist  deputies  away  from  their  leader.  On  Reynaud  and 
Giacobbi  see  above,  pp.  134  n.  7, 143,  399. 

21.  AP  1949,  pp.  82-3,  159,  and  above,  pp.  105 ;  106-7, 


PARTIES  AND  COALITIONS!   (2)  WAR  OF  MANOEUVRE  403 

veneration  and  respect  for  the  leaders,  which  -  as  in  Bidault's  case  ~  survived 
(not  always  with  happy  results)  long  after  political  sympathy  had  died.  Internal 
division  consequently  did  less  harm  to  MRP  than  to  other  parties.  Instead, 
dissident  groups  left  the  movement  altogether. 

The  clash  between  leaders  and  followers,  parliamentarians  and  militants 
was  worst  in  the  Socialist  party.  Spurred  by  two  electoral  disappointments,  the 
rank  and  file  rejected  Leon  Blum's  efforts  to  broaden  the  party's  doctrine  and 
appeal.  In  August  1946  Daniel  Mayer  was  replaced  as  general  secretary  by 
Guy  Mollet,  the  aggressive  prophet  of  class  struggle,  who  nine  months  later 
urged  SFIO  to  bring  down  Ramadier's  government  rather  than  let  it  con- 
tinue without  the  Communist  ministers.  After  winning  a  large  majority  in  the 
Assembly  Ramadier  barely  survived  the  vote  in  the  Socialist  national  council 
which,  Blum  wrote  tactlessly,  would  decide  'in  full  sovereignty'  the  strategy  of 
SFIO  -  and  therefore  the  government  of  France. 

At  the  next  conference  Mollet  strengthened  his  hold,  and  within  a  year  the 
Socialists  had  brought  down  three  governments.  But  each  crisis  meant  a  move 
to  the  Right,  and  by  1949  Mollefs  friends  were  advocating  participation  in 
government,  while  ex-ministers  like  Andre  Philip  and  fidouard  Depreux 
opposed  it.  When  Daniel  Mayer  broke  up  Queuille's  cabinet  in  September, 
over  the  return  to  collective  bargaining,  the  Radicals  demanded  his  exclusion 
from  the  next  government;  after  a  month  without  a  ministry  the  Socialist 
deputies  defied  the  party  executive  and  agreed.22  In  December  S  FIO  assigned 
tactical  decisions  in  a  cabinet  crisis  to  the  first  policy-making  committee  it  had 
ever  set  up  with  a  majority  of  members  of  parliament,  but  this  was  abolished 
after  only  two  years.  In  April  1952  a  complicated  compromise  at  last  settled 
the  jurisdictional  dispute.23 

Conservative  politicians  and  jurists  condemned  the  Socialist  party  organiza- 
tion as  a  menace  to  parliamentary  sovereignty,  as  in  Ramadier's  'vote  of  con- 
fidence' in  May  1947,  or  to  governmental  stability,  as  in  the  long  crisis  of 
October  1949.  But  differences  between  the  deputies  and  the  executive  were  not 
fundamental.  Often  they  agreed,  and  when  they  did  not  each  side  usually  had  a 
minority  of  sympathizers  among  the  others.  Over  the  Poinso-Chapuis  decree 
in  1948  both  began  intransigently  but  both  ended  by  compromising.  Early  in 
1951  the  executive  showed  more  concern  than  the  parliamentarians  for  budget- 
ary stability,  and  a  year  later  it  was  the  deputies  who  first  decided  to  oppose 
Pleven's  government.24  The  committee  twice  intervened  to  save  Pleven's 

22.  Mayer  then  asked  'to  be  relieved  by  SFI 0  of  his  mandate  as  minister  of  labour* :  AP  1949, 
p.  180.  The  party  executive  picked  Dr.  Segelle  instead,  but  forgot  to  tell  him  -  and  his  cabinet 
colleagues,  when  they  met  at  2  a.m.,  had  to  wait  for  the  new  minister  to  be  fetched  from  his  bed  in 
the  outer  suburbs.  . ,  rt  ,       .         ,  -         , 

23.  The  executive  of  31,  of  whom  10  were  parliamentarians,  sat  with  9  deputes  and  6  senators 
chosen  by  their  groups  to  form  the  'committee  of  46'  until  December  1951,  when  a  national 
council  restored  full  powers  to  the  executive.  Angry  Socialist  deputies  called  the  executive   the 
politburo'  (AP  1951,  p.  324)  and  their  chairman  and  vice-chairman  resigned  in  protest.  By  the 
final  compromise  the  executive's  decision  was  discussed  at  a  joint  meeting  with  the  parliamentary 
group  (at  which  the  deputies  had  a  five-to-one  majority)  which  could  either  confirm  it,  reject  it 
by  a  three-fifths  majority,  or  reject  by  less  and  transfer  the  decision  to  a  special  national  council. 
For  S FIO's  internal  evolution  see  Ligou,  pp.  544-53,  557-9,  577-88,  615-25,  and  references  m 

!  ViFebruary  1951 ;  AP  1952,  p.  8,  The  executive  also  later  voted  to>ppose  Pleven 


404  THE  SYSTEM 

successor,  Edgar  Faure.  And  although  the  militants  caused  no  difficulty  over 
the  external  problems  which  dominated  politics  after  1954,  the  party's  life 
became  more  turbulent  than  ever.  Over  EDC  a  majority,  and  over  Algeria  a 
large  minority  of  the  deputies  rebelled  against  a  leadership  strongly  supported 
by  the  executive.  When  de  Gaulle  stood  for  the  premiership  in  May  1958  the 
executive  joined  the  revolt,  and  Mollet  had  to  fall  back  on  the  support  of  the 
Socialist  senators  and  permission  for  a  free  vote  in  the  Assembly. 

Even  when  the  behaviour  of  the  outside  organizations  was  most  unreason- 
able, it  was  often  understandable.  Political  compromise  is  often  a  necessity, 
especially  in  France,  but  the  professional  politician  too  easily  came  to  think  of 
it  as  a  positive  virtue.  Outside  the  Communist  party  few  deputies  had  personal 
experience  of  the  industrial  worker's  life  (only  three  Socialists  and  eight 
MRP  members  in  the  first  Assembly,  where  the  problem  was  most  acute). 
Many  French  leaders  had  begun  their  careers  on  the  extreme  Left  and  gone 
over  to  a  respectable  or  disreputable  conservatism  as  their  age  and  fortune 
grew:  Millerand,  Briand,  Laval,  Doriot.25  Politicians  in  the  disciplined  parties 
sometimes  needed  reminding  that  they  owed  their  power  to  the  work  and 
idealism  of  simple,  unsophisticated  people,  whose  hopes  might  be  incon- 
venient, untimely  or  impracticable,  but  could  not  simply  be  ignored  and 
derided  by  their  representatives. 

Parliamentarians  from  the  looser  groups,  who  did  not  suffer  from  this 
pressure,  were  freer  to  pursue  personal  ambition  or  factional  advantage  with- 
out risking  penalties  from  their  parties.  Endangered  in  the  early  years  by  the 
need  of  Socialist  ministers  to  satisfy  a  vigilant  executive,  governmental 
stability  was  more  imperilled  later  by  the  refusal  of  Radical  and  Conservative 
deputies  to  honour  the  commitments  made  by  their  leaders.  And  members 
from  the  strictly  and  the  loosely  organized  groups  alike  were  obliged  to  listen 
to  the  grievances  of  their  voters.  If  the  ordinary  citizen  took  short  or  partisan 
views,  demanded  immediate  material  concessions  or  stood  firm  for  a  principle, 
then  his  representatives  were  bound  to  pay  attention  even  at  some  risk  to  the 
stability  of  government.  But  the  voter  also  (and  not  always  consistently)  put  a 
high  value  on  stability.  He  set  the  politician  an  insoluble  problem,  and  then 
reproached  him  for  not  finding  a  satisfactory  answer. 

3.  PARTNERS  AND  RIVALS 

In  the  disciplined  parties  the  parliamentary  leaders  were  under  pressure  from 
the  membership  to  carry  out  the  party's  policies ;  in  the  individualist  ones  there 
were  always  notables  seeking  more  power  for  themselves  or  their  faction. 
Coalition  governments  therefore  needed  perpetual  brokerage  to  keep  them 
together.  The  parties  composing  them  were  at  once  partners  and  rivals,  and 

by  19  (7  deputies  and  12  militants)  to  6  for  abstention  (3  and  3).  On  five  political  and  two  disci- 
plinary decisions  in  that  month,  a  majority  of  both  deputies  and  militants  defeated  a  minority  of 
both ;  they  differed  only  on  Pinay's  investiture  in  March,  1 1  of  the  16  militants  wanting  to  oppose 
him  and  7  of  the  10  deputies  to  abstain :  Bulletin  inttrieur  SFIO,  nos.  59  (February  1952),  p.  19, 
and  62  (May),  pp.  41-3 ;  fuller  in  Williams,  p.  372n. 

25.  In  Cote  d'Or  every  local  leader  in  the  Third  and  Fourth  Republics  followed  this  course: 
Long,  pp.  200-4,  265-72.  The  Communists*  first  general  secretary,  L.  O,  Frossard,  was  one  of 
P&ain's  ministers  in  1940, 


PARTIES  AND   COALITIONS:   (2)   WAR  OF  MANOEUVRE  405 

the  more  secure  the  majority  was  against  opposition  attack,  the  more  willing 
each  of  its  members  became  to  fight  for  his  own  hand.  Responsibility  was  hard 
to  define  and  therefore  easy  to  evade.  A  party  governing  alone  has  to  be 
realistic  since  its  faults  may  be  exposed  by  the  test  of  practice,  but  a  partner  in 
a  coalition  had  a  permanent  excuse  for  every  failure  to  fulfil  a  promise:  that  it 
would  have  broken  up  the  government.  A  disunited  cabinet  lacked  authority 
over  its  supporters.  A  heterogeneous  majority  included  unwilling  partners  who 
hoped  that  a  change  of  alliances  would  bring  them  more  jobs  or  better 
policies.  An  opposition  of  miscellaneous  malcontents,  united  only  in  negation, 
was  not  made  responsible  by  the  prospect  of  power.  Instead  of  an  open  clash 
of  political  philosophies  enabling  the  electorate  to  judge,  the  bargains  and 
manoeuvres  which  go  on  behind  the  scenes  of  other  political  systems  were 
brought  to  the  centre  of  the  stage. 

A  party  which  was  asked  to  join  the  government  often  laid  down  conditions, 
not  always  successfully.  The  Socialists  vetoed  Paul  Reynaud  as  finance  minis- 
ter in  November  1947.  By  July  1948  the  balance  of  power  had  shifted  against 
them  and  they  agreed  to  serve  with  him,  only  to  resign  when  he  announced  his 
policy.  In  the  following  May  he  launched  the  Conservatives'  ultimatum  to 
Queuille's  government  to  change  its  economic  and  social  policies.26  This  was 
resisted  by  the  Socialist  ministers,  especially  Daniel  Mayer,  who  in  September 
broke  up  the  cabinet;  SFIO  then  had  to  accept  a  Radical  veto  on  Mayer's 
reappointment.  MRP's  power  similarly  dwindled  between  March  1952,  when 
the  party  refused  to  serve  under  Pinay  unless  Robert  Schuman  kept  the 
foreign  office,  and  January  1953  when  it  could  no  longer  resist  his  eviction. 

To  prevent  differences  rankling  and  poisoning  the  life  of  cabinets,  successive 
prime  ministers  strove  in  vain  to  establish  a  'contract  of  the  majority'  com- 
mitting all  the  government  parties  to  a  common  programme.  Chained  for  ten 
years  to  the  government  bench,  MRP  supported  these  efforts,  but  the  other 
parties  would  never  abandon  the  equivocations  by  which  they  tried  to  com- 
bine the  advantages  of  opposition  with  those  of  office.  When  offered  the 
economic  ministries  by  Jules  Moch  in  October  1949,  MRP  insisted  that  all 
government  parties  accept  responsibility  for  their  policies.  The  Radicals, 
committed  by  their  votes  for  Moch  to  the  proposals  in  his  investiture  speech, 
flatly  refused  any  further  engagement.  Reluctantly  MRP  gave  way,  despite 
protests  from  the  prospective  economic  ministers  who  knew  what  to  expect 
from  their  colleagues.27  But  when  the  Radicals  demanded  the  ministry  of 
information  too,  MRP  refused  to  tolerate  other  ministers  attacking  their 
policies  with  official  resources,  and  the  dispute  prevented  Moch  forming  a 
government.  In  1956  Mendes-France,  denied  the  foreign  office  by  the  hostility 
of  the  'Europeans',  declined  the  ministry  of  finance  because  he  had  no 
assurance  that  his  Socialist  colleagues  would  accept  his  policies.  Subsequent 
quarrels  showed  he  had  been  prudent. 

These  manoeuvres  were  inevitable  when  the  reputation  of  a  man  or  a  party 

26.  AP  1949,  pp.  78-81,  323-32;  Arne",  pp.  247,  257,  351. 

27.  The  minority  also  included  Mme  Poinso-Chapuis,  whose  ministerial  career  terminated  with 
her  celebrated  decree  in  1948 ;  it  was  not  only  Socialists  who  saw  the  disadvantages  of  office  most 
clearly  when  they  were  personally  unlikely  to  receive  it.  For  the  efforts  of  the  premiers  and  the 
'contract  of  the  majority'  see  Arne",  pp.  209-17. 


406  THE  SYSTEM 

was  bound  up  with  the  policies  and  fortunes  of  a  government  they  did  not 
control.  When  MRP  was  driven  against  the  wishes  of  its  militants  to  join 
Pinay's  government,  it  refused  the  economic  ministries  in  order  to  dissociate 
itself  from  the  premier's  conservative  policies,  and  treated  its  commitment  to 
its  allies  as  lightly  as  they  had  ever  done.  In  the  Laniel  and  Faure  cabinets  the 
Gaullists  in  their  turn  were  to  show  that  ex-critics  of  the  System  could  outdo 
its  oldest  practitioners  in  their  contempt  for  governmental  solidarity.  For  a 
group  which  obtained  office  because  its  votes  were  indispensable  to  the  majority 
might  be  unable  to  dictate  policy  if  rival  groups  were  equally  indispensable. 
Parties  entered  or  supported  cabinets  because  the  alternative  combination 
would  be  worse,  or  the  odium  of  provoking  or  prolonging  a  ministerial  crisis 
greater  than  that  of  accepting  an  unsatisfactory  compromise.  But  such  tran- 
sitory arrangements  could  evoke  no  loyalty.  No  party  took  risks  to  defend  an 
unpopular  policy  which  was  not  its  own,  or  felt  any  compunction  about 
joining  a  cabinet  and  then  attacking  it. 

Battling  with  the  parties  for  the  loyalty  of  his  ministers,  a  premier  had  first  to 
struggle  for  the  right  to  choose  them  -  like  a  medieval  king  contesting  the 
investiture  of  bishops  with  the  Pope.  De  Gaulle  won  a  tussle  with  the  Com- 
munists on  this  point,  and  the  Socialists  refused  to  serve  under  Mendes- 
France  when  he  would  not  give  way  on  it  (though  Bidault  in  1949  and  Pleven 
in  1950  made  personal  appointments  from  SFIO).  But  this  close  identification 
with  its  chosen  representatives  made  it  hard  for  a  party  to  detach  itself  from 
an  unsuccessful  man  or  unpopular  policy  without  humiliation  for  him  or 
embarrassment  for  them.  Jean  Letourneau  of  MRP  remained  in  charge  of 
Indo-Chinese  aifairs  long  after  his  policies  had  collapsed,  and  SFIO  could 
oust  Robert  Lacoste  from  Algiers  in  April  1958  only  by  deciding  to  stay  out  of 
office  altogether.  On  the  other  hand,  since  the  selection  of  ministers  raised 
delicate  personal  problems  within  a  party,  MRP  sometimes  preferred  the 
prime  minister  to  take  the  invidious  responsibility.  Any  prudent  premier 
naturally  tried  to  choose  senior  ministers  who  could  bring  strength  to  his 
government.28  Some,  like  Pinay,  invited  each  group  to  make  nominations 
for  minor  office. 

The  individualist  groups  had  more  difficulty  in  influencing  their  members, 
among  whom  the  prospect  of  promotion  was  a  potent  lure  and  the  loose  party 
tie  a  feeble  restraint,  since  the  rebel  could  so  easily  transfer  to  another  group. 
Paradoxically,  therefore,  it  was  precisely  the  parties  which  prided  themselves 
on  allowing  their  members  freedom  of  action  which  needed  the  whip  to  stop 
individual  decisions  engaging  the  group  and  compromising  its  reputation.  The 
Radicals  warned  Mendes-France  against  becoming  Gouin's  finance  minister 
in  January  1946,  UDSR  objected  to  Francois  Mitterrand  taking  the  Interior 
in  September  1948,  and  in  October  1949  when  a  Peasant  deputy  accepted 
junior  office  from  Bidault,  his  party  exacted  from  him  an  undated  letter  of 
resignation  which  was  sent  in  two  months  later.29  But  some  groups  preferred 

28.  His  'first  concern'  from  1875  to  1958 :  Huron,  p.  172.  On  Mendes-France  and  SFIO  see 
Fauvet,  IV6,  pp.  283-4. 

29.  AP  1946,  pp.  11,  15-16;  1948,  p.  152;  1949,  pp.  213,  217;  1950,  p.  5;  Arne,  p.  348.  The 
Peasant,  M.  Ribeyre,  emphasized  that  his  resignation  was  involuntary  by  voting  confidence  in 
the  government  which  his  party  opposed. 


PARTIES  AND   COALITIONS:   (2)  WAR  OF  MANOEUVRE  407 

to  disavow  their  ministers  without  disciplining  them ;  in  1957  Mollet  appointed 
Queuille  and  another  dissident  Radical  to  his  abortive  government,  but  none 
of  their  fellows  voted  for  him. 

Serving  ministers  often  rebelled  against  discipline.  In  May  1949  the  Peasants 
and  in  July  PRL  expelled  members  who  refused  to  resign  from  Queuille's 
government.  In  October  1955,  when  Edgar  Faure's  Social  Republican 
(Gaullist)  ministers  called  for  a  new  government  and  were  dismissed,  one 
repudiated  his  party  and  took  the  premier's  side.  Two  months  later,  when 
Faure  himself  was  expelled  from  the  Radical  party  for  dissolving  the  Assembly, 
five  of  his  Radical  ministers  resigned  but  three  stayed  in  office.  In  the  new 
Assembly  two  Social  Republicans  joined  Mollet  'in  a  personal  capacity' 
against  the  party's  wish,  and  in  May  1958  one  of  Pflimlin's  four  Conservative 
ministers  refused  a  party  summons  to  resign.  Of  all  premiers,  Mendes-France 
did  most  damage  to  party  discipline,  despite  his  failure  with  the  Socialists.  He 
gave  posts  to  members  of  M  RP,  who  were  expelled  (but  readmitted  later)  and 
of  CNIP,  which  changed  its  rules  to  prevent  any  repetition  of  the  offence.30 

Few  premiers  could  count  like  Mendes-France  on  the  loyalty  of  personal 
admirers  in  many  different  parties.  But  all,  including  him,  could  expect  votes 
from  several  quarters,  which  came  from  the  'king's  friends':  the  men  who 
systematically  supported  every  government,  either  in  hopes  of  advantage  for 
themselves  or  their  clients  or  even  on  grounds  of  principle.  Dissident  Gaullists 
of  1952  and  Radicals  of  1955-56  were  as  reluctant  as  dissident  Socialists 
before  the  war  to  see  their  careers  ruined  by  a  party  or  leader  whose  sights 
seemed  set  far  too  high.  Other  ministerialists  traded  their  votes  for  concessions 
to  a  constituency  or  a  pressure-group.  Overseas  deputies  were  divided  between 
those  who  fought  every  cabinet  (like  Irish  MP's  in  the  1880's)  and  were  nearly 
all  eliminated  from  the  Assembly  in  1951,  and  those  who  preferred  (like 
Scots  a  century  earlier)  to  support  all  ministries  impartially.  The  Peasant 
party  was  similarly  split,  either  internally  or  organizationally,  between  Paul 
Antier's  intransigent  wing  and  the  participationist  bargainers  led  by  Canaille 
Laurens.31  But  some  politicians,  who  believed  that  nothing  could  be  done 
without  stability,  thought  any  government  better  than  none  and  no  specific 
policy  worth  the  disruption  of  a  majority:  men  like  Paul  Hutin-Desgr<§es  of 
MRP,  the  Breton  editor  of  the  largest  provincial  newspaper,  who  sought  no 
office,  left  Parliament  disillusioned  in  1955,  and  supported  Government  as 
systematically  in  the  Fifth  Republic  as  in  the  Fourth. 

'King's  friends'  at  one  time  made  up  a  substantial  parliamentary  force. 
While  SFIO  was  still  in  the  majority  295  deputies  voted  successively  for  a 
Socialist,  a  Radical  and  an  MRP  leader  as  premier  in  October  1949.  But  with 
its  defection  in  the  next  crisis,  in  summer  1950,  only  139  members  supported 
the  outgoing  and  incoming  premiers  on  the  four  decisive  votes.  In  the  second 
Parliament  there  was  a  major  change  of  men  and  policies  when  Mendes- 
France  succeeded  Laniel,  but  102  deputies  still  voted  for  both  leaders :  nearly 

30.  Arn6,  pp.  348-9,  with  other  cases.  AP  1949,  pp.  80,  130;  1954,  pp.  70,  102;  1955,  pp.  7, 
72-3,  92;  1956,  pp.  18,  27;  1958,  p.  63;  and  above,  pp.  151,  398. 

31.  Above,  p.  135.  Lawyers,  and  old  parliamentary  hands,  typically  preferred  bargaining  to 
intransigent  politics:  cf.  above,  pp.  134,  135n.,  153  n.  15, 156  n.  32. 


408  THE  SYSTEM 

all  IOM,  nearly  half  the  Radicals,  and  between  a  fifth  and  an  eighth  of  every 
other  group  except  Communists  and  Socialists;  12%  of  metropolitan  mem- 
bers but  43%  of  those  from  overseas.32  By  the  third  Assembly  MRP  was  less 
firmly  in  the  majority,  the  Radical  party  was  in  fragments,  and  the  ban  on 
proxies  stopped  many  overseas  members  from  voting.  The  dwindling  band  of 
*  king's  friends'  could  now  muster  only  40  deputies  to  vote  for  both  Pinay  and 
Mollet  in  October  1957.  The  base  of  the  System  was  dangerously  narrowed  by 
this  decline  of  the  *  accommodating  and  agile  men ',  for  whatever  their  motives 
they  had  been  'indispensable  to  the  permanence  of  public  life  and  the  gentle- 
ness of  transitions'.33 

4.   THE  ART  OF  BROKERAGE 

Without  the  substantial  core  of  support  available  ex  officio  to  his  predecessors, 
a  premier  of  the  later  Fourth  Republic  had  an  even  harder  task.  His  resources 
were  few,  for  once  he  had  formed  his  cabinet  the  hope  of  office  was  an  asset 
only  to  his  prospective  successors.  But  he  could  still  use  the  traditional 
weapons:  decorations  for  the  influential  constituents  of  hesitant  members  -  or 
for  the  members  -  and  pork-barrel  benefits  for  the  districts  of  deputies  from 
overseas  -  or  from  elsewhere.  As  in  the  Third  Republic,  'a complete  day-by- 
day  diplomacy  was  founded  on  knowledge  of  the  civil  service  lists,  the  art  of 
opportune  promotions  in  the  Legion  of  Honour,  a  respect  for  political  con- 
nections and  an  adroit  use  of  favouritism'.34  Now  and  then  major  posts  out- 
side the  government  provided  more  substantial  fare:  Mendes-France  sent 
Jacques  Soustelle  to  Algeria  and  Edgar  Faure  chose  Gilbert  Grandval  for 
Morocco  both  as  strong  administrators  with  a  liberal  reputation  and  as 
Gaullists  whose  appointments  might  rally  a  wavering  party.  But  often  the 
prime  minister  could  make  little  use  of  such  patronage,  for  it  was  subject  to 
hard  bargaining  between  parties  seeking  to  place  their  friends,  achieve  their 
own  policy  objectives,  or  counteract  their  rivals.  On  21  January  1948  the 
cabinet  sent  an  MRP  deputy  to  govern  Madagascar,  a  Radical  official  to 
Equatorial  Africa,  and  a  Socialist  junior  minister  to  West  Africa.  A  month 
later  the  Algerian  settlers  and  their  Radical  friends,  led  by  Rend  Mayer, 
demanded  the  removal  of  the  liberal  governor-general  Yves  Chataigneau; 
SFIO's  opposition  was  overcome  by  making  him  ambassador  in  Moscow  and 
choosing  in  his  place  a  Socialist  cabinet  minister,  M.  E.  Naegelen.35 

In  dividing  the  spoils  it  was  not  easy  to  satisfy  everyone;  in  deciding  con- 
troversies over  policy  it  was  often  impossible.  Ministers  and  party  leaders  who 

32.  Almost  200  voted  only  for  Laniel,  over  300  only  for  Mend£s-France,  and  13  for  neither 
among  them  de  Gaulle's  brother  and  brother-in-law.  SFIO  had  its  'king's  friends'  too  (notably 
Paul  Ramadier,  an  old  Republican  Socialist)  but  discipline  de  vote  made  them  invisible  A  year 
earlier,  the  Assembly  had  overthrown  Rene"  Mayer  and  then  rejected  four  premiers-designate 
before  electing  Laniel;  35  deputies  voted  for  all  six  men  (of  these  35,  7  got  office  from  Laniel 
and  3  kept  it  under  Mendes-France,  who  was  among  the  35).  Another  128  voted  for  five  of 
the  six,  of  whom  only  38  did  not  vote  for  Mendes-France.  (My  calculations  ) 

33.  Isorai,  Ainsi,  p.  87  (cf.  p.  137).  Of  the  40,  14  were  MRP  and  25  from  the  debris  of  Radi- 
calism. Of  the  29  who  later  voted  for  Gaillard  and  had  also  voted  for  Bourges-Maunoury  when 
he  feu,  not  one  was  from  overseas:  proxies  might  well  have  saved  him. 

n  3£  ?e^ri  d^ouvenel»  Pourquoije  suis  syndicate  (1928),  p.  21.  (I  owe  this  reference  to  Dr. 
D.  B.  Goldey.)  For  examples  under  Mendes-France,  Faucher,  p  143 
35.  AP  1948,  pp.  8,  19-20;  Arne\  p.  351 ;  Fauvet,  /JX«,  pp.  155-7.  But  cf,  above,  p.  333. 


PARTIES  AND  COALITIONS:   (2)  WAR  OF  MANOEUVRE  409 

had  fought  hard  for  the  best  compromise  available  often  had  to  settle  for  much 
less  than  their  followers  demanded.  Then,  if  a  well-organized  party  gave 
trouble,  its  leaders  could  impose  party  discipline.  When  the  difficulty  was  with 
the  individualist  parties,  the  cabinet  could  call  for  a  vote  of  confidence  which 
helped  hesitant  deputies  to  justify  an  unpopular  vote  to  their  constituents.36 
But  all  such  appeals  used  up  part  of  the  government's  limited  political  credit 
with  the  discontented  groups  on  the  margin  of  the  majority.  A  prudent 
premier  was  therefore  sorely  tempted  to  arrange  that  a  dangerous  problem 
should  not  rise  to  the  surface  during  his  brief  incumbency.  If  his  hand  were 
forced  he  would  tend  to  do  a  little  less  of  what  he  was  doing  before,  in  com- 
pensation making  ostentatious  gestures  elsewhere.  When  a  Socialist-led 
government  repressed  an  Algerian  rising,  it  was  no  surprise  to  find  its  leaders 
reassuring  their  critics  (and  consciences)  that  their  hearts  were  still  on  the 
Left  by  speeches  criticizing  the  United  States. 

A  premier  could  also  appeal  to  the  deputies*  sense  of  responsibility  by 
pointing  out  the  catastrophic  consequences  of  a  crisis  now.  But  as  there  was 
always  an  international  conference,  a  colonial  negotiation  or  a  financial 
emergency  conveniently  at  hand,  this  story  soon  wore  thin.  Once  Rene  Mayer 
had  saved  himself  by  a  treasury  crisis  and  a  visit  to  Washington,  he  could  not 
repeat  the  performance  six  weeks  later  on  the  eve  of  the  Bermuda  conference 
with  Eisenhower  and  Churchill.  Because  deputies  (like  congressmen)  resented 
being  defied  or  constrained,  public  opinion  had  to  be  brought  to  bear  on  them 
by  manoeuvres,  which  even  the  strongest  premier  did  not  disdain.  Pinay  anti- 
cipated a  coming  attack  from  the  Right  on  his  foreign  minister  by  osten- 
tatiously rejecting  an  'insulting'  American  note,  a  glorious  gesture  which  no 
Conservative  could  disavow.  Mendes-France,  when  Gaullists  and  Socialists 
were  wavering,  arranged  an  interview  with  a  benevolent  General  de  Gaulle 
and  announced  a  minimum  wage  increase  on  the  eve  of  a  crucial  Socialist 
caucus.37 

These  devices  frequently  failed.  Then,  on  a  major  issue  the  cabinet  fell,  on  a 
minor  one  it  accepted  defeat.  Pinay's  ministers  were  beaten  in  102  divisions, 
out  of  the  562  in  which  they  voted,  and  in  41  of  these  a  majority  of  their 
nominal  supporters  voted  against  them.  Sometimes  the  government  avoided 
defeat  by  neutrality  when  it  knew  its  followers  would  otherwise  have  rebelled. 
But  in  general,  though  party  discipline  among  deputies  was  worse  on  the 
major  questions,  the  groups  of  the  majority  were  much  more  loyal:  only  once 
under  Pinay  did  the  largest  section  of  any  ministerial  group  vote  against  the 
government  and  it  was  very  rare  for  them  to  abstain.38 

Supporters  of  the  regime  recognized  the  need  to  sink  their  differences  over 
policy  in  order  to  find  a  majority  and  a  government.  But  the  differences  were 
genuine  and  important  to  both  the  politicians  and  their  voters.  Sometimes  a 
party  which  would  not  accept  the  compromises  of  office  might  be  ready  to 
keep  an  unsatisfactory  cabinet  in  power  rather  than  precipitate  an  insoluble 

37*.  Fauvet!  7%!*p.  235  (Mayer) ;  AP  1952,  pp.  65, 367-9  (Pinay),  and  1954,  pp.  79-81  (Mendfc- 
France). 
38.  Campbell,  no.  44,  pp.  251-3. 


410  THE  SYSTEM 

crisis  which  would  endanger  the  regime.  There  were  recognized  gradations  of 
support  from  marginal  parties,  ranging  from  keeping  a  minority  ministry  in 
by  not  voting  against  it,  through  voting  for  it  without  joining  it,  to  joining  it 
while  criticizing  it.  Or  a  government  party  confronted  by  an  unacceptable 
policy,  and  obliged  by  conviction  or  electoral  necessity  to  resist  all  efforts  at 
cajolery  or  coercion,  might  still  be  unwilling  to  bring  the  cabinet  down.  In 
such  cases  curious  expedients  were  used  to  paper  over  the  cracks.39 

A  party  might  announce  that  its  vote  indicated  confidence  in  the  govern- 
ment but  disapproval  of  its  policy  (or  vice  versd).^  It  might  authorize  minis- 
ters to  vote  with  their  cabinet  colleagues  while  ordinary  deputies  abstained,  as 
the  Communists  did  over  Indo-China  in  March  1947,  the  Socialists  over 
devaluation  in  January  1948  and  an  amnesty  bill  in  December  1950,  and  RPF 
over  the  European  army  in  November  1953.  Or  all  ministers  might  abstain, 
leaving  the '  back-benchers  *  to  decide  -  the  French  equivalent  of  a  free  vote  in 
the  House  of  Commons.  Rene  Pleven's  government  abstained  over  electoral 
reform  in  February  1951,  and  Mendes-France's  over  EDC  in  August  1954. 
The  perennial  disputes  over  clerical  problems  were  evaded  in  this  way  by 
Schuman  in  May  1948  over  the  colliery  schools,  Pleven  in  September  1951 
over  Barange's  bill,  and  Mollet  in  February  1956  over  its  repeal.  Pinay's 
cabinet  took  no  part  in  1 10  divisions,  about  a  sixth  of  those  held  in  his  nine 
months  of  office.41  Much  less  often  ministers  voted  on  both  sides,  as  on  a 
motion  to  postpone  debate  on  Barange's  bill  in  September  1951.  When 
Pleven's  first  cabinet  decided  to  send  an  ambassador  to  Madrid,  in  January 
1951,  it  authorized  the  Socialist  ministers  to  abstain  if  an  interpellation  were 
moved.  Gaillard  in  February  1958,  on  MRP's  demand,  allowed  his  ministers 
to  vote  as  they  pleased  on  a  motion  to  restore  the  pre-war  electoral  system. 
Once,  in  1948,  two  ministers  voted  without  authority  -  or  penalty  -  with  their 
party,  UDSR,  against  Queuffle's  postponement  of  local  elections.42 

'Papering  over  the  cracks',  strangely  enough,  was  more  useful  in  preserving 
the  edifice  than  in  concealing  the  gaps  in  it.  For  ministers  were  as  unconcerned 
about  attacking  their  colleagues  in  speeches  as  they  were  reluctant  to  differ 
from  them  in  a  vote.  In  1948  the  Socialist  minister  of  education  (fidouard 
Depreux)  accused  his  prime  minister  (Robert  Schuman)  of  violating  the 
constitution  over  the  Poinso-Chapuis  decree,  which  had  not  been  submitted  to 
him  for  counter  signature.  In  1949  a  meeting  of  Conservative  deputies  criticized 
new  taxes  proposed  by  the  independent  Conservative  finance  minister  Maurice 
Petsche;  leading  the  attack  were  two  junior  ministers,  Antoine  Pinay  and 
Jean  Moreau.  Moreau  later  expressed  sympathy  for  the  parliamentary  critics 
of  his  own  department,  the  air  ministry,  whose  real  target  was  the  Socialist 

39.  For  a  full  record  of  party  attitudes  see  the  table  in  Arn6,  pp.  225-8. 

40.  Arne",  pp.  275-6,  and  above,  p.  231. 

41.  Arne",  pp.  1 86-8 ;  for  Pinay,  Campbell,  no.  44,  p.  251 .  The  executive  by  convention  abstained 
on  strictly  parliamentary  questions  such  as  waiver  of  a  member's  immunity  or  amendments  to 
standing  orders,  and  had  sometimes  done  so  on  electoral  and  constitutional  reform. 

42.  Spain:  Monde,  11  January  1951.  Gaillard:  In&gedit&s,  p.  108.  UDSR:  Arne",  p.  126n. 
(with  one  other  case).  Also  AP  1948,  p.  160,  1951,  p.  220  (Barange),  1958,  p.  22.  It  was  said  that 
some  crises  were  avoided  by  horse-trading,  one  party  making  concessions  on  church  schools  and 
another  on  naval  building:  AP  1949,  pp.  38-9,  and  Figaro,  6  March  1949  (quoted  Williams, 
p.  384n.) ;  cf.  Fauvet,  IVet  p.  157. 


PARTIES  AND  COALITIONS:  (2)   WAR  OF  MANOEUVRE  411 

minister  of  defence.  At  next  year's  S  F I O  conference  Jules  Moch,  for  once  out 
of  office,  retaliated  by  contrasting  inadequate  governmental  provision  of 
schools  and  houses  with  wasteful  expenditure  on  an  air  force  with  no  aircraft 
(the  air  ministry  was  one  of  the  few  never  held  by  a  Socialist).  In  1953  Rene 
Pleven,  as  a  senior  minister  in  a  conservative  government,  publicly  urged  his 
party  to  work  for  a  new  left-centre  majority.  ?inay  and  Mollet  denounced  one 
another  every  week-end  under  Gaillard's  government,  in  which  both  their 
parties  served.43 

Party  differences  were  not  the  only  ones.  In  this  atmosphere  of  conflict 
departmental  quarrels  were  magnified  too.  As  Edgar  Faure  pointed  out, 
ministers  who  hoped  to  survive  into  the  next  cabinet  felt  'more  loyal  to  their 
respective  departments  than  to  the  government  as  a  collective  entity'.44  If 
parties  or  ministries  neutralized  each  other  sufficiently  thoroughly,  the  problem 
was  left  to  the  unregulated  clash  of  group  interests,  with  the  usual  dangers 
of  inflation  or  disorder  -  or  overseas  repression,  continued  until  a  revolution- 
ary crisis  became  inevitable.45  After  1953  matters  became  worse,  for  the  main 
political  conflicts  no  longer  coincided  with  the  lines  of  party  cleavage.  First  on 
EDC,  then  on  Algeria,  the  parties  themselves  were  too  divided  internally  to 
guarantee  that  their  members  would  give  reliable  support  to  governments  in 
which  their  leaders  served.  When  Joseph  Laniel  was  accepted  as  premier  by  a 
weary  Assembly  which  had  rejected  five  previous  candidates,  he  formed  a 
broadly-based  cabinet  which  was  said  to  embrace  two  distinct  ministries: 
Bidault's,  which  practised  a  diehard  colonial  policy,  and  Reynaud's,  which 
favoured  conciliation  and  retrenchment.46  The  same  was  true  of  his  successors. 
Mendes-France's  government  was  divided  about  EDC  until  the  keen  'Euro- 
peans' resigned  from  it;  Edgar  Faure's  ministers  quarrelled  openly  over 
Morocco;  under  Mollet  both  Socialists  and  Radicals  were  split  between 
Lacoste's  supporters  and  opponents.  Andre  Morice  refused  to  countersign 
Bourges-Maunoury's  Algerian  reform  bill.  Felix  Gaillard,  like  Laniel,  became 
premier  when,  after  a  long  and  indecisive  crisis,  the  major  government  parties 
stopped  obstructing  one  another  in  the  Assembly  -  only  to  project  their  con- 
flict into  the  cabinet.  As  Paul  Reynaud  put  it, '  Bit  by  bit  the  cabinet  has  come 
to  look  like  a  miniature  Parliament  with  its  majority,  its  minority  and  its 
manoeuvres  behind  the  scenes.'47 

In  the  hope  of  imposing  on  the  parties  of  his  majority  a  sense  of  respon- 
sibility for  governmental  policy,  Gaillard  brought  their  parliamentary  leaders 
into  the  discussion  of  the  most  controversial  problems  through  'round-table 
conferences'.  This  device  had  occasionally  been  used  by  earlier  premiers  to 
settle  a  difficult  problem,  prop  up  a  falling  cabinet,  or  overcome  the  difficulties 
caused  by  the  exclusion  of  ministers  from  the  deliberations  of  parliamentary 

43.  AP  1948,  pp.  77-8,  92-3;  1949,  pp.  77,  97;  1952,  p.  83;  1958,  pp.  34-43  passim;  Monde, 
29  May  1950,  10  and  11  November  1952,  27  October  1953 ;  Ame,  pp.  121n.,  126-7,  348;  Debu- 
Bridel,  p.  252  (Schuman);  Fauvet  in  Monde,  2  May  1958. 

44.  Monde,  27  March  1953;  cf.  R.  Lecourt,  ibid.,  8  April  1953. 

45.  See  above,  pp.  383-4,  394;  below,  p.  440. 

46.  Faucher,  pp.  64-5;  Fauvet,  IVe,  pp.  253-5;  Tournoux,  pp.  29-31. 

47.  JO  8  October  1955,  p.  4960.  'Whoever  experienced  the  old  cabinet . . .  knows  it  was  itself 
a  Parliament  where  discussions  lasted  for  hours  ...  often  without  reaching  any  conclusion*; 
Cpnte,  p.  10.  Morice:  Arne,  pp.  121n.,  368n, 


412  THE  SYSTEM 

committees  on  a  bill.  Bourges-Maunoury  employed  it  to  bring  into  the  dis- 
cussions of  Lacoste's  Algerian  reform  bill  the  Conservative,  MRP  and  Social 
Republican  groups,  which  were  unrepresented  in  the  cabinet  but  essential  to 
the  majority;  it  did  not  save  him  or  the  bill  from  defeat.  Undeterred,  Gaillard 
called  round  tables  on  the  budget,  constitutional  amendment,  electoral  re- 
form, and  a  medical  insurance  bill.  The  first  two  helped  the  government  sal- 
vage some  of  its  proposals.  The  others  failed  because  of  the  indiscipline  rather 
than  the  rigidity  of  the  parties.  Bargains  accepted  by  their  leaders  were 
repeatedly  repudiated  by  the  right  wing  of  the  Conservatives,  whose  defection 
overturned  every  premier  of  this  Parliament.  For  neither  cabinets  nor  round 
tables  could  conjure  up  a  majority  from  parties  which  were  aligned  one  way 
on  the  economy  and  another  on  the  constitution,  and  from  rival  camps  whose 
irreconcilable  views  on  Algeria  cut  sharply  across  all  party  lines.  At  the  round 
table  the  cabinet  abdicated  responsibility,  but  the  parties  would  not  assume 
it.48 

Just  as  voters  chose  their  deputy  to  protect  them  against  the  government 
rather  than  to  uphold  it,  and  members  entered  Parliament  to  vote  for  the 
claims  and  interests  of  their  constituents  rather  than  for  a  policy,  so  minis- 
ters frequently  took  office  to  defend  their  party's  supporters  against  the  designs 
of  a  rival  group  with  a  different  clientele  to  protect.  As  a  Radical  deputy  once 
argued,  'But,  my  dear  friends,  is  it  not  also  true  that  our  presence  in  the 
governments  has  prevented  the  other  parties,  too,  from  applying  their  pro- 
grammes?' Even  politicians  who  came  hopefully  to  power  with  far-reaching 
aims,  and  took  important  decisions  in  the  first  honeymoon  weeks  of  office, 
were  soon  discouraged  or  frustrated  by  the  obstacles  strewn  in  their  path. 
Consequently,  wrote  an  excellent  critic  in  1957,  *.  .  .  the  reigning  ideal  is  also 
one  of  protectionism  and  security  above  all  -  as  in  so  many  sectors  of  the 
economy,  or  in  the  teaching  world.  French  parties  do  not  govern,  they  occupy 
power.  They  do  not  conceive  the  need  for  or  the  conditions  of  a  genuine 
executive:  they  want  a  right  of  veto  against  their  allies  or  rivals  ...  all  atten- 
tion is  concentrated  on  the  parliamentary  game,  this  system  of  mutual  neutral- 
ization ...  in  which  the  players  avail  themselves  of  power  only  to  obstruct  any 
effective  use  of  it.  '49 

48.  On  round  tables  see  Andrews,  no,  3.  Cf.  Arne",  pp.  92,  179,  259-60;  AP  1949,  p.  74,  1957, 
pp.  91-2. 

49.  Hoffmann,  no.  125,  p.  816;  cf.  Hamon,  no.  120,  pp.  841-8.  Radical:  Roger  Gaborit  at  a 
party  executive  in  1951,  cited  De  Tarr,  p.  158.  General  Koenig  in  1955  and  Andre"  Morice  in  1957 
conspicuously  used  their  offices  to  frustrate  their  colleagues  over  North  Africa  and  defence 
expenditure.  Honeymoon :  Delouvrier  in  Crise,  p.  86. 


Chapter  29 

PARTIES  AND  COALITIONS: 
(3)  CRISIS  AS  AN  INSTITUTION 

The '  system  of  mutual  neutralization '  maintained  French  politics  in  precarious 
equilibrium  as  long  as  no  major  decisions  had  to  be  taken,  but  it  disintegrated 
as  soon  as  they  could  no  longer  be  deferred.  The  deputies  of  the  majority  were 
not  the  ideological  fanatics  foreigners  often  thought  them,  tearing  the  country 
asunder  in  their  doctrinal  zeal;  on  the  contrary,  they  often  seemed  to  erect 
compromise  into  a  principle  and  to  prefer  office  to  ideology.  But  rapid  changes 
in  the  economy  at  home  and  the  French  position  in  the  world  posed  problems 
to  which  immobilisme  could  not  long  provide  an  answer.  To  the  men  who  had 
framed  the  constitution,  the  prime  minister  was  to  become  the  leader  of  a 
coherent  majority  and  the  motor  of  the  political  system.  To  those  who  worked 
it  -  mostly  the  same  men  -  he  began  as  the  broker  between  parties  struggling 
to  impose  or  prevent  decisions,  and  finished  as  'the  fuse  that  blows  whenever 
tension  rises'.1  Twelve  times  in  the  eleven  years  of  the  Fourth  Republic's  life 
the  fuse  blew,  and  provoked  a  cabinet  crisis.2 

Most  Assemblies  contained  several  alternative  majorities,  and  the  more 
there  were  the  less  stable  was  any  one  of  them.  The  *  king's  friends '  were  always 
in  them  and  the  enemies  of  the  regime  always  out,  but  the  'loyal  opposition' 
could  generally  count  on  a  'fifth  column*  of  sympathizers  within  the  majority 
and  even  the  ministry  it  was  attacking.  When  enough  of  the  discontented 
joined  the  fifth  column,  the  cabinet  fell.  An  effort  might  then  be  made  to  tempt 
the  loyal  opposition,  or  part  of  it,  by  offers  of  jobs  or  concessions  on  policy, 
and  if  it  succeeded  some  waverers,  attached  to  the  discarded  men  or  policies, 
would  retire  into  the  wilderness  as  the  new  loyal  opposition. 

Shifting  parliamentary  alignments  and  unstable  governments  generated  new 
incentives  to  political  fluidity.  In  Britain  almost  all  governments  enjoy  a  solid 
party  majority  which  sustains  them  from  one  general  election  to  the  next.  In 
the  United  States,  a  congressional  majority  which  is  often  negative,  undisci- 
plined and  incoherent  cannot  precipitate  a  vacancy  in  the  executive  branch. 
But  in  France  every  change  of  ministry  offered  new  opportunities  for  political 
promotion.  A  change  of  government  became  an  end  in  itself,  and  after  a  few 
months  in  office  most  premiers  had  usually  exhausted  their  political  credit  and 
physical  health  in  the  endless  battle  to  keep  the  majority  together. 

Although  the  careerist  ambitions  of  groups  or  men  caused  a  few  cabinet 
crises  and  contributed  to  them  all,  the  agents  of  disruption  were  generally 
those  who  were  in  the  old  majority  from  necessity  rather  than  choice.  Some- 
times a  party,  like  the  Socialists  in  1947-50  or  Mendes-France's  Radical 

1.  Paul  Reynaud,  JO  27  May  1953,  p.  2871. 

2.  In  addition,  three  premiers  were  elected  at  the  start  of  a  Parliament,  two  could  not  form  a 
cabinet,  and  five  survived  less  than  six  weeks  (two  of  whom  lasted  only  two  days).  Four  more 
had  been  chosen  before  the  regime  was  bora.  See  Appendix  n,  and  lists  in  Arne",  pp.  305-10, 
432. 


414  THE  SYSTEM 

friends  in  1956-57,  had  to  support  a  government  which  it  could  not  seriously 
influence  for  fear  that  it  would  lose  votes  or  credit  by  provoking  a  crisis. 
When  democracy  was  in  danger  all  government  parties  were  inhibited  from 
pressing  their  full  demands  for  jobs  or  policies.  Yet  as  the  regime  grew  more 
secure,  the  incumbent  ministry  became  weaker.  Pressure  from  the  country 
diminished,  making  it  less  necessary  for  the  competing  centre  groups  to 
behave  intransigently.  But  confidence  that  the  cabinet  could  now  be  over- 
thrown without  disaster  encouraged  them  to  insist  on  their  neglected  claims ; 
Mollet  met  his  first  parliamentary  trouble  when  by-elections  showed  a  sharp 
drop  in  Communist  and  Poujadist  votes.  The  parliamentary  equilibrium  was 
never  stable  and  while  short  ministries  might  be  a  sympton  of  political  malaise, 
the '  long '  cabinet  -  Queuille's,  Laniel's,  Mollet's  -  often  survived  only  because 
no  one  wished  to  confront  Parliament  and  public  with  dangerous  and  dis- 
ruptive problems.  'Those  who  think  only  of  the  general  interest,  harmed  by 
immobilisme,  and  those  who  think  only  of  their  private  interests,  harmed  by  a 
government  that  lasts,  both  want  the  ministry  to  fall ...  France  governs  her- 
self by  changing  her  governments.'3 

1.  THE  RULES  AND  THE  REFEREE 

Cabinet  crises  were  often  turning-points  in  the  shaping  of  policy  and  always  in 
the  struggle  for  power.  Elaborate  rules  were  therefore  devised  to  ensure  a 
minimum  of  fair  play.  The  most  conspicuous  feature  of  a  crisis  was  the  stately 
ritualism  of  the  public  procedure  -  though  it  could  not  always  prevent  subtle 
intrigues  behind  the  scenes  exerting  an  influence  on  the  outcome.  Some  of  the 
conventions  (regies  dujeii)  were  inherited  from  the  Third  Republic;  some  were 
modified  by  the  constitution  of  the  Fourth;  and  others  were  built  up  by  prac- 
tice to  deal  with  particular  situations  as  they  arose. 

When  a  premier  was  overthrown  it  was  the  task  of  the  President  of  the  Re- 
public, under  Article  45  of  the  constitution,  to  designate  a  candidate  for  the 
succession 6  after  the  customary  consultations'.4  After  Rene  Mayer's  defeat  on 
Thursday,  21  May  1953,  the  following  visitors  called  on  President  Auriol: 
Friday  morning :  the  first  vice-president  of  the  National  Assembly  (Herriot 
was  ill)  and  six  of  the  eleven  ex-premiers  who  sat  in  it.  Friday  afternoon :  the 
Presidents  of  the  Council  of  the  Republic,  Assembly  of  the  French  Union  and 
Economic  Council;  four  more  ex-premiers;  and  delegations  from  SFIO, 
RPF  and  MRP.  Saturday  morning :  five  party  delegations  (Radicals,  UDSR 
and  three  Conservative  groups);  the  eleventh  ex-premier;  and  Pierre  Cot, 
speaking  for  the  fellow-travelling  Progressives.  Saturday  afternoon :  the  last 
party  (the  Overseas  Independents)  and  the  rapporteurs-generaux  of  the  two 
finance  committees. 

The  President  could  now  begin  the  selection  of  a  candidate.  But  his  hands 
were  still  not  free,  for  convention  prescribed  the  order  in  which  each  party 
was  given  its  opportunity,  beginning  with  those  who  had  provoked  the  crisis 
and  continuing  with  those  who  prolonged  it.  The  dangerous  opposition  was 
excluded  from  the  list,  which  opened  with  the  loyal  opposition  (in  1953  a 
Socialist  and  then  a  Gaullist  were  asked  first,  as  a  matter  of  form).  No  one 

3.  Delouvrier  in  Crise,  p,  87.  4,  See  Arne",  p  47  and  n. 


PARTIES  AND  COALITIONS:   (3)   CRISIS  AS  AN  INSTITUTION      415 

(least  of  all  themselves)  expected  them  to  succeed,  since  the  old  government 
had  usually  been  upset  by  an  alliance  of  mutually  hostile  extremes.  The 
waverers  who  had  defected  from  the  defunct  majority  then  had  their  turn. 
Sometimes  their  leader  refused;  sometimes  he  would  undertake  a  mission 
d*  information  before  deciding;  occasionally  he  rdight  accept  and  begin  serious 
conversations.  If  he  made  no  real  effort,  other  parties  with  a  share  of  responsi- 
bility for  the  crisis  were  approached.  Once  one  of  them  made  a  genuine  effort 
and  failed,  the  party  that  stopped  him  became  responsible,  and  had  to  try 
next.  But  often  their  victim's  group  ensured  that  they  should  not  profit  from 
their  obstructiveness,  and  the  advantage  went  to  a  third  party  which  stood  (or 
had  given  the  impression  of  standing)  above  the  battle,  wreathed  in  osten- 
tatious virtue. 

The  candidate  needed  personal  as  well  as  party  qualifications.  An  opposi- 
tion leader  would  normally  hold  an  official  post  as  general  secretary  of  his 
party  or  chairman  of  its  deputies.  A  majority  spokesman  would  have  held 
one  of  the  five  highest  offices  or  a  senior  post  without  portfolio;  only  one  of 
the  Fourth  Republic's  fifteen  premiers  lacked  these  qualifications.5  A  politi- 
cian asked  to  stand  for  the  premiership  was  called  the  president  du  conseil 
sollicite  if  the  approach  was  very  tentative,  pressenti  if  it  was  firm;  on  accep- 
tance (often  preceded  by  a  trial  run  of  consultations,  tour  de  piste)  he  became 
the  president  designed  Until  1954  he  had  to  win  election  by  an  absolute  majority 
(becoming  investi),  form  his  cabinet  (making  him  at  last  president  du  conseil), 
and  even  then  secure  its  acceptance  by  the  deputies  (which  Schuman  failed  to 
do  in  September  1948  and  Queuille  in  July  1950).  After  1954  the  president 
designe  was  elected  by  a  simple  majority  after  first  forming  his  cabinet.  To 
the  prudent  politician  it  was  dangerous  as  well  as  disagreeable  to  fail  at  a  late 
stage,  for  this  often  caused  ill-feeling  between  parties  which  had  eventually  to 
agree  if  any  majority  was  to  be  found.  So,  of  the  59  politicians  sollicites  by 
Auriol,  only  24  agreed  to  confront  the  Assembly  as  candidates,  sitting  in 
splendid  isolation  on  the  empty  government  bench  to  present  their  pre- 
pared speeches,  answer  the  queries  of  their  friends,  and  evade  or  fall 
into  the  snares  laid  by  their  opponents.  Only  twelve  survived  the  entire 
ordeal.6 

The  absurd  side  of  these  'rites'  needs  no  emphasis.  The  gentlemen  who 
paraded  before  the  President  of  the  Republic,  each  of  them  entitled  to  be 
addressed  till  his  dying  day  as  Monsieur  le  President ,  were  not  necessarily  those 
best  able  to  help  him  in  his  task.  Presidents  of  the  Assembly  of  the  Union  and 
Economic  Council  rarely  had  much  political  influence,  while  among  the  ex- 
premiers  summoned  were  fidouard  Daladier,  the  man  of  Munich,  Jules  Moch, 
who  never  actually  headed  a  government,  Felix  Gouin  who  had  held  no  office 
since  the  wine  scandals  of  1946  -  but  not  the  great  critic  of  the  'rites',  General 
de  Gaulle.  Usually  the  largest  parties  came  first,  but  once  alphabetical  order 
was  thought  more  impartial. 

5.  Cf.  above,  pp.  205,  206  and  Arn6,  p.  94.  In  82  approaches  by  Presidents  Auriol  and  Coty, 
only  five  men  not  so  qualified  were  asked :  four  opposition  leaders  and  Antoine  Pinay. 

6.  Under  Coty  23  were  sollicites;  three  failed  in  the  Assembly  and  seven  succeeded.  Lists  (of 
pressentis)  in  Arne,  pp.  49-51,  307-10.  Cf.  Appendix  n. 


416  THE  SYSTEM 

Yet  the  rules  were  not  futile  and  archaic,  as  they  were  often  thought.  Con- 
ventions allowed  the  responsibilities  of  causing  or  continuing  a  crisis  to  be 
fastened  on  particular  groups  expert  in  avoiding  them.  If  a  party  overthrew  a 
government  when  it  could  not  impose  an  alternative,  the  rules  brought  home 
its  weakness  to  its  own  leaders,  and  its  responsibility  to  public  opinion.  They 
were  also  useful  both  to  facilitate  and  to  limit  the  role  of  the  President  of  the 
Republic.  He  needed  to  be  informed  of  the  chances  of  the  candidate  he  pro- 
posed. He  could  have  much  influence  on  the  course  and  terms  of  party  bar- 
gaining. Even  restrained  by  the  conventions,  he  could  impose  serious  obstacles 
to  a  candidate  he  disliked;  without  them  he  would  have  had  too  great  oppor- 
tunities for  illicit  influence.  For  the  offer  of  the  premiership  gave  a  man  or 
movement  a  standing  and  an  opportunity  others  might  resent.  When  Pinay 
was  nominated  in  1952  Gaullists  were  bitter  against  Auriol  for  splitting  their 
party  (but  had  he  not  really  meant  to  show  the  Right  that  no  defection  was  to 
be  hoped  for?).  Only  nine  months  later  Radicals  attacked  him  for  recognizing 
RP  F  as  part  of  the '  loyal  opposition '  by  an  approach  to  Soustelle  at  a  moment 
when  they  believed  it  could  have  been  split  again.  Conventions  both  restrained 
a  strong  President  from  abusing  his  office  and  encouraged  a  weak  one  not  to 
be  unduly  inhibited  by  fear  of  criticism. 

The  rules  left  the  President  a  wide  discretion  -  in  a  grave  emergency,  even 
that  of  settling  the  crisis  quickly  without  reference  to  them,  as  Auriol  attempted 
in  July  1948  and  when  the  Korean  war  began  in  June  1950.  They  allowed  him 
to  decide  which  opposition  parties  were  'loyal'  and  which  were  'dangerous': 
thus  Coty  resumed  consultations  with  the  Communists,  which  Auriol  had 
briefly  abandoned,  and  early  in  May  1958  made  a  confidential  approach  to 
General  de  Gaulle  himself.  They  left  the  President  to  assign  the  responsibility 
for  overthrowing  the  late  government,  which  was  not  always  obvious.7  And 
they  gave  him  a  wide  choice  of  men,  for  there  were  usually  about  twenty 
political  leaders  conventionally  qualified  for  the  premiership. 

This  discretion  had  to  be  used  with  care,  for  the  prestige  of  the  presidency 
was  damaged  by  failures  like  those  of  Leon  Blum  in  November  1947  and  Guy 
Mollet  in  March  1951  (especially  as  both  belonged  to  Auriol's  own  party)  and 
by  the  massacre  of  five  successive  candidates  in  May  and  June  1953. 8  To  avoid 
such  incidents  the  device  of  missions  d*  information  was  developed:  the  Presi- 
dent commissioned  a  political  leader  to  investigate  on  his  behalf  without 
either  man's  reputation  being  formally  engaged.  Until  AurioFs  last  year  only 
one  prospective  premier,  Bidault  in  October  1949,  accepted  nomination  with- 
out any  preliminary  inquiry  at  all.  About  half  the  candidates  undertook 
informal  missions  for  the  President,  and  so  did  three  men  who  were  not  can- 
didates, Robert  Lecourt  and  Andre  Marie  in  September  1948,  and  Guy 
Mollet  in  July  1950.  But  this  practice  met  growing  criticism  from  both  Right 
and  extreme  Left,  and  when  Mollet  was  chosen  the  Radicals  refused  to  discuss 
the  situation  with  anyone  but  a  premier-designate.  Missions  d' information 

7.  Arae,  pp.  53-4. 

8.  In  1949  Auriol  talked  of  resigning  if  Bidault,  like  Mayer  and  Moch,  failed  to  form  a  govern- 
ment: Fauvet  in  Monde,  26  October  1949.  On  1947  see  Sauvageot,  no.  195,  pp.  247-8;  on  1953, 
Fauvet,  IVe,  p.  240. 


PARTIES  AND  COALITIONS:   (3)  CRISIS  AS  AN  INSTITUTION      417 

were  less  used  thereafter,  but  Rene  Pleven  and  Robert  Schuman  undertook 
them  for  Coty  in  1957.9 

The  politicians  had  their  own  tactical  problems  which  were  the  obverse  of 
the  President's.  An  opposition  leader  might  refuse  an  offer  of  the  premiership 
at  once,  to  emphasize  his  party's  detachment  from  the  men  in  power  and  to 
avoid  the  humiliation  of  failure.  Alternatively  he  might  welcome  it  -  without 
taking  it  seriously  -  because  it  gave  him  a  chance  to  prepare  the  way  for  a 
genuine  effort  later,  an  opportunity  to  discredit  rival  parties  for  their  obstruc- 
tiveness,  a  platform  to  put  forward  an  attractive  election  programme,  or  even 
(to  the  Gaullists  in  1953)  a  certificate  of  republican  respectability.  Within  the 
majority  parties,  too,  different  leaders  might  take  different  views.  Prudent  and 
senior  men  often  preferred  not  to  stand  and  fail  -  or  succeed,  if  the  new 
ministry  was  likely  to  face  very  unpopular  decisions.  Between  1949  and  1953 
Bidault  and  Pleven  each  declined  five  separate  approaches.  Quite  frequently  a 
leader  would  reject  an  offer  early  in  a  crisis,  but  accept  a  few  days  later,  when 
the  situation  had  evolved.  (But  these  calculations  might  go  awry,  for  the 
*  snow-plough ',  called  in  to  clear  the  way  for  others,  sometimes  -  like  Pinay  in 
1952  -  went  ahead  and  made  the  journey  itself.)  Similarly  an  experienced 
politician,  looking  ahead,  might  decide  that  the  future  seemed  more  propitious 
than  the  present  and  bide  his  time  till  the  next  crisis.  In  January  1952  it  was 
known  that  the  Socialists  would  not  return  to  office  at  once  but  hoped  that 
they  might  do  so  later,  so  the  Radical  caciques  chose  to  wait  (in  vain)  for  the 
chance  of  a  relatively  comfortable  spell  in  office.  Then  the  President  would 
send  for  a  rising  young  man  with  his  way  to  make,  like  Edgar  Faure,  or  for  an 
older  leader  who  after  earlier  failures  dared  not  refuse  a  last  chance,  like  Ren6 
Mayer  a  year  later. 

If  the  shift  of  policy  required  to  reassemble  a  majority  was  expected  to  be  a 
minor  one  evoking  little  friction,  a  member  of  the  old  cabinet  was  often  asked 
to  form  the  new  one,  in  which  he  would  reserve  a  place  of  high  dignity  for  his 
recent  chief.  But  if  relations  within  the  old  majority  were  too  strained,  the 
President  was  more  likely  to  summon  a  weighty  personage  who  had  been  out 
of  office  long  enough  for  his  past  mistakes  to  be  overshadowed  by  the  current 
controversies  from  which  he  had  prudently  kept  detached.  Whenever  an 
attempt  was  made  to  win  over  a  section  of  the  loyal  opposition  there  were 
always  majority  leaders  who,  against  that  very  day,  had  carefully  cultivated 
friendly  relations  with  the  party  to  be  approached.  Georges  Bidault  was,  of  all 
leaders  of  the  Centre,  the  most  acceptable  to  RPF.  Antoine  Pinay  was  adept 
at  winning  conservatives  away  from  their  party  allegiance.  Pierre  Mendes- 
France  appealed  to  progressives  and  to  admirers  of  strong  leadership. 
Christian  Pineau  was  MRP's  favourite  left-winger  in  1955.  SFIO  could  be 
tempted  by  a  sympathetic  Radical:  Queuille  (or  Pleven)  in  the  first  Parliament, 
Mendes-France  in  the  second,  Bourges-Maunoury,  in  very  different  circum- 
stances, in  the  third. 

Normally,  therefore,  a  politician  was  made  *  available'  by  his  standing  with 

9.  AP 1957,  pp.  54, 102 ;  the  same  criticisms  were  heard.  For  missions  see  Arn6,  p.  48 ;  Georgel, 
i.  94-5 ;  Dansette,  Presidents,  pp.  269  and  324 ;  Williams,  p.  186n.  On  Auriol  and  Coty  see  above, 
pp.  201,  202.  Pleven's  mission  made  him  'available'  for  the  next  crisis:  Fauvet,  IV6,  p.  332. 


418  THE  SYSTEM 

other  parties  rather  than  with  his  own:  for  he  could  almost  always  count  on 
the  votes  (if  not  necessarily  the  goodwill)  of  members  of  his  own  group.10  But 
at  times  a  majority  party  had  to  be  made  to  swallow  distasteful  medicine, 
which  was  best  prescribed  by  a  doctor  in  whom  the  sufferers  had  confidence. 
In  March  1951  Queuille  was  chosen  to  persuade  his  Radical  friends  to  give 
way  over  electoral  reform,  and  in  January  1953  Bidault,  then  still  a  hero  to 
his  party,  was  the  natural  first  choice  to  remove  Robert  Schuman  from  the 
Quai  d'Orsay. 

Here,  too,  the  most  valuable  qualities  were  those  of  the  conciliator.  When  a 
cabinet  broke  up  through  internal  dissension,  as  so  many  did  before  1951,  the 
minister  who  had  tried  hardest  to  hold  it  together  was  often  invited  to  lead  its 
successor.  A  chance  to  solve  a  crisis  might  thus  be  a  reward  for  efforts  to  avert 
it,  as  with  Andr<§  Marie  in  1948  and  Jules  Moch  in  1949,  or  to  settle  a  previous 
crisis,  as  with  Guy  Moflet  in  1951.  Moderation,  caution  and  acceptability 
were  the  qualities  that  brought  success,  and  the  bold,  challenging,  uncom- 
fortable leader  could  rarely  hope  to  secure  even  a  precarious  and  fleeting  grip 
on  power.  His  opportunity  came  only  when  the  situation  was  not  merely 
desperate,  but  manifestly  seen  to  be  desperate  by  the  President,  the  rival 
caciques  and  the  ordinary  deputies  alike.11 

2.  THE  PLAYERS  AND  THE  MOVES 

Once  chosen,  the  premier-designate  assumed  the  immediate  responsibility  for 
solving  the  crisis.  He  too  undertook  the  'usual  consultations',  adding  to  his 
list  of  visitors  the  specialists  on  the  major  problem  of  the  day  -  treasury  and 
bank  officials  if  it  were  financial,  generals  if  it  were  military,  leaders  of  the  par- 
liamentary committees  in  any  event.  He  was  subjected  to  pressures  which 
grew  stronger  as  the  crisis  approached  solution.12  Men  sought  office  for  them- 
selves or  their  friends;  parties  struggled  to  preserve  or  extend  their  influence. 
An  interest-group  which  had  fought  the  last  government  would  naturally 
work  for  a  friendlier  successor;  but  a  group  which  had  no  responsibility  for 
the  crisis  was  not  debarred  from  exploiting  it,  whether  its  objective  was 
dearer  cider  or  no  European  army. 

Like  an  American  presidential  candidate,  the  nominee  had  to  try  not  to  tie 
his  own  hands  if  he  won  by  the  promises  made  to  secure  the  victory.  Jobs  had 
to  be  allotted  to  the  majority  parties  in  rough  proportion  to  their  numbers 
(Laniel  adjusted  them  to  favourable  votes),  and  while  the  deputies'  expectation 
of  office  might  help  a  candidate  for  the  premiership,  their  disappointment 
with  his  choice  was  sure  to  do  him  harm.13  The  individualist  parties  had 
always  thought  of  political  rewards  in  terms  of  spoils,  and  their  diverse  fac- 
tions were  hard  to  woo  by  other  means ;  so  governments  formed  by  Radical 
and  Conservative  premiers  averaged  34  members  to  28  in  MRP  or  Socialist- 
led  ministries  and  23  in  General  de  Gaulle's.  But  as  majorities  grew  harder  to 

10.  Exceptionally,  in  May  1958,  MRP  openly  blocked  Georges  Bidault.  But  in  1953  even 
Mendes-France's  bitterest  Radical  enemies  voted  for  him  (though  ardently  urging  others  not  to : 
Fauvet,  IVe,  pp.  238-9;  cf.  above,  p.  399  n.). 

11.  See  below,  p.  422.  On  conciliators  in  the  Third  Republic  see  Soulier,  pp.  484-5, 488,  494. 

12.  Arn6,  pp.  96-8.  See  below,  p.  432. 

13.  See  above,  p.  228  and  n. 


PARTIES  AND   COALITIONS:   (3)  CRISIS  AS  AN  INSTITUTION      419 

find  ministries  became  steadily  larger,  averaging  27  in  the  Constituent  Assem- 
blies, 28^  in  the  first  National  Assembly,  33  in  the  second  and  35  in  the  third.14 

A  prospective  premier  found  that  since  his  party  ties  and  personal  reputa- 
tion reassured  one  section  of  the  potential  majority,  his  policy  had  to  calm  the 
doubts  of  the  others :  consequently  in  October  1949  the  social  programme  of 
Rene  Mayer,  a  conservative  Radical,  was  more  progressive  than  that  of  Jules 
Moch  of  SFIO.  But  any  attempt  to  appease  one  group  of  waverers  would 
probably  provoke  an  equal  and  opposite  reaction  on  the  far  wing  of  the 
majority,  as  Schuman  found  in  September  1948  and  Queuille  in  July  1950.  The 
easy  way  out  was  to  evade  the  awkward  problem.  Pleven  appointed  an 
investigating  committee  on  the  Catholic  schools  question;15  this  prevented  it 
arising  throughout  his  first  cabinet,  though  he  returned  to  office  in  time  to  be 
plagued  by  it  a  year  later.  Rene  Mayer  in  January  1953  tried  by  ingenious 
equivocation  to  convince  MRP  that  he  favoured  the  European  army  and  the 
Gaullists  that  he  did  not. 

Shifts  and  evasions  might  discredit  those  who  used  them,  but  a  bold  move 
was  unlikely  to  meet  with  success,  at  least  at  the  start  of  a  crisis.  In  the  summer 
of  1953  Reynaud,  Mendes-France  and  Bidault  all  flatly  refused  to  negotiate 
with  the  parties.16  After  they  had  failed,  Andre  Marie  reverted  to  cautious 
conciliation  rather  than  harsh  instransigence,  appealed  to  tried  experience 
instead  of  youthful  vigour,  and  evaded  commitments  as  blatantly  as  his 
predecessors  had  welcomed  them:  the  performance  shamed  the  deputies  into 
giving  him  the  lowest  vote  of  all,  and  in  the  end  success  went  to  Joseph 
Laniel,  whose  haughty  attitude  proved  the  unexpected  prelude  to  a  year  of 
immobilisme  ending  at  Dien-Bien-Phu.  By  then  the  Assembly  was  so  hungry 
for  leadership  that  it  chose  Mendes-France.  Yet  even  he  could  not  avoid 
concessions.  He  made  no  promises  to  the  parties,  chose  his  own  ministers, 
ignored  the  customary  dosage  -  but  appointed  'Europeans'  and  'anti- 
Europeans'  in  equal  numbers  to  office;  and  having  proclaimed  a  year  before 
that  no  self-respecting  government  could  fail  to  stake  its  existence  on  the 
ED  C  treaty,  he  proceeded  to  resort  to  cabinet  neutrality  on  the  question  like 
any  Pleven  or  Queuille. 

By  allowing  the  European  army  to  be  defeated,  Mendes-France  earned  the 
bitter  hostility  of  MRP;  by  agreeing  to  German  rearmament  through 
NATO  instead,  he  made  enemies  of  the  Communists.  These  two  groups,  sup- 
porters of  his  liberal  policy  in  North  Africa,  joined  hands  with  its  opponents 
among  the  Conservatives  and  right-wing  Radicals  to  overthrow  him  on  it  in 
February  1955.  His  fall  led  to  a  typical  ministerial  crisis.17  Its  course  was 

14.  My  calculations  from  Arn6,  p.  101 ;  before  1951  no  ministry  had  more  than  35  members, 
later  over  half  did.  By  party:  Campbell,  no.  41,  p.  33.  In  1945-57,  324  appointments  were  given 
to  78  MRP  or  SFIO  members,  but  335  were  shared  between  119  Radicals,  Conservatives  and 
RS :  my  calculations  from  Dogan  and  Campbell,  no.  72,  p.  327.  Spoils  cf.  pp.  400,  438. 

15.  A  device  also  used  in  the  Fifth  Republic  (and  in  Britain). 

16.  The  Assembly  did  not  maintain  the  tone  of  the  candidates;  questions  to  Mendes-France, 
for  instance,  came  from  deputies  representing  the  neglected  overseas  departments  and  the  pros- 
perous but  greedy  cider  lobby.  Laniel  refused  to  answer  questions  (a  precedent  cited  and  followed 
by  de  Gaulle  in  June  1958).  JO  3  and  4  June  1953,  pp.  2913,  2958. 

17.  Except  that  his  government  had  included  much  of  the  normal  opposition  in  its  majority, 
while  most  of  the  normal  majority  opposed  it. 


420  THE  SYSTEM 

decided  by  MRP  which,  having  served  in  three  cabinets  of  the  Right  and 
opposed  one  of  the  Left,  was  now  determined  to  repudiate  the  welcoming 
conservative  embrace  and  reaffirm  its  allegiance  to  the  cause  of  progress. 

