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Politics of the French Left: A Review Essay

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2014

Nancy I. Lieber
Nancy I. Lieber*
Affiliation:
University of California, Davis
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Type
Book Reviews and Essays
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 69 , Issue 4 , December 1975 , pp. 1406 - 1419
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1975

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References

1 Christianne, Hurtig, De la SFIO au nouveau parti socialiste (Paris: Colin, 1970), p. 91 Google Scholar.

2 The CIR's program can be found in Mitterrand's, Un socialisme du possible (Paris: Seuil, 1970), pp. 43–107 Google Scholar.

3 Manifeste du Parti socialiste unifié (Paris: Tema-Action, 1970)Google Scholar. The PSU is a splinter group of “revolutionary democratic socialists,” formed in 1960.

4 The Centre d'éludes, de recherches et d'éducation socialistes, a ginger group, was originally set up in the SFIO by Mollet in 1966, but early on parted from his patronage.

5 The disruption had been caused by the SFIO's unilateral actions regarding the creation of the new socialist party and its actions in the candidate selection for the June 1969 presidential race.

6 Borzeix, pp. 163–184. Borzeix is a journalist.

7 For a very detailed and lively account, see Guidoni, pp. 161–203.

8 This reproach of electoralism is a major theme of Guidoni. He notes the demise of the social democratic current in 1969, when Gaston Defferre scraped together a humiliating 5 per cent in the presidential election first round: “the glaring defeat on their last terrain—that of elections—where their realist strategies could still pass as authoritative.” Guidoni, p. 403.

9 Motchane, p. 242.

10 It must be remembered that Motchane is not advocating the anarchosyndicalist dream of producer ownership, but collective ownership. The difference is that in the latter, self-managing workers are expected to operate within general national priorities as set out by the State in the “democratically formulated Plan”; in the former, self-managing workers would operate in a free market economy situation. Thus Motchane's is an attempt to achieve a coordinated decentralization and is very reminiscent of the thrust of the later Guild Socialist writings of G. D. H. Cole.

11 Motchane, p. 261.

12 Kriegel, Annie, Les communistes français, 2nd edition (Paris: Seuil, 1970), p. 256 Google Scholar.

13 These last three positions are developed most recently in Marchais's Le Défi démocratique.

14 For a more thorough discussion, see Garaudy, Roger, l'Alternative (Paris: Laffont, 1972), pp. 173–198 Google Scholar.

15 Laurens and Pfister, pp. 190–191.

16 Laurense and Pfister, p. 233.

17 This new line was first enunciated in their 1968 Manifeste de Champigny, and developed in Rochet's, Waldeck l'Avenir du Parti commimiste français (Paris: Grasset, 1969)Google Scholar.

18 The Socialist edition runs 96 pages, the Communist edition 192 pages. The only difference is in the prefaces. The Socialist version gives some brief but valuable information concerning the negotiations themselves.

19 Socialist edition, p. 48; Communist edition, p. 111.

20 It might be thought that the Socialist conceded on the extension of nationalizations. While the PCF had approached the negotiations with a list of 26 companies it wanted nationalized, the Socialists came with 6 such names. The 13 companies decided upon in the Common Program, however, were (with one exception) either directly or indirectly included in the section on nationalizations in the PS's own program of 1972.

21 The Radicaux de gauche, a small splinter group from Jean-Jacques Servan-Schreiber's Radical Party, joined the Popular Front alliance in July, when they ratified the Common Program and contributed a short annex thereto.

22 See the SOFRES poll in Le Monde, December 12, 1972.

23 The majority seats fell from 360 to 262; the left's rose from 93 to 177. This, despite a first round total of 45.3 per cent for the united left, as compared to 38.48 per cent for the majority.

24 Editorial in Frontière, April 1973, np.

25 See his article in La Nef, April 1959; entitled “Front Populaire, coalition immorale?”; cited in Borzeix, p. 189.

26 The quote is by Jaurès, Jean, and is cited in Ma part de vérité, p. 172 Google Scholar.

27 La Rose au poing, p. 223.

28 The quote is by Joxe, Pierre, Dire, 03 1969, p. 27 Google Scholar, and is cited in Ma part de vérité, p. 184.

29 Interview in Le Nouvel observateur, 09 3, 1973, p. 47 Google Scholar.

30 La Rose au poing, p. 143.

31 Ibid., p. 146.

32 La Rose poing, p. 7.

33 Ibid., p. 11.

34 Ma part de vérité, p. 22.

35 La Rose au poing, p. 21.

36 Mitterrand frankly admitted in a speech to his colleagues in the Socialist International meeting in Vienna, June 28, 1972, “Our” fundamental objective is to remake a great socialist party from the terrain occupied by the PCF itself in order to demonstrate that out of five million Communist voters, three million can vote socialist.” Cited in l'Express, 17–23 07, 1972, p. 18 Google Scholar.

37 Ma part de vérité, p. 141.

38 La Rose au poing, p. 34.

39 Ibid., p. 43.

40 For instance, Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, Iran, Turkey, Spain, Portugal, Vietnam, Indonesia, Libya, Uganda, Central African Republic, Chad, Greece, not to mention Haiti, Angola, Yemen, and Paraguay. La Rose au poing, pp. 47–68.

41 Ibid., pp. 33–34.

42 Ibid., p. 128.

43 Ma part de vérité, p. 71.

44 Le Défi démocratique, p. 9.

45 Ibid., p. 11. This is a simple but basic theme, also stressed by Mitterrand in his 1974 presidential campaign.

46 Obviously, Marchais wants to refute the common assertion, made for example by Annie Kriegel, that the Communist party members form a “closed society.” By way of illustration, he notes that neither he nor Maurice Thorez ever raised a clenched fist as a greeting; nor does he personally follow the habit of some younger party members who automatically use the familiar form of address, tu, toward all PCF members!

47 Le Défi démocratique, p. 193.

48 Ibid., pp. 201–2.

49 The number of departments in which the Socialists received less than 10 per cent of the vote fell from 9 in 1967 to 1 in 1973—the number in which the Communists received less than 10 per cent rose from 7 in 1967 to 10 in 1973. The Socialists' totals rose in 14 of the 21 regions, usually by 4 to 5 per cent—the Communists gained in only 3 of the 21 regions, and by an overall 1 per cent. See Dossier sur les forces politiques et les élections de mars 1973, published by Le Monde, Paris: 1973, p. 45 Google Scholar.

50 Le Monde, February 4, 1975.

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