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TheFrench Left (French:Gauche française) refers tocommunist,socialist,social democratic,democratic socialist, andanarchist political forces inFrance. The term originates from theNational Assembly of 1789, where supporters of therevolution were seated on the left of the assembly. During the 1800s, left largely meant support for the republic, whereas right largely meant support for the monarchy.
The left in France was represented at the beginning of the20th century by two mainpolitical parties, namely theRepublican, Radical and Radical-Socialist Party and theFrench Section of the Workers' International (SFIO), created in 1905 as a merger of variousMarxist parties.
In the aftermaths of theRussian Revolution and theSpartacist uprising inGermany, the French Left divided itself inreformists andrevolutionaries during the 1920Tours Congress.
The distinction between left and right wings in politics derives from the seating arrangements which began during the 1789National Assembly, in which the more radicalJacobin deputies sat on the benches to the left of the hall. Throughout the19th century, the main line dividingLeft and Right in France was between supporters of the Republic and those of the Monarchy.[1] On the right, theLegitimists heldcounter-revolutionary views and rejected any compromise with modern ideologies while theOrléanists hoped to create aconstitutional monarchy, under their preferred branch of the royal family, a brief reality after the 1830July Revolution. The Republic itself, or, as it was called byRadical Republicans, the Democratic and Social Republic (la République démocratique et sociale), was the objective of the Frenchworkers' movement, and the lowest common denominator of the French Left. TheJune Days uprising during theSecond Republic was the attempt by the left to assert itself after the1848 Revolution, that foundered on its own divided radicalism which too few of the (still predominantly rural) population shared.
FollowingNapoleon III's1851 coup and the subsequent establishment of theSecond Empire, the Left was excluded from the political arena and focused on organising the workers. The growing French workers movement consisted of diverse strands;Marxism began to rival Radical Republicanism and the "utopian socialism" ofAuguste Comte andCharles Fourier with whomKarl Marx had become disillusioned. Socialism fused with the Jacobin ideals of Radical Republicanism leading to a unique political posture embracing nationalism, socialist measures,[clarification needed] democracy andanti-clericalism (opposition to the role of the church in controlling French social and cultural life) all of which remain distinctive features of the French Left. Mostpracticing Catholics continue to vote conservative while areas which were receptive to the revolution in 1789 continue to vote socialist.
Paris was throughout the 19th century the permanent theater of insurrectionary movements and headquarters of European revolutionaries. Following theFrench Revolution of 1789 and theFirst French Empire ofNapoleon I, the former royal family returned to power in theBourbon Restoration. The Restoration was dominated by theCounter-revolutionaries who refused all inheritance of the Revolution and aimed at re-establishing thedivine right of kings. TheWhite Terror struck the Left, while theultra-royalists tried to bypass their king on his right. This intransigence of theLegitimists, however, finally led toCharles X's downfall during the Three Glorious Days, orJuly Revolution of 1830. TheHouse of Orléans, cadet branch of the Bourbon, then came to power withLouis-Philippe, marking the new influence of the second, important right-wing tradition of France (according to the historianRené Rémond's famous classification), theOrléanists. Moreliberal than the aristocratic supporters of the Bourbon, the Orleanists aimed at achieving a form of national reconciliation, symbolized by Louis-Philippe's famous statement in January 1831: "We will attempt to remain in a 'juste milieu' (the middle ground), in an equal distance from the excesses of popular power and the abuses of royal power."[a]
The July Monarchy was thus divided into the supporters of the "Citizen King", of theconstitutional monarchy and ofcensus suffrage, the right-wing opposition to the regime (theLegitimists) and the left-wing opposition (theRepublicans and Socialists). The loyalists were divided into two parties, the conservative, center-right,Parti de la résistance (Party of the Resistance), and thereformist center-leftParti du mouvement (Party of the Movement). Republicans and Socialists, who requested social and political reforms, includinguniversal suffrage and the "right to work" (droit du travail), were then at the far-left of the political board. TheParti du mouvement supported the "nationalities" in Europe, which were trying, all over of Europe, to shake the grip of the various Empires in order to createnation states. Its mouthpiece wasLe National. The center-right was conservative and supported peace with European monarchs, and had as mouthpieceLe Journal des débats.