President  Coty's  first  nominee  was  Antoine  Pinay,  since  LanieFs  fall  the 
recognized  leader  of  the  Conservatives,  the  strongest  section  of  the  loyal 
opposition  and  indeed  of  the  Assembly.  He  had  been  out  of  office  for  two 
years  and  three  ministries.  His  popularity  with  the  Right  in  Parliament  and 
the  country  made  him  the  best  man  to  persuade  his  followers  to  accept  inevit- 
able concessions  in  North  Africa,  and  later  he  did  so  -  with  little  difficulty 
over  Tunisia  and  much  over  Morocco.  While  he  could  count  on  the  Right, 
he  needed  reinforcement  on  the  Left,  and  therefore  presented  a  very  pro- 
gressive economic,  social  and  colonial  programme.  But  for  MRP  to  support 
a  Conservative  would  have  printed  even  deeper  the  right-wing  brand  they 
were  determined  to  erase;  and,  faced  with  their  firm  opposition,  Pinay 
withdrew  without  seriously  trying  to  form  a  cabinet. 

The  crisis  thus  became  the  responsibility  of  MRP,  who  had  both  fought 
Mendes-France  and  checked  Pinay.  Neither  the  Radicals  nor  the  Conserva- 
tives, therefore,  had  reason  to  wish  them  well;  nor  had  either  the  Socialist 
supporters  of  Mendes-France  or  the  'anti-European'  Gaullists.  So  the  pros- 
pect for  an  MRP  candidate  was  poor,  and  the  choice  consequently  fell  on  a 
newcomer  to  the  front  rank,  Pierre  Pflimlin.  His  special  qualification  was  his 
responsible  attitude  over  German  rearmament;  when  nearly  all  the  MRP 
leaders  vented  their  rancour  at  the  defeat  of  EDC  by  voting  against  the 
treaties  which  replaced  it,  and  even  Robert  Schuman  abstained  for  the  sake  of 
party  unity,  Pflimlin  had  become  the  leading  supporter  of  the  agreements  in  the 
party.  This  was  enough  to  win  him  the  nomination,  but  not  the  premiership. 
Radical  friends  of  Mendes-France  did  not  intend  MRP  to  profit  from  its 
opposition  to  their  leader;  and  the  Radical  minority  opposed  to  him  claimed 
a  disproportionate  share  of  cabinet  posts  in  order  to  strengthen  their  influence. 
So  Pflimlin,  too,  abandoned  his  task. 

The  third  man  came  from  SFIO.  Christian  Pineau,  whose  parliamentary 
prestige  was  rising,  had  strongly  advocated  the  European  army.  Among  those 
who  had  supported  Mendes-France,  he  had  the  best  chance  of  winning  over 
MRP  -  overjoyed  to  proclaim  its  left-wing  loyalties  by  voting  for  a  Socialist. 
But  few  others  wished  to  abet  what  they  saw  as  MRP's  manoeuvre  to  escape 
the  consequence  of  its  past  actions,  and  even  Socialists  showed  little  en- 
thusiasm for  their  champion's  candidature.  Pineau's  ministerial  appoint- 
ments did  him  harm,  driving  even  the  Overseas  Independents  into  opposition. 
His  speech  to  the  Assembly  sounded  like  a  bid  for  votes  in  the  country 
rather  than  in  Parliament  (and  before  long  the  Socialist  election  campaign 
was  making  copious  reference  to  his  proposals).  So  the  Assembly  defeated 
him. 

As  Conservatives,  MRP  and  SFIO  had  all  tried  and  failed,  it  was  the 
Radicals'  turn.  Their  obvious  candidate  was  Edgar  Faure,  an  arch-conciliator 
who  had  served  as  minister  of  finance  under  both  the  Conservative  Laniel  and 
the  'New  Dealer*  Mendes-France.  As  a  man  with  friends  in  all  parties  he  was 
eminently  'available';  as  a  colleague  who  had  shared  responsibility  for 


PARTIES  AND  COALITIONS:   (3)   CRISIS  AS  AN  INSTITUTION      421 

Mendesist  policies,  he  would  blunt  his  late  leader's  formidable  attack;  and  as 
an  astute  politician  he  turned  into  an  asset  the  cabinet-making  problem  which 
had  damaged  his  predecessors,  giving  the  foreign  ministry  to  Pinay  and 
the  finance  ministry  to  Pffimlin  -  but  withholding  until  after  the  vote  the 
junior  posts  to  which  wavering  deputies  might  still  aspire.18 

These  proceedings  took  four  nominees  and  eighteen  days  to  arrive  at  an 
obvious  outcome,  widely  canvassed  before  the  crisis  began.  But  the  delay  was 
necessary,  for  the  solution  of  a  crisis  always  took  time.  At  first  the  parties  bar- 
gained hard  over  the  distribution  of  offices  and  the  direction  of  policy.  But 
their  intransigence  diminished  as  the  crisis  went  on :  for,  if  it  was  usually  un- 
popular to  overthrow  a  government,  it  was  almost  always  thought  dis- 
creditable to  prevent  one  being  formed.  So  the  mere  passage  of  time  brought 
pressure  on  a  party  which  was  being  'difficult'  because  it  feared  that  con- 
cessions might  cost  it  votes.  When  public  exasperation  mounted  so  high  that 
stubbornness  would  forfeit  more  support  than  conciliation,  the  crisis  was  ripe 
for  solution. 

Before  Edgar  Faure  could  emerge  in  February  1955,  his  rivals  had  to  be 
chastened.  The  Conservatives  had  to  be  shown  that  they  could  not  themselves 
prevail,  and  must  accept  a  premier  more  liberal  than  they  would  have  liked. 
MRP  had  to  face  its  extreme  unpopularity  and  moderate  its  terms.  The 
operation  Pineau,  long  canvassed  in  the  lobbies,  was  needed  to  prove  to  its 
advocates  that  a  pro-European  combination  of  the  Left  did  not  have  the  votes. 
Wearing  down  resistance  and  'clearing  off  the  mortgage'  were  necessary 
preliminaries  to  a  solution,  and  in  twelve  of  the  Fourth  Republic's  eighteen 
elections  of  a  premier,  three  candidates  had  to  be  discarded  before  a  winner 
emerged.19 

These  prolonged  negotiations  oifered  every  opportunity  for  manoeuvres  by 
parties  or  pressure-groups  to  obscure  and  shift  the  responsibility  for  their 
actions.  In  July  1950,  Georges  Bidault  decided  not  to  stand  for  election 
because  S  F I O  was  plainly  against  him ;  a  successor  was  picked,  for  whom  the 
Socialists  at  once  virtuously  announced  that  they  would  of  course  vote  -  as 
for  any  other  republican  candidate  who  might  be  proposed.  In  June  1957, 
when  Pierre  Pflimlin  was  a  candidate,  SFIO  put  forward  impossible  con- 
ditions for  its  support;  when  Bourges-Maunoury  was  nominated  instead,  the 
conditions  were  forgotten.  The  polite  gesture  was  popular  only  when  it  cost 
nothing  (though  occasionally  by  miscalculation  it  returned  a  Pinay,  who 
won  such  support  in  the  country  that  his  many  enemies  preferred  not  to  risk 
the  odium  of  removing  him  from  office).20 

The  President's  craft  therefore  lay  in  his  timing.  If  he  put  forward  his 
favourite's  name  too  soon,  the  candidate  would  fail  and  his  own  prestige 
might  suffer.  But  if  he  misjudged  the  proper  moment  and  waited  too  long,  a 
nominee  might  succeed  who  had  been  expected  -  or  intended  -  to  fail.  He 
could  not  hurry,  for  skimped  bargaining  meant  a  precarious  settlement,  and 

18.  Gossip  said  he  had  promised  sixty-two.  Cf.  below,  p.  432. 

19.  List  in  Arn6,  pp.  307-10.  Of  23  premiers  elected  in  1947-58, 3  were  chosen  after  an  election ; 
12  settled  a  crisis;  3  lasted  less  than  six  weeks,  and  so  merely  interrupted  one;  4  were  'stillborn' 
counted  in  the  text  as  unsuccessful  candidates) :  the  last  was  de  Gaulle.  Cf.  n.  2. 

(20.  SFIO :  AP  1950,  p.  128,  1957,  pp.  58-60.  Pinay:  above,  p.  228. 


422  THE  SYSTEM 

cabinets  put  together  within  two  weeks  generally  fell  apart  within  six.21  He  had 
to  try  to  avoid  that  acute  temptation  in  a  long  crisis,  a  patched-up  truce  which 
decided  none  of  the  problems  at  stake.  For  cabinets  where  advocates  of  con- 
tradictory policies  sat  side  by  side  either  broke  up  as  soon  as  a  choice  had  to 
be  made,  like  Marie's  in  1948,  or  survived  by  postponing  decisions,  like 
Mayer's  and  LaniePs  in  1953-54.  Such  impotent  combinations  did  even  more 
harm  to  the  political  system  than  prolonged  crises. 

But  here  the  President  of  the  Republic  could  play  a  decisive  if  only  a 
negative  role.  Though  he  could  not  impose  a  candidate  he  could,  and  in  the 
Third  Republic  often  did,  systematically  exclude  the  strong  (or  dangerous) 
leader  from  power.  Mendes-France  had  his  opportunities  in  1953  and  1954 
only  because  Vincent  Auriol  and  Ren6  Coty  so  chose.  He  was  denied  a  third 
in  1956  because  Coty  sent  for  the  other  leader  of  the  Republican  Front,  Guy 
Mollet  (who  was  the  chief  of  its  largest  party;  more  acceptable  to  the  MRP 
waverers  without  whose  votes  the  new  ministry  would  depend  on  Com- 
munist support;  and  less  hated  by  the  Algerian  settlers  and  their  friends  in 
Parliament).  Again,  in  1957  and  1958  Coty  gave  no  nomination  to  the  rising 
leader  of  the  Left  opposition,  Francois  Mitterrand,  for  fear  of  the  probable 
settler  and  army  reaction  in  North  Africa.22  The  strong  leader  was  dependent 
for  an  opening  on  the  President's  goodwill  and  judgment  (or  perhaps  mis- 
judgment);  and  it  was  the  President's  task  to  choose  when  to  confront 
politicians  and  parties  ~  and  voters  -  with  the  consequences  of  their  own 
decisions  and  policies.  In  a  particular  crisis  he  had  to  find  the  man  and  the 
moment  for  a  solution;  in  a  whole  term  of  office,  to  pick  the  crisis  at  which  a 
necessary  psychological  shock  could  most  effectively  be  administered  to  Par- 
liament and  the  country  -  as  Auriol  did  in  May  and  June  1953,  and  Coty  had 
planned  to  do,  even  before  the  riots,  in  May  1958.23 

3.  LOSSES  AND  GAINS 

These  ministerial  crises  fulfilled  an  essential  function.  Given  the  system,  they 
were  not  the  futile  aberrations  they  were  generally  supposed  to  be  (by  French- 
men even  more  than  foreigners),  but  met  a  need :  'to  use  new  combinations  of 
men,  and  the  restlessness  which  a  vacuum  of  power  creates,  to  restore  a  new 
inspiration  to  the  government  of  the  Republic . .  ,'24  Naturally  some  politicians 
saw  -  or  made  -  in  them  opportunities  to  advance  their  careers.  But  in  doing 
so  they  had  to  attach  their  fortunes  to  a  problem  of  public  policy,  and  might 
even  contribute  to  its  solution. 

None  the  less  the  drawbacks  were  grave.  The  game  of  making  and  un- 
making cabinets  so  absorbed  and  fascinated  the  players  that  sometimes  they 
forgot  the  outside  world  altogether.  In  1949  the  King  of  Cambodia  spent  three 

21.  From  1948  the  only  exceptions  were  the  cabinets  of  Pinay  and  Mendes-France,  who  won 
by  surprise  and  then  enlisted  public  opinion  to  overawe  the  deputies,  and  Mollet,  the  first  premier 
after  an  election.  On  the  length  of  crises  see  Arn6,  pp.  199-200,  208,  303,  305-10 ;  Georgel  i  105 
107;  above,  p.  229,  and  Appendix  n.  '  ' .       ' 

22.  But  the  press  suggestions  that  he  might  were  perhaps  intended  to  produce  the  army 
reactions  that  deterred  him :  see  Arn6,  p.  56n.  Mollet :  Fauvet,  IVe,  p.  308. 

23.  See  above,  pp.  40, 55.  For  some  presidential  misjudgements  see  Fauvet,  IVe  pp  164  249 

24.  Isorni,  Silence,  p.  99.  Cf.  Arne,  pp.  302-4,  320-4;  Georgel,  i.  131-8. 


PARTIES  AND   COALITIONS:   (3)   CRISIS  AS  AN  INSTITUTION      423 

weeks  in  France  waiting  for  a  government  with  which  to  negotiate  a  treaty. 
In  December  1951  the  Assembly  voted  the  expenditure  for  1952,  then  over- 
threw two  cabinets  on  their  proposals  for  meeting  it  -  and  the  deficit  mounted 
daily  as  the  crisis  continued.  In  1957  a  parliamentary  delegation  was  in  Peru 
when  Mollet  fell,  and  another  in  Japan  when  his  successor  was  defeated;  every 
deputy  at  once  flew  home,  leaving  the  senators  to  represent  France.  Edgar 
Faure  deplored  the  'psychological  perversion  which  makes  us  live  here  in  a 
pre-crisis  atmosphere  .  .  .  of  perpetual  tension'.25 

For  the  fact  of  instability  created  an  expectation  of  instability.  '  In  the  houses 
of  Parliament  and  in  the  local  parties  the  frequent  crises  keep  hope  and 
excitement  alive.'  The  prospect  of  office  was  not  the  only  stimulus  to  specula- 
tion on  the  succession.  A  parliamentarian  might  hope  to  sell  his  ideas  and 
policies,  as  well  as  his  services,  to  an  incoming  premier.  A  high  civil  servant, 
discontented  with  his  political  master,  could  play  for  time  until  the  next 
arrived.  A  pressure-group,  offended  by  the  decision  of  a  minister  or  cabinet, 
had  only  to  await  -  or  provoke  -  the  next  crisis  and  then  use  its  influence  on 
marginal  deputies  to  demand  better  treatment.  'Parties,  groups  and  members 
set  conditions  for  voting  investiture  or  confidence.  Many  decisions  take  root 
at  these  times.  Instability  weakens  the  administration's  power  of  resistance  .  .  . 
the  pressure-group  leaders  are  themselves  subject  to  their  members'  vote. 
What  one  minister  has  refused  the  next  may  grant.  So  they  must  ceaselessly 
renew  the  attack  .  .  ,'26  The  alcohol  interest  recouped  under  Laniel  what  it  had 
lost  under  Mayer,  and  many  of  Mendes-France's  measures  against  it  were 
reversed  under  Faure.  Like  the  North  African  settlers,  the  trade  unions  and 
the  peasant  organizations,  the  alcohol  lobby  had  a  hand  in  causing  several 
crises  (although  the  parties  might  in  any  case  have  provoked  some  of  them  of 
their  own  accord).27 

Ministers  were  always  tempted  to  postpone  necessary  but  unpopular 
decisions  of  which  they  could  not  hope  to  reap  the  fruits  -  and  then  'freely 
to  discourse  on  how  they  would  have  managed  the  situation  they  bequeathed 
to  their  successors'.  The  fact  of  instability  might  enable  them  to  escape  from 
their  rasher  promises:  and  the  prospect  of  it  encourage  them  to  make  more.28 
Parties  were  unwilling  to  offend  a  rival  or  an  interest  whose  support  they 
might  need  in  the  next  crisis,  and  had  no  incentive  to  exchange  the  major 
mutual  concessions  which  alone  could  have  turned  a  temporary  alliance  into  a 
lasting  majority.  When  the  loyal  opposition  found  its  road  to  office  (if  not 
power)  through  the  ministerial  crisis  rather  than  the  general  election,  it  had  no 
need  to  mobilize  the  support  or  indignation  of  public  opinion  outside.29 

25    JO  23  February  1958,  p.  923.  M.  Goguel  drew  my  attention  to  the  1957  incidents. 
26!  Delouvrier,  Crtse,  pp.  86-7  (from  start  of  paragraph).  Cf.  Huron,  p.  132  ^ 

27.  Settlers:  against  Mendes-France,  Bourges-Maunoury,  Gaillard  and  Pflimhn.  Unions. 
Marie  Queuille  (1949),  Pleven  (1952).  Peasants:  Mayer,  Mollet  (both  in  1951,  when  he  was  not 
elected  premier,  and  in  1957),  and  Bourges-Maunoury.  Alcohol:  Pinay,  Mayer  and  Mend<bs- 


it  to  Dr.  D.  B.  Goldey  and  the  next  point  to  Dr.  M.  Hamson.  On  promises,  cf.  Buron,  p.  209. 
29.  Brindillac,  no.  29,  pp.  55-7. 


424  THE  SYSTEM 

Responsibility  was  diffused  over  men  and  parties  which  were  all  partly  in 
power  and  partly  out,  never  holding  it  long  enough  or  clearly  enough  for  any 
credit  to  accrue  to  them  from  a  success  or  for  any  blame  to  be  fastened  on 
them  for  a  failure.  'When  the  general  election  comes  the  voter  finds  that  for 
five  years  the  government  has  consisted  of  everybody  and  nobody.'30 

As  no  one  could  be  judged  on  their  record  over  a  period,  a  general  election 
was  not  an  occasion  for  the  voter  to  reward  or  punish  his  rulers.  Between 
elections,  therefore,  ministers,  majorities  and  oppositions  alike  could  behave 
irresponsibly  without  risking  too  serious  a  penalty.  But  the  parliamentarians 
took  pains  to  reduce  the  risk  still  further  by  minimizing  the  intervention  of 
public  opinion  in  their  affairs,  and  thereby  bought  immunity  for  personal  or 
party  misdeeds  at  the  cost  of  further  weakening  the  hold  of  the  regime  on  the 
citizens. 

Now  and  then  a  crisis  broke  on  an  indifferent  country  solely  because  of  a 
domestic  dispute  in  the  'house  without  windows*.  Sometimes  one  party 
would  manoeuvre  another  into  upsetting  a  government  which  both  were 
determined  to  destroy:  so  the  Radicals  managed  to  delay  their  attack  on 
Pinay  until  after  family  allowances  appeared  on  the  Assembly's  agenda  - 
when  MRP  had  to  take  the  responsibility  of  removing  him.  Rebellious 
deputies  whose  motives  were  particularly  discreditable  tried  to  find  a  lofty 
pretext:  Mendes-France  complained  of  opponents  who  talked  North  Africa 
while  voting  alcohol.31  But  at  least  as  frequently  the  politicians  chose  to  over- 
throw a  cabinet  on  a  relatively  trivial  matter,  for  fear  that  an  open  clash  on  a 
major  problem  of  policy  might  make  it  harder  than  ever  to  reunite  a  majority 
behind  the  next  government.  When  tension  was  high  a  party  might  be  forced 
to  take  that  risk  in  order  to  retain  its  support  in  the  country,  as  the  Socialists 
were  in  1948  and  1949.  But  thereafter  the  crucial  disputes  were  kept  in  the 
background,  and  no  government  was  overthrown  on  German  rearmament,  or 
on  Indo-China  till  after  Dien-Bien-Phu.  Indeed  the  emergence  of  North 
African  problems  into  the  forefront  in  the  later  years  was  a  sign  that  some 
players  were  no  longer  observing  the  rules  of  a  game  in  which  the  stakes  had 
become  alarmingly  high.  The  decisive  leader  who  tried  to  cut  through  the 
tangle,  impose  unwelcome  choices,  expose  clear  responsibilities  and  appeal  to 
public  opinion  found  his  one  opportunity  in  such  desperate  circumstances. 
But  he  also  committed  the  supreme  affront  to  his  sovereign  parliamentary 
colleagues.32 

These  habits,  devices  and  conventions  had  a  common  consequence:  le 
peuple  absent?*  Sometimes  because  they  were  behaving  irresponsibly  and 
knew  it,  but  equally  when  they  felt  a  deep  responsibility  not  to  widen  the 
divisions  among  Frenchmen,  the  parliamentarians  tried  to  avoid  a  clear-cut 
choice  of  men  or  measures  being  presented  to  the  voter.  He  did  not  under- 
stand the  politicians'  game  because  they  were  careful  he  should  not.  He  resented 
his  inability  to  participate  in  the  decisions  of  the  authorities  -  and  by  voting 

30.  Grosser,  p.  51.  Cf.  Edgar  Faure,  JO  2  November  1955,  p.  5490.  For  the  parties'  efforts 
to  shift  the  blame  for  North  African  repression  see  Williams,  no.  168,  p.  167.  Cf.  below,  p.  434. 

31.  JO  3  December  1954,  p.  5575.  32.  See  below,  p.  440. 
33.  Duverger,  Demain,  pp.  21-6. 


PARTIES  AND   COALITIONS:   (3)  CRISIS  AS  AN  INSTITUTION      425 

Communist  or  Poujadist  ensured  that  the  authorities  would  do  their  best  to 
keep  him  from  participating.  He  condemned  the  regime  for  its  failures  (or 
successes)  of  policy  but  most  of  all  for  its  failure  of  style.  At  each  crisis  the 
newsreels  showed  the  procession  of  politicians  on  the  filysee  steps,  and  the 
laughter  in  the  cinemas  became  increasingly  tinged  with  exasperation.  A 
ministry  of  information  film,  showing  them  all  in  quick  succession,  was 
among  the  most  effective  devices  of  Gaullist  propaganda  for  the  referendum 
on  the  new  constitution  in  1958. 

Yet  the  people  were  present  more  than  they  realized.  Outside  forces,  ignored 
or  underestimated  by  the  parliamentarians,  still  set  limits  to  their  freedom  of 
action.  The  deputies,  having  surprised  themselves  by  electing  Pinay  and 
Mendes-France,  did  not  dare  to  remove  them  for  several  months.  The  tacti- 
cians who  upset  a  precarious  equilibrium  in  the  hope  of  improving  their 
position  often  found  instead  that  they  had  weakened  it.  From  1947  to  1951 
the  Socialists  normally  provoked  crises  -  but  the  Right  profited  from  them. 
In  1952  MRP  abandoned  Pinay  -  and  Robert  Schuman  had  to  leave  the 
foreign  office.  In  1955  the  North  African  settlers'  leaders  overthrew  Mendes- 
France  for  his  liberal  policies  in  Tunisia  -  and  found  that  his  successor 
extended  them  to  Morocco.  In  1958  the  Algerian  diehards  brought  down 
Gaillard  -  and  exposed  their  own  weakness  in  Parliament,  which  they  could 
redress  only  by  instigating  military  sedition  across  the  Mediterranean.  For  all 
its  faults,  the  System  did  not  enable  the  inhabitants  of  the  'house  without 
windows'  to  defy  any  real  movement  of  opinion  outside. 

Adjustments  in  the  political  balance  occur  -  or  rather  show  themselves  - 
more  frequently  in  multi-party  systems  than  in  two-party  politics.  But  there 
too  alignments  and  public  moods  change,  and  British  by-elections  or  Ameri- 
can mid-term  elections  affect  the  men  in  power.  Administrations  do  not  resign, 
but  they  do  change  course  to  respond  to  new  directions  of  the  wind,  as  Attlee's 
Labour  government  found  prudent  in  1947,  Eisenhower's  Republicans  in 
1955,  Macmillan's  Conservatives  in  1962.  Despite  its  reputation  the  French 
Assembly  was  highly  sensitive  to  such  movements  in  the  electorate.  But  in 
Paris  a  new  policy  was  less  likely  than  in  London  or  Washington  to  be  earned 
out  by  exactly  the  men  responsible  for  the  old  one. 

Many  crises  facilitated  or  followed  from  such  changes  of  public  mood, 
reflected  in  shifts  in  the  composition  of  the  majority.  Parties  moving  from 
opposition  to  office  progressed  by  stages;  the  Gaullists  were  warned  in  January 
1953  that  'it's  a  long  way  from  purgatory  to  paradise'.  A  couple  of  minor 
offices  were  bestowed  on  the  dissidents  who  had  left  them  nine  months  earlier 
to  support  Pinay,  while  the  main  body  began  to  work  its  passage  by  voting 
for  Mayer  and  supporting  his  government.  After  the  next  crisis  both  wings 
were  represented  in  the  cabinet.  Conversely  a  declining  party  yielded  ground 
gradually,  like  SFIO  in  the  first  Parliament  or  MRP  in  the  second. 

Other  crises  were  the  precise  equivalent  of  a  British  government  reshuffle, 
except  that  the  prime  minister  himself  changed.  They  gave  an  opportunity  to 
bring  in  new  blood,  remove  unsuccessful  ministers,  and  create  an  impression 

34.  See  above,  p.  405, 


426  THE  SYSTEM 

(or  illusion)  of  fresh  minds  at  work.35  When  a  British  or  American  cabinet 
minister  becomes  vulnerable,  critics  concentrate  their  assault  against  the 
individual;  in  France  they  tried  to  use  him  to  bring  the  whole  government 
down.  But  the  consequences  of  their  success  were  not  very  different,  for  in 
most  crises  the  turnover  of  personnel  was  small:  about  half  the  old  ministers 
kept  the  same  places,  half  the  rest  moved  to  new  posts  and  a  quarter  went  out 
of  office.  And  of  the  23  premiers  elected  under  the  Fourth  Republic,  16  had 
belonged  to  the  cabinet  which  preceded  their  own  and  12  joined  the  one  which 
followed  it.36  This  practice  mitigated  some  consequences  of  ministerial 
instability  but  aggravated  others.  Continuity  was  greater  than  it  looked  but 
solidarity  less,  since  a  minister  might  further  his  own  career  by  well-timed 
disloyalty  to  his  chief,  and  responsibility  was  hard  to  fasten  on  men  who  were 
generally  in  office  but  frequently  exchanged  functions. 

Conducting  in  the  open  manoeuvres  which  elsewhere  are  concealed  if  not 
always  prevented,  the  System  gave  wide  scope  for  easy  irony  against  the 
politician  who  accepted  office  (for  his  greed  and  impatience)  or  refused  it  (for 
his  'flight  from  responsibility')  or  survived  in  it  (for  his  resigned  conviction 
that  delay  would  dispose  of  most  troublesome  problems).37  It  permitted 
Englishmen  or  Americans  whose  decision-making  process  is  paralysed  for 
half  a  year  in  every  four  to  view  with  complacent  alarm  the  interruption  of 
government  from  which  France  suffered  during  one  month  in  every  eight.  Yet 
the  crisis  was  also  a  decision-making  device,  *a  method  of  government  by 
shock  treatment'.38 

On  a  grave  problem,  leaders  or  parties  who  felt  strongly  -  or  thought  their 
voters  felt  strongly  -  might  resist  all  attempts  at  decision  or  concession.  Then 
the  sacrifice  of  a  cabinet  might  be  the  price  of  a  solution.  Responsibility,  so 
hard  to  fix  in  a  multi-party  system,  could  at  last  be  brought  home  to  the 
recalcitrant  party.  The  blame  for  governmental  instability  was  attached  to 
the  party  leaders,  and  the  cost  of  insisting  on  their  policies  made  plain  to 
their  voters,  so  that  reasons  of  electoral  prudence  were  brought  into  the 
scales  to  weigh  against  intransigence.  Obliged  to  face  the  facts  they  hoped 
to  dodge,  politicians  repeatedly  conceded  to  the  new  premier  the  very 
demands  on  which  they  had  overthrown  his  predecessor:  electoral  reform  to 
Queuille  in  1951,  special  powers  to  Laniel  in  1953,  Tunisian  autonomy  to 
Faure  in  1 955,  higher  taxes  to  Bourges-Maunoury  in  1957,  an  Algerian  reform 
bill  to  Gaillard  in  1958  -  and  appeasement  of  Bourguiba  to  de  Gaulle  later 
that  summer.  All  too  frequently  a  year  with  no  crisis  meant  a  year  with  no 
policy,  and  the  continued  presence  of  a  group  of  ministers  distracted  attention 
from  the  absence  of  a  government. 

Every  crisis  did  not  produce  a  political  decision.  A  very  difficult  problem 
might  bedevil  and  finally  terminate  the  life  of  several  cabinets.  A  financial 

35.  This  was  especially  necessary  in  France  because  of  the  strain  on  the  health  of  ministers, 
particularly  the  premier:  Isorni,  Silence,?.  98;  Siegfried,  De  la  IHe,  p.  239;  Arne",  pp.  112n., 
246;  P.  Courant,  JO  11  March  1958,  p.  1523;  Andrews,  no.  3,  p.  497;  Edgar  Faure,  quoted 
Fauvet,  IV*,  p.  191. 

36.  See  Arne",  p.  94;  Georgel,  i,  135-7,  cf.  273n.;  and  above,  p.  206. 

37.  As  throughout  Leites,  On  the  Game  of  Politics  in  France. 

38.  Edgar  Faure  in  Monde,  27  March  1953.  Cf.  Sinus  (Hubert  Beuve-M6ry)  in  ibid.,  30  April 
1958;  Fauvet,  Cockpit,  pp.  39-40,  Dechiree,  p.  34;  Arne",  pp.  302-4  and  n. ;  above,  p.  414, 


PARTIES  AND   COALITIONS:   (3)   CRISIS  AS  AN  INSTITUTION      427 

policy  to  satisfy  both  Socialists  and  Conservatives  proved  as  hard  to  find  in  the 
first  and  third  Assemblies  of  the  Fourth  Republic  as  it  would  have  been  in  the 
House  of  Commons  if  there,  too,  both  parties  had  been  needed  to  form  any 
majority.  In  1948  the  impossibility  of  a  frankly  Conservative  policy  was  shown 
by  Marie's  downfall,  and  of  a  Socialist  one  by  Schuman's  defeat  a  week  later; 
the  crises  of  1949  and  1950  merely  indicated  that  subsequent  governments  had 
to  keep  to  the  same  narrow  and  treacherous  path.  In  1957  a  long  autumn 
crisis  ended  in  an  equally  precarious  equilibrium,  soon  upset  by  the  more 
desperate  problems  of  North  Africa.  When  a  major  decision  was  needed, 
instead  of  a  premier  tackling  a  question,  the  question  might  dictate  the  choice 
of  a  premier  -  as  defeat  in  Indo-China  brought  Mendes-France  to  power  in 
1954.39 

Governmental  instability  was  not  an  ideal  device  for  taking  major  decisions 
(though  the  record  of  the  1950's  does  not  suggest  that  Britain  or  the  United 
States  have  found  the  best  mechanism  either).  The  French  method  detached 
political  choices  too  far  from  public  opinion,  and  encouraged  decision-makers 
to  seek  power  while  avoiding  responsibility.  When  parliamentary  govern- 
ment was  in  danger  parties  made  sacrifices  to  keep  cabinets  in  being,  but  their 
ability  to  compromise  was  limited  by  fear  of  losing  support  to  the  enemies  of 
the  regime.  When  it  was  safe,  the  risks  of  a  crisis  were  less  and  parties  could 
give  freer  reign  to  their  appetites,  electoral  interests,  and  ideological  impera- 
tives. But  even  at  best  the  range  of  political  opinions  required  to  support  a 
ministry  was  so  great  that  there  were  always  wide  and  genuine  differences  of 
view.  If  the  governmental  parties  did  not  succeed  in  neutralizing  one  another's 
pressures,  cabinets  lost  office  and  politicians  generally  lost  reputation;  if  they 
did,  choices  were  deferred  until  external  events  imposed  a  decision.  Either  the 
ministerialists  were  many  and  deadlocked  by  disagreement,  or  they  were 
agreed  but  too  few  to  win.  Three  months  before  the  regime  collapsed  a  dis- 
illusioned minister  remarked  sadly  that  for  forty  years  the  opposition  had  had 
a  majority  in  Parliament.  'The  majority  is  a  de  facto  provisional  association 
with  no  formal  basis,  constituted  out  of  weariness  after  a  long  interregnum  by 
the  temporary  aggregation,  without  the  slightest  commitment,  of  the  ballot- 
papers  of  deputies  on  their  way  into  opposition.'40 

39.  Moraz£,  p.  152.  Cf.  Georgel,  i.  131-2. 

40.  Robert  Lecourt  (MRP),  JO  14  February  1958,  p.  788  (and  AP 1958,  pp.  20-1). 


P* 


Chapter  30 
THE  MEN  AND  THE  SYSTEM 

An  Assembly  with  the  responsibility  for  choosing  and  sustaining  a  govern- 
ment, yet  with  a  vocation  to  check  its  actions  and  a  deep  suspicion  of  its 
motives,  was  a  novelty  to  observers  from  the  English-speaking  world.  Like 
American  senators,  French  deputies  belonged  to  an  Institution.1  The  Third 
Republic  guarded  against  the  dangers  of  proletarian  revolution  or  backward- 
looking  autocracy  or  plebiscites  manipulated  by  a  popular  dictator  by  requir- 
ing legitimate  political  action  to  be  mediated  through  a  sovereign  Parliament: 
an  arrangement  which  naturally  gave  political  and  psychological  satisfaction 
to  generations  of  parliamentarians.  Six  years  after  its  downfall  a  Constituent 
Assembly  of  new  men  from  the  Resistance,  nearly  all  of  whom  condemned 
and  repudiated  the  pre-war  regime,  found  the  fears  that  had  inspired  it  and  the 
habits  it  had  created  too  strong  for  them.  Their  new  system  rapidly  came  to 
resemble  the  old  one. 

The  habits  and  the  fears  were  both  important.  The  obscure  parliamentary 
game,  so  suspected  and  disapproved  by  the  voters,  could  flourish  only  in  an 
Assembly  with  no  majority  -  and  there  was  no  majority  because  the  voters 
chose  deputies  to  restrain  and  not  to  maintain  a  government.  The  members 
were  proud  of  their  vocation  to  protect  the  citizen  against  the  authorities  -  and 
gratified  by  the  frequent  opportunities  they  enjoyed  to  humble  the  men  in 
power.  Parliamentarians  mistrusted  mass  pressure  from  without,  having  good 
historical  reason  to  do  so  -  and  disliking  interference  with  their  own  freedom 
of  action.  With  authority  fragmented,  and  responsibility  diffused,  neither  the 
deputy  nor  the  party  nor  the  political  leader  found  it  easy  to  use  the  parlia- 
mentary system  to  pursue  positive  policies.  But  as  the  greatest  of  parliamen- 
tary managers  once  boasted,  'An  assembly  has  at  least  as  many  weaknesses  as 
qualities.  It  is  most  important  to  know  how  to  use  the  weaknesses.  '2 

1.   TYPES  OF  ACTIVITY 

The  outlook,  temperament  and  interests  of  the  members  were  as  diverse  in 
Parliament  as  in  any  collection  of  a  thousand  people.  Many  of  them  never 
tried  to  make  a  reputation.  Nearly  all  overseas  deputies  concerned  themselves 
exclusively  with  the  problems  of  their  own  territories,  and  most  peasant  mem- 
bers were  equally  parochial.  The  mayor  of  a  large  city,  whose  task  was  absorb- 
ing, time-consuming  and  almost  wholly  unpaid,  might  enter  Parliament  to 
earn  a  living  or  gain  influence  with  the  remote  administration  in  Paris  on 
whom  his  success  so  largely  depended;  once  there,  he  was  unlikely  to  find  his 
parliamentary  work  so  satisfying  as  to  supersede  his  municipal  preoccupations. 
Some  politicians,  especially  those  who  had  been  active  before  the  war,  con- 
centrated almost  exclusively  on  building  up  an  impregnable  position  by  favours 

1.  Cf.  W.  S.  White,  Citadel:  The  Story  of  the  U.S.  Senate  (New  York,  1956). 

2.  Briand,  quoted  J.  Kessel  and  G.  Suarez,  Le  onze  mai  (1924),  p.  42. 1  owe  this  quotation  to 
Dr.  D.  B.  Goldey. 


THE  MEN  AND  THE  SYSTEM  429 

to  constituents.  This  kind  of  activity  was  commonest  among  rural  deputies  but 
it  could  be  profitable  in  Paris.  Many  conscientious  members  toiled  away  use- 
fully in  silence  -  like  M.  Grimaud,  the  Alpine  MRP  member  who  undertook 
the  herculean  task  of  redrafting  the  tangled  rent  laws.3 

More  prominent  figures  also  used  their  energies  in  very  diiferent  ways,  for 
not  all  were  absorbed  in  the  struggle  for  office.  There  were  zealots  like  the 
devoted  European  Andre  Philip,  or  the  old-style  'priest-eating'  anticlerical, 
Maurice  Deixonne.  Some  grands  tenors  among  the  lawyers  regarded  Parlia- 
ment as  a  minor  field  of  activity;  other  lawyers  were  politicians  first,  like  the 
brilliant  'outsiders',  Pierre  Cot  on  the  far  Left  and  Tixier-Vignancour  on  the 
far  Right,  who  specialized  in  disrupting  the  majority's  cohesion  and  peace  of 
mind.  Among  the  Radicals  in  particular  there  were  local  barons  like  Jean 
Baylet  or  Andr6  Maroselli,  who  were  potentates  in  their  region  and  influential 
in  the  party  but  little  known  elsewhere.  Here  and  in  the  adjoining  Conservative 
thickets  of  the  political  jungle  was  the  habitat  of  the  parliamentary  chameleons 
like  Bernard  Lafay.4  Here  too  were  concentrated  the  lobbyists,  the  parlia- 
mentary defenders  of  a  particular  pressure-group  such  as  Henri  Borgeaud, 
leader  of  the  Algerian  colons,  Marcel  Anthonioz  of  the  hotel  and  bar  trade, 
Pierre  Andr6  who  spoke  for  the  steehnasters,  and  Andr6  Liautey,  the  general 
secretary  of  the  union  of  bouilleurs  de  cru. 

Among  those  who  rose  above  their  fellows  three  types  stood  out:  those  who 
concentrated  on  specialist  work  on  their  favourite  questions  in  committee; 
those  who  sought  office  whenever  their  party  was  in  power  (and  for  some  that 
was  almost  always) ;  and  those  who  preferred  attack  to  defence,  demolition  to 
construction,  or  principle  to  place.  Charles  Barange  on  finance,  Jacques 
Isorni  on  legal  matters,  Senator  Rene  Coty  on  the  constitution,  Albert  Lalle 
on  agriculture,  Albert  Gazier  on  social  questions  were  among  the  men  who 
made  their  names  as  hard  workers  in  committees  on  their  own  lines,  either  as 
individual  specialists  or,  in  MRP  or  SFIO,  as  party  spokesmen.  RPF  had 
many  distinguished  generals,  professors  and  diplomats  who  were  recognized 
authorities  on  their  own  subjects  -  and  were  often  shocked  by  the  humble 
constituency  services  a  deputy  was  expected  to  perform  (one  reason  why  their 
reputations  were  so  often  higher  outside  Parliament  than  in  it).5  Some  of  its 

3.  Overseas:  Guillemin,  no.  114,  pp.  846-9,  876-7.  Peasants:  Dogan  in  Pay  sans,  pp.  217, 
220-7.  Mayors :  Debr6,  no.  67,  pp.  25-8 ;  Siegfried,  De  la  IIIe,  pp.  219,  244-5 ;  Huron,  pp.  95-7 ; 
Isorni,  Ainsi,  pp.  38-40.  Grimaud:  ibid.  Harrison,  no.  123,  on  Frederic-Dupont,  champion  of 
the  Paris  concierges  (who  once  put  down  a  parliamentary  question  because  a  constituent,  owing 
to  her  age,  had  not  been  made  lavatory  attendant  at  a  national  theatre:  JO  19  February  1958, 
p.  898),  Bodin  and  Touchard,  no.  21,  pp.  282-3  on  the  electoral  uses  of  this  activity;  also  above, 
p.  329fT.  On  Mendes-France  as  mayor  see  Werth,  Strange  History,  pp.  314-6;  on  the  deputy's 
local  role,  Buron,  pp.  23-8,  34,  75-7,  91,  139. 

4.  He  had  been  a  Popular  Front  supporter  before  the  war,  worked  with  a  Communist  minister 
(Francois  Billoux)  in  1945,  became  a  Radical  municipal  councillor  in  Paris,  joined  RPF  and 
quickly  left  it,  was  both  a  Radical  deputy  and  vice-president  of  APLE,  voted  for  Mendes-France, 
then  became  RGR,  and  finally  Republican  Centre  with  Conservative  support.  In  1958  he  pro- 
claimed himself  France's  first  Gaullist,  for  he  had  been  devoted  to  the  General's  father  who  taught 
him  at  school.  In  1961  he  accused  President  de  Gaulle  of  reducing  France  to  anarchy:  'There  is 
no  excuse  for  his  failure  and  no  remedy  for  his  obstinacy' :  Monde,  10  October  1961.  Cf.  Elections 
Abroad,  p.  53.  . .. 

5.  Besides  jobs,  licences  and  decorations  (above,  pp.  340,  408),  constituents  sought  subsidies 
for  local  authority  projects,  answers  to  political  and  pressure-group  demands  and  even  shopping 

[over 


430  THE  SYSTEM 

front-rank  leaders  always  rejected  the  temptations  of  the  System;  Jacques 
Soustelle  was  a  deadly  destroyer  of  ministries,  while  Michel  Debre  failed  to 
match  his  reputation  only  because  he  sat  in  the  wrong  house.  The  Radicals, 
on  the  other  hand,  attracted  both  the  bright  young  gladiators  like  Felix 
Gaillard  or  Maurice  Bourges-Maunoury,  who  made  their  names  by  attacking 
successive  cabinets  until  the  day  they  were  invited  to  join  one,  and  the 
respected  elder  statesmen  without  whom  no  ministry  seemed  complete. 

The  fifty  or  so  ministrables  who  were  serious  candidates  for  the  highest 
offices  had  normally  to  come  from  a  party  near  the  centre  of  gravity  of  the 
majority,  and  to  be  personally  acceptable  to  members  of  other  political 
groups.  Some  were  elder  statesmen  surviving  from  the  last  regime:  Blum, 
Ramadier,  Queuille.  A  few  owed  their  power  to  the  loyalty  of  a  strong  party 
whose  support  was  indispensable  to  a  majority:  Georges  Bidault  in  the  early 
years,  Guy  Mollet  and  Antoine  Pinay  in  the  later.  (The  mere  party  manager 
without  a  national  reputation,  like  Roger  Duchet  or  Leon  Martinaud-Deplat, 
was  unlikely  to  reach  the  very  top  though  he  might  wield  great  influence 
behind  the  scenes.)  Many  ministrables  were  skilful  specialists  at  reconciling 
opposites,  among  them  Ren6  Pleven  of  U  D  S  R,  Andre  Marie  the  old  Radical, 
and  Jacques  Chaban-Delmas  the  Radical  in  Gaullist  clothing.  Others,  like 
Jules  Moch  or  Rene  Mayer,  had  a  'no  nonsense'  reputation. 

Individuals  sometimes  changed  roles.  The  whole  aim  of  the  '  gladiator '  was 
to  graduate  quickly  into  a  ministrable.  A  specialist  minister  like  Robert 
Lacoste  of  SFIO  (industry)  or  Pierre  Pflimlin  of  MRP  (agriculture),  or  a 
local  magnate  like  Gaston  Defferre  of  Marseilles,  could  rise  over  the  years  to 
the  front  rank.  More  rarely  a  leading  ministrable  like  Robert  Schuman  or 
Jules  Moch  would  withdraw  to  the  background  as  a  foreign-affairs  specialist, 
or  like  Claudius  Petit  retire  from  the  race  for  office  to  become  a  voice  of 
conscience,  respected  if  rarely  heeded.  Francois  Mitterrand,  once  a  plain 
ministrable  of  the  Centre,  became  a  spokesman  of  colonial  reform  and  ended 
as  the  potential  leader  of  a  Popular  Front.  Pierre  Mendes-France  was  until 
1950  the  most  distinguished  financial  technician  in  the  Assembly;  then  by 
establishing  a  new  reputation  as  the  intransigent  Cassandra  critic  of  successive 
governments  he  made  himself  for  a  time  the  champion  of  all  who  demanded  a 
change  of  policy,  like  SFIO,  of  style,  like  the  stern  unbending  Gaullists  -  or 
indeed  of  men,  for  among  both  the  rebellious  pietaille  (back-benchers)  and  the 
leaders  most  hostile  to  the  System  he  won  sympathies  denied  him  by  minis- 
trables of  the  same  parties.6  But  by  the  vigour  of  his  attacks,  and  by  giving  the 
dismaying  impression  that  he  meant  every  word  of  them,  he  cut  himself  off 
from  the  parliamentary  fraternity. 

Those  who  accepted  the  rules  of  the  System  were  bound  together  by  a  strong 
club  sense,  in  which  political  opponents  recognized  their  common  function  of 
absorbing  and  moderating  the  clash  of  hostile  forces  in  the  country.  The 

services  for  their  wives :  Muselier,  p.  143.  For  a  Gaullist's  indignant  reaction  see  Noel,  pp.  115-18; 
cf.  above,  p.  329,  and  Sir  P.  J.  Grigg,  Prejudice  and  Judgment  (1948),  for  the  similar  view  of  a 
brilliant  British  administrator  turned  unsuccessful  politician;  contrast  Huron,  pp.  27-34. 
6.  See  above,  p.  399  and  n. 


THE  MEN  AND  THE  SYSTEM  431 

bargaining  politician  flourished  in  this  atmosphere,  and  the  intransigent  fighter 
was  a  little  suspect  even  to  his  own  party  colleagues.  Members  were  willing  to 
strike  but  reluctant  to  wound,  and  really  bitter  criticism  of  another  member  of 
the  club  was  widely  resented  as  bad  form.  Politicians  of  the  System  had  seen 
the  consequences  of  unrestrained  political  passion  too  often  in  their  country's 
history,  and  felt  the  need  to  practise  mutual  self-restraint.  They  had  learned 
the  lesson  so  well  that  at  times  mutual  restraint  seemed  not  far  short  of 
reciprocal  complicity. 

Open  enemies  of  the  regime  were  kept  out  of  the  fraternity  and  prided  them- 
selves on  having  no  part  in  its  bargains  and  manoeuvres.  Their  opposition 
could  be  a  positive  asset  to  a  premier,  actual  or  prospective,  who  would  reject 
their  occasional  overtures,  as  Mendes-France  in  1954  and  Pflimlin  in  1958 
refused  proffered  Communist  votes,  and  would  treat  their  normal  enmity  as 
proof  of  his  own  virtue,  as  Guy  Mollet  in  1956  and  1957  stressed  Communist 
and  Poujadist  hostility  to  his  leadership  from  the  Centre.  Yet  time  and  good 
behaviour  might  allay  this  ostracism,  and  parties  did  not  remain  long  in  the 
wilderness  unless  they  chose  to;  few  did.  Tainted  Socialist  and  right-wing 
votes,  which  governments  incurred  criticism  for  accepting  before  1914, 
became  respectable  between  the  wars.  The  Gaullists  were  feared  as  a  threat  to 
the  regime  when  they  entered  Parliament  in  force  in  1951 ;  within  nine  months 
they  had  split  and  after  two  years  they  were  in  office.  The  Poujadists  also  defied 
their  leader's  instructions  after  nine  months ;  a  year  later  they  supported  Pinay 
for  the  premiership.  Even  the  Communists  at  times  became  tainted  with 
compromise,  for  motives  not  easily  distinguished  from  those  of  the  respectable 
party  leaders.  While  in  the  United  States  extreme  groups  cannot  ^hope  for 
electoral  success  unless  they  come  to  terms  with  moderate  opinion,  in  France 
they  found  it  was  easy  enough  to  enter  Parliament  -  but  that  if  they  hoped  for 
office  it  was  then  necessary  to  work  their  passage  to  respectability. 

Office  itself  could  be  as  educative  as  the  struggle  for  it.  Men  who  came  to 
power  with  limited  ideas  and  a  narrow  clientele  sometimes  learned  from 
experience  and  began  to  govern ;  before  long  they  were  using  their  authority  to 
impose  on  their  own  following  concessions  to  the  general  interest.7  Pinay,  at 
first  a  hero  to  small  businessmen,  was  soon  warning  them  against  endangering 
the  policies  they  favoured  by  their  short-sighted  greed.  A  right-wing  diehard 
who  was  given  responsibility  for  Tunisia  and  Morocco  soon  discovered  the 
need  for  liberal  policies.  With  less  happy  results  Socialist  leaders  learned  in 
February  1956  that  the  Algerian  problem  was  much  less  simple  than  it  had 
seemed  in  the  election  campaign  six  weeks  before. 

These  advantages  of  the  system  were  more  than  offset  by  its  growing  draw- 
backs At  first,  under  tripartisme,  disciplined  parties  discouraged  political 
individualism,  and  members  with  objectives  beyond  their  own  career  and  re- 
election were  willing  to  perform  useful  but  inconspicuous  service  to  their 
cause  There  were  complaints  of  the  absence  of  striking  personalities,  and  in 
his  valedictory  article  on  'the  faceless  Assembly'  of  1946-51  Francis  Maunac 
even  lamented  that  the  scandals  of  those  years  had  been  so  insignificant,  and 


7.  Brindillac,  no.  29,  p.  56. 


432  THE  SYSTEM 

hoped  that  future  leaders  would  wage  alongside  the  party  struggle  ca  hidden 
contest  of  private  passions'.8  He  was  to  get  his  wish. 

As  the  individualist  parties  recovered  and  majorities  became  precarious,  the 
System  again  proved  fertile  soil  for  ambition,  jealousy  and  intrigue.  Once  more 
the  Institution  displayed  both  the  assertive  pride  of  the  United  States  Con- 
gress (uninhibited  by  any  separation  of  powers)  and  the  feverish  excitement  of 
a  party  convention  in  permanent  session.  The  'hunt  for  portfolios'  was 
resumed  with  new  zest  as  everyone  again  speculated  on  the  fall  of  the  govern- 
ment. Edgar  Faure,  in  a  rare  spell  out  of  office,  remarked  on  the  resentment  of 
'back-benchers'  against  a  minister  of  the  same  party  who  stayed  in  too  long 
and  blocked  the  way  for  others.  The  Radicals,  who  had  been  eager  to  remove 
Pinay  as  soon  as  others  could  be  manoeuvred  into  taking  the  responsibility, 
hampered  his  successor  (Rene*  Mayer,  one  of  their  own  leaders)  by  demanding 
and  getting  far  more  than  their  share  of  the  spoils.  In  1953  Conservatives  who 
followed  Pinay  feared  that  his  chances  of  the  premiership  would  be  less  with 
Coty  as  President.  In  1956  moderate  Conservatives  were  keener  to  oust  Mollet 
than  reactionary  ones,  for  they  were  likelier  to  get  office.9 

In  the  individualist  groups  this  hunger  was  expressed  increasingly  crudely.10 
But  while  they  contained  the  most  active  seekers  after  office,  the  disciplined 
parties  afforded  better  protection  to  any  of  their  members  who  obtained  it. 
This  was  an  important  asset,  for  men  and  parties  tried  to  deny  office  to  their 
enemies  as  well  as  to  obtain  it  for  themselves  or  their  friends.  Sometimes  the 
enmities  were  over  policy.  The  Right  overthrew  Schuman  for  appointing  a 
left-wing  minister  of  finance  in  September  1948,  and  the  Left  Queuille  for 
choosing  a  conservative  cabinet  two  years  later.  In  1957  SFIO  would  not 
serve  with  Soustelle  because  of  his  commitment  to  the  Algerian  settlers  -  or 
Mitterrand  with  Lacoste,  for  the  same  reason.  But  political  and  personal 
resentment  might  be  hard  to  distinguish.  In  1948  Ren6  Mayer  refused  to  join  a 
government  which  included  Jules  Moch;  in  1953  RPF  tried  to  stop  the  ARS 
leaders  benefiting  from  their  recent  desertion;  the  Radicals  vetoed  Daniel 
Mayer  in  October  1949  for  breaking  up  Queuille's  cabinet,  and  Andre" 
Morice  in  April  1958  for  his  obstruction  under  Bourges-Maunoury  and  for 
splitting  their  party  in  1956.  Power  positions,  too,  might  be  at  stake.  In 
February  1955  Mendes-France's  Radical  enemies  (among  whom  were  two 
bosses  from  the  Paris  region,  Bernard  Lafay  and  J.  P.  David)  demanded  half 
the  jobs  offered  to  the  party  so  as  to  strengthen  their  influence.  Having  lost  the 
party  battle  they  were  expelled  in  December;  before  long  Lafay  and  David 
had  ideologically  indistinguishable  but  bitterly  antagonistic  organizations  of 
their  own.11 

8.  Figaro,  24  April  1951.  Cf.  Priouret,  Partis,  pp.  81-3. 

9.  Faure:  Monde,  27  May  1953.  Radicals:  AP  1953,  p.  7;  Georgel,  i.  208.  Pinay:  Noel,  p.  98. 
Mollet:  Monde,  18  and  22  December  1956.  'Permanent  party  convention' :  T.  White,  The  Making 
of  the  President  1960  (1962),  p.  189.  Generally,  see  Noel,  pp.  94-8;  Buron,  pp.  133-5  on  ex- 
ministers  (also  above,  p.  206). 

10.  Faure  in  A.  Stibio,  Antoine  Pinay  (n.d.,  71955),  p.  107,  and  Arne",  p.  97.  Cf.  above,  pp. 
p.  400,  418-19 ;  below,  p.  438 ;  and  for  the  next  point,  above,  p.  406. 

11.  For  Lafay's  invasion  of  Frederic-Dupont's  fief,  see  Bodin  and  Touchard,  no.  21,  p.  277; 
AP  1957,  p.  4.  See  also  AP  1949,  pp.  175,  178-9;  1953,  p.  6;  1955,  p.  17;  1957,  pp.  60-1,  96; 
1958,  pp.  50-1 ;  Georgel,  i.  208-9,  and  Fauvet,  IVe,  pp.  154  (Mayer),  232n.  (ARS). 


THE  MEN  AND  THE  SYSTEM  433 

Some  feuds  were  exclusively  personal.  Joseph  Laniel  was  defeated  for  the 
Presidency  thanks  to  Roger  Duchet  whom  he  had  recently  evicted  from  the 
cabinet.  The  Radicals  were  said  to  have  'sentenced'  the  Conservative  Jacques 
Fourcade  to  five  years  without  office  for  his  lese-majeste  in  standing  against 
Herriot  for  the  Presidency  of  the  Assembly  -  and  running  him  close.  Harriot's 
successor,  Andre  Le  Troquer  of  SFIO,  displayed  in  his  1957  inaugural  his 
resentment  against  Pierre  Schneiter,  who  had  committed  the  same  offence 
against  himself;  and  in  1958  he  pronounced  unconstitutional  the  'Algerian 
charter'  that  Pleven  as  prospective  premier  had  omitted  to  submit  to  him 
before  consulting  the  parties.  CNIP,  which  had  tolerated  both  Mendesist  and 
fascist  deputies  in  its  ranks,  expelled  its  first  member  in  1961  on  the  insistence 
of  Fr£deric-Dupont,  whom  the  victim  had  kept  out  of  the  chair  of  the  defence 
committee.12 

This  political  climate,  in  which  lofty  sentiments  often  covered  sordid 
objectives,  favoured  a  lush  growth  of  political  hypocrisy.  Individual  deputies 
brought  in  demagogic  bills,  not  to  pass  them  but  to  quote  them  in  their 
election  addresses.  Opposition  parties  -  RPF  in  the  second  Parliament  and 
CNIP  in  the  third  -  imputed  treason  to  any  premier  who  accepted  the  Com- 
munist votes  with  which  his  accusers  cheerfully  overthrew  him.13  To  weaken 
the  Gaullist  challenge  a  Socialist  President  encouraged  the  creation  of  a 
Conservative  central  organization,  and  a  Radical  premier  induced  business 
to  finance  Vichyite  candidates  in  the  1951  election.  Edmond  Barrachin,  pro- 
posing to  amend  standing  orders  to  disallow  very  small  groups  in  the  Assembly, 
asked  why  there  should  be  fifteen  of  them  when  there  were  only  six  major 
tendencies  in  the  country :  he  should  have  known,  having  rebelled  against  de 
Gaulle  to  form  the  ARS  group  six  years  before.  Andre  Morice,  who  led  the 
Radical  revolt  against  Mendes-France's  'totalitarian'  conception  of  a  dis- 
ciplined party  with  a  policy,  was  soon  deploring  the  indiscipline  of  all  French 
parties.  Certain  political  chameleons  voted  for  Mendes-France's  Indo- 
China  settlement  in  1954  and  denounced  it  at  the  next  election ;  but  U Express 
in  its  Mendesist  crusade  for  political  decency  was  hardly  more  scrupulous 
about  the  means  it  used  to  discredit  the  unrighteous.14 

Irresponsibility  flourished  along  with  cynicism.  Respectable  MRP  and 
CNIP  leaders  like  Maurice  Schumann  and  Paul  Reynaud,  who  knew  that 
rejection  of  the  agreements  rearming  Germany  would  destroy  France's 
alliances,  nevertheless  voted  against  them  because  they  blamed  Mendes- 
France  for  the  defeat  of  ED  C  -  on  the  open  assumption  that  they  would  be 
relieved  of  a  distasteful  responsibility  by  the  premier's  supporters,  whom  they 

12  Duchet:  ibid.,  pp.  241-3;  Faucher,  pp.  63-4.  Fourcade:  Faucher,  p.  39.  Le  Troquer:  JO 
3  October  1957,  p.  4487;  AP  1958,  p.  47;  Fauvet,  IV,  p.  343n.;  cf.  above,  p.  217.  CNIP:  cf. 
above,  pp.  151,  154.  On  the  Assembly's  hierarchical  structure  see  Huron,  p.  170. 

13  Except  when  a  conservative  majority  survived,  as  in  1955,  with  the  help  of  these  votes  that 
are  found  unhealthy  and  void  when  they  are  for  and  perfectly  valid  and  undoubtedly  patriotic 
when  they  are  against' :  Edgar  Faure,  JO  2  November  1955  p  5490.  Cf.  Duverger's  un wn  ten 
article  of  the  constitution '  that  Communist  votes  counted  to  defeat  a  premier  but  not  to  elect  him . 
Monde.  6-7  October  1957.  On  demagogic  bills  see  above,  p.  262.  ; 

14  Auriol:  Wahl  in  Beer  and  Ulam,  p.  280.  Vichyites:  Isorm,  Ainsi,  p.  9.  Monce •    JO  30 
September  1957,  p.  4451.  Barrachin :  JO  10  February  1958,  p.  743.  U  Express :  Grosser  in  tiectwrn 
1956™p.  115, 126 ;  De  Tarr,  p.  183 ;  Williams,  no.  168,  p.  167.  On  the  consequences  of £] political 
vocabulary  unrelated  to  reality  see  Uvau,  Partis  polities  et  rfrhtts  so^ales,  pp.  135-62, 


434  THE  SYSTEM 

were  simultaneously  accusing  of  collusion  with  the  Communists.  P.  H.  Teitgen 
led  the  attack  for  the  'Europeans',  and  Gaston  Palewski  headed  the  Gaullist 
opponents  of  any  German  rearmament;  both  then  joined  Edgar  Faure's 
cabinet  which  carried  the  agreements  through  the  upper  house,  but  thought 
it  unnecessary  to  explain  their  conversion  in  public.15  While  domestic  affairs 
dominated  politics,  ministers  who  disapproved  of  government  policy  either 
sacrificed  their  views  to  preserving  the  majority  -  or  their  careers  -  or  else 
fought  for  them  from  within  to  the  great  detriment  of  cabinet  coherence. 
Between  Mendes-France's  resignation  over  economic  policy  in  1945  and 
Francois  Mitterrand's  over  North  Africa  in  1953,  the  only  minister  to  give  up 
office  over  a  policy  dispute  when  his  party  did  not  was  Pierre  Pflimlin,  who 
resigned  in  1949  on  the  guaranteed  price  of  sugar-beet.  But  the  great  crises 
after  1953  brought  more  resignations.  The  'Europeans'  who  left  Mendes- 
France's  cabinet  over  EDC  were  followed  under  Mollet  by  Mendes-France 
himself,  over  Algerian  policy,  and  by  Alain  Savary  on  the  arrest  of  Ben  Bella.16 
With  few  individual  resignations  and  perpetual  coalition  governments, 
responsibility  could  rarely  be  clearly  assigned  and  authority  was  always 
diffused.  No  leader  or  party  could  ever  wield  full  power  with  its  attendant 
dangers  and  benefits ;  but  each  had  plenty  of  scope  for  manoeuvres  to  claim  the 
credit  for  success  and  avoid  the  blame  for  failure  or  unpopularity.  The  balance- 
sheet  submitted  to  the  public's  judgment  was  not  that  of  a  government  enjoy- 
ing power  to  act  and  time  to  await  the  results,  but  the  blurred  record  of  a 
Parliament  where  everyone  had  been  in  power,  but  also  in  opposition. 

2.   CONCEPTIONS  OF  PURPOSE 

Men  and  groups  with  no  aim  but  office,  or  with  unrealistic  objectives  that 
practice  never  clearly  showed  to  be  impossible,  could  survive  far  longer  when 
they  were  not  exposed  to  the  glare  of  responsibility.  The  Fourth  Republic 
allowed  diehards  to  fight  battles  long  since  out  of  date;  it  drove  visionaries  to 
escape  the  constraints  of  the  ugly  present  by  setting  splendidly  remote  targets 
for  the  far  future;  it  frustrated  reformers  who  tried  on  the  margin  of  the 
System  to  work  for  realistic  and  progressive  policies  without  becoming  ab- 
sorbed by  it;  and  it  bred  many  compromisers  who  made  the  best  of  it,  and  not 
a  few  profiteers  who  made  the  most  out  of  it. 

It  was  not  always  easy  to  tell  the  unscrupulous  politician  whose  lofty  ver- 
biage camouflaged  a  precise  financial  or  careerist  interest  from  the  honest  die- 
hard who,  from  misplaced  but  disinterested  conviction,  ignored  the  problems, 
dangers  and  opportunities  of  the  moment  and  spent  his  energies  fighting 
battles  of  an  earlier  day.  By  no  means  all  of  these  were  on  the  Right.  For 
instance,  there  were  two  conflicts  centred  around  the  ancient  clerical  problem. 
One  was  a  difference  of  opinion  over  the  genuine  but  limited  problem  of  the 
church  schools  and  the  Barange  law  which  gave  them  a  small  grant  (and  the 
state  schools  a  much  bigger  sum).  This  was  disputed  with  reasonable  modera- 
tion on  both  sides.  But  there  was  also  a  furious  symbolic  battle  in  which  one 
small  group  of  fanatics  seemed  to  fear  the  imminent  return  of  the  hi  Falloux 

15.  Cf.  Monde,  25  December  1954;  M.  Pellenc,  JO(CR)  26  March  1955,  pp.  1090-1. 

16.  See  above,  pp.  46,49,  50n. 


THE  MEN  AND  THE  SYSTEM  435 

and  a  clerical  monopoly  in  education,  while  another  ardently  resisted,  if  not 
the  Jacobin  cult  of  Reason,  at  least  the  crudely  militant  atheism  of  the  free- 
masons of  1910. 

Another  potent  source  of  honest  but  irrelevant  emotion  was  old-fashioned 
nationalism,  especially  concerning  Germany  (it  was  not  always  disinterested 
over  North  Africa).  In  every  party  some  men  were  understandably  cautious 
towards  their  neighbours  across  the  Rhine;  but  others,  from  the  fossil  Con- 
servative General  Aumeran  to  the  republican  sage  fidouard  Herriot,  appeared 
to  think  they  were  still  at  war  with  the  Kaiser  (and  perhaps  even  in  alliance 
with  the  Tsar).  Confronting  dead  dangers  as  resolutely  as  any  right-winger, 
some  Radicals  and  Socialists  sought  Communist  help  in  1946  against  the 
fascist  leagues  of  1934;  many  fought  hard  and  successfully  against  the  strong 
executive  power  which  Marshal  MacMahon  had  abused  in  1877;  and  others 
like  fidouard  Daladier  (as  anticlerical  as  ever  but  more  anti-German  than  in 
1938)  seemed  to  suspect  Schuman  and  Adenauer  of  trying  to  resuscitate 
Charlemagne's  holy  Roman  empire. 

At  the  other  extreme,  the  visionaries  were  concerned  with  real  problems  but 
their  solutions  distracted  attention  from  immediate  tasks.  Most  of  them  were 
outside  the  System  in  the  rank  and  file  (not  the  leadership)  of  the  Communist 
party  or  even  the  extreme  Right,  or  among  Catholics  with  a  social  conscience 
like  MLP.17  There  were  few  among  the  Socialists,  Radicals  or  Conservatives, 
though  M  RP  at  first  had  many.  Europe  was  among  their  favourite  causes. 
Some  practical  politicians,  despairing  of  structural  reforms  through  the  exist- 
ing political  machinery,  hoped  in  a  united  Europe  to  break  the  liberum  veto  of 
the  pressure-groups  and  open  up  the  protectionist  French  economy.  Some 
progressive  'Europeans'  in  SFIO  and  MRP  saw  in  Europe  an  agency  for 
social  reforms  blocked  at  home;  to  planners  like  Jean  Monnet  it  was  an 
essential  condition  of  modernization;  men  like  Robert  Schuman  hoped  at  last 
to  end  the  ancient  quarrel  with  Germany.  Once  under  way,  however,  the 
idealistic  European  movement  soon  attracted  most  of  the  least  progressive 
and  least  visionary  elements  in  French  pubEc  life. 

There  were  visionary  anti-Europeans  too,  and  patriotic  passion,  as  the 
Resistance  had  shown,  was  not  always  backward-looking  or  irrelevant.  Many 
Frenchmen  could  not  conceive  of  any  revival  of  the  nation's  influence  without 
driving  force  at  home,  and  feared  that  a  diversion  of  effort  to  Europe  might 
well  postpone  reform  instead  of  promoting  it.  Men  as  different  as  Pierre 
Mendes-France  and  Michel  Debr6  feared  that  without  a  modernized  state  and 
a  real  political  will  in  Paris,  economic  progress  would  be  hampered  and  social 
reform  blocked.  To  Gaullists  these  changes  were  an  indispensable  prelude  to 
any  concession  to  colonial  nationalism;  for  a  strong  state  could  safely  grant 
reforms  which,  extorted  from  a  weak  one,  would  rapidly  lead  to  a  total 
collapse  of  all  French  authority  overseas.  One  of  them,  Jacques  Soustelle  (who 
was  thought  dangerously  left-wing  when  Mendes-France  sent  him  to  Algiers 
in  1955),  reacted  to  French  retreats  elsewhere  by  championing  the  thoroughly 
visionary  demand  for  the  total  integration  of  Algeria  into  France;  it  won  some 
genuine  support  in  the  army  and  a  great  deal  of  lip-service  from  settlers  and 
17.  On  MLP  see  above,  p.  172. 


436  THE  SYSTEM 

right-wing  politicians.  But  the  nationalists  came  into  increasingly  bitter  con- 
flict with  another  visionary  group,  drawn  mainly  from  progressive  Catholics 
and  Socialists  in  L£on  Blum's  revisionist  tradition,  who  recognized  that  the 
old  ideal  of  assimilating  the  colonies  was  impracticable  and  accepted  their 
coming  independence  (not  always  with  a  very  accurate  appreciation  of  the 
real  aims  and  outlook  of  the  overseas  nationalists  whose  cause  they  defended). 

Alike  among  nationalists  and  emancipators,  'Europeans'  and  social  pro- 
gressives, the  visionary  fighting  passionately  for  a  cause  found  at  his  side  less 
emotional,  more  hard-headed  exponents  of  similar  policies :  men  like  Pierre 
Mendes-France,  Jules  Moch,  perhaps  Francois  Mitterrand  and  even  Paul 
Reynaud:  the  reformers.  They  were  not  numerous,  since  for  historical  reasons 
the  formal  demand  for  more  effective  government  machinery  came  from  the 
old  Right  who  wanted  it  the  better  to  resist  change,  while  men  of  the  traditional 
Left  rejected  the  political  instruments  needed  to  carry  the  social  and  colonial 
policies  they  favoured.  They  were  not  necessarily  distinguished  by  moral 
superiority,  for  some  reformers  were  as  concerned  for  their  careers  as  any 
compromiser.  But  they  shared  a  willingness  to  promote  or  at  least  accept 
adjustments  in  the  political  system  to  meet  the  sweeping  transformation  of 
France's  situation  and  the  world  around  her. 

The  Resistance  had  brought  a  new  crop  of  ardent  young  reformers  into 
politics.  But  in  SFIO  (and  sometimes  in  MRP)  they  were  broken  by  party 
discipline,  like  Alain  Savary,  or  escaped  from  this  fate  into  constructive  local 
work,  like  Gaston  Defferre.18  Those  Gaullist  reformers  who  resisted  the  wiles 
of  the  System  often  became  obsessed  with  the  struggle  against  it,  discredited 
themselves  by  plotting  with  its  most  disreputably  reactionary  enemies,  and 
sometimes  -  like  Jacques  Soustelle  -  forgot  their  original  objectives  in  the 
process.  Some  reformers  from  RPF,  many  from  MRP,  and  most  from 
UD  S  R  and  the  Radical  party  were  absorbed  by  the  regime  and  transformed 
into  compromisers  -  who  might  retain  reforming  ideas  without  reforming 
zeal,  like  Edgar  Faure,  or  not,  like  Bourges-Maunoury.  When  Mendes- 
France  won  an  opportunity  for  the  lonely  band  of  reforming  democrats  in 
1954,  it  was  lost  by  the  quarrel  over  Europe  with  MRP,  the  friction  over 
domestic  methods  and  priorities  with  SFIO,  and  above  all  the  Algerian  war. 
The  reformers'  stand  over  that  conflict  was  soon  to  alienate  some  of  their  own 
number,  all  their  potential  allies,  and  the  mass  of  their  misled  and  misinformed 
countrymen. 

Some  progressive-minded  politicians  were  unwilling  to  risk  their  careers  and 
reputations  and  stultify  their  activities  for  years,  perhaps  for  ever,  in  any  un- 
popular cause.  Such  a  man  might  co-operate  and  even  sympathize  with  the 
reformers,  but  their  style  of  action  was  quite  alien  to  him  and  in  a  major  crisis 
he  always  preferred  the  company  of  the  compromisers  who  kept  the  system 
going.  These  were  of  many  different  types,  and  no  party  was  wholly  without 
them.  Neither  Gaullists  nor  Poujadists  maintained  disciplined  opposition  for 
long  after  they  entered  the  Palais  Bourbon  in  force.  Many  Conservatives  on 
the  floor  of  the  house  and  Socialists  in  party  meetings  urged  their  more 

18.  But  Deffeire  was  responsible  for  one  of  the  Fourth  Republic's  major  reforms,  the  colonial 
hi-cadre  of  1956, 


THE  MEN  AND  THE  SYSTEM  437 

intransigent  colleagues  to  join  the  cabinet  and  press  their  policies  from  within, 
rather  than  preach  the  party's  pure  (if  nebulous)  doctrine  in  the  wilderness. 
But^above^all  the  compromisers  were  concentrated  in  the  two  great  pivot 
parties  which  were  enabled  or  constrained  by  parliamentary  arithmetic  to 
participate  in  almost  every  majority  and  cabinet.19 

The  Radical  Socialists  had  taken  over  this  role  from  the  better-named 
Opportunists  at  the  turn  of  the  century,  and  retained  it  into  the  Fourth 
Republic.  Electorally  they  had  pacts  with  the  Communists  in  1945,  with  the 
right-wing  opposition  in  1946,  with  the  Centre  in  1951  and  with  the  Socialists 
in  1956.  They  provided  many  members  (and  opponents)  of  Third  Force 
cabinets  from  1948  to  1951,  right-wing  governments  in  1952  and  1953, 
Mendes-France's  left-wing  ministry  in  1954,  Edgar  Faure's  conservative 
administration  in  1955,  and  Guy  Mollet's  Socialist-led  cabinet  in  1956.  When 
Mendes-France  tried  to  transform  this  old  electoral  co-operative  society  into  a 
party  with  a  policy,  he  alienated  four-fifths  of  its  deputies  and  all  the  poten- 
tial leaders  with  whom  it  was  so  well  endowed,  and  made  majority-building 
and  cabinet-making  even  harder  than  before. 

