The Radical Party, officially the Republican, Radical and Radical-Socialist Party, is a liberal and social-liberal political party in France. Since 1971, to prevent confusion with the Radical Party of the Left (PRG), it has also been referred to as Parti radical valoisien, after its headquarters on the rue de Valois. The party's name has been variously abbreviated to PRRRS, Rad, PR and PRV. Founded in 1901, the PR is the oldest active political party in France.
The Radical Party of the Left is a social-liberal political party in France. A party in the Radical tradition, since 1972 the PRG was a close ally of the major party of the centre-left in France, the Socialist Party. After the 2017 presidential and legislative elections, negotiations to merge the PRG with the Radical Party began and the refounding congress to reunite the parties into the Radical Movement was held on 9 and 10 December 2017. However, a faction of ex-PRG members, including its last president Sylvia Pinel, split from the Radical Movement in February 2019 due to its expected alliance with La République En Marche in the European elections and resurrected the PRG.
Liberalism and radicalism have played a role in the political history of France. The main line of conflict in France in the long nineteenth century was between monarchists and republicans. The Orléanists, who favoured constitutional monarchy and economic liberalism, were opposed to the Republican Radicals.
The Cartel of the Left was the name of the governmental alliance between the Radical-Socialist Party, the socialist French Section of the Workers' International (SFIO), and other smaller left-republican parties that formed on two occasions in 1924 to 1926 and in 1932 to 1933. The Cartel des gauches twice won general elections, in 1924 and in 1932. The first Cartel was led by Radical-Socialist Édouard Herriot, but the second was weakened by parliamentary instability and was without one clear leader. Following the 6 February 1934 crisis, President of the Council Édouard Daladier had to resign, and a new Union Nationale coalition, led by the right-wing Radical Gaston Doumergue, took power.
Legislative elections were held in France on 4 and 11 March 1973, to elect the fifth National Assembly of the Fifth Republic.
The Rally of Republican Lefts was an electoral alliance during the French Fourth Republic composed of the Radical Party, the Independent Radicals, the Democratic and Socialist Union of the Resistance (UDSR) and several conservative groups. Headed by Jean-Paul David, founder of the anti-Communist movement Paix et Liberté, it was in fact a right-of-center conservative coalition, which presented candidates to the June 1946, November 1946, and 1951 legislative elections.
Legislative elections were held in France on 2 January to elect the third National Assembly of the Fourth Republic. The elections were held using party-list proportional representation. The elections had been scheduled for June 1956; however, they were brought forward by Edgar Faure using a constitutional sanction.
Legislative elections were held in France on 2 June 1946 to elect the second post-war Constituent Assembly designated to prepare a new constitution. The ballot system used was proportional representation.
Legislative elections were held in France on 17 June 1951 to elect the second National Assembly of the Fourth Republic.
The far-right tradition in France finds its origins in the Third Republic with Boulangism and the Dreyfus affair. The modern "far right" or radical right grew out of two separate events of 1889: the splitting off in the Socialist International of those who chose the nation and the culmination of the "Boulanger Affair", which championed the demands of the former Minister of War General Georges Boulanger. The Dreyfus affair provided one of the political division lines of France. Nationalism, which had been before the Dreyfus affair a left-wing and Republican ideology, turned after that to be a main trait of the right-wing and, moreover, of the far right. A new right emerged, and nationalism was reappropriated by the far-right who turned it into a form of ethnic nationalism, itself blended with anti-Semitism, xenophobia, anti-Protestantism and anti-Masonry. The Action française, first founded as a review, was the matrix of a new type of counter-revolutionary right-wing, and continues to exist today. During the interwar period, the Action française (AF) and its youth militia, the Camelots du Roi, were very active. Far right leagues organized riots.
Legislative elections were held in France on 16 and 30 November 1919, the first after World War I.
The Moderates or Moderate Republicans, pejoratively labeled Opportunist Republicans, was a French political group active in the late 19th century during the Third French Republic. The leaders of the group included Adolphe Thiers, Jules Ferry, Jules Grévy, Henri Wallon and René Waldeck-Rousseau.
The Independent Radicals were a centrist or conservative-liberal political current during the French Third Republic. It was slightly to the right of the more famous Radical-Socialist Party, and shared much of its historical radicalism. The prominent political scientist André Siegfried described them as "Social [that is, economic] conservatives who did not want to break with the Left, and who therefore voted with the Right on [economic] interests, and with the Left on political issues".
The Socialist Republican Union was a political party in France founded in 1935 during the late Third Republic which united the right-wing of the French Section of the Workers' International with the left-wing of the Radical republican movement.
The Progressive Republicans were a parliamentary group in France active during the late 19th century during the French Third Republic.
Alexandre-Félix-Joseph Ribot was a French politician, four times Prime Minister.
Auguste Marie Joseph Jean Léon Jaurès, commonly referred to as Jean Jaurès, was a French Socialist leader. Initially a Moderate Republican, he later became one of the first social democrats and the leader of the French Socialist Party, which opposed Jules Guesde's revolutionary Socialist Party of France. The two parties merged in 1905 in the French Section of the Workers' International (SFIO). An antimilitarist, Jaurès was assassinated in 1914 at the outbreak of World War I, but remains one of the main historical figures of the French Left. As a heterodox Marxist, Jaurès rejected the concept of the dictatorship of the proletariat and tried to conciliate idealism and materialism, individualism and collectivism, democracy and class struggle, patriotism and internationalism.
Legislative elections were held in France on 10 and 17 June 2012 to select the members of the 14th National Assembly of the Fifth Republic, a little over a month after the presidential election run-off held on 6 May.
The Socialist Party is a French centre-left and social-democratic political party. It holds pro-European views. The PS was for decades the largest party of the "French Left" and used to be one of the two major political parties in the French Fifth Republic, along with The Republicans. It replaced the earlier French Section of the Workers' International in 1969 and is currently led by First Secretary Olivier Faure. The PS is a member of the Party of European Socialists, Progressive Alliance and Socialist International.
The Left in France The distinction between left and right wings in politics derives from the seating arrangements which began during the Assemblee Nationale in 1789. During the 1800s, left largely meant support for the Republic, whereas right largely meant support for the monarchy.