The only social law of the bourgeois July Monarchy was to outlaw, in 1841,labor to children under eight years of age, and night labor for those of less than 13 years. The law, however, was almost never implemented. Christians imagined a "charitable economy", while the ideas of Socialism, in particularutopian socialism (Saint-Simon,Charles Fourier, etc.) diffused themselves.Louis Auguste Blanqui theorized Socialist coup d'états, the socialist andanarchist thinkerPierre-Joseph Proudhon theorizedmutualism, whileKarl Marx arrived in Paris in 1843, and met thereFriedrich Engels.
Marx had come to Paris to work withArnold Ruge, another revolutionary from Germany, on theDeutsch–Französische Jahrbücher, while Engels had come especially to meet Marx. There, he showed him his work,The Condition of the Working Class in England. Marx wrote for theVorwärts revolutionary newspaper, established and run by the secret society calledLeague of the Just, founded by German workers in Paris in 1836 and inspired by the revolutionaryGracchus Babeuf and his ideal ofsocial equality. The League of the Just was a splinter group from theLeague of the Just (Bund der Geaechteten) created in Paris two years before byTheodor Schuster,Wilhelm Weitling and others German emigrants, mostlyjourneymen. Schuster was inspired by the works ofPhilippe Buonarroti. The latter league had a pyramidal structure inspired by thesecret society of the RepublicanCarbonari, and shared ideas with Saint-Simon andCharles Fourier's utopian socialism. Their aim was to establish a "Social Republic" in the German states which would respect "freedom", "equality" and "civic virtue".
The League of the Just participated in theBlanquist uprising of May 1839 in Paris.[3] Hereafter expelled from France, the League of the Just moved to London, where they would transform themselves into theCommunist League.
In his spare time, Marx studied Proudhon, whom he would later criticize inThe Poverty of Philosophy (1847). He developed histheory of alienation in theEconomic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, published posthumously, as well as his theory ofideology inThe German Ideology (1845), in which he criticized theYoung Hegelians: "It has not occurred to any one of these philosophers to inquire into the connection ofGerman philosophy with German reality, the relation of their criticism to their own material surroundings.".[4] For the first time, Marx related history of ideas with economic history, linking the "ideological superstructure" with the "economical infrastructure", and thus tying togetherphilosophy and economics. Inspired both byGeorg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel andAdam Smith, he imagined an original theory based on the key Marxist notion ofclass struggle, which appeared to him self-evident in the Parisian context of insurrection and permanent turmoil. "The dominant ideology is the ideology of the dominant class," did he conclude in his essay, setting up the program for the years to come, a program which would be further explicated inThe Communist Manifesto, published on 21 February 1848, as the manifesto of the Communist League, three days before the proclamation of theSecond Republic. Arrested and expelled to Belgium, Marx was then invited by the new regime back to Paris, where he was able to witness theJune Days uprising first hand.
The February 1848 Revolution toppled the July Monarchy, replaced by theSecond Republic (1848–1852), while theJune Days uprising (or June 1848 Revolution) gave a lethal blow to the hopes of a "Social andDemocraticRepublic" ("la République sociale et démocratique", or "La Sociale"). On 2 December 1851,Louis Napoleon ended the Republic by acoup d'état proclaiming theSecond Empire (1852–1870) the next year. The Second Republic, however, is best remembered for having first established maleuniversal suffrage and forVictor Schœlcher'sabolition ofslavery on 27 April 1848. The February Revolution also established the principle of the "right to work" (droit au travail – or "right to have a work"), and decided to establish "National Workshops" for theunemployed. At the same time, a sort of industrial parliament was established at theLuxembourg Palace, under the presidency ofLouis Blanc, with the object of preparing a scheme for the organization of labour. These tensions between right-wing,liberalOrléanists, and left-wing,Radical Republicans and Socialists caused the second, June Revolution. In December,presidential elections were held, for the first time in France. Democracy seemed at first to triumph, asuniversal suffrage was implemented also for the first time. The left was divided however into four candidacies,Lamartine andCavaignac, the repressor of the June Days Uprising, on the center-left,Alexandre Auguste Ledru-Rollin as representative of the Republican Left, andRaspail as far-left, Socialist, candidate. Both Raspail and Lamartine obtained less than 1%, Cavaignac reached almost 20%, while the princeLouis-Napoleon Bonaparte surprisingly won the election with almost 75% of the votes, marking an important defeat of the Republican and Socialist camps.