But  in  the  Fourth  Republic  these  problems  had  already  been  complicated 
by  the  emergence  of  a  second  pivot  party,  MRP,  which  proved  as  indis- 
pensable to  every  majority  as  the  Radicals  (it  opposed  no  premier  except 
Mendes-France  himself).  For  MRP  members  differed  from  their  permanent 
partners  both  on  every  major  problem  of  policy  -  from  colonialism  to  educa- 
tion and  from  foreign  policy  to  the  electoral  system  -  and  in  their  basic  outlook 
as  Catholics  and  not  free-thinkers;  moralists  and  not  men  of  the  world; 
Resisters  and  not  attentistes;  men  aware  of  the  social  problem  of  the  working 
class  which  the  Radicals  had  neglected,  hostile  to  the  Third  Republic  for 
which  they  longed,  and  favourable  to  the  party  discipline  which  they  detested. 
MRP  also  was  compelled  by  the  situation  to  participate  in  every  combination 
-  with  Communists  against  Conservatives  in  the  Constituent  Assemblies, 
with  the  Third  Force  against  the  Communists  in  the  first  Parliament,  with  the 
Right  against  the  Socialists  in  the  second,  and  with  a  Socialist-led  majority  in 
the  third.  It  too  had  to  make  repeated  concessions  to  its  partners  and  abandon 
most  of  its  crusading  zeal.  Its  members  who  were  least  willing  to  compromise 
went  over  to  RPF,  the  Catholic  Left,  or,  like  Georges  Bidault  in  1958,  the 
extreme  Right.  As  its  fervour  for  improving  working-class  conditions  cooled 
and  its  ministers  became  committed  to  repressive  colonial  policies,  MRP 
broke  first  with  the  Socialist  party  and  then  with  the  Catholic  trade  unions. 
But  the  progressive  hopes  the  movement  renounced  elsewhere  were  all  invested 
in  Europe,  a  cause  for  which  MRP  displayed  a  willingness  to  lead  public  opin- 
ion and  to  renounce  governmental  office  which  the  Radicals  had  rarely  shown. 

Instead  of  a  single  pivot  party  bent  on  power  and  relatively  unconcerned 
with  policy,  there  were  now  two  with  conflicting  views  and  attitudes.  MRP, 
being  the  more  compact,  was  potentially  a  strong  hinge  for  a  coalition,  but  it 
was  too  heavily  encumbered  with  principles  and  sometimes  lacked  flexi- 
bility. The  Radical  party  resisted  the  new  vocation  to  which  MendesrFrance 

19.  From  1945  to  1957  56%  of  all  governmental  appointments  went  to  MRP,  Radicals  and 
allies :  my  calculation  from  Dogan  and  Campbell,  no.  72,  p.  327. 


438  THE  SYSTEM 

summoned  it,  but  the  battle  destroyed  its  capacity  to  fulfil  its  traditional  role. 
When  it  disintegrated,  the  dwindling  band  of  individual  'king's  friends'  was 
left  without  a  focus,  and  in  the  third  Assembly  no  leader  emerged  to  fill  the 
place  once  occupied  by  Queuille,  Pleven  and  Faure.  UDSR,  RGR,  ARS, 
the  *  lawyer-peasants'  and  overseas  members  engendered  even  more  cynicism 
than  the  Radicals  themselves  about  their  character  and  motives  by  their 
search  for  jobs  and  favours  for  client  and  constituency.  By  the  end  of  the 
second  Parliament  almost  half  the  Radical  and  allied  deputies  had  held  office, 
and  of  the  fourteen  who  revolted  against  Mendes-France  in  1956,  seven  were 
offered  posts  within  a  year.20 

The  politicians  of  the  System  were  not  the  only  profiteers  from  it.  Weak 
ministers  became  dependent  on  or  ineffective  against  their  official  subordi- 
nates and  their  personal  assistants.  Interest-groups  benefited:  wealthy  ones 
with  direct  influence  in  cabinets,  like  the  North  African  settlers  through  their 
Radical  friends,  or  in  the  Assembly  and  the  ministries,  like  the  beet-growers ; 
poorer  ones  with  political  protection,  like  the  railwaymen  with  their  early 
retiring  age,  or  the  tax-defrauding  small  businessmen,  or  the  bouilleurs  de 
cru;  powerful  social  forces  to  which  competing  parties  looked  for  support, 
like  the  Catholic  Church  with  its  claims  for  its  schools.  Generally  it  was 
'Gingembre's  France',  the  interests  opposed  to  modernization,  which  con- 
centrated on  political  manipulation :  the  others  did  not  need  to.  Yet  riots 
against  tax  controls  and  barricades  on  rural  highways  and  European  economic 
treaties  showed  that  the  backward  forces,  though  they  might  delay  progress, 
often  failed  to  get  their  way. 

Protests  and  delays  alike  afforded  opportunities  for  another  body  of  profi- 
teers: the  opposition  parties,  which  could  be  extravagant  in  their  criticisms 
when  they  ran  little  risk  of  responsibility.  Many  Radicals  and  Conservatives 
behaved  like  demagogues  over  economic  policy  in  1949;  so  did  MRP  over 
foreign  policy  in  1954,  and  Socialists  over  Algeria  in  1955:  but  even  the  least 
scrupulous  men  of  the  System  rarely  matched  the  uninhibited  licence  which  its 
enemies  allowed  themselves.  If  Gaullists  (until  1951),  Poujadists  and  Com- 
munists were  unable  to  extract  other  advantages  from  it,  they  made  up  for 
that  by  vigorously  profiteering  in  votes,  multiplying  their  numbers  and 
exaggerating  their  power  by  exploiting  the  discontent  of  Frenchmen  who  were 
not  extremists  but  merely  protesters.  Finally  there  were  secondary  profiteers 
who  fed  on  these  (often  inflated)  threats  to  democracy:  Conservative  deputies 
who  used  the  Poujadist  danger  to  demand  lower  taxes  for  their  clients; 
Socialist  ministers  who  warned  of  riots  in  Algiers  or  mutiny  in  the  army  so  as 
to  forestall  concessions  to  the  Moslems  or  to  muzzle  the  French  press;  above 
all  the  anti-Communist  demagogues  -  bad  employers,  blind  settlers, 
McCarthyite  politicians  like  L6on  Martinaud-Deplat,  right-wing  Catholics 
and  nationalist  Gaullists  who  tried  to  mesmerize  their  opponents  into  accept- 
ing another  'unwritten  constitutional  law  . . .  that  Communist  votes  do  not 
count  to  adopt  a  reform  but  only  to  oppose  one  '.21 

20.  Half:  ibid**  p.  323.  Some  said  Pascal  Arrighi,  the  neo-Radical  who  led  the  Corsican  insur- 
rection in  May  1958,  was  discontented  at  not  having  been  a  minister  like  his  fellows  (and  like 
all  the  other  representatives  of  those  well-connected  islanders). 

21.  Duverger  (n.  13) ;  cf.  Arn£,  p.  239  and  n. 


THE  MEN  AND   THE  SYSTEM  439 

The  line  between  compromisers  and  profiteers  was  hard  to  draw,  and  the 
same  man  might  adopt  the  two  attitudes  at  different  times  (or  indeed  both  at 
the  same  time,  for  men's  motives  are  often  mixed).  Some  supported  govern- 
ments out  of  belief  in  their  policies,  desire  for  stability,  or  a  resigned  recogni- 
tion that  there  was  no  alternative:  others  welcomed  a  situation  which  they 
believed  could  be  turned  to  their  own  advantage.  The  list  system  at  general 
elections  may  have  been  advocated  on  genuine  grounds  of  principle  :  it  proved 
highly  advantageous  to  party  leaders  whose  seats  remained  impregnable  even 
when  their  personal  popularity  had  waned.22  The  apparentements  of  1951 
were  perhaps  necessary  to  produce  a  manageable  Assembly  :  they  were  also  a 
device  enabling  outgoing  members  to  save  their  seats  (and  incidentally  to  give 
the  supporters  of  the  church  schools  an  inflated  majority).  The  absence  of  any 
clear  demarcation  line  between  majority  and  opposition  helped  to  temper  the 
jejune  indignation  (or  enthusiasm)  of  the  political  newcomer  or  extremist  : 
and  conveniently  enabled  the  careerist  without  convictions  to  repudiate 
responsibility  for  a  policy  that  had  failed.  The  repeated  ministerial  crises  were 
a  device  for  taking  difficult  decisions:  and  also  an  opportunity  for  ambitious 
men  to  hasten  the  day  of  their  admission  to  the  cabinet.  The  stability  of 
ministers  offset  the  instability  of  governments  :  and  ensured  office  in  per- 
petuity for  any  prominent  member  of  the  individualist  parties  who  was  pre- 
pared to  temper  the  rigour  of  his  principles  by  a  statesmanlike  indifference  to 
their  actual  application.  The  System  gave  every  facility  to  the  political  oppor- 
tunist; and  he  fulfilled  a  necessary  role  in  it.  Whenever  the  compromisers  of 
the  Centre  were  polarized  between  more  fervent,  principled,  and  intransigent 
forces,  the  democratic  regime  was  threatened  with  collapse  and  France  con- 
fronted the  spectre  of  civil  war. 

French  parties,  therefore,  were  ill-adapted  to  their  century.23  Ideologies 
that  had  become  increasingly  irrelevant  were  still  professed,  in  the  organized 
parties  because  the  militants  insisted  on  keeping  verbal  faith  with  the  past,  in 
the  individualist  groups  because  politicians  with  few  principles  found  it  con- 
venient to  utter  sentiments  of  impeccable  respectability  which  committed 
them  to  no  precise  course  of  action.  Would-be  modernizes  were  broken  like 
Daniel  Mayer  in  1946  or  Pierre  Mendes-France  ten  years  later.  Any  party  of 
the  regime  that  made  an  attempt  to  bury  the  past  and  face  the  future  could  be 
sure  that  Communists  or  Gaullists  or  fascists  would  revive  the  dead  issue  -  the 
clerical  quarrel,  or  the  German  menace,  or  the  imperial  dream  -  to  defeat  a 
government,  shatter  a  coalition,  or  undermine  a  Republic.  Every  party, 
including  those  in  opposition,  came  more  and  more  to  represent  a  clientele  - 
naturally  conservative  -  rather  than  profess  a  faith  or  promote  a  general 
political  objective.  This  gave  them  strong  defensive  positions  against  intruders 
like  de  Gaulle  or  Mendes-France,  but  inhibited  all  constructive  action.  For 
the  real  issues  divided  each  group  internally. 

22.  Such  as  Christian  Pineau  in  1946,  and  P.  H.  Teitgen  in  1956  :  cf.  Williams,  no.  168,  p.  172n., 

^Su 
pp.  411,412. 


440  THE  SYSTEM 

Within  the  Assembly  as  well  as  the  government  there  was  a  stalemate  which 
rarely  allowed  any  forceful  course  to  gain  a  majority.  In  the  first  Parliament 
cabinets  were  paralysed  over  economic  policy,  in  the  second  over  international 
policy,  in  the  third  over  colonial  policy.  In  1957  a  ministry  had  to  emasculate 
both  its  repressive  measures  against  Algerians  in  France,  to  get  Socialist 
support,  and  its  reforms  in  Algeria,  to  win  Conservative  votes.24  The  decline 
of  the  'king's  friends'  had  made  both  indispensable.25  But  while  any  majority 
based  on  a  deal  between  parties  was  hopelessly  divided  on  policy,  any  majority 
based  on  policy  outraged  the  entrenched  organizations  and  the  politicians 
who  depended  on  them  or  simply  were  loyal  to  them. 

3.  STYLES  OF  LEADERSHIP 

In  these  conditions  it  was  an  uphill  task  to  achieve  any  positive  objective.  Some 
men  succumbed  to  the  System  as  their  will  to  act  was  exhausted  by  the  effort 
to  surmount  the  innumerable  obstacles.  Others  defied  it  and  were  broken  by 
it.  If  a  leader  tried  to  govern  by  using  the  whip  of  public  opinion,  his  premier- 
ship was  likely  to  be  spectacular,  brief  -  and  singular.  Another  type,  whose 
ministries  were  less  impressive  but  plural,  accepted  the  limits  on  his  freedom 
of  action  and  worked  within  them,  earning  the  scorn  of  ordinary  Frenchmen 
by  conforming  to  the  System  even  while  deploring  its  effects.  Even  Mendes- 
France,  after  insisting  in  1953  that  his  ministers  would  have  to  promise  not  to 
serve  under  his  successor,  omitted  this  demand  in  1954  when  it  might  have 
lost  him  his  next  opportunity  to  govern.26 

Only  a  very  bold  and  self-confident  leader  dared  bring  direct  pressure  on 
the  deputies  by  going  over  their  heads  to  public  opinion,  for  members  detested 
and  resented  the  threat  to  their  freedom  of  action,  their  reputations  and  their 
careers.  Broadcast  talks  to  the  nation  by  its  chief  executive,  so  commonplace 
in  the  United  States  or  Britain,  aroused  the  direst  parliamentary  suspicions 
against  Gaston  Doumergue  in  the  Third  Republic,  Pierre  Mendes-France  in 
the  Fourth  and  Charles  de  Gaulle  in  the  Fifth.27  The  offence  was  more  un- 
forgivable still  if  a  leader  emphasized  his  scorn  and  dislike  for  his  colleagues 
by  stressing  the  contrast  between  an  upright  and  far-sighted  ministry  and  petty 
and^  self-seeking  legislators.  Members  then  bitterly  resented  his  lack  of  club 
spirit  and  suspected  him  of  exploiting  latent  anti-parliamentary  feelings. 
Mendes-France,  who  first  stood  aloof  from  the  System  and  then  denounced  it, 
was  shunned  until  a  major  crisis  arose,  then  tolerated  reluctantly  while  he 
assumed  responsibilities  that  others  were  delighted  to  escape,  and  removed  as 
soon  as  possible  -  and  permanently,  for  the  public  which  had  acclaimed  his 
decisiveness  and  foresight  in  1954  abandoned  him  in  1956  to  the  isolation  of  a 
virtual  exile  in  his  own  country. 

^The  problem  for  the  politician  who  wanted  either  to  keep  his  influence  on 
his  country's  future,  or  to  enjoy  a  successful  career,  was  thus  'not  merely  to 


£'  if  1957'  pp*  74~7*  84~93  >"  Isomi*  Ainsi>  PP-  113»  129  ;  Fauvet,  IV*9  p.  334. 

25.  Cf.  above,  pp.  407-8. 

26.  The  omission  allowed  the  one  ex-premier  in  his  cabinet  of  newcomers  to  succeed  him. 

.  I7'  l°we  this  pomt  to  Dr*  N-  WabL  ^rhe  French  opposition  had  no  recognized  leader,  and  no 
right  of  reply.)  On  premiers  and  public  opinion  see  Arn6,  pp.  375-93. 


THE  MEN  AND  THE  SYSTEM  441 

become  premier  but  to  do  so  again'.28  This  meant  that  he  had  to  allow  for  and 
appease  the  feelings  of  his  parliamentary  colleagues.  When  Ren6  Mayer  stood 
for  the  premiership  in  1949  he  refused  any  dealings  with  the  parties,  won  his 
vote,  but  then  failed  to  form  a  cabinet.  In  1951  he  tried  again  and  was  beaten. 
In  1953  he  succeeded  at  last,  by  masterly  equivocation,  in  leading  a  cabinet 
(it  was  weak  as  well  as  short).  After  Georges  Bidault  brandished  the  vote  of 
confidence  to  impose  his  policies  on  the  reluctant  Socialists  in  1950,  they  never 
let  him  form  another  cabinet.  Antoine  Pinay  kept  M  RP  in  his  majority  by  the 
pressure  of  public  opinion,  and  they  blocked  him  whenever  he  stood  for  the 
premiership  again. 

Party  leaders  like  Bidault  or  Pinay,  so  long  as  they  kept  their  organizations 
behind  them,  could  never  suffer  a  catastrophe  like  that  which  befell  Mendes- 
France.  Guy  Mollet,  at  the  head  of  a  highly  disciplined  party  whose  votes 
were  essential  to  the  majority,  could  remain  the  dominating  figure  in  a  Parlia- 
ment even  when  he  had  lost  the  premiership.  Yet  these  magnates,  though 
secure  against  political  storms,  were  too  dependent  on  their  organizations  to 
shake  off  a  taint  of  partisanship,  and  too  committed  to  them  to  make  wholly 
acceptable  brokers.  That  essential  function  of  French  parliamentary  leader- 
ship was  better  performed  by  a  politician  from  a  very  loose  or  tiny  group,  the 
typical  premier  of  the  Fourth  Republic  as  of  the  Third.  A  Pleven,  a  Faure  or  a 
Gaillard  built  up  his  reputation  over  the  years  in  debate  or  in  office  until  he 
attained  the  premiership,  where  he  was  almost  sure  to  damage  it  -  either  by 
decisions  which  made  him  enemies  or  by  indecision  which  gave  him  a  longer 
life  but  a  worse  name.  He  would  then  rebuild  his  credit  by  a  discreet  with- 
drawal from  active  parliamentary  life,  followed  in  a  year  or  two  by  a  well- 
timed  r entree :  normal  and  sometimes  very  convenient  stages  in  the  career  of  a 
successful  ministrable. 

Some  premiers,  like  Rene  Pleven,  were  skilled  at  evacuating  office  in  time  to 
avoid  dangerous  decisions  and  returning  to  it  at  a  calmer  moment,  thus  pre- 
serving a  high  reputation  for  statesmanship.  A  few  like  Bourges-Maunoury 
were  dominated  by  more  forceful  men;29  but  this  formula  was  so  unsatisfac- 
tory that  Laniel,  who  reigned  for  the  year  before  Dien-Bien-Phu  by  refusing 
to  choose  between  the  policies  of  Reynaud  and  Bidault,  was  the  only  Fourth 
Republican  premier  never  to  hold  any  office  again.  One  or  two  like  Edgar 
Faure,  beneath  an  appearance  of  mental  agility  unembarrassed  by  any  con- 
victions, skilfully  manipulated  the  System  to  achieve  positive  objectives.  In  a 
conservative  Assembly,  wedded  to  economic  backwardness  at  home  and 
reaction  in  North  Africa,  he  pursued  a  successful  policy  of  economic  expan- 
sion and  carried  by  twelve  to  one  the  Tunisian  agreements  on  which  Mendes- 
France  fell;  in  a  nationalist  upper  house  he  put  through  the  unpopular 
treaties  rearming  Germany;  against  determined  obstruction  from  many  of  his 
own  ministers  he  repaired  the  follies  of  his  predecessors  in  Morocco;  and  when 
the  Assembly  finally  brought  him  down  he  belied  his  reputation  for  malleabi- 
lity by  promptly  dissolving  it.30 

28    See  above  p  239.  29.  Arne,  pp.  109,  350;  Fauvet,  IV*,  p.  332, 

30!  See  Arne, 'pp.  395^26  for  sketches  of  each  of  the  premiers;  De  Tarr,  Chapters  7  and  8, 
for  Queuille,  Faure  and  Mendes-France. 


442  THE  SYSTEM 

All  these  practices  led  to  the  same  result:  the  System  devoured  its  children. 
Some  men  were  feared  for  showing  too  much  forcefulness,  others  discredited 
for  too  little,  yet  others  stayed  'available'  for  the  future  by  long  spells  of  un- 
availability in  the  present.  The  later  years  of  the  Fourth  Republic  therefore 
saw  several  exceptionally  young  premiers:  four  were  under  fifty  and  one  of 
them  under  forty.  As  Pierre  Cot  reproached  Felix  Gaillard,  some  men  of  this 
new  generation  still  followed  the  old  men's  policies.  But,  as  Gaillard  replied,  a 
minister  soon  found  that  his  margin  for  manoeuvre  was  far  smaller  than  the 
critics  supposed.31  A  leader  with  a  great  party  behind  him  was  unacceptable 
to  the  rival  powers;  a  leader  without  one  was  acceptable  precisely  because  of 
the  weakness  of  his  personal  situation.  *An  ephemeral  monarch  among  the 
barons  who  enthrone  or  dethrone  him,  he  can  preserve  his  equilibrium  in  his 
high  position  only  by  giving  way  to  the  most  demanding,  and  otherwise  trying 
to  neutralize  them  by  playing  one  against  the  other.  Nine-tenths  of  his  time 
are  taken  up  by  this  task,  as  futile  as  it  is  exhausting.  In  it  he  ruins  his  health, 
and  loses  his  integrity.'32 

The  contrast  between  the  leaders  who  accepted  these  limits  and  those  who 
rebelled  against  them  was  one  of  style  more  than  policy.  Gaullists  admired, 
supported  and  served  under  Mendes-France  because  of  his  methods  as  much 
or  more  than  his  objectives;  and  Mendes-France  was  only  one  of  many  left- 
wing  critics  of  the  System  who  were  turning  to  de  Gaulle  in  the  last  months  of 
the  regime.33  But  there  were  other  leaders  who  tried  to  struggle  on  within  the 
rules,  seeking  to  achieve  their  ends  by  guile,  deviousness,  skilful  timing,  and 
immense  pertinacity  and  patience.  The  regime  bred  in  these  men  a  professional 
pride  in  their  obscure  art;  and  in  some  MRP  and  Gaullist  leaders  who  had 
once  rebelled  against  it,  a  masochistic  pleasure  in  displaying  the  skills  they 
had  first  condemned  and  then  acquired.  De  Gaulle  had  grounds  for  his  warning 
against  'the  games,  the  poisons  and  the  delights  of  the  System'.34 

Yet  the  limits  were  set  by  the  situation,  quite  as  much  as  the  character  of 
the  politicians.  Throughout  the  Fourth  Republic  any  drastic  change  of  govern- 
ment and  policy  would  have  entailed  an  alliance  with  opponents  of  the  regime, 
whose  price  its  supporters  feared  to  pay  -  whether  because  it  would  have 
weakened  their  power,  injured  their  interests,  or  imperilled  democracy  itself. 
Under  the  Fifth  the  private  pressure-groups  and  the  public  services  did  not 
abandon  their  anarchical  habits  merely  because  a  strong  executive  had  been 
installed.  In  both  regimes  ministers  pursued  in  office  policies  they  had  de- 
nounced in  opposition ;  juggled  with  the  price  index  to  hold  off  wage  increases ; 
and  arbitrarily  confiscated  whole  issues  of  opposition  journals  (though  where- 
as during  1957  left-wing  papers  were  seized  for  what  they  themselves  had 

31.  Above,  p.  13.  On  premiers*  ages  see  Arn6,  pp.  51-2. 

32.  Sirius  (Hubert  Beuve-Mery)  in  Monde,  30  April  1958.  Cf.  Aron,  no.  7,  pp.  263-4. 

33.  See  above,  p.  54. 

34.  On  6  May  1953 :  AP  1953,  p.  476.  To  conclude  his  first  investiture  speech  Faure  quoted 
Montesquieu :  'It  is  not  the  means  that  should  be  splendid  but  the  end.  True  politics  means  reach- 
ing it  by  obscure  paths*:  JO  17  January  1952,  p.  276  (and cf.  AP  1952,  p.  13;  De  Tarr,  p.  176). 
Lecourt  said  of  the  1953  presidential  election,  *  Since  Bidault  withdrew  our  role  consists  of  count- 
ing corpses*:  Faucher,  p.  82.  Cf.  Diethelm  (above,  p.  136)  and  Chaban-Delmas  (JO  20  November 
1953,  p.  5635).  Leites  (p.  426n.)  dissects  scientifically  all  the  acts  and  attitudes  of  this  kind  com- 
mitted by  parliamentarians  or  alleged  by  their  enemies ;  and  discusses  nothing  else. 


THE  MEN  AND   THE  SYSTEM  443 

written,  after  1958  they  were  often  punished  for  the  offences  of  others,  so  as 
to  make  the  seizure  of  a  right-wing  journal  more  palatable  to  the  army).  No 
political  manoeuvre  of  the  Fourth  Republic  did  more  by  its  conduct  to  dis- 
credit the  regime  (and  its  author)  than  the  equivocation,  prevarication  and 
slow  elimination  of  every  alternative  by  which  Edgar  Faure,  at  some  cost  in 
human  lives,  brought  a  suspicious  right-wing  majority  and  an  indignant  army 
to  accept  the  virtual  independence  of  Morocco.  Yet  the  President  of  the  Fifth 
Republic  with  his  unexampled  prestige  and  authority  found  very  similar 
tactics  necessary  to  arrive  at  the  same  result  in  Algeria. 

The  System  was  often  criticized  for  infirmity  of  purpose,  'a  daily  nibbling 
by  which  the  policy  the  government  has  adopted  is  gradually  emptied  of  its 
substance';  inconsequence,  'a  policy  which  drifts  with  the  stream,  with  no 
aim  but  to  pass  round  obstacles  as  they  arise,  hoping  for  the  best  without 
knowing  how  or  why';  disingenuous  conservatism,  *  easily  agreeing  to  grant 
bogus  nominal  satisfactions  in  the  hope  of  averting  real  reforms';  and  the 
sham  solidarity  of  immobilisme,  'believing  union  in  doing  nothing  is  better 
than  the  united  action  of  a  homogeneous  power'.  The  reproaches  were  justi- 
fied. Yet  all  these  comments  were  directed  against  the  first  government  of 
General  de  Gaulle,  before  there  was  any  Parliament  to  obstruct  him.35  The 
men  and  institutions  of  the  Fourth  Republic  had  many  faults,  but  new  men 
and  institutions  proved  as  inadequate  in  1958  as  in  1945  to  install  at  last  the 
long-promised  Republique  pure  et  dure. 

35.  Three  in  Mendes-France's  letter  of  resignation  written  on  18  January  1945,  printed  in  his 
book  (see  p.  33 In.),  pp.  334,  338,  340;  the  last  by  Jules  Moch  in  Populaire,  6  January  1945 
(I  owe  this  one  to  Dr.  B.  D.  Graham). 


Chapter  31 
SOCIETY  AND  THE  STATE 

The  Fourth  Republic  lasted  less  than  a  dozen  years,  but  during  that  brief 
period  French  economy  and  society  changed  more  quickly  than  it  ever  had 
in  the  preceding  century.  Economic  modernization  and  new  means  of  mass 
communication  reduced  the  old  differences  between  regions  and  classes,  but 
brought  new  tensions  between  those  who  gained  and  those  who  lost.  In  so 
conservative  a  country,  this  pace  of  progress  imposed  severe  strains  -  greatly 
accentuated  by  the  external  crisis  which  began  before  the  Fourth  Republic 
but  reached  a  climax  under  it.  For  men  humiliated  in  1940,  who  had  rapidly 
rebuilt  and  increased  the  absolute  strength  of  their  country,  were  called  on  to 
adjust  to  a  sharp  decline  in  its  power  relative  to  its  rivals  and  former  subjects. 
Within  Europe,  France  made  her  adjustment  to  the  new  conditions  more 
readily  than  Britain;  outside  Europe,  far  less  readily.  The  tensions  born  of 
simultaneous  progress  at  home  and  retreat  abroad  came  to  a  head  over  the 
Algerian  problem,  which  first  paralysed  the  working  of  government  and  then 
threatened  political  liberties. 

These  problems  were  dealt  with  by  new  men  working  a  new  constitution. 
The  parliamentary  personnel  of  the  Fourth  Republic  was  largely  recruited 
through  the  Resistance  and  the  Free  French  movement,  and  inspired  by  out- 
raged patriotism  and  impatient  exasperation  with  the  manoeuvres,  com- 
promises and  evasions  of  the  pre-war  politicians.  Yet  the  new  men  quickly 
resumed  the  practices  they  had  once  roundly  condemned.  The  regime  was 
remade  in  1946  in  order  to  destroy  the  bad  old  ways;  but  before  long  the 
System  reappeared.  This  return  (not  persistence)  of  traditional  attitudes  and 
methods  suggests  that  the  problem  of  adapting  the  political  mechanism  to 
social  change  lay  not  in  the  faults  of  character  of  two  very  different  sets  of 
men,  or  the  institutional  weaknesses  of  two  constitutions  devised  for  quite 
different  ends,  but  deep  in  the  history  and  social  structure  of  France. 

In  twentieth-century  French  politics  the  cleavages  of  the  past  remained  as 
wide  as  those  of  the  present  day.  France  had  her  incomplete  industrial 
revolution  before  the  political  victory  against  authoritarianism  had  been  won. 
No  consensus  had  been  found  about  the  objectives  of  political  action,  and  no 
rules  agreed  for  the  tenure  and  transfer  of  power,  when  industrial  civilization 
raised  the  stakes  of  the  political  game  by  provoking  demands  for  governmental 
protection  of  the  producer  against  domestic  or  foreign  competition,  the 
capitalist  against  the  claims  of  labour,  the  worker  against  the  pressure  of  his 
employer. 

The  French  industrial  revolution  was  itself  localized,  incomplete  and 
stunted.  Over  most  of  the  country  the  old  order  of  self-sufficient  peasants  and 
artisans  survived,  and  they  used  their  disproportionate  political  influence  to 
protert  their  own  interests  and  those  of  their  rich  allies  at  the  expense  of  the 
industrial  workers.  An  overcrowded  tertiary  sector,  above  all  in  commerce, 


SOCIETY  AND  THE  STATE  445 

offered  the  traditional  outlet  for  the  many  who  sought  a  precarious  and  unreal 
economic  independence.  A  majority  of  voters  wanted  the  diffusion  of  wealth 
and  power,  and  resisted  speed  and  standardization,  mass  production  and 
large-scale  organization,  plenty  and  instability  -  in  a  word,  Americanization. 
Through  her  thwarted  economic  development,  France  acquired  the  social 
problems  of  industrialism  without  its  material  benefits.  Two  distinct  types  of 
politics  coexisted  there:  a  revolutionary  class  struggle,  dominant  in  most 
industrial  areas,  a  traditional  ideological  conflict  which  prevailed  mainly  in 
backward  regions.  Politicians  had  to  shape  their  attitudes  to  the  needs  and 
demands  of  both,  and  the  diversity  of  issues  and  alignments  created  many 
parties  and  factions:  the  reflection,  not  the  cause,  of  the  absence  of  an 
electoral  majority. 

The  old  political  fabric  was  torn  asunder  by  the  sweeping  social  changes 
of  the  post-war  years  and  the  governmental  policies  which  encouraged  them. 
For  the  first  time  for  over  a  century  the  birth-rate  rose.  The  traditional 
domination  of  the  family  by  the  older  generations  was  upset.  New  age-groups 
pressed  impatiently  on  the  heels  of  their  elders,  acceding  to  responsibility  - 
in  business,  politics,  agriculture,  the  civil  service  -  far  younger  than  in  the 
past.  They  called  for  expansion  to  accommodate  the  growing  numbers  of 
Frenchmen,  invented  new  voluntary  associations  for  common  purposes,  and 
insisted  on  a  wider  conception  of  governmental  activity  than  the  mere  preser- 
vation of  situations  acquises.  A  new  attitude  to  risk-taking  and  modernization 
soon  spread  from  industry  to  agriculture.  The  industrial  structure  was 
transformed  by  the  growth  of  large  plants  and  of  specialized  skills,  which 
broke  up  the  old  uniformity  of  the  working  class  and  created  in  the  newer 
industries  a  common  interest  in  stability  between  management  and  worker. 
Under  the  impact  of  material  prosperity,  labour  shortage,  and  the  reforms  of 
1936-37  and  1945-46,  labour  relations  and  even  class  divisions  gradually 
began  to  lose  some  of  their  old  bitterness.  The  rapid  growth  of  towns  upset 
the  country's  social  and  geographical  balance,  until  one  Frenchman  in  four 
lived  in  an  urban  area  of  over  100,000  inhabitants.  The  old  self-sufficiency  of 
the  village  disappeared;  prosperity  and  paid  holidays  brought  townsmen 
to  the  countryside,  while  agricultural  mechanization  and  the  decline  of  the 
artisan  reduced  employment  in  the  rural  areas. 

New  social  conditions  broke  the  old  lines  of  political  communication.  The 
small-town  newspaper  declined  as  a  political  force,  but  neither  the  regional 
nor  the  Paris  press  took  its  place  -  except  for  Le  Monde,  which  soon  acquired 
the  status  of  a  republican  institution.  Even  broadcasting  had  far  less  political 
importance  than  in  Britain  or  the  United  States,  and  television  arrived  too 
late  to  play  a  significant  role  in  Fourth  Republican  politics  -  though  within 
its  narrow  geographical  range  it  contributed  to  a  growing  uniformity  of  tastes 
and  interests. 

As  urbanization  spread  and  regional  differences  waned,  the  ancient  quarrel 
between  Church  and  Universite  lost  its  former  virulence.  The  cur£  was 
withdrawn  from  some  parishes,  and  where  he  remained  he  might  well  cham- 
pion progress,  not  conservatism.  The  new  and  radical  grass-roots  organiza- 
tions were  often  founded  and  manned  by  young  Catholic  laymen,  products 


446  THE  SYSTEM 

of  the  flourishing  Church  youth  movements.  On  social  and  especially  colonial 
questions  many  Catholics  were  active  reformers  -  and  some  anticlericals 
from  the  traditional  Left  took  up  conservative  or  reactionary  stands.  When 
the  Algerian  war  revived  the  passions  of  the  Dreyfus  case,  the  alignment  was 
new  and  unexpected:  in  1900  Church  and  army  had  stood  together  against 
the  indignant  protests  of  the  teachers  and  intellectuals,  but  now  the  angry 
officers  found  many  of  their  former  allies  in  the  opposite  camp,  along  with 
the  Universite.  As  the  clergy  withdrew  from  militant  opposition  to  the  regime, 
and  as  political  power  shifted  from  the  countryside  to  the  towns,  fewer 
village  schoolteachers  regarded  themselves  as  the  embattled  missionaries  of 
the  Republic.  Every  year  diminished  the  large  fund  of  accumulated  mistrust 
which  still  remained  for  political  exploitation,  and  with  its  decline  the  two 
great  corporations  lost  their  central  place  in  political  organization  and  con- 
flict. 

Other  factors  helped  to  promote  the  nationalization  and  modernization  of 
political  life.  With  the  abolition  of  small  single-member  districts  and  the 
growth  of  official  and  semi-official  regional  institutions,  the  prefect  became 
less  of  a  focus  for  political  activity  and  the  deputy  lost  some  of  the  social 
standing  he  had  formerly  enjoyed  in  his  constituency  (if  not  in  Paris).  Wider 
horizons  and  stronger  parties  weakened  the  authority  of  the  individual 
politician,  though  less  than  was  expected  in  the  first  post-war  years.  The 
traditional  notables,  the  professional  and  business  class  of  the  small  town, 
lost  their  dominating  influence  over  their  fellows  as  education  became  more 
general,  modern  communications  made  the  country  more  uniform,  and  the 
tiny  autonomous  unit,  after  falling  behind  its  big  competitors  in  industry  and 
then  in  agriculture,  began  to  lose  ground  even  in  its  last  strongholds :  com- 
merce and  politics.  The  state,  traditionally  feared  and  restricted,  exercised  so 
powerful  and  pervasive  an  influence  throughout  the  economy  that  the  old 
contrast  between  the  pays  legal  and  the  pays  reel  came  to  seem  meaningless 
even  to  extreme  conservatives.1  The  new  professional  organizations  -  of 
labour,  business,  the  peasantry  and  various  middle-class  groups  -  rapidly 
acquired  an  altogether  new  solidity  and  influence  during  or  just  after  the  war. 
While  after  1948  the  trade  unions  lost  most  of  the  ground  they  had  gained,  the 
other  confederations  survived  to  play  a  growing  role  in  politics.  But  since  they 
usually  acted  by  pressure  from  without,  rather  than  directly  in  the  electoral 
or  parliamentary  struggle,  these  new  corporations  did  not  replace  the  old 
decaying  political  mechanisms. 

Indeed,  in  the  short  run  better  organization  merely  allowed  the  conflicting 
groups  to  express  more  vigorously  their  unanimous  conviction  that  others 
were  being  favoured  at  their  expense.  The  hungry  occupation  years  had  been 
a  godsend  to  the  peasantry,  and  the  black  market  and  inflation  were  the 
shopkeeper's  golden  age;  both  resented  the  return  to  normality  which  cost 
them  their  privileged  positions.  The  social  reforms  of  the  Popular  Front  and 
the  governments  issuing  from  the  Resistance  did  not  wholly  reconcile  the 
industrial  workers  to  the  regime,  but  they  did  alarm  employers  whose  power 
was  challenged.  Yet  the  state  on  which  all  these  pressures  converged  was 

1.  Isorni,  Ainsi,  p.  53.  (I  owe  many  ideas  in  this  chapter  to  the  authors  named  on  p.  465.) 


SOCIETY  AND  THE  STATE  447 

poorly  armed  to  resist  them,  for  the  politicians  who  were  eager  to  expand  its 
functions  economically  were  afraid  of  strengthening  the  executive  politically. 
Historic  fears  of  reaction  and  revolution  imposed  'the  paradox  of  a  weak 
government  with  a  strong  state';2  and  the  administration's  Maginot  line 
against  the  invading  pressure-groups  could  often  be  turned  by  an  attack  on  its 
unfortified  parliamentary  flank. 

Some  groups  fought  for  their  interests  in  the  old  ways;  and  any  effort  to 
impose  taxes  on  peasants  or  collect  them  from  small  businessmen,  cut  the 
alcohol  subsidy  or  make  railwaymen  work  beyond  the  age  of  55,  would  cause 
a  political  storm  and  provoke  the  party  whose  clients  were  threatened  to 
overturn  the  government.  Some  sections  of  the  new  middle  class,  concerned 
for  modernization  and  efficiency  and  dissatisfied  with  the  traditional  parties, 
contributed  to  a  floating  vote  far  larger  than  before  the  war  and  gave  emphasis 
to  the  fluctuations  of  public  opinion.  Other  victims,  finding  the  old  lines  of 
communication  inadequate,  resorted  to  disorderly  and  extravagant  forms  of 
protest.  Some  felt  wholly  cut  off  from  their  political  representatives.  Suspicious 
of  a  government  whose  processes  they  could  not  understand  and  whose 
policies  they  abhorred,  and  convinced  that  occult  forces  had  captured  the  state 
for  their  own  nefarious  ends,  they  inspired  outbursts  as  furious  and  irrational, 
though  not  as  dangerous,  as  those  of  the  Third  and  Fifth  Republics. 

At  home  the  growth  of  the  economy  aroused  resentment  among  those  who 
lost  by  it  or  who  benefited  little;  identifying  the  misfortunes  of  their  class 
with  those  of  their  country,  they  clamoured  for  diehard  resistance  to  change 
both  abroad  and  at  home.  Poujadism,  the  rebellion  of  static  France  against 
the  economic  ascendancy  and  progress  of  the  advanced  regions,  was  also  a 
protest  against  any  concession  in  the  empire.  But  the  new  psychology  which 
underlay  the  expansion  in  'modern  France*  was  partly  a  product  of  revolt 
against  the  collapse  of  1940,  and  for  many  modernizers  the  very  purpose  of 
this  economic  progress  was  to  rebuild  the  power  of  the  French  state  even 
more  than  the  prosperity  of  individual  Frenchmen.  The  crucial  decisions  on 
atomic  development  were  taken  by  Fourth  Republican  premiers,  including 
Mendes-France  -  whose  eloquent  appeals  for  national  resurgence  made  him 
for  a  time  a  hero  of  the  Gaullists.  Men  from  the  Resistance  and  Fighting 
France,  who  against  all  prudent  calculation  had  entered  upon  a  struggle  against 
overwhelming  odds  in  1940,  were  often  unimpressed  by  appeals  to  historical 
inevitability  or  demonstrations  that  France  had  not  the  strength  to  hold  her 
place  in  the  new  world.  Thus  economic  progress  gave  rise  to  exasperation 
as  well  as  satisfaction  when  the  country,  feeling  a  new  internal  strength  and 
vigour,  found  itself  faced  with  a  steady  decline  in  its  external  power. 

It  was  therefore  not  surprising  that  the  familiar  problem  of  reconciling 
France's  ends  and  her  means  was  not  always  discussed  in  purely  rational 
terms.  In  1945  only  the  Socialists  stood  out  against  the  policy  of  crushing 
Germany  on  which  nationalists  and  Christian  Democrats,  Gaullists  and  Com- 
munists agreed;  and  many  Frenchmen  seemed  to  find  Soviet  Russia  a  more 
congenial  diplomatic  partner  than  democratic  America.  But  within  five  years 

2.  Siegfried,  De  la  IHe,  p.  251,  cf.  ibid.,  p.  51 ;  Hoffmann  in  Change,  pp.  73-4 ;  Hamon,  no.  120 ; 
Priouret,  Dtputts>  Chapters  11-12. 


448  THE  SYSTEM 

France  was  committed,  despite  violent  opposition,  to  the  Atlantic  alliance; 
and  many  Resisters,  whose  proven  patriotism  under  Nazi  occupation  gave 
them  a  clear  conscience,  had  taken  up  the  old  themes  of  intelligent  defeatists 
like  Caillaux  and  Laval  and  were  preaching  Franco-German  reconciliation. 
In  1954  a  revolt  of  neutralists  and  nationalists  defeated  the  European  army 
plan  after  a  furious  battle  which  divided  Resisters  as  well  as  Vichyites,  and 
Left  as  well  as  Right.  But  the  new  perspective  of  European  unity  had  caught 
the  imagination  of  many  able  and  idealistic  young  Frenchmen,  and  after  the 
EDC  struggle  which  seemed  to  purge  the  old  hatred  of  Germany,  the 
adjustment  to  a  new  constellation  of  forces  in  Europe  was  accepted  without 
friction  -  even  by  its  former  opponents  when  they  came  to  power  in  1958. 

Elsewhere  the  change  was  harder  to  tolerate.  Progressive  internationalists 
in  France  had  always  fought  for  equal  rights  for  the  colonial  peoples,  not 
for  independence.  Nationalist  conservatives  who  had  painfully  accepted 
reality  in  one  sphere  found  it  all  the  harder  to  abandon  their  remaining 
illusions.  So  the  business  defeatists  like  Raymond  Carrier,  who  attacked  the 
Algerian  commitment  as  too  expensive,  found  no  hearing  in  the  Fourth 
Republic.  Instead,  on  Left  and  Right  alike,  old  conservatives  and  new  national- 
ists combined  to  silence  the  liberals  and  the  realists  until  it  was  almost  too 
late  in  Tunisia  and  Morocco,  much  too  late  in  Indo-China  and  Algeria.  Then- 
task  was  the  easier  because  the  colonial  bureaucracy  was  as  conservative  as 
the  economic  bureaucracy  was  progressive;  and  above  all  because  France, 
alone  among  colonial  powers,  had  a  mass  Communist  party.  Neither  poli- 
ticians nor  voters  were  prepared  to  pay  the  price  for  its  support;  and  while 
without  it  the  decolonizes  were  outnumbered,  with  it  they  were  discredited. 
Social  reformers  at  home  faced  the  same  dilemma,  and  the  housing  and  educa- 
tional opportunities  of  the  poor  remained  shamefully  inadequate.  But  there 
desirable  measures  could  be  deferred  without  immediate  disaster.  Overseas, 
time  was  fast  running  out. 

Despite  the  obstacles,  parties  and  people  slowly  accepted  the  need  for 
change,  and  by  1958  the  diehards  commanded  only  a  quarter  of  the  National 
Assembly  and  a  minority  of  the  public.  At  this  point  the  struggle  moved  to  a 
new  plane,  for  the  humiliations  and  retreats  of  twenty  years  had  had  their 
deepest  effect  on  the  men  who  had  borne  the  brunt  of  them,  the  army  officers. 
More  democratically  recruited  and  less  traditionalist  in  outlook  than  ever 
in  the  past,  they  had  been  taught  in  1940  that  there  were  higher  duties  than 
obedience  to  the  legal  government.  One  defeat  in  Indo-China  reinforced  their 
determination  not  to  tolerate  a  second  in  Algeria.  For  two  years  fear  of 
military  insubordination  helped  to  paralyse  ministers,  who  abdicated  to  the 
army  while  publicly  proclaiming  confidence  in  its  fidelity.  So  the  Fourth 
Republic  was  destroyed  at  last,  like  most  previous  French  regimes,  by  a 
foreign  failure;  its  own  servants  repudiated  it,  and  an  indifferent  people  no 
longer  felt  sufficient  loyalty  to  come  to  its  defence.  Unhappily,  the  circum- 
stances of  the  collapse  made  the  twin  problems  of  legitimacy  and  authority 
more  acute  than  ever.  For  if  the  Fourth  Republic  had  shown  the  perils  of  weak 
political  authority  in  its  lifetime,  its  death  reminded  Frenchmen  that  revolu- 
tionary violence  still  seethed  not  far  below  the  political  surface,  and  that 


SOCIETY  AND  THE  STATE  449 

dangerous  hands  were  waiting  to  grasp  the  levers  of  a  strong  governmental 
machine. 

'All  government  ...  is  founded  on  compromise  and  barter.  We  balance 
inconveniences;  we  give  and  take;  we  remit  some  rights  that  we  may  enjoy 
others  . . .  Man  acts  from  adequate  motives  relative  to  his  interests ;  and  not 
on  metaphysical  speculations.'  In  the  shadow  of  Bonapartism  and  the  Com- 
mune John  Morley  suggested  that  in  France  these  words  of  Burke  *  ought  to 
be  printed  in  capitals  on  the  front  of  every  newspaper,  and  written  up  in 
letters  of  burnished  gold  over  each  faction  of  the  Assembly,  and  on  the  door 
of  every  bureau  in  the  Administration'.  At  the  end  of  the  century,  Bodley 
remarked:  'There  is  a  nation  to  the  members  of  which  Frenchmen  are  more 
revengeful  than  to  Germans,  more  irascible  than  to  Italians,  more  unjust 
than  to  English.  It  is  to  the  French  that  Frenchmen  display  animosity  more 
savage,  more  incessant  and  more  inequitable  than  to  people  of  any  other  race.  * 
Half-way  through  the  next  century  Raymond  Aron  observed  that  republicans 
and  Resisters,  royalists  and  reactionaries  had  one  common  characteristic  at 
least:  their  relish  for  proscribing  one  another.3 

The  politicians  of  the  regime  learned  the  lesson  and  accepted  the  reproach. 
The  institutions  of  the  Third  Republic  were  soon  warped  into  the  system  of 
'stable  instability',  by  which  conflicts  were  absorbed  and  compromises 
arranged  by  frequently  changing  combinations  of  the  same  ministers, 
closely  supervised  by  a  vigilant  Parliament.  In  the  Fourth  Republic  men  and 
institutions  were  shaped  by  this  old  mould  instead  of  breaking  it.  Yet  the 
post-war  reforms  were  by  no  means  a  total  failure.  The  silent  administrative 
revolution  undertaken  by  de  Gaulle  and  his  immediate  successors,  and  the 
new  financial  and  legislative  procedures  gradually  hammered  out  over  the 
next  decade,  might  have  helped  the  Third  Republic  tackle  many  of  the 
domestic  problems  with  which  it  had  failed  to  deal.4  They  were  inadequate  for 
the  violent  storms  of  the  post-war  world;  but  would  a  different  regime  have 
averted  or  weathered  the  tornado  from  Algiers? 

The  new  institutions  enabled  some  dangers  to  be  avoided,  decisions  taken 
and  policies  pursued  without  parliamentary  obstruction.  They  could  not 
solve  a  problem  arising  out  of  the  party  system,  not  the  formal  rules.  Under 
tripartisme,  three  strong  parties  provided  a  majority  without  coherence  or 
durability.  But  when  faced  with  Communist  opposition,  Socialists  and 
MRP  had  to  call  in  the  old  political  world  to  redress  the  balance  of  the  new, 
so  that  governments  depended  simultaneously  on  the  traditional  and  ill- 
organized  groups  and  on  the  newer  and  better-disciplined  parties.  Whereas 
in  the  Third  Republic  a  prominent  non-partisan  figure  had  often  been  able 
to  exploit  parliamentary  fragmentation  to  assemble  a  majority,  the  better- 
organized  groups  now  resented  his  influence  on  their  members.  Whereas 
under  tripartisme  the  party  leaders  had  been  able  to  trade  concessions  and 
enforce  their  bargains,  the  chieftains  of  the  looser  groups  could  never  commit 
their  troops,  and  on  major  issues  every  party  of  government  was  now 

3.  Morley,  On  Compromise  (1874),  p.  136;  Bodley,  i.  215;  Aron,  no.  7,  p.  262. 

4.  Above,  pp.  263ff.,  268-9,  272-5,  284-5,  343,  345 ;  cf.  Williams,  pp.  403-4. 


450  THE  SYSTEM 

vulnerable  to  indiscipline.  Mendes-France  had  to  work  with  less  malleable 
material  than  Poincare;  MRP  operated  less  smoothly  as  a  pivot  party  than 
the  Radicals;  round-table  decisions  were  repeatedly  upset  in  the  Assembly; 
over  EDC  and  Algeria  the  divisions  were  within  parties  rather  than  between 
them. 

The  traditional  parliamentary  game  complicated  still  further  an  already 
confused  situation.  Its  skilful  and  single-minded  practitioners  in  the  old  ill- 
organized  groups  were  enabled  to  resume  the  game  by  the  deliberate  choice 
of  their  newer  and  more  solid  rivals.  For  these  feared  the  extremists  who 
wanted  a  strong  state  under  their  own  control;  lest  they  should  either  capture 
and  abuse  power,  or  precipitate  civil  war  in  the  attempt,  the  cautious  poli- 
ticians took  measures  to  reduce  the  political  weight  of  'modern  France' 
whence  the  dangers  mostly  came.  'Static  France'  was  favoured  by  the 
electoral  laws  of  1948  for  the  upper  house  and  1951  for  the  lower,  and  as  in 
the  Third  Republic  the  second  chamber  and  the  electoral  system  became 
devices  buttressing  the  backward  areas,  the  individualist  parties,  and  the 
traditional  style  of  politics.5  So  the  compromisers  and  careerists  still  had  a 
necessary  role  to  play  -  and  the  system  rewarded  them  well  for  it.  The 
National  Assembly  continued  to  breed  political  opportunists  (as  the  House 
of  Commons  breeds  yes-men,  and  the  Senate  of  the  United  States  exhibi- 
tionists). Critics  accused  the  men  of  the  System  of  raising  artificial  disputes 
in  order  to  divide  the  people;  their  real  fault  was  that  they  concealed  genuine 
divergences  in  order  not  to. 

If  the  weak  parties  quickly  resumed  the  bad  habits  of  the  past,  the  stronger 
ones  quite  failed  to  fulfil  their  hopes  of  transforming  political  behaviour. 
Having  no  prospect  of  winning  independent  power,  each  of  them  adopted 
sectional  policies  expressing  the  outlook  or  interests  of  the  limited  clientele 
on  which  it  depended  for  its  very  existence.  These  policies  could  rarely  be 
applied,  for  the  parliamentary  situation  usually  gave  several  parties  a  veto  on 
action;  and  as  they  were  not  implemented,  they  were  regarded  with  cynicism 
by  politicians  and  voters  alike.  Either  to  make  a  career  or  to  influence  policy, 
the  parliamentarian's  road  to  power  led  not  through  the  patient  mobilizing 
of  electoral  support  but  through  the  subtle  and  absorbing  parliamentary 
game;  and  the  struggle  for  power,  which  occurs  every  four  years  in  other 
great  democracies,  never  ceased  in  France.  'Among  Western  legislators,  only 
the  French  deputy  took  part  in  an  execution  (the  overthrowing  of  a  Cabinet), 
in  a  festivity  (ministerial  crisis),  and  in  a  prize-giving  ceremony  (the  formation 
of  a  Cabinet),  every  three,  six  or  twelve  months.'6  True,  the  instability  was 
less  damaging  than  it  seemed,  since  the  ministers  so  often  kept  or  exchanged 
their  places.  True,  the  crises  fulfilled  a  function,  since  they  enabled  difficult 
decisions  to  be  reached.  But  the  system  exasperated  the  voter,  who  soon 

5.  Just  half  the  metropolitan  deputies  sat  for  the  30  most  industrial  departments.  In  1946  these 
returned  half  the  Radicals  and  Conservatives,  55%  of  the  Communists  and  Gaullists,  and  47% 
of  SFIO  and  MRP;  in  1951, 37%,  65%  and  45  %  respectively;  in  1956,  42%  of  the  traditionalist 
members,  55%  of  the  Communists,  and  54%  of  the  Socialists,  MRP  and  strict  Mendesists.  The 
Radicals  and  Conservatives  made  50  net  gains  in  1951,  45  of  them  in  the  less  industrial  half  of 
France.  (My  calculations.)  Cf.  above,  pp.  400,  418-9  and  nn. ;  but  cf.  Aron,  no.  6,  pp.  12-13. 

6.  Aron,  Steadfast,  p.  24. 


SOCIETY  AND  THE  STATE  451 

became  indifferent  to  or  contemptuous  of  'the  shuffling  of  a  greasy  and  well- 
marked  parliamentary  pack'.  With  no  circuit  of  confidence  between  rulers 
and  people  there  could  be  no  majority  to  take  responsibility;  and  with  no 
majority,  there  could  be  no  clear  allocation  of  responsibility,  and  therefore 
no  circuit  of  confidence. 

The  Fourth  Republic,  like  the  Third,  proved  successful  in  absorbing 
the  dangerous  movements  in  the  country,  only  to  succumb  beneath  an  ex- 
ternal shock  because  it  had  failed  to  convince  the  ordinary  Frenchman  that 
it  was  really  his  government.  Yet  many  of  the  manoeuvres  he  so  despised  were 
promoted  by  hope  of  gaining  votes,  and  more  by  fear  of  losing  them.  Few 
crises  originated  exclusively  with  the  players  of  the  game.  Much  more  fre- 
quently 'the  professionals  . . .  [gave]  expression  to  them;  perhaps  they  aggra- 
vated them;  all  too  often  they  could  not  resolve  them;  but  they  did  not  create 
them'.7  It  was  natural  for  the  citizen  to  blame  the  mirror  rather  than  the 
original  for  the  ugly  figure  his  representatives  often  cut.  'Very  often  the  Palais 
Bourbon  has  been  described  as  a  house  without  windows,  blind,  shut  off  from 
the  realities  of  life  and  the  world.  Nothing  is  falser.  It  should  rather  be  re- 
proached with  being  too  open  to  the  thousand  changing  humours  of  opinion, 
too  accessible  to  every  demand  from  outside,  too  close  to  a  whole  people, 
the  most  ungovernable  in  the  world,  of  whom,  whatever  they  think,  it  is  the 
all  too  faithful  image  . .  .'8 

Some  of  the  outsiders  who  denounced  the  parliamentarians'  obsession  with 
their  private  game  were  equally  obsessed  by  it  themselves.  For  in  attributing 
all  the  faults  of  the  System  to  the  legislature  or  its  members,  they  convinced 
themselves  that  the  problem  could  be  simply  solved  by  a  constitution  which 
kept  the  deputies  subordinate.  Yet,  as  French  history  had  amply  shown, 
ministerial  instability  characterized  authoritarian  no  less  than  liberal  regimes; 
private  interests  were  not  less  influential  or  rapacious  when  they  operated 
secretly  on  the  executive  rather  than  openly  on  the  legislature ;  and  if  popular 
resentment  was  deprived  of  its  normal  channels  of  expression  it  would  burst 
violently  through  some  irregular  outlet.  Conflicts  are  not  settled  by  being 
hidden  from  view,  and  it  is  a  function  of  the  politician  to  draw  attention  to 
grievances  before  they  fester  and  become  dangerous.  In  a  regime  which  scorns 
him,  this  function  is  not  always  performed.  As  an  American  conservative 
warned  long  ago,  'Monarchy  is  like  a  splendid  ship,  with  all  sails  set;  it 
moves  majestically  on,  then  it  hits  a  rock  and  sinks  for  ever.  Democracy  is 
like  a  raft.  It  never  sinks,  but,  damn  it,  your  feet  are  always  in  the  water.'9 

Right-wing  critics  of  the  System  could  claim  that  conservatives  of  the  Left 
exploited  the  fear  of  strong  government  to  preserve  the  political  System,  and 
so  they  did :  but  there  were  real  dangers  of  abuse  if  the  centralized  adminis- 
tration were  freed  from  democratic  control.  Left-wing  critics  complained  that 
fear  of  Communism  was  exploited  by  conservatives  of  the  Right  to  entrench 
the  existing  social  order,  and  so  it  was :  but  a  Communist  party,  once  installed, 

7.  Ibid.,  p.  28,  cf.  p.  34. 

8.  Isorni,  Silence,  pp.  14-15.  'The  faults  of  the  Fourth  Republic  arose  from  its  being  too 
responsive  . . .  [its]  weaknesses  . . .  were  the  weaknesses  of  the  nation  it  represented  too  well*: 
W.  G.  Andrews,  French  Policy  and  Algeria  (New  York,  1962),  p.  163. 

9.  Fisher  Ames,  cited  Brogan,  The  Free  State,  p.  7. 


452  THE  SYSTEM 

rarely  recognizes  electoral  defeat  as  a  reason  for  relinquishing  power.  So  moder- 
ate politicians,  who  feared  their  countrymen's  propensity  for  political  ex- 
tremism, were  accustomed  not  to  exploit  their  victories  to  the  full;  to  ensure 
through  self-attenuating  devices  that  minorities  were  not  reduced  to  total 
powerlessness;  and  to  avoid  open  clashes  on  major  issues  before  the  public. 
They  abhorred  the  referendum,  stigmatized  the  dissolution  as  a  coup  d'etat, 
shunned  any  electoral  law  which  might  help  to  assemble  a  coherent  parlia- 
mentary majority,  ostracized  any  member  of  the  club  who  looked  for  support 
outside  the  walls  of  Parliament,  and  even  tried  to  avoid  by-elections.  Re- 
peatedly a  party  was  offered  office  or  power  when  it  was  declining  in  the 
country  and  no  longer  dangerous  or  demanding  -  SFIO  in  1946,  MRP  in 
1947,  RPF  in  1953,  Radicals  in  1957.  The  narrowly  parliamentary  outlook 
of  the  political  class  conveniently  helped  to  maintain  their  own  exclusive 
power;  it  arose  none  the  less  from  French  historical  experience. 

In  the  abstract  it  may  well  be  absurd  to  identify  a  presidential  constitution 
with  authoritarian  rule,  and  'direct  democracy'  with  Bonapartist  plebiscites. 
But  if  enough  people  behave  as  if  a  referendum  were  a  plebiscite,  it  will 
become  one.  If  the  advocates  of  a  reinforced  and  independent  executive 
depend  upon  the  groups  which  have  always  loathed  democracy,  then  the 
political  system  which  they  favour  will  be  warped  unrecognizably  by  the 
forces  which  sustain  it.  Indeed,  the  presumed  advantage  of  the  presidential 
system  is  that  an  electoral  majority  is  believed  to  be  more  easily  assembled 
than  a  parliamentary  one.  But  to  obtain  the  electoral  majority,  the  voter's 
whole  political  approach  must  be  changed;  and  the  inevitable  tendency  will 
be  to  seek  this  result  by  employing  the  one  active  tradition  available  for  the 
purpose,  the  plebiscitary  appeal  on  behalf  of  a  strong  national  leader.10 

Where  its  predecessors  had  excluded  the  'unformed'  opinion  of  the  masses 
and  confined  political  activity  to  the  'informed'  and  sophisticated  elites,  the 
Fifth  Republic  took  the  opposite  course;  exploiting  'unformed'  against 
'informed'  opinion,  it  attracted  the  unpolitical  majority  while  alienating 
almost  all  the  politically  conscious.11  'Both  maintain  the  traditional  distance 
between  the  leader  and  the  led  which  protects  them  all  from  "  Vhorreur  du 
face  a  face".  Both  excuse  the  leaders  from  having  to  mobilize  the  led  and  pre- 
serve the  happy  irresponsibility  of  the  led Inevitably,  these  patterns 

result  in  arbitrariness,  and  then  provoke  protest  and  revolt.'  Unable  to  par- 
ticipate in  their  government,  Frenchmen  united  in  their  private  corporations 
and  agitated  for  their  claims  like  'angry  creditors  of  a  bureaucratic  state'; 
their  clamour  confirmed  their  masters'  fear  of  participation  and  determina- 
tion to  treat  the  citizen  as  an  administrg.12  But  men  rarely  behave  responsibly 
before  they  are  given  responsibility. 

The  evil  had  ancient  roots.  'The  division  of  classes  was  the  crime  of  the 
old  monarchy,  and  later  became  its  excuse;  for  when  all  those  who  make  up 
the  rich  and  enlightened  part  of  the  nation  can  no  longer  understand  and 

10.  Written  in  1953  :  Williams,  p.  403.  The  objections  are  somewhat  less  applicable  to  proposals 
for  simultaneous  direct  election  of  Parliament  and  chief  executive,  such  as  those  of  M  Duverger 
in  Demain  and  VIe. 

11.  G.  Tillion,  Les  ennemis  compUmentaires  (1960),  pp.  96-7. 

12.  Hoffmann  in  Change,  pp.  105, 1 1 5  (cf.  p.  222). 


SOCIETY  AND  THE  STATE  453 

help  one  another  in  the  government,  the  self-administration  of  the  country 
is  virtually  impossible,  and  a  master  has  to  intervene.  ...  It  is  no  small  task 
to  bring  together  again  citizens  who  have  thus  lived  for  centuries  as  strangers 
or  enemies,  and  to  teach  them  to  conduct  their  own  affairs  in  common.  It 

was  much  easier  to  divide  them  than  it  is  now  to  reunite  them Even  in  our 

own  day  their  jealousies  and  hatreds  survive  them.'13  In  times  of  crisis  the 
fear  or  the  experience  of  revolution  and  dictatorship  kept  open  the  wounds 
between  Catholic  and  anticlerical,  proletarian  and  bourgeois,  Communist 
and  non-Communist.  Even  in  periods  of  normality,  the  arbitrary  arrogance  of 
a  centralized  bureaucracy  busily  manufactured  the  'angiy  subjects'  of  whose 
conduct  it  complained;  and  the  educational  system  which  was  the  pride  of  the 
Republic  was  geared  to  the  production  of c  critical  and  autonomous  individuals 
rather  than  responsible  and  participating  citizens',14  A  tradition  of  opposition 
and  defiance  of  authority  produced  Resisters  and  Poujadists,  men  who 
rebelled  to  keep  Algeria  French  and  others  who  protested  at  the  odious 
methods  used  to  do  so  -  but  no  model  bureaucrat  of  the  gas-chambers  like 
Eichmann. 

'The  most  fickle  and  unmanageable  people  on  earth'  could  not  for  long 
be  ruled  by  force.  In  normal  times  it  could  be  managed  by  a  patient  and 
unglamorous  process  of  endless  compromise  between  the  conflicting  groups; 
but  then  the  intermediaries  monopolized  power,  the  people  felt  no  sense  of 
participation,  and  when  the  stalemate  so  impeded  decision  that  the  national 
community  was  threatened  in  power  or  status,  it  was  the  regime  that  paid  the 
penalty.  In  a  great  crisis  a  rare  charismatic  leader  might  identify  his  cause  and 
his  person  with  the  latent  general  will  which  the  parliamentary  system  had 
failed  to  crystallize ;  but  then  he  might  admit  no  intermediaries  between  the 
people  and  the  remote  (even  if  benevolent)  power  that  determined  then- 
destinies.  In  either  case  democratic  government,  if  it  survived,  was  warped 
and  stunted.  The  historic  dilemma  remains  unresolved:  to  find  a  regime 
under  which  governments  would  be  strong  enough  to  act,  yet  not  overween- 
ing and  oppressive;  secure  enough  to  think  ahead,  yet  not  so  secure  as  to 
ignore  criticism;  receptive  to  the  voter's  claims  and  grievances,  but  not  so 
obsessed  with  them  as  to  be  incapable  of  leadership ;  concerned  for  the  needs 
of  ordinary  people,  but  aware  that  their  deepest  discontents  may  not  have 
material  causes;  neither  obliviously  neglectful  of  that  splendid  abstraction, 
'the  higher  interest  of  France',  nor  loftily  contemptuous  of  'the  immediate 
advantage  of  Frenchmen'.15 

13.  A.  de  Tocqueville,  Uancien  regime  et  la  revolution  (1952  ed.)»  pp.  166-7. 

14.  Crozier,  no.  65,  p.  210. 

15.  Quotations  from  de  Gaulle,  Le  Salut,  pp.  28,  43. 


MAPS 


The  Communist,  Socialist  and  RPF  vote  (and  the  Radicals  in  1956)  show  the  economic 
pattern  modifying  the  historical. 

9.  Communists  1946-51-56  10.  Socialists  1946-51-56 


1.  Safe:    20%  '46,  '51,  '56 

2.  20%  except  '51 

3.  Gain:  20%  '56  but  not  '46 

4.  Loss:   20%  '46  but  not  '56 


11.  Radicals  1946-51-56 


1.  Safe: 
2. 

3.  Gain: 

4.  Loss: 

* 


15%  '46,  '51,  '56 
15%  except  '51 
15%  '56  but  not  '46 
15%  '46  but  not  '56 
15%  '51  only 


12.  RPF  1951:  Poujadists  1956 


1.  Safe:    15%  S46, '51, '56 

2.  15%  except '51 

3.  Gain:  15%  '56  but  not  '46 

4.  Loss:    15%  '46  but  not  '56 
Includes  all  factions  and  allies. 
*15%  1951  only. 


1.  RPF  15%  1951 

2.  Pouj.  12i%  1956 
Note  small  overlap. 


Radicals  and  Poujadists  confined  to  the  backward  areas.  Cf.  Maps  3  and  4 
ALL  PERCENTAGES  OF  ELECTORATE 


458 


Catholicism  (Map  5)  influences  the  MRP  vote  more  than  the  Conservative. 

13.  MRP  1946-51-56  14.  Conservatives  1946-51-56 


Safe: 


15%  '46,  '51,  '56 
15%  except  '51 
15% '56  but  not '46 
4.  Loss:    15%  '46  but  not  '56 
*         15%  '51  only 


Gain: 


1.  Safe: 
2. 

3.  Gain: 

4.  Loss: 

* 


15%  '46,  '51,  '56 
15%  except  '51 
15% '56  but  not  '46 
15%  '46  but  not  '56 
15%  '51  only 


PERCENTAGES  OF  ELECTORATE 


15.  Electoral  alliances  1951 


16.  Absolute  majorities  1951,  1956 


1.  Alliance  including  RPF 

2.  „         Deluding  Socs.  or  RPF 

3 .  „         deluding  Socs.  and  clericals 

4.  ',         of  anticlericals  (Soc.,  Rad.) 

1:  also  P-O 

3:  also  E-et-L,  M-et-M 


All  seats  to  alliance: 

of  anti-Socs.:  (1)1951,  (2)  1956 
including  Socs.  and  MRP:  1951  (3) 
of  anti-clericals  (Soc.,  Rad.):  1956  (4) 


Catholicism  prevents  any  alliance  between  clericals  and  Socialists. 

459 


Catholicism  (Map  5)  influences  the  MRP  vote  more  than  the  Conservative. 


13.  MRP  1946-51-56 


14.  Conservatives  1946-51-56 


1.  Safe:  15%  '46,  '51,  '56 

2.  15%  except  '51 

3.  Gain:  15%  '56  but  not  '46 

4.  Loss:  15%  '46  but  not  '56 

*  15%  '51  only 


L  Safe:  15%  '46,  '51,  '56 

2.  15%  except '51 

3.  Gain:  15%  '56  but  not  '46 

4.  Loss:  15%  '46  but  not  '56 

*  15%  '51  only 


PERCENTAGES  OF  ELECTORATE 


15.  Electoral  alliances  1951 


16.  Absolute  majorities  1951,  1956 


1.  Alliance  mcludingRPF 

2.  „         excluding  Socs,  or  RPF 

3.  ,,        Deluding  Socs.  and  clericals 

4.  ,,         of  anticlericals  (Soc.,  Rad.) 

1:  also  P-O 

3:  also  E-et-L,  M-et-M 


All  seats  to  alliance: 

of  anti-Socs.:  (1)  1951,  (2)  1956 
including  Socs.  and  MRP:  1951  (3) 
of  anti-clericals  (Soc.,  Rad.):  1956  (4) 


Catholicism  prevents  any  alliance  between  clericals  and  Socialists. 

459 


The  historical  pattern  reappears  strongly  in  the  three  referenda  for  or  against  de 
Gaulle.  The  broad  division  between  Left  and  Right  still  follows  it  (Map  20). 


17.  Referendum  21-10-45 
Out  a  de  Gaulle 


18.  Referendum  13-10-46 
Constitution  of  the  4th  Republic 


Limiting  the  Constituent  Assembly's 
powers;  opposed  by  Corns,  and  Rads. 
GUI:  1.  70%  2.  60%  3.  55%  4.  Less 


Opposed  by  de  Gaulle,  Right,  Rads. 
1.  GUI  60%     2.  GUI  50%     3.  NGN 


19.  Referendum  28-9-58 
Oui  a  de  Gaulle 


20.  The  Right  1936  -  and  1956 
1956:  Cons.,  MRP,  RSSRGR;  not 
Poujadists 


Constitution  of  the  5th  Republic: 
opposed  by  Corns.,  many  Rads.,  etc. 
OUI:  1.85%  2.80%  3. 70%  4.  Less 


'Strong':  '36  37i%,  '56  30% 

1.  Strong  both  '36  and  '56 

2.  Strong  only  '56 

3.  Strong  only  '36 


17,  18,  19:  %  of  the  vote.  20:  %  of  the  electorate. 
460 


DORDOGNEV      /  CANTAL  \    LOIRE 


/ndustry  and  transport  over  50% 

tronsPort  over  ^^;  not/onal  average  -  41% 
I  I   Agr/cu/ture  over  40%:  national  average  -  27-5% 


21.  Distribution  of  Industry  1954  (working  population) 


461 


BIBLIOGRAPHICAL  NOTE 

This  brief  selection,  which  does  not  aim  at  comprehensiveness,  indicates  sources 
(particularly  in  English)  that  I  have  found  useful.  It  includes  a  few  books  not  cited 
in  the  text,  and  a  very  few  authors  cited  in  one  chapter  only.  Otherwise  such  authors 
are  not  listed ;  for  their  works  the  reader  should  consult  the  index  and  the  first  foot- 
note reference.  Where  more  than  one  book  by  an  author  is  listed,  an  identifying 
letter  distinguishes  them.  Collective  works  appear,  where  only  one  contributor  has 
been  cited,  under  his  name;  otherwise  under  the  key  word  of  their  titles,  as  in  the 
footnotes.  Books  are  published  in  London  (if  in  English)  or  Paris  (if  in  French) 
unless  otherwise  stated.  All  articles  are  cited  throughout  by  number  from  the  alpha- 
betical list  on  p.  470. 

Part  I 

BOD  LEY'S  substantial,  discursive  and  opinionated  volumes  give  invaluable  back- 
ground on  French  society  and  politics  in  1900.  SIEGFRIED  (a)  gives  the  best  short 
account  of  political  attitudes  and  views  between  the  wars,  MIDDLETON  and  SOULIER 
of  political  institutions,  and  SHARP  of  administration.  MAILLAUD  is  a  brilliant 
short  explanation  of  French  problems  to  the  wartime  English  reader.  A.  COBBAN 
gives  an  excellent  brief  description  of  France's  wartime  history  in  the  Survey  of 
International  Affairs  1939-46;  HOFFMANN  (nos.  126-7),  makes  an  exceptionally 
interesting  attempt  to  set  Vichy  briefly  in  perspective.  DE  GAULLE'S  war  memoirs  (b) 
are  splendid  works  of  literature  with  long  documentary  appendices.  The  struggles  of 
the  parties  against  de  Gaulle  and  against  one  another,  from  which  the  Constitution 
of  the  Fourth  Republic  emerged,  are  described  in  perceptive  and  lively  fashion  by 
WRIGHT  (#).  WERTH  (c)  gives  a  useful  summary  of  wartime  developments;  after 
1945  his  account  is  coloured  by  his  strong  neutralist  sympathies. 

Among  general  works  on  the  Fourth  Republic,  PICKLES  (c)  and  GOGUEL  (/) 
are  good  brief  introductions  for  the  reader  without  previous  knowledge.  Books  on 
social  changes  are  discussed  at  the  end  of  this  note.  The  comprehensive  narrative 
by  FAUVET  (d),  with  character-sketches  of  leading  personalities,  is  complex,  but 
excellent  for  the  informed  reader.  The  first  part  of  the  period  is  well  covered  by 
PICKLES  (Z?),  who  concentrates  on  problems  of  policy,  and  GOGUEL  (d)  who  traces 
party  and  parliamentary  developments.  The  journalistic  comments  by  SIEGFRIED 
(b  and  c)  contain  less  malice  and  more  reflection  than  those  byBLOCH-MORHANGE 
and  FAUCHER.  GROSSER  is  admirably  clear  and  balanced,  if  rather  condensed,  on 
the  controversial  problems  of  external  policy.  PLANCHAIS  gave  in  February  1958 
a  prophetic  account  of  the  army's  mood,  on  which  GIRARDET  is  highly  intelligent 
and  informative.  T.  OP  PERM  ANN'S  solid  Leprobleme  algerien  (1961)  is  such  a  rarity 
amid  the  ephemera  that  its  left-wing  publisher  feels  it  necessary  to  apologize  for  its 
impartiality ;  E.  BEHR'S  The  Algerian  Problem  (1961)  is  a  very  good  book  hi  English. 
For  a  brief  account  of  the  collapse  of  the  regime  and  the  beginnings  of  its  successor, 
see  WILLIAMS  AND  HARRISON  and  other  works  mentioned  on  pp.  57, 192n. 