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After having been elected by universal suffrage President of the Republicin December 1848,Louis Napoleon Bonaparte took power during the1851 coup, and proclaimed himself Emperor, establishing theSecond Empire. This was a blow to the Left's hopes during the Republic, which had already been crushed after theJune Days uprising during which the bourgeoisie took the upper hand. Napoleon III followed at first authoritarian policies, before attempting a liberal shift in the end of his reign. Many left-wing activists exiled themselves to London, where theFirst International was founded in 1864.
After theParis Commune of 1871, the French Left was decimated for ten years. Until the 1880s general amnesty, this harsh repression, directed byAdolphe Thiers, would heavily disorganize the Frenchlabour movement during the early years of theFrench Third Republic (1871–1940). According to historianBenedict Anderson...
"roughly 20,000 Communards or suspected sympathizers [were executed during the Bloody Week], a number higher than those killed in the recent war or duringRobespierre's ‘Terror’ of 1793–94. More than 7,500 were jailed or deported to places likeNew Caledonia. Thousands of others fled to Belgium, England, Italy, Spain and the United States. In 1872, stringent laws were passed that ruled out all possibilities of organizing on the left. Not till 1880 was there a general amnesty for exiled and imprisoned Communards. Meantime, the Third Republic found itself strong enough to renew and reinforceLouis Napoleon's imperialist expansion—in Indochina, Africa, and Oceania. Many of France's leading intellectuals and artists had participated in the Commune (Courbet was its quasi-minister of culture,Rimbaud andPissarro were active propagandists) or were sympathetic to it. The ferocious repression of 1871 and after was probably the key factor in alienating these milieux from the Third Republic and stirring their sympathy for its victims at home and abroad."[5]
TheFebruary 1871 legislative elections had been won by the monarchistsOrléanists andLegitimists, and it was not until the1876 elections that theRepublicans won a majority in theChamber of Deputies. Henceforth, the first task for the center-left was to firmly establish theThird Republic, proclaimed in September 1870. Rivalry between theLegitimists and theOrléanists prevented a newBourbon Restoration, and the Third Republic became firmly established with the 1875 Constitutional Laws. However, anti-Republican agitation continued, with various crisis, including theBoulangisme crisis or theDreyfus affair. The main political forces in the Left at this time were theOpportunist Republicans, theRepublican, Radical and Radical-Socialist Party, and the emergent Socialist parties who won several municipal elections in the 1880s, establishing what has been dubbed "municipal socialism." At the turn of the 20th century, the Radicals replaced the Opportunists as the main center-left forces, although the latter, who slowly became social conservatives, continued to claim their place as members of the Left – a political phenomenon known as "sinistrisme".
Furthermore, theWaldeck Rousseau law of 1884, legalized trade-unions, enabling the creation of theConfédération générale du travail (General Confederation of Labour, CGT) eleven years later, issued from a merger ofFernand Pelloutier'sBourse du Travail and other, local workers' associations. Dominated by anarcho-syndicalists, the unification of the CGT culminated in 1902, attracting figures such asVictor Griffuelhes orÉmile Pouget, and then boasting 100,000 members.
Thus, until the turn of the 20th century, the dominant forces of the French Left were composed of theOpportunist Republicans, who considered that the Republican regime could only be consolidated by successive phases. Those dominated French politics from 1876 to the 1890s. The "Opportunists" included figures such asLéon Gambetta, leader of theRepublican Union who had participated to the Commune,Jules Ferry, leader of theRepublican Left [fr;nl] who passed theJules Ferry laws on public, mandatory and secular education,Charles de Freycinet, who directed several governments in this period,Jules Favre,Jules Grévy orJules Simon. While Gambetta opposedcolonialism as he considered it a diversion from the "blue line of theVosges", that is of the possibility of arevenge against the newly foundedGerman Empire, Ferry was part of the "colonial lobby" who took part in theScramble for Africa.
The Opportunists broke away with theRepublican, Radical and Radical-Socialist Party which aimed at deep transformations of society, leading to strong disagreements in the Chamber of Deputies, in particular withGeorges Clemenceau. At the end of the 19th century, the Opportunists were replaced by the Radicals as the primary force in French politics.
In 1879,Paul Brousse founded the first Socialist party of France, dubbedFederation of the Socialist Workers of France (Fédération des travailleurs socialistes de France, FTSF). It was characterised as "possibilist" because it promoted gradual reforms. In the same time,Édouard Vaillant and the heirs ofLouis Auguste Blanqui founded theCentral Revolutionary Committee (Comité révolutionnaire central or CRC), which represented the French revolutionary tradition. However, three years later,Jules Guesde andPaul Lafargue (the son-in-law ofKarl Marx, famous for having writtenThe Right to Be Lazy, which criticizedlabour'salienation) left the federation, which they considered too moderate, and founded theFrench Workers' Party (Parti ouvrier français, POF) in 1880, which was the firstMarxist party inFrance.
A few years later, parts of theanarchist movement, based in Switzerland, started theorizingpropaganda of the deed.Bakunin and other federalists had been excluded byKarl Marx from the First International (orInternational Workingmen's Association, founded in London in 1864) during theHague Congress of 1872. The Socialist tradition had split between the anarchists, or "anti-authoritarian Socialists", and the Communists. A year after their exclusion, the Bakuninists created theJura Federation, which called for the creation of a new, anti-authoritarian International, dubbedAnarchist St. Imier International (1872–1877). The latter was made up of several groups, mainly theItalian,Spanish,Belgian,American, French and Swiss sections, who opposed Marx's control of the Central Council and favoured the autonomy of national sections free from centralized control.
In December 1893, the anarchistAuguste Vaillant threw a bomb in the National Assembly, injuring one. The Opportunist Republicans swiftly reacted, voting two days later the "lois scélérates", severely restrictingfreedom of expression. The first one condemned apology of any felony or crime as a felony itself, permitting widespreadcensorship of the press. The second one allowed to condemn any person directly or indirectly involved in a propaganda of the deed act, even if no killing was effectively carried on. The last one condemned any person or newspaper using anarchistpropaganda (and, by extension, socialist libertarians present or former members of the International Workingmen's Association (IWA)). Thus,free speech and encouraging propaganda of the deed orantimilitarism was severely restricted. Some people were condemned to prison for rejoicing themselves of the 1894 assassination of French presidentMarie François Sadi Carnot by the Italian anarchistSante Geronimo Caserio.
Following these events, the United Kingdom once again became the last haven forpolitical refugees, in particular anarchists, who were all conflated with the few who had engaged in bombings. Henceforth, the UK became a nest for anarchist colonies expelled from the continent, in particular between 1892 and 1895, which marked the height of the repression.Louise Michel, aka "the Red Virgin",Émile Pouget orCharles Malato were the most famous of the many, anonymous anarchists,deserters or simple criminals who had fled France and other European countries. These exiles would only return to France after PresidentFélix Faure'samnesty in February 1895. A few hundreds persons related to the anarchist movement would however remain in the UK between 1880 and 1914. In reaction, the British restrictedright of asylum, a national tradition since theReformation in the 16th century. Several hate campaigns were issued in the British press in the 1890s against these French exiles, resulting in riots and a "restrictionist" party which advocated the end of liberality concerning freedom of movement, and hostility towards French and international activists[6]
In the meanwhile, important figures in the anarchist movement began to distance themselves with this understanding of "propaganda of the deed", in part because of the state repression against the whole labor movement provoked by such individual acts. In 1887,Peter Kropotkin thus wrote inLe Révolté that "it is an illusion to believe that a few kilos ofdynamite will be enough to win against the coalition of exploiters".[7] A variety of anarchists advocated the abandonment of these sorts of tactics in favor of collective revolutionary action, for example through thetrade union movement. Theanarcho-syndicalist,Fernand Pelloutier, leader of theBourse du Travail from 1895 until his death in 1901, argued in 1895 for renewed anarchist involvement in the labor movement on the basis that anarchism could do very well without "the individual dynamiter."
TheFédération des Bourses du Travail was created in 1892, on a decentralized basis, federating each city workers' organization. Three years later, they merged in theConfédération générale du travail (CGT) trade-union, dominated by anarcho-syndicalists until the First World War. In 1894, the government ofPierre Waldeck-Rousseau, a moderate Republican, had legalized workers' and employers' trade-unions (Waldeck-Rousseau Act), thus allowing such a legal form of association. The CGT's most important sections were then workers in railway companies and in the printing industry (cheminots andouvriers du livre). For decades, the CGT would dominate the labor movement, keeping away from the political field and the parliamentary system (See below: Creation of the SFIO andCharter of Amiens.).