Part  II 

The  electoral  geography  of  France  has  been  subjected  to  minute  scrutiny,  but  the 
practical  functioning  of  French  parties  has  had  little  attention.  Most  of  them  must 
be  studied  in  general  and  collective  works.  PRIOURET  (a)  is  a  useful  journalistic 
description  of  them  in  the  early  days;  the  contributions  in  EARLE  are  spotty,  and 
the  best  general  accounts  of  the  early  years  are  FAUVET  (b)  and  GOGUEL  (b). 
Later,  their  social  composition  is  analysed  with  varying  degrees  of  thoroughness  in 
Partis  et  Classes,  their  rural  influence  in  Paysans,  and  their  external  policies  by 
GROSSER.  WAHL  (b)  gives  a  good  general  account  from  a  point  of  view  different 
from  mine.  COSTON,  though  strongly  marked  by  extreme  right-wing  sympathies, 
is  full  of  information  on  papers  and  personalities.  Some  facts  and  many  stimulating 
ideas  can  be  found  in  DUVERGER  (b). 


464  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Strangely,  the  only  full  account  of  a  party  is  HOFFMANN'S  monograph  on 
Poujadism.  The  Radicals  are  well  covered  by  B ARDONNET  for  their  organization, 
and  DE  TARR  for  their  ideological  divisions.  GOGUEL  (e)  on  MRP  is  also  largely 
ideological,  and  now  somewhat  dated.  On  the  Communist  party  WALTER'S 
informative  apologia  ends  in  1940;  ROSSI'S  bitter  but  documented  exposures  deal 
with  the  early  war  years;  RIEBER  analyses  the  party's  tactics  while  Russia  was 
allied  to  the  West;  DOMENACH'S  sympathetic  account  dates  from  1951.  For  later 
years  we  have  only  articles  (GODFREY,  no.  100;  MACRIDIS,  no.  152)  and  the 
tediously  theological  works  of  ex-Communists.  On  the  Socialist  party  there  are 
polemics,  and  an  enormous  and  pedestrian  history  by  LIGOU.  REMOND  's  admirable 
work  on  the  Right  has  little  after  1945,  and  the  gap  is  filled  only  by  the  excellent  but 
brief  and  unfriendly  chapters  in  Partis  et  Classes,  by  MERLE,  and  in  Paysans,  by 
BARRILLON  and  ROYER.  On  RPF  the  reader  must  await  the  forthcoming  study 
edited  by  WAHL. 

Part  III 

Almost  all  French  textbooks  on  political  institutions  have  a  strong  juridical  bias, 
least  marked  in  DUVERGER  (a).  Among  the  more  politically  conscious  general 
works  are  THERY,  now  dated,  and  ARNE",  a  mine  of  well-organized  information; 
GEORGEL  is  also  full  of  material,  presented  in  an  assured  and  aggressive  preaching 
style.  WAHL  (b)  offers  a  suggestive  presentation  of  the  Fourth  Republic's  institutions 
in  terms  of  the  clash  between  the  representative  and  administrative  traditions  of 
politics.  Institutions  is  informative,  and  more  politically  sophisticated  than  most 
official  productions.  By  far  the  best  analysis  of  the  factors  and  forces  governing 
French  policy-making  is  in  GROSSER. 

LIDDERDALE,  a  House  of  Commons  Clerk,  described  parliamentary  procedure 
with  professional  thoroughness,  clarity  and  political  virginity;  CAMPBELL,  no.  45, 
brings  him  up  to  1953.  The  preparation  of  governmental  legislation  and  work  of  the 
cabinet  secretariat  are  concisely  set  out  and  compared  with  British  and  American 
practice  by  BERTRAND.  Many  aspects  of  the  legislative  process  are  well  analysed, 
also  comparatively,  in  Travail;  others  emerge  more  fully  from  HARRISON  (un- 
published). Other  sources  on  committees  are  BARTHELEMY  (a:  pre-war  but  still 
well  worth  reading)  and  BROMHEAD,  no.  32.  SOLAL-CELIGNY'S  articles  (nos.  200- 
201)  and  the  law  theses  by  H.  GEORGE,  SOUBEYROL  and  DREVET  deal  compe- 
tently and  thoroughly  with  their  respective  subjects.  There  is  no  single  good  and 
up-to-date  source  on  the  upper  house.  A  succinct  little  book  by  the  secretary- 
general  of  the  Assembly,  M.  BLAMONT,  gives  a  specialist's  description  and  critique 
of  parliamentary  methods  on  the  eve  of  the  collapse ;  the  all  too  brief  observations 
of  his  colleague  in  the  Council  of  the  Republic  must  be  collated  from  the  end  of 
GOGUEL  (d),  from  his  articles  (nos.  107,  111-13),  and  from  Travail. 

Part  IV 

The  electoral  system  and  elections  are  most  competently  and  concisely  analysed  by 
CAMPBELL.  From  1956  every  election  and  referendum  has  been  very  fully  dissected, 
but  earlier  ones  had  less  thorough  treatment.  On  1951  see  GOGUEL  (d),  and  on  1956, 
see  Sections  1956  and,  more  briefly,  NICHOLAS  et  al  (nos.  167-70)  and  PIERCE 
(no.  180).  Most  French  works  on  administration  are  legalistic:  LALUMI£RE^  on 
the  Inspection  des  Finances  is  an  exception.  FREEDEMAN  on  the  Conseil  d'Etat, 
CHAPMAN  (a,  b)  on  local  government,  and  the  articles  by  BRINDILLAC,  no.  28, 
DIAMANT,  no.  70,  and  EHRMANN,  no.  85  deserve  special  mention.  On  their 
respective  spheres  of  policy,  EHRMANN  (b)  and  GROSSER  are  also  most  illuminating. 
A  general  account  by  BLONDEL  AND  RIDLEY  is  to  appear  shortly. 

Our  knowledge  of  French  pressure-groups  has  greatly  expanded  in  recent  years. 
We  owe  a  most  stimulating  analytical  introduction  to  LAVAU  (b),  a  thorough 
inventory  and  methodological  critique  to  MEYNAUD,  and  several  major  contribu- 
tions to  American  scholars :  a  very  careful  and  critical  study  of  the  patronat  to 
EHRMANN  (b);  an  admirably  perceptive  and  balanced  historical  account  of  the 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  465 

labour  movement  to  LOR  WIN;  some  excellent  essays  on  rural  politics  and  organi- 
zation to  WRIGHT,  nos.  223-9  (and  to  the  French  writers  in  Pay  sans) ;  case-studies 
of  two  major  measures  to  GAL  A  NT,  on  social  security,  and  tOARON  ANDLERNER 
on  EDC;  and  a  careful  examination  of  Catholic  organizations  and  attitudes  to 
BOSWORTH.  A  special  number  of  Esprit  in  1953  has  many  good  and  relevant 
articles  (nos.  28,  107, 120,  128, 138a,  153).  Other  useful  studies  on  individual  groups 
areLAVAU,  no.  139;  BROWN,  no.  35;  EHRMANN,  no.  84;  MEYNAUD  AND  LANCE- 
LOT, no.  161.  HOFFMANN  is  most  informative  on  Poujade  and  his  small-business 
rivals. 

Parliamentary  life  under  tripartisme  was  excellently  described  by  HAMON  in 
nos.  117-18;  and  later  on  by  the  same  author,  no.  121,  by  DEBRE,  no.  67,  by 
ISORNI  (fl,  b)  and,  from  outside,  in  a  popular,  lively  and  informative  little  book  by 
MUSELIER.  ARNE  and  GEORGEL  both  deal  with  some  aspects  of  coalition  politics 
and  the  party  system.  LEITES  concentrates  exclusively  on  its  seamy  side,  analysing 
dubious  evidence  with  subtlety  and  malice.  Some  shrewd  observations  are  buried 
in  his  huge  joint  work  with  MELNIK,  but  the  urbane  JOUVENEL  is  still  a  better 
guide  to  the  peculiarities  of  parliamentary  psychology.  BURON,  a  minister  in  two 
Republics,  published  his  frank,  informative  and  unpretentious  description  and 
defence  of  the  political  profession  after  this  manuscript  was  completed. 

Of  general  books  on  French  life,  MORAZE'S  brilliant  intuitions  dazzle  as  much 
as  they  illuminate.  Continuity  and  resistance  to  change  are  stressed  in  EARLE 
(especially  by  the  economic  and  sociological  writers);  by  LUTHY  in  scintillating 
overstatements,  offset  by  unmemorable  qualifications;  bywYLiEinhis  attractive 
account  of  southern  village  life ;  and  by  FAU VET'S  intelligent  and  balanced  anatomy 
of  French  divisions  (c).  More  recent  works  emphasize  change;  notably  TANNEN- 
BAUM  on  the  cultural  side,  and  the  Harvard  volume  Change  on  the  political,  social 
and  economic.  The  relationship  between  politics  and  society  is  discussed  by  A  RON, 
nos.  6  and  7,  a  vigorous  challenge  to  GOGUEL  (d);  and  in  a  special  number  of 
Esprit  in  1957,  notably  in  the  articles  by  BRINDILLAC,  CROZIER  and  HOFFMANN 
(nos.  30,  64, 125).  The  latter  extends  his  analysis  in  no.  126,  and  in  Change  he  carries 
it  into  the  Fifth  Republic.  ARON'S  lectures  (b)  give  an  excellent  and  balanced 
summary  of  France's  failures,  successes  and  problems  in  1959;  the  summing-up 
observations  of  an  American  economic  historian  (L ANDES,  no.  135)  and  political 
scientist  (EHRMANN,  no.  86)  are  penetrating  and  suggestive.  Much  of  the  vast 
literature  on  institutional  reform  is  out  of  date  in  the  Fifth  Republic,  but  DU  VERGER 
(<?,  /)  remains  a  brief  but  powerful  critique  of  both  the  old  regime  and  the  new. 

LIST  OF  BOOKS 

ARN£,  s.  Le  President  du  Conseil  des  Ministres  sous  la  IV*  Republique,  1962. 
ARON,  RAYMOND,  (a)  Le  Grand  Schisme,  1948; 

(b)  France  Steadfast  and  Changing,  Cambridge,  Mass.,  1960; 

(c)  —  and  D.  LERNER,  France  Defeats  EDC,  1957; 
and  nos.  5-7. 

ARRIGHI,  P.  Le  Statut  des  partis  politiques,  1948. 

ASPECTS:  Aspects  de  la  societe  francaise  by  A.  SIEGFRIED  et  aL,  1954. 

AURIOL,  v.  Hier  . . .  demain,  1945.  2  vols. 

BARDONNET,  D.  Uewlution  de  la  structure  du  Parti  radical,  1960. 

z±RRii.LON,K.mPARTISET  CLASSES  ;P AYS ANS.  ^   . 

B  ARTHELEMY,  J.  (a)  Essoi  sur  le  travail parlementoire  et  le  systeme  des  commissions, 

1934* 

(b)  Le  Gouvernement  de  la  France,  1939  ed.;  first  pub.  1919. 
BEER  anduLAM,  see  WAHL.  ,        'j^a 

BERTRAND,  A.  (a)  Les  techniques  du  travail  gouvememental  dans  I  Etat  moaerne, 

Brussels  1954* 
(b)  in  The  Civil  Service  in  Britain  and  France,  ed.  W.  A.  Robson,  1956; 

and  no.  16. 


466  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

BLAMONT,  E.  Les  techniques  parlementaires,  1958;  and  nos.  18-20. 
BLOCH-MORHANGE,  J.  Les  Politiciens,  1961. 

BLONDEL,  j.  m  ELECTIONS  1956;  ELECTIONS  ABROAD. 

BLUM,  L.  La  Reforms  gouvernementale,  1936;  first  pub.  anonymously,  1918. 

BODLEY,  J.  E.  c.  France.  1st  ed.,  1898.  2  vols. 

BOS  WORTH,  w.  Catholicism  and  Crisis  in  Modern  France,  Princeton,  N.  J.,  1962; 

and  no.  24. 

BRAYANCE,  A.  Anatomic  du  Parti  communiste  francais,  1952. 
BROGAN,  D.  w.  (a)  The  Development  of  Modern  France  1870-1939,  1940. 

(b)  The  Free  State,  1945; 

(c)  in  Parliament:  a  Survey,  ed.  Lord  Campion,  1952; 
and  see  WERTH. 

BURON,  R.  Le  plus  beau  des  metiers,  1963. 

BYE,  M,  in  EINAUDI,  M.  et  al.  Nationalization  in  France  and  Italy,  Ithaca,  N.Y., 

1955;  and  no.  37. 
CAMPBELL,  P.,  French  Electoral  Systems  and  Elections  1789-1957,  1957; 

and  nos.  39-47. 

CAPITANT,  R.,  see  HAMON;  VALLON.  _     ^ 

CHANGE:  France:  Change  and  Tradition,  by  S.  Hoffmann  et  al.,  1963  ;  also    pub. 

as  In  Search  of  France,  Cambridge,  Mass.,  1963. 
CHAPMAN,  B.  (a)  Introduction  to  French  Local  Government,  1953; 

(b)  The  Prefects  and  Provincial  France,  1955; 

(c)  The  Profession  of  Government,  1959; 
and  no.  51. 

CHEVALLIER,  L.  Les  Paysans,  1947. 

COLE:  see  WRIGHT. 

CONTE,  A.  La  Succession,  1963. 

cos  TON,  H.  Partis,  journaux  et  hommes  politiques  d'hier  et  d'aujourd'hui,  1960. 

COTTERET,  J.  M.  Le  Pouvoir  legislatifen  France,  1962; 

and  in  INEGALITES;  PAYSANS;  and  no.  63. 

CRISE:  Crise  du  pouvoir  et  crise  du  civisme,  Lyons,  1954.  (Semaines  sociales.) 
DANSETTE,  A.  (a)  Le  Boulangisme,  16th  ed.,  1946; 

(b)  Destin  du  Catholicisme  francais  1926-1956,  1957; 

(c)  Histoire  des  Presidents  de  la  Republique,  2nd  ed.,  1960. 
DEB  RE,  M.  (a)  La  mort  de  PEtat  republicain,  1947; 

(b)  Ces  princes  qui  nous  gouvernent,  1957  ; 

and  no.  67. 

DEBU-BRIDEL,  J.  Les  Partis  contre  de  Gaulle,  1948. 
DELOUVRIER,  p.  (a)  in  CRISE', 

(b)  —  and  NATHAN,  R.,  Politique  economique  de  la  France  (Lectures  at  Institut 

d'Etudes  Politiques  1955-56). 

DE  TARR,  F.  The  French  Radical  Party  from  Herriot  to  Mendes-France,  1961. 
DOG  AN,  M,  in  Les  nouveaux  comportements  politiques  de  la  classe  ouvriere,  ed.  L. 

Hamon,  1962; 

in  ELECTIONS  1956;  ELECTIONS  1958  ;  PARTIS  ET  CLASSES;  PA  YSANS; 

and  nos.  71-3. 
DOMENACH,  j.  M.  in  EINAUDI,  M.  et  al.  Communism  in  Western  Europe,  Ithaca, 


DREVET,  p.  La  procedure  de  revision  de  la  Constitution  du  27.10.1946,  1959. 
DUMAINE,  J.  Quaid'Orsay,  1955. 

DU  VERGER,  M.  (a)  Manuel  de  droit  constitutionnel  et  de  science  politique.  5th  ed 
1958;  first  pub.  1948; 

(b)  Political  Parties,  1st  Eng.  ed.,  1954;  pub.  in  French,  1951  ; 

(c)  Institutions  financier  es,  2nd  ed.,  1957; 

(d)  The  French  Political  System,  Chicago,  1958  ; 

(e)  Demain  la  Republique,  1958; 

(/)  La  Vle  Republique  et  le  Regime  Presidentiel,  1961  ; 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  467 

and    in    ELECTIONS   1956;   PARTIS  ET  CLASSES:    SYSTEMES 
ELECTORAUX;  and  no.  81. 
EARLE,  E.  M.  et  al  Modern  France:  Problems  of  the  Third  and  Fourth  Republics, 

Princeton,  N.J.,  1951. 
EHRMANN,  H.  w.  (a)  French  Labor  from  Popular  Front  to  Liberation,  New  York, 

1947; 

(#»  Organized  Business  in  France,  Princeton,  N.J.,  1957; 
see  LAVAU;  and  nos.  82-6. 

EINAUDI,  M.  et  al.,  see  BYE;  DOMENACH;  GOGUEL. 
ELECTIONS  ABROAD,  ed.  D.  E.  Butler,  1959. 

ELECTIONS  1956:  Les  elections  du  2  Janvier  1956,  1957,  ed.  M.  Duverger,  F. 
r  Goguel  and  J.  Touchard.  (Association  Francaise  de  Science  Politique.) 
ELECTIONS  1958:  Le  referendum  de  septembre  et  les  elections  de  novembre  1958 

by  J.  TOUCHARD  et  al.,  1960.  (Association  Frangaise  de  Science  Politique.) 
FAUCHER,  J.  A.  Uagonie  d'un  regime,  1959. 
FAUVET,  J.  (a)  Les  Partis  politiques  dans  la  France  actuelle,  1947; 

(b)  De  Thorez  a  de  Gaulle:  Les  Forces  politiques  en  France,  1951 ; 

(c)  La  France  dechiree,  1957,  translated  as  The  Cockpit  of  France,  1960; 

(d)  La  IV*  Republique,  1959; 

and  in  PARTIS  ET  CLASSES;  PAYSANS;  and  nos.  89-90. 
FOGARTY,  M.  p.  Christian  Democracy  in  Western  Europe  1820-1953,  1957. 
FRANCE,  see  GAULLE,  c.  DE. 
FREDERIX,  P.  Etat  des  Forces  en  France,  1935. 

FREE  DEM  AN,  c.  E.  The  Conseil  d'Etat  in  Modern  France,  New  York,  1961. 
GALANT,  H.  Histoire  politique  de  la  Securite  Sociale,  1955. 
GAULLE,  c.  DE.  (a)  La  France  sera  la  France:  Ce  que  veut  Charles  de  Gaulle,  1951 ; 

(b)  Le  Salut:  Memoir es  de  Guerre,  vol.  3,  1959. 
GEORGE,  H.  Le  droit  d' initiative  parlementaire  en  matiere  financier e  depuis  la 

Constitution  de  J946,  Bordeaux,  1956. 
GEORGE,  P.  et  al.  Etudes  sur  la  Banlieue  de  Paris,  1950. 

GEORGEL,  J.  Critiques  et  reforme  des  Constitutions  de  la  Republique,  2  vols.,  1959. 
GIRARDET,  R.  in  Changing  Patterns  of  Military  Politics,  ed.  S.  P.  Huntington, 

Glencoe,  111.,  1961. 
GODFREY,  E.  D.  jr.  The  Fate  of  the  French  Non-communist  Left,  New  York,  1955; 

and  no.  100. 
GOGUEL,  F.  (a)  La  politique  des  partis  sous  la  Troisieme  Republique,  1946; 

(b)  in  Encyclopedie  politique  de  la  France  et  du  monde,  1950; 

(c)  Geographie  des  elections  francaises,  1951 ; 

(d)  France  under  the  Fourth  Republic,  Ithaca,  N.Y.,  1952; 

(e)  in  EINAUDI,  M.  and  GOGUEL,  F.  Christian  Democracy  in  Italy  and  France, 

Notre  Dame,  Ind.,  1952; 

(/)  Le  regime  politique  francais,  1955; 

(#)  —  et  ai  Nouvelles  etudes  de  sociologie  electorale,  1954;     „ 

and  in  ASPECTS',  ELECTIONS  1956;  CHANGE;  SYSTEMES  ELECTOR- 
AUX;  TRAVAIL; 

and  nos.  102-13. 
GROSSER,  A.  La  IVe  Republique  et  sa politique  exterieure,  1961 ; 

and  in  ELECTIONS  1956. 
QUERY,  L.  et  al.  Les  Maltresde  VUNR,  1959. 
GUY,  c.  Le  Cas  Poujade,  Givors,  1955. 
HAMON,  L.  (a)  Problemes  constitutionals  et  realites politiques,  pamphlet,  1954; 

(b)  De  Gaulle  dans  la  Republique,  1958,  preface  by  R.  Capitant; 

see  also  DOG  AN;  and  nos.  117-21.  r          . 

HARRISON,  M.  'Regards  sur  les  Commissions  de  I'Assemblee  Nationale,  unpub- 
lished thesis,  Institut  d'Etudes  politiques,  Paris,  1958; 

see  also  WILLIAMS;  and  nos.  122-3. 
HERVE,  P.  (a)  Dieu  et  Cesar  sont-ils  commimistes?,  1956; 


468  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

(b)  Lettre  a  Sartre  et  a  quelques  autres  par  la  meme  occasion,  1956; 
and  no.  124. 
HISTOIRE:  Histoire  du  Parti  communiste  francais,  n.d.,  published  anonymously 

1962  by  an  opposition  group  of  party  members.  2  vols.,  incomplete. 
HOFFMANN,  s.  (a)  Le  mouvement  Poujade,  1956; 
(b)  'Protest  in  Modern  France'  in  The  Revolution  in  World  Politics,  ed.  M.  A. 

Kaplan,  1962; 

in  CHANGED  and  nos.  125-7. 
HUSSON,  R.  (i)  Les  elections  et  le  referendum  des  21  octobre  1945,  5  mat  1946  et 

2juinl946,  1946; 
(ii)  Les  elections  et  le  referendum  des  13  octobre,  10  novembre,  24  novembre  et 

8  decembre  1946,  1947. 
1NEGAL1TES:  Lois  electorales  et  inegalites  de  representation  en  France  1936-60  by 

J.  M.  COTTERET,  C.   EMERI  and  P.  LALUMIERE,  1960. 

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P.Adm.  Public  Administration 

P.Aff.  Parliamentary  Affairs 

PS  Political  Studies 

RDP  Revue  du  droit  public  et  de  la  science  politique 

RFSP  Revue  francaise  de  science  politique 

RPP  Revue  politique  et  parlementaire 

TM  Temps  modernes 

WPQ  Western  Political  Quarterly 


APPENDIX  I 
CONSTITUTION  OF  THE  FOURTH  REPUBLIC 

Articles  96  to  106,  forming  Chapter  12  (Transitional  Provisions)  are  omitted.  Where 
articles  were  amended  in  1954  the  new  version  appears  beside  the  old.  Page  references 
to  the  text  are  given  after  each  chapter  heading  (in  Chapter  2,  after  each  article). 


PREAMBLE 

(pp.  292-3,  294) 

On  the  morrow  of  the  victory  gained  by  the  free  peoples  over  the  regimes  which 
attempted  to  enslave  and  degrade  the  human  person,  the  French  people  proclaim 
anew  that  every  human  being,  without  distinction  of  race,  religion  or  creed,  possesses 
inalienable  and  sacred  rights.  They  solemnly  reaffirm  the  rights  and  liberties  of  man 
and  the  citizen  consecrated  by  the  Declaration  of  Rights  of  1 789  and  the  fundamental 
principles  recognized  by  the  laws  of  the  Republic. 

They  further  proclaim  as  most  necessary  in  our  time  the  following  political 
economic  and  social  principles :  ' 

The  law  shall  guarantee  to  women  rights  equal  to  those  of  men  in  all  spheres. 

Any  man  persecuted  by  reason  of  his  activities  in  the  cause  of  liberty  shall  have 
the  right  of  asylum  in  the  territories  of  the  Republic. 

It  shall  be  the  duty  of  all  to  work,  and  the  right  of  all  to  obtain  employment.  None 
may  suffer  wrong,  in  his  work  or  employment,  by  reason  of  his  origin,  opinions  or 
beliefs.  °  r 


Every  man  may  protect  his  rights  and  interests  by  trade  union  or  professional 
activity  [Faction  syndicale]  and  belong  to  the  organization  of  his  choice. 

The  right  to  strike  shall  be  exercised  within  the  framework  of  the  laws  which 
govern  it. 

Every  worker  shall  participate,  through  his  delegates,  in  collective  bargaining  on 
the  conditions  of  labour  as  weU  as  in  the  management  of  the  firm. 

Any  property,  or  firm,  which  possesses  or  acquires  the  character  of  a  national 
public  service  or  of  a  de  facto  monopoly  must  come  under  common  ownership 

The  Nation  shall  ensure  to  the  individual  and  family  the  conditions  necessarv  to 
their  development.  J 

It  shall  guarantee  to  all,  especiaUy  to  the  child,  the  mother  and  aged  workers,  the 
protection  of  their  health,  material  security,  rest  and  leisure.  Every  human  being 
who  is  unable  to  work  on  account  of  his  age,  his  physical  or  mental  condition,  or  the 
economic  situation,  shaU  be  entitled  to  obtain  from  the  community  decent  means  of 
support. 

The  Nation  proclaims  the  solidarity  and  equality  of  all  Frenchmen  with  respect 
to  burdens  imposed  by  national  disasters. 

The  Nation  shall  guarantee  the  equal  access  of  children  and  adults  to  education 
professional  training  and  culture.  It  shall  be  a  duty  of  the  State  to  organize  free  and 
secular  public  education  at  all  levels.  S 

The  French  Republic,  faithful  to  its  traditions,  shall  abide  by  the  rules  of  public 
international  law.  It  will  undertake  no  war  for  the  object  of  conquest  and  will  never 
employ  its  forces  against  the  liberty  of  any  people 


APPENDICES 


479 


On  condition  of  reciprocity,  France  will  accept  the  limitations  of  sovereignty 
necessary  to  the  organization  and  defence  of  peace. 

France  together  with  the  overseas  peoples  shall  form  a  Union  founded  upon 
equality  of  rights  and  duties,  without  distinction  of  race  or  religion. 

The  French  Union  shall  consist  of  nations  and  peoples  who  pool  or  co-ordinate 
their  resources  and  their  efforts  to  develop  their  respective  civilizations,  increase 
their  well-being  and  ensure  their  security. 

Faithful  to  her  traditional  mission,  France  proposes  to  guide  the  peoples  for  whom 
she  has  taken  responsibility  into  freedom  to  administer  themselves  and  conduct  their 
own  affairs  democratically ;  rejecting  any  system  of  colonial  rule  based  upon  arbi- 
trary power,  she  shall  guarantee  to  all  equal  access  to  public  office  and  the  individual 
or  collective  exercise  of  the  rights  and  liberties  proclaimed  or  confirmed  above. 


THE  INSTITUTIONS  OF  THE  REPUBLIC 

CHAPTER  1.    SOVEREIGNTY 
(pp.  208,  280,  303  n.  57,  306) 

1 .  France  shall  be  an  indivisible,  secular,  democratic  and  social  Republic. 

2.  (i)  The  national  emblem  shall  be  the  tricolour  flag,  blue,  white,  red  in  three 
vertical  bands  of  equal  size,  (ii)  The  national  anthem  shall  be  the  'Marseillaise', 
(iii)  The  motto  of  the  Republic  shall  be:  'Liberty,  Equality,  Fraternity',  (iv)  Its 
principle  shall  be :  Government  of  the  people,  for  the  people  and  by  the  people. 

3.  (i)  National  sovereignty  belongs  to  the  French  people,  (ii)  No  section  of  the 
people  nor  any  individual  may  claim  the  exercise  thereof,  (iii)  In  constitutional 
matters,  the  people  shall  exercise  it  by  the  vote  of  their  representatives  and  by 
referendum,  (iv)  In  all  other  matters,  they  shall  exercise  it  through  their  deputies  in 
the  National  Assembly,  elected  by  universal,  equal,  direct  and  secret  voting. 

4.  All  French  nationals  and  subjects  of  both  sexes,  who  have  attained  their  majority 
and  enjoy  civil  and  political  rights,  shall  have  the  vote  under  the  conditions  decided 
by  law. 

CHAPTER  2.    PARLIAMENT 

5.  Parliament  shall  consist  of  the  National  Assembly  and  the  Council  of  the  Repub- 
lic. 

(p.  280) 

6.  (i)  The  length  of  the  term  of  each  Assembly,  its  mode  of  election,  the  conditions 
of  eligibility,  the  rules  of  ineligibility  and  incompatibility  shall  be  decided  by  law. 
(ii)  However,  the  two  Houses  shall  be  elected  on  a  territorial  basis,  the  National 
Assembly  by  direct  universal  suffrage,  the  Council  of  the  Republic  by  the  communal 
and  departmental  collectivities,  by  indirect  universal  suffrage.  The  Council  of  the 
Republic  shall  be  renewable  by  halves,  (iii)  Nevertheless  the  National  Assembly  may 
itself  elect  by  proportional  representation  councillors  whose  number  must  not 
exceed  a  sixth  of  the  total  number  of  the  members  of  the  Council  of  the  Republic, 
(iv)  The  number  of  members  of  the  Council  of  the  Republic  cannot  be  less  than  250 
or  greater  than  350. 

(pp.  208-9,  278-9) 


480 


APPENDICES 


7.  [1946]  (i)  War  cannot  be  declared 
without  a  vote  of  the  National 
Assembly  and  the  prior  opinion  of 
the  Council  of  the  Republic. 


[1954]  (i)  unchanged. 


(ii)  A  state  of  siege  shall  be  proclaimed 
under  the  conditions  prescribed  by 
law. 
(pp.  208,  281,  303) 

8.  Each  of  the  two  Houses  shall  judge  the  eligibility  of  its  members  and  the  regularity 
of  their  election;  and  alone  may  accept  their  resignation,  (p.  210) 


9.  [1946]  (i)  The  National  Assembly 
shall  convene  automatically  [de  plein 
droit]  for  its  annual  session  on  the 
second  Tuesday  in  January, 
(ii)  The  total  length  of  recesses  cannot 
exceed  four  months.  Adjournments  of 
the  sitting  for  more  than  ten  days  shall 
be  considered  as  a  recess. 


[1954]  (i)  The  National  Assembly 
shall  convene  automatically  for  its 
ordinary  session  on  the  first  Tuesday 
in  October. 

(ii)  When  this  session  shall  have 
lasted  at  least  seven  months,  the 
prime  minister  may  pronounce  it 
closed  by  a  decree  issued  in  cabinet. 
This  seven-month  period  shall  not 
include  recesses.  Adjournments  of  the 
sitting  for  more  than  eight  full  days 
shall  be  considered  as  a  recess, 
(iii)  unchanged. 


(iii)  The  Council  of  the  Republic  shall 

sit  at  the  same  time  as  the  National 

Assembly. 

(pp.  212,  281,  303n.,  306) 

10.  (i)  The  sittings  of  the  two  Houses  shall  be  public.  Verbatim  reports  of  debates 
and  also  parliamentary  documents  shall  be  published  in  the  Journal  Officiel.  (ii) 
Each  of  the  two  Houses  may  go  into  committee  for  a  secret  session. 


11.  [1946]  (i)  Each  of  the  two  Houses 
shall  elect  its  bureau  every  year,  at 
the  beginning  of  its  session,  by  pro- 
portional   representation    of    party 
groups. 

(ii)  When  the  two  Houses  assemble 
jointly  to  elect  the  President  of  the 
Republic,  their  bureau  shall  be  that 
of  the  National  Assembly. 
(pp.  215n,  217n,  237,  280) 

12.  [1946]  When  the  National  Assembly 
is  not  sitting,  its  bureau,  supervising 
the  activities  of  the  cabinet,  may 
convene  Parliament;  it  must  do  so  at 
the  request  of  a  third  of  the  deputies 
or  of  the  Prime  Minister. 


[1954]  (i)  Each  of  the  two  Houses 
shall  elect  its  bureau  every  year  at 
the  beginning  of  its  ordinary  session 
and  under  the  conditions  provided  by 
its  standing  orders, 
(ii)  unchanged. 


[1954]  (i).  When  the  National  As- 
sembly is  not  sitting,  its  bureau  may 
convene  Parliament  for  an  extra- 
ordinary session;  the  president  of  the 
National  Assembly  must  do  so  at  the 
request  of  the  prime  minister  or  of 
the  majority  of  the  membership  of  the 
National  Assembly,  (ii)  The  prime 
minister  shall  pronounce  the  extra- 
ordinary session  closed  under  the 


APPENDICES 


481 


(p.  212-1,  303n.) 


procedure  prescribed  in  Article  9. 
(iii)  When  the  extraordinary  session 
is  held  at  the  request  of  the  majority 
of  the  National  Assembly  or  of  its 
bureau,  the  closure  decree  cannot  be 
issued  before  Parliament  has  ex- 
hausted the  specific  agenda  for  which 
it  was  convened. 


13.  The  National  Assembly  alone  shall  vote  the  law.  It  cannot  delegate  this  right. 
(pp.  191,  270-5,  303n.,  306) 


14.  [1946]  (i)  The  Prime  Minister  and 
the  members  of  Parliament  may 
propose  legislation, 
(ii)  Government  bills  and  bills  pro- 
posed by  members  of  the  National 
Assembly  shall  be  registered  with  the 
latter *s  bureau. 


(iii)  Bills  proposed  by  members  of 
the  Council  of  the  Republic  shall  be 
registered  with  its  bureau  and  trans- 
ferred without  debate  to  the  bureau  of 
the  National  Assembly.  They  shall 
be  out  of  order  if  they  would  result 
in  a  reduction  of  revenue  or  a  creation 
of  expenditure. 

(pp.  204,  257,  281-5) 


[1954]  (i)  unchanged. 


(ii)  Government  bills  shall  be  regis- 
tered with  the  bureau  of  the  National 
Assembly  or  the  bureau  of  the 
Council  of  the  Republic.  However, 
bills  to  authorize  the  ratification  of 
the  treaties  prescribed  in  Article  27, 
budgetary  or  financial  bills,  and  bills 
involving  reduction  of  revenue  or 
creation  of  expenditure  must  be 
registered  with  the  bureau  of  the 
National  Assembly, 
(iii)  Bills  introduced  by  members  of 
Parliament  shall  be  registered  with  the 
bureau  of  the  House  to  which  they 
belong  and  transferred  after  adoption 
to  the  other  House.  Bills  introduced 
by  members  of  the  Council  of  the 
Republic  shall  be  out  of  order  if  they 
would  result  in  a  reduction  of  re- 
venue or  a  creation  of  expenditure. 


15.  The  National  Assembly  shall  examine  the  bills  [projets  et  propositions  de  loi] 
which  are  submitted  to  it,  in  committees  of  which  it  shall  settle  the  number,  compo- 
sition and  competence. 

(p.  242) 

16.  (i)  The  budget  bill  shall  be  submitted  to  the  National  Assembly,  (ii)  This  bill 
may  contain  strictly  financial  provisions  only,  (iii)  An  organic  law  will  regulate  the 
mode  of  presentation  of  the  budget. 

(pp.  260,  263  and  n.,  268-9) 

17.  (i)  The  Deputies  in  the  National  Assembly  may  propose  expenditure,  (ii)  How- 
ever, no  proposal  entailing  an  increase  in  the  expenditure  prescribed  or  creating 
new  expenditure  may  be  presented  during  the  discussion  of  the  budget,  the  estimates 
or  supplementary  credits. 

(pp.  263-5,  267,  282,  303n.) 


482 


APPENDICES 


18.  (i)  The  National  Assembly  shall  regulate  the  nation's  accounts,  (ii)  In  this  task 
it  shall  be  assisted  by  the  Cour  des  Comptes.  (iii)  The  National  Assembly  may  entrust 
to  the  Cour  des  Comptes  any  investigation  or  inquiry  relating  to  the  administration 
of  public  revenue  and  expenditure,  or  to  the  management  of  the  treasury. 
(p.  338) 


\  9.  Amnesty  may  be  granted  only  by  a  law. 
(p.  208) 

20.  [1946]  (i)  The  Council  of  the  Repub- 
lic shall  examine,  in  an  advisory 
capacity,  the  bills  voted  by  the 
National  Assembly  on  first  reading, 
(ii)  It  shall  give  its  opinion  at  latest 
within  two  months  of  being  sent  the 
bill  by  the  National  Assembly.  Where 
the  budget  bill  is  concerned,  this 
period  may  be  shortened  if  necessary 
so  as  not  to  exceed  the  time  used  by 
the  National  Assembly  for  its  exami- 
nation and  vote.  When  the  National 
Assembly  has  determined  to  adopt  an 
urgency  procedure,  the  Council  of 
the  Republic  shall  give  its  opinion  in 
the  same  period  as  that  prescribed 
for  the  National  Assembly's  debates 
by  the  latter's  standing  orders.  The 
periods  prescribed  in  this  article  shall 
be  suspended  during  recesses.  They 
may  be  extended  by  decision  of  the 
National  Assembly, 
(iii)  If  the  opinion  of  the  Council  of 
the  Republic  is  in  agreement  or  if  it 
has  not  been  given  within  the 
periods  prescribed  in  the  previous 
paragraph,  the  law  shall  be  promul- 
gated in  the  draft  voted  by  the 
National  Assembly. 
(iv)  If  the  opinion  is  not  in  agreement, 
the  National  Assembly  shall  examine 
the  bill  on  second  reading.  It  shall 
take  its  final  and  sovereign  decision 
solely  on  the  amendments  proposed 
by  the  Council  of  the  Republic,  by 
accepting  or  rejecting  them  in  whole 
or  in  part.  Should  these  amendments 
be  wholly  or  partially  rejected,  the 
vote  on  second  reading  of  the  bill 
shall  take  place  by  public  ballot,  by 
an  absolute  majority  of  the  member- 
ship of  the  National  Assembly,  when- 
ever the  vote  on  the  whole  bill  was 


[1954]  (i)  Every  bill  shall  be  examined 
successively  in  the  two  Houses  of 
Parliament  with  a  view  to  securing 
adoption  of  an  identical  text, 
(ii)  Unless  it  has  examined  the  bill  on 
first   reading,    the    Council    of  the 
Republic  shall  pronounce  at  latest 
within  two  months  of  being  sent  the 
draft  adopted  on  first  reading  by  the 
National  Assembly, 
(iii)    Where    budget    bills    and   the 
finance  bill  are  concerned,  the  period 
allowed  the  Council  of  the  Republic 
must  not  exceed  the  time  previously 
used  by  the  National  Assembly  for 
their  examination  and  vote.  When 
urgency  procedure  is  invoked  by  the 
National  Assembly,  the  period  shall 
be  double  that  prescribed  for  the 
National  Assembly's  debates  by  the 
latter's  standing  orders, 
(iv)  If  the  Council  of  the  Republic  has 
not  pronounced  within  the  periods 
prescribed  in  the  previous  paragraphs, 
the  law  shall  be  ready  to  be  [en  etat 
d'etre]    promulgated    in    the    draft 
voted  by  the  National  Assembly, 
(v)  If  no  agreement  is  reached,  each 
of  the  two  Houses  shall  continue  its 
examination.  After  two  readings  by 
the  Council  of  the  Republic,  each 
House   shall    be    allotted,  for    this 
purpose,  the  period  taken  by  the  other 
House   over  the  previous   reading, 
except  that  this  period  cannot  be  less 
than  seven  days  or  one  day  for  the 
texts  covered  by  the  third  paragraph, 
(vi)    Failing    agreement    within    a 
period  of  a  hundred  days  counted 
from  the  sending  of  the  draft  to  the 
Council  of  the  Republic  for  second 
reading,  but  reduced  to  a  month  for 
budgetary  bills  and  for  the  finance 


APPENDICES 


483 


taken  by  the  Council  of  the  Republic 
in  the  same  conditions. 


(pp.  281,  282-5) 


bill  and  to  fifteen  days  under  the  pro- 
cedure applicable  to  urgent  matters, 
the  National  Assembly  may  take  its 
final  decision  either  by  reaffirming  the 
last  draft  voted  by  it,  or  by  modifying 
it  by  adopting  one  or  several  of  the 
amendments  proposed  to  this  draft 
by  the  Council  of  the  Republic, 
(vii)  If  the  National  Assembly  exceeds 
or  extends  the  periods  of  examination 
allotted  to  it,  the  period  prescribed 
for  agreement  by  the  two  Houses  shall 
be  increased  by  the  same  amount, 
(viii)  The  periods  prescribed  in  this 
Article  shall  be  suspended  during 
recesses.  They  may  be  extended  by 
decision  of  the  National  Assembly. 


21.  No  member  of  Parliament  may  be  prosecuted,  sought  out,  arrested,  detained  or 
judged  on  account  of  opinions  expressed  or  votes  cast  by  him  in  the  exercise  of  his 
functions. 
(p.  210) 


22.  [1946]  During  his  term  of  office,  no 
member  of  Parliament  may  be  prose- 
cuted or  arrested  for  a  crime  or 
misdemeanour  without  the  authori- 
zation of  the  House  to  which  he 
belongs,  except  flagrante  delicto.  The 
detention  or  prosecution  of  a  member 
of  Parliament  shall  be  suspended  if 
the  House  to  which  he  belongs  so 
demands. 


(pp.  210-11) 


[1954]  During  the  session  no  member 
of  Parliament  may  be  prosecuted  or 
arrested  for  a  crime  or  misdemeanour 
without  the  authorization  of  the 
House  to  which  he  belongs,  except 
flagrante  delicto.  Any  member  of 
Parliament  arrested  out  of  session 
may  vote  by  proxy  as  long  as  the 
House  to  which  he  belongs  has  not 
pronounced  on  the  waiver  of  his 
parliamentary  immunity.  If  it  has  not 
pronounced  within  the  thirty  days 
following  the  opening  of  the  session, 
the  arrested  member  shall  be  released 
automatically.  Except  in  cases  of 
flagrant  delicto,  authorized  prose- 
cution or  final  conviction,  no  member 
of  Parliament  may  be  arrested,  out  of 
session,  without  the  authorization  of 
the  bureau  of  the  House  to  which  he 
belongs.  The  detention  or  prosecution 
of  a  member  of  Parliament  shall  be 
suspended  if  the  House  to  which  he 
belongs  so  demands. 


23.  Members  of  Parliament  shall  receive  compensation  settled  in  relation  to  the 
remuneration  of  a  category  of  civil  servants. 
(/>.  211) 


484  APPENDICES 

24.  (i)  No  one  may  belong  both  to  the  National  Assembly  and  to  the  Council  of 
the  Republic,  (ii)  Members  of  Parliament  may  not  belong  to  the  Economic  Council 
or  the  Assembly  of  the  French  Union. 

CHAPTER  3.    THE  ECONOMIC  COUNCIL 
(pp.  295-6) 

25.  (i)  An  economic  council,  whose  constitution  shall  be  regulated  by  law,  shall 
examine,  in  an  advisory  capacity,  the  bills  [projets  et  propositions  de  lot]  within  its 
competence.  The  National  Assembly  shall  submit  these  bills  [projets]  to  it  before 
debating  them,  (ii)  The  Economic  Council  may  also  be  consulted  by  the  Cabinet. 
It  is  necessarily  so  consulted  on  the  establishment  of  a  national  economic  plan 
having  for  its  object  the  full  employment  of  men  and  the  rational  use  of  material 
resources. 

CHAPTER  4.    DIPLOMATIC  TREATIES 
(pp.  208,  224-5,  281,  283) 

26.  Diplomatic  treaties  regularly  ratified  and  published  shall  have  force  of  law, 
even  when  they  may  be  contrary  to  French  domestic  legislation,  without  requiring 
to  ensure  their  enforcement  any  legislative  provisions  other  than  those  necessary 
to  ensure  their  ratification. 

27.  (i)  Treaties  relating  to  international  organization,  peace  and  commercial  treaties, 
treaties  which  commit  the  finances  of  the  State,  those  relating  to  the  personal  status 
and  property  rights  of  French  citizens  abroad,  those  which  amend  French  domestic 
legislation,  as  well  as  those  which  allow  the  cession,  exchange  or  acquisition  of 
territory,  shall  be  final  only  after  having  been  ratified  by  force  of  law.  (ii)  No 
cession,  no  exchange  and  no  acquisition  of  territory  shall  be  valid  without  the 
consent  of  the  populations  concerned. 

28.  Since  diplomatic  treaties  regularly  ratified  and  published  have  authority 
superior  to  that  of  domestic  legislation,  their  provisions  may  be  neither  abrogated, 
amended  nor  suspended  except  after  a  formal  denunciation,  notified  through  diplo- 
matic channels.  Whenever  one  of  the  treaties  covered  by  Article  27  is  concerned,  the 
denunciation  must  be  authorized  by  the  National  Assembly,  except  for  commercial 
treaties. 

CHAPTER  5.    THE  PRESIDENT  OF  THE  REPUBLIC 
(pp.  196-7,  203,  204  and  n.9  208,  217n.,  281,  299,  306) 

29.  (i)  The  President  of  the  Republic  shall  be  elected  by  Parliament,  (ii)  He  shall  be 
elected  for  seven  years.  He  shall  be  re-eligible  once  only. 

30.  The  President  of  the  Republic  shall  appoint  in  Cabinet  the  Conseillersd'Etat, 
the  Grand  Chancellor  of  the  Legion  of  Honour,  ambassadors  and  envoys  extraordi- 
nary, members  of  the  Higher  Council  and  the  Committee  of  National  Defence, 
University  rectors,  prefects,  directors  of  the  civil  service  departments,  general  officers, 
representatives  of  the  Government  in  the  overseas  territories. 

31.  (i)  The  President  of  the  Republic  shall  be  kept  informed  of  international  nego- 
tiations. He  shall  sign  and  ratify  treaties,  (ii)  The  President  of  the  Republic  shall 
accredit  ambassadors  and  envoys  extraordinary  to  foreign  powers ;  foreign  ambas- 
sadors and  envoys  extraordinary  shall  be  accredited  to  him. 


APPENDICES  485 

32.  (i)  The  President  of  the  Republic  shall  preside  over  the  Cabinet,  (ii)  He  shall 
have  minutes  of  the  meetings  kept  and  shall  retain  them. 

33.  The  President  of  the  Republic  shall  preside,  with  the  same  functions,  over  the 
Higher  Council  and  the  Committee  of  National  Defence  and  shall  take  the  title  of 
Commander-in-Chief. 

34.  The  President  of  the  Republic  shall  preside  over  the  High  Council  of  the  Judi- 
ciary. 

35.  The  President  of  the  Republic  shall  exercise  the  right  of  reprieve  [le  droit  de 
grace]  in  the  High  Council  of  the  Judiciary. 

36.  (i)  The  President  of  the  Republic  shall  promulgate  laws  within  ten  days  of  the 
law  as  finally  adopted  being  sent  to  the  Government.  This  period  shall  be  reduced 
to  five  days  in  cases  of  urgency  declared  by  the  National  Assembly,  (ii)  Within  the 
period  laid  down  for  promulgation,  the  President  of  the  Republic,  in  a  message 
stating  his  grounds,  may  ask  the  two  Houses  for  a  new  deliberation,  which  cannot 
be  refused,  (iii)  Failing  promulgation  by  the  President  of  the  Republic  within  the 
periods  laid  down  by  this  Constitution,  the  President  of  the  National  Assembly  shall 
see  to  it. 

37.  The  President  of  the  Republic  shall  communicate  with  Parliament  by  messages 
addressed  to  the  National  Assembly. 

38.  Every  act  of  the  President  of  the  Republic  must  be  countersigned  by  the  Prime 
Minister  and  by  a  Minister. 

39.  Not  more  than  thirty  days  and  not  less  than  fifteen  days  before  the  expiry  of 
the  powers  of  the  President  of  the  Republic,  Parliament  shall  proceed  to  elect  a  new 
President. 

40.  (i)  If,  in  application  of  the  preceding  article,  the  election  must  take  place  within 
a  period  when  the  National  Assembly  is  dissolved  in  conformity  with  Article  51, 
the  powers  of  the  incumbent  President  of  the  Republic  shall  be  prolonged  until  the 
election  of  the  new  President.  Parliament  shall  proceed  to  elect  this  new  President 
within  ten  days  of  the  election  of  the  new  National  Assembly,  (ii)  In  this  event,  the 
designation  of  the  Prime  Minister  shall  take  place  within  fifteen  days  following  the 
election  of  the  new  President  of  the  Republic. 

41.  (i)  In  the  event  of  an  impediment  duly  recognized  by  a  vote  of  Parliament,  in 
the  event  of  a  vacancy  due  to  death,  resignation  or  any  other  reason,  the  President 
of  the  National  Assembly  shall  temporarily  assume  the  duties  of  the  President  of 
the  Republic.  He  shall  be  replaced  in  his  own  duties  by  a  Vice-President.  (ii)  The 
new  President  of  the  Republic  shall  be  elected  within  ten  days,  except  as  stated  in 
the  preceding  article. 

42.  (i)  The  President  of  the  Republic  shall  be  accountable  only  in  cases  of  high 
treason,  (ii)  He  can  be  impeached  by  the  National  Assembly  and  arraigned  before 
the  High  Court  of  Justice  under  the  conditions  prescribed  in  Article  57  below. 

43 .  The  post  of  President  of  the  Republic  shall  be  incompatible  with  any  other  public 
office. 

44.  Members  of  families  which  once  reigned  over  France  shall  not  be  eligible  for 
the  Presidency  of  the  Republic. 


486 


APPENDICES 


CHAPTER  6.    THE  CABINET1 

(pp.  191n.,  204,  209,  215n.,  217n.,  230f,  236-8,  242,  281,  303nn.) 


45.  [1946]  (i)  At  the  beginning  of  each 
legislature  the  President  of  the 
Republic,  after  the  customary  consul- 
tations, shall  designate  the  Prime 
Minister. 

(ii)  The  latter  shall  submit  to  the 
National  Assembly  the  programme 
and  policy  of  the  cabinet  which  he 
intends  to  form. 


(iii)  The  Prime  Minister  and  Ministers 
cannot  be  appointed  until  the  Prime 
Minister  has  been  granted  the  Assem- 
bly's confidenc  in  a  public  ballot  and 
by  an  absolute  majority  of  the  Depu- 
ties, except  when  force  majeure 
prevents  the  National  Assembly  from 
meeting. 

(iv)  The  same  procedure  shall  be 
followed  in  the  course  of  a  legislature 
in  the  event  of  a  vacancy  due  to  death, 
resignation  or  any  other  cause,  except 
as  stated  in  Article  52  below, 
(v)  No  cabinet  crisis  occurring  within 
a  period  of  fifteen  days  from  the 
appointment  of  the  ministers  shall 
count  for  the  application  of  Article 
51. 


[1954]  (i)  unchanged. 


(ii)  The  latter  shall  choose  the 
members  of  his  cabinet  and  shall 
present  the  list  to  the  National 
Assembly,  before  which  he  shall 
appear  to  obtain  its  confidence  on 
the  programme  and  policy  which  he 
expects  to  pursue,  except  when  force 
majeure  prevents  the  National  As- 
sembly from  meeting, 
(iii)  The  vote  shall  take  place  in  a 
public  ballot  and  by  an  ordinary 
majority. 


(iv)  The  same  procedure  shall  be 
followed  in  the  course  of  a  legis- 
lature, in  case  of  a  vacancy  in  the 
premiership,  except  as  stated  in 
Article  52. 
(v)  unchanged. 


46.  The  Prime  Minister  and  the  Ministers  chosen  by  him  shall  be  appointed  by  a 
decree  of  the  President  of  the  Republic. 

47.  (i)  The  Prime  Minister  shall  ensure  the  enforcement  of  the  laws,  (ii)  He  shall 
make  all  civil  and  military  appointments,  except  those  prescribed  in  Articles  30, 
46  and  84.  (iii)  The  Prime  Minister  shall  supervise  the  armed  forces  and  co-ordinate 
preparations  for  national  defence,  (iv)  The  acts  of  the  Prime  Minister  prescribed  in 
this  Article  shall  be  countersigned  by  the  ministers  concerned. 

48.  (i)  The  Ministers  shall  be  responsible  collectively  to  the  National  Assembly  for 
the  general  policy  of  the  Cabinet  and  individually  for  their  personal  actions, 
(ii)  They  shall  not  be  responsible  to  the  Council  of  the  Republic. 

1.  Cofiseil  des  Ministres,  as  everywhere  except:  in  Me  phrase  'cabinet  crisis*  (crise  ministeriette) 
in  Arts.  45  (v)  and  51  (i) ;  and  in  Arts.  12,  45  (ii),  48  (i),  49  (iii,  iv),  50  (i)  and  52  (i)  where  the 
text  has  Cabinet.  President  du  Conseil  is  translated  'Prime  Minister'. 


APPENDICES 


487 


[1954]  (i)  unchanged. 


49.  [1946]  (i)  A  vote  of  confidence  may 
be  called  for  only  after  discussion  by 
the  Cabinet ;  it  may  be  called  for  only 
by  the  Prime  Minister. 

(ii)  A  vote  of  confidence  cannot  occur 

until  one  clear  day  after  it  has  been 

called  for  in  the  Assembly.  It  shall 

take  place  by  a  public  ballot. 

(iii)  Confidence  may  be  refused  to 

the   Cabinet    only   by  an  absolute 

majority    of   the   Deputies    in   the 

Assembly. 

(iv)2   This   refusal  shall  entail   the 

collective  resignation  of  the  Cabinet. 

50.  [1946]  (i)  The  voting  of  a  censure 
motion  by  the  National  Assembly 
shall  entail  the  collective  resignation 
of  the  Cabinet. 

(ii)  This  vote  cannot  occur  until  one 
clear  day  after  the  motion  was  intro- 
duced. It  shall  take  place  by  public 
ballot. 

(iii)  A  censure  motion  may  be  adopted 
only  by  an  absolute  majority  of  the 
Deputies  in  the  Assembly. 

51.  (i)  If,  within  a  single  period  of  eighteen  months,  two  cabinet  crises  occur  in  the 
conditions  prescribed  in  Articles  49  and  50,  the  dissolution  of  the  National  Assembly 
may  be  determined  by  the  Cabinet,  after  an  opinion  from  the  President  of  the  Assem- 
bly. The  dissolution  will  be  pronounced  in  conformity  with  this  decision,  by  a  decree 
of  the  President  of  the  Republic,  (ii)  The  provisions  of  the  previous  paragraph  shall 
apply  only  at  the  expiry  of  the  first  eighteen  months  of  the  legislature. 


(ii)  A  vote  of  confidence  cannot  occur 
until  twenty-four  hours  after  it  has 
been  called  for  in  the  Assembly.  It 
shall  take  place  by  a  public  ballot, 
(iii)  Confidence  shall  be  refused  to  the 
cabinet  by  an  absolute  majority  of 
the  deputies  in  the  Assembly. 

(iv)2 


[1954]  (i)  unchanged. 


(ii)  The  vote  on  a  censure  motion 
shall  take  place  in  the  same  condi- 
tions and  manner   as  the  vote   of 
confidence, 
(iii)  unchanged. 


52.  [1946]  (i)  In  the  event  of  dissolution, 
the  Cabinet,  with  the  exception  of 
the  Prime  Minister  and  the  Minister 
of  the  Interior,  shall  remain  in  office 
to  attend  to  current  affairs, 
(ii)  The  President  of  the  Republic 
shall  designate  the  President  of  the 
National  Assembly  as  Prime  Minister. 
The  latter  shall  designate  the  new 
Minister  of  the  Interior  in  agreement 
with  the  Bureau  of  the  National 
Assembly.  He  shall  designate  as 
senior  Ministers  without  portfolio 
[Ministres  d'Etai]  members  of  the 
party  groups  not  represented  in  the 
Government. 

[over 


[1954]  (i)  In  the  event  of  dissolution, 
the  cabinet  shall  remain  in  office. 


(ii)  However,  if  the  dissolution  was 
preceded  by  the  adoption  of  a  censure 
motion,  the  President  of  the  Republic 
shall  appoint  the  president  of  the 
National  Assembly  as  prime  minister 
and  minister  of  the  interior. 


[over 


2.  Inadvertently  repealed  in  1954  owing  to  an  error  in  the  paragraphing  of  the  constitution  as 
promulgated  in  1946,  which  had  to  be  corrected  retrospectively. 


488  APPENDICES 

(iii)   A   general  election  shall   take       (iii)  unchanged. 

place  not  less  than  twenty,  nor  more 

than  thirty  days  after  the  dissolution. 

(iv)   The   National   Assembly  shall       (iv)  unchanged. 

convene  automatically  on  the  third 

Tuesday  following  its  election. 

53.  (i)  Ministers  shall  have  access  to  the  two  Houses  and  to  their  Committees.  They 
must  be  heard  when  they  so  request,  (ii)  They  may  be  assisted  in  debates  in  either 
House  by  commissioners  designated  by  decree. 

54.  The  Prime  Minister  may  delegate  his  powers  to  a  Minister. 

55.  In  the  event  of  a  vacancy  due  to  death  or  any  other  cause,  the  Cabinet  shall 
instruct  one  of  its  members  to  exercise  temporarily  the  functions  of  Prime  Minister. 

CHAPTER  7.    THE  RESPONSIBILITY  OF  MINISTERS   UNDER 
THE  PENAL  CODE 
(pp.  298-9) 

56.  Ministers  shall  be  legally  responsible  for  crimes  and  misdemeanours  committed 
in  the  exercise  of  their  functions. 

57.  (i)  Ministers  may  be  impeached  by  the  National  Assembly  and  arraigned  before 
the  High  Court  of  Justice,  (ii)  The  National  Assembly  shall  take  its  decision  by 
secret  ballot  and  by  an  absolute  majority  of  its  membership,  with  the  exception  of 
those  who  may  be  called  upon  to  take  part  in  the  prosecution,  investigation  or 
judgment  of  the  case. 

58.  The  High  Court  of  Justice  shall  be  elected  by  the  National  Assembly  at  the 
beginning  of  each  legislature. 

59.  The  organization  of  the  High  Court  of  Justice  and  the  procedure  followed  before 
it  shall  be  decided  by  a  special  law. 

CHAPTER  8.    THE  FRENCH  UNION:  I.  PRINCIPLES 

(pp.  193,  281,  293-5,  303n.,  304) 

60.  The  French  Union  shall  be  composed,  on  the  one  hand  of  the  French  Republic 
which  comprises  metropolitan  France,  the  overseas  departments  and  Territories, 
and  on  the  other  hand  of  the  Associated  Territories  and  States. 

61.  The  position  of  the  Associated  States  within  the  French  Union  shall  depend  in 
each  case  on  the  act  which  defines  their  relationship  with  France. 

62.  The  members  of  the  French  Union  shall  pool  all  their  resources  in  order  to 
guarantee  the  defence  of  the  whole  Union.  The  Government  of  the  Republic  shall 
undertake  the  co-ordination  of  these  resources  and  the  direction  of  the  policy 
appropriate  to  prepare  and  ensure  this  defence. 

II.  ORGANIZATION 

63.  The  central  organs  of  the  French  Union  shall  be  the  Presidency,  the  High 
Council  and  the  Assembly. 

64.  The  President  of  the  French  Republic  shall  be  president  of  the  French  Union, 
whose  permanent  interests  he  shall  represent. 


APPENDICES 


489 


65.  (i)  The  High  Council  of  the  French  Union  shall  consist  of  the  President  of  the 
Union  as  chairman,  a  delegation  of  the  French  Government,  and  the  representatives 
that  each  of  the  Associated  States  shall  be  entitled  to  accredit  to  the  President  of 
the  Union,  (ii)  Its  function  shall  be  to  assist  the  Government  in  the  general  direction 
of  the  Union. 

66.  (i)  The  Assembly  of  the  French  Union  shall  consist,  half  of  members  represent- 
ing metropolitan  France,  and  half  of  members  representing  the  overseas  depart- 
ments and  Territories  and  the  Associated  States,  (ii)  An  organic  law  will  decide  the 
conditions  under  which  the  different  sections  of  the  population  may  be  represented. 

67.  The  members  of  the  Assembly  of  the  Union  shall  be  elected,  for  the  overseas 
departments  and  Territories,  by  the  territorial  assemblies ;  they  shall  be  elected,  for 
metropolitan  France,  in  the  proportion  of  two-thirds  by  the  members  of  the  National 
Assembly  representing  metropolitan  France  and  one-third  by  the  members  of  the 
Council  of  the  Republic  representing  metropolitan  France. 

68.  The  Associated  States  may  designate  delegates  to  the  Assembly  of  the  Union 
within  limits  and  conditions  settled  by  a  law  and  a  domestic  act  of  each  State. 

69.  (i)  The  President  of  the  French  Union  shall  convene  the  Assembly  of  the  French 
Union  and  close  its  sessions.  He  must  convene  it  at  the  request  of  half  its  members, 
(ii)  The  Assembly  of  the  French  Union  cannot  sit  during  Parliamentary  recesses. 

70.  The  rules  of  Articles  8,  10,  21,  22  and  23  shall  apply  to  the  Assembly  of  the 
French  Union  under  the  same  conditions  as  to  the  Council  of  the  Republic. 

71 .  (i)  The  Assembly  of  the  French  Union  shall  be  cognizant  of  the  bills  or  proposals 
which  are  submitted  to  it  for  its  opinion  by  the  National  Assembly  or  the  Govern- 
ment of  the  French  Republic  or  the  Governments  of  the  Associated  States,  (ii)  The 
Assembly  shall  be  entitled  to  pronounce  on  motions  presented  by  one  of  its  members, 
and,  if  it  decides  to  consider  them,  to  instruct  its  Bureau  to  send  them  to  the  National 
Assembly.  It  may  make  proposals  to  the  French  Government  and  to  the  High  Coun- 
cil of  the  French  Union,  (iii)  To  be  in  order,  the  motions  covered  by  the  preceding 
paragraph  must  relate  to  legislation  pertaining  to  the  Overseas  Territories. 

72.  (i)  In  the  Overseas  Territories,  legislative  power  shall  belong  to  Parliament  in 
matters  of  criminal  law,  the  regulation  of  civil  liberties  and  political  and  adminis- 
trative organization,  (ii)  In  all  other  matters,  French  laws  shall  apply  in  the  Overseas 
Territories  only  by  express  provision  or  if  they  have  been  extended  by  decree  to  the 
Overseas  Territories  after  an  opinion  from  the  Assembly  of  the  Union,  (iii)  Further, 
by  derogation  from  Article  13,  special  provisions  for  each  territory  may  be  enacted 
by  the  President  of  the  Republic  in  Cabinet  after  a  prior  opinion  from  the  Assembly 
of  the  Union. 

III.  OVERSEAS  DEPARTMENTS  AND  TERRITORIES 

73.  The  legislative  system  of  the  overseas  departments  shall  be  the  same  as  that  of 
the  metropolitan  departments,  unless  otherwise  determined  by  law. 

74.  (i)  The  Overseas  Territories  shall  be  granted  a  special  status  which  takes  into 
account  their  particular  interests  within  the  framework  of  the  general  interests  of  the 
Republic,  (ii)  This  status  and  the  internal  organization  of  each  Overseas  Territory 
or  group  of  territories  shall  be  settled  by  law,  after  an  opinion  from  the  Assembly  of 
the  French  Union  and  consultation  with  the  Territorial  Assemblies. 


490  APPENDICES 

75.  (i)  The  individual  status  of  a  member  of  the  Republic  and  of  the  French  Union 
shall  be  subject  to  change,  (ii)  Alterations  of  status  and  transfers  from  one  category 
to  another,  within  the  framework  settled  by  Article  60,  may  follow  only  from  a 
law  voted  by  Parliament,  after  consultation  with  the  Territorial  Assemblies  and  the 
Assembly  of  the  Union. 

76.  (i)  The  powers  of  the  Republic  shall  be  vested  in  the  representative  of  the  Govern- 
ment in  each  territory  or  group  of  territories.  He  shall  be  the  head  of  the  territorial 
administration,  (ii)  He  shall  be  responsible  to  the  Government  for  his  actions. 

77.  An  elected  Assembly  shall  be  instituted  hi  each  territory.  The  electoral  system, 
composition  and  competence  of  this  Assembly  shall  be  decided  by  law. 

78.  (i)  In  the  groups  of  territories,  the  management  of  common  interests  shall  be 
entrusted  to  an  Assembly  consisting  of  members  elected  by  the  Territorial  Assem- 
blies, (ii)  Its  composition  and  powers  shall  be  settled  by  law. 

79.  The  Overseas  Territories  shall  elect  representatives  to  the  National  Assembly 
and  to  the  Council  of  the  Republic  under  the  conditions  prescribed  by  law. 

80.  All  subjects  of  the  Overseas  Territories  shall  have  the  status  [qualite]  of  citizen, 
by  the  same  right  as  French  nationals  of  metropolitan  France  or  of  the  Overseas 
Territories.  Special  laws  will  lay  down  the  conditions  under  which  they  exercise  their 
rights  as  citizens. 

81.  All  French  nationals  and  subjects  of  the  French  Union  shall  have  the  status  of 
citizen  of  the  French  Union  which  shall  ensure  for  them  the  enjoyment  of  the  rights 
and  liberties  guaranteed  by  the  Preamble  to  the  present  Constitution. 

82.  (i)  Citizens  who  are  not  subject  to  French  civil  law  shall  retain  their  personal 
status  [subject  to  indigenous  law]  so  long  as  they  do  not  renounce  it.  (ii)  This  status 
[statut]  may  in  no  circumstance  constitute  a  ground  for  refusing  or  restricting  the 
rights  and  liberties  pertaining  to  the  status  [qualite]  of  French  citizen. 

CHAPTER  9.    THE  HIGH  COUNCIL  OF  THE  JUDICIARY 
(pp.  204n.9  208,  299-301) 

83.  (i)  The  High  Council  of  the  Judiciary  shall  consist  of  fourteen  members : 
(ii)  The  President  of  the  Republic,  chairman; 

(iii)  The  Keeper  of  the  Seals,  Minister  of  Justice,  vice-chairman; 

(iv)  Six  persons  elected  for  six  years  by  the  National  Assembly,  by  a  two-thirds 

majority,  outside  its  membership,  six  alternates  being  elected  under  the  same 

conditions ; 

(v)  Six  persons  designated  as  follows  : 
(vi)  Four  members  of  the  judicial  profession  elected  for  six  years,  representing  each 

branch  of  the  profession,  under  the  conditions  prescribed  by  law,  four  alter- 
nates being  elected  in  the  same  conditions ; 
(vii)  Two  members  designated  for  six  years  by  the  President  of  the  Republic 

outside  Parliament  and  the  judiciary,  but  within  the  legal  professions,  two 

alternates  being  designated  under  the  same  conditions. 
(viii)The  decisions  of  the  High  Council  of  the  Judiciary  shall  be  taken  by  a  majority 

vote.  In  the  event  of  a  tied  vote,  that  of  the  chairman  shall  prevail. 

84.  (i)  The  President  of  the  Republic  shall  appoint,  on  the  proposal  of  the  High 
Council  of  the  Judiciary,  to  judicial  posts,  except  for  those  of  public  prosecutor. 


APPENDICES  491 

(ii)  The  High  Council  of  the  Judiciary  shall  ensure,  in  conformity  with  the  law,  the 
discipline  of  these  judges,  their  independence  and  the  administration  of  the  courts, 
(iii)  These  judges  [les  magistrates  de  siege]  shall  not  be  removable. 

CHAPTER  10.     TERRITORIAL  COLLECTIVITIES 

(pp.  260,  347) 

85.  (i)  The  French  Republic,  one  and  indivisible,  shall  recognize  the  existence  of 
territorial  collectivities,  (ii)  These  collectivities  shall  be  the  communes  and  depart- 
ments, and  the  Overseas  Territories. 

86.  The  framework,  the  extent,  the  possible  regrouping  and  the  organization  of  the 
communes  and  departments,  and  the  Overseas  Territories  shall  be  settled  by  law. 

87.  (i)  The  territorial  collectivities  shall  administer  themselves  freely  by  councils 
elected  by  universal  suffrage,  (ii)  Their  mayor  or  president  shall  be  responsible  for 
carrying  out  the  decisions  of  these  councils. 

88.  The  co-ordination  of  the  activity  of  civil  servants,  the  representation  of  the 
national  interest  and  the  administrative  supervision  of  the  territorial  collectivities 
shall  be  ensured,  within  the  departmental  framework,  by  Government  delegates 
designated  in  Cabinet. 

89.  (i)  Organic  laws  will  extend  departmental  and  communal  liberties ;  they  may 
prescribe  for  certain  large  cities,  rules  of  operation  and  structures  different  from 
those  of  small  communes,  and  may  include  special  provisions  for  certain  depart- 
ments; they  will  decide  the  conditions  of  implementation  of  Articles  85  to  88  above, 
(ii)  Laws  will  also  decide  the  conditions  under  which  the  local  services  of  the  central 
administration  shall  operate,  in  order  to  bring  the  administration  closer  to  those 
with  whom  it  deals  [les  administres]. 

CHAPTER  11.    AMENDMENT  OF  THE  CONSTITUTION 
(pp.  191,  193,  208,  209n.,  215n.,  217n.,  281,  301-6) 

90.  (i)  The  amendment  procedure  shall  be  as  follows:  (ii)  Amendment  must 
be  decided  on  by  a  resolution  adopted  by  an  absolute  majority  of  the  membership 
of  the  National  Assembly,  (iii)  The  resolution  shall  specify  the  object  of  the  amend- 
ment, (iv)  It  shall  be  submitted,  after  a  minimum  period  of  three  months,  to  a 
second  reading  at  which  proceedings  must  follow  the  same  conditions  as  at  the 
first,  unless  the  Council  of  the  Republic,  apprised  by  the  National  Assembly,  shall 
have  adopted  the  same  resolution  by  an  absolute  majority,  (v)  After  this  second 
reading,  the  National  Assembly  shall  draft  a  bill  to  amend  the  Constitution.  This 
bill  shall  be  submitted  to  Parliament  and  voted  by  the  same  majority  and  in  the 
same  manner  prescribed  for  an  ordinary  law.  (vi)  It  shall  be  submitted  to  a  referen- 
dum, unless  it  has  been  adopted  on  second  reading  by  the  National  Assembly  by  a 
two-thirds  majority  or  has  been  voted  by  a  three-fifths  majority  in  each  of  the  two 
assemblies,  (vii)  The  bill  shall  be  promulgated  by  the  President  of  the  Republic  as  a 
constitutional  law  within  eight  days  of  its  adoption,  (viii)  No  constitutional  amend- 
ment concerning  the  existence  of  the  Council  of  the  Republic  may  be  adopted  with- 
out the  agreement  of  this  Council  or  recourse  to  the  referendum  procedure. 

91.  (i)  The  President  of  the  Republic  shall  be  chairman  of  the  Constitutional 
Committee,  (ii)  It  shall  comprise  the  President  of  the  National  Assembly,  the 
President  of  the  Council  of  the  Republic,  seven  members  elected  by  the  National 


492  APPENDICES 

Assembly  at  the  beginning  of  each  annual  session,  by  proportional  representation  of 
party  groups,  and  chosen  outside  its  membership,  and  three  members  elected  under 
the  same  conditions  by  the  Council  of  the  Republic,  (iii)  The  Constitutional  Commit- 
tee shall  examine  whether  the  laws  voted  by  the  National  Assembly  presuppose 
[supposenf]  amendment  of  the  Constitution. 

92.  (i)  Within  the  period  allowed  for  promulgation  of  the  law,  the  Committee  shall 
be  apprised  by  a  joint  reference  from  the  President  of  the  Republic  and  the  President 
of  the  Council  of  the  Republic,  the  Council  having  taken  its  decision  by  an  absolute 
majority  of  its  membership,  (ii)  The  Committee  shall  examine  the  law,  shall  endea- 
vour to  promote  an  agreement  between  the  National  Assembly  and  the  Council  of 
the  Republic,  and  if  it  does  not  succeed,  shall  give  a  ruling  within  five  days  of  the 
reference  to  it.  In  cases  of  urgency,  this  period  shall  be  reduced  to  two  days,  (iii)  It 
shall  be  competent  to  give  a  ruling  only  on  the  possibility  of  amending  the  provisions 
of  Chapters  1  to  10  of  the  present  Constitution. 

93.  (i)  A  law  which,  in  the  opinion  of  the  Committee,  implies  amendment  of  the 
Constitution,  shall  be  returned  to  the  National  Assembly  for  a  new  reading,  (ii)  If 
Parliament  confirms  its  first  vote,  the  law  cannot  be  promulgated  before  the  Consti- 
tution has  been  amended  in  the  manner  prescribed  in  Article  90.  (iii)  If  the  law  is 
held  to  be  in  conformity  with  the  provisions  of  Chapters  1  to  10  of  the  present 
Constitution,  it  shall  be  promulgated  within  the  period  prescribed  by  Article  36, 
the  latter  being  extended  by  the  periods  prescribed  for  in  Article  92  above. 