Furthermore, theDreyfus affair divided again France into two rival camps, the Right (Charles Maurras) supporting the Army and the Nation, while the Left (Émile Zola,Georges Clemenceau) supportedhuman rights and Justice. The Dreyfus Affair witnessed the birth of the modernintellectual engaging himself in politics, while nationalism, which had been previously, under the form ofliberal nationalism, a characteristic of the Republican Left, became a right-wing trait, mutating into a form ofethnic nationalism. The Left itself was divided amongRadical Republicans and the new, emerging forces advocating Socialism, whether in itsMarxist interpretation orrevolutionary syndicalism tradition.
By 1896, French socialists had acquired control of 157 town councils. They provided public baths, washing troughs, parks, strike funds, legal aid, meals at school, and crèches.[8] Socialist municipalities also provided homes for victims of industrial accidents and improved conditions for council workers.[9]
The left in France was represented at the beginning of the20th century by two mainpolitical parties, namely theRepublican, Radical and Radical-Socialist Party and theFrench Section of the Workers' International (SFIO), created in 1905 as a merger of variousMarxist parties.
In 1914, after the assassination of the leader of the SFIO,Jean Jaurès, who had upheld aninternationalist andanti-militarist line, the SFIO accepted to join theUnion sacrée national front. In the aftermaths of theRussian Revolution and theSpartacist uprising inGermany, the French Left divided itself inreformists andrevolutionaries during the 1920Tours Congress which saw the majority of the SFIO spin-out to form theFrench Section of the Communist International (SFIC).
The early French Left was often alienated into the Republican movements.
In 1902, Jules Guesde'sFrench Workers' Party (POF) merged with others socialist parties to form theSocialist Party of France (Parti socialiste de France, PSF), and finally merged in 1905 withJean Jaurès'Parti socialiste français to form theFrench Section of the Workers' International (SFIO).Marcel Cachin, who would lead the split in 1920 which led to the creation of theFrench Communist Party (first SFIC, then PCF) and editedL'Humanité newspaper, became a member of the POF in 1891.
In the 1880s, the Socialists knew their first electoral success, conquering some municipalities.Jean Allemane and some FTSF members criticized the focus on electoral goals. In 1890, they created theRevolutionary Socialist Workers' Party (Parti ouvrier socialiste révolutionnaire or POSR), which advocated the revolutionary "general strike". Additionally, some deputies took the name Socialist without adhering to any party. These mostly advocated moderation andreform.
In 1899, a debate raged among Socialist groups about the participation ofAlexandre Millerand inPierre Waldeck-Rousseau's cabinet (Bloc des gauches, Left-Wing Block), which included theMarquis de Gallifet, best known for having directed the bloody repression during the Paris Commune, alongside Radicals. Furthermore, the participation in a "bourgeois government" sparked a controversy opposing Jules Guesde toJean Jaurès. In 1902, Guesde and Vaillant founded theSocialist Party of France, while Jaurès, Allemane and the possibilists formed theFrench Socialist Party. In 1905, during the Globe Congress, under the pressure of theSecond International, the two groups merged in theFrench Section of the Workers' International (SFIO).
The party remained hemmed in between theRadical Party and therevolutionary syndicalists who dominated the trade unions. TheGeneral Confederation of Labour, created in 1895 from the fusion of the variousBourse du Travail (Fernand Pelloutier), the unions and the industries' federations, claimed its independence and the non-distinction between political and workplace activism. This was formalized by theCharter of Amiens in 1906, a year after the unification of the other socialist tendencies in the SFIO party. The Charte d'Amiens, a cornerstone of the history of the French labor movement, asserted the autonomy of theworkers' movement from the political sphere, preventing any direct link between a trade-union and a political party. It also proclaimed a revolutionary syndicalist perspective of transformation of society, through the means of thegeneral strike. This was also one of the founding piece ofGeorges Sorel's revolutionary syndicalist theory.
Following World War I, thedemographics of France were deeply renewed, with an increasing urban population, including many workers, and more immigrants to replace the deceased manpower. These demographic changes were important for the left, providing it important electoral supports. Furthermore, the slaughter during the war lead to renewedpacifism feelings, incarnated byHenri Barbusse'sUnder Fire (1916). Many veterans, such asPaul Vaillant-Couturier, then became famous communists. Finally, theRussian Revolution lifted great hopes in theworkers' movement (Jules Romains hailed this "grande lueur venue de l'Est" – "great light coming from the East"). On the opposite side of the political board, the conservatives played on the "red scare" and won a massive victory during the1919 election, forming theNational Bloc.
The new context issued of the Russian Revolution brought a new split in the French Left, realized during the 1920Tours Congress when the majority of the SFIO (includingBoris Souvarine,Fernand Loriot, etc.) decided to join theThird International, thus creating the SFIC (futureFrench Communist Party, PCF), whileLéon Blum and others remained in the reformist camp, in order to "keep the old house" (Blum).Marcel Cachin andLudovic-Oscar Frossard travelled to Moscow, invited by Lenin.
Opposed to collaboration with thebourgeois parties, the SFIC criticized the firstCartel des Gauches (Left-Wing Cartel) which had won the1924 elections, refusing to choose between Socialists (SFIO) andRadicals (or, as they put it, between "the plague and cholera"). After Lenin's death in 1924, the SFIC radicalized itself, following the Komintern's directions. Founders of the party were expelled, such as Boris Souvarine, therevolutionary syndicalistPierre Monatte, orTrotskyistintellectuals such asAlfred Rosmer orPierre Naville. The SFIC thus lost members, decreasing from 110,000 in 1920 to 30,000 in 1933.
In the same time, the SFIC organized theanti-colonialist struggle, encouragingAbd el-Krim's insurgents during theRif War or organizing an alternative exhibition during the 1931Paris Colonial Exposition. The Communist Party was then admired by intellectuals such as thesurrealists (André Breton,Louis Aragon,Paul Éluard...). Young philosophers such asPaul Nizan also joined it. The poet Aragon traveled to the United States, and maintained indirect relations through his wifeElsa Triolet with the Russian poetVladimir Mayakovsky.
On the other hand, the SFIO opposed the revolutionary strategy of the SFIC, although maintaining aMarxist language, and prepared itself to seize power through the elections. It allied itself with the Radical-Socialist Party in theCartel des Gauches, enabling it to win the1924 election. The RadicalsÉdouard Herriot orÉdouard Daladier then incarnated the Radicals' opening to both Marxist parties, the SFIO and the SFIC. However, despite their alliance, the SFIO and the Radicals diverge on their views on the role of the state or on their attitude towards Capitalism and the middle classes.
Following theWall Street crash of 1929 and the beginning of theGreat Depression in France in 1931, debates arose inside the SFIO concerning the role of the state.Marcel Déat andAdrien Marquet created aNeo-Socialist tendency and were expelled from the SFIO in November 1933. Others, responding to the debates lifted in the right-wing by theNon-Conformist Movement, theorizedplanism to answer the ideological and political crisis lifted by the inefficiency ofclassical liberalism and refusal ofstate interventionism in the economy. In the left-wing of the SFIO, the tendencies namedBataille socialiste (Socialist Struggle) andMarceau Pivert'sGauche révolutionnaire (Revolutionary Left) engaged themselves in favor of a Proletarian Revolution.
In 1932 a secondCartel des Gauches won the election, but this time the SFIO did not associate themselves in the government. The leader of the Cartel, Daladier, was forced to resign following6 February 1934 crisis organized byfar-right leagues, which were immediately interpreted by the French Left as a Fascist coup d'état attempt. This led to the creation of ananti-fascist movement in France, unifying Socialists and Communists together against the fascist threat in aunited front. TheComité de vigilance des intellectuels antifascistes (CVIA) was henceforth created, while theFrench Communist Party (PCF) signed a pact of unity of action with the SFIO in July 1935. The Comintern had then adopted thepopular front strategy against fascism. The leader of the PCF,Maurice Thorez, then initiated apatriotic turn opposed to previous internationalism.
On the other hand, in June 1934Leon Trotsky initiated theFrench Turn, a strategy ofentryism in the SFIO, supported byRaymond Molinier but opposed byPierre Naville.
The same year, theConfédération générale du travail unitaire (CGTU) trade-union, which had split from theCGT after the Tours Congress, was reintegrated to the CGT. This alliance between Socialists and Communists paved the way for the victory of thePopular Front during the1936 election, leadingLéon Blum to become prime minister. Opposed to the alliance with bourgeois parties, the Trotskyists divided themselves, about 600 of them leaving the SFIO.
This new alliance between the two rival Marxist parties (the reformist SFIO and the revolutionary PCF) was an important experience mainly at the level of the party leaders. The base was already used to work together, from Social-Democrats toanarchists, against the rise of fascism.