94.  In  the  event  of  the  occupation  by  foreign  troops  of  the  whole  or  part  of  metro- 
politan French  territory,  no  amendment  proceedings  may  be  initiated  or  continued. 

95.  The  republican  form  of  government  cannot  be  the  object  of  an  amendment 
proposal. 


APPENDIX  II 


APPENDIX  II 
THE  MINISTRIES 


Premier 

Ministry 
formed       resigned 

Com 

Soc 

Full  Ministers 
Rad 
MRP      etc.      Con 

Gaull  Other 

Totals 
Mins.     incl. 
only    U-Secs. 

1.  DE  GAULLE 

10.  9.44 

13.11.45 

2 

4 

3 

3 

1 

9 

22         22 

GENERAL  ELECTION,  21  OCTOBER  1945 


2. 

DE  GAULLE 

21.11.45 

20.  1.46 

5          5 

5 

1 

1 

_        2 

22 

22 

3. 

GOUIN 

Soc 

26.  1.46 

12.  6.46 

6          7 

6 

- 

- 

1 

20 

26 

GENERAL  ELECTION,  2  JUNE 

1946 

4. 

BIDAULT 

MRP        |      23.  6.46 

28.11.46           7          6 

8 

1 

- 

1 

23 

33 

GENERAL  ELECTION,  10 

NOVEMBER 

1946 

(Thorez 

Com 

4.12.46) 

(Bidault 

MRP 

5.12.46) 

5. 

BLUM 

Soc 

16.12.46 

16.  1.47 

17 

_ 

— 

— 

—        — 

17 

30 

6. 

RAMADIER 

Soc 

22.  1.47 

5          9 

5 

5 

2 

_        _ 

26 

26 

9.  5.47 

11 

6 

5 

2 

_        _ 

24 

25 

7. 

RAMADIER 

Soc 

22.10.47 

19.11.47 

6 

3 

2 

1 

_        _ 

12 

13 

(Blum 

Soc 

21.11.47) 

8. 

SCHUMAN 

MRP 

24.11.47 

19.  7.48 

5 

6 

3 

1 

_        _ 

15 

28 

9. 

MARIE 

Rad 

26.  7.48 

28.  8.48 

6 

6 

5 

2 

_        _ 

19 

28 

10. 

SCHUMAN 

MRP 

5.  9.48 

7.  9.48 

4 

6 

4 

1 

_.        _ 

15 

24 

11. 

QUEUILLE 

Rad 

11.  9.48 

6.10.49 

5 

5 

4 

1 

_        _ 

15 

32 

MOCH 

Soc 

(13.10.49) 

MAYER,  R 

Rad 

(20.10.49) 

12. 

BIDAULT 

MRP 

28.10.49 

_          5 

6 

5 

2 

_        _ 

18 

33 

7.  2.50 

24.  6.50 

_          _ 

8 

6 

3 

_        _ 

17 

28 

13. 

QUEUILLE 

Rad 

2.  7.50 

4.  7.50 

_          _ 

9 

9 

3 

_        _ 

21 

33 

14. 

PLEVEN 

UDSR 

12.  7.50 

28.2.51 

5 

6 

8 

3 

_        _ 

22 

33 

(Mollet 

Soc 

6.  3.51) 

15. 

QUEUILLE 

Rad 

10.  3.51 

10.  7.51 

5 

7 

7 

3 

- 

22 

35 

GENERAL  ELECTION, 

17  JUNE 

1951 

(Mayer,  R. 

Rad 

24.  7.51) 

(Petsche 

Cons 

2.  8.51) 

16. 

PLEVEN 

UDSR 

10.  8.51 

7.  1.52 

_          _ 

7 

9 

8 

_        _ 

24 

37 

17. 

FAURE,  E. 

Rad 

20.  1.52 

29.  2.52 

_          _ 

8 

11 

7 

_        _ 

26 

40 

18. 

PINAY 

Cons 

8.  3.52 

23.12.52 

_          _ 

4 

7 

6 

—        _ 

17 

29 

19. 

MAYER,  R. 

Rad 

8.  1.53 

21.  5.53 

_          — 

6 

9 

8 

_        _ 

23 

37 

(Reynaud 

Cons 

28.  5.53) 

(Mendes-F. 

Rad 

5.  6.53) 

(Bidault 

MRP 

11.  6.53) 

(Marie 

Rad 

19,  6.53) 

20, 

LANIEL 

Cons 

27.  6.53 

12.  6.54 

_          _ 

5 

6 

8 

3 

22 

39 

21. 

MENDES-F. 

Rad 

19.  6.54 

_          _ 

1* 

7 

3 

4        1 

16 

29 

3.  9.54 

_          _ 

2* 

5 

4 

3        1 

15 

27 

20.  1.55 

5.  2.55 

- 

3* 

6 

5 

5        1 

20 

37 

CONSTITUTIONAL  REFORM  30  NOVEMBER  1954:  MINISTRIES 

FORMED 

BEFORE  INVESTITURE 

22. 

(Pineau 
FAURE,  E. 

Soc 
Rad 

19.  2.55) 
23.  2.55 

(   -         4 

5 
4 

6 

6 

5 

1 
4 

16 
19 

I? 

21.10.55 

24.  1.56 

- 

4 

3,4* 

6 

1*      - 

18 

28 

GENERAL  ELECTION,  2 

JANUARY  1956 

23. 

MOLLET 

Soc 

1.  2.56 

21.  5.57 

7 

_ 

6- 

_ 

1 

14 

38 

24. 

BOURGES-M 

Rad 

12.  6.57 

30.  9.57 

5 

_ 

6,3 

__ 

14 

46 

(Pinay 

Cons 

18.10.57) 

C  - 

_ 

-,6 

9 

_        „ 

15 

18) 

(Mollet 

Soc 

28.10.57) 

(  -          7 

5 

6,3 

1 

22 

42) 

25. 

GAILLARD 

Rad 

5.11.57 

15.  4.58 

4 

3 

4,2 

3 

17 

36 

26. 

PFLIMLIN 

MRP 

14.  5.58 

28.  5.58 

4 

5 

45 

4 

_        _ 

22 

22 

27. 

DE  GAULLE 

1.  6.58 

8.  1.59 

3 

3 

2,1 

3 

3        9 

24 

24 

Small  type  denotes  an  unsuccessful  candidate;  brackets  one  whose  government  never  came  into  existence  (with  date  of 

investiture) ;  *  ministers  who  broke  with  their  parties.  After  1955  Radicals  etc.  are  divided  between  Left  (shown  first)  and 

Right. 

No.  7:  all  ministers  resigned  except  the  premier  (see  p.  227).  Nos.  23,  26,  27  shown  in  their  complete,  not  original  form. 


494 


Last  Crisis 
Poss.  PMs/      Days 
approached 

Votes  for   ...  against 
PM;Govt;    At    PM;  Govt;  At 
fall                       fall 

Ministers 
in/     not  in 
last  govt. 

Duration 
(months) 
all         Parl. 

Confidence  votes 
no./monthly 
average 

PM 

no. 

14 

1. 

1              8 

555   unan. 

0      -      - 

13          9 

2            2 

2. 

1              6 

497     503     — 

55      44     — 

12          8 

44          4 

3. 

1            11 

384    516     — 

0         0    — 

17f*       6 

5            4 

4. 

(  1 

259 

2) 

2 

240 

24) 

S            18 

575     544     — 

8        2     - 

6          11 

1            1 

5. 

3              6 

549     521 

0      12 

10  *     16 

10            8 

6          1 

6. 

360 

186 

300     - 

280     - 

7. 

(  l 

300 

277) 

4              5 

412     322    214 

184     186     295 

8f        7 

8            8 

8          1 

8. 

1              7 

352     357     — 

190     197     — 

13f*       6 

1            1 

—         — 

9. 

2              8 

322     289      — 

185    295 

13f*       2 

10. 

4             14 

351     340     - 

196    227     — 

10f*       5 

13            8 

1           0 

11. 

(  1 

311 

223) 

t 

(4 

341 

183) 

V6            22 

367    - 

183    - 

11  *       7 

8            7 

13          2 

12. 

230     195 

186     352 

13          4 

5              8 

363    221 

208     334 

16f*       5 

13. 

6            18 

373     329      - 

185     224 

15t*       7 

74          54 

9         H 

14. 

(  4 

286 

259) 

5             10 

359     388       — 

205     180      — 

21f*       1 

4            2 

9          44 

15. 

(4 

241 

105) 

f 

(7 

281 

101) 

t 

9            31 

391     390    243 

102     222     341 

19f*       5 

5            4 

13          3 

16. 

6            13 

401     396     283 

101     220     309 

2If         5 

U          14 

23         16 

17. 

3              8 

324     290     — 

206     101      — 

15f         2 

94          5 

17           3 

18. 

4            16 

389     384    244 

205     214     328 

12         11 

44          34 

1           0 

19. 

(  3 

276 

235) 

(  4 

301 

119) 

(  6 

313 

228) 

t 

10 

272 

209) 

t 

12            37 

398     386    293 

206    211     306 

10         12 

114          84 

4            4 

20. 

1               5 

419    421     273 

47        8     319 

4         12 

74          5 

10          2 

21. 

FOR  WHICH  RELATIVE  MAJORITIES  SUFFICED 


(  3 

268 

312 

2    14) 

4     18 

369 

210 

5f   14 

11     8 

5    4 

22. 

271  218 

259  318 

1      8 

420  213 

71  250 

2    12 

16    12 

34    3 

23. 

6     21 

240  253 

194  279 

10|    4 

34    14 

4    24 

24. 

(  3 

198 

248| 

4    11) 

(  5 

227 

290] 

2    20) 

6     36 

337  255 

173!  321 

10t*   7 

54    5 

8    14 

25. 

6     29 

274  - 

129  - 

9f   13 

4    4 

_      — 

26. 

1      4 

329  — 

224  — 

4  *  20 

7 

—       ™" 

27. 

Ministers  in  last  govt.'  include  promoted  junior  ministers.  Figures  relate  to  the  ministry  immediately  above;  between  nos.  6 
ind  8  (first  Ramadier  and  Schuman)  they  were  10f  and  5;  between  nos.  21  and  22  (Mendes-France  and  Faure)  3f  and  16; 
tnd  between  nos.  24  and  25  (Bourges-Maunoury  and  Gaillard)  9t*  and  8. 
t  new  PM  was  in  old  govt.  *  old  PM  joins  new  govt. 


495 


APPENDIX  III:  NOTES 

NON-PERMANENT  MINISTRIES 


a. 

Armaments 

1. 

Tillon,  C 

2. 

Bourgds-M,  R 

Armed  Forces 

1. 

Michelet,  M 

3. 

„ 

4. 

Guillaumat, 

N 

b. 

Budget 

1. 

E.  Faure,  R 

2. 

Courant,  I 

3. 

Moreau,  I 

c. 

Commerce 

1. 

Letourneau,  M 

2. 

Pflimlin,  M 

3. 

Bonnefous,  " 

U 

4. 

Ribeyre,  P,  then 

G.  Petit,  P 

d. 

Marine 

1. 

Jacquinot,  I 

2. 

Jacquinot,  I 

War 

1. 

Diethelm,  N 

2. 

Coste-F,  M 

Air 

1. 

Tillon,  C 

2. 

Maroselli,  R 

e. 

Economic  Affairs 

I. 

Mendes~F,  R 

2. 

Billoux,  C 

3. 

Menthon,  M 

(to  5.4.45) 

4. 

Philip,  S 

5. 

Buron,  M 

f. 

Food 

1. 

successively 

2. 

Longchambon,  N 

3. 

Farge,  N 

Giacobbi,  R 

Ramadier,  S 

Pineau,  S 

g.  Associated  States    1.  *Reynaud,  I  2.  *Letourneau,  M 

3.  Fr6deric-D,  ARS  4.  La  Chambre,  I 
(from  5.6.53) 


h.  Sahara  1.  Lejeune,  S 

i.   Information  1.  Teitgen,  M 

4.  *Letourneau,  M 
7.  Coste-F,  M 

j.   External  Finance    (1.  Filippi,  R) 
k.  Population  1.  R.  Prigent,  M 

L.   Arts  and  Letters    1.  (and  Youth): 
B  our  dan,  U 

m.  Merchant  Marine   1.  Colin,  M 
4.  Morice,  R 

n.  Assistant  to  PM 


2.  *Corniglion-M,  RGR 

2.  Soustelle,  G  3.  Malraux,  G 


5.  Gazier,  S 


2.  Malraux,  G 


6.  Buron,  M 


o.  i/c  European 
Affairs 


2.  Tinguy,  M  3.  Defferre,  S 

5.  Schmittlein,  G  6.  Antier,  P 

1.  G.  Palewski,  G,     2.  Houphouet-B,  U    3.  Boulloche,  N, 
then  July,  ex-ARS  from  7.7.58 

1.  *MoUet,  S  2.  *Pflimlin,  M  3.  Mitterrand,  U, 

4.  (*Bonnefous,  U)    5.  M.  Faure,  R,  to  2.9.53 

from  16.5.58 


p,  q.  i/c  constitutional  (p),  electoral  or  administrative  (q)  reform: 
1.  Giacobbi,  R,  and  see  Ministres  d*Etat. 

Notes  , 

t  Vice-premiers ;  *  Ministres  d'Etat  with  portfolio. 

All  were  deputies  except  those  italicized ;  who  were  all  senators  except:  those  in  ministries  1  to  4 ;  Blum  (nos.  5 
and  9) ;  Catroux  (no.  23) ;  and  most  of  those  in  no.  27  (but  Deere",  Houdet,  Berthoin  and  Michelet  were 
senators).  Where  two  names  appear  for  one  post,  they  served  consecutively.  Ministers  in  brackets  were  chosen 
but  never  officially  appointed. 

Parties :  C  -  Com,  S  -  Soc,  M  -  MRP,  R  -  Rad  ,U  -  UDSR.  G  -  Gaullist,  I  -  Rep.  Ind.  (Cons),  P  -  Peasant, 
N  -  non-party,  r  -  neo-Rad. 


496 


Reconstruction 

Ex-Servicemen 

Posts 

N.  Africa  ; 
Algeria 

__ 

Frenay,  N 

Laurent,  S        il 

Catroux,  N 

1 

Dautry,  N 

,, 

Thomas,  S        *2 

„ 

— 

Thomas,  S       i3 

2 

Billoux,  C 

Casanova,  C 

Letourneau,  M 

3 

9) 

iy 

4 

Lejeune,  S 

Thomas,  S 

5 

Tillon,  C 

Mitterrand,  U 

— 

6 

[dismissed]       cl 

„ 

Thomas,  S 



— 

— 

1 

Coty,  I 

Mitterrand,  U 

— 

8 

Maroselli,  R 

—  „ 

9 

Catoire,  M 

— 

0 

C.  Petit,  U 

Betolaud,  PRL 

— 

1 

„ 

Jacquinot,  I 

Thomas,  S       u 

2 

Brune,  R 

14 

3 

15 

4 

15 
>  ?                                   1 

5 

JJ 

Temple,  I 

Laniel,  I          ie 

6 

Duchet,  I         i6J 

„ 

i7 

*Mitterrand,  U 

7 

99 

,, 

8 

Courant,  I 

Bergasse,  ARS 

j  j 

9 

Lemaire,  G 

Mutter,  P 

Ferri,  G 

20 

)9 

— 

Fouchet,  G 

21 

[temp,  resigned] 

Temple,  I 

— 

» 

9> 

Masson,  R 

— 

„ 

(  »  ) 

99 

(Dumas,  M) 

— 

Duchet,  I 

(Legaret,  U) 

Bonnefous,  U 

22 

Triboulet,  G  j 



Badie,  R         J 

— 

Catroux,  N  1 

23 

Tanguy-P,  S 

Lacoste,  S   | 

hi 



— 

99 

24 



Dulin,  R 

— 

(Jacquinot,  I) 

— 

(Chochoy,  S) 

(Bergasse,  I) 

— 

(Lacoste,  S)     hl 

bl 

— 

Caret,  I 

(Colin,  M) 

— 

5J 

25 

„ 

Quinson,  RGR 

— 

Mutter,  I 

26 

Badie,  r 

— 

_        « 

hi 

27 

Sudreau,  N 

Michelet,  G 

Thomas,  S     i2 

PM                 bl 

APPENDIX  IV  (a) 


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501 


APPENDIX  V 

THE  VERDICT  OF  THE  ELECTORATE 

(All  votes  in  thousands) 
Warning  note 

French  election  statistics  are  unsatisfactory  because  of  the  number  of  parties, 
their  complex  and  changing  alliances,  their  imperfect  correspondence  with  the 
groups  in  the  Assembly,  and  the  loose  allegiance  of  the  deputy  to  his  group.  With- 
out drastic  simplification  they  are  incomprehensible,  but  the  classification  can  easily 
mislead  -  not  always  inadvertently.  The  official  figures  are  rarely  the  most  useful. 

1.  Four  referendums  (France  only) 


21  October  1945: 

(i)  for  a  Constituent  Assembly    - 
(ii)  for  the  proposals  of  the  government,  re- 
stricting its  powers  and  duration 

5  May  1946: 

for  the  first  draft  constitution     . 

13  October  1946: 

for  the  second  draft  constitution 

28  September  1958 : 

for  the  constitution  of  the  Fifth  Republic    . 


Yes 

No 

Total 
Electorate 

15,656 

596 

24,623 

10,847 

5,381 

24,623 

9,110 

10,273 

24,657 

9,039 

7,830 

25,073 

17,669 

4,625 

26,603 

From  Husson,  Elections  et  rlftrendums  (reproduced  in  AP  1944-45,  p.  492,  AP  1946,  pp.  577, 
579)  and  AP  1958,  p.  59.1. 

2.  Six  general  elections  (France  only) 


Date 

Com. 

Soc. 

MRP 

Rad. 

etc. 

Cons. 

Gaull. 

Others 

Total 
votes 

Absten- 
tions 

Elec- 
torate 

21.10.45 

5,005 

4,561 

4,780 

2,131 

2,546 

165 

19,190 

4,965 

24,623 

2.  6.46 

5,154 

4,188 

5,589 

2,295 

2,540 

115 

19,881 

4,482 

24,697 

10.11.46 

5,431 

3,434 

4,989 

2,136 

3,073 

155 

19,218 

5,505 

25,083 

17.  6.51 

4,934 

2,784 

2,454 

1,980 

2,295 

4,266 

239 

18,952 

4,861 

24,522 

2.  1.56 

5,517 

3,229 

2,362 

3,246 

3,180 

837 

2,815 

21,478 

4,618 

26,768 

23.11.58 

3,908 

3,194 

2,273 

1,766 

4,502 

4,165 

534 

20,485 

6,242 

27,236 

From  Goguel,  Esprit,  February  1947,  p.  238,  and  Fourth  Republic,  p.  90;  these  figures  repro- 
duce M.  Husson's  for  the  first  two  elections  but  differ  for  the  third,  when  his  classification  was : 
Com.  (including  Trotskyist)  5,489,  Soc.  3,432,  MRP  5,058,  Rad,  etc.  2,381,  Cons.  2,466,  Gaull. 
313,  Others  64.  The  1956  figures  are  from  Goguel,  RFSP  1956,  p.  7.  The  Rad.  etc.  column  groups 
three  of  his  categories,  Radical,  RGR  and  minor  Left,  the  last  of  which  appeared  in  previous 
years  under  Others.  M.  Goguel  divided  between  Left  and  Right  both  Rad  etc.  (2,412  and  834 
respectively)  and  Gaullists  (235  and  602);  cf.  my  estimates  in  no.  168,  pp.  168-9.  Others  include 
Poujadists  2,482  and  extreme  Right  333,  but  apparently  omit  miscellaneous  independents  (the 
total  votes  are  too  few).  Persons  of  voting  age,  including  those  not  on  the  register,  numbered 
26,984  thousand  in  1951  and  27,914  in  1956.  For  1958  the  figures  are  those  of  Goguel  et  al.  in 
Elections  1958,  p.  298;  Rad.  etc.  include  minor  Left;  Conservatives  include  about  700  thousand 
Republican  Centre  (ex-Radical) ;  Others  again  include  only  Poujadists  and  extreme  Right,  but 
not  miscellaneous. 

In  all  six  elections  there  is  a  discrepancy  between  the  total  electorate  and  the  figures  of  voters 
and  abstainers  combined.  It  is  caused  by  spoiled  papers,  and  increased  in  1951  and  1956  by  the 
operation  ofpanachage  (see  pp.  309,  505). 

502 


APPENDICES 
3.  Six  Assemblies  (France  and  overseas) 


503 


Date 

Com. 

Soc. 

MRP 

Rad. 

UDSR 

Cons. 

Gaull. 

Others 

Total 
seats 

21.10.45 

161 

150 

150 

28 

29 

64 

4 

586 

2.  6.46 

153 

129 

169 

32 

21 

67 

15 

586 

10.11.46 

183 

105 

167 

43 

27 

71 

22 

618 

17.  6.51 

101 

107 

96 

76 

19 

98 

120 

10 

627 

2.  1.56 

150 

99 

84 

75 

19 

97 

22 

50 

596 

30.11.58 

10 

47 

64 

40 

129 

206 

81 

578 

From  the  official  lists  of  parliamentary  groups.  The  first  three  are  taken  from  Wright,  Reshaping^ 
p.  262,  and  refer  to  dates  a  few  months  after  the  elections  concerned.  Those  for  1951  are  from  the 
first  official  list,  modified  by  two  subsequent  elections  and  by  the  Assembly's  decision  in  the 
disputed  contest  in  Seine-Inferieure.  Those  for  1956  are  from  the  first  list,  modified  by  one  subse- 
quent election  and  by  the  invalidation  of  eleven  Poujadist  members ;  the  Radical  total  includes 
RGR,  and  Others  include  42  Poujadists ;  no  elections  were  held  for  the  30  Algerian  seats,  or  for 
the  territories  ceded  to  India  (one  seat).  The  1958  figures  are  from  AP  1959,  p.  13  ;  Others  include 
66  Algerian  integrationists ;  Conservatives  include  11  Republican  Centre;  'Radicals'  include 
UDSR  and  allies,  only  13  being  strict  Radicals. 

4.  Five  Councils  of  the  Republic  (France  and  overseas)  and  one  Senate 


Date 

Com. 

Soc. 

MRP 

Rad. 

etc. 

IOM 

Cons. 

Gaull. 

Others 

Total 
seats 

8.12.46 

84 

62 

70 

44 

— 

44 





315 

7.11.48 

19 

62 

21 

86 

— 

71 

57 

3 

320 

18.  5.52 

16 

56 

27 

73 

12 

83 

49 

4 

320 

19.  6.55 

14 

56 

24 

74 

14 

83 

44 

10 

319 

8.  6.58 

16 

56 

26 

65 

23 

90 

39 

1 

319 

26.  4.59 

14 

51 

34 

64 

" 

94 

44 

6 

307 

Group  figures  from  AP  1948,  p.  443;  the  official  list  published  in  May  1949;  and  AP  1952, 
p.  607,  1955,  p.  53,  1958,  p.  76,  1959,  pp.  47  and  619-20.  Some  refer  to  the  opening  of  the  next 
session.  The  whole  Council  was  elected  in  1946  and,  under  a  completely  different  electoral  system, 
in  1948;  half  in  1952,  1955  and  1958 ;  and  the  whole  Senate,  under  a  slightly  altered  system  and 
with  fewer  overseas  members,  in  1959. 


APPENDIX  VI 
THE  WORKING  OF  THE  ELECTORAL  SYSTEM 

1.  The  distribution  of  seats 

Most  departments  formed  a  constituency ;  the  largest  were  divided  (pp.  309n.,  313n). 
Votes  were  cast  for  party  lists,  not  individual  candidates.  Seats  were  allotted  by 
PR.  Any  list  polling  the  Quotient  (the  total  vote  divided  by  the  number  of  seats  at 
stake)  was  entitled  to  a  seat.  Seats  left  over  were  distributed  on  the  'highest  average' 
principle,  going  one  by  one  to  that  list  which,  given  the  seat,  would  have  a  higher 
average  vote  per  seat  than  any  rival.  In  the  final  arrangement,  any  transfer  of  a  seat 
would  have  brought  the  new  average  of  the  list  which  gained  it  below  that  of  the 
list  which  lost. 
Correze  had  four  seats,  and  in  November  1946  its  votes  went : 

Communists  52,864        Radicals  26,082        TOTAL  132,539 

MRP  29,978        Socialists  23,615        QUOTIENT  (£)    33,135 

Only  the  Communists  polled  the  Quotient;  they  therefore  took  the  first  seat.  In 
subsequent  calculations  their  vote  of  52,864  had  to  be  divided  by  two  (their  total  of 
seats  if  they  were  given  another)  and  their  average  became  26,432.  As  MRP's  vote 
was  higher  than  this,  it  took  the  next  seat ;  its  divisor  also  became  two,  and  its  average 
14,989.  As  Radicals  and  Socialists  had  no  member,  their  averages  were  still  the  same 
as  their  original  votes.  The  Communist  average  of  26,432  was  now  the  highest,  and 
the  next  seat  went  to  them.  Another  seat  would  bring  their  total  to  three,  so  for  the 
last  round  their  average  became  52,864  divided  by  3,  i.e.  17,621.  MRP's  average 
stayed  at  14,989,  the  Radicals  at  26,082  and  the  Socialists  at  23,615.  As  this  gave 
the  Radicals  the  highest  average,  they  won  the  last  seat.  Result :  Communists  2, 
MRP  1,  Radicals  1,  Socialists  0. 

An  alternative  form  of  PR  is  the  'highest  remainder'  system.  Again,  seats  go  first 
to  lists  which  poll  the  Quotient ;  but  any  seats  left  over  are  now  allotted  not  according 
to  a  list's  average  but  to  its  remainder,  i.e.  its  poll  minus  the  Quotient.  Had  this 
applied  in  Correze,  the  Communists  would  again  have  had  the  first  seat.  But  their 
claim  to  a  second  would  depend  not  on  their  'average'  of  26,432,  but  on  their 
'remainder*  of  only  19,729  -  i.e.  52,864  minus  33,135.  This  remainder  was  smaller 
than  the  vote  polled  by  each  of  the  other  three  lists,  which  would  therefore  take  the 
last  three  seats.  Result:  Communists  1,  MRP  1,  Radicals  1,  Socialists  1.  As  this 
system  slightly  benefits  weaker  parties,  the  Centre  majority  in  the  first  National 
Assembly  adopted  it  in  1951  for  the  Paris  area  (Seine  and  Seine-et-Oise)  where  the 
Communists  and  Gaullists  were  strongest;  it  helped  its  authors  appreciably  (see 
p.  313n).  It  was  also  used  in  three  overseas  departments,  Guadeloupe,  Martinique  and 
Reunion ;  the  fourth,  Guyane,  had  only  one  member  and  used  the  Anglo-American 
system  of  election  by  plurality  at  a  single  ballot. 

2.  Apparentement 

A  more  important  change  made  in  1951  was  the  introduction  of  apparentement. 
The  'highest  average'  system,  favouring  large  parties,  seemed  likely  to  help  the 
strong  but  friendless  Communists  and  Gaullists.  Apparentements  were  a  device  to 
transfer  the  advantage  of  size  to  the  government  parties,  by  allowing  an  alliance  of 
parties  to  count  the  votes  of  its  component  members  together  in  the  distribution  of 
seats. 

504 


APPENDICES  505 

Marne  had  five  seats,  and  in  1 95 1  its  votes  were : 

Allied  lists  Isolated  lists 

MRP  36,702  Communists  47,200 

Socialists  18,607  RPF              45,931 

Radicals  16,659 

Ind.  Cons.  3,907  Ind.  Cons,       4,051 

Total  of  allies  75,875   (of  others       97,182)  TOTAL  VOTE  173,057 

QUOTIENT  Q)    34,612 

Under  the  1946  system  the  Communists,  RPF  and  MRP  would  have  won  seats  by 
polling  the  Quotient  and  the  two  former,  with  averages  well  over  20,000,  would 
have  taken  the  last  two  seats.  Under  the  *  highest  remainder'  system  these  two  seats 
would  have  gone  instead  to  the  Socialists  and  Radicals.  But  the  1951  electoral  law 
allowed  the  allies  to  count  their  votes  together  and  amass  the  largest  total,  more  than 
double  the  Quotient.  Thus  one  Quotient  seat  went  to  the  Communists  whose 
average  became  23,600 ;  one  to  RPF  whose  average  became  22,965 ;  and  two  to  the 
allies.  Their  average  became  25,292  (75,875  divided  by  3)  and  the  last  seat  therefore 
fell  to  them  also.  The  three  seats  won  by  the  allies  were  then  distributed  among  them 
on  the  'highest  average'  rule,  two  going  to  MRP  and  one  to  the  Socialists.  Results : 

Com.  Soc.  Rad.  MRP  RPF 

Actual  (1951  system)  ....         1          1          -         2         1 

Notional  (1946  system)        ....         2         -         -         1          2 
Notional  (highest  remainder)        ...         1          1          1          1          1 

The  1951  law  also  enacted  that  if  a  list  or  alliance  won  an  absolute  majority  of 
votes  cast,  it  took  all  the  seats.  Altogether  it  gave  the  government  parties  97  more 
seats  than  the  1946  system  would  have  done.  Of  these  97  gains,  51  were  due  to  the 
absolute  majority  rule ;  9  to  the  change  in  Paris ;  and  37  to  the  ability  of  several 
weak  but  allied  parties  to  pool  their  votes  and  so  gain  the  advantage  of  size. 

3.  Preferential  vote  andpanachage 

Persons  win  seats,  as  well  as  parties.  But  in  1946  the  party  chose  the  persons  and 
the  voter  could  do  nothing  effective  to  modify  its  choice.  The  'preferential  vote' 
allowed  him  to  delete  a  candidate  he  disliked  and  move  up  one  whom  he  favoured. 
But  these  changes  would  not  even  be  counted  unless  half  the  ballots  cast  for  the 
list  concerned  had  been  modified  in  some  way,  since  it  was  assumed  that  unaltered 
ballots  represented  positive  votes  for  the  original  names.  While  this  assumption 
made  the  preferential  vote  quite  futile,  the  alternative  would  have  deprived  Maurice 
Thorez  of  his  seat  in  1951  because  a  mere  800  Communist  voters,  out  of  140,000,  had 
struck  off  his  name.  (In  municipal  elections  all  modifications  were  counted,  and  two 
councillors  were  returned  in  Paris  in  1953  after  urging  their  voters  to  delete  the  names 
of  their  own  leaders ;  a  third  advised  them  to  strike  out  his  second.  The  courts  found 
this  illegal  and  unseated  all  three.) 

The  law  of  1951  allowed  the  voter  also  to  change  the  original  lists  by  panachage, 
deleting  names  on  his  party's  list  and  adding  instead  those  of  candidates  from  other 
lists  (see  p.  309).  In  effect  he  transferred  a  fraction  of  his  vote  from  his  own  party  to 
any  list  from  which  an  added  candidate  came.  This  device  weakened  the  grip  of  the 
organization  and  gave  the  voter  a  freer  choice.  But  in  1946  altered  ballots  were  only 
1.9%  of  all  valid  votes  cast,  and  in  no  constituency  reached  7%.  In  1951  and  1956 
they  were  almost  7%  over  the  whole  country,  varying  from  2%  on  Communist  lists 
to  12%  among  Conservatives  (see  Campbell,  p.  122).  They  reached  47%  for  one 


506  APPENDICES 

RGRIF  list  in  1951 ;  no  other  list  attained  25%.  In  one  department,  Ille-et-Vilaine, 
16%  of  the  ballots  were  altered  in  1951  and  13%  in  1956. 

Panachage  contradicted  the  principle  of  PR,  that  votes  should  be  for  opinions 
and  not  persons.  The  results  were  sometimes  strange.  Herault,  with  six  seats,  voted 
as  follows  in  1951 : 

Allied  lists  Isolated  lists 

Socialists          39,028  Communists  69,433 

Conservatives  25,827  RPF  21,256 

Radicals          23,596  Ind.  Left        10,301 

MRP  20,766  

Total  of  allies  109,217     (of  others     100,990)     TOTAL  VOTE  210,207 

With  a  clear  majority  of  votes  cast,  the  allies  won  all  the  seats.  Within  the  alliance 
the  Quotient  was  109,217  divided  by  6,  or  18,203,  which  gave  two  seats  to  the 
Socialists  and  one  to  each  of  the  other  allied  lists.  For  the  sixth  seat,  the  Socialist 
average  was  13,009  (39,028  divided  by  3)  or  just  above  the  Conservatives'  average 
of  12,913  (25,827  divided  by  2) ;  the  Socialists  therefore  won  this  last  seat.  But  their 
leader,  Jules  Moch,  had  had  more  than  7,000  panachage  votes  from  admirers  who 
supported  other  parties.  Each  of  these  7,000  had  transferred  a  sixth  of  his  votes  to 
SFIO ;  they  brought  its  average  up  by  over  1,000  and  gave  it  the  third  seat.  Moch 
himself  had  no  need  of  these  reinforcements.  So,  intending  to  help  the  Socialist 
leader  but  not  his  party,  the  7,000  had  done  exactly  the  reverse. 

Most  voters  who  us&d  panachage  did  so  at  the  top  of  the  list,  either  to  show  con- 
fidence in  a  prominent  figure  for  whose  party  they  would  not  vote  (like  Modi's 
admirers),  or  to  repudiate  the  local  leader  of  their  own  party  while  remaining  loyal 
to  the  party  itself.  In  the  second  case  the  voter  might  delete  a  name  without  replac- 
ing it  by  another;  this  simply  annulled  a  fraction  of  his  vote.  This  action,  too,  might 
have  surprising  results.  Take  a  five-member  constituency  in  1951,  with  40,000 
Communists,  35,000  Gaullists  and  80,000  supporters  of  an  alliance  of  government 
parties ;  these  would  have  an  absolute  majority  of  the  155,000  votes  cast,  and  would 
win  all  five  seats.  But  now  suppose  10,000  Socialists  resent  all  deals  with  black 
reaction,  and  10,000  Conservatives  repudiate  any  bargain  with  red  marxism;  each 
deletes  their  deputy's  name  in  protest,  and  so  annuls  a  fifth  of  his  vote.  Altogether 
4,000  votes  (a  fifth  of  20,000)  disappear  entirely ;  the  total  vote  drops  to  1 5 1 ,000  and 
the  coalition's  vote  to  76,000.  This  is  still  an  absolute  majority  of  151,000  (the  total 
of  votes  cast)  but  no  longer  of  155,000  (the  number  of  persons  voting).  On  which 
figure  was  the  majority  to  be  reckoned?  This  highly  obscure  point  in  fact  arose  in 
two  constituencies  in  1951,  when  the  disposition  of  eight  parliamentary  seats 
depended  on  it.  The  Assembly,  in  one  day,  decided  the  point  both  ways.  The  govern- 
ment parties  used  their  majority  to  choose  the  first  interpretation,  favourable  to 
them,  in  the  Rouen  district;  but  they  adopted  the  second  for  Bas-Rhin  in  order  not 
to  unseat  a  war  hero,  General  Koenig,  and  arouse  discontent  in  the  difficult  province 
of  Alsace. 

4.  'National parties* 

In  1951  and  1956  only  'national  parties'  were  allowed  broadcasting  time,  and  only 
their  lists  could  take  part  in  apparentements.  They  were  defined  as  parties  with  lists 
in  at  least  thirty  departments  (not  30  constituencies).  This  rule  incited  minor  parties 
to  multiply  bogus  lists  which  made  no  pretence  of  campaigning;  in  1951  UDSR's 
list  in  Hautes-Pyrenees  had  four  votes,  and  in  Lozere  one  (its  two  candidates  there 
were  husband  and  wife,  and  the  vote  was  said  to  be  his).  Some  grouplets  were  created 


APPENDICES  507 

and  ran  a  swarm  of  bogus  lists  solely  to  enable  an  individual  politician  or  two  to 
take  advantage  of  the  law.  Jacques  Isorni  and  a  few  Vichyite  friends  founded 
UNIR  for  this  purpose  in  1951,  though  it  failed  to  qualify  (Ainsi,  pp.  8-11).  The 
right-wing  Radical  Leon  Chambaretaud  invented  RGRIF,  of  which  several 
political  strays  took  advantage,  notably  Arthur  Conte  and  Andre  Liautey  (see  pp. 
179,  328,  357).  One  of  the  founder's  friends  and  neighbours  stood  for  Reunion  and 
his  wife  across  the  world  in  Guadeloupe  -  but  neither  stirred  from  Lyons.  Liautey 
helpfully  supplied  his  secretary  to  head  an  RGRIF  list  in  one  seat,  his  mayoral 
assistant  and  his  chauffeur  to  form  one  in  another ;  of  the  party's  36  lists,  10  issued 
no  literature  and  conducted  no  campaign  (see  JO  23  August  1951,  pp.  6468-73). 
In  1956  a  car-load  of  Lyonnais  drove  to  the  south  coast  on  the  last  evening  for 
registrations,  handing  in  an  RGRIF  list  at  every  prefecture.  But  French  thrift  saw 
to  it  that  expenses  were  kept  down;  as  a  deposit  was  paid  on  each  candidate,  small 
seats  with  few  members  were  cheaper.  The  average  number  of  bogus  lists  per  con- 
stituency varied  inversely  with  its  number  of  seats,  falling  steadily  in  1956  from  4-5 
in  two-member  districts  to  0-25  in  those  with  seven  or  more  members. 

Eleven  'national  parties'  qualified  in  1951,  eighteen  in  1956.  In  1951  there  were 
the  six  main  parties;  UDSR  and  RGRIF;  the  ephemeral  Taxpayers'  group 
(p.  179);  RGR,  which  was  used  by  the  Radicals  and  UDSR  to  give  facilities  to 
their  small-party  allies;  and  the  Democratic  Republicans,  a  satellite  of  MRP 
invented  largely  (but  in  vain)  to  allow  Louis  Marin  to  join  an  apparentement,  with- 
out making  him  change  his  political  label  at  his  advanced  age.  By  1956  the  Taxpayers 
were  dead  and  the  Poujadists  very  much  alive.  Three  more  minor  parties  qualified : 
Jeune  Rtpublique,  the  Catholic  Mendesists,  and  Tixier-Vignancour's  National 
Rally  (pp.  161,171, 173).  RGR  was  now  the  right-wing  Radical  party,  and  RGRIF 
was  its  satellite :  see,  pp.  179-80.  MRP  kept  its  shadow  party,  CNIP  and  UDSR 
each  invented  one,  and  the  Poujadists  had  two. 

5.  Invalidations 

Most  satellite  groups  ran  lists  in  constituencies  not  fought  by  their  parent  party,  for 
local  or  personal  reasons  like  Marin's,  or  formed  coalition  lists  with  it  to  make  up 
their  thirty.  But  the  Poujadist  satellites  (one  for  farmers  and  the  other  for  consumers) 
always  fought  in  apparent  ement  with  the  main  group.  This  was  illegal,  for  the  same 
party  was  expressly  forbidden  to  present  more  than  one  list  in  a  constituency; 
however,  the  identical  origin  of  their  lists  was  concealed  when  they  registered.  The 
device  trebled  their  radio  and  television  time,  gave  them  extra  poster  space  and 
literature,  and  could  have  allowed  appeals  beamed  separately  at  different  social 
groups  -  though  in  fact  their  themes  and  vocabulary  were  indistinguishable.  In 
the  22  constituencies  with  three  Poujadist  lists  their  median  poll  was  18%  and  they 
won  16  seats;  in  26  with  two  lists,  13%  and  13  seats;  and  in  38  with  one  list  only, 
10%  and  14  seats  (my  calculations). 

The  Poujadists'  tactics  were  in  flagrant  violation  of  the  law,  and  their  plea  that  the 
apparentements  had  been  accepted  by  the  prefects  suggested  that  the  offence  had 
been  deliberate.  For,  had  they  announced  beforehand  that  all  three  lists  were 
'presented  by  Pierre  Poujade',  that  the  separation  was  'merely  a  tactical  device', 
or  that  all  the  deposit  money  came  from  and  would  be  reclaimed  by  the  same  source, 
no  prefect  would  have  registered  their  apparentements ;  and  indeed  a  dissident 
Poujadist  leader  later  claimed  to  have  warned  Poujade  that  members  whose  election 
depended  on  them  might  be  unseated  (Pay sans,  p.  193n, ;  cf.  Hoffmann,  pp.  165, 
187).  The  Assembly  therefore  invalidated  eleven  Poujadists  who  were  behind  a 
competitor  on  their  own  votes  but  were  put  ahead  by  the  allied  lists :  but  seated 


508  APPENDICES 

three  disputed  winners  (in  Aube,  Cher  and  Puy-de-Dome).  Instead  of  holding 
by-elections  for  the  1 1  seats,  the  house  admitted  the  candidate  who  would  win  if  the 
apparentement  were  disallowed.  Even  if  legally  justified  this  was  politically  most 
unwise,  and  helped  to  discredit  the  political  system  generally  and  the  Republican 
Front  in  particular.  The  Assembly  also  unseated  a  Radical,  nominally  for  his  du- 
bious wartime  record  rather  than  for  his  blatant  attempts  to  purchase  votes,  but 
it  admitted  him  when  he  was  re-elected  with  an  increased  majority  at  the  by-election. 

6.  By-elections 

Under  the  1946  law  a  deputy  who  died  or  retired  was  replaced  by  the  next  candidate 
on  his  list.  The  1951  law  reintroduced  by-elections.  To  fill  a  single  vacancy  the  whole 
constituency  had  to  poll,  so  that  scores  or  even  (as  in  Paris)  hundreds  of  thousands 
might  vote.  A  candidate  needed  an  absolute  majority  of  votes  cast  to  win  on  the 
first  ballot,  a  relative  majority  (as  in  Britain  or  the  United  States)  at  the  second  a 
fortnight  later.  The  turnout  on  the  first  ballot  averaged  20%  below,  and  on  the 
second  15%  below  that  of  a  general  election.  Although  the  20  metropolitan  seats 
which  fell  vacant  in  the  second  Parliament  had  all  been  won  under  PR  or  apparente- 
ment s,  and  the  by-elections  to  fill  them  were  on  a  majority  system,  the  incumbent 
party  held  ten  seats:  6  Conservatives,  2  RGR,  1  MRP  and  1  SFIO.  The  other  ten 
changed  hands,  MRP  making  four  net  gains  (from  Communists,  SFIO,  RGR 
and  RPF) :  see  M.  Merle,  no.  159,  and  B.  Jeanneau,  no.  129.  In  the  third  Parliament 
Communists,  Radicals  and  Conservatives  each  held  a  seat,  and  6  changed;  the 
Conservatives  made  4  net  gains  and  UD  SR  1,  Radicals  lost  3  and  Communists  and 
RS  one  each.  A  bill  to  abolish  by-elections  passed  the  Assembly  but  not  the  upper 
house  in  1956. 


APPENDIX  VII 


COMPOSITION  AND  OUTLOOK  OF  THE  PARTIES 

I  am  indebted  for  these  figures  to  the  Institut  fran$ais  cT  opinion  publique.  Most  of  them 
were  published  in  Sondages,  1952,  no.  3,  from  a  poll  of  February  and  March  1952, 
before  the  Pinay  government  and  the  decline  of  RPF.  They  show  the  percentage  of  the 
voters  for  each  party  who  belong  to  the  category  or  give  the  answer  indicated  on  the 
left;  in  some  cases  only  the  highest  percentages  were  stated;  'don't  knows'  are  omitted. 
The' Institut  has  kindly  corrected  some  of  the  published  figures.  (The  smaller  the  category, 
the  less  reliable  the  figures.) 


Percentage  of  electors,  1951  election 

Age :  over  50 

35  to  49 

18  to  34 

Sex :  men  

women         ..... 

Occupation :  ouvriers  industriels    . 

„        agricoles 
fonctionnaires  . 
employes .... 
industriels  et  cadres  - 
commercants     . 
cultivateurs  exploitants 
professions  liberates 
rentiers  et  retrains     . 
femmes  sans  profession 

total  salaries  (first  4  categories)  - 
total  owners  (next  3  categories)  . 
total  peasants  (cultiv.  exp.  plus  ouv.  agr.) 

Wealth :  own  a  car       .... 
have  a  domestic  servant  . 

Size  of  town :  over  100,000  . 

20-100,000  . 

5-20,000 

under  5,000  . 

Full  confidence  in  own  party 
Not  „        „    „  . 

(P)  Full     „        in  one  leader* 
„        „        „  another  leader* 

Have  never  voted  for  any  other  party 
Own  party  only  is  deserving  of  interest 
Several  parties  are        „        „        „ 
No  party  whatever  is    „        ,,        „ 

(P)  Own  party  is  not  intransigent  enough 
„        „    „  just  right     . 
„        „    „  too  intransigent    . 

*  Most  frequently  named  leaders:  first,  Thorez,  Mollet,  Bidault,  Herriot  and  de  Gaulle; 
second,  Duclos,  Moch,  Schuman,  Queuille  and  Soustelle. 

509 


Total 

Com. 

Soc. 

MRP 

Rad. 

Cons. 

Gaull. 

100 

20 

11 

10 

8 

9 

17 

37 

23 

37 

34 

65 

45 

37 

29 

35 

33 

35 

24 

25 

25 

34 

42 

30 

31 

11 

30 

38 

48 

61 

59 

47 

64 

47 

47 

52 

39 

41 

53 

36 

53 

53 

19 

44 

25 

15 

10 

10 

18 

7 

10 

9 

3 

5 

4 

4 

5 

4 

9 

3 

5 

6 

2 

7 

6 

4 

11 

1 

3 

7 

5 

1 

4 

3 

4 

10 

7 

4 

3 

3 

5 

7 

7 

7 

16 

5 

9 

20 

31 

35 

18 

1 

1 

1 

2 

1 

1 

1 

6 

3 

7 

6 

14 

8 

4 

-  30 

22 

28 

30 

19 

15 

32 

38 

64 

47 

32 

21 

23 

31 

25 

9 

16 

28 

42 

52 

32 

23 

15 

18 

23 

36 

39 

22 

23 

11 

21 

21 

30 

43 

33 

13 

3 

5 

15 

20 

31 

17 

24 

20 

16 

19 

23 

29 

22 

17 

22 

18 

14 

11 

11 

22 

11 

10 

16 

14 

6 

5 

11 

48 

48 

50 

53 

60 

55 

45 

62 

48 

51 

37 

31 

45 

20 

33 

35 

50 

55 

42 

47 

27 

35 

45 

1 

68 

47 

12 

34 

21 

1 

12 

68 

71 

74 

59 

36 

36 

60 

19 

12 

11 

2 

28 

18 

35 

49 

43 

40 

30 

16 

26 

25 

24 

38 

28 

29 

33 

26 

31 

30 

28 

42 

33 

40 

38 

39 

34 

13 

7 

13 

8 

14 

29 

510 


APPENDICES 


Com.    Soc.     MRP 

Rad.    Cons. 

Gaull. 

(P)  Own  party  most  useful  when  in  office 

41 

61 

85 

82 

77 

54 

Favour  progress  by  means  of  revolution 

41 

6 

— 

1 

1 

9 

„             „        „        „      „  reform 

50 

91 

95 

92 

94 

85 

(P)  Own  party  shd.  never  take  power  by  force 

40 

71 

79 

80 

70 

52 

,,      „      might  have  to  do  so 

40 

2 

3 

1 

13 

26 

Some  party  /parties  should  be  banned 

43 

31 

45 

39 

70 

77 

What  is  most  important  about  your  party?  (Ql)  : 

Doctrine         

44 

32 

34 

29 

25 

13 

Programme     ...... 

25 

26 

22 

25 

31 

20 

Leadership      

10 

7 

11 

20 

14 

35 

Cohesion         ...... 

5 

4 

3 

3 

6 

5 

(P)  Spirit              

3 

12 

18 

4 

14 

12 

What  attracted  you  to  your  party?  (Q2)  : 

travailler  pour  la  paix      .... 

32 

28 

27 

18 

17 

23 

fac.onner  1'avenir  de  la  France  . 

4 

7 

13 

11 

24 

33 

defendre  des  interets  tegitimes  . 

28 

24 

22 

27 

30 

11 

programme,  lutte  contre  capital 

39 

personnalit6  de  son  chef 

18 

contre  le  regime,  contre  partis  . 

15 

esprit  de  tolerance  ..... 

38 

entourage,  famille,  relations 

15 

12 

What  are  the  most  important  problems?  : 

vie  chere         ...... 

32 

43 

23 

13 

31 

25 

instability  politique           .... 

41 

37 

60 

62 

injustice  sociale       ..... 

17 

23 

guerre,  armements,  Indo-Chine 

46 

(P)  France  shd.  stay  neutral  in  a  general  war   . 

74 

78 

75 

76 

67 

63 

(P)  Rearmament  reduces  risk  of  war 

4 

26 

53 

42 

59 

60 

increases,,    „      „ 

83 

29 

14 

22 

12 

17 

(P)  U.S.  troops  reduce  risk  of  war 

2 

21 

39 

54 

56 

38 

„      „       increase,,    „      „            . 

82 

11 

14 

13 

6 

13 

„      „       make  no  difference 

11 

50 

27 

20 

22 

37 

From  IFOP  polls  in  Aug.-Sept.  1958,  published 

in  Elections 

1958 

>  PP- 

278-9 

. 

IV  Rep.  Parliament  was  too  strong 

25 

36 

56 

38 

67 

50 

not    „                       . 

58 

31 

24 

23 

7 

19 

„            „           had  bad  m&urs 

63 

79 

76 

75 

85 

82 

„           „          not    „         ,,            . 

20 

6 

6 

7 

1 

4 

Hope  most  deputies  will  lose  their  seats  . 

55 

67 

68 

67 

72 

80 

»      „           „    won't    „               „     . 

21 

14 

11 

21 

9 

7 

(P)  These  questions  were  put  to  those  interviewed  in  the  provinces,  but  not  in  Paris. 
(Ql)  Categories  asked  in  the  question;  (Q2)  Replies  spontaneous. 


USING  THE  INDEX 


Arrangement 

Principal  page  references  are  set  in  bold  type. 

French  names  are  indexed  according  to  French  practice,  with  the  article,  but  not  de  or 
geographical  prefixes,  as  part  of  the  name:  e.g.  Bas-Rhin  and  Haut-Rhin  under  R,  de 
Gaulle  under  G,  Le  Pen  under  L,  de  La  Rocque  under  L>  Mendes-France  under  M. 
Organizations  are  indexed  under  their  initials,  where  these  are  used  in  the  text,  at  the 
beginning  of  the  first  letter  in  the  title:  e.g.  CFTC  is  the  first  entry  under  C.  Full  titles 
are  in  the  list  of  abbreviations  on  p.  ix  (and  for  collective  books,  indexed  by  short  title, 
on  pp.  465  f.). 

Where  a  source  is  quoted  on  three  or  more  pages,  the  index  references  are  preceded 
by  'cit.  nn.':  all  subsequent  references  are  to  footnotes  and  not  to  the  text. 
The  page  reference  A  refers  to  Appendix  III,  for  men  who  were  ministers  between  1944 
and  1958,  and  also  to  Apps.  II  and  IV  for  those  who  were  candidates  for  the  premier- 
ship. 

Biographical  notes  (corrected  to  the  end  of  1963) 

For  political  careers  beginning  before  1945,  only  the  date  of  first  election  to  either  house 
of  Parliament  (MP)  or  appointment  as  prime  minister  (PM)  is  normally  given.  For  those 
extending  into  the  Fifth  Republic,  only  major  changes  of  party  are  noted.  In  the  Fourth, 
a  few  shifts  between  conservative  groups  are  not  recorded.  Where  a  member  sat  both 
before  and  after  1958  for  a  department  which  formed  more  than  one  constituency  in  the 
Fourth  Republic,  the  constituency  number  is  pre-1958.  Members  of  de  Gaulle's  pro- 
visional government  at  Algiers  in  1943-4  (commissaires)  are  referred  to  as  'Gaull.  m/ 
The  June  and  November  elections  of  1946  are  referred  to  as  '46 J  and  '46N. 


Abbreviations 

A:  see  Appendices  gov 

admin  -istration,  -ive  MP 

AFU:  Assembly  of  French  Union         m: 

amb  -assador  NA 

b:  born  org 

CR:  Council  of  the  Republic  P. 

cand  -idate  PM 

cap  -ital  (of  department)  Parl 

Com  -munist  Peas 

Cons  -ervative  Pres 

cons.-  conseil-general,  departmental        Prog 

gen. :         council  Rad 

const  -itutional  rapp.-g. 

C'tee:  committee 

d.:  deputy  rep 

dd.:  died  Rep 

dir.  de  cab    directeur  de  cabinet  RI 

diss  -ident  sec.-g.: 

econ  -omic  Soc 

elec  -toral  TU 


-ernment 

member  of  parliament 

minister,  -ry 

National  Assembly 

-anization 

Party 

Prime  minister 

-iament,  -ary 

-ant 

-ident 

-ressive  (pro-Corn.) 

-ical 

rapporteur-general  of  the  finance 

committee 

-resentation,  -ives 

-ublican 

Republican  Independent 

secretaire-g6ne*ral 

-ialist 

trade  union,  -ist 


INDEX 


ACJF,  103,  114 

APEL,  330,  366,  370n.,  372,  381n. 

APLE,  366  and  n.,  377,  429n. 

ARS  (diss.  GauU.),  20n.,  63,  136,  138n.,  140 
and  n.,  150  and  n.,  151n.,  152-3  and 
nn.,  156n.,  158n.,  159n.,  331n.,  371n., 
398,  407,  425,  432,  433,  438 

Abbott  and  Sicard,  347n. 

Abstention,  parl.,  135, 175n.,  228, 241, 246n., 
297  and  n.,  397,  410,  420;  of  govt,  410 

Abyssinia,  104 

Academic  francaise,  169,  285 

Action  democratique  et  republicaine,  138n. 

Action  democratique  et  sociale,  138n. 

Action  Francaise,  L\  62,  103  and  n.,  149, 
160,  162,  170,  179,  396 

Action  liberate  populaire,  103,  148 

Adenauer,  K.,  435 

Administration,  see  Bureaucracy;  Civil 
servants,  -ice;  reforms  in,  1945-6,  345, 
394,  449 

Africa:  Black,  50,  100,  181,  248;  Equa- 
torial, 408;  North,  q.v.;  Territories  in, 
288,  294,  see  Overseas;  West,  171, 
204n.,  408;  other,  101,  182,  209n.,  312 

Agriculture,  see  CGA;  Food  policy; 
Peasantry;  Ctee  (NA),  244n.,  245, 
247  and  n.,  248,  249;  (CR),  363n.;  M. 
of,  36,  123,  344,  354,  356,  378;  -al 
instruction  bill,  1955,  245,  367 

Agulhon,  M.,  116n. 

Aid,  see  Marshall  Aid 

Air  Force,  54,  391n.,  411;  Royal,  162 

Air,  M.  of,  391  and  n.,  410-11 

Aisne  (cap.  Laon),  139,  166n.,  167n., 
179nn.,  276  and  n. 

Alain  (£mile  Chartier,  1868-1951),  6  and 
n.,  7,  8,  126,  169 

Albanian  Communists,  75 

Alcohol:  interest,  -ism,  46,  161n.,  163, 
258n.,  272,  274,  330  and  n.,  344n., 
353-4, 355-8, 369n.,  373, 374-5  and  nn. , 
379,  380,  384,  423  and  n.,  424,  447; 
Commission,  333;  Ccnseil . . .,  379;  see 
Beets;  Beverages;  Bouilleurs;  Cider; 
Fastis;  Wine 

Algeria,  French  opinion  and,  Ch.  4;  p.  69; 
also  Com.,  75n.,  79n.,  82  and  n.,  85 
and  n.,  86-7,  400;  Soc.,  32,  91  and  n., 
93,  96n.,  98,  100  andn.,  101,  128, 198, 
404,  431,  438,  440;  Mendesists  and 
Left  Cath.,  128,  170,  173,  174,  21  In., 


367-8,  377,  381,  402,  436,  446;  Gaull. 
144  and  n.,  145,  146,  162,  435;  cons., 
112,  126,  153,  159,  162,  235,  377,  402, 
440,  448;  diehards,  see  Algerie  fran- 
caise 

Algeria,  govt.  of,  49  and  n.,  293;  admin., 
341,  349-50,  354;  'elections',  lack  of, 
180,  181  and  n.,  209n.,  503;  Govs- 
Gen.,  46,  329,  350n.,  408,  435;  parl. 
rep.,  161,  180,  209  and  n.,  244n.,  248, 
279,  293,  294n.,  295;  1947  statut,  32, 
231,  232,  233n.,  250,  286,  349-50  and 
n.,  355  and  n.;  1956-7  special  powers 
in,  75,  259n.,  272n.,  273  and  n.,  275 
and  n.,  400n.;  1957-8  hi  cadre,  51, 
52,  54,  221n.,  248,  250,  260,  274,  288, 
364,  412,  426 

Algeria,  parties  of,  46,  82,  123,  125n., 
144n.,  180,  354;  crypto-fascists,  54, 
162,  163,  164,  167,  168;  settlers,  see 
N.  Africa;  Riots 

Algeria,  war  in:  and  govts.,  202,  235  and  n., 
304,  315,  344;  and  4  Rep.,  16,  44,  55-6, 
106,  171,  193,  247n.,  273,  288-9,  294, 
301,  302n.,  350n.,  351,  377,  381,  397, 
411,  412,  444,  448,  449,  450,  see  Civil 
liberties;  and  5  Rep.,  192,  289,  346n. 
(ref.),  355,  443 

Algerian  Assembly,  293n.;  'charter',  433; 
wine,  339,  see  Scandals 

Algerians  in  France,  51,  93,  19 In.,  330, 
440;  see  Camps 

Alge'rie  francaise  and  'party',  46,  54,  69, 
124n.,  130,  152n.,  158,  173,  351,  377, 
425,  435 

Algiers:  in  world  war,  20,  47n.,  133,  197; 
as  capital  city,  55,  75,  lOln.,  106, 123, 
144  and  n.,  163,  350,  354,  435,  449; 
Moslems  and  FLN  in,  50,  51n.,  52, 
q.v.',  settler  plots,  riots  in,  6n.,  45,  49, 
50-2,  54,  55,  153n.,  164,  167,  438 

Allen,  L.  A.,  cit.  nn.  119,  127,  129 

Alliance  Democratique,  62,  148,  149,  158, 
170,  176-7  and  n.,  214,  360 

Alliances,  electoral :  role  of,  121  and  n.,  216, 
317-19,  323;  in  3  Rep.,  72,  88-9,  116- 
17,  307-8,  see  Elec.  systems  (s.d.a.) ;  in 
1945-9,  24,  118  and  n.,  122  and  n.,  134, 
142,  143n.,  158,  174,  310-11;  in  1951, 
47-8  and  n.,  97  and  n.,  105,  118,  121n., 
125  and  n.,  134n.,  150,  175n.,  176,  177 
and  n.,  178-9, 313-14,  326,  328,  366;  in 


INDEX 


513 


1956  47-8  and  n.,  72,  90,  105,  136  and 
n.,  168, 172  and  n.,  178, 315-16,  326 ;  in 

1958,  174;  see  Apparentements 
Alliances,  govtl.,  see  Coalition  politics 
Alliances,  parl.,  29,  32,  47,  88-9,  106,  175- 

6,  250,  288,  309  and  n.,   312,  318, 
319 

Allier  (cap.  Moulins),  171,  323,  328 
Allies,  20,  44,  46,  54,  112,  348,  351,  448 
Alpes,  Basses-  (cap.  Digne),  329 
Alpes-Maritimes  (cap.  Nice),  330n.,  363n. 
Alpine,  383 
Alsace,  -Lorraine,  Alsatian,  69,  80,  103, 

107,  HO,  143n.>  323,  326n.,  329-30, 

376,  506;  in  Africa,  201 
Amendments,  see  Bills ;  Constitutional  — 
America,  see  United  States 
Ames,  Fisher,  45 In. 
Amicale  parlementaire  agricole,  363,  375 
Amiens,  325n.,  327n.,  331n.;  Charter  of, 

116 
Amnesty,  161,  163,  208,  210n.,  259n.,  288, 

342,  410 
Amsterdam,  88 
Anbert,  C.,  300nn.,  301n. 
Anciens  d'Indochine,  162 
Andre,  Pierre  (b.  '03,  PRL  and  Cons.  d. 

Meurthe-et-M.  '46J-58),  327,  429 
Andrews,  W.  G.,  cit.  nn.  216,  412,  426, 451 
'Angels',  372  and  n. ;  see  Money 
AngoulSme,  262 
Anthonioz,  Marcel  (b.  '11,  Cons.  d.  Am 

•51-  ),  429 
Anticlericals,  -ism:  and  parties,  lln.,  22, 

29-30,  69,  86,  90,  96,  97-8,  113,  125, 

142-3,  148,  310-11,  313;  other,  11  and 

n.,   29,   95,   306   and  n.,   313,   330, 

365-7;  see  Church;  Freemasonry 
Anti-communism,  18,  25,  84,  90,  97,  141, 

162,  194,  258n.,  270,  289,  307,  308, 

310,  315  and  n.,  367,  389,  433  and  n., 

438,  451 
Antier,  Paul  (b.  '05,  MP  '36,  Peas.  d.  H- 

Loire '45-58),  67, 153, 159, 166,407,  A 
Anti-semitism,  see  Jews 
Anti-trust,  see  Cartels 
Apparentement,  electoral,  313-16,  317-19, 

322,  323,  326n.,  328,  400,  439,  504-5, 

506,  507,  see  Alliances,  Electoral  law 

1951 ;  parl.,  139n.,  171,243,  328 
Appeasement,   18,  72,  73,  89,  100,  149, 

152,  21 5n.;  see  Pacifists 
Appointments,  198  and  n.,  204  and  n.,  300, 

301,  350-1;  see  Patronage 
Arabs,  -ic,  45,  330,  351 ;  see  Moslems 
Aragon,  Charles  d'  (b.  '11,  MRP  and 

Gauche  Ind.  d.  H-Pyrenees  '45-51, 

Left  cand.  Paris  1951,  later  UDT), 

llOn.,  325,  329n.,  366n. 
Arbitration,  see  Wages 
Arboussier,  Gabriel  d'  (b.  '08,  MP  '45-6, 

v-pres.    AUF   '47-51,   RDA),    180n., 

181n. 
Archambeaud,  Y.,  296n. 


Aristocrats,  167,  171  and  n.,  332 

Arleux  (Nord),  280 

Armagnac,  376n. 

Army:  power  of,  civilian  control,  3,  8,  45, 
50-6,  202,  217n.,  347;  and  4  Rep., 
freedom  in,  16,  45,  50,  52,  54-6,  106, 
302n,,  350-1,  438,  448;  and  domestic 
politics,  22n.,  27,  34,  68,  99n.,  254  and 
n.,  422  and  n. ;  overseas,  45,  47,  50-1, 
54-6,  346  and  n.,  350,  354,  377,  435, 
446 ;  and  de  Gaulle,  5  Rep.,  22, 45, 55-6, 
132,  146,  153n.,  161,  191,  230,  302n., 
443 ;  see  European  Army ;  Scandals 

Army  C'tee  (NA),  242,  see  Defence  C'tee 

Arn6,  S.,  cit.  nn.  196-207,  220,  224,  227- 
40,  257-8,  260,  268-70,  273,  281, 
286-7,  292,  294-7,  301,  304,  338,  344, 
376,  378-80,  382,  392,  397,  405-23, 
426,  432,  438,  440-2 

Aron,  Raymond,  143n.;  cit.  nn.  4,  11,  12, 
13,  15,  19,  26,  27,  34,  41,  146,  401, 
442,  449-50 

Arras,  94n.,  371n. 

Arrighi,  Pascal  (b.  '21,  d.  Corse  '56-62, 
Rad.,  Neo-,  UNR  and  E.  Right),  211 
and  n.,  438n.;  cit.  nn.  215,  388,  393 

Artisans,  68n.,  95,  166  and  n.,  296n.,  297, 
392-3  ;^UDCA 

Asnieres  (Seine),  130  and  n. 

Aspects  de  la  France,  62 

Assemblies,  Constituent,  1945-6,  22-4, 
180,  181,  191,  200,  209n.,  222,  230n., 
260,  270,  278,  292,  309,  386,  388  and 
n.,  394,  428;  Presidents,  22,  24,  197, 
217;  demanded  1958,  56 

Assemblies,  Territorial,  181,  293,  489,  490 

Assembly,  Algerian,  293n. 

Assembly,  Consultative,  20,  363n. 

Assembly,  National,  1871-1940, 7, 20, 186, 
191,  195 

Assembly,  National,  4  Rep.:  bureau,  212, 
213n.,  215n.,  216  and  n.,  237,  257  and 
n.,  280;  bureaux,  210n.,  242;  commit- 
tees, ff.v.;  dissolution,  q.v.\  officers, 
200,  216,  218,  219,  237,  264,  414; 
Pres.,  41,  122n.,  197,  203  and  n., 
216-19,  225,  235  and  n.,  236,  237,  239, 
258,  284,  305,  433;  Presidents'  Con- 
ference, tf.v.;  standing  orders,  208-9, 
213  and  n.,  215,  216,  218,  221,  230, 
240,  252,  259n.,  263,  284,  338,  374 
and  nn.,  433,  see  Parl.  (procedure); 
superiority  to  other  assemblies,  208, 
280-1,  286n.,  295,  296,  298,  324,  see 
Council  of  Rep.;  other,  209  and  n., 
298-9,  334,  360;  see  Committees, 
Groups,  Parliament 

Assembly,  Nat.  1946-51:  22,  24,  25,  31, 
32,  36,  37,  63-4,  107,  122n.,  134n., 
149,  192-3,  224,  250,  297,  303,  335, 
388n.,  389,  425,  427,  431,  440 

Assembly,  Nat.  1951-5:  8,  10n.,  31,  38-9, 
44,47,  105,  136,  150,  153,260,361, 
364-5,377,425,433,440,441 


514  INDEX 

Assembly,  Nat.  1956-8:  45, 49,  51,  56,  63, 
69,  106,  108n.,  150-1,  153,  164,  235n., 
260,  304,  342,  362,  377,  380,  408,  433, 
438,  440 

Assembly,  Nat.  1958-62:  56 
Assembly,    Nat.    (building),    see    Palais 

Bourbon 

Assembly  of  French  Union,  178,  208,  281, 
293,  294-5,  296, 297n.;  Pres.  of,  122n., 
293,  295,  325,  414 
Associated  States,  293-5,  496 
Association  .  .  .,  see  initial  A  ... 
Association  for  Educational  Freedom,  39; 

see  APLE 
Association  of  labour  and  capital,  138, 143 

and  n. 

Astier  de  la  Vigerie,  E.  d'  (b.  '00,  Gaull. 
m.  '43-4,  Prog.  d.  Ille-et-V.  '45-58), 
171n. 
Atlantic  Allies,  q.v.\  Pact,  44,  198,  225; 

Wall,  35 In. 
Atomic  energy  and  nuclear  power,  205n., 

251,  341,  391,  447 
Attentistes,  132,  158,  437 
Attlee,  Earl,  425 
Aube  (cap.  Troyes),  121,  508 
Auhe,  L\  61,  103,  104,  108 
Aubry,  M.,  296n. 
,Auge-Laribe,  M.,  lln. 
Aujoulat,  Louis  (b.  '10,  MRP  and  IOM 

d.  Cameroun  '45-55),  181n.,  A 
Aumeran,  Gen.  A.  (b.  '87,  PRL  and  Cons. 

d.  Alger  '46N-56),  435 
Auriol,  Vincent  (b.  '84,  MP  '14,  Soc.  d. 
H-Garonne  '45-6,  Pres.  Constituent 
Assembly  '46,  Pres.  Rep.  '47-54): 
before  Pres.,  20,  22,  24,  197,  202n.,  217, 
225,  A;  const,  ideas,  190  and  n.,  197 
and  n.,  222n.,  236n.,  251n.,  33 In. 
as  Pres.,  37,  40,  195,  197-201,  202,  226, 
231n.,  232n.,  237,  238  and  n,,  281  and 
n.,  294  and  n.,  300-1,  353n,,  385  and 
n.,  390,  414,  415n.,  416  and  n.,  422; 
const,  ideas,  226, 234,  238  and  n.,  239, 
265n.,  294  and  n.,  300,  305n. 
after  Pres.,  90,  91n.,  198,  201n.,  203 
and  de  Gaulle,  20,  22,  197,  201n.,  203 
and  all  parties,  200-1;  and  Com.,  198, 
199;   and  Soc.,  90,  91n.;  and  Rad., 
Gaull.,  416 
Aurore,L\  384 
Austria,  12 

Authority  and  democracy  in  France,  2-4, 
5-9,  12,  15-16,  20,  63,  110-11,  141n., 
316,  317,  319,  332,  333-5,  383,  385, 
413,428,446,447,452-3 
Aveyron  (cap.  Rodez),  150,  166n.,  313, 
324n.,  329n.,  334n, 

BBC,  132 

Baby,J.,  cit.  nn.  75-8,  81-2,  85 

Badie,  Vincent  (b.  '02,  MP  '36,  Rad.  and 

Neo-  d.  Herault  '45-58),  244n.,  A 
Baecque,  F.  de,  cit.  nn.  196,  198,  200 


Baldwin,  S.,  36 

Ballanger,  Robert  (Com.  d.  Seine-et-O.  1 

'45-  ),  265n. 

Bank  of  France,  343,  384  and  n. 
Bao  Dai,  ex-Emperor,  199  and  n.,  202 
Barange,  Charles  (b.  '97,  MRP  d.  Maine- 
et-L.  '45-55,  rapp.-gen.  '46-55),  253, 
254  and  n.,  323,  429 ;  loi  — ,  see  Church 
schools 

Bardeche,  M.,  164n. 

Bardonnet,  D,,  cit.  nn.  98-9,  115,  117, 
119-22,  127,  129-30,  176-8,  372,  374, 
381 

Bardoux,  Jacques  (1874-1959,  MP  '38, 
Peas,  and  RI  d.  Puy-de-D.  '45-55), 
243n. 

Barnes,  S.  H.,  114n. 

Barrachin,  Edmond  (b.  '00,  MP  '34,  Gaull. 
and  Cons.  d.  Seine  5  '46J-58,  s.  '59-  ), 
159  and  n.,  214n.,  283n.,  285n.,  433 
and  n.,  A 
Barres,    Maurice   (1862-1923,    MP    '89, 

writer),  158 
Barrillon,  R.,  cit.  nn.    75,   137,   139-41, 

143,  150,  153,  156,  160,  363,365 
Barth61emy,  Joseph  (1874-1945,  d.  '19-28, 
m.  '41-3),  cit.  nn.  11,  215,  242,  244-6, 
255,  277,  374-6 
Barthou,  Louis  (1862-1934,  MP  '89,  PM 

'13),  276n. 

Basques,  323,  330,  376 
Bauchard,  P.  cit.  nn.  77,  94,  108 
Baumel,  Jacques  (b.  '18,  d.  '45-6,  s.  '59, 

sec.-g.  UNR  '62-  ),  143n.,  174 
Bayet,  Albert  (1880-1961),  124n. 
Bayeux,  —  const.,  23  and  n.,  133,  191,  293 
Baylet,  Jean  (1904-59,  Rad.  d.  Tarn-et- 
Garonne  '45-58),  126,  129,  130  and 
n.,  402,  429 

Baylot,  Jean  (b.   '97,  prefect    of  police 
'51-4,  E.  Right  d.  Seine  '58-62),  46n., 
98n.,  130n.,  347-8,  367n. 
Bazooka  plot,  51,  52;  see  Plots 
Beam,  323 

Beau  de  Lomenie,  E.,  4n. 
Beaulieu,  G.  de,  83n. 
Beer  and  Ulam,  cit.  nn.  7,  346,  433 
Beets:  growers,  159,  342,  355-6  and  n.,  357, 
358,  364,  369  and  n.,  370,  379, 434, 438 
BSgouin,  Lucien  (b.  '08,  Rad.  d.  Seine-et- 

M.  '46N-58),  143n.,  230n. 
Belfort,  Territoire  de,  109n.,  172n. 
Belgium,  79,  300n. 

Belin,  Ren<§  (b.  '98,  m.  '40-2),  89,  137n. 
Ben  Arafa  (Sultan  of  Morocco   '53-5), 

224n. 
Ben  Bella,  Ahmed  (b.  '19,  Pres.  of  Algeria), 

50,  349,  434 
Berlia,  G.,  cit.  nn.  199,  203,  211,  216,  228, 

241,  283,  303,  315,  371 
Bermuda,  409 
Bertaux,  Pierre,  289 

Berthoin,  Jean  (b.  '95,  Rad.  s.  Isere  '48-  ), 
290,  A 


INDEX 


515 


Bertrand,  A.,  cat.  nn.  198,  205,  260,  337 

Bessac,  Abel  (d.  Lot  '45-55),  179  and  n., 
325n. 