Headed byLéon Blum, the Popular Front won the3 May 1936 election, leading to a government composed of Radical and Socialist ministers. Just as the SFIO had supported theCartel des Gauches without participating to it, the PCF supported the Popular Front without entering government. At the beginning of June 1936, massive strikes acclaimed the victory of the union of the Lefts, with more than 1.5 million workers on strike. On 8 June 1936, theMatignon Accords granted the 40 hours workweek to the workers, as well as right ofcollective bargaining, right ofstrike action, and dismantled all laws preventing organization of trade-unions. After having won these new rights,Maurice Thorez, the leader of the PCF, pushed workers to stop the strikes, preventing an over-radicalization of the situation.
The Popular Front saw harsh opposition from the conservatives and theFrench far-right. Fearing the action of theextra-parliamentary right-wing leagues, Blum had prohibited them, leadingFrançois de La Rocque to transform theCroix-de-Feu league into a new, mass party, dubbedFrench Social Party (PSF).Charles Maurras, the leader of the monarchistAction Française (AF) movement, threatened Blum with death, alluding to his Jewish origins.[10] On the other hand, the MinisterRoger Salengro was pushed to suicide after attacks by a right-wing newspaper. Finally, theCagoule terrorist group attempted several attacks.
In 1938, Marceau Pivert's Revolutionary Left tendency was expelled from the SFIO, and he created theWorkers and Peasants' Socialist Party (PSOP) along withLuxemburgists such asRené Lefeuvre.
After the Liberation, the SFIO, under the leadership ofGuy Mollet (1946–1969), definitively adopted asocial-democrat, reformist stance, and most of its members supported thecolonial wars, in turn opposed by the PCF. The Communist Party enjoyed high popularity due to its active role in theResistance, and was then dubbed "parti des 85 000 fusillés" ("party of the 85,000 executed people"). On the other hand, the labor movement, which had been re-unified in theCGT during the Popular Front, split again. In 1946, theanarcho-syndicalists created theConfédération nationale du travail (CNT) trade-union, while other anarchists had already created, in 1945, theFédération Anarchiste (FA).
TheProvisional Government of the French Republic (GPRF) twice had as President of the Councils figures of the SFIO (Félix Gouin andLéon Blum). Although the GPRF was active only from 1944 to 1946, it had a lasting influence, in particular regarding the enacting oflabour laws, which were envisioned by theNational Council of the Resistance, the umbrella organisation which united all Resistant movements, in particular the CommunistFront National, political front of theFrancs-Tireurs et Partisans (FTP) Resistance movement. Beside de Gaulle's ordinances granting, for the first time in France,right of vote to women, the GPRF passed various labour laws, including the 11 October 1946 act establishingoccupational medicine. From 1945 to 1947, a socialist agricultural minister under Charles De Gaulle developed provision for marketing agencies and the protection of tenant rights.[11] A Socialist law of 1946 replaced the metayage system with a tenancy statute (statut de fermage) that provided greater security from eviction "and put a normal annual rent in place of the tithe".[12]
Paul Ramadier's Socialist government then crushed theMalagasy Uprising of 1947, killing up to 40,000 people. Ramadier also accepted the terms of theMarshall Plan and excluded the five Communist ministers (among whom the vice-Premier,Maurice Thorez, head of the PCF) during theMay 1947 crises – an event which simultaneously occurred inItaly. This exclusion put an end to theThree-parties alliance between the PCF, the SFIO and the Christian-DemocratPopular Republican Movement (MRP), which had been initiated afterCharles de Gaulle's resignation in 1946.
Jules Moch (SFIO), Interior Minister ofRobert Schuman's cabinet, re-organized in December 1947 theGroupe mobile de réserve (GMR) anti-riot police (created duringVichy), renamedCompagnies Républicaines de Sécurité (CRS), in order to crush the insurrectionary strikes started at theRenault factory inBoulogne-Billancourt by anarchists and Trotskyists. This repression split the CGT, leading to the formation in April 1948 of the spin-offForce Ouvrière (FO), headed byLéon Jouhaux and subsidised by theAmerican Federation of Labor (AFL), and assisted by the AFL sole representative in Europe,Irving Brown, who worked withJay Lovestone.[13][14]
The Three-Parties alliance was succeeded by theThird Force (1947–1951), a coalition gathering the SFIO, the United States center-right party, the Radicals, the MRP and other centrist politicians, opposed both to the Communist and theGaullist movement. The Third Force was also supported by the conservativeNational Centre of Independents and Peasants (CNIP), which succeeded in having its most popular figure,Antoine Pinay, named president of the Council in 1952, a year after the dissolving of the Third Force coalition.
When French Generals threatenedPierre Pflimlin's government with acoup in May 1958, leading to the recall ofCharles de Gaulle to power in the turmoil of theAlgerian War (1954–62), the Radicals and the SFIO supported his return and the establishment of the semi-presidential regime of theFifth Republic. On the left, however, various personalities opposed de Gaulle's come-back, seen as an authoritarian threat. Those includedFrançois Mitterrand, who was minister ofGuy Mollet's Socialist government,Pierre Mendès France (a Young Turk and former prime minister),Alain Savary (also a member of the SFIO party), theCommunist Party, etc. Mendès-France and Savary, opposed to their respective parties' support to de Gaulle, would form together, in 1960, theParti socialiste autonome (PSA, Socialist Autonomous Party), ancestor of theParti socialiste unifié (PSU, Unified Socialist Party).
Although Guy Mollet's government had enacted repressive policies against theNational Liberation Front (FLN), most of the left, including thepersonalist movement which expressed itself inEsprit, opposed thesystematic use of torture by the French Army. Anti-colonialists andanti-militarists signed theManifesto of the 121, published inL'Express in 1960. Although the use of torture quickly became well-known and was opposed by the left-wing opposition, the French state repeatedly denied its employment,censoring more than 250 books, newspapers and films (inmetropolitan France alone) which dealt with the subject (and 586 in Algeria).[15]Henri Alleg's 1958 book,La Question,Boris Vian'sThe Deserter,Jean-Luc Godard's 1960 filmLe petit soldat (released in 1963) andGillo Pontecorvo'sThe Battle of Algiers (1966) were famous examples of such censorship. A confidential report of theInternational Committee of the Red Cross leaked toLe Monde newspaper confirmed the allegations of torture made by the opposition to the war, represented in particular by theFrench Communist Party (PCF) and otheranti-militarist circles. Although many left-wing activists, including famousexistentialists writersJean-Paul Sartre andAlbert Camus, and historianPierre Vidal-Naquet, denounced without exception the use of torture, the French government was itself headed in 1957 by the general secretary of the SFIO,Guy Mollet. In general, the SFIO supported the colonial wars during theFourth Republic (1947–54), starting with the crushing of theMalagasy Uprising in 1947 by the socialist government ofPaul Ramadier.
In the years after the end of the Second World War, parties of the Left were able to implement innovative reforms in various local authorities that came under their control.[16] Communist-headed municipalities, for instance, acquired a reputation (like their Italian equivalents) of often being innovative, being honest, and being generally well run. In comparison with non-Communist authorities, Communist authorities tended to levy higher local taxes, charge lower rates for use of services, and use less of their revenue for self-financing investment. In addition, Communist authorities devoted a considerably greater proportion of resources than non-Communist authorities to educational and social programmes.[17] According to a study by Andrew Knapp and Vincent Wright, at a time of more or less full employment "Communist mayors were purposeful and competent at building housing, schools, clinics, sports halls and cultural centres", but were however "far less successful at delivering the economic development that became the key voter priority as joblessness rose in the 1980s".[18]
Socialist-led authorities were also innovative like PCF-led authorities, with a greater priority given by such councils to educational and social policies and public services than by councils headed by parties of the Centre and Right, although spending was not as proportionately high as in PCF-led municipalities. According to a study by Neill Nugent and David Lowe, there appeared to be "a much greater variation in specific priorities between PS-led councils than between PCF-led councils", with the range of issues identified by PS councillors and mayors as constituting their accomplishments and objectives being "enormously varied". As noted by the study, while traditional and expected concerns with issues such as urban renewal, educational facilities, transport, and housing remained, these had been supplanted by "a wide range of community, cultural and environmental interests". Amongst such accomplishments being cited by Socialist mayors in early 1980 included waste disposal schemes, the creation of pedestrian-only areas in town centres, the provision of municipal taxi and bicycle services, and making facilities available for young people (which included, in the one municipality, helping to set up cafes managed by young people themselves). One innovative authority, La Rochelle, had been led by Michel Crepeau (a proponent of environmentalism) of the MRG since 1971, and amongst his priorities had been a major waste recycling scheme which had come to make a profit for the town.[17]
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