Betolaud,  Robert  (b.  '01,  PRL  and  RI  d. 
Seine  2  '46J-51),  363n.,  A 

Beuve-Mery,  Hubert  (b.  '02,  ed.  Le  Monde), 
426n.,  442n. 

Beverages  c'tee  (NA),  243n.,  244n.,  248, 
249,  262  and  nn. 

Bev  of  Tunis  (Lamine;  deposed  '57,  dd. 
'62),  199,  349 

Beziers,  356 

Biaggi,  Me  J.  B.  (b.  '18,  UNR  and  E. 
Right  d.  Seine  '58-62),  162 

Biarritz,  156n.,  177 

Biays,  P.,  223n. 

Bichelonne,  Jean  (m.  industry  '42-4,  dd. 
'45),  14n. 

Bidault,  Georges  (b.  '99,  Pres.  Nat.  Coun- 
cil of  Resistance,  Pres.  MRP  '49-52, 
MRP  and  E.  Right  d.  Loire  '45-62, 
exile  '62):  career,  35n.,  227n.,  324n., 
430,  442n.,  A;  cand.  PM,  24,  37,  40, 
55,  226  and  n.,  227,  228n.,  416  and 
n.,  418  and  n.,  419;  as  PM,  27,  112, 
226  and  n.,  233  and  nn.,  235,  239,  253, 
254,  341,  441;  on  colonialism,  41,  106, 
112,  130,  293-4,  349,  351,  377,  411, 
441;  as  foreign  m.  also  44,  50,  224n.; 
in  5  Rep.,  98n.,  108n.,  437;  and  par- 
ties, 37,  124n.,  233n.;  also  Soc.,  226, 
254, 264, 421,  441;  MRP,  55, 105, 106, 
108,  400,  402,  418  and  n.,  509n.;  Rad., 
218,  234n.;  Gaull.,  37,  105,  402,  417; 
Cons.,  234n. 

Bidault  govt.,  June-Nov.  '46,  23,  112,  205, 
293,  A 

Bidault  govt.,  Oct.  '49-June  '50:  27,  37, 
124n.,  218,  226  and  n.,  253,  287,  290, 
375,  406;  fall,  27,  238,  254,  264,  342n., 
A 

'Bigamy',  -'ists',  pol.,  118,  120n.,  121  and 
n.,  129  andn.,  175,286,311 

Billeres,  Ren6  (b.  '10,  Rad.  d.  H-Pyren6es 
>46J-  ),  342,  A 

Billoux,  Francois  (b.  '03,  MP  '36,  Com.  d. 
Bouches-du-Rhone  1  '45-  ),  72n.y 
74n.,  429n.,  A 

Bills,  255,  258,  Ch.  19;  also  amendments 
to,  257n.,  258  and  nn.,  259n.,  260  and 
n.,  263,  264,  268,  269,  282  and  n., 
283nn.;  constitutionality  of,  197, 
257n.,  302,  306;  govt.,  204,  245, 
259-60,  283,  284-5  and  n.;  money, 
257n.,  258n.,  261,  263-6,  282,  283-4, 
303n.;  private  members',  165  nn., 
245,  248n.,  257-63,  275,  285n.,  373 
and  n.;  promulgation  of,  217,  258, 
284n.,  305,  306;  ref.  back,  to  c'tee, 
258-9,  288n.,  by  Pres.  Rep.,  196,  200 
and  n.,  258,  259n.,  260,  265n.,  306; 
senators',  q.v.;  see  Parl.  debate 

Binion,  R.,  9n. 

Birthrate,  see  Population 


Biton,  L.,  cit.  nn.  103,  108,  110 

Blachette,  Georges  (b.  '00,  RI  d.  Alger 
'51-5),  355 

Blamont,  Emile  (sec.-g.  NA),  cit.  nn.  213, 
218,  221,  223-4,  232,  235,  239,  249, 
252,  255,  257-60,  266,  268-9,  272-4, 
281,  283-5 

Blanchet,  A.,  cit.  nn.  180, 181 

Bloch-Morhange,  J.,  cit.  nn.  47,  49,  65, 
322,  331,  354,  377 

Blocquaux,  Jean  (MRP  d.  '46N-51),  343n. 

Blondel,  J.,  cit.  nn.  100,  325,  327,  331 

Blondelle,  Ren6  (b.  '07,  founded  first  beet- 
growers'  assoc.  *29,  ex-Pres.  FNSEA, 
Peas.  s.  Aisne  '55-  ),  289,  356,  363n. 

Blum,  L6on  (1872-1950,  MP  '19,  PM  '36): 
pre-war,  18,  35n.,  72,  89, 157,  177,  187, 
204,  236n.,  339n.;  PM  '46,  see  next 
entry;  cand.  PM  '47,  32-3,  82n.,  180, 
228,  416;  post-war,  22,  89,  90,  96n., 
97,  226n.,  300n.,  403,  430,  436,  A; 
views  on  const.,  190  and  n.,  193,  203 
and  n.,  204  and  n.,  207,  222n.,  226n., 
229  and  n.,  236n. ;  on  parl.,  218n.,  221 
and  n.,  248n.,  251n.,  255n. 

Blum  govt.,  Dec.  '46-Jan.  '47,  24,  27,  98-9, 
157,  205n.,  238,  349,  A 

Bobigny  (Seine),  116 

Bodin  and  Touchard,  cit.  nn.  109,  158, 
166,  429,  432 

Bodley,  J.  E.  C.,  2n.,  5nn.,  7n.,  9n.,  10n., 
332  and  n.,  449  and  n. 

Bogus  lists,  parties,  see  National  parties 

Boisd6,  Raymond  (b.  '99,  Gaull.  and  Cons, 
d.  Cher.  '51-  ),  230n.,  373 

Boissarie,  A.,  21 3n. 

Bottlers,  213,  214  and  n. 

Bolsheviks,  88 

Bonaparte,  Louis,  195;  -ism,  87n.,  124, 
139,  141  and  n.,  159,  192,  318,  449, 
452;  see  Napoleon 

Bonnard,  Abel  (b.  '83,  m.  '42-4),  159n. 

Bonnefous,  fidouard  (b.  '07,  UDSR  d. 
Seine-et-O.  2  '46N-'58,  s.  '59), 
298n.,  A 

Bonnet,  Christian  (MRP  d.  '56-  ),  214n. 

Bonnet,  Georges  (b.  '89,  MP  '24,  RGR  and 
Rad.  d.  Dordogne  '56-  ),  210n. 

Bordeaux,  121  and  n.,  152n.,  153n.,  155n., 
166n.,  200n.,  325  and  n.,  327n.,  328, 
331 

Borgeaud,  Henri  (b.  '95,  Rad.  s.  Alger 
'46-59),  289,  354,  429 

Bosworth,  W.,  cit.  nn.  103,  108-10,  113- 
14, 125, 161, 171-2,  366,  372,  381-2 

Bottomore,  T.,  337n. 

Bouches-du-Rh6ne  (constituency  1  Mar- 
seilles, 2  the  rest),  79n.,  91,  94n.,  97n., 
99n.,  109n.,  167nn.,  276n.,  280,  388n. 

Bouhired,  Djamila,  52  • 

Bouilleurs  de  cru,  86,  161n.,  166,  214n., 
264  and  n.,  274,  330n.,  355,  357  and 
nn.,  358,  363,  369,  372,  375  and  n., 
383,  429,  438 


516 


INDEX 


Bouju,  P.,  371n. 

Boulanger,  Gen.  G.,  -ism,  8,  115,  141n., 
145,  187,  316 

Boulogne  (Seine),  168 

Bourdet,  Claude  (b.  '09),  19n.,  61,  73ii., 
74,172,  173andn.,354n. 

Bourgeois,  L6on  (1851-1925,  MP  '88,  PM 
'95),  277  and  n. 

Bourges-Maunoury,  Maurice  (b.  '14,  Rad. 
d.  H-Garonne  '46J-58),  career  and 
views,  121n.,  130,  253,  322  and  n., 
430,  436;  as  m.,  51,  52,  239n.,  339 
and  n.,  A;  as  PM,  51,  228,  235,  281, 
412,  421,  426,  441;  and  Socs.,  51,  98, 
417,421;  and  others,  240 

Bourges-Maunoury  govt,  June-Sep.  '57, 
51, 206n,,  239,  240, 273,  344,  364,  375, 
408,  411,  423n.,  432,  A 

Bourguiba,  Habib  (b.  '03,  Tunisian  PM 
'56,  Pres.  '57),  426 

Boussac,  Marcel  (b.  '89),  384  and  n. 

Boutemy,  Andr6  (1905-59,  Peas.  s.  Seine- 
et-M.  '52-9),  65,  156n.,  224  and  n., 
289,  371  and  n.,  377,  A 

Bowditch,  J.,  382n. 

Boyer  de  la  Tour,  Gen.,  47 

Brayance,  A.,  83n.;  cit.  nn.  76-9,  82-3, 
358,  381 

Brest,  211  and  n. 

Briand,  Aristide  (1862-1932,  MP  '02,  PM 
'09),  170,  195,  404,  428n. 

Brindillac,  C,  cit.  nn.  167,  214,  275,  290, 
337-8,  343,  346,  374,  379,  423,  431 

Brinon,  Fernand  de  (Vichy  rep.  in  Paris, 
executed  '47),  298n. 

Britain,  18n.,  54,  73,  82n.,  212,  449 

Britain  and  France  compared:  admin,  and 
courts.,  196, 206,  273n.,  338,  339,  341, 
419n.;  bills  and  budgets,  246-7, 255-6, 
257  and  n.,  258,  259n.,  260,  261,  267, 
268,  464;  elec.  system,  307-8,  309n., 
314,  317;  other  parl.  and  govt.,  186, 
187-8,  189,  203  and  n.,  206,  208,  216, 
218,  223,  229,  240,  276-7,  334,  425-7, 
440 ;  parties,  4-5,  29,  63,  66  and  n.,  69, 
184-5,  222,  308n.,  317,  324,  370,  413; 
soc.  and  pol.  outlook,  2-4,  4-7,  25-6, 
28,  96,  111,  360,  370,  440,  444,  445 

Brittany,  Bretons,  103,  106,  109n.,  110, 
153n.,  248,  280n.,  330,  376, 407 

Broadcasting,  22,  60,  62,  99n.,  132,  161n., 
177n.,  205n.,  271,  324,  341n.,  440, 
445,  506,  507 

Brogan,  D.  W.,  195  and  n.;  cit.  nn.  7,  9, 
246,  256,  339,  451 

Broglie,  Prince  J.  de  (b.  '21,  Cons.  d.  Eure 
'58  and  '62,  m.  in  5  Rep.),  33 In. 

Brokerage  (by  PM),  195,  390,  404,  408-12, 
413,  418-19,  441-3;  see  Coalition 
politics 

Bromhead,  P.,  cit.  nn.  243-6,  248,  250-1 
Brossolette,  Mme  Gilberte  (b.  '05,   Soc. 
d.  Seine  '46J-N,  s.  '46-58,  later  PSU), 
lOOn.,327 


Brown,  B.,  cit.  nn.  55-6,  355-7,  360-1, 
364,  366,  371,  375,  377,  381 

Brune,  Charles  (1891-1956,  Rad.  s.  Eure- 
et-L.  '46-56),  287,  A 

Bruyas,  J.,  cit.  nn.  259,  280-1,  283,  286-7 

Budapest,  75,  162 

Budget :  and  Parl.  time,  260,  267  and  n.,  269 
and  n. ;  as  pol.  problem,  6-7,  25-7,  28, 
51,  249,  254,  257,  264-6, 269, 358, 375; 
see  Investment ;  Tax  System 

Budget  division  of  finance  m.,  342n. 

Budgetary  procedure,  185,  212,  223, 
249n.,  252,  257,  260,  263-9;  provi- 
sional twelfths,  185,  266,  267,  268, 
288n. 

Budgets,  annual:  for  1947-9  (and  Mayer 
levy),  34,  232,  253,  263,  266,  286-7, 
373,  375;  for  1950,  37,  124n.,  218,  233 
and  n.,  253,  264,  266,  290,  361;  for 
1951  (and  rearmament),  249,  253  and 
n.,  261n.,  264,  267,  269,  273n.,  284; 
later,  27,  39-40,  254,  261n.,  264,  269, 
284 

Bugnicourt,  J.,  cit.  nn.  166,  167,  325 

Buisson,  Ferdinand  (1841-1932,  MP  '02, 
educationalist),  126n. 

Bureau,  -x,  of  NA  and  CR,  q.v. 

Bureaucracy,  3,  8-10,  11  and  n.,  13-14, 
253n.,  255,  260  and  n.,  270,  274-5 
and  n.,  335,  336-46,  377-8,  411,  423, 
448,  453;  see  Centralization;  Civil 
servants,  -ice 

Bureaucracy,  colonial,  47,  52,  180,  336, 
349-50,  354,  448 

Burke,  Edmund,  449 

Buron,  Robert  (b.  '10,  MRP  d.  Mayenne 
'45-58,  m.  in  5  Rep),  cit.  nn.  66,  81, 
198,  212,  214,  220,  223,  243,  245,  249, 
252,  260-1,  263,  265,  269,  318,  323-5, 
329-30,  334,  338-42,  345-7,  370-4, 
383,  406,  423,  429-30,  432-3,  A 

Business,  -men,  3-4,  12,  13-14,  27-8,  65, 
68,  69,  123,  155  and  n.,  156nn.,  157, 
289,  297-8,  332,  334n.,  338  and  n., 
344n.,  358,  360-2,  371-2,  377,  379-80, 
385,  392-3,  431;  seeVUE 

Butchers,  300,  332,  382 

Butler,  D.  E.,  57n.,  66n. 

Butter,  378 ;  see  Milk 

By-elections,  50,  54  and  n.,  100,  129,  130, 
135,  152  and  nn.,  161,  165-6  and  nn., 
167,  313,  328,  331n.,  371n.,  413-14, 
508;  local,  143  and  n. 

By6,  M.,  cit.  nn.  296,  298,  391 

CFTC,  28,  34,  69,  83  and  nn.,  103, 105  and 
n.,  109n.,  114  and  n.,  297,  359,  360, 
362,  365,  366,  370n.,  372,  380,  381, 
392;  see  Catholics  (TU) 

CGA,  36n.,  296n.,  297,  364-5,  381,  382n., 
393 

CGC,  359,  381 

CGSI,  137n.,  359 

CGT,  18,  19,  34,  78,  83  and  nn.,  84,  296n., 


INDEX 


517 


297,  359,  360,  370n.,  380n.,  381,  385, 
392n. 

CNI,  CNIP  (named),  62,  63,  65n.,  68  and 
n.,  109n.5  150-9,  167,  177,  178,  258n., 
289,  290,  311,  325nn.,  331n.,  398n., 
402n.,  407,  433;  see  Conservatives 

CNPF,  15,  65,  360-1,  362,  371,  372,  379 

Cabinet:  checks  upon,  9-12, 185-90, 222-5, 
229-42,  252-5;  if  dissolution,  215n., 
217  and  n.,  236-7,  239;  divisions, 
22-4,  28-30,  31-2,  34,  37-8,  46,  47, 
51-2,  207,  234-5,  342,  380,  390-5, 
403,  404-7,  408-12,  423,  440-2;  org., 
196  and  n.,  198,  204n.,  205-6  and  nn., 
232n.,  239;  secretariat,  260n.,  345;  see 
Premiership 

Cabinets,  ministerial,  336,  339-40  and  nn., 
341n.,  343n.,  380,  391;  presidential, 
199n. 

Cachin,  Marcel  (1869-1958,  MP  '14,  Com. 
d.  Seine  2  '45-58),  21 6n. 

Cadart,  J.,  286n.,  296n. 

Cadillac  c'tee  (Rad.),  120  and  n.,  341n. 

Cagoulards,  164,  348 

Caillaux,  Joseph  (1863-1944,  MP  '98, 
PM  '11),  17,  116,448 

Callen,  J.,  356nn.,  358n. 

Calvados  (cap.  Caen),  153n.,  161,  328 

Cambodia,  293-4;  King  of,  41,  294,  422 

Cameroons,  294n. 

Campbell,  P.,  cit.  nn.  65,  107,  193,  205-10, 
223-4,  243,  257-9,  281,  283,  307-10, 
314,  320,  323,  328,  397,  409-10,  419, 
437,  505 

Camps,  internment,  51,  93  and  n.,  100, 
288-9,  400;  other,  74n.,  371n. 

Canar d  Enchatne,  Le,  61,  145 

Canossa,  174 

Capitant,  Ren6  (b.  '01,  Gaull.  d.  B-Rhin 
'45-6,  Seine  2  '46-51,  '62-  ),  133  and 
n.,  144  and  n.,  174,  193  and  n.,  240, 
270,  271  and  n.,  273n.,  274n.,  A 

Careerists,  17,  99,  120,  121  andn,,  185  and 
n.,  228,  252-3,  420-1,  423,  430,  432, 
434,  438-9,  440-1,  450;  see  Feuds; 
Patronage 

Carnot,  Sadi  (1837-94,  Pres,  '87-94),  195 

'Carpetbaggers',  158n.,  169,  329,  330  and 
n.,  332-3 

Carrefour,  142n.,  31  In. 

Carte  Ides  Gaudies -,  45,  88,  116 

Cartels  and  trusts,  143,  287  and  n.,  297, 
344,  362,  369,  376  and  n.,  380,  386; 
see  Steel 

Cartier,  Raymond  (b.  '04,  ed.  Paris- 
Match),  377,  448 

Cartou,  J.,  268n. 

Casablanca  (Morocco),  112 

Casalegno,  C.,  132n. 

Casanova,  Laurent  (b.  '06,  Com.  d.  Seine- 
et-M.  '45-58),  75n.,  85n.,  A 

Casimir-Pe~rier,  Jean  (1847-1907,  Pres. 
'94-5),  195 

Cassin,  Rene",  345n. 


Catalans,  330 

Catherine,  R,,  cit.  nn.  95,  337-41,  347,  391 
Catholic  Action,  103  andn.,  HOn. 
Catholics,  68,  69,  79n.,  86,  97,  125n.,  148, 
155,  158  and  n.,  174,  340,  350,  353, 

365,  365-8,  445-6;  in  colonies,   112, 
180;  extreme  Right,  161,  168, 367, 437; 
Left,  61,  62,  69,  97,  103,  104,  105,  106, 
108,  113,  161,  171  and  nn.,  172,  173, 
367,  435,  436,  437;  trade  unionists, 
106,  367,  385,  437,  see  CFTC;  non-, 
139n.;    anti-,    see    Anticlericals ;    see 
Church 

Catroux,    Diomede    (b.    '16,    Gaull.    d, 

Maine-et-L.  '51-5,  Alpes-M.  '62-    ), 

136n. 
Catroux,  Gen.  Georges  (b.  '77,  Gov.-G. 

Indo-China   '40,    Syria   '41,   Algeria 

»44),  49,  136n.,  A 

Cayeux,  Jean  (MRP  d.  '45-58),  356n. 
Cayre,  Henri,  356  and  n.,  379  and  n. 
Censure,  vote  of,  208,  213, 217,  230,  232n., 

237,  239n.,  240-1,  375 
Centralization,  2-3,  6,  293,  335;  de-,  345, 

347 
Centre,  10,  20,  31,  47,  54,  136,  148,  250, 

254,  283,  309,  311,  312,  313,  314,  317, 

366,  372,   417,    430,    431,   439;    in- 
discipline of,  64,  184,  187,  214,  216, 
246,  308  and  n.,  319,  322,  324,  326, 
353;   see   Compromisers;    Left    and 
Right;    Marginal    votes;    Patronage; 
Third  Force 

Centre  .  .  .,  see  CNI 

Cevennes,  78 

Chaban-Delmas,  Jacques  (b.  '15,  Rad.  and 
Gaull.  d.  Gironde  1  '46N-  ,  mayor 
of  Bordeaux,  Pres.  NA  '58-  ),  47, 
54,  121,  136,  137,  142,  325,  327  and 
n.,  331,  340n.,  377,  430,  442n.,  A 

Chalandon,  Albin  (b.  '20,  sec.-g.  UNR 
'58-9),  158 

Chambaretaud,  Leon,  120n.,  178-9,  507 

Chamber  of  Deputies,  9,  10,  11,  12,  17, 20, 
45,  72,  148,  149,  184-6,  209,  212,  214, 
215,  222,  225,  236,  242,  276,  298,  308, 
374,  387,  389;  President  of,  9,  217; 
building,  72,  212n. 

Chambrun,  Gilbert  de  (b.  '09,  Prog.  d. 
Lozere  '45-55),  171n.,  172n. 

Champagne,  155 

Channel,  English,  2,  206,  256 

Chapman,  B.,  cit.  nn.  337-8,  347,  376 

Chapus,  R.,  267n.,  272n. 

Charente  (cap.  Angouleme),  325 

Charlemagne,  435 

Chariot,  J.,  cit.  nn.  109,  366-7 

Charpentier,  J.,  cit.  nn.  260,  273-4 

Chartres,  163n. 

Chataigneau,  Yves  (b.  '91,  Gov.-G.  Al- 
geria '44-8),  354,  408 

Chatelain,  A.,  61  n. 

Chaumi6,  Pierre  (Rad.  s.  Lot-et-G.  '35-40), 
363n. 


518 


INDEX 


Chavagnes,  R.,  296n. 

Chavanon,  C.,  cit.  nn.  337,  342,  344 

Chenot,  B.  (m.  in  5  Rep.),  296n.,  343n.,  A 

Cher  (cap.  Bourges),  5,  508 

Chevallet,  Paul,  163,164 

Chevallier,  Louis,  4n.,  363n. 

Chiappe,  Jean  (1878-1940,  prefect  of 
police  '27-34),  18 

China,  -ese,  74n. 

Chouans,  167 

Christian  Democrats,  18,  19,  108,  447; 
German,  109;  Bidault's  party  in 
1958,  98n.,  108n.;  see  MRP 

Christopher,  J.  B.,  4n. 

Church,  Catholic:  prelates,  104,  109,  367, 
382,  393;  priests,  68,  97n.,  104,  118, 
247,  367, 445;  and  State,  separation  of, 
115,  116,  148,  186;  and  pol,  2,  7,  60, 
130,  289n.,  365-8,  445-6;  and  Corns., 
22,  78,  86,  367;  and  Socs.,  lln.,  22, 
89,  97-8,  326,  367;  and  MRP,  22,  31, 
103  and  n.,  105,  109-11,  114,  393; 
and  Rads.,  115,  125,  307-8,  323,  342; 
and  Gaull.,  31,  135,  139n.,  142-3;  and 
Cons.,  148  and  n.,  156;  and  Pouj.,  E. 
Right,  161,  168n.;  see  Catholics; 
Church  schools ;  Pope ;  Rome ;  Vatican 

Church  schools:  as  pol.  problem,  15,  23, 
28-30,  31,  38,  39,  78,  105,  125  and  n., 
128n.,  142-3,  204n.,  292  and  n., 
365-7,  370,  372,  419,  434-5,  438,  439; 
as  regional  problem,  317,  318,  330, 
366-7,  376  and  n.,  382;  in  1948,  34, 
250-1,  344,  405n.,  410;  hi  Barange, 
39,  98  and  n.,  105,  125  and  n.,  134, 
175,  220,  233,  245  and  n.,  251,  260, 
265,  306,  343n.,  344,  366,  367,  398n., 
410,  434 

Churchill,  Sir  W,  S.,  132,  409 

Cider,  418,  419n. 

Cine-clubs,  82 

Cities,  3,  84,  94,  98  andn.,  110  andn.,  115, 
134,  139,  155  and  n.,  161,  276  and  n., 
279-80  and  n.,  323,  331,  445;  see 
Regions  (town  v.  country) 

City  of  London,  18n,,  73 

Civil  liberties,  50-1,  52,  173,  273,  275n., 
289 ;  see  Camps ;  Press 

Civil  servants:  conditions  and  career,  34, 
163n.,  272,  338,  339-40,  341,  379; 
pay,  27,  37,  231,  232,  249,  254,  265, 
342,  344,  362n.5  373;  and  Parl.,  poli- 
tics, 68,  95  and  nn.,  213  and  n.,  251, 
296n.,  344,  378;  and  policy,  see 
Bureaucracy 

Civil  service,  org.,  35,  204,  336,  391-2 

Classes  moyennes,  157,  297n.,  361-2  and 
n. 

Clemenceau,  Georges  (1841-1929,  MP 
'76,  PM  '06  and  '17),  9,  11,  116,  124, 
128,  168,  195,  206,  215n.,  223,  353 

Clermont-Ferrand,  84 

Clostermann,  Pierre  (b.  '21,  Gaull.  d.  B- 
Rhin  '46N-'51,  Marne  '51-5,  Seine  1 


'56-8  (Rad.),  Seine-et-O.  '62-  ),  144, 
173 

Cloture,  212;  see  Parliament  (sessions) 

Coal  industry,  36,  74n.,  231,  252,  362,  391 
and  n. 

Coalition  politics,  22,  25,  29-30,  31-2, 
35-6,  46,  99,  100,  112-13,  159,  231, 
242,  250-1,  335,  380,  384-5,  386-7, 
389-95,  396-7,  404-12,  417-18,  421-2, 
423-4,  434,  437-8;  see  Brokerage; 
Compromisers;  Marginal  votes;  Pat- 
ronage 

Cobban,  A.,  276n. 

Coca-cola,  171,  262n.,  330 

Cochin-China,  180n.,  209n.,  222n. 

Colin,  Andr£  (b.  '10,  MRP  d.  Finistere 
'45-58,  s.  '59-  ,  sec.-g.  MRP  '45- 
55,  Pres.  '59-62),  105,  107,  A 

Colistiers,  324;  see  Tetes  de  liste 

Collaboration,  -ists,  7,  74,  103n.,  134, 
159n.,  160,  162,  210,  288,  298  and  n., 
300  and  n.,  327n.,  392 

Collective  bargaining,  see  Wages 

Colliard,  C.,  cit.  nn.  231-3 

Colmar,  323 

Colombey-les-Deux-£glises,  202 

Colonial  policy:  of  parties  generally,  28-9, 
41, 46-7,  50n.,  293, 435-6;  Com.,  50n., 
74,  401;  Soc.,  45,  96n.,  98,  101; 
MRP,  41,  105-6,  112;  Rad.,  39,  112, 
354;  Gaull.,  112,  144;  Cons.,  39,  112, 
158  and  n.;  see  Algeria;  Morocco; 
Tunisia;  Decolonization 

Colonialists,  288,  293,  355  and  n. 

'Colonization'  (of  admin.),  336,  340-1,  347, 
391-2;  see  Communist  P.  (infiltration) 

Colonna,  Antoine  (b.  '01,  d.  '45-6,  Rad. 
and  Gaull.  s.  '47-59),  289 

Colons,  see  N.  Africa  (settlers) 

Combat,  61,  28  5n.,  290n. 

Combes,  fimile  (PM  '02-05),  186 

Cominform,  74  and  n.,  198 

Comite  de  defense  latque,  330 

Comite  des  Forges,  362,  384;  see  Steel 

Commerce,  M.  of,  206 

Commin,  Pierre  (1907-58,  Soc.  d.  '45-6J, 
s.  Seine-et-O.  '52-8),  289 

Committees  of  Public  Safety:  1793,  242; 
1958,  55,  56 

Committees,  parl.,  Ch.  18  and  pp.  9,  186, 
210  and  n.,  223,  257-9,  262-3,  270n., 
277,  296,  373,  411-12,  429;  ad  hoc, 

242,  255;  chairmen,  41,  220,  224n., 
237,  243,  244-5  and  nn.,  250n.,  251n., 
253,  264,   375,   399n.,   418,   433;   in 
debate,  219  and  n.,  243,  259,  28 In.; 
of  enquiry,  223  and  n.,  243;  member- 
ship of,  93n.,  171  and  n.,  180,  215, 

243,  247-50;  rapporteurs,  165n.,  215n., 
243,  244nn.,  248  and  n.,  250,  251, 
261,  262  and  n.,  263,  269,  285,  303 
and  n.;  sub-,  223  and  nn.,  253n. 

Common  Market,  see  European  — 
Communications  C'tee  (NA),  249,  271 


INDEX 


519 


Communist  Party,  Ch.  6 
history,  4,   17-18,   18-19,  20-2,  24-5, 

26-7,  31,  36-41,  62,  70-5,  78 
composition,  68-9,  80n.,  289,  332 
clientele,  14,  34,  50,  54,  71,  75,  78-9, 

82-3,  85  and  n.,  86-7,  95-6,  279,  358, 

381,  394,  401,  414 
and  peasantry,  5,   69,   73,  79,   326-7, 

328n.,  356,  364-5,  393,  394 
discipline,  63-4,  85,  310,  329 
divisions,  71,  74-5  and  nn.,  80-1,  83, 

85,  376,  401 
membership,  63,  71,  77-8  and  nn.,  79n., 

93n.,  108 

militants,  73,  77n.,  80-1,  83,  85,  87 
org.,  65n.,  75-7  and  nn.,  80,  81,  84,  85-6 
funds,  65  and  n.,  80,  371n.,  372,  387 
in  Parl.,  65,  78,  80-1,  212-13,  216  and  n., 

224,  227,  240,  244n.,  255,  261,  262  and 

nn.,  263  and  n.,  264, 265,  282,  285,  286, 

287,  299,  316,  375 
obstruction,  210n.,  213,  218-19,  220n., 

221  and  n.,  232n.,  258  and  n. 
and  govt.,  24-5,  46,  74  and  n.,  83,  86n., 

228,  331,  Ch.  27,  401 
infiltration,  24,  46  and  n.,  84  and  n.,  271, 

340,  341,  347,  348,  391-2 
and  regime,  54,  56,  70,  74,  75,  80,  87, 

179,  396 

outlook,  86-7,  335,  365,  383,  435 
policy,  see  Algeria;  Colonial;  Const.; 

Econ.;  Electoral;  Foreign 
tactics,  82-4,  85,  86-7,  324,  326,  330 
untouchability,  45,  93,  202,  206,  237n., 

244n.,  245,  250,  263,  306,  327n.,  337, 

338,  360,  371,  377,  380n.,  392n.,  422, 

431,  433  and  n.,  438 
and  Church,  press,  TUs,  q.v. 
and  all  parties,  28,  29,  41,  84-5,  210n., 

228,250,317,319 
and  Soc.,  24,  71-2,  73,  81n.,  83,  89,  90, 

92n.,  94,  98,  99,  100,  235,  311,  318, 

323,  330,  367,  390,  397,  400,  403,  435 

and  q.v.', 
and  MRP,  24,  104,  109,  111,  288,  309, 

310,  315,  390  andtf.v. 
and  Rad.,  20,  116,  118,  121,  124  and  n., 

125,  126,  314,  315,  367,  435  and  q.v. 
and  Gaull.,  25,  31,  36,  38,  54,  73,  81n., 

134-5,  139-41,  143,  146,  210n.,  312, 

314,  362,  366  and  q.v. 
and  Cons.,  83,  156n.,  288,  315,  329,  362 

and  q.v. 
and Pouj.,  48-9, 79n.,  83, 163  andn.,  164 

andn.,  165,  167  andn.,  172n.  and<?.v. 
and  fascists,  72,  82 
and  small  parties,  82n.,  171-2,  174,  175, 

176  and  n.,  180 

and  pol.  leaders,  q.v.  individually 
Communists,  individual,  199,  223n.,  300 

and  n.,  301,  329,  429n.;  crypto-,  see 

Fellow-travellers;    diss.,    171n.,    215; 

ex-,  18,  75n.,  78,  85n.,  137n.,  160,  174; 

non-French,  74  antf  n.,  75?  88,  19§ 


Comores,  294n. 

Compagnies  republicaines  de  securite,  347 
Compromisers,  70,  125,  175  and  n.,  176, 
317-19,  333-4,  396-7,  404,  407-8,  410, 
413,  418-22,  424,  430-1,  436-8,  439, 
440-3,  449-53;  see  Coalition  politics 
Compulsory  arbitration,  see  Wages 
Concierges,  374,  429n. 
Confederation  .  .  .,  see  initial  C 
Confidence,  votes  of,  35,  45, 190,  204,  208, 
213,  220,  226,  229-36,  237,  238-40, 
264-5,  274,  409,  441,  495;  subjects  of, 
224,  234  and  n.,  235  and  n.,  247n., 
248n.,  253,  254,  264-5,  266,  269 
Congo,  French,  214n. 

Congress,  parl.,  201,  217,  280;  see  Presi- 
dent (elections) 
Congress,  U.S.,  192,  218,  219,  245,  256, 

331,  333,  409,  413,  432 
Congresses,    international,    Comm.,    75; 

Soc.,  88 
Conscripts,  -ion,  6,  16n.,  45n.,  49,  85n., 

290n.,  376,  401 
Conseil  de  cabinet,  des  ministres,   196n., 

204n.,  205n.;  see  Cabinet 
Conseil  d*£tat,  54,  204n.,  211,  260  and  n., 
271-3,   274,  292n.,  304,  337-8,  344, 
345 
Conseil  national  du  patronat  francais,  see 

CNPF 

Conseil  superieur  des  alcools,  379 
Conservatives,  British,  29,  66n.,  370, 425 
Conservatives,  Ch.  11 
defined,  20n.,  148n. 
history,  22,  37-41,  47-9,  62,  148-54 
composition,  68-9, 154-6  and  nn.,  364-5 
clientele,   28,   50,   85,    154-5   and  nn., 

157-8,  365,  380 
discipline,  67,  151-2,  311,  315n.,  404, 

412 

divisions,  152-4,  157-9,  432,  433 
org.,  62,  63,  65n.,  150-4 
funds,  65n.,  372 
in  Parl.,  20n.,  31-2,  32-6,  51,  63,  410, 

412,  421 
and  govt.,  35n.,  39,  40,  46,  51,  70,  148, 

153,  157,  228 
outlook,  148-9  and  n.,  154,  156-9,  332, 

438 
policy,  see  Algeria;  Colonial;  Const.; 

Econ.;  Electoral;  Foreign 
and  all  parties,  25,  28,  29,  30-2,  317 
and  Pouj.,  153  and  n.,  154,  155n.,  159, 

163,  165n.,  166,  179 
and  small  parties,  124,  174  and  n.,  177, 

179 
and  Church,  Press,  Corns.,  Socs.,  MRP, 

Rad.,  Gaull.,  all  f.v. 
and  pol.  leaders,  q.v.  individually 
Conservatives,  individuals,  46,  54n.,  165, 
166n.,  243n.,  250,  289,  325  and  nn., 
327,  330,  331,  378,420,  435 
Constantine  (Algeria),  354 
Constituent  <  •  •?  see  Assemblies 


520 


INDEX 


Constitution,  April  1946  draft,  22-3,  89, 
104,  176,  190,  191,  196,  197,  199, 
203n.,  209n.,  225-6, 230,  236,  237,  388 

Constitution  of  4  Rep.,  7,  20-3,  40,  41, 
104,  180, 188-94,  196-200,  204  and  n., 
215,  242,  271,  273,  278-82,  291,  292 
and  n.,  293-4,  295,  298-300,  343,  347; 
see  Gaulle,  C.  de  (views);  App.  I  for 
detailed  refs. 

Constitution,  party  views  on,  20,  22-3,  25, 
56,  189-92,  227-8,  278,  282,  283,  299, 
305  and  n.,  387;  Com.,  302  and  n., 
304,  347;  Soc.,  98,  222,  229-30,  236, 
273,  276-7,  283n.,  347;  MRP,  226, 
236n.,  240,  283n.,  296;  Rad.,  37,  226, 
237n.,  276-7,  281,  302;  Gaull.,  240, 
284n.,  306;  Cons.,  37,  306 

Const.  Amendment,  301-6,  also  in  3  Rep., 
20,  115,  192,  197,  270,  275,  276,  302; 
procedure,  191,  208,  209nn.,  281,  292; 
resolution  Nov.  1950, 192-3, 227,  239, 
283,  303;  bill,  July  1953,  192-3,  240, 
303,  304;  amendment  Nov.  1954,  46, 
193  and  n.,  210,  212,  213,  216,  217n., 
222,  227-8,  232n.,  237,  257n.,  278, 
280,  281,  282n.,  283-4,  303;  1957-8 
proposals,  52,  56,  193-4,  240-1,  266, 
275  and  n.;  other  proposals,  40,  134n., 
286  and  n.,  295 

Constitutional  Ctee,  197n.,  200  and  n., 

208,  215n.,  217,  259n.,  281,  282,  292, 
305-6 

Consultative  Assembly,  363n.;  C'tees,  260, 

378-9 
Conte,  Arthur  (b.  '20,  Soc.  d.  Pyren6es-O. 

'51-62),    lOOn.,   179n.,   328   and  n., 

41  In.,  507 

Contract  of  the  majority,  405  and  n. 
Convention  africaine,  181 
Convention  (of  1793),  189;  —  government, 

187-8,  189,  191 

Converse  and  Dupeux,  16n.,  29n. 
Cooperatives,  96,  163,  296n.,  384 
Corail,  J.  L.  de,  225n. 
Coret,  A.,  295n. 

Corps  intermediates,  see  Intermediaries 
Correze  (cap.  Tulle),  5,  79n.,  504 
Corruption,  lack  of,  334  and  n.,  372;  see 

Money  and  politics ;  Parl.  (character) ; 

Scandals 
Corsica,  -ans  (Corse,  cap.  Ajaccio),  56, 

209,  211,  302n.,  339n.,  376,  438n. 
Coste-Floret,  Paul(b.  '11,  MRP  d.  H6rault 

'45-  ),  112,  191,  200  and  n.,  203n., 
226n.,  240n,  244n.,  300n.,  304n.,  313, 
A 

Coston,  H.,  cit  nn.  82,  94,  98-9,  130,  139, 
143,  160-1,  164-6,  171 

Cot,  Pierre  (b.  '95,  Rad.  MP  '28,  Prog.  d. 
Savoie  '45-51,  Rhone  1  '51-8),  13n., 
72n.,  81,  llln.,  171  andn.,  172,225n., 
234,  236n.,  265  and  nn.,  299  and  n., 
329,  387,414,429,442 

Cote  d'Qr  (cap.  Dijon),  151,  325,  4Q4n, 


Cotteret,  J.  M.,  cit.  nn.  79,  220,  257,  259, 
261,  269-74,  285,  355;  see  Inegalites 

Coty,  Frangois  (1874-1934,  s.  '23-4),  18 

Coty,  Ren6  (1882-1962,  MP  '23,  RI  d. 
Seine-Inf.  '45-8,  s.  '48-54,  Pres.  Rep. 
>54_8),  42,  45,  54,  55,  56  and  n.,  157, 
169,  195,  196n.,  201-3,  217,  236n., 
238n.,  239  and  n.,  289,  294n.,  300n., 
350,  415nn.,  416,  417,  420,  422,  429, 
432,  A 

Council  of  the  Republic,  278-91 
own  electoral  law,  36,  37,  196  and  n., 
208,  278-80,  322,  388,  450;  see  Elec- 
tions (second  chamber) 
officers,  bureau,   122n.,   197,  201,  280, 

284,   305,  414 
outlook,  285-91,  376 
party  composition,  134,  138n.,  178,  285, 

286,  503 
powers,  200  and  n.,  258,  259,  265,  270n., 

280-5,  302-3,  315-16 
and  elec.,  const,  reform,  47,  288,  302-4, 

312-13,  315-16,  363  and  n. 
and  foreign  policy,  225,  281,  288,  434, 

441 
and  NA,  208, 21 1, 228n.,  259, 268, 270n., 

278-91,  305,  306,  324 
see  Parl.  (members) 

Countersignature,  195,  196,  197  and  n., 
199  and  nn.,  203n.,  204  and  n.,  300, 
305n.,  410 

Cour  des  Comptes,  266-7,  338-9,  345 

Courant,  P.  (RI.  d.  '45-62),  267n.,  426n.,  A 

Courrier  de  la  Colere,  54 

Courts:  admin.,  274,  see  Conseil  d'Etat; 
of  Cassation,  299,  300;  see  Cour  des 
Comptes;  High  Court;  Judiciary 

Crapouillot,  7 In.,  72n.,  74n. 

Crepuscule,  Le,  104 

Creuse  (cap.  Gu6ret),  5,  172nn. 

Crimean  War,  188 

Crises,  ministerial,  Ch.  29,  also  12,  34, 
36-7,  45,  55,  93,  107n.,  120,  201n., 
206,  225,  227,  229  and  n.,  236,  238, 
240,  253-4,  354,  377,  401,  403,  432, 
439,  450 ;  see  Instability ;  Investiture 

Crises,  specific  (in  4  Rep.),  all,  495;  1946, 
197;  1947,  34,  416;  1948,  35,  125,  363, 
418,  427;  1949,  403,  407,  418,  427; 
1950-2,  37-40,  407,  416,  418,  427; 
1953,  40-3,  105,  201,  227,  272,  407, 
408n.,  411,  416;  1954,  47;  1955, 
419-21;  1957,  51,  52,  269,  411,  427; 
1958,  55,  91,  355 

Croix,  La,  61 

Croix  de  Feu,  18,  149,  159n.,  381 

Crozier,  M.,  cit.  nn.  6,  68,  86,  366,  453 

Cure's,  see  Church 

P.C.D.,  392n. 
DST,  348 

Dakar  (Senegal),  210n. 
Daladier,  fidouard  (b.  '84,  MP  '19,  PM 
'33,  Rad,  d,  Yauduse  W-58),   12, 


17   67,  72,  74,  117,  120,  121  and  nn., 
127n.,   130,    175,   177-8,  210n.,  270, 
322  and  n.,  401-2,  415,  435,  A 
Dallin,  D.  J.,  89n. 
Dansette,  A.,  cit.  nn.  103,  110,  114,  141, 

171-2,  195-9,  201-3,  417 
Dardel,  Georges  (b.  '19,  Soc.  s.  Seine  '58-  , 

Pres.  Seine  cons.-gen.),  93,  327 
Darnand,  Joseph  (head  of  Vichy  militia, 

executed  1945),  298n. 
Dauzat,  A.,  376n. 

David,  Jean-Paul  (b.  '12,  Rad.,  RGR,  E. 
Right  d.  Seine-et-O.  1  M6N-62),  129, 
130,  432 

Deat,  Marcel  (1894-1955,  MP  '24,  Soc. 
and  Neo-Soc.,  m.  '44),  8,  18,  89,  160, 
161n. 

Death  penalty,  377  and  n. 
Deauville,  31  In. 

Debre,  Michel  (b.  '12,  Rad.  and  Gaull.  s. 
Indre-et-Loire  '48-59,  PM  '59-62,  d. 
Reunion  '63-  ),  16,  54,  137,  142, 
143n.,  193-4,  223,  224n.,  281n.,  290, 
301n.,  312n.,  337,  343,  358n.,  366,  430, 
435;  cit.  nn.  193,  214,  393,  429;  A 
Debu-Bridel,  Jacques  (b.  '02,  Gaull.  s. 
Seine  '48-58),  cit.  nn.  73,  388,  390, 
393-4,  411 

Decolonization,  Ch.  4;  and  181,  194,  346, 
368,  447;  see  Africa;  Algeria;  Colonial 
policy;  Indo-China;  Morocco;  Tuni- 
sia; N.  Africa 

Decrees,  270n.,  271,  272  and  n.,  273  and  n., 
274,  295,  343-4,  358n.,  379;  Decree- 
laws,  see  Special  powers 
Defence:  M.  of,  54,  198,  204  and  n.,  205 
and  n.,  244n.,  336,  344,  391n.,  392; 
C'tee  (NA),  223,  224n.,  242,  243n., 
244n.,  246,  247-9,  250,  251,  254  and 
n.,  269,  273n.;  Council,  see  National 
.  .  .  ;  policy,  see  Foreign  policy 
DefFerre,  Gaston  (b.  '12,  Soc.  d.  Bouches- 
du-Rhone  '45-58,  s.  '59-62,  d.  '62-  , 
mayor  of  Marseilles),  49,  50,  91  and 
n.,  97n.,  248,  273  and  n.,  331,  376  and 
n.,  388n.,  392,  430,  436  and  n.,  A 
Deixonne,  Maurice  (b.  '04,  Soc.  d.  Tarn 

'46J-58),  98n.,  21 6n.,  247,  313,  429 
Dejean,  Rene"  (Soc.  d.  '51-    ),  275n. 
Delbecque,  Leon  (b.   '19,  UNR  and  E. 
Right  d.  Nord  '58-62),  54,  146,  340n. 
Delegation  des  Gauches,  9,  186,  224,  246 
Delouvrier,  Paul  (b.  '14,  delegate-gen,  for 
Algeria  '58-60),  cit.  nn.  41,  61,  340, 
345,  364,  368,  372,  383-4,  394,  412, 
414  423 
Delpuech,  Vincent  (b.  '88,  MP  '38,  Rad.  s. 

Bouches-du-Rhone  '55-    ),  289 
Demarquet,  J.  M.  (b.  '23,  Pouj.  and  E. 
Right  d.  Finistere  '56-8),  165n.,  167 
Democracy,  see  Authority;  'Peoples,  25, 

318;  'Presidential',  q.v. 
Democratic  Alliance,  see  Alliance  .  .  . 
Democratic  Republicans,  507 


INDEX  521 

Denais,  Joseph  (b.  '77,  MP  '11,  Cons.  d. 
Seine  2  '45-55),  372n. 

Denis,  Andre  (b.  '20,  MRP  and  ind.  d. 

'      Dordogne  '46J-55),  107,  174,  325 

Departmental  councils,  see  Elections, 
local;  Local  govt. 

Departments  of  govt.,  see  Cabinet;  minis- 
tries individually 

Depeche,  La,  60,  123,  125  and  n. 

Depreux,  fidouard  (b.  '98,  Soc.  d.  Seine  4 
'45-58,  sec.-g.  PSU),  90,  91  and  n., 
lOOn.,  350n.,  400n.,  403,  410,  A 

Derczansky,  A.,  97n. 

Derruau-Boniol,  S.,  79n. 

Deschanel,  Paul  (1855-1922,  MP  '85, 
Pres.  Jan.  '20,  mad  Sept.,  s.  '21),  3, 
195 

Destalinization,  75,  85 

DeTarr,  F.,  cit.  nn.  117-18,  120-31,  163, 
174-6,  178,  261,  412,  433,  441-2 

Devaluation,  34,  37,  212,  221,  410 

Diamant,  A.,  cit.  nn.  336,  337,  341 

Dicey,  A.  V.,  337 

Dides,  Jean  (b.  '15,  Pouj.  and  E.  Right  d. 
Seine  6  '56-8),  46n.,  52,  146n.,  164n., 
165n.,  167,  168,218n.,  348 

Dien-Bien-Phu,  45,  162,  224  and  n.,  227, 
419,  424,  441 

DieThelm,  AndrS  (1896-1954,  Gaull.  d. 
Vosges  '45-6,  s.  Seine-et-O.  '48-51,  d. 
'51-4),  136,  137,  138n.,  442n.,  A 

Direct  action,  45,  76,  161-2,  163,  359-60, 
361,  364,  380,  381-3;  see  Violence 

Disarmament,  333 

Disraeli,  B.,  188n. 

Dissident  Radicals,  see  Neo- 

Dissolution,  236-40,  also',  in  3  Rep.,  9, 
184-5,  195,  222;  in  4  Rep.,  40,  190, 
217,  222,  234,  452;  in  1955,  47,  128, 
202,  288;  de  Gaulle  demands,  32,  134, 
192,  209  and  n.,  312;  in  5  Rep.,  192n.; 

Doctors,  Tlo!iei27n.,  171,  247,  323,  330, 
358,  362,  378n.,  380 

Dogan,  M.,  cit.  nn.  68,  80,  95,  109-10, 
123,  14),  151,  154,  156,  165-6  . 205-6, 
210  248,  255,  262,  323-9,  332,  360, 
363,  371,  373,  419,  4-29,  437 

'Domain  of  the  Law',  271-2  and  nn.,  273 
and  n.,  275n.  . 

Domenach,  J.  M.  (ed.  Esprit},  cit.  nn.  73, 
76-8,  82-3 

Donnedieu   de   Vabres,   Jacques,   270n., 

Dordogne  (cap.  PSrigueux),  I?7*  325  T11 
Dorgeres,  Henri  (b.  '97,  E.  Right  d.  Ille- 

et-V   '56-8),  153  and  n.,  161n.,  162, 

166,  168,  357n.,  365  and  n. 
Doriot,    Jacques    (1898-1945     Com     d. 

'24,  founded  PPF  '36),  18,  160,  162, 

404 
Doumer,  Paul  (1857-1932,  MP  '88,  Pres. 

'31-2),   195 


522 


INDEX 


Doumergue,  Gaston  (1863-1937,  MP  '93, 
PM  '13,  Pres.  '24-31,  PM  '34),  45, 
185,  440 

Downgrading,  326  and  n.,  327,  388  and  n. ; 
see  Elec.  systems  (list  voting) 

Doyen  d'dge,  21 6n. 

Drago,  R.,  cit.  nn.  196,  198,  200,  211,  238, 
273,  306 

Drevet,  P.,  cit.  nn.  193,  222,  295,  302-5 

Dreyfus,  F.  G.,  cit.  nn.  109,  143,  167,  330 

Dreyfus  case,  7,  88  and  n.,  115,  148,  446 

Dreyfus-Schmidt,  Pierre  (b.  '02,  Rad.  and 
Prog.  d.  Belfort  '45-6  J,  '46N-51, 
'56-8),  172n. 

Dronne,  Raymond  (b.  '08,  Gaull.  s. 
Sarthe  '48-51,  d.  '51-62),  294n. 

Dubost,  Antonin  (1844-1921,  Pres.  Sen. 
'06-20),  277  and  n. 

Duchet,  Roger  (b.  '06,  RI  s.  Cote  d'Or 
'46-  ),  130,  151,  152  and  nn.,  153n., 
154n.,  158  and  n.,  261n.,  290,  377, 
430,  433  and  n.,  A 

Duclos,  Jacques  (b.  '96,  MP  '26,  Com.  d. 
Seine  6  '45-58,  s.  '59-  ),  65n.,  74 
and  nn.,  75n.,  79n.,  81  and  n.,  210n., 
211  and  n.,  237,  240,  265n.,  327n., 
401,  509n. 

Duhamel,  G.,  376n. 

Duhamel,  Jacques  (b.  '24,  Rad.  d.  Jura 
'62-  ),  339 

Dulin,  Andre  (b.  '00,  Rad.  s.  Charente-M. 
'46-  ),  363n.,  A 

Dulles,  J.  F.,  46 

Dumaine,  J.,  cit.  nn.  74,  198,  200,  322,  394, 
401 

Dupeux,  G.,  5n.,  16n.,  29n. 

Dupuy,  Marc  (b.  '94,  Rad.  d.  Gironde 
'46N-51),  327  and  n. 

Durance,  river,  335 

Durand-Re~ville,  Luc  (b.  '04,  Rad.  s. 
Gabon  '47-59),  288,  289 

Duveau,  Roger  (b.  '07,  MRP  and  UDSR 
d.  Madagascar  '46-58),  181n. 

Duverger,  Maurice,  193,  308  and  n.;  cit. 
nn.  on  institutions,  202,  255,  264,  266, 
268,  273,  277,  280,  285,  292,  296-8, 
339, 342-4, 363, 374-5 ;  on  parties,  76-9, 
82,  92,  94-6,  101,  107,  113,  119-22, 
149,  155,  307-8;  on  regime,  110,  188, 
193, 239, 241,  424, 433, 438, 452;  other, 
26,  49,  157,  201-2,  239,  265,  401 

EDC,  see  European  Army 

ENA,  337,  338,  345 

Earle,  E.  M.,  cit.  nn.  4,  19,  34,  79,  146, 

327,  361,  382 

Scale  libre  des  sciences  pol,  337 
Ecole  normale,  78n. 
Economic  Affairs:  C'tee  (NA),  252,  298n.; 

M.  of,  205,  341,  342-3 
Economic  Council,  122n.,  208,  295-8,  333; 

Pres.,  297n.,  414 
Economic  Front,  361 
Economic,  social  and  TU  policy:,  generally, 


all  parties,  4-6,  12-15,  25-8,  37-8,  39, 
44,  264n.,  287,  359-60,  361-2,  363, 
380;  also  Com.,  82-4,  86-7,  345,  356; 
Soc.,  31,  49,  50,  97,  101,  171,  343  and 
n.;  MRP,  41,  105,  108,  171,  343n.; 
Rad.,  126,  285,  343,  357;  Gaull., 
143-4;  Cons.,  267n.,  285,  343,  356, 
370 ;  see  Budget ;  Devaluation ;  Family ; 
Food;  Housing;  Inflation;  Invest- 
ment; Social  security;  Tax  system; 
Trade  unions;  Wages 

'Economism',  84 

Economist,  126n.,  188n. 

Economizers,  40,  41n.,  52, 265,  267  and  n., 
301  n.;  see  Budget;  Decrees;  Special 
powers 

Merits  de  Paris,  62 

Education:  C'tee  (NA),  245  and  n.,  247, 
248,  249,  250-1,  252n.;  M.  of,  205n., 
252,  336,  340,  342,  344 

Egypt,  128;  see  Suez 

Ehrmann,  H.  W.,  cit.  nn.  7,  11-12,  14-15, 
26,  34,  65,  70,  79,  82,  94,  96-7,  141, 
143,  157,  287,  297-8,  337,  343-4,  355, 
360-2,  371-2,  376,  378-9,  384,  394, 
423 

Eichmann,  A.,  453 

Einaudi,  M.,  cit.  nn.  73, 103,  110,  113,  171 

Eisenhower,  Pres.  D.  D.,  74,  172,  409,  425 

Election  expenses,  371-2 

Electioneering,  48,  76,  164,  311,  313-14, 
316,  323-4,  326-7,  329-32,  366,  370-1, 
420,  438;  in  Parl.,  'election  fever', 
31-2,  37-8,  47,  249,  261-2  and  n., 
263n.,  265-6,  287n.,  315,  330,  357, 
370-2,  433 

Elections,  1945-58  (all),  78-9,  94  and  n., 
108,  109-10  and  n.,  154,  502-3, 
505-6 

Elections  (specific): 

1924-36,    17-18,    71-2,    78,    88-9,    94, 

llOn.,  116-17,  307nn.,  346 
1945-6,  22-4,  31,  85,  89-90,  104,  llOn., 
11  In.,  176,  309,  310n.,  322-3,  366,  367 
1951,  38-9,  72n.,  97,   105,   llOn.,   139, 
143n.,  150,  160,  175,  176,  177,  178-9, 
180    (overseas),    218,    311    and    n., 
313-14,  323,  366,  367,  372 
1956,  44,  47-9,  51,  90,  99,  105,  llOn., 
113  and  nn.,  128,  129,  136,  152,  161 
and  n.,  164,  166  and  n.,  172  and  n., 
173  and  n.,  178  and  n.,  217,  315-16, 
323,  365,  367,  370,  371,  372 
1958,    80n.,   98n.,    130,    131,    162,   166 

and  n.,  172  and  n.,  174 
1962, 96n. 

Elections  Abroad,  56n.,  327,  429n.,  439n. 

flections  1956,  cit,  nn.  48,  66,  68,  78,  95, 
99,  108-10,  113,  123,  128,  136,  139, 
143, 155, 164-8, 210,  239,  315, 323-31, 

^      334,  360,  367,  370-2,  433 

Elections  1958,  132n.,  154n.,  510 

Elections,  local,  32,  36,  38,  54,  79n.,  84, 
104,  106,  110,  118,  123n.,  134,  136, 


INDEX 


523 


139,  161,  162,  164,  245n.,  279,  310 
andn.,  33 In.,  389 
Elections,  2nd  chamber,  31-2,  118,  122, 

135,  286  and  n.,  310,  503 
Electoral  laws,  of  1945-6,  20,  23,  51,  118, 
309-10,  314,  322,  327-8,  392n.,  504-5, 
508 

of  1951  (kept  1956),  38-9,  47-9,  HOnn., 
135,  139,  154,  210,  220-1,  231,  283, 
310-16,  317-19,  327-8,  339n.,  372, 
400,  410,  418,  426,  450,  504-5,  506, 
507,  508 

of  1951  (Paris),  313  and  n.,  328,  504 
of  1958,  56  and  n.,  275n.,  312n.,  316 
local,  32,  122,  231,  245n.,  286,  309,  410 
overseas,  181,  220,  288,  312 
Parl.  and,  56  and  n.,  273n.,  275n.,  308n., 

320n. 

see  Alliances;  Apparentement;  By-elec- 
tions;   Highest    average,   remainder; 
National  party,  pooling;  Panachage; 
Preferential  vote 
Electoral  systems: 

PR,  15,  22,  51,  190,  308-10,  311,  314, 
315-16, 317-19, 388-9;  notional  (1951), 
38-9 

scrutin  d'arrondissement,  double  ballot, 
60,  72,  172n.  (1958),  184,  279n.,  288, 
307-8,  309,  311  and  nn.,  312n.,  315-16 
and  nn.,  316-19,  331,  374,  389,  410 
scrutin  de  liste,  list  and  personal  voting, 
150,  152  and  n.,  172,  261,  307-8, 
318n.,  322-8,  330,  331,  332n.,  370n., 
387-9,  439,  504,  507;  see  Downgrad- 
ing, T£te  de  liste 

single-  or  multi-member  constituency, 
110  andn.,  117, 184,  261,  307,  309  and 
n.,  329,  331,  442 

parties  and,  38,  288,  308,  309-12,  314-16, 
319;  also  Com.,  29,  36,  47;  Soc.,  98, 
276-7;  MRP,  29,  32,  36,  231,  233; 
Rad.,  117-18,231,233,276-7;  GaulL, 
245n.,  312  and  n.;  Cons.,  48,  276 
filysee,  198,  199n.,  200,  217,  226,  277,  300, 

301  and  n.,  425 
Ensor,  R.  C.  K.,  301  n. 
Entreprise,  338n. 
Epinal,  23 

Esprit,  62,  70n.,  71n.,  171n. 
Essig,  F.,  cit.  nn.  324,  331,  334 
Estier,  C.,  171n. 
Eurasians,  332 

Euratom,  51,  165  and  n.,  213,  246,  288n. 
Eure  (cap.  Evreux),   152n.,  324  and  n., 

331n.,  334n. 

Eure-et-Loir  (cap.  Chartres),  209n. 
Europe,  162,  444;  Council  of,  205,  329; 
No.  1  (radio),  62;  Eastern,  82;  war  in, 
386 

European  Army,  Defence  Community 
(EDC):  defeat  of,  41n.,  44,  46,  246, 
258,  448;  in  party  politics,  40,  41,  45, 
46,  49n.,  90-1, 100, 106, 112, 113, 136, 
144,  153,  158  and  n.,  202,  214n.,  217, 


250,  290,  372,  377,  400  and  n.,  404, 
411,  419,  420,  433-4,  450;  and  Parl., 
const.,  225,  227  and  n.,  234-5,  258, 
284n.,  288,  292n.,  410,  419;  and  43, 
69,  75,  101,  167,  173,  232n.,  243n., 
304,  326,  341,  346,  351,  418 

European  Coal  and  Steel  Community,  39, 
44,  98,  111,  232n.,  234n.,  246  and  n., 
296,  298,  346,  358,  362,  379,  385,  397 

European  Common  Market,  51,  98,  225, 
246,  274,  288n.,  380n.,  385 

'Europeans',  'Anti-Europeans'  in  France, 
40,  41,  46,  106,  111-12,  217,  221,  225, 
288n.,  346,  368,  370n.,  377,  400,  405, 
419,  421,  429,  434,  435,  437,  438,  448 

Europeans  in  N.  Africa,  336,  349,  350  and 
q.v.  (settlers) 

Evreux,  119nn. 

Express,  V,  54,  61,  113n.,  168n.,  171n., 
340n.,  433  and  n. 

Ex-servicemen,  72,  149,  162,  232n.,  352, 
358,  369,  370  and  n.,  381n. ;  see  Pen- 
sions 

Extreme  .  .  .,  see  Left;  Right 

FLN,  50,  54,  55,  288,  341,  351 

FNSEA,  15,  363n.,  364-5,  380  and  n.,  381 

FO,  see  Force  ouvriere 

Fabre,  M.  H.,  cit.  nn.  197,  201,  227 

Fajon,  fetienne  (b.  '06,  MP  '36,  Com.  d. 
Seine  5  '45-58,  '62-  ),  199n. 

Falloux,  loi,  434-5 

Family:  allowances,  232n.,  248n.,  249  and 
n.,  264, 297,  357,  360n.,  362, 363n.,  424 ; 
associations,  96,  172,  296n.,  297,  380, 
392;  firms,  3,  361  and  n.;  vote,  190-1 

Fascism,  -ists,  18,  72,  82,  104,  117,  145-6, 
149,  154,  162,  164,  351,  396,  399,  433, 
435;  crypto-,  49,  54,  130n. 

Faucher,  J.  A.,  cit.  nn.  65,  127,  344,  348, 
351,  371,  376-7,  408,  411,  433,  442 

Fauna  and  flora,  pol.:  chameleons,  429, 
433;  dinosaurs,  161n.;  donkeys,  211; 
pigeons,  211  and  n.,  270;  porpoises, 
261;  rabbits,  195;  wolves,  8;  beet  q.v., 
cauliflower,  seaweed  and  thistles, 
261n.;  orange-peel,  240;  tobacco,  375; 
tomatoes,  49 

Faure,  Edgar  (b.  '08,  Rad.  and  RGR  d. 
Jura  '46N-58,  s.  '59-  ),  career,  35n., 
40  41,  50,  238,  253,  322  and  n.,  339n., 
357n.,  363n.,  417,  A;  elected  PM, 
47  119  andn.,  227  andn.,  228,  420-1; 
as  PM,  39,  47,  220,  225,  226,  232  and 
n.,  233n.,  234  and  n.,  235n.,  236,  281, 
288,  315,  316,  339,  349  and  n.,  357, 
376,  408,  423,  426,  443;  and  dissolu- 
tion, 47,  164n.,  209,  238-9  and  nn.; 
on  finance,  26n.,  265nn.,  267  and  nn., 
268  and  n;  on  N.  Africa,  Suez,  41, 
50n.,  128n.,  349  and  n.,  408,  426,  443; 
on  Parl.,  govt,  267  and  n.,  411,  423, 
426n.,  432,  433n.,  436,  438,  441  and 
n.,  442n.;  and  parties,  47,  254n.; 


524 


INDEX 


Fame,  Edgar  (cont'd) 

also  Com.,  75,  119,  239,  433n.;  Soc., 
39,  119,  234,  404;  MRP,  322  and  n.; 
Rad.,  127-8,  178  and  n.,  407;  GaulL, 
48n.,136,145,226,406-8;Cons.,  39,152 

Faure  govt,  Jan.-Feb.  '52,  27,  39,  175, 
205n.,  206n.,  234,  238,  254  and  n., 
342n.,  A 

Faure  govt.,  Feb.  '55-Jan.  '56,  45,  47, 
48n.,  49,  75,  136, 152,  228,  239  and  n., 
268,  272,  274,  284,  407,  421  and  n., 
437,  A 

Faure,  Felix  (1841-99,  Pres.  1895-9),  195 

Faure,  Gen.  Jacques  (b.  '04,  Pouj.  cand. 
'57),  50,  51n.,  52, 167,  350 

Faure,  Marcel,  HOn. 

Faure,  Maurice  (b.  '22,  Rad.  d.  Lot  '51-  , 
Pres.  Rad.  P.  '61),  339n.,  A 

Faure,  Paul  (1878-1960,  MP  '10.  sec.-g. 
SFIO  '21-38,  on  Vichy  nat.  council), 
89,  170,  177,  323n. 

Fauvet,  Jacques  (ass.  ed.  Le  Monde),  cit. 
101  and:  on  events,  nn.  19,  34,  46, 
49,  50,  201,  287,  315,  343,  348,  351, 
394,  399,  408-11,  416-17,  422,  432-3; 
on  French  pol.  generally,  nn.  4,  7, 
13,  41,  96,  155,  265,  320,  364,  367; 
on  overseas,  nn.  41,  199,  248,  349, 
354,  440;  on  elect.,  parties,  nn.  14,  77, 
79-81,  94-6,  98,  101,  108,  110,  119, 
122,  125-6,  138-40,  143,  146,  149-50, 
164,  174,  179,  287,  363,  399,  401-2, 
406,  411,  418;  other,  nn.  65,  98,  198, 
253,  287,  363,  372,  402,  406,  426,  441 

Fauvet  and  Mendras,  see  Paysans 

Favrod,  C.  H.,  82n. 

Federation  Rdpublicaine,  62,  148,  149 

Fellow-travellers,  72n.,  75,  82,  124n., 
170-2,  180,  224,  250,  332,  341,  348, 
367,  381 

Ferhat  Abbas  (b.  1899,  MP  '46J-N,  FLN 
PM  '58-61,  Pres.  Algerian  Nat.  Ass. 
1962,  expelled  FLN  1963),  180 

Ferniot,  J.,  lOln. 

Ferrand,  Pierre  (b.  '13,  Prog.  d.  Creuse 
'56-8),  172nn. 

Ferry,  Jules  (1832-93,  MP  '69,  PM  '80, 
passed  lots  lalques),  195 

Feuds,  67,  120-1,  129-30,  152,  176,  177-8, 
327-8,  401-2,  432-3 

Feyzioglu,  T.,  337n. 

Fifth  .  .  .,  see  Republic 

Figaro,  Le,  26n.,  61,  137n.,  168n.,  289n., 
301n.,  327n.,  330n.,  340n.,  376n., 
410n.,  432n. 

Fighting  France,  447 

Finance:  C'tee  (NA),  187,  215,  223,  242, 
243,  244nn.,  245,  247n.,  248,  249, 
251-5,  262,  263-4,  267,  268-9,  273 
and  nn.,  282,  287,  338,  373,  374,  375; 
(CR),  223, 252, 268,  269n.,  273;  M.  of, 
23,  27,  34-5,  205  and  n.,  226,  251  and 
n.,  252,  268n.,  269,  342-3,  344,  354, 
356,  358,  360,  378,  405,  421 


Finistere  (cap.  Quimper),  327,  329 

Flagrant  delit,  210-11 

Flandin,  P.  E.  (1889-1958,  MP  '14,  PM 
J34,  foreign  m.  '36,  '40-1),  149,  160, 
177  and  n.,  204,  210n.,  384n. 

Fleurant-Agricola,  149 

Floating  vote,  10,  60,  192,  308,  317,  352, 
401,  447;  see  Marginal  votes 

Florenne,  Y.,  398n. 

Flory,  M.,  238n.,  353n. 

Fogarty,  M.  P.,  cit.  nn.  109,  110,  125 

Fonteneau,  J.,  109n. 

Food,  M,  of,  394  and  n.;  policy,  26  and  n., 
28,  35,  199,  200,  205n.,  234n.,  240, 
362,  363-4 

Force  ouvriere,  34  and  n.,  83n.,  94  and  n., 
297,  359,  360,  362,  380,  381 

Foreign  Affairs:  C'tee  (NA),  93n.,  215n., 
223,  224n.,  242,  243n.,  244nn.,  245, 
249,  250  and  n.,  251;  (CR),  246n.; 
M.  of,  198n.,  205  and  n.,  336,  338,  340, 
341,  344,  346,  349,  354,  405,  418,  421, 
425 

Foreign  and  defence  policy  generally:  all 
parties,  18,  22  and  n.,  29,  41,  44,  46, 
51,  98,  106,  113,  221,  224-5,  435, 
447-8;  also  Com.,  40,  72-3,  74  and 
nn.,  82  and  n.,  86,  198;  Soc.,  17,  90-1 
andnn.,  100,  111;  MRP,  111-12,  225; 
GaulL,  19,  40;  Cons.,  225 

Forestry,  374,  375n. 

Fouchet,  Christian  (b.  '11,  GaulL  d.  Seine 
3  '51-5,  m.  in  5  Rep.),  144,  A 

Fougeyrollas,  P.,  76n.,  86n. 

Fourcade,  Jacques  (1902-59,  Pres.  AFU 
'50-1,  RI  d.  H-Pyr<§nees  '51-9),  325, 
433  and  n. 

Fourcaud,  Col.,  348  and  n. 

'Fourth  Force',  28,  29 

Fourth  .  .  .,  see  Republic 

Frachon,  Benoit  (b.  '92,  sec.-g.  CGT  '45), 
78,84 

Fraissinet,  Jean  (b.  '94,  Cons.  d.  Bouches- 
du-Rhone  '58-62),  152n. 

France,  Anatole,  145 

France,  Regions  of .  .  .,  q.v. 

France-Observateur,  54,  61,  75n.,  82n., 
86n.,  131n.,  171n.,  172,  356nn.,  358n. 

France-Soir,  61 

Franchise:  C'tee  (NA),  240,  245n.,  249, 
250  and  n.,  304  and  n.,  312,  315;  over- 
seas, 181,  220,  288,  312;  for  women, 
q.v. 

Franco,  Gen.  F.,  18,  104 

Franco- African  Federation,  181 

Franco-Italian  Treaty,  297,  384 

Fraternite  Fran$aise,  163 

Fr<§d6ric-Dupont,  fidouard  (b.  '02,  MP  '36, 
PRL,  RPF,  ARS  and  Cons.  d.  Seine 
1  '45-62),  154  and  n.,  159,  331,  373, 
429n.,  432n.,  433,  A 

FrMerix,  P.,  cit.  nn.  120,  295,  364,  384 

Free  French,  132,  138n.,  334,  444,  447 

Freedeman,  C.  E.,  cit.  nn.  269,  272,  338 


INDEX 


525 


Freedom  of  association,  292,  353;  of  press, 

q.v.;  see  Civil  liberties 
Freemasonry,  60,  98  and  n.,  115  and  n,, 

130n.,  341,  347,  351,  365,  367  and  n., 

369,  435 

Frenay,  Henri  (Resistance  leader),  19n.,  A 
French:  Abroad,  279  and  n.;  Free  — ,  q.v. 
French  Union,  41,  112,  180,  193,  293-5, 

303n.;  Assembly  of,  q.v.;  Pres.  197n., 

198-9  and  n.,  202;  Secretariat,  199n., 

294n. 
Frossard,  L.  O.  (1889-1948,  sec.-g.  CP  to 

'22,  Rep.  Soc.  d.  '28,  Vichy  m.),  404n. 
Funeral  trade,  262n. 
Fusilier,  R.,  cit.  nn.  92,  371 

Gabon,  289 

Gaborit,  Roger  (b.  '03,  Rad.  and  Neo-  d. 
Charente-M.  '46N-58),  41 2n. 

Gaillard,  Felix  (b.  '19,  Rad.  d.  Charente 
'46N-  ,  Pres.  Rad.  P.  '58-61),  career, 
121n.,  253,  342,  430,  441,  A;  as  PM, 
54,  98,  220,  221n.,  233n.,  235,  236, 
269,  410,  411-12,  426,  442 

Gaillard  govt.  (Nov.  '57-Apr.  '58),  51, 
52,  229,  239,  240  and  n.,  247n.,  290 
and  n.,  304,  364,  380,  408n.,  410,  411, 
423n.,  425,  A 

Gaitskell,  H.  T.  N.,  172 

Galant,  H.,  cit.  nn.  83,  362,  391,  393 

Galichon,  G.  (de  Gaulle's  dir.  de  cab.  in  5 
Rep.),  cit.  nn.  205,  220,  242,  245, 
258-9,  263,  267-70,  274,  282,  379 

Gallup,  see  Polls 

Gambetta,  L6on  (1838-82,  MP  '69,  PM 
'81),  119,  195 

Garaudy,  Roger  (b.  '13,  Com.  d.  Tarn 
'45-51,  Seine  1  '56-8,  s.  '59-63),  329 

Gard  (cap.  Nimes),  79,  167n.,  168 

Garonne,  Haute-  (cap.  Toulouse),  280n. 

Gauche,    see    Cartel,    Delegation,    Left; 

—  independante,    171n.,    172,    399n.; 

—  republicaine,  8 ;  —  socialists,  see  UGS 
Gaulle,  Charles  de  (b.  '90,  Free  French 

leader  '40,  PM  '44-6  and  '58,  Pres. 

'59-    ): 

to  '44,  18,  19,  35n.,  132,  153 
in  '44-6, 19-22, 23, 26-7, 104, 133, 175n., 

191,  197,  199,  230,  293,  307,  309  and 

n.,  343,  348,  386-7,  392n.,  393,  394, 

396,  406,  443,  449,  A 
in  '47-53,  24-5,  34,  36,  63,  127,  134-9 

passim,  154,  165,  209,  372,  398,  399, 

in  '57-8  crisis,  54,  55-6,  179,  194,  202-3, 
235n.,  275n.,  303,  304  and  nn.,  400, 
404,  416,  442,  A 

in  power  '58,  312n.,  316,  348n.,  355,  426, 
440,  443 

on  colonial  and  foreign,  44,  144  and  n., 
146,293 

on  const,  and  elec.,  20,  23,  132n.,  133, 
179,  189  and  n.,  191-2,  278,  303-4, 
305n.,  309  and  n.,  312  and-n.,  386 


on  Frenchmen,  329  and  n.,  45 3n. 

on  Vichy,  141-2 

and  parties  and  pressure  groups,  1 9-20, 

22  and  n.,  25,  64,  133,  143,  353,  386, 

392n.,  393n.,  442 
and  coups  d'&at,  fascism,  22,  36,  133, 

145-6,  191n.,  209 
fear  of,  31,  32,  90,  118,  121,  189,  191, 

196nn.,  225,  226,  311,  397,  440 
parties  and  ('40-57),    18,  20,  25,   54; 

('58),  45,  54,  67,  91  and  n.,  101-2,  106, 

130,  158,  162,  165n.,  166  and  n.,  173, 

179,  203;  also  Corns.,  74n.,  79,  175n., 

386,  401,  406;  Socs.,  49,  56,  90,  91, 

175n.,    203,    386,     397,    400,    404; 

MRP,  20-2,  23,   35,   104,   133,  386, 

394;  Rads.,  133-5,  140  and  n.,  142, 

143;   Pouj.,   67;    Mendes,   26-7,   49, 

64,  144-5,  440  and  q.v. 
also  31,  34,  35,  38,  52n.,  69,  80n.,  84,  108, 

129,   149,   150,   159n.,   167,   168,   176, 

217,  325,  390,  402,  415,  429n.,  439 
De  Gaulle  govts.,  418,  A;  '43-5,  14n.,  20, 

22  and  n.,  74,  141,  174,  205n.,  391 

and  n.;  '58,  56,  205n.,  209,  364,  421n. 
Gaulle,   Pierre   de   (1897-1959,   brother; 

RPF  s.  '48-51,  d.  Seine  1  '51-5),  286, 

324n. 

Gaullist  Union,  132,  133,  173,  174 
Gaullists,  Ch.  10  and 
divisions,  48n.,  135,  138n.,  142-4,  402 
electoral,  44,  54n.,  84,  135-7,  138 
in  Part.,  8,  31,  39-40,  42,  64,  67,  213, 

240,  245  and  n.,  248,  255,  265,  286-7, 

410,  436,  437 
and  govt.,  40,  46,  136-7,  226,  228,  417, 

425 

and  System,  q.v. 
outlook,   110,  132-3,  141,  145-7,   160, 

329,  402,  438 
policy,  see  Algeria;  Colonial;  Const.; 

Econ.  and  social;  Electoral  systems; 

Foreign  and  defence 
and  Church,  press,  trade  unions,  q.v. 
and  all  parties,  25,  28,  29,  317,  319,  397; 

also  Com.,  Soc.,  MRP,  Rad.,  q.v. 
and  Cons.,  104, 132-3,  134, 135,  139  and 

n.,  140  and  n.,  141,  143,  150,  154,  155 

and  n.,  156nn.,  158  and  n.,  159,  278, 

323 

and  Vichyites,  141-2,  160-1 
and  Pouj.,  165,  167  andn.,  168,  169 
and  small  parties,  133, 173, 174, 175,  180 
dissident,  see  ARS 
ex-  40,  150n.,  165n.,  167,  173,  325  and 

n.,  326,  399n.,  429n. 
fellow-travellers,  54,  75n.,  120, 124  129, 

140,  143-4,  153  and  n.,  278,  372 
Left,  140,  144-5,  146,  171  and  n.,  173 

indMdSal,347,n54,  69,  162  166n.,  210, 
223n.,  247,  271n.,  289-90  323n  325, 
327,  330  and  n.,  331,  343,  348,  351, 
393n.,  394,  408,  414,  430 


526 


INDEX 


Gaullists  (confd) 
in  5  Rep.,  132n.,  146,  331,  358 
see  Free  French;   RPF  (history,   com- 
position, clientele,   discipline,  mem- 
bership,   org.);    Social   Republicans; 
UNR 
Gay,    Francisque   (1885-1963,    MRP    d. 

Seine  1  '45-51),  103,  215n.,  A 
Gazier,  Albert  (b.  '08,  Soc.  d.  Seine  5 
'45-58),  91  and  n.,  248n.,  342,  362, 
380,  429,  A 

General  Staff,  54,  194,  350 
Generals,  see  Army;  Scandals 
Generations,  pol.,  13,  19,  35  and  n.,  40, 
64,  78  and  n.,  95,  97  and  n.,  108  and 
n.,  Ill,   114,  122,  132,   140,  154-5, 
176,  202,  216  and  n.,  238,  276,  289, 
399  and  n.,  401,  417,  442;  see  Youth 
Geneva,  224n. 

George,  H.,  cit.  nn.  258,  263-5,  267-8 
George,  P.,  cit.  nn.  80,  116,  155 
Georgel,  J.,  cit.  nn.  16, 198,  201,  205-7, 214, 
220,  223-5,  230,  232-3,  236-41,  247, 
257,  260,  262,  268-70,  274,  281,  286, 
290,  303-4,  306,  315,  374,  383,  400, 
417,  422,  426-7,  432 
Gerber,  P.,  282n.,  285n. 
Gerbet,  P.,  346n.,  362n. 
Gerin-Ricard  and  True,  16 In. 
German- Americans,  162 
Germany: 
and  France  compared,  3n.,  88,  109,  146, 

241,  309,  350,  393 

French  views  on,  18,  29,  44,  46,  72,  82, 
89,  98,  llOn.,  112,  149,  152,  225,  235, 
292n.,  397,  435,  447-8 
occupation  of  France,  19,  26,  42,  61,  73, 
117,  327n.,  350,  351  and  n.,  363,  376, 
386,  446,  448 

rearmament  of,  44,  46,  74n.,  90-1,  93, 
100,  173,  198,  282,  288,  400,  419,  424, 
434,  440 
also  12,  16,  18,  44,  47n.,  51,  73,  82, 110, 

160,  225,  232-3  and  n.,  264  n.,  346 
Giacobbi,  Paul  (1896-1951,  MP  '38,  Rad. 
d.  Corse  '45-51),  118,  230n.,  402  and 
n.,  A 

Gingembre,  L<§on  (b.  '04,  Vichy  official, 
PME  leader),  163  and  n.,  361,  362, 
379-80,  382  and  n.,  385,  438 
Girardet,  R.,  51,  179n.,  346n. 
Gironde  (from  '51,  constituency  1  Bor- 
deaux, 2  the  rest),  140n.,  179n.,  313 
and  n.,  327  and  n. 
Gladiators,  430 ;  see  Careerists 
Godfrey,  E.  D.,  cit.  nn.  34,  41,  76,  84, 

86,  94,  96-7 
Goetz-Girey,  R.,  298n. 
Goguel,  Francois,  sec.-g.  of  Senate,  202n., 
21 9n.;  cit.,  502  and  nn.;  on  elections, 
nn.  3,  14,  22,  38,  79,  84,  98,  105, 109- 
10,  118,  122-3,  128,  139,  150,  154-5, 
308,  310,  318,  324;  on  institutions, 
nn.  198,  211-13,  219,  221,  224,  242-3, 


251,  255,  258-60,  265,  267-9,  273, 
279-80,  282,  295-6,  301-2,  305,  358, 
389,  423;  on  parties,  nn.  98,  103,  110, 
113,  119-20,  125,  131,  139,  164,  171, 
179,  307,  311,  369,  380;  on  pressure- 
groups,  nn.  26,  358,  360,  365,  366, 
369,  375,  379;  on  regime,  nn.  195, 
228,  334,  380,  389 

Goldey,  D.  B.,  nn.  26,  277,  408,  423,  428 
Gooch,  R.  K.,  242n. 

Gorse,  Georges  (b  .'15,  Soc.  d.  Vended 
'45-51,  m.  in  5  Rep.,  Amb.  Algiers 
'63),  294n. 

Gosnat,  G.  (Com.  d.  '45-58),  80nn. 
Gouin,  F61ix  (b.  '84,  MP  '24,  PM  '46,  Soc. 
d.  Bouches-du-Rhone  2  '45-58),  23, 
24,  35n.,  97n.,  205n.,  217,  299,  339, 
414,  A 

Gouin  cabinet  (Jan.-June  '46),  22,  406,  A 
Gourdon,  A.,  120nn.,  323n. 
Government,    see    Cabinet;    Confidence; 

Ministers;  Premiership 
—  Commissioners,  213  and  n. 
Graham,  B.  D.,  443  n. 
Grand  electors,  278,  279 
Grands  corps  de  Vetat,  336,  337-9 
Grandval,  Gilbert  (b.  '04,  Gov.  and  Amb. 
Saar      '45-55,      Resident      Morocco 
June-Sept.  '55,  m.  in  5  Rep.),  47,  49, 
144,  173,  354,  408 
Granet  and  Michel,  19n. 
Grawitz,  M.,  94n.,  99n. 
Green  Shirts,  161n. 
Grenoble,  36,  109n.,  135 
Grevy,   Mes   (1807-91,    MP    '48,    Pres. 

'79-87),  195,  197n. 
Grigg,  Sir  P.  J.,  430n. 
Grimaud,  H.  L.  (b.  '01,  MRP  d.  Isere  '45- 

55),  429  and  n. 
Gringoire,  62,  160,  396 
Griotteray,  Alain,  83n.;  see  Brayance 
Gros,  Brigitte,  127n. 

Grosser,  Alfred,  cit.  nn.  on  external 
policy,  41,  82,  96,  144,  181,  198-200, 
293-4,  349,  355;  on  institutions,  198, 
224-5,  242-5,  250,  255,  281,  338, 
340-1,  345,  391,  424;  on  parties,  82, 
84,  86,  92,  96,  100,  107,  112,  113,  126, 
144,  154,  158;  other,  61,  109,  114, 
203,  239,  368,  384,  433 
Groups,  parl.:  parties,  65,  166,  178,  211 
and  n.,  214-16,  220,  243,  387,  398; 
other,  216, 374-5;  see  Inter-,  Pressure-, 
each  party 

Grumbach,  Salomon  (Soc.  s.),  282n. 
Guadeloupe,  209n.,  294n.,  504,  507 
Guatemala,  144 
Guerin,  Maurice  (MRP  d.  '45-51),  29 8n., 

374n. 

Guery,  L.,  cit.  nn.  137,  146,  372 
Guesde,  Jules  (1845-1922,  MP  '93),  88, 

101 

Guiana,  French,  209n.,  294n.,  504 
Guillemin,  P.,  cit.  nn.  180, 181,  429 


INDEX 


527 


Guy,   Christian,  cit.   nn.    110,    159,   161, 

163-4,  168,  382 
Guyon,  Jean  Raymond  (1900-61,  Soc.  d. 

Gironde  '45-51,  '56-8),  253,  254,  333 
Guyot,  Raymond  (b.  '03,  MP  '37,  Com. 

d.  Seine  3  '45-58,  s.  '59-    ),  75 

Habsburg  Empire,  1 1 

Haiphong  (Indo-China),  349 

Halevy,  D.,  117,  119 

Halleguen,  Joseph  (1916-55,  RPF  and 
ARS  d.  Finistere  '51-5),  138nn., 
139n. 

Hamon,  L6o  (b.  '08,  MRP  and  IOM  s. 
Seine  '46-58,  later  UDT),  227n.,  290; 
cit.  nn.  14,  22,  80,  95,  126,  211-12, 
214,  227,  229,  255,  262,  270,  273, 
285-6,  289-90,  306,  332-4,  354,  369, 
372,  374,  381,  384-5,  389,  397,  412, 
439,  447 

Hamson,  C.  J.,  338  nn. 

Hanoi  (Indo-China),  112 

Hamson,  M.,  cit.  nn.  55-6,  100,  154,  162, 
165,  192,  219,  244-8,  250-2,  255, 
258-9,  261-3,  275,  301,  331,  392,  423, 
429 

Hassner,  P.,  68n. 

Hauriou,  Andre  (Soc.  s.  '46-55),  300n. 

Health:  C'tee  (NA),  245,  247,  248,  264, 
356n.;  M.  of.,  378 

Hfrault  (cap.  Montpellier),  313,  314,  330 
andn.,  506 

Herriot,  £douard  (1872-1957,  MP  '12, 
PM  '24,  Rad.  d.  Rhdne  1  '45-57,  Pres. 
NA  '47-54),  in  3  Rep.,  88,  95n.,  116, 
217,  218,  276n.;  in  4  Rep.,  118,  292n., 
293,  313,  331,  435;  in  Rad.  P.,  67, 
120,  121,  127,  177-8,  401-2,  509n.; 
Pres.  NA,  41,  122n.,  217,  218,  237, 
257n.,  281  andn.,  288n.,  305n.,  414, 433 

Hersant,  Robert  (b.  '20,  Rad.  d.  Oise 
'56-  ),  371n. 

Herv<§,  Pierre  (b.  '13,  Com.  d.  Finistere 
'45-8,  later  Soc.),  75,  81n.,  327  andn., 
329;  cit.  nn.  74-7,  81-2,  86-7 

High  Council: 

of  the  French  Union,  293-4  and  n. 
of  the  Judiciary,  196,  197n.,  199  and  n., 
204n.,  208,  281,  292,  299-301,  345,  388 

High  Court  of  Justice,  72n.,  208,  281,  292, 
298-9 

Highest  average,  —  remainder,  309,  504 

Highway  code,  204n. 

Histoire  du  PCF,  cit.  nn.  72-4, 76-7, 8 1 , 327 

Hitler,  A.,  18,  104,  149,  326 

Ho  Chi-Minh  (b.  '90,  Pres.  N.  Vietnam), 
349 

Hodgkin,  T.,  181n. 

Hoffmann,  S.,  cit.  nn.  4,  5,  11-16,  113, 
159,  163-9,  322,  331,  346,  357-8,  376, 
378,  380-4,  412,  439,  447,  452,  507 

Hofstadter,  R.,  169n. 

Holland,  3n.,  300n. 

Hostache,  R.  (UNR  d.  '58-62),  19n. 


Houdet,  Marcel,  179n. 
Houphouet-Boigny,  Felix  (b.  '05,  RDA  d. 

'45-58,  PM  Ivory  Coast  '59,  Pres. 

'60),  181,  182,  A 
House: 
of  Commons,  188,  189,  206,  208,  216, 

218,  223,  229,  246,  255,  260n.,  267, 

268,  334,  389,  410,  427,  450 
of  Lords,  186,  188,276,277 
of  Representatives,  208,  216 
see  Speaker 
Housing,  214n.,  247  and  n.,  249,  287,  296, 

352,  356,  358  and  n.,  369,  370  and  n., 

373  and  n.,  376,  377,  378,  380,  383 

and  n.,  429,  448 
Hughes,  H.  S.,  146n. 
Hugues,  fimile  (b.  '01,  Rad.  and  Neo-  d. 

Alpes-M.'46J-58,s.'59-    ).363n.,A 
Human  rights,  292-3,  301n.,  349n.,  368; 

see  Camps;  League  of  — 
Humanity  U,  72,  73,  77  and  n.,  163n., 

223n.,  262,  327n. 
Hungary,  50,  75  and  n.,  82  and  n.,  83  and 

n.,  85,  172 
Husson,  R.,  cit.  502  and  nn.  20,  110,  122, 

154,  310,  332,  388 
Hutin-Desgre'es,  Paul  (b.   '88,   MRP   d. 

Morbihan  '46J-55,  ed.  Quest-France}. 

407 

IGAMEs,  345,  347 

ILO  (International  Labour  Office),  333 

IOM,  180,  181,  234n.,  243n.,  244n.,  250, 
398n.,  414,  420 

Ille-et-Vilaine  (cap.  Rennes),  161n,,  370n., 
506 

Illegitimacy,  289n.,  328 

Immobilisme,  -iste,  16,  46,  51,  86n.,  193, 
241,  306,  315,  354,  369,  384,  399,  413, 
414,  419,  443 

Immunities :  C'tee  (NA),  247  and  n. ;  —  of 
MPs,  210-11,280,  306 

Impeachment,  37,  208,  298-9,  313 

Incivisme,  6,  317;  see  Authority  .  .  . 

Independents:  Centre  .  .  .  des  .  .  .,  q.v.; 
independent  — ,  151,  328;  Left  — ,  see 
Gauche  .  .  .,  Mendesists,  Progres- 
sives; overseas  — ,  see  IOM;  Repub- 
lican — ,  q.v. ;  —  Socialists,  8 

'Indexation',  364,  368,  380 

India,  209n. ;  French  — ,  209n.,  225n.,  279n., 
294n.,  503;  -n  Ocean,  214n.,  294n. 

Indignit^  nationale,  210  and  n.,  298,  300 

Indo-China:  status,  41,  180n.,  205,  209n., 
293-4  and  n.;  war  and  defeat,  44,  45, 
46,  74  and  n.,  112,  348,  349,  350,  427, 
448;  French  views  and  policies,  24, 41, 
45n.,  52,  69,  74  and  n.,  98,  112,  144, 
145,  162  and  n.,  198  and  n.,  199n., 
218,  221,  234,  235,  240,  247,  253,  329, 
350-1,  400,  406,  410,  424,  433,  510; 
scandals  over,  65  and  n.,  145,  223 n., 
348  and  q.v.  (generals,  leakages, 
piastres) 


528 


INDEX 


Indre  (cap.  Chateauroux),  323n. 
Industry,  -ial:  —  C'tee  (NA),  247,  248  and 
n.,  252, 274 ;  M.  of,  252, 391 ;  —  regions, 

Inegalit'es,  cit.  nn.  79,  123,  139,  279-80, 
307-10,  313-16,  328,  331,  363,  392, 
410 

Ineligibility,  see  Invalidations;  Parlia- 
ment 

Inflation,  25,  26-8,  40,  49,  163,  364,  393, 
394}  446;  ministerial,  205-6 

Information,  M.  of,  205n,,  392  and  n.,  405 

Inspecteurs,  -ion  des  Finances,  338,  343n., 
361,  379 

Instability,  govtl.:  in  3  Rep.,  2,  9,  11,  12, 
31,  184-7,  224,  449;  in  4  Rep.,  27, 

335,  403,  439;  causes,  29-30,  31,  404, 
413-14,  425-7,  449-50;  consequences, 
11,  345-6,  423-4,  450-1;  cures,  188-90, 
193,  222,  229,  238,  241;  in  Britain, 
187-8,  206,  426;  see  Coalition;  Crises; 
Majority ;  Marginal  votes 

Institutions,  cit.  nn.  196,  198-205,  210-11, 

237,   239,  257,   260,  268,   270,   281, 

294-6,  338-9,  343,  379 
Intellectuals,  82,  85n.,  106,  170,  296n.,  297 
Intelligence  Service:  British,  82n.;  French, 

205n,,  348,  349 
Inter-groups:  RPF,  25,  118,  134n.,  138, 

143,  286,  402;  other,  178,  216,  361, 

366,  377;  see  Groups 
Interior:  Ctee  (NA),  244n.,  245n.,  248, 

249,  250;  M.  of,  2,  17,  99,  116,  205 

and  n.,  217n.,  237  and  n.,  311  and  n., 

336,  340,  346,  347,  348,  354 
Intermediaries,  6,  14-15,  292,  353,  358, 

369,  383,  393,  453 
Internationals:  Second,  88;  Third,  71,  80, 

81 
Interpellations,     186,    215,    219,    220n., 

223-4,  226  and  n.,  234n.,  240,  281,  373, 

376,  410 
Invalidations,  49n.,  164,  210  and  n.,  371n., 

507-8 
Investiture  of  PM,  24,  46,  55,  56,  197,  201, 

221n.,  222,  225-9,  415-22,  494 
Investment,  252  and  n.,  267n.,  287,  342, 

343n.,  373;  see  Plan 
Ireland,  Irish,  218,  308n.,  407 
Isere  (cap.  Grenoble),  99n.,  109n.,  155n., 

164,  167  and  nn.,  370 

Isorni,  Me  Jacques  (b.  *11,  Peas,  and  RI  d. 
Seine  2  '51-8,  disbarred  '63),  154  and 
n.,  160  and  n.,  162,  210n.,  289n.,  372, 
429,  507;  cit.  nn.  50,  65,  81,  99,  110, 

165,  213-14,  219,  244-6,  255,   260, 
334,  347,  371-2,  377,  408,  422,  426, 
429,  440,  446,  451 

Italy,   18,  73,  82,  297,  384;  and  France 

compared,  3n.,  75,  86,  169n. 
Ivory  Coast,  176,  181n. 

JAC,  103,  llOn.,  365 
JOC,  103 


Jackson,  J.  Hampden,  9n. 

Jacobins,  110, 115,  116,  124,  144,  169,  353 

363,  435;  Club  des,  127,  173 
Japan,  -ese,  326,  423 
Jarrier,  B.,  376n. 
Jaures,  Jean  (1859-1914,  MP  '85),  88  and 

n.,  101,  115,  116 
Jeanneau,  B.,  508 
Jeune  Nation,  162 
Jeune  Republique,  103, 171, 172, 173  and  n., 

174,  507 

Jeunes  Patrons,  385 
Jews,  109,  143  and  n.,  163,  323,  330,  369; 

anti-semitism,  18,  52,  82n.,  146 
Joan  of  Arc,  169n.,  257n. 
Joliot-Curie,  Frederic  (1900-58),  82,  341 
Jouhaux,     L6on     (1879-1954,     ex-sec.-g. 

CGT),  297n. 
Jouvenel,  de:  Bertrand,  26n.;  Henri,  9n., 

408n.;  Robert,  5n.,  333n.,  374n. 
Judiciary,  52,  199,  202,  211  and  n.,  261n., 

299-301,  302,  305  and  n.,  337,  348, 

350,  351  and  n.,  392n.;  see  Courts; 

High  Council 

Juges  d' Instruction,  301  and  n. 
Jugias,  J.  J.  (MRP  d.  Seine  2  '45-51,  Lot- 

et-Garonne  '51-5),  244n.,  A 
Juin,  Marshal  Alphonse  (b.  '88,  CGS  '44- 

7,  Resident  in  Morocco  '47-51,  C.-in- 

C.  C.  Europe  to  '56),  45,  351  and  n. 
Jules,  J.  Gilbert  (b.  '03,  Rad.  s.  Somme 

'48-59),  284n.,  340n.,  A 
Julien,  Charles  Andre"  (b.  '91),  294 
July,  Pierre  (b.  '06,  PRL,  RPF,  ARS  and 

RGR  d.  Eure-et-L.  '45-58),  158n.,  A 
Jussieu,  M.,  114n. 
Justice: 

C'tee  (NA),  245  and  n.,  247n.,  249,  300, 

301,376 

High  Court  of,  q.v. 
M.  of,  2,  199,  205,  299,  300  and  n.,  301, 

336,  337,  340,  392  and  n. 
see  Judiciary 

Kaganovitch,  L.,  88n. 

Kaiser,  the  (Wilhelm  II),  435 

Kayser,  Jacques  (1900-63,  ex-sec.-g.  Rad. 

P.),  124n.;  cit.  nn.  94,  108,  115,  119 
Kessel  and  Suarez,  428n. 
Keynesians,  343 
Kindleberger,  C.  P.,  394n. 
King,  A.  S.,  88  n. 
King,  J.  B.,  cit.  nn.  99,  339-41 
'King's  friends',  70,   396-7,   407-8,  413, 

438,  440 
Kir,  Canon  F61ix  (b.  '76,  RI  d.  Cote  d'Or 

since  '45,  mayor  of  Dijon),  325 
Klatzmann,  J.,  cit.  nn.  79,  80,  95,  155,  166, 
Koenig,  Gen.  Pierre  (b.  '98,  of  Bir-Hake- 

im,    Gaull.    d.   B-Rhin   '51-8),   210, 

244nn.,  330,  412n.,  A,  506 
Korean  War,  27,  267,  375n.,  416 
Kovacs,  Dr.  Ren6  (champion  swimmer 

and  terrorist),  51,  52 


INDEX 


529 


Labbens,  J.,  367n. 

La  Bollardtere,  Gen.  Paris  de,  51n. 

Labonne,  Eirik  (b.  '88,  Resident  in  Moroc- 
co '46-7),  47a,  354 

Laborbe,  lot,  344 

Laboulaye,  Lefebvre  de  (1811-83),  10 

Labour:  C'tee  (NA),  243n.,  247-9,  252, 
264,  360  and  n.;  M.  of,  392;  Party 
(British),  29,  61,  66n.,  92,  370,  425; 
—  (French,  lack  of),  30,  89,  97 

Lachapelie,  G.,  307n. 

Lacharriere,  R.  de,  294n. 

Lacoste,  Robert  (b.  '98,  trade  union  sec., 
Soc.  d.  Dordogne  '45-58,  '62-  ),  and 
Algeria,  49,  51,  54,  55,  99,  248,  377, 
406,  412,  432;  also  49  and  n.,  90,  91 
and  n.,  lOln.,  367,  377,  430,  A 

Lafay,  Bernard  (b.  '05,  Rep.  Centre 
leader;  Gaull.  Rad  and  RGR  s. 
Seine  '46-51,  d.  Seine  2  '51-8,  s. 
'59-  ),  128, 129,  130,  177, 429  and  n., 
432  and  n.,  A 

Laffargue,  Georges  (Rad.  and  RGR  s. 
Seine  '46-58),  284n. 

Ldicitd,  see  Anticlericalism;  Church 
schools 

Lalle,  Albert  (b.  '05,  RI  d.  Cote  d'Or, 
'46 J-  ),  429 

Lalumiere,  P.,  cit.  nn.  337-8,  340-1,  343 

Lambersart  (Nord),  280 

Lamennais,  Robert  de  (1782-1854,  MP 
'48),  103 

Lamps,  Rene"  (b.  '15,  Com.  d.  Somme  '45- 
58  and '62-  ),  21 8n.,  327n. 

Lancelot,  A.,  cit.  nn.  77,  214,  341,  358, 
377,  380 

Lancelot,  M.  T.,  21  In. 

Landes  (cap.  Mont-de-Marsan),  374 

Landes,  D.  S.,  4n.,  361n. 

Laniel,  Joseph  (b,  '89,  MP  '32,  PRL  and 
RI  d.  Calvados  '45-58),  35n.,  41,  45, 
152,  158n.,  227,  235,  238,  239,  267, 
268n.,  328,  333,  384,  400,  419  and  n., 
426,  433,  441,  A 

Laniel  govt,  June  '53-June  '54:  40,  124n., 
152,  163,  224  and  n.,  238,  253,  272, 
273n.,  274,  347,  356,  362,  364,  379, 
380,  383,  402,  406,  411,  414,  420,  422, 
423,  A;  fall,  45,  119,  224  and  n.,  238, 
407-8 

Laniel,  Rene"  (RI  s.),  334n. 

Laos,  293,  294 

Laponce,  J.  A.,  cit.  nn.  66,  92,  107-8,  124, 
127,  129,  131,  151 

La  Rochelle,  6 

La  Rocque,  Col.  Francois  de  (1885- 
1946),  130n.,  149,  177,  381 

Latty,  L.,  123n.,  381n. 

Laurens,  Camille  (b.  '06,  Peas,  and  Cons, 
d.  Cantal  '46J-58,  sec.-g.  CNIP 
'61-  ),  67,  153  and  n.,  210n.,  407,  A 

Laval,  Pierre  (1883-1945,  Soc.  d.  '14,  cons. 
s.  '27,  PM  '31,  '35,  '40,  '42-4),  8,  72, 
119n,,  149,  187,  270,  298n,5  404,  448 


Lavandeyra,  L.  A.,  80n. 

Lavau,  Georges,  cit.  nn.  83,  122,  125-6, 
164,  193,  296,  298,  329,  336,  339,  344, 
356,  361-2,  370,  373-5,  378-85,  393, 
423,  433,  439 

Lawyers,  68,  109,  110,  123  and  n.,  140, 
153n.}  156n.,  162,  289,  332,  429;  law 
professors,  229,  300  and  n.,  305;  'law- 
yer-peasants', 153,  438 

Leagues :  for  the  Rights  of  Man,  93n.,  366 ; 
other,  62,  103,  149,  435 

Leakages,  345 ;  —  case,  see  Scandals 

Le  Brun,  Pierre  (b.  '06,  ass.  sec.  CGT), 
83-4n, 

Lecacheux,  Joseph  (1880-1952,  MP  '28, 
Cons.  d.  Manche  '45-8,  s.  '48-52), 
363n. 

Lecceur,  Auguste  (b.  '11,  Com.  d.  Pas-de- 
C.  '45-55;  later  Soc.),  75;  cit.  nn. 
73-4,  76-8,  81,  85 

Lecourt,  Robert  (b.  '08,  MRP  d.  Seine  2 
'45-58,  m.  in  5  Rep.),  203n.,  240n.? 
301,  416,  A;  cit.  nn.  221,  236,  340, 
371,411,427,442 

L6crivain-Servoz,  A.  (d.  Rhone  2  '45-51), 
398n. 

Lectures  fran$aise$,  126n. 

Ledermann,  S.,  357nn.,  358n. 

Leenhardt,  Francis  (b.  '08,  UDSR  and 
Soc.  d.  Bouches-du-Rhone  1  '45-62, 
rapp.-  g.  '56-8),  97n.,  174,  253,  388n. 

Lefranc,  G.,  cit.  nn.  19,  34,  83,  137 

Left:  see  next  entry;  also  in  3  Rep.,  17, 
79,  88,  98,  115,  184;  in  4  Rep.,  97, 
98,  126,  226,  280,  309,  337,  338,  343, 
348,  361,  393,  422,  446;  Catholic  — , 
q.v. ;  extreme  — ,  87n.,  171-2, 335,  351 ; 
New  — ,  144-5,  172,  173  and  n.;  and 
28,  47,  213,  265,  272,  290,  296,  297, 
310,  311,  322,  326,  358n.,  370 

Left  and  Right:  history,  character,  pol. 
basis,  4-5,  8,  10,  60,  64,  110,  156  and 
n.  160, 214, 276, 307-8, 365 ;  since  1940, 
18,  32,  34,  41,  47,  54-5,  63,  73,  188, 
210,  248n.,  315,  316,  344,  353,  362, 
364,  365,  432,  436,  448,  451;  and 
const.,  6,  196  and  n.,  235-6,  242,  283, 
285,  293,  302,  304-5;  drift  to  Right, 
10,  31,  32,  34,  93, 187,  277, 404  and  n,; 
hard  to  distinguish,  103,  110,  121, 
124-6,  136,  187,  215,  288,  323,  347-8, 
420 ;  extreme  —  and  — ,  18, 20, 54, 161, 
and  n.,  363,  367,  396 

Legaret,  Jean  (b.  '13,  UDSR  d  Seine  2 
'52-5,  Cons.  d.  '58-62),  304n.,  A 

Legendre,  Jean  (b.  '06,  PRL,  Gaull.,  Cons, 
d.  Oise '45-62),  159  and  n. 

Legion  of  Honour,  408 

Le  Havre,  323 

Leites,  N.,  426n.,  442n,  and  see  Melmk . 

Lejeune,  Max  (b.  '09,  MP  '36  Soc.  d. 
Somme  '45-  ),  50n.s  90,  91  and  n,, 
93,  247,  349,  377,  A 

Leleu,  C,  99n. 


530 


INDEX 


Lemaigre-Dubreuil,  Jacques  (1 895-1955), 
47n.,350n.,  355n. 

Lemasurier,  J.,  306n. 

Lempereur,  Rachel  (b.  '96,  Soc.  d.  Nord  2 
'45-58),  247 

Leotard,  Pierre  de  (b.  '09,  Rad.  and  RGR 
d.  Seine  2  '51-8),  177 

Le  Pen,  Jean  Marie  (b.  '28,  Pouj.  and  Cons, 
d.  Seine  1  '56-62),  154,  165n.,  166 
and  n.,  167,  168,  247 

LePuy,  21 6n. 

Lerner,  M.,  41n. 

Lesage,  M.,  21  In. 

Lescuyer,  G.,  cit.  nn.  223,  271,  287,  343, 
361,  374 

Lesire-Ogrel,  H.,  297n.,  298n. 

Lespes,  Henri  (MRP  and  Gaull.  d.  '45- 
51),  143  and  n. 

Letourneau,  Jean  (b.  '07,  MRP  d.  Sarthe 
'45-55),  112,  199,406,  A 

Le  Troquer,  Andre"  (1884-1963,  MP  '36, 
Soc.  d.  Seine  3  '45-58,  Pres.  NA  '54, 
'56-8),  41,  203  and  n.,  217,  218n., 
219nn.,  224n.,  235,  257n.,  348,  433,  A 

Leveau,  R.,  367n. 

L6vy,  Y.,  324n. 

Lewis,  E.  G.,  cit.  nn.  223,  297-8 

Liautey,  Andr6  (b.  '96,  Rad.  MP  '32,  Cons, 
d.  H-Sa6ne  '51-5),  357,  375,  429,  507 

Libels,  201,  210  and  n.,  245,  258n.,  351n., 
356n. 

Liberals,  British,  3,  66n.,  89,  308n.; 
National  — ,  170 

Liberation:  generation,  mood,  ideals,  14, 
35,  42,  64,  83,  89,  95,  97,  113,  see 
Resistance;  reforms,  15,  38,  345,  394; 
purge,  q.v.;  transfer  of  power,  14, 
18-19,  60-1,  95,  123,  141,  343,  347, 
386,  392;  and  parties,  62,  71,  77,  93, 
97,  149,  156,  157,  159,  177,  277,  322, 
326,  364-5,  365,  388;  also  22,  25, 
27,  28,  44,  78,  84,  98,  108,  109,  122, 
191,  227,  327 

Liberation,  171n. 

Liberation-Nord,  89,  391 

Lidderdale,  D.  W.  S.,  cit.  nn.  208,  210, 
213,  215,  218-19,  229,  237,  242,  247, 
257,  259,  264,  266,  281-2 

Liet-Veaux,  G.,  273n. 

Ligou,  D.,  cit.  nn.  66,  92,  96,  172,  403 

Ligue  .  .  .,  see  League 

Lille,  94n.,  153n.,  276n.,  280,  314 

Limoges,  Limousin,  69,  79n.,  90,  376 

Lipkowski,  Irene  de  (b.  '98,  Gaull.  d. 
Seine  4  '51-5),  173 ;  —  Jean  de  (son, 
b.  '20,  Mendesist  d.  Seine-et-O.  1 
'56-8,  Left  Gaull.  cand.  '58  and  d. 
Charente-M.  '62-  ),  144,  173 

Lipsedge,  M.  S.,  163n.,  166n. 

Lipset,  S.  M.,  cit.  nn.  68,  109,  125,  155, 
166,  168 

Local  admin.,  govt.,  64, 85, 86andn.,  91, 99, 
1 10, 260, 278, 289, 295n.,  322, 328, 331- 
2,  337,  338n.,  347;  see  Elections,  local 


Lot:  Barange,  see  Church  schools;  Falloux, 

434-5;  des  finances,  263,  264,  266,  269, 

287,  see  Budget;  Laborbe,  344;  des 

maxima,  263-5,  267,  286 
Loi-cadre,  223,  270,  271,  273-4,  275,  284n, 

378;  for  Algeria,  q.v.;  colonial,  181, 

248,  273  and  n.,  288,  295  and  n. 
Loire  (cap.  St.  fitienne),  179n.;  river,  123, 

124,  140,  150,  167n.,  314n.,  376 
Loire-Inferieure,     now     -Maritime     (cap. 

Nantes),  94n. 
London,  18n.,  19,  73,  133,  206,  348,  425; 

Declaration  (June  '48  on  Germany), 

44,  46,  232-3 

Long,  R.,  cit.  nn.  308,  325,  404 
Lorraine,  5;  see  Alsace- 
Lorwin,  V.  R.,  cit.  nn.  19,  34,  83-^,  94, 

96-7, 114,  137,  359-60,  382 
Lot  (cap.  Cahors),  162,  167n.,  168n.,  179, 

279n. 

Lot-et- Garonne  (cap.  Agen),  326 
Lottery,  national,  21  In.,  343n. 
Louis  XVI,  162 
Louis-Lucas,  P.,  263n.,  273n. 
Loustanau-Lacau,  G.  (1894-1955,  Cagou- 

lard  and  Mendesist,  Peas.  d.  B-Pyre"- 

nees  '51-5),  218n. 

Louvel,  Jean  Marie  (b.  '00,  MRP  d.  Cal- 
vados '45-58,  s.  '59-    ),  223n.,  361,  A 
Louviers  (Eure),  119n. 
'Loyal  Opposition',  244,  255-6,  413,  414, 

416,  417 

Lozere  (cap.  Mende),  279n.,  506 
Luciani,  fimile  (b.  '13,  Pouj.  and  UNR  d. 

Somme  '56-  ),  166n. 
Lucon,  bishop  of,  382 
Lussy,  Charles  (b.  '83,  MP  '36,  Soc.  d. 

Vaucluse  '45-58),  230n.,  399n. 
Luthy,  H.,  cit.  nn.  3-5,  7,  11,  14,  15,  19, 

25,  34,  79,  82,  116 

Luxembourg :  Palace,  280, 290 ;  Radio  — ,  62 
Lyons,  60,  64,  90,  91,  94n.,  99  and  n.,  104, 

109n.,  121, 123, 128  andn.,  130, 136n., 

139,  153n.,  155n.,  166n.,  178  and  n., 

179,  329,  331,  507 

MLP,  172  andn.,  173n.,  435 
MRP,  Ch.  8  and 
history,  19,  20-2,  36-41,  47-9,  62, 103-6, 

170 
composition,  68-9,  80n.,  108-10,  171n., 

332,  404 
clientele,  14,  15,  21,  28,  35,  38,  85  and  n., 

104,  110,  113 
discipline,  63,  107,  108,  111,  250,  325-6, 

388n.,  399-400 
divisions,  37,  104-8,   113,   114,  247-8, 

249n.,  250,  252n.,  323,  326,  357,  372, 

394,  399-400,  402 

membership,  63,  104  and  n.,  108-9,  111 
militants,  63,  104,  105,  106,  107-8,  110, 

113,  310-11,  402-3 
org.,  65n.,  66,  67-8, 106-8 
funds,  106 


INDEX 


531 


in  Parl.,  31,  32,  35,  36,  42,  210,  21 5n., 

248,  286,  373,  375n.,  412,  421,  425 
and  govt,  24,  46,  51,  70,  105,  112-13, 
228,   340-1,   342,   347   and  n.,   351, 
390-2,  405-6 

and  regime,  104,  105-6,  110,  382 
outlook,  64,  110-13,  310-11,  402-3,  435, 

437 

policy:  see  Algeria;  Colonial;  Const.; 
Econ.  and  social;  Electoral  systems; 
Foreign  and  defence 
and  Church,  press,  trade  unions,  q.v. 
and  all  parties,  24-5,  28,  29-30,  31,  250, 

310-11,  317,  437,  449;  also 
and  Com.,  Soc.,  q.v. 
and  Rad.,  105,  106,  113  and  n.,  118  and 

n.,  178,  233,  420,  437,  450 
and  Gaull.,  36,  37,  38,  105,  106,  109, 

113,  133-5,  142-4,  312,  318,  402 
and  Cons.,  40,  104,  105,  106,  150,  155, 

156  and  n.,  158,  323,  362,  420 
and  Pouj.,  163,  165,  167n. 
and  small  parties,  174,  175n.,  180 
and  pol.  leaders,  q.v.  individually 
MRP  individuals,  46,  51,  55,  69,  223n., 
237,  239,  250,  264,  290,  330,  342,  351, 
388, 408, 428, 430 ;  ex-,  150n.,  165n.,  171 
and  n.,  179,  180,  325  and  n.,  326,  398 
and  n.,  399 
MTLD,  180,  181 
McCarthyism,  -ites,  98n.,  126,  162,  21  In., 

347,  438 

MacMahon,  Marshal  P.  de  (1808-93, 
Pres.  1873-9),  8,  9,  157,  185,  195,  237, 
435 

Macmillan,  H.,  425 
Macouin,  Clovis  (b.  '88,  MP  '28,  PRL  d. 

D-Sevres  '45-51),  65n. 
MacRae,  D.  jr.,  cit.  nn.  91,  108,  124,  139, 

144,  152-3,  167,  400 
Macridis,  R.,  cit.  nn.  55-6,  75,  82-3,  86, 

152,  193,  205 

Madagascar,  nationalist  ds.,  180,  199  and 
n.,  209n.,  210,  222n.,  247;  other,  24, 
50,  191,  294n.,  408 

Maillaud,  Pierre  (1909-48,  as  Pierre  Bour- 
dan  UDSR  d.  Creuse  '45-6,  Seine  3 
'46-8),  4n.,  lln.,  A 
Maine-et-Loire  (cap.  Angers),  166n. 
Majority,  absence  of :  in  3  Rep.,  9-10,  184, 
186-7, 229 ;  in  4  Rep.,  25, 29, 31-6, 37-8, 
207,  222,  229,  230-1,  236,  255,  260-1, 
274,  308,  314,  316,  318-19,  334-5,  405, 
41 1-12,  413, 425, 427, 428, 439, 449-50, 
451;  see  Coalition;  Instability;  Mar- 
ginal votes 
Majority,  absolute: 

in  const.,  24,  38,  46,  47,  201,  209n., 
220,   222   and  n.,   227-9,   230,   237, 
238-40,  259  and  n.,  282,  283  and  n., 
284  and  n.,  286,  288n.,  298,  299,  302; 
in  elec.  law,  313-14,  316 
Majority,    special   (two-thirds   or   three- 
fifths),  134n.,  151,  196n.,  208,  209  and 


n.,  281,  283,  299,  300,  302  and  n,, 

304n.,  306 
Malagasy,  199  and  n.,  209n.,  222n.;  see 

Madagascar 

Malignac  and  Colin,  cit.  nn,  258, 355, 357, 369 
Malraux,  Andr6  (b.  '01,  writer  and  RPF 

leader,  m.  in  5  Rep.),  141  and  n.,  143, 

173,  174,  A 

Malterre  and  Benoist,  139n. 
'Malthusianism',  3,  12 
Malvy,  Jean  Louis  (1875-1949),  116 
Manchester  Guardian,  26n. 
Mandel,  Georges  (1885-1944,  MP  '19,  m. 

of  interior  '40,  murdered  by  Vichy 

milice),  21 5n. 
Maquis,  73,  79 

Marabuto,  P.,  cit.  nn.  150,  364,  401 
Marcel,  J.,  205n. 
Marcus,  J.  T.,  144nn.,  171n. 
Marginal  votes,  at  elections,  184-5,  307-8, 

see  Floating  vote;  local,  99;  in  parl. 

(and  pivot  parties),  10,   17,  63,  99, 

112,  170,  175  and  n.,  181-2,  184,  185, 

188,  190,  205,  217,  230-1,  236,  240-1, 

253,  277,  354,  384-5  and  n.,  392,  410, 

412,  437,  450;  see  Coalition  politics 
Marianne,  6  and  n. 
Marie,  Andre  (b.  '97,  MP  '28,  Rad.  and 

Neo-  d.  Seine-Inf.  1  '45-62),  27,  34, 

35n.,  40,  105,  121n.,  128,  201,  205n., 

226  and  n.,  233,  270n.,  281,  416,  418, 

419,  430,  A 
Marie  govt.,  July-Aug.  '48, 27,  32,  34,  35, 

134n.,  201,  238  and  n.,  271,  274,  363, 

422,  423n.,  427,  A 
Marin,  Louis  (1871-1960,  MP  '05,  RI  d. 

Meurthe-et-M.  '45-51),    73  and  n., 

149,  250,  327,  507 
Marine,  Merchant  — :  C'tee  (NA),  248, 249 ; 

M.  of,  8,  206,  223n.,  378 
Marne  (cap.  Chalons),  505 
Maroselli,  Andre  (b.  '93,  s.  '35,  Rad.  d. 

H-Saone  '45-51,  s.  '52-6,  d.  '56-8, 

s.  '59-    ),  314,  429,  A 
Marquet,  Adrien  (1884-1955,  MP  '24),  89 
Marrane,  Georges  (b.  '88,  Com.  s.  Seine 

'46-56,  d.  Seine  4  '56-8,  s.  '59-    ), 

80n.,  226n.,  A 
Marseilles,  32,  54n.,  60,  64,  79n.,  80n.,  91, 

94n.,  95n.,  97n.,  99  and  n.,  121  and  n., 

139n.,  153n.,  155n.,  166n.,  175,  276n., 

280,  324,  331,  339,  376,  388n.,  430 
Marshall  Aid,  14,  27,  144,  267n.,  343n. 
Martinaud-Deplat,  Leon  (b.  '99,  MP  '32, 

Rad    d.  Bouches-du-Rhone  2    51-5, 

cand.  RGR  '56,  C  Rep.  '58),  121, 

127,  128,  130, 178,  238,  347,  348,  354, 

367n.,  430,  438,  A  . 

Martinet,  Gilles  (ex-Prog.,  PSU  leader  m 

5  Rep,),  cit.  nn.  96, 100,  131 
Martinique,  209n.,  294n.,  504 
Marty,  Andr6  (1886-1956,  Com.  MP  '24, 

d.  Seine  1  '45-55),  74  and  n.,  75,  78, 

81n.,  219n.,  401 


532 


INDEX 


Marx,  -ism,  -ists,  22,  24,  88,  89,  90,  96  and 
n.,  100,101,  110,  124,  175,176 

Massif  Central,  69,  79,  150,  376n. 

Massigli,  Rene  (b.  '88,  Gaull.  m.  '43-4, 
Amb.  London  '44-55,  sec.-g.  foreign 
m.  '55-6),  cit.  nn.  339-41,  345,  391 

Massu,  Gen.  Jacques  (b.  '08,  at  Suez  '56,  in 
Algiers  '57-60),  50,  54,  55,  75 

Matignon,  Hotel,  204,  217 

Matthews,  R.,  19n.,  34n. 

Mauriac,  Francois  (b.  '85,  Catholic 
writer;  MRP,  Mendesist  and  Gaull- 
ist),  73  and  n.,  113  and  n.,  173,  174, 
367,  431-2 

Maurienne  valley,  383  and  n. 

Maurras,  Charles  (1868-1952),  7,  8  and  n., 
18,  103  and  n.,  158,  160,  161n.,  168, 
169 

Mauvais,  L6on  (b.  '02,  Com.  s.  Seine 
'46-8),  75,  80 

Mayer,  Daniel  (b.  09,  sec.-g.  Soc.  P.  '44-6, 
d.  Seine  2  '45-58,  later  PSU),  37, 
90,  91  and  n.,  93  and  n.,  96n.,  174, 
224n.,  359n.,  400n.,  403  and  n.,  405, 
432,  439,  A 

Mayer,  Ren6  (b.  '95,  Rad.  d.  Constantine 
'46J-55,  Pres.  Eur.  Coal  and  Steel 
Authority  '55-7),  finance  m.,  34,  39, 
253,  286  and  n.,  360,  363,  373,  375,  A; 
cand.  PM,  37,  39,  40,  119,  226-7,  228, 
385  and  n.,  41 6n.,  417,  419,  425,  441, 
A;  as  PM,  40,  223n.,  267,  271,  343, 
344,  361,  373,  409;  also  35n.,  119n., 
127,  128,  178,  301,  354,  360,  408,  432 

Mayer  govt.,  Jan.-May  '53,  40,  136,  224, 
247n.,  271-2,  274,  304,  371,  380,  422, 
423,  425,  432,  441,  A;  fall,  27,  40, 
238,  254,  273n.,  356,  375,  414,  423n. 

Mayors,  79n.,  86n.,  123,  212,  213,  262, 
289,  323,  329  and  n.,  331,  347,  358, 
367,  376,  382,  428 

Mediterranean,  50,  52,  202,  273,  425; 
coast,  69,  79 

Melnik  and  Leites,  cit.  nn.  41,  100-1,  110, 
112-13,201-2,  399 

Melun,  143  and  n.,  179n. 

Mendes-France,  Pierre  (b.  '07,  MP  '32, 
Gaull.  m.  '43-5,  Rad.  d.  Eure  '46J- 
58): 

to  '53,  26-7,  35n.,  25 In.,  253,  341,  343, 
393,  394  and  n.,  406,  430,  434,  443n., 
A 

cand.  PM,  '53:  40,  41,  105,  234,  372, 
399,  400,  418n.,  419  and  n.,  422,  440; 
'54:  45-6,  227,  228n.,  229,  407-8,  419, 
422,427,  431,  A 

as  PM,  45-6,  62,  112,  197n.,  225,  232n., 
234-5,  243n.,  267-8,  284n.,  339n.,  347, 
354,  356,  357,  360,  408,  409,  419, 
432n.,  433,  435,  440,  450;  fall,  see 
next  entry 
later,  47-9,  127-9,  136,  174,  178n.,  315, 

319,  405,  434 
reputation,  popularity,  40,  44,  48,  49 


and  n.,  55,  61,62,  64, 157, 178n.,  232n 
350,  367,  421,  422n.,  425,  430,  436' 
439,  440,  441n.,  442 
on  alcohol,  161n.,  356,  357,  358n.,  373 

423,  424 
on  Algeria,  45-6,  49,  128,  341,  435;  see 

Men  desists 
and  constituency  politics,   119n.,  329. 

331  andn.,  429n. 
on  const,  and  elec.,  47,  230n.,  284n., 

304,  311n.,  315,  331  and  n.,  435 
on  econ.,  26-7,  49,  126,  343,  393,  394, 

405,  409 

on  Europe,  46,  51,  112,  234-5,  341,  419 
and  all  parties,  315,  399,  407-8  and  n., 

419,  also 

and  Com.,  45,  46,  75,  119,  272,  394 
and  Soc.,  49,  98,  119,  128,  272,  399,  405, 

406  and  n.,  409,  417,  430 
and  MRP,  49,  105-6,  112,  113  and  n., 

272,  372,  406,  407,  420,  437 
and  Rad.,  46,  47,  49,  63,  64,  67,  119, 
121,  122,  123,  126,  127-9,  131,  173, 
178  and  n.,  290,  372  and  n.,  402,  413, 
429n.,  432,  433,  437-8 
and  de  Gaulle,  -ists,  26-7,  49,  128,  136, 
144-5,  173  and  n.,  372n.,  408,  409, 
430,  442,  443n.,  447 
and  Cons.,  151n.,  153n.,  157,  159n.,  228, 

315,  398,  407 
and  Pouj.,  163,  168n. 
and  small  parties,  170,  173,  174,  176, 

178,  399n. 

Mendes-France  govt.,  June  '54-Feb.  '55, 
45-6,  151n.,  197n.,  205n.,  226,  272, 
274,  304,  348,  406,  410,  419,  420, 
422n,  434,  437,  A;  fall,  45,  46,  119 
and  n.,  158,  178,  238,  419-20,  423n., 
425,  441 

Mendesists,  -ism,  48,  50,  56,  98,  106,  113- 
14,  123,  124  and  n.,  125,  126,  127-9, 
130,  131,  144,  159,  170,  171,  173-4, 
178n.,  201,  239n.,  265,  288,  315,  324 
and  n.,  328,  335,  367,  377,  398,  399, 
413-14,  421,  433,  450n.,  507 
Mendras,  H.,  cit.  nn.  356,  363-4,  374, 

381;  see  Pay  sans 

Menthon,  Francois  de  (b.  '00,  MRP  d. 
H-Savoie  '45-58),  106n.,  329-30  and 
n.,  A 
Mercier,   Andre"   (Com.   d.    '36,   '45-58), 

259n. 
Meridional,  Le  (owned  by  Fraissinet,  #.v.), 

60 
Merle,    M.,   508;   cit.   nn.    151-2,    155-9, 

197-9,201 

Messali  Hadj  (b.  '98),  180 
Meunier,  Jean  (Soc.  d.  '36,  '45-58),  235n. 
Meunier,  Pierre  (b.  '08,  Rad.,  Thorez'  dir. 
de  cab.,  Prog.  d.  Cote  d'Or  '46N-58), 
171n. 

Meurthe-et-Moselle  (cap.  Nancy),  137n. 
Meuse  (cap.  Bar-le-Duc),  150 
Meyer,  J,,  cit,  nn.  229-3 1,  233 


INDEX 


533 


Meynaud,  I,  cit.  nn.  26,  77,  210,  214,  243, 
287,  296-8,  339,  341-5,  355-62,  365, 
368-85,  394,  423 

Mexico,  -an,  144 

Micaud,  C,  cit.  nn.  74,  76-8,  81-2 

Michel,  H.,  19n.,  73n. 

Michelet,  Edmond  (b.  '99,  MRP  and 
Gaull.  d.  Correze  '45-51,  s.  Seine 
'52-9,  m.  in  5  Rep.),  133n.,  496-7 

Michelin  strike,  84 

Middle-Classes  Committee,  361-2  and  n. 

Middleton,  W.  L.,  cit.  nn.  215,  276,  307-8 

Midi,  5,  248,  307,  317,  330,  333,  357,  382 

Midol,  Lucien  (b.  '83,  MP  '32,  Com.  d. 
Seine-et-O.  2  '45-58),  244n. 

Militants,  318,  396,  401-4,  439;  see  Com. 
P.,  Soc.  P.,  MRP,  Rad.  P.,  Gaull. 

Milk,  344,  382 

Millerand,  Alexandre  (1859-1943,  Soc.  d. 
'85,  m.  '99,  Cons.  PM  '20,  Pres. 
'20-4,  s.  '25),  88,  195,  202,  404 

Millers,  384  and  n. 

Ministers,  204-6,  227n.,  299,  391,  418-19; 
and  civil  servants,  11,  255,  341-3,  344, 
345-6,  411,  438;  in  party  and  Parl., 
107  and  n.,  213,  223,  242,  258,  304, 
412;  junior,  205,  206,  226n.,  228,  378, 
421;  responsibility  of,  187-8,  189, 
190-1,  200,  208,  281  and  n.,  see  Con- 
fidence; ex-,  107  and  n.,  206,  244, 
405n.,  432n.?  440  and  n.;  minis- 
trables,  165,  169,  206,  244,  289-90, 
347,  430,  441;  see  Cabinet;  Premier- 
ship 

Mmjoz,  Jean  (Soc.  d.  '45-58),  210nn., 
260n. 

Missions  d' information,  415,  416-17 

Mitterrand,  Francois  (b.  '16,  Pres.  UDSR 
'53-  ,  d.  Nievre  '46N-58,  s.  '59-62, 
d.  '62-  ),  40,  41,  46,  47,  49,  67,  130, 
164n.,  175,  176  and  n.,  180,  221n., 
267n.,  339n.,  377,  406,  422,  430,  432, 
434,  436,  A 

Moch,  Jules  (b.  '93,  MP  '28,  Soc.  d. 
Herault  '45-58,  '62-  ):  as  M.,  37, 
99,  204n.,  347  and  n.,  391n.,  A;  cand. 
PM  1949,  37,  74,  214n.,  226,  405, 
41 6n.,  418,  419,  A;  in  Soc.  P.,  90, 
91n.,  92,  93,  101-2,  509n.;  also  26n., 
37,  241,  299,  313  andn.,  324,  330,  333, 
350n.,  411,  415,  430,  432,  436,  443n., 
506 

Moderes,  148n.,  159  and  n.;  see  Conser- 
vatives Mft  ^ 
Modernization,  14,  27-8,  337,  343,  345-6, 
379-80,  384n.,  435,  438,  444-6,  447; 
see  Regions 
Moisan,  Edouard  (MRP  d.  '45-58),  240n., 

262n. 

Mollet,  Guy  (b.  '05,  sec.-g.  Soc  P.   46-  , 

mayor  of  Arras,  d.  Pas-de-C.  2  45- ;: 

cand.  PM,  37,  38,  51,  227,  347n.,  363, 

407,  408,  416,  418,  422,  423n.,  A 
as  PM,  45,  49-50,  99,  101-2,  207,  233n., 


234  and  n.,  235  and  n.,  269,  290,  304, 
360,  380n.,  431 

reputation,  54,  101,  167,  174,  198,  411 
and  Marxism,  90,  96n.,  97,  100 
and  all  parties,  235,  254  and  n.;  and 
Corns.,  73,   75,   82n.,   90,  401;   and 
Socs.,  67,  90,  91  and  nn.,  93,  96n., 
214n.,  327,  377,  399n.,  403,  404,  430; 
and  MRP,  97,  422;  and  de  Gaulle, 
-ists,   56,   101,    102,    136,   407;    and 
Cons.,  51,  234,  432,  509n. 
other,  34, 47, 49n.,  90, 136,  243,  319,  441 

Mollet  govt,  Jan.  -'56-May  '57,  49,  50n., 
51,  127n.,  128,  136-7,  205,  268,  273 
and  n.,  274,  285,  290,  341n.,  364,  384 
and  n.,  407,  410,  414,  432,  434,  437, 
A;  fall  of,  51,  239,  254  and  n.,  423 
and  n. 

Monde,  Le,  61  and  n.,  75n.,  171n.,  350n., 
445 

Money  and  politics,  61,  65  and  n.»  143 
and  n.,  144,  151,  224,  324,  330n.,  338, 
371-2,  374,  387;  see  Parl.  (salaries) 

Moniteur  Viticole,  Le,  356n. 

Monnerville,  Gaston  (b.  '97,  Rad.  d. 
Guyane  '32-40,  '45-6,  s.  '46-8,  s. 
Lot  '48-  ,  Pres.  CR  and  Sen, 
'46-  ),  122n.,  279n.,  286n.,  289n., 
290 

Monnet,  Jean  (b.  '88,  Gauil.  m.  '43-4, 
head  of  Plan  '47-52,  Eur.  Coal  and 
Steel  Authority  '52-5),  14,  28,  343n., 
345-6,435  and  see  Plan 

Mont  Blanc,  376 

Monteil,  Andr6  (b.  '15,  MRP  d.  Finis- 
tere  '45-58,  s.  '59),  351n.,  A 

Montel,  Pierre  (b.  '96,  PRL  and  RI  d. 
Rhone  1  '46J-58),  134n.,  224n.,  244n., 
269  and  n.,  402,  A 

Montesquieu,  Baron  de,  442n. 

Mention,  323 

Moraze,  C.,  cit.  nn.  3-4,  10,  20,  27,  70, 
79,  80,  136,  140,  144,  155,  167-8,  427 

Morbihan  (cap.  Vannes),  138n. 

Moreau,  fimile  (1868-1950,  Gov.  Bank 
'26-30),  384n. 

Moreau,  Jean  (RI  d.  '45-58),  410,  A 

Morice,  Andr6  (b.  '00,  Rad.  and  Neo-  d. 
Loire-Inf.  '45-58),  55,  128,  130,  342, 
351n.,  377,  411,  412n.,  432,  433,  A 

Morin,  E.,  cit.  nn.  81-2,  85 

Morley,  John  Viscount,  449  and  n. 

Morocco,  -an,  status  of,  180n.,  205,  225, 
293-4;  French  in  (part,  rep.),  209n., 
279  and  n.;  French  views  and  policy, 
45  47  and  n.,  50  and  n.,  52,  105,  106, 
112,  136,  145,  152,  158,  173,  234, 
239n.,  244n.,  333,  349-50,  354,  355 
and  n.,  408,  420,  425,  431,  441,  443, 
448 

Morocco,  Sultans  of:  Mohammed  V 
(1910-61),  41,  47  and  n.,  144,  158n., 
167,  213,  224,  339n.,  349;  Ben  Arafa, 
224n. 


534 


INDEX 


Moscow,  20,  71,  83,  87,  88n.,  21 5n.,  289, 
408,  see  USSR;$—  conference,  24 

Moslems,  49,  50,  51n.,  52,  69,  82,  144n., 
180  and  n.,  199n.,  248,  250,  274, 
294n.,  341,  355,  438;  ^Algeria;  N. 

Mothe,  D.,  cit.  nn.  75,  77-8,  85-6 
Motion  prejudicielle,  258  and  n. 
Motorists,  motor  fuel,  petrol,  233n.,  240, 

273n.,  287n.,   328,  356,  358,   371n., 

379;  see  Road  hauliers 
Mottin,  J.,  392n. 
Moulins,  323 
Moureau,  Capt,  52 
Mouvement .  .  .,  see  initial  M ;  —  socialiste 

africain,  181 
Moyen-Congo,  18  In. 
Mulhouse,  323 
Munich  treaty,  12,  72, 104, 117,  210n.,  212, 

270,  415 
Muselier,  K,  cit.  nn.  211-12,   214,   224, 

257,  260,  266,  357,  371,  430 
Mussolini,  B.,  18,  104,  149 

NATO,  44,  225  and  n.,  419 

Naegelen,  Marcel  Edmond  (b.  '92,  Soc.  d. 
B-Rhin  '45-51,  B-Alpes  '51-8,  Gov.- 
G.  Algeria  '48-51,  cand.  Pres.  '53),  90, 
329,  333,  408 

Namier,  L.  B.,  423n. 

Nancy,  327,  370 

Nantes,  69,  94n.,  105 

Napoleon  I,  2,  8,  13,  see  Bonapartism; 
—  m,  4,  8,  141n.,  195,  239 

Natanson,  T.,  88n. 

National  .  .  .:  Assembly,  q.v. ;  Defence 
Council,  196,  198;  'disgrace',  210  and 
n.,  298,  300;  'party'  (in  elec.  law,  q.v.), 
160  and  n.,  177n.,  178  and  n.,  179, 
313n.,  316n.,  506-7;  pooling  (in  ibid.), 
309,  310,  312n.;  Rally/161  andn.,  507 

Nationalism: 

French,  13,  44-5,  46,  49,  77,  82  and  n., 

85,  90,  102,  106,  128,  141,  144,  145, 

146,  148,  158-9,  193,  288,  355,  377, 

435,  444,  447-8 

Madagascar,  q.v.;  N.  African,  28,  45, 

46,  47,  50,  68,  82,  162, 180,  341,  355 
other,  28,   112,   171,   176,   180-2,  218, 
293,  348,  435,  436 

Nationalized  industries,  35,  86,  95,  141, 
223  and  n.,  260,  271,  287,  292  and  n., 
296n.,  297,  305,  338,  339,  343  and  n., 
361,  362,  373 

Navette,  282,  283,  284,  304,  316 

Naville,  P.,  cit.  nn.  76-7,  86 

Navy,  8,  11;  see  Marine 

Nazi,  see  Germany;  —  Soviet  Pact,  18,  73, 
74 

4Neo-Radicals',  Dissident  — ,  47-9,  63,  123 
124,  125,  126,  127-8  and  n.,  129-30 
and  n.,  154,  398,  407,  438n. 

Neo-Socialists,  18,  89,  407 

Netherlands,  3n.,  300n. 


Neuilly  (Seine),  168 

Neumann,  R.  G.,  cit.  nn.  132,  313,  347 

Neutralism,  -ists,  62,  127,  144,  170-2  325 

367,  448 

New  Statesman,  239n. 
New  York,  214n. 
Nicholas,  H.  G.,  cit.  nn.  48,  313,  323,  334, 

Nicolet,  C.,  cit.  nn.  126-7,  129,  143 

Niger  (Territory),  18 In. 

Noel,  L6on  (b.  '88,  Amb.,  Gaull.  d.  Yonne 

'51-5,  Pres.  Const.  Council  in  5  Rep ) 

cit.  nn.  81,  109,  133,  138,  157-9,  218* 

223-4,  244,  259-60,  292,   334,  34l' 

384,  430,  432 
Nogueres,    Louis    (1881-1956,    Soc.    d 

Pyr6nees-O.  '45-51),  328 
Nonconformists,  British,  111,  112 
Nord  (constituency  1  Dunkirk,  2  Lille  and 

Roubaix,  3  Valenciennes),  67,  75,  90 

94  and  n.,  101,  107n.,  280  and  n. 

309n.,  313,  314,  317 
Normans,  -dy,  155,  161,  173,  248,  280n., 

357,  376n. 

North  Africa,  Ch.  4  and 
French  and,  28,  41,  44,  101,  105,  112, 

126,  144,  152,  158n.,  164,  221,  235 

329,  330,  365,  400,  412,  419,  424  and 

n.,  434,  435,  440 
Lobby,  settlers,  colons  of,  123,  126,  144, 

162,  181,  289,  349,  353-5,  358,  377, 

384,  422,  423  and  n.,  425,  429,  438 
-ns  in  France,  330;  see  Algerians 
see  Algeria;  Colonial  policy;  Morocco; 

Tunisia 
Norway,  300n. 
Notables,  63,  110,  115,  117,  121,  139,  140, 

149,  151-2,  156,  186,  212,  324,  331, 

400,  402,  404,  446 
Nouvelle  Gauche,  see  New  Left 
Nuclear  . . .,  see  Atomic 

OAS,  351 

Office,   see   Careerists;    Patronage;    each 

party  (and  govt.) 
Oise  (cap.  Beauvais),  280,  371n. 
Olivesi  and  Roncayolo,  cit.  nn.  79,  80,  95, 

97,  99,  109,  139,  155,  164,  166-8,  367 
Operation  Resurrection,  56 
Opportunists:   3  Rep.,  437;  4  Rep.,  see 

Compromisers 

Oradour-sur-Glane,  376  and  n. 
Oran  (Algeria),  161 
Organic  laws,  260,  278  and  n.,  295;  decree, 

268-9 

Organization  committees  (Vichy),  13,  14n. 
Osgood,  S.  M.,  179n. 
Osmin,  Mireille,  lOOn. 
Quest-France,  60 

Overseas:  departments,  209n.,  293  and  n., 
-      295,    488,    489;    Independents,    see 

IOM;   members,   175-6,   180-2,    190, 

209  and  n.,  244  n.,  247,  248,  279,  289, 

295,  312,  407,  408  and  n.,  428,  438; 


INDEX 


535 


Territories,  181,  272n.,  293,  294-5, 
296n.,  488-90,  491,  see  Africa, 
Assemblies;  —  C'tee  (NA),  243nn., 
244,  247  and  n.,  248,  273n. 

PDF,  103,  109,  148 

PME,  15n.,  179,  361-2,  370,  373-4,  375 

and  n.,  379-80 
PPF,  162 
PRA,  181 
PRL,20n.,35n.,  62, 118, 149-50, 153  andn., 

158,  177,  234n.,  254n.,  393,  398n.,  407 
PSA,  174,  400 
PSF,  149,  165n.,  177 
PSU,  171,  172n.,  174 
Pacific  Ocean,  121n.,  294n. 
Pacifists  and  defeatists,  17,  18,  72,  73,  88, 

89,  177,  288,  448 

Pactet,  P.,  cit.  nn.  223,  242-3,  251,  255 
Painleve,  Paul  (1863-1933),  170 
Palais  Bourbon  (Chamber  and  Assembly 

building),  52,  72,  134,  163,  206,  211n., 

212n.,  213,  275,  290,  295,  296,  298, 

375,  436,  451 

Palais  du  Luxembourg,  280,  290 
Palais  Royal,  27,  296,  298,  394  and  n. 
Palewski,  Gaston  (b.  '01,  de  Gaulle's  chef 

de  cab.,  Gaull.  d.  Seine  6 '51-5,  Amb. 

Rome,  m.  in  5  Rep.),  143n.,  434,  A 
Palewski,  Jean  Paul  (brother,  b.  '98,  MRP 

and  Gaull.   d.   Seine-et-O.   2   '45-55, 

'58-    ),  143n. 
Panachage,  309,  311,  313  and  n.,  314  and 

n.,  324,  328,  330,  505-6 
Panter-Brick,  K.,  347n. 
Pantouflage,  338  and  n.,  379 
Parachutists,  50,  217,  350;  parl.,  329,  330 

and  n.,  see  Carpetbaggers 
Pardons,  196, 197n.,  199  and  n.,  300,  340 
Paris:  as  city,  79,  108,  120,  164,  211,  373, 

376,  429n.;  Council,  295n.,  505;  elec- 
tion results  in,  48,  50,  54n.,  129,  139 
and  n.,  141  n.,  166,  508;  elec.  law,  parl. 
rep.  of,  280,  313  and  n.,  328,  504,  505; 
MPs,  cands.  for,  lOOn.,  llOn.,  124, 
125n.,  128,  135n.,  154,  162,  167,  169, 
171,    173,  21  In.,  264n.,  322n.,  323, 
325,  328,  329,  330,  331,  363  and  n., 
371  and  nn.,  372n.,  432;  opinion  in, 
60,  71,  78,  115,  123  and  n.;  parties,  68, 
80n,,  84  and  n.,  95n.,  99,  109n.,  115, 
123  andn.,  130, 139 andn.,  151, 155n., 
161  and  n.,  166  and  n.,  167,  168n., 
317;  press,  61-2,  77,  94,  111,  445; 
riots,  demonstrations,  police,  49,  52, 
56,  163,  168n.,  347-8;  university,  337, 
342;  in  war,   18,   160;  as  HQ,  nat. 
capital,  2,  11,  17,  18,  41,  46,  47n.,  54, 
66,  73,  111,  115,  126,  137,  138,  143, 
144,  193,  206,  211,  212,  217,  232n., 
293,  295,  308,  328,  331,  332,  334,  336, 
338,  342n.,  347,  349,  350n.,  354,  363, 
379,  381,  386,  388,425,  428,  435,  446 

-ians,  60,  99,  117,  330,  333,  353,  365 


—  basin,  365 

—  suburbs,  5,  48,  80n.,  84  and  n.,   115, 

139n,  168,  173,  280,  331;  see  Seine, 
Seine-et-Oise 

—  Agreements  on  Germany  (1954),  46 
Paris  Commune,  6,  124,  189,  449 

Paris,  Henri,  Comte  de  (b.  '08),  179,  353n. 

Parisien  Liberd,  Le9  61 

Parliament,  see  Assembly,  Nat.,  Council 
of  Rep.;  also:  in  Const.,  Chs.  16  and 
17,  pp.  12,  185-6,  187-92,  200,  204, 
302,  428;  debate  in,  see  next  entry; 
dissolution,  q.v.;  election  by,  208, 
243,  278-9,  281,  294  and  n.,  298,  299, 
300,  305;  eligibility  for,  160,  161,  162, 
176,  177  and  n.,  209-10,  21 6n.,  280, 
see  Invalidations;  and  finance,  see 
Budget;  and  gqvt.,  see  Cabinet,  Con- 
fidence, Investiture;  and  legislation, 
see  Bills;  membership,  209  and  n., 
279,  see  below;  officers,  bureau(x),  see 
NA,  CR;  procedure,  9,  185-7,  208-9, 
218-21,  Ch.  19,  see  Assembly,  Bills, 
Budget,  Debate;  questions,  223  andn., 
281  and  nn.,  282n.,  286;  resolutions, 
ordres  dujour,  221n.,  223,  252  and  n., 
see  Interpellations;  sessions,  recall, 
12,  212-13,  281,  283,  306,  364;  sit- 
tings, 212,  267n.,  269  and  n.;  voting 
methods,  1 16, 196  and  n.,  201,  213-14, 
219,  226n.,  230,  282,  298-9,  see 
Majority,  PR,  Proxies 

Parl.  debate,  218,  258,  389,  397;  obstruc- 
tion of,  213  and  n.,  218-21,  258  and 
n.,  289,  373;  organized,  215,  219  and 
n.,  258,  259  and  n.;  restricted,  259 
and  n.,  262n.;  urgent,  219,  220n., 
258n.,  259  and  n.,  260  and  n.,  263n., 
268,  269,  282  and  nn.,  284  and  n., 
285,  296,  305;  vote  sans  debat,  259 
and  n.,  260,  262  and  n. 

Parl.  members  of:  absenteeism,  81n.,  212, 
213-14,  218,  219,  244  and  n.,  373; 
'back-bench',  228,  249  and  n.,  251, 
256,  263,  312n.,  357n.,  399,  400,  410, 
430,  432;  character,  334,  372,  Ch.  30; 
and  constituency,  15,  60,  66,  136  and 
n.,  169,  212,  287n.,  308,  311,  324-7, 
329-31,  332-3,  334,  429  and  n.;  im- 
munity, 210-11,  280,  306;  origins,  5 
and  n.,  15,  68,  289,  332-3,  360,  364-5, 
404,  444,  see  each  party;  overseas, 
a.v'  psychology,  camaraderie,  10-11, 
81,  255-6,  294n., -299n.,  300n.,  302, 
333,  374,  396,  401-4,  423-4,  428, 
430-1,  440-1,  465;  salary,  65  and  n., 
80-1  and  nn.,  106,  165  and  n.,  211 
and  n.,  280,  295;  suspicions  of,  65n., 
66,  80-1,  107,  165n.,  166n.,  334,  403, 
see  Politicians;  see  Committees, 
Groups,  Parties  (discipline) 

'Parliamentary  Government',  187-8,  189, 
318 

Parliaments,  specific,  see  Assembly 


536 


INDEX 


Parquet,  300,  301  and  n. 

Parties  (generally):  composition,  68-9, 
364-5,  450n.,  509;  discipline,  63-8, 
117,  189,  216,  246  and  n.,  253,  325-7, 
329,  388-9  and  n.,  397-400, 404,  406-7, 
409,  418-19;  divisions,  internal,  64, 
69,  394-5,  399-404,  411,  see  Genera- 
tions, Regions;  organization,  60, 
64-8,  167n,,  214-15,  289,  322,  323-4, 
364,  365-6,  370,  387-9,  446;  of  pro- 
test, revolt,  64,  70,  255,  317,  322, 
328-9,  332,  335,  see  Politicians,  the 
'System',  see  each  party 

Parti .  . .,  see  initial'?  . .  .  and  also — Agraire, 
149, 150n. ;  — Patriote  Revolutionnaire, 
162;  —  rdpublicain  pour  le  redressement 
economique  et  social,  173,  507;  —  re- 
publicain  socialists,  see  Rep.  Socs.; 

—  Socialiste  Democratique,  111,  323n.; 

—  Socialiste  Umfid,  111,  172n.,  174; 
unitaire,  171,  172 

Partis  et  Classes,  cit.  nn.  68,  76,  79-80, 
83,  94-6,  109-10,  120,  137,  140,  143, 
151,  155-6,  164,  323,  337,  360-1,  364, 
366,  391 

Partis,  Statut  des,  387-8 

Party  system,  the,  16n.,  69-70,  184-90, 
193,  202,  207,  229,  308-9,  316-19, 
352,  384-5,  386-95,  396,  404-6,  407-8, 
413-14,  423-7,  432-4,  437-43,  449-50; 
see  Coalition  politics;  Marginal  votes; 
the  'System1 

Pas-de-Calais  (constituency  1  Boulogne 
and  Calais,  2  Arras  and  Bethune),  67, 
92n.,  94  and  n.,  101,  334n. 

Passy,  Col.  (Andr6  Dewavrin,  b.  '11),  348 

Fastis,  111,  248  and  n.,  330,  357 

Patenotre,  Raymond  (1900-51,  MP  '28, 
press  magnate),  119n. 

Patronage:  by  MPs,  116,  129  and  n., 
301,  329;  339-41,  347,  351,  408;  to 
MPs,  170,  175,  177,  185  and  n.,  205, 
228  and  n.,  245  and  n.,  294  and  n.,  333, 
419  and  n.,  432,  438;  other,  68,  86,  99 
and  nn.,  lOOn.,  165n. ;  see  Parl.  (cama- 
raderie) 

Patronat,  see  Business 

Pau,  353n. 

Paul,  Marcel  (b.  '00,  Com.  d.  H-Vienne 
'45-8),  84,  391  and  nn.,  A 

Pays  legal,  reel,  446 

Paysans,  cit.  507;  nn.  15,  26,  68,  78-9, 
83,  97,  108,  110,  123,  125,  130,  143, 
151,  153,  155-6,  161,  164,  166-8,  245, 
248,  255,  262,  276,  323,  325,  329, 
331,  339,  342,  357-8,  363-7,  373,  378, 
381-2,  429 

Peasants:  nos.  and  weight,  3,  4-5,  12  and 
n.,  363-5,  381,  393,  423;  and  econ. 
policy,  6,  10,  26,  28,  36  and  n.,  41, 
362,  393,  394,  446,  447;  and  elections, 
47,  280n.,  288,  322-3,  326  and  n.,  329, 
331  and  n.,  363  and  n,;  in  Parl., 
262  and  n.,  289,  296,  297-8,  344,  356, 


363  and  n.,  364-5,  423,  428-9;  and  all 
parties,  509;  and  Corns.,  q.v.;  and 
MRP,  108,  109nn.,  110  and  n.,  Ill, 
114;  and  Rads.,  Neo-,  115,  123  and 
n.,  381;  and  Cons.,  1 55-6  and  nn.;  and 
E.  Right,  161n.,  166-7  and  n.,  364, 365; 
see  Agriculture;  Alcohol;  CGA; 
FNSEA;  Food  policy;  Regions  (town 
v.  country) 

Peasant  Corporation  (Vichy),  153,  161n. 
364,  393 

Peasant  party,  20n.,  35n.,  39,  62,  633  67, 
149-50,  153-4  and  n.,  156  and  n.,  158, 
160,  166,  234n.,  248,  254nn.,  312, 
332,  343,  363,  365,  37p,  381,  398n., 
402n.,  406  and  n.,  407;  individuals  in, 
177,  243n.,  262,  370,  372  and  n. 

P6bellier  (Peas.  ds.  H-Loire):  Eugene  sr. 
(1866-1952,  sat  '51-2),  216n.;  Jean 
(son,  sat  '52-3,  resigned  when  am- 
nesty voted),  no  ref.;  Eugene  jr. 
(brother,  b.  '97,  MP  '36,  ineligible  till 
'53,  sat  '53-8),  21 6n. 

Pedestrians,  379 

Peelites,  188 

Peguy,  Charles  (1873-1914),  101 

Pellenc,  Marcel  (b.  '97,  Rad.  s.  Vaucluse 
'48-  ,  rapp.~g.),  434n. 

Pelletan,  Camille  (1846-1915),  8 

Pensions:  C'tee  (NA),  244n.,  247  and  n., 
249,  251,  264;  —  M.  of,  247n.,  358, 
375;  also  232  and  n.,  252  and  n., 
259n.,  268,  269,  285,  287,  362;  see 
Ex-servicemen 

Pe"py,  D.,  109n. 

Pernot,  Georges  (Cons.  MP  '24,  m.  '40,  s. 
'46-59),  306n. 

Pe"ron,  Yves  (Com.  d.  '45-51,  '56-8),  261n., 
265n. 

Peru,  423 

Pe"tain,  Marshal  Philippe  (1856-1951,  PM 
'40,  'Chief  of  State'  '40-4),  8,  14n., 
18,  20,  42,  45,  72,  89,  117,  132,  141, 
142n.,  154,  156n.,  160,  161,  170,  177, 
179,  191,  210n.,  216n.,  270,  350;  -ists, 
see  Vichyites 

P6tain  govts.,  '40-4,  18,  35n.,  160,  177, 
404n. 

Petit,  Eugene  dit  Claudius  (b.  '07,  UDSR 
d.  Loire  '45-55,  '58-62),  174,  175n., 
176,  357n.,  430,  A 

Petit,  Guy  (b.  '05,  Peas,  and  Cons.  d.  B- 
Pyre~nees  '46J-58,  s.  '59-  ,  mayor  of 
Biarritz),  177,  272n.,  A 

Petot,  J.,  273n. 

Petrol,  see  Motorists 

Petsche,  Maurice  (1895-1951,  MP  '25, 
Peas,  and  ind.  cons.  d.  H-Alpes, 
'46J-51),  35n.,  39,  227,  243n.,  253, 
360,  410,  A 

Peureux,  G.,  294n. 

Peyre",  Roger,  339 

Peyroles,  Mme  (MRP  d.  '45-51,  '54-5), 
282n.,  283n. 


INDEX 


537 


Pflimlin,  Pierre  (b.  '07,  MRP  d.  B-Rhin 
»45-  ,  mayor  of  Strasbourg,  Pres. 
MRP  '56-9),  41,  46,  50n.,  51,  98,  106 
andn.,  217, 228,  342, 356,420, 421, 430, 
434,  A ;  in  '58, 55,  56, 203, 228,  355,  43 1 
Pflimlin' govt.,  May  '58,  55-6,  151n.,  172, 
226ii L.,  239,  241, 273n.,  302,  303  andn., 
407,  423n.,  A 

Philip,  Andre  (b.  '02,  MP  '36,  Gaull.  m. 
r      »43_4,  Soc.  d.  Rhone  1  '45-51,  later 
PSU)  23,  90,  91  and  nn.,  92n.,  93  and 
n    99nn.,  lOOn.,  174,  298,  302n.,  329, 
333,  341,  403,  429,  A 
Philip,  L.,  209n,,  210n. 
Picasso,  Pablo,  75,  82 
P  ckles,  D.,  cit.  nn.  14,  26,  34,  38,  191-3, 
197-8,  200-1,  211,  241,  261,  270,  292, 
294-5,  297,  305,  391 
Pickles,  W.,  llOn.,  140n. 
Perce,  R,  cit.  nn.  48,  79,  94,  110,  128, 
132,  153,  167,  178,  193,  239,  315-16, 
323,  326 

Pierre,  Abb6  (b.  '12,  MRP  and  Gauche 
ind.   d.    Meurthe-et-M.   '45-51,  Left 
cand. '51),  171,  369,  370n.,  377 
Pinay,  Antoine  (b.  '91,  MP  '36,  RI  d. 
Loire  '46J-59,  m.  in  5  Rep.):  career, 
35n.,     177,    205n.,    410n.,    421     A; 
cand.  PM,  39-40,  46,  51,  166,  227, 
372,  408,  415n.,  416,  4*7,  420,  431,  A; 
as  PM,  40,  163,  220,  232n.,  234  and 
nn.,  235,  260,  265,  267,  339n.,  343n., 
344,  361,  399,  409,  431,  441;  popu- 
larity, 40,  157,  232n.,  421,  422n.,  425; 
views,  50n.,  158nn.,  159,  334  and  n.; 
other,   323n.,   329;   and  all  parties, 
40    228,  397-8,  399,  417;  also  Socs., 
240,  404n.,  411;  and  MRP,  105,  107 
and  n.,  238,  246n.,  372,  397n.,  399, 
402,  405,  406,  420,  424,  425,  441;  and 
Rad.,  246n.,  424,  432;  and  Gaull.,  135 
and  n.,  144,  150,  152,  228   372   399, 
402,  416;  and  Cons.,   152  and  nn., 
430,  432,  441 ;  and  UDSR,  175 
Pinay  govt.  (Mar.-Dec.  '52)  40,  152,  201, 
205n.,  272,  287,  397,  409    410,  422, 
425;  fall,  27,  40,  105,  238,  271,  362, 
423n.,  424,  425,  432 

Pineau,  Christian  (b.  '04,  rapp.-g.  finance 
c'tee  '45-6,  chairman  '46-7    Soc.  d. 
Sarthe  '45-58,  cand.  A  pes-M.    62), 
cand.  PM,  47,  105,  228,  417,  420  421, 
A;   also  35,   36n.,   81n.,  91   and  n 
212n.,  237n.,  299,  323n.,  341  and  n.,  A 
Pinto,  R.,  cit.  nn.  270,  272,  305-6 
Pivert,  Marceau  (1895-1958),  93n. 
Pivot  parties,  see  Marginal  votes 
Place  Vendome,  301 ;  see  Justice,  M.  • of 
Plaisant,  Marcel  (1887-1958,  MP  '19,  Rad. 

s.  Cher '48-58),  281n. 
Plan,  National  Economic,  27,  221,  Z£>, 
296,   345-6  and  n.,   356,  362,  379, 
Planning  Commission,  343  ana  n., 
345;  reinvestment 


Planchais,  J.,  cit.   nn.   51,   99,   341,   345, 

351 

Plantade,  R.,  108n.,  llOn. 
Pleven,  Rene  (b.  '01,  Pres.  UDSR  to  '53, 
d.  C6tes-du-Nord  '45-6J,  '46N-  ): 
stands  for  PM,  50,  130,  417,  433; 
as  PM,  37-8,  39,  227,  231  and  n., 
232n.,  233,  234  and  nn.,  236,  267,  419; 
also  26,  27,  34,  35n.,  45,  67,  167,  174 
and  n.,  175,  176,  230n.,  251,  265n., 
322-3,  324,  343,  344,  397,  399n.,  411, 
430,  438,  441,  A;  and  all  parties,  175; 
Socs.,  39,  343,  403  and  n.,  417;  Rads., 
55;  Gaull.,  233,  234n. 
1st  Pleven  govt,,  July  '50-Feb.  '51,  37-8, 
175,  238  and  n.,  247n.,  253,  287,  406, 
410,  A 

2nd  Pleven  govt.,  Aug.  '51-Jan.  '52,  39, 
153,  232n.,  233,  243n.,  253n.,  254,  354 
and  n.,  410,  A;  fall,  27,  39,  238  and  n., 
271,  272,  274,  343,  363n.,  403  and  n., 
423n. 

Plots  and  conspiracies,  50,  51  and  n.,  54, 
55,  83n.,  161-2,  164,  167,  211,  348 
and  n.,  350,  396;  see  Violence 
Poincar6,  Raymond  (1860-1934,  MP  '87, 
PM  '12,  Pres.  '13-20,  s.  '20,  PM  '22- 
4  and  '26-9),  11,  45,  195,  244  and  n., 
450 

Poinso-Chapuis,  Mme  Germaine  (b.  '01, 
MRP   d.    Bouches-du-Rhone    1    '45- 
55),  —  decree;  34,  204n.,  250-1,  344, 
405n.,  410,  A 
Poland,  -ish,  75,  330 

Police,  in  France,  2,  45,  49,  52,  55,  68,  99, 
211,  217n.,  292n.,  334n.,  340,  341, 
347-8,  351;  in  N.  Africa,  47,  51n.,  350 
and  n.,  354 

Politicians,  standing  of: 
low,  of  most,  11,  15,  48,  49n.,  55,  70,  80, 
83,  88,  93,  111  and  n.,  113,  162,  164, 
193,  232,  320,  322,  332,  334-5,  446, 
451,   510;   see  Parl.    (members,   sus- 
picion of);  Public  opinion 
high,  of  a  few,  40,  45,  46,  157,  169,  203, 

232n.,421,422n.,425 
low,  of  those  few  in  Parl.,  40,  49n.,  201, 

440-1 

Politique  dupire,  161,  308n.,  315 
Polls,  27  and  n.,  66n.,  68n.,  85,  86n.,  94n., 
95n.,  109  and  nn.,  117n.,  122nn.,  123 
and   n.,    125n.,    139n.,    140,    141n., 
146n.,  152n.,  164n.,  166n.,  168n.,  311n., 
362n.,  509-10 
Pope,  the,  169,  353,  406 
Populate,  Le,  61,  72n.,  94n.,  226n.,  306n., 

443n. 

Popular  Front:  in  3  Rep.,  17,  41,  45,  72, 

P  73,  77,  89,  103,  116-17,  149,  160,  217, 

429n.,  430,  446;  in  4  Rep.,  41,  48, 

56  andn.,  83,  127,  171,  172,  176,203, 

235   401 

Population,  3,  162-3,  445;  M.  of,  205 
Populism  (U.S.),  169 


538 


INDEX 


Postmen,  68,  95,  364 
Pouillon,  J.,  31  In. 

Poujade,  Pierre  (b.  '20,  cand.  in  S.  Paris 
'57,  Maine-et-L.  '58,  '62),  15n.,  44, 
47,  48,  50,  51,  62,  63,  67,  79  and  n., 
130n.,  153,  159n.,  162-9  passim,  316, 
358,  361,  365  and  n.,  376,  377,  381, 
382,  399,  507 

Poujadism,  -ists,  163-9,  also  composition, 
67,  68  and  n.,  358n.;  clientele,  48, 
54,  63,  94,  317,  324,  331  and  n.,  364, 
365,  414;  outlook,  8,  14,  160,  328, 
329,  335,  343,  370n.,  383,  438,  447, 
453;  in  Parl.,  51,  63,  64,  65,  67,  123, 
161  and  n.,  206,  210,  213,  218,  245, 
250,  255,  257n.,  402n.,  431,  436;  un- 
seated, 49n.,  210,  218,  328n.,  507-8; 
and  other  groups,  258n.,  353,  370,  see 
each  party;  ex-,  154;  universal,  87n., 
162 

Poujadisme,  Le,  164nn.,  165nn. 
Poutier,  C,  cit.  nn.  193,  240,  284,  302-4 
Prague,  24,  387 

Preamble:  const.,  271,  273,  275n.,  292-3 
305,  337;  April  '46  draft,  23,  292-3 
294 

Prefects,  60,  79n.,  98n.,  164  and  n.,  172n. 
199n.,  204n.,  209n.,  210n.,  237  and  n. 
346-8,  350,  354,  374n.,  446;  super- 
345,  347 

Preferential  vote,  308,  313,  330,  505 
Prelot,  Marcel  (b.  '98,  Gaull.  d.  Doubs 
'51-5,  s.   '59-),  305;  cit.  nn.   35-6, 
223-4,  243-5,  260,  273,  298,  306 
Premiership,  35  and  n.,  203-7,  226  and  n., 
229,  239,  290,  390,  406,  408-9,  413 
and  n.,  415-17,  422,  426,  440-2;  ex- 
premiers,    45-6,    128,    205,    414-15, 
440n.;   PM's   office,  204-5  and  nn., 
343n.,  345;  see  Cabinet;  Investiture 
President,  -cy  of  the  Republic:  195-203  and 
of  3  Rep.,  9,  179,  185,  204  and  n.,  207, 

212,  215 

of  4  Rep.,  9,  32,  179,  185,  190,  191-2, 
239,  258,  259n.,  260,  265n.,  281,  293, 
295,  299-300,  301,  305-6,  348,  353, 
414-16,  417,  421-2 
of  5  Rep.,  443 

election(s)  of,  24,  41-2,  116,  152,  161, 

191-2  and  nn.,  195-6  and  n.,  201-2, 

208,  217,  226n.,  238,  277,  280-1,  290, 

442n. 

President  du  conseil,  204  and  n.,  415,  and 

see  Premiership;  vice-,  205,  496 
Presidential  system,  25,  52,  98,  133,  191, 

193-4,241,  318,452 

Presidents'  Conference  (NA),  215,  216, 
219-20,  224,  243,  259  and  n.,  262-3, 
268 

Press:  generally,  54,  60-2,  93n.,  170,  271, 
351  and  n.,  391,  407,  422n.,  445;  free- 
dom of,  50,  52,  61,  130,  247n.,  292, 
438,  442-3,  see  Libels;  Left,  77  and  n., 
80n.,  81n.,  93n.,  94,  162,  171n.,  210n., 


328,  391;  Right  and  Centre,  108  and 
n.,  119  and  n.,  123,  160,  162,  360n. 

Press  C'tee  (NA),  245,  249 

Press  law  of  1946,  61,  117,  118n.,  123,  344 
392  and  n. 

Pressure-groups,  Chs.  25  and  26,  also:  in 
admin.,  339,  342,  344,  423,  447;  in 
elections,  65  and  n.,  330-1;  in  Parl. 
39,213,247,249,255,260,261,298 

Pretenders,  179,  209,  353  and  n. 

Previous  question,  219,  258 

Prieur,  C.,  cit.  nn.  324,  329,  334,  367 

Priouret,  R.  A.,  cit.  nn.  4-5,  10,  13-15 
80,  103,  116,  118,  159,  197,  242,  285, 
310,  334,  354-5,  369,  371-2,  390,  393, 
401,  432,  447 

Progres,  Le,  60 

Progressives  (pro-Comm.),  50,  54,  8 In., 
82n.,  171-3,  180,  181,  244n.,  246, 
327n.,  348,  398,  399n.,  414;  (U.S.), 
146-7 

Proletariat,  see  Workers 

Pronteau,  Jean  (Com.  d.  '45-58),  65n., 
265n. 

Proportional  representation  (PR):  within 
Parl.,  208,  215  and  n.,  216,  237,  242, 
247,  278-80,  294,  298,  299,  305,  388; 
in  govt.,  390;  in  SFIO,  92;  electoral, 
see  Elec.  systems 

Prost,  A.,  167nn. 

Prot,  Louis  (b.  '89,  MP  '36,  Com.  d. 
Somme  '45-58),  327  and  n. 

Protestants,  68,  69,  79,  97n.,  109,  143  and 
n.,  168,  323 

Provencal,  Le  (paper  of  Defferre,  q.v.\  60 

Provincialism,  60,  115,  117  and  n.,  126, 
168-9,  329,  330,  376 

Provisional  regime  1944-5,  20-5,  196,  225, 
229-30 

Provisional  twelfths,  185,  266,  267,  268, 
288n. 

Proxies,  parl.,  201,  213-14  and  nn.,  232n., 
238-9,  398,  408  and  n. 

Public  employees,  68,  94,  95,  96  and  n., 
99n.,  109,  333,  337,  359,  366,  373;  see 
Civil  servants 

Public  opinion,  9-10,  16,  29-30,  54,  184, 
187,  194,  239,  277,  318-19,  384-5, 
422n.,  423-5,  440-1,  445-8,  450-3, 
509-10;  impotence  of,  15-16,  34  and 
n.,  201,  334-5,  383-4,  389,  452;  Insti- 
tute of,  164n.,  see  Polls 

Pucheu,  Pierre  (1899-1944,  m.  of  interior 
'41-2,  executed  by  de  Gaulle),  14n. 

Purges:  at  Liberation,  7,  74,  103n.,  141, 
162,  176,  292n.,  298  and  n.,  300  and 
n.,  337,  346,  391;  other,  337,  341,  346, 
347 

Puy-de-D6me  (cap.  Clermont-Ferrand), 
370,  508 

Pyr6ne"es:  Basses-  (cap.  Pau),  149,  161, 
179n.,  323;  Hautes-  (cap.  Tarbes), 
llOn.,  155n.,  325,  506;  -Orientales 
(cap.  Perpignan),  93  and  n.,  179n.,  328 


INDEX  539 


Quai  d'Orsay,  198n. ;  see  Foreign  m. 

'Quartet',  see  Algerie  fran^aise 

Queen  of  England,  50n.,  165 

Questeurs,  216 

Queuille,  Henri  (b.  '84,  MP  '14,  Rad. 
and  Neo-  d.  Correze  '46N-58):  as 
PM,  35-8,  220,  226-7  and  n.,  228n., 
232n.,  233  and  nn.,  234n.,  235,  271, 
343n.,  372,  426;  style  of  leadership, 
52,  125,  235S  241  and  n.,  271,  441  and 
n.;  also  35n.,  36,  41,  82n.,  128,  130, 
243,  251n.,  261n.,  376n.,  419,  430, 
438,  A,  509n.;  and  Soc.,  226,  417; 
MRP,  226,  399,  402;  Rad.,  418; 
GaulL,  228;  Cons.,  405,  497;  UDSR, 
175 

1st  Queuille  govt,  Sep.  '48-Oct  '49,  35 
and  n.,  51,  134-5,  205n.,  271,  273n., 
410,  414,  A;  fall,  27,  37,  238  and  n., 
403,  423n.,  432 

2nd  Queuille  govt.,  2-4  July  '50,  37,  105, 
205n.,  226-7,  228n.,  399,  402,  415, 
419,  432,  A 

3rd  Queuille  govt.,  Mar.-July  '51,  37,  39, 
205n.,  233,  238  and  n.,  271,  418,  A 

Quimper,  200n. 

Quorum,  see  Absenteeism 

RDA,  171,  176,  243n. 

RGR:  as  alliance,  24,  38  and  n.,  67,  120-1 
and  n.,  122nn.,  123,  156n.,  170,  174, 
175,  176-8,  234n.,  323n.;  as  party, 
123n.,  128,  129,  130,  178,  179,  254n., 
325,  429n.,  438 

RGRIF,  178-9  and  n.,  506,  507 

RI,  see  Republican  Independents 

RN,  161  andn.,  507 

RPF,  Ch.  10  and:  history,  25,  36-40,  63, 
132,  134-6,  139,  200  and  n.,  311, 
335,  389;  composition,  25,  68-9, 
140-1  and  nn.,  143n.;  clientele,  15, 
28,  36,  84,  109n.,  139-41,  279;  disci- 
pline, 64, 66-7, 134-6, 138-9, 143  andn. ; 
membership,  63,  137n.,  139  and  n., 
140;  org.,  funds,  65  and  n.,  137-9, 
372;  see  Gaullists  (divisions;  in  Pan.; 
and  govt.;  outlook;  policy;  and 
others) 

RS,  see  Social  Republicans 

Rabat  (Morocco),  52,  144,  354 

Radical  Party,  Ch.  9;  and 
history,  8-9,  17-18,  19,  20-2,  36-41,  62, 
63,  72,   102,  115-19,  148,  185,   186, 
187,  364 

composition,  68-9,  115,  122-3,  127 
clientele,  5,  28,  69,  85,  94-5,  115,  123, 

124,322,380,381 
discipline,  64,  67,  115,  121,  124,  129, 

131    404 

divisions,  52,  116-17,  118,  120-1,  123- 
30,  173,  177-8,  202,  290,  325,  372, 
401-2,  407,  420,  433  • 

membership,  63,  119-20,  122,  127  and 
n.,  130,  131 


militants,  67-8,  366 

org.,  63,  65n.,  68,  119-22,  126,  127  and 
n.,  129,  178,  381n. 

funds,  65,  119n. 

in  Parl.,  11,  17,  24,  31-2,  32-5,  41,  63, 
128-9,  130-1,  173,  216,  253  and  n., 
286,  287  and  n.  ;  see  Senate 

and  govt.,  24,  39,  46,  49,  51,  70,  116-17, 
118-19,  122  and  n.,  124  and  n.,  125, 
127-31,  340,  347,  417 

outlook,  95,  131,  311,  412,  438 

and  policy,  see  Algeria  ;  Colonial  ;  Const.  ; 
Econ.;  Electoral;  Foreign 

proconsular,  124,  142 

tactics,  116-17,  118-19,  120-1,  124,  126, 
129-30 

and  Church,  q.v.;  and  press,  61,  392 
and  q.v. 

and  all  parties,  25,  28,  29,  30,  31,  124, 
317,  319,  437 

and  Com.,  Soc.,  MRP,  <?.v.;  Cons.,  40, 
89,  105,  118,  122,  124,  125n.,  126, 
154-5,  156,  158,  277,  290,  307;  and 
GaulL,  118  andn.,  121,  124,  129,  278, 
416;  and  Pouj.,  167n.,  168nn.;  and 
small  parties,  176-8,  180,  399n.,  see 
UDSR 

Radicals:  individual,  47,  51,  69,  142,  144, 
239,  289,  322,  323,  325  and  n.,  330 
and  n.,  331,  342,  347,  351,  354,  363, 
371n.,  372,  378,  408,  419,  429  and  n., 
430,  433  ;  Left—,  124  and  n.,  171  ;  ex-, 
55,  63,  158,  165n.,  171  and  n.,  172n., 
178,  325,  327,  430;  Radicalism,  uni- 
versal, 86,  90,  94-5,  98,  99,  122n., 
162,  197 
Raffarin,  Jean  (b.  '14,  Peas.  d.  Vienne 

'51-5),  372n. 

Railways,  -men,  27,  41,  68,  109,  232n., 
249,  254,  271,  272,  323,  342,  343  and 
n.,  362,  370n.,  374n.,  383,  438,  447 
Ralliement,!,  159 

Ramadier,  Paul  (1888-1961,  MP  '28,  Soc. 
and  Rep.  Soc.,  Soc.  d.  Aveyron 
'45-51,  '56-8,  cand.  Lot  '52):  as  PM, 
24,  27,  32,  35n.,  204n.,  226,  231,  232, 
238,  390;  other,  98,  227n.,  236n.,  254, 
299n.,  313,  329,  333,  342,  351  and  n 
379,  430,  A;  and  all  parties  231; 
Com.,  24,  200,  226;  Soc.,  24,  98,  101, 
403,  405,  408n.;  MRP,  399,  402; 

Ram?d1ergo4vt2(Jan.-Nov.  W  ),  24  206n 
226,  253,  390,  392  and  n.,  403,  A;  fall, 
09    Qf\   238 

Ramarony,'Mes  (Cons.  d.  '45-55)  223n. 


.       , 

rapporteur-general  of  Finance  C'tee,  220, 
245n.,  251,  253,  254,  414 
t*  Le,  144 


540 


INDEX 


Rassemblement  .  ,  .,  see   initial  R  .  .  .; 
—  Paysan,  153n.,  166n. 

Rastel,  Georges,  209n. 

Reale,  E.,  74nn.,  79n. 

Rearmament:  French,  72;  German,  q.v. 

Reconciliation  franc, aise,  111 

Reconstruction:  group  in  CFTC,  114; 
C'tee  (NA),  247  and  n.,  249,  264n., 
273  n. 

'Rectification'  (parl.),  267,  268n. 

R6cy,  Antoine  de  (b.  '13,  Gaull.  d.  Pas-de- 
C.  2  '46N-51),  209n. 

Red:  Army,  84n.;  'Belt',  see  Paris  suburbs 

Referendum:  in  const.,  208,  209nn., 
225n.,  281,  302  and  n.;  fear  of,  192 
and  n.,  257n.,  283  and  n.,  302  and  n., 
304nn.,  452;  of  1945-6,  20-3,  31,  104, 
117,  118,  133-4,  190,  191,  196,  226, 
277-8,  292,  293,  388,  389,  502;  of 
1958,  56-7  and  n.,  177n.,  194,  327n., 
425,  502;  of  1962,  192n. 

Reforme  de  VEtat,  161 

Regime  d'assemblee,  see  Convention  gov- 
ernment 

Regionalism,  5,  6, 14,  15,  60,  330,  333,  366, 
376;  and  parties,  48,  69,  79,  90,  94  and 
n.,  110,  115,  123,  124,  139,  153,  155, 
166-8,  307-8,  317,  450  and  n. 

Regions  of  France: 
C,  79,  168n.,  365 

E.,  ME.,  5,  48,  78,  79n.,  104, 105,  109-10, 
113,  123,  130n.,  155  and  n.,  167  and 
n.,  357 
N.  of  Loire,  123,  124,  130n.,  140,  150 

and  n.,  167n.,  168,  317,  364,  386 
S.  of  Loire,  19,  48,  79,  103,  110  and  n., 
123,  124  and  n.,  140,  150n.,  155,  162, 
163,  167,  168n.,  314n.,  358,  366,  386; 
see  Midi 

SW.,  90,  119,  123,  129  and  n.,  130n. 
W.  and  NW.,  69,  78,  104,  105,  110  and 
n.,  113,  124n.,  140,  153  and  n.,  155 
and  n.,  167-8,  307-8,  314,  317,  318, 
366,  376n.,  382;  coast,  140 
industrial,  5,  79-80,  90,  94n.,  123  and 
n.,  124n.,  130n.,  135n.,  140,  150  and 
n.,  153n.,  155,  248,  309n.,  313,  445, 
450n. 

modern  and  backward,  14,  28,  150  and 
n.,  155,  167  and  n.,  168,  400n.,  445, 
447,  450  and  n. 
seaboard,  248,  330 

town  v.  country,  3,  5,  12,  26,  47,  156, 
252,  276, 279-80  and  n.,  288,  309,  323, 
326  and  n.,  329,  331  and  n.,  357, 
363  and  n. 

R6mond,  Ren6,  cit.  nn.  114,  159,  161,  344, 
366,  381-2 

Remy,  Col.  (Gilbert  Renault),  141-2  andn. 

Renaud,  Jean  (1877-1961,  Com.  d.  '24- 
40),  326,  327n. 

Renaudel,  Pierre  (1871-1935,  MP  '14, 
Soc.,  Neo-,  Rep.  Soc.),  89 

Renault  strike,  24 


Rennes,  90 

Republic,  8,  18,  145,  148,  156  and  n.,  159 
161,  168,  169,  365;  Council  of  the', 

—  Second,  192,  195,  225 

—  Third: 

historical,    7,    11-12,    17-20,    88,    175 

184-8,  195,  277,  422 
const,  and  parl.,  192,  195,  204  and  n. 

222,  229  and  n.,  255,  261,  264,  268n., 

280,  288,  307,  396,  41 8n.,  449,  450 
admin.,  337,  341 
opinion  in,  5,  9-10,  60,  66,  79,  115,  148, 

184,  447 

opinion  on,  20,  161n.,  190,  308,  362 
excluded  groups,  13-15,  89,  103,  364 
collapse,  275,  302 
revival,  35,  193,  194,  229,  270,  288,  322, 

363,  397,  408 
see  below 

—  Fourth  (named): 

govt.,  24,  27,  415,  426,  442,  443 

issues,  362,  365,  436n.,  448 

parl.  and  admin.,  261,  278n.,  301,  345, 

350,  387,  395,  444,  448 
parties  in,  24,  56,  75n.,  97,  123,  125, 

157,  354,  448 
pressure-groups,    354,    359,    362,    363, 

369,371,448 
unpopularity,  enemies,  25,  38,  54  and  n., 

56-7,  145,  397,  439 
collapse,  44,  52-7,  106,  108,  146,  194, 

21 1,235  andn.,  275,  351 

—  Third  and  Fourth  compared,  25,  31,  35, 

125,  131,  145,  157,  159,  261,  279,  338, 
339,  340,  350,  354,  364,  365,  367,  437, 
440,  441,  451 

—  Fifth: 

acceptance  of,  56-7,  75,  91,  173-4,  176, 

177n.,  194,  425 
admin.,  336n.,  337,  348,  351 
const,  and  Parl.,  179,  181,  192  and  nn., 

213n.,  216,  219n.,  235,   240,  242n., 

245n.,  255, 261, 269  and  n.,  278,  301n., 

374n. 
govt.  and  policies  of,  146,  158  and  n., 

289,    292n.,    349,    355,    358n.,    364, 

442-3 
enemies  of,  161-2,  201n.,  289,  301,  348, 

349,  351,  401,  447 
groups,  parties,  opinion,  75,  124,  132n. 

173n.,  177,  365,  385,  452-3 
press  and  radio,  62,  177n.,  392n.,  440 
Republicans:  populaires  inde'pendants,  138n 

—  sociaitx,  see  Social  Republicans 
Republican: 

Centre,  130  and  n.,  429n. 

—  Federation,  see  Federation  .  .  . 

—  Front,  45,  47,  49  and  n.,  105,  113,  136, 

217,  316,  319,  323,  335,  422,  508 

—  Independents,  20n.,  35n.,  149-50  and 

n.,    153,    154,    243n.,    254nn.;    see 
CNIP,  Conservatives 

—  Socialists,  70, 170,  177  and  n.,  408n, 


INDEX 


541 


Republicans:  in  3  Rep.,  8,  185,  276;  in 
U.S.,  425 

Republique  des  Camamdes,  81;  see  Par!., 
members  of 

Resignations:  individual,  37,  41,  49,  51n., 
356,  394,  411,  434,  443n.;  insubordin- 
ate, 349;  involuntary,  406  and  n.; 
unacceptable,  201,  23 In.,  238  and  n., 
239;  in  extremis  (1958),  56,  202,  226n.5 
239,  304n. 

Resistance:  pre-war,  18,  72;  composition, 
orgs.,  13,  18,  19,  54,  89,  97,  104,  365; 
generation,  13,  97  and  n.,  402,  436; 
ideals,  contacts,  22,  42,  81n.,  113,  435; 
impact  on  France,  13,  14,  17,  18,  19, 
22, 269,  270, 386, 393, 444, 446, 447-8; 
and  parties,  19,  62,  63,  97,  174,  322; 
Corns.,  73  and  n.,  75,  175;  Soc.,  89, 
97;  MRP,  97,  104,  437;  GaulL,  54, 
145,  447;  Cons.,  154,  156,  177;  Pouj., 
168;  also  55,  61,  133,  162,  296,  447-8, 
449;  ex-Resisters,  19,  54,  97  and  n., 
132,  141,  142,  154,  158,  334,  391 

Reunion  (dept.),  209n.,  294n.,  504,  507 

Revisionists,  -ism:  of  const,  193,  302,  306; 
in  Com.  P.,  86;  in  Soc.  P.,  89,  90, 
96  and  n.,  174,  394  and  n.,  436,  439 

Revolution:  of  1789,  4,  7,  8,  79,  88,  115, 
124,  125,  141n.,  168,  189,  242,  292, 
301,  353;  of  1917,  88 

Reynaud,  Paul  (b.  '78,  MP  '19,  PM  '40, 
RI  d.  Nord  1  '46J-62,  chairman 
finance  c'tee  '51-3,  '54-62):  as  finance 
m.  '48,  34,  35  and  n.,  36  and  n.,  134n., 
233  and  n.,  253,  270,  271,  399;  cand. 
PM  '53,  40,  105,  234,  385  and  n., 
419,  A;  also  36,  50n.,  149,  152,  157-8 
and  nn.,  210n.  (elig.  '46),  241,  253,  254 
andnn.,  263, 267  andn.,  270, 385  andn., 
411,  413,  433,  436,  441,  A;  and  Soc., 
405;  MRP,  399,  402;  GaulL,  402 
—law,  Aug.  '48,  270-1,  272,  281,  286, 
297n.,  306  and  n. 

Rhin,  Bas-  (cap.  Strasbourg),  109,  210, 
388,  506;  Haut-  (cap.  Colmar),  323, 
324n.,  401n. 

Rhineland,  12 

Ribeyre,  Paul  (b.  '06,  Peas,  and  Cons.  d. 
Ardeche  '45-58,  s.  '59-  ),  406n. 

Ridgway,  Gen.,  74 

Ridley,  F.,  223n. 

Rieber,  A.  J.,  cit.  nn.  19,  73-4,  82,  391-2, 
401 

Right:  Ch.  11;  see  Left  and  Right;  also 
character,  7-8,  145,  322,  324,  326 
in  3  Rep.,  18,  115,148-9,  170,196 
in  4  Rep.,  19,  20,  47,  50,  51,  52,  54-5, 
62,  69,  110,  156-7,  160,  271,  274,  288, 
319,  331,342,372,373 
also  17,  25,  28,  184,  214,  216,  227,  246, 

375,  416,  434 

Extreme  — ,  Ch.  12,  pp.  47  and  n.,  54  and 
n.,  98,  153-4,  224,  365,  435,  437;  see 
Left  and  Right  (extremes) 


Rimbert,  P.,  cit.  nn.  93-6 

Riots,  demonstrations:  Algiers,  45,  49,  50, 

54,  55,  167,  349,  422,  438;  Paris,  49, 

52,  56,  72,  154,  162  and  n.,  167,  211; 

provinces,  36,  135,  361,  379,  393,  438; 

see  Violence 
Rioux,  L.,  cit.  nn.  19,  34,  41,  84-5,  94, 

96-7,114,137 
Rivarol,  62,  160 
Riviera,  363n. 
Road  hauliers,  356,  370-1,  374n.,  375  and 

n.,  376n.,  379;  see  Motorists 
Robespierre,  Maximilien  (1758-94),  162 
Robinson,  K.  E.,  cit.  nn.  50,  293-5 
Roche,   fimile   (b.    '93,   Rad.    leader   in 

Nord   '32-    ,   Pres.   Econ.    Council 

'54-    ),  122n.,  201n.,  297n. 
Rochet,  see  Waldeck 
Rome,  161,  215n.,  367,  382,  435 
Roncayolo,  see  Olivesi 
Roosevelt,  Pres.  F.  D.,  192;  Pres.  T.  E.,  146 
Rose,  S.,  cit.  nn.  323,  334,  370 
Ross,  A.  M.,  360n. 

Rossi,  A.,  cit.  nn.  18,  19,  70-1,  74,  82,  327 
Rouen,  506 
'Round  Tables',    51,   216,    250   and   n., 

411-12,  450 

Roure,  R6my,  312n.,  375n. 
Rousseau,  Jean- Jacques,  6 
Royalists,  -ism,  7,  148,  151,  159,  161n., 

170,  179  and  n.,  185,  192,  195,  215, 

396 
Royer,  J.  M.,  cit.  nn.  123,  150,  161,  164, 

166,  357-8,  363,  365,  367,  370-2,  381 
Russia,  see  USSR 

SCC  (Stances  de  la  Commission  de  la 
Constitution,  of  the  Constituent 
Assemblies),  cit.  nn.  270,  299-300, 
305,  388 

SDECE,  205n.,  348  and  n. 

SEATO,  225n. 

SFIO,  see  Socialist  Party 

Saar,  47  and  n. 

Sahara,  101,  181,  295n.,  354;  M.  for,  205 

St.  C6r6  (Lot),  162,  163n.,  164,  165 

St.  Die  (Vosges),  367  and  n. 

St.  fitienne,  153n. 

St.  Maur  (Seine),  139 

St.  Nazaire,  69 

St.  Pierre  et  Miquelon,  294n. 

St.  Simonians,  14  and  n. 

Sait,  E.  M.,  277n. 

Sakiet  (Tunisia),  54,  344 

Salan,  Gen.  Raoul  (b.  '99,  C.-in-C.  Far 
East  '48,  Algeria  '56-8,  led  OAS),  51, 

Sangnier,  Marc  (1873-1951,  founded 
Sillon  '94,  MP  '19-24,  MRP  d.  Seine 
3  '45-51),  103  and  n. 

Santa  Claus,  122n. 

Saone,  Haute-  (cap.  Vesoul),  150,  179*. 

Sarraut,  Albert  (1872-1962,  MP  '02,  PM 
•'33,  '36,  Pres,  AFU  '51-8),  122n.,  295 


542 


INDEX 


Sarthe  (cap.  Le  Mans),  178n. 

Sartre,  Jean-Paul,  75 

Saumur  (Maine-et-Loire),  166n. 

Sauvageot.  A.,  cit.  nn.  217,  222,  226,  416 

Sauvy,  A.,  384n. 

Savary,  Alain  (b.  '18,  Soc.  d.  St.  Pierre-et- 

Miquelon    '51-8,   later   PSU),    50n., 

174,  434,  436 
Savoie  (cap.   Chamb6ry),   167n.;   Haute- 

(cap.  Annecy),  332 
Sawyer,  J.  E.,  4n.,  361n. 
Scandals:  generals,  piastres,  wine,  65  and 

a,    89,    145,   223n.,   299,   339,   348; 

leakages,  46,  49  and  n.,  52  and  n., 

159a,  161  and  n.,  339n.,  341,  348, 

350,  351a;  other,  17,  334n.,  351n., 

369,  431 
Scandinavia,  96 
Schmittlein,  Raymond  (b.  '04,  Gaull.  d. 

Belfort  '51-5,  '58-    ,  ex-pres.  UNR 

group),  143n.  A 
Schneiter,  Pierre  (b.  '05,  MRP  d.  Marne 

'45-58,  Pres.  NA  '55),  217,  239  and 

n.,  433 

Schoenbrun,  D.,  cit.  nn.  251,  355,  371,  384 
Schram,  S.,  cit.  nn.  68,  79,  97,  143 
Schuman,    Robert    (1886-1953,    MP    '19, 

chairman  finance  c'tee  '45-6,  MRP  d. 

Moselle  '45-62):  as  PM,  34,  227,  232, 

233n.,  410;  as  Foreign  M.,  40,  44, 

198n.,  346,  349  and  n.,  362,  405,  418, 

425,  435;  other,  23,  35a,  39,  46,  105, 

251n.,   420,   430,   A,  509n.;   and   all 

parties,  254  and  n.;  Soc.,  Rad.,  238n., 

250-1;  Rad.,  Cons.,  39;  UDSR,  175a, 

397 
1st    Schuman   govt,   Nov.    '47-JuTy   '48, 

27,  29,  204n.,  225,  238  and  n.,  254, 

410,  A 
2nd  Schuman  govt.,  5-7  Sep.  '48,  27,  35, 

175a,  205n.,  239n.,  271, 415,  419, 427, 

432 
Schuman  Plan,   see  European  Coal  and 

Steel  Authority 
Schumann,  Maurice  (b.  '11,  Free  French 

broadcaster,  Pres.   MRP  to  '49,   d. 

Nord  2  '45-    ,  chairman  foreign  affs. 

c'tee '58-    ),  112,  433 
Scots,  407 
Scrutin  .  .  .,  see  Elec.  systems;  Parliament 

(voting) 

Scuttle,  govt.  of,  54,  55,  350 
Search  .  . .,  394n.;  see  Change  on  p.  466 
Secretaires  d'etat,  see  Ministers  of  State; 

sous-,  see  Ministers,  junior 
Secrets,  see  Intelligence;  Scandals 
Segelle,  Pierre  (1899-1960,  Soc.  d.  Loiret 

'45-58),  403n.,  A 
Seine  (constituency  1,  Paris  S. ;  2,  NW.; 

3,  NE. ;  4,  banlieue  S. ;  5,  NW. ;  6,  NE.), 

92n.,  93  and  n.,  99,  152n,,  279n.,  280, 

309n.,  323,  327,  357n.,  504 
Seine-et-Marne  (cap.  Melun),  323 
Seine-et-Oise  (constituency  1,  Mantes  and 


N.;  2,  Versailles  and  S.),  152n.,  178n 
357n.,  504 

Seine-Infdrieure  (now  -Maritime;  con- 
stituency 1,  Rouen  and  SE.;  2,  Le 
Havre  and  NW.),  210,  323,  503 

Seligson,  H.,  297n. 

Senate:  of  3  Rep.,  8,  9,  20,  36,  185,  186-7, 
195,  202,  236,  242,  276-8,  279,  280, 
281,  285,  298,  308,  363,  387;  Pres.  of, 
217  and  n.;  Rads.  and,  17,  115,  116, 
121,  185,  187,  214,  276-8,  287n.,  308 

—  in  4  Rep.,  324;  of  5  Rep.,  176n. 
Senators,  in  4  Rep.,  121,  202  and  n,,  214, 

280-1,  286n.,  287  and  n.,  289-90, 
303-4,  311n.,  323;  bills  of,  261, 
281-2,  283,  285  and  n.;  see  Council  of 
Rep. ;  Parliament  (members) 

—  U.S.,  331 

Senegal,  -ese,  92n.,  18 In. 
S6rant,  P.,  158n.,  160n. 

S6rigny,  Alain  de  (b.  '12,  ed.  Echo  d'Alger, 
settlers'  leader,  cand.  s.  '59),  355  andn. 

Serre,  Charles  (1901-53,  d.  Oran  '46-51, 
on  Com.  list  Dordogne  '51),  398n. 

Servin,  Marcel  (b.  '18,  Com.  d.  H-Saone 
'46N-51),  75n.,  78n.,  401 

S6tif  (Algeria),  82n. 

Settlers,  see  N.  Africa 

Seurin,  J.  L.,  cit.  nn.  339-41 

'Shadow  cabinet',  49n.,  377n. 

Sharecroppers,  79,  359 

Sharp,  W.  R.,  cit.  nn.  15,  276-7,  280,  301 

Shopkeepers,  68  and  n.,  82-3,  86,  162-3, 

166-7  andnn.,  316n.,  324, 332, 361, 379, 

380,    381,   382,   384,  446,  see  PME 

— and  Artisans  Defence  Union,  see  UDCA 

Shoup,  C.  S.,  26n. 

Siam,  41,294 

Siege,  state  of,  303,  480 

Siegfried,  Andre"  (1875-1959),  305;  cit.  on 
French  poL  generally,  nn.  3-4,  6-7, 
12,  141,  207,  307,  426,  429,  447;  on 
Centre,  pp.  117,  127,  nn.  26,  109,  112, 
120,  126,  185,  308;  on  Left,  nn.  10, 
79,  99,  126-7,  156;  on  Right,  pp.  154, 
156,  157,  nn.  26,  156,  159,  163,  168-9, 
192;  on  institutions,  nn.  195-200,  250, 
301,  313,  340,  379,  389,  401 

Sieghart,  M.,  270n. 

Sillon,  Le,  103 

Simon,  J.,  85n. 

Simonnet,  Maurice  Ren6  (b.  '19,  MRP  d. 
Drome  '46J-N,  '47-62,  sec.-g.  MRP 
'55-62),  107 

Single-chamber  government,  23 

Sliding  scale,  see  Wages 

Snow-ploughs,  417 

Social  Republicans  (RS:  Gaullists),  40, 
48  and  n.,  70,  136-7,  139  and  n.,  140, 
143n.,  145,  254n.,  323,  412 

Social  security,  15n.,  223n.,  260,  305,  392, 
394;  elections,  83  and  n.,  84,  105n., 
166,  360;  org.,  27,  35,  39,  86,  271,  339, 
343,  361-2,  391  and  n.,  392 


INDEX 


543 


Socialisms  ou  Barbarie,  85n. 
Socialist  Party,  SFIO,  Ch.  7,  and 
history,  17-18,  19,  20-2  and  n.,  32-5, 

36-41,  47-9,  62,  71,  72,  88-91,  187, 

431 

composition,  68-9,  94-6,  101,  404 
clientele,  5,  15,  28,  50,  69,  85,  92-5,  96, 

97,  lOOn.,  323,  375n. 
discipline,  46,  56,  64,  67-8,  91,  93,  99, 

100   and  n.,   288n.,   290,   311,   328, 

374n.,  375n.,  388 
divisions,  88-90,  91,  92  and  n.,  93,  97n., 

100,  173-4,  250,  290,  31  In.,  326,  367, 

372,  377,  399,  400 
membership,  63,  92,  93-4,  96,  99 
militants,  67-8,  88,  90,  91,  93,  95,  97, 

100  and  n.,  318,  366,  388  and  n. 
org.,  64-6,  90,  91-3  and  mi.,  100,  107 

and  n.,  290,  403  and  n. 
funds,  65  and  n.,  91-2,  371n. 
in  par!.,  31-5,  41,  51,  63,  97-8,  212,  243, 

245   and  n.,   248,  253,  265,  284-5, 

410,  425 
and  govt.,  24,  32-5,  37-8,  39,  46,  51,  55, 

70,  88-90,  91,  98-9,   105,  226,  228, 

Ch.  27,  397,  403-4,  405,  406,  412-13, 

417 
and  regime,  88,  90,  96  and  n.,  98,  100-2, 

179 
outlook,  doctrine,  88,  90,  96-8,  100-1, 

110 

tactics,  23,  51,  90,  97-8,  99,  100,  421 
policy,  see  Algeria;  Colonial;  Const.; 

Econ. ;  Electoral ;  Foreign 
and  civil  liberties,  50,  61,  100 
and  civil  service,  37,  68,  95  and  nn., 

99,  264-5,  338,  339n.,  340-1  and  n., 

342,  343n.,  347,  373,  391 
and  scandals,  patronage,  99   and  n., 

339n.,  and  q.v. 

and  Church,  press,  trade  unions,  g.v. 
and  all  parties,  24,  25,  28,  29,  30,  228, 

317,  319,  397,  449;  and  Com.,  q.v. 
and  MRP,  37-8,  89,  90,  97  and  n.,  98, 

103,  105,  106,  107  and  nn.,  Ill,  113, 

248n.,  313,  362,  363,  366,  402,  420 
and  Rad.,  88,  94-5,  97,  98,  111,  115-17, 

118-19  and  n.,  122,  124,  125,  126, 

128  and  n.,  277,  288,  290,  307,  310, 

400,  403,  405,  417 
and    Gaull.,    98,    134-5,    139,    143-4, 

313-14,  323 
and  Cons.,  89,  150,  154,  158,  228,  235, 

308,311,363,427,440 
and  Pouj.,  163, 167n.,  168n. 
and  small  parties,  174,  175,  179,  180 
Socialists:  individual,  47,  49,  69,  105,  165, 

198,  223n.,  237,  247,  250,  289,  299, 

326  and  n.,  327,  328,  330,  331    333, 

342,  347-8,  350n.,  351,  367  and  n., 

408, 414, 419, 430;  ex-,  91, 100-1, 129, 

160,  165n.,  171,  172  and  n.,  173-4, 

177,  178,  180,  325n. 
Solal-Ceiigny,  J.,  cit  nn.  230-5,  239,  274 


Somaliland,  French,  294n. 

Somme  (cap.  Amiens),  lOOn.,  155n.,  166n., 
167nn.,  325  and  n.,  327  and  n. 

Sondages,  see  Polls 

Sonants,  48,  164,  166,  313,  324-5  and  n., 
327n. 

Soubeyrol,  J.,  cit.  nn.  217-19,  260,  269- 
75,  297,  305,  338 

Soudan,  -ese,  181n.,  289 

Soudee,  2 

Soulier,  A.,  cit.  nn,  120,  185,  200,  204, 
207,  224-6,  229-30,  237-8,  244,  255, 
270,  306-8,  398,  418 

Soustelle,  Jacques  (b.  *12,  Gaull.  d, 
Mayenne  '45-6J,  Rhone  1  '51-9,  in. 
in  5  Rep.,  later  E.  Right  leader,  in 
exile),  and  N.  Africa,  46,  49,  130, 
350n.,  377,  408,  432;  as  Gaull. 
leader,  54,  55,  56,  74,  121,  137,  139n., 
143  and  n.,  144,  146,  174,  316,  416, 
430,  436,  509n. 

Soviet  Union,  see  USSR 

Spain,  18,  104,  131  and  n.,  328n.,  410n. 

Speaker,  9,  216,  217,  218,  258 

Special . .  .,  see  Majority 

Special  powers:  257  and  n.,  266,  269-75, 
344,  377-8;  and  const,  191,  270, 
305n.,  338;  to  1940,  11-12,  18-20, 
191,  269-70,  275;  Reynaud's,  35,  233, 
270-1,  281,  286,  297n.,  306,  338; 
1949-52,  267,  271,  272,  343;  Mayer's, 
27,  267,  271-2,  343-4,  380;  Laniel's, 
267,  272  and  n.,  273n.,  274,  347,  356, 
364,  380,  383,  426;  Mendes-France's, 
46, 105, 272;  1956-7, 75, 259n.,  273  and 
n.,  281,  288-9,  400n.;  after  1958,  56, 
162,  275n.,  358  n. 

Special  treasury  accounts,  265  and  n.,  266, 
343  and  n, 

Spinoza,  B.,  7 

Spoils  system,  see  Patronage 

'Stalemate  society',  4n.,  11,  13,  16 

Stalin,  J.  V.,  72,  74,  75,  326;  -ism,  82 

State  employees,  see  Public  employees 

States-general,  257n. 

Statistiques  .  .  .,  26n.,  28n. 

Statut  des  Partis,  387-8 

Steel  industry,  362,  379,  384,  429 

Stibio,  A.,  432n. 

Stoetzel,  J.,  cit.  nn.  68,  122, 125 

Strasbourg,  24,  105,  129,  153n.,  329,  330 

Strikes:  improbable,  358,  361,  376,  382; 
pol.  or  econ.,  72,  74  and  n.,  84,  360, 
380,  381-2;  right  to,  116,  292  and  n., 
337  338n. ;  1947-8, 24, 27, 32  34  36, 37, 
74n.,  84,  134,  171,  200,  218,  286, 
347,  359;  1949-52,  74,  84,  380;  1953, 
40-1,  84,  105,  163,  213n.,  345,  382, 
383;  1955,84,  85n.,  94n  164 

Students,  12,  78n.,  95n.,  11 .,160,  249, 
337,  338,  342,  381,  382,  385 

Sturmthal,  A.,  391n. 

Substitutes  (in  c'tee),  244n.,  252,  299 

Suel,  M.,  198n.,  204n. 


544 


INDEX 


Suez,  49,  52,  67,  91n.,  93n.,  100,  128  and 
n.,  159n.,  165,  172,  214n.,  234,  341, 
345n. 

Suffert,  G.,  cit  nn.  108,  110,  113-14,  155, 
158,  172-3 

'Superman',  46 

Suretd  National?,  348 

Syndicalism,  88,  116,  359,  396 

'System',  the,  20,  48,  79,  98,  128,  165,  166, 
193,  366,  367,  425,  432,  435,  438,  440, 
442,  443,  450,  451;  compromises 
with,  255,  333-4,  408,  426,  431,  436, 
440;  de  Gaulle,  Gaullists  on,  16,  64, 
65,  134,  136,  145,  201,  278,  315, 
398-9,  406,  430,  436;  other  revolts 
against,  44-57,  64,  113,  331,  332,  439, 
447;  see  Coalition  politics;  Party 
system 

Systemes  electoraux,  307n. 

Tammany  Hall,  126 

Tanguy-Prigent,  Francois  (b.  '09,  MP  '36, 

Soc.    d.    Finistere    '45-58,    PSU    d. 

'62-    ),  364 
Tannenbaum,  E.  R.,  cit.  nn.  4,  6,  12-13, 

Tardieu,  Andre  (1876-1945,  MP  '14, 
Cons.  PM  '29),  187,  229n.,  261n. 

Tarn  (cap.  Albi),  160n.s  313,  323n. 

Tavernier,  Y.,  365n. 

Tax:  strike,  382;  system,  35,  163  and  n., 
167,  271,  344n.,  362,  363  and  n.,  378, 
384,  438;  see  Budget  (as  pol.  prob- 
lem) 

Taxpayers'  Defence,  179,  361,  507 

Teachers,  12,  68,  95,  98,  232n.,  247,  332, 
336,  366,  367,  446 

Technocracy,  13-14,  28,  140,  337,  343, 
345-6,  353,  380 

Teitgen,  Henri  (b.  '82,  MRP  d.  Gironde 
'45-51,  cand.  Doubs  '56),  247n., 
375n.;  —  Paul  (son),  51n.,  350 
—  Pierre  Henri  (son,  brother;  b.  '08, 
MRP  d.  Ille-et-V.  '45-58,  Pres.  MRP 
'52-6),  105,  239n.,  247n.,  312n.,  434, 
439n.,  A 

Te'moignage  Chretien,  61 

Temps,  Le,  61,  277 

Temps  Modernes,  62,  17 In. 

Tenants,  see  Housing;  — League,  82  and  n. 
358,  370n.,  376 

Terrenoire,  Louis  (b.  '08,  MRP  and  GauUL 
d.  Orne  '45-51,  '58-60,  '62-  ,  sec.-g. 
RPF  '51,  UNR  '62,  m.  '60-2),  137 

T$te  de  liste,  323,  324  and  n.,  330,  388;  see 
Elec.  systems  (list  voting) 

Textiles,  167  and  n.,  362, 371  and  n.,  384 

Thebault,  Henri  (b.  '21,  Cons.  d.  Cha- 
rente  '56-8),  262  and  n. 

Theolleyre,  J.  M.,  46n. 

Thery,  J.,  cit.  nn.  188,  191-2,  195-9,  203-4, 
222,  225-6,  230,  236,  264,  389,  393 

Thibaudet,  A.,  cit.  14,  103,  125,  352  and 
nn.  3,  98,  115-16, 119-20,  122, 161 


TTiiers,  Adolphe  (1797-1877,  PM  *36  '40 
'71),  159,  195  '  ' 

Third  Force,  28,  29,  32-4,  120,  149,  171 
175,  177,  178,  179,  200,  267n.,  283* 
286,  335,  366,  437 ;  see  Centre 

Thomas,  Abel,  339 

Thomas,  M.,  cit.  nn.  164,  330,  334,  372 

Thomson,  D.,  7n.,  8n. 

Thorez,  Maurice  (b.  '00,  sec.-g.  Com  P 
'30-  ,  MP  '32,  d.  Seine  4  '45-*  )' 
cand.  PM,  24,  394,  400,  401,  A;  in 
party,  71  and  n.,  74nn.,  75n.,  78 
85n.,  86,  87,  324n.,  505,  509n.;  other 
19,  49,  84n.,  210n.,  243,  327n.,  391-2J 
A 

Tillion,  G.,  85n.,  452n. 

Tillon,  Charles  (b.  '97,  MP  '36,  Com.  d 
Seine  6  '45-55),  75,  391  and  nn.,  A 

Times,  London,  21  In.,  26 In. 

Tinguy  du  Pouet,  Lionel  de  (b.  '11,  MRP 
d.  Vendee  '46J-58,  '62-  ),  263n., 
343n.,  A 

Tito,  President,  172n. 

Tixier-Vignancour,  Me  Jean  Louis  (b.  '07, 
MP  '36,  head  of  Vichy  radio  '40-2,  E 
Right   d.    B-Pyr<§n6es   '56-8),    130n.,- 
161   and  nn.,   162,   168,  210n.,  240, 
348,  429,  507 

Tobacco,  375 

Tocqueville,  A.  de,  453n. 

Togliatti,  P.,  86 

Togo,  294n.,  295  and  n. 

Tonkin,  112 

Torres,  Henry  (b.  '91,  ex-Corn.,  MP  '36, 
Gaull.  s.  Seine  '48-58),  143n. 

Touchard,  J.,  cit.  nn.  163-4,  166n.,  168-9, 
355 ;  see  Bodin 

Toulouse,  60,  69,  120,  121n.,  123,  280n., 
401 

Touraine,  A.,  113n. 

Tournoux,  J.  R.,  cit.  nn.  203,  239,  411 

Tours,  71,  88,  93 

Trade  unions,   15,   19,   34,  96-7,  359-60, 
368,  381-2,  446;  and  govt,  275n.,  296 
and    n.,    297-8,    345;    as    pressure- 
group,  35,  36,  343,  363,  392,  423  and 
n.;  and  Com.,  24,  73,  82,  83-4,  96-7, 
359-60,  386,  391,  394;  and  Soc.,  15, 
31-2,  34,  88,  96-7,  99n.,  359-60,  380; 
and  MRP,  28,  360,  380;  and  Rad., 
116,  126;  and  Gaull.,  137,  360 
American,  34n. 
British  and  French,  92,  96 
see  CFTC;  CGC;  CGSI;  CGT;  Force 
ouvriere 

Transport,  M.,  205n.,  342,  379 

Travail  cit.  nn.  214,  219-20,  223-4, 242-5, 
251,  255,  257-60,  262,  264,  267, 
269-74,282,298 

Treaties,  ratifying,  46,  51,  208,  213,  224-5 
and  n.,  243n.,  259nn.,  281,  283,  284n., 
295,  362 

Triboulet,  Raymond  (b.  '06,  Gaull.  d. 
Calvados  '46N-59  and  '62,  ex-pres. 


INDEX 


545 


UNR  group,  m.  in  5  Rep.),  230n.; 
cit.  nn.  202,  259,  289 

Tripartisme,  22,  31,  32,  133-4,  205,  207, 
230,  277,  282,  287;  opponents,  24, 
142,  150,  175,  297,  317,  322,  336,  340, 
341,  386-7,  390-5,  396,  397,  398,  431, 
449,  465 

Trotskyists,  95, 171  andn.,  324n. 

Trusts,  see  Cartels 

Tsar,  the,  435 

Tunis,  40,  50  and  n.,  52;  Bey  of,  199 

Tunisia:  status  of,  180n.,  225,  293-4,  295; 
M.  for,  50n.,  205,  354;  French  in 
(parl.  rep.),  209n.,  279  and  n.,  289; 
French  views  and  policy,  39,  45,  46, 
47,  52,  54,  105,  112,  158,  199,  221n., 
240,  349,  354,  420,  425,  426,  431,  441, 
448;  other,  34n.,  54 

Twenty-one  conditions,  71 

UDCA,  63,  163,  164n.,  166-7  and  n.,  381 

UDI,  150n. 

UDMA,  180 

UDSR,  174-6;  nature  of,  37,  63,  170,  180, 
214-15,  322,  398,  410,  436,  438; 
other,  48,  67,  70,  97,  171n.,  254n.,  392 
and  n.,  397,  399n.,  406,  414,  506,  507; 
and  Rads.,  118,  122  and  n.,  130,  170, 
171,  174  and  n.,  175  and  n.,  177  and 
n.,  178,  328;  and  other  parties,  q.v.; 
individuals,  209n.,  243n.,  323n.,  430 

UDT,  173n. 

UFD,  129,  174 

UFF,  63,  164,  165n,,  166-7  and  nn. 

UGS,  172-3,  174 

UNIR,  160  andn.,  507 

UNR,  143n.,  146,  158n.,  162 

USSR,  and  French  Corns.,  18,  71,  73,  83, 
84n.,  86,  87;  other,  73,  134,  144,  218, 
447;  see  Moscow 

Ulam,  see  Beer 

Union  .  .  .,  see  initial  U ;  —  des  Republicans 
cT Action  Sociale,  136,  see  Social  Re- 
publicans; —  Gaulliste,  132,  133,  173, 
174;  —  Progressiste,  171;  —  des  Re- 
pub  licains  et  Resistants,  171n.,  see 
Progressives 

United  Nations,  190n.,  294n. 

United  States  of  America,  French  atti- 
tudes to,  54,  74,  143,  144,  193,  198, 
409,  447,  510;  other,  27n.,  198,  224n., 
348,  360n. 

—  and  France  compared:  admin,  and 
courts,  273n.,  301,  338,  342n.,  464; 
const.,  regime,  189,  192,  193,  381, 
413,  425-6,  427,  440;  elections,  par- 
ties, 146-7,  169,  307,  314,  418,  431; 
parl.,  216,  218,  219,  243  and  n.,  245, 
256,  331,  333,  371,  409,  428,  432,  450; 
soc.  and  pol.  issues,  3n.,  16,  28,  162, 
364,  445 
University  /',  12,  336,  337,  382,  445-6, 

453 ;  see  Teachers 
Uomo  Qualunque,  169n. 


Urgency      procedure,      see      Parliament 
—  state  of,  273n.,  see  Siege 

Vallon,  Louis  (b.  '01,  Gaull.  d.  Seine  4 
'51-5,  Seine-et-O.  '62-  ,  rapp.-g. 
'62-  ),  133n.,  140n.,  143n.,  144 

Valmy,  168 

Van  Dyke,  V.,  84n. 

Vatican,  103n.,  114,  161,251 

Vaucluse  (cap.  Avignon),  167n.,  322 

Vaugelas,  C.  de,  378n. 

Vedel,  G.,  193,  281n.,  374n. 

Vendee  (cap.  La  Roche-sur-Yon),  6, 153n., 
167n.;  Tittle—',  167n. 

Verdier,  Robert  (b.  '10,  ass.  sec.  Soc.  P. 
'44-6,  d.  '46J-N,  d.  Seine  1  '51-8, 
later  PSU),  400n. 

Vermeersch,  Jeannette  (Mme  Thorez,  b. 
'10,  Com.  d.  Seine  2  '45-58,  s.  '59-  ), 
219n. 

Versailles,  41,  201,  208,  294,  295,  302 

Viatte,  Charles  (MRP  d.  '45-58),  230n. 

Vichy,  -ites:  town,  323;  regime,  3n.,  8,  18, 
72,  140,  159,  160,  346;  lasting  conse- 
quences of,  13,  14  and  n,,  15,  253n., 
347,  356-7,  360,  364,  365,  369;  sup- 
porters, 18,  149,  156,  161nn.;  indi- 
vidual, 7,  65,  153,  161nn.,  162,  224, 
323n.;  ex-,  62,  104,  llln.,  137n.,  141, 
154,  157,  158,  160-1,  162,  177,  298 
and  n.,  359,  372,  393,  433,  448,  506; 
also  19,  73,  89,  197 

Vienne  (cap.  Poitiers),  109n.,  178n.,  330n., 
334n.;  Haute-  (cap.  Limoges),  79n., 
90 

Vienot,  Mme  (Soc.  d.  '46J-47,  later  PSU), 
329n. 

Vietminh,  294 

Vietnam,  -ese,  41,  199,  209n.,  279n.,  293-4 

Vincennes,  331 

Vineyards,  see  Wine 

Violence,  pol.:  assassination,  47,  51-2, 
88,  348n.,  350  and  n.,  355  n.;  elec- 
toral, 48,  164  and  n.,  167,  168,  371n.; 
insurrection,  55-6,  161-2,  180,  191 
and  n.,  202,  211,  217,  239,  302n.,  333, 
340n.,  425,  438n.,  448;  strikes,  32,  36, 
359;  other,  18-19,  47,  50,  51-2,  239, 
288-9,  327,  448;  see  Direct  action; 
Plots;  Purges;  Riots 

Virements,  266,  268n.,  273n. 

Void  pourquoi,  54 

Vole  Communiste,  La,  82n.,  85n. 

Vosges  (cap.  fipinal),  172  and  n.,  316n., 

326n. 
Vote  sans  debat,  see  Parliament 

Wages,  248n.,  249  and  n.,  296,  373;  arbi- 
tration, .collective  bargaining,  37, 
143,  249,  287,  297,  360  and  n.,  368,  - 
403;  sliding  scale  for,  41,  233,  249 
and  n.,  287;  standard  of,  13n.,  26, 
249;  and  parties,  govts.,  24,  27,  105, 
135n.,  394,  409,  442 


546 


INDEX 


Wahl,  Nicholas,  cit.  nn.  7,  12-13,  139, 
146,  190,  339,  346,  433,  440 

Waldeck  Rochet  (b.  '05,  Com.  d.  Saone- 
et-Loire  '45-58,  Seine  '58-  ,  ass.  sec. 
Com.  P.),  329 

Waldeck-Rousseau,  R.  (1864-1904),  195 

Waline,  J.,  cit.  nn.  214-16,  374,  398 

Waline,  M.,  cit.  nn.  283,  292,  299,  329, 
338,  340,  379,  389,  391,  393 

Walter,  G.,  cit.  nn.  71,  76,  80,  93 

Walter,  J.,  355 

War,  '14-18,  9,  18,  88,  116;  '39-45,  12,  13, 
18,  73,  386,  see  German  occupation, 
Resistance;  —  declaration  of,  208,  281 ; 
—  M.  of,  336 

Warner,  C.  K.,  cit.  nn.  355-6,  358,  369, 
378,  382 

Washington,  D.C.,  6, 19, 20, 46, 206,  342n., 
409,  425 

Washington,  Pres.  G.,  192 

Waterloo,  132;  par!.,  285  and  n. 

Weber,  E.,  cit.  nn.  158,  160-1 

Weill-Raynal,  E.  276n.,  306n. 

Weiss,  J.  J.  (1827-91),  195 

Werth,  A.,  cit.  nn.  8,  34,  55-6,  79,  171, 
270,  354,  357,  384,  429 

Westminster,  6,  66,  187,  206,  256 

White,  T.,  432n. 

White,  W.  S.,  427n. 

Williams,  P.  M.,  cit.  nn.:  on  elections,  38, 
78,  97,  99,  123,  139,  164,  167,  237, 
307,  316,  323-31,  357,  370,  424,  433, 
439;  on  ParL,  210,  219-21,  223,  226, 
229,  240,  243, 248-53, 259,  264, 266-7, 
273,  276,  280,  282,  297,  299,  354,  363, 
375,  410;  on  parties,  76,  90,  94-5, 103, 
109,  128,  135,  137-8,  142,  151,  171, 
174,  176,  331,  403-4;  on  regime,  188, 
191,  193,  200-1,  236,  452;  on  1958 
and  after,  55-6,  162,  191,  203,  290, 


301;   other,  46,  206,  300,  306,  338 
343,  348,  351,  355,  363,  375,  417,  44< 

Wilson,  J.  S.  G.,  cit.  nn.  14,  267,  343 

Wine,  -growers,  vineyards,  69,  79,  166 
171,  248,  330,  352,  355-6,  357,  35* 
and    n.,    376    and    n.,    378n.,    382 
—  scandal,  299,  339,  415 

Wisner,  S.,  144n. 

Wolfe,  M.,  26n. 

Women  in  politics,  78,  95-6,  108,  109  and 
n.,  Ill,  118,  133,  277n.,  292,  307,  323, 
330,  332  and  n.,  357,  358,  377 

Workers,  3,  5,  10,  13,  14,  24,  28,  31,  32, 
34n.,  40,  68,  69-70,  80  and  n.,  83,  85 
and  n.,  86,  95,  97n.,  101,  104,  105n., 
108,  109  and  n.,  Ill,  115,  123,  137, 
139n.,  140,  141n.,  289,  292,  331,  332 
and  n.,  359-60,  362,  382,  446,  see 
Trade  unions,  Wages 
— ,  foreign,  34n.;  white-collar,  68, 95  and 
n.,  96,  97n.,  109  and  n.,  296n. 

Wright,  G.,  cit.  nn.  19,  22,  26,  28,  46,  79, 
104,  110,  132,  157-8,  168,  191,  197, 
222,  255,  292-5,  305,  327,  364-5,  388, 
390,  503 

Wylie,  L.,  cit.  nn.  6,  77,  79,  109,  111,  139, 
167-8,  329,  331,  334 

Yiddish,  330 

Yonne  (cap.  Auxerre),  179,  210n. 

'Young  Turks',  120,  121  and  n.,  125,  252- 
3,  401-2,  410,  430 

Youth,  12,  30,  77-8  and  n.,  85n.,  95  and 

nn.,  103,  104,  108,  110,  111,  113,  122 

and  n.,  140,  162,  164n.,  365,  370,  385, 

445-6,     see     Generations,     Students 

— ,  M.  of,  205 

Zhdanov,  A.  A.,  74 
Zoo,  see  Fauna  and  flora