Politics of France

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This article discusses political groups and tendencies in France; for information on the political and administrative structures (executive, legislative and judiciary) of France, see Government of France.
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Politics of France takes place in a framework of a semi-presidential representative democratic republic, whereby the President of France is head of state and the Prime Minister of France head of government, and of a pluriform multi-party system. Executive power is exercised by the government. Legislative power is vested in both the government and the Senate and National Assembly. The Judiciary is quite independent of the executive and the legislature.

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[edit] French politics under the Fifth Republic

After Charles de Gaulle had the constitution of the French Fifth Republic adopted in 1958, France was ruled by successive right-wing administrations until 1981. Throughout the 1960s, left-wing parties fared rather badly in national elections. The successive governments generally applied the Gaullist program of national independence, and modernization in a dirigiste fashion. The Gaullist government, however, was criticized for its heavy-handedness: while elections were free, the state had a monopoly on radio and TV broadcasting and sought to have its point of view on events imposed (this monopoly was not absolute, however, since there were radio stations transmitting from nearby countries specifically for the benefit of the French). De Gaulle's social policies were decidedly conservative.

In May 1968, series of worker strikes and student riots rocked France. These did not, however, result in an immediate change of government, with a right-wing administration being triumphantly reelected in the snap election of June 1968. However, in 1969 the French electorate turned down a referendum on the reform of the French Senate, a move widely considered to be mostly motivated by weariness with de Gaulle, and which ultimately provoked his resignation that year.

Georges Pompidou, de Gaulle's Prime Minister, took over, remaining President until his death in 1974. Valéry Giscard d'Estaing won the subsequent election, but was to be the only Fifth Republic President not to be reelected.

In 1981, François Mitterrand, a Socialist, was elected president, on a program of far-reaching reforms. After securing a majority in parliament through a snap election, his government ran a program of social and economic reforms:

  • social policies:
    • abolition of the death penalty;
    • removal of legislation criminalizing certain homosexual behaviors: lowering of the age of consent for homosexual sex to that for heterosexual sex (since the French Revolution, France had never criminalized homosexuality between adults in private, but since the 1960s until this time, homosexuality was officially considered an illness to be cured);
  • economic policies:
    • the government embarked on a wave of nationalizations;
    • the duration of the legal workweek was set to 39 hours, instead of the previous 40 hours.

However, in 1983, high inflation and economic woes forced a dramatic turnaround with respect to economic policies, known as rigueur (rigor) – the Socialist-Communist government then embarked on policies of fiscal and spending restraint. Though the nationalizations were subsequently reverted by both subsequent left-wing and right-wing governments, the social reforms undertaken have stood still.

Since then, the government alternated between a left-wing coalition (composed of the French Socialist Party, the French Communist Party and more recently Les Verts, the Greens) and a right-wing coalition (composed of Jacques Chirac's Rally for the Republic, later replaced by the Union for a Popular Movement, and the Union for French Democracy). Those two coalitions are fairly stable; there have been none of the mid-term coalition reorganizations and governments overthrown that were commonplace under the Fourth Republic.

The 1980s and 1990s saw also the rise of Jean-Marie Le Pen's National Front, a party which blames immigration, more particularly immigration from North African countries such as Algeria, for increased unemployment and crime. Since the 1980s, unemployment has remained permanently high, at about 10% of the population, regardless of the policies applied to fight it. Furthermore, criminality has changed within this period, with a dramatic increase in petty and juvenile delinquency, though how much of this increase is due to perception is a matter of controversy. Problems in the banlieues – a euphemism for poor suburban housing projects, with a high proportion of the population of North African descent – still have to be successfully tackled. Jean-Marie Le Pen's relative success at the French Presidential election, 2002 has been attributed, for some significant part, to concerns about seemingly intense juvenile criminality.

[edit] Recent French politics

During his first 2 years in office, President Jacques Chirac's prime minister was Alain Juppé, who served contemporaneously as leader of Chirac's neo-Gaullist (RPR) Party. Chirac and Juppé benefited from a very large, if rather unruly, majority in the National Assembly (470 out of 577 seats). However, the administration was increasingly embroiled in corruption scandals regarding the past of the RPR (see Corruption scandals in the Paris region); furthermore, some reforms were highly unpopular and caused a series of strikes. Mindful that the government might have to take politically costly decisions in advance of the legislative elections planned for spring 1998 in order to ensure that France met the Maastricht criteria for the single currency of the EU, Chirac decided in April to call early elections.

The Left, led by Socialist Party leader Lionel Jospin, whom Chirac had defeated in the 1995 presidential race-unexpectedly won a solid National Assembly majority (319 seats, with 289 required for an absolute majority). President Chirac named Jospin prime minister on June 2, and Jospin went on to form a government composed primarily of Socialist ministers, along with some ministers from allied parties of the Left, such as the Communist Party and the Greens. Jospin stated his support for continued European integration and his intention to keep France on the path towards Economic and Monetary Union, albeit with greater attention to social concerns.

The tradition in periods of "cohabitation" (a President of one party, prime minister of another) is for the President to exercise the primary role in foreign and security policy, with the dominant role in domestic policy falling to the prime minister and his government. Jospin stated, however, that he would not a priori leave any domain exclusively to the President.

Chirac and Jospin worked together, for the most part, in the foreign affairs field with representatives of the presidency and the government pursuing a single, agreed French policy. Their "cohabitation" arrangement was the longest-lasting in the history of the Fifth Republic. However, it ended following the National Assembly elections that followed Chirac's decisive defeat of Jospin (who failed even to make it through to the second round of voting) in the 2002 presidential election. This led to President Chirac's appointment of Jean-Pierre Raffarin as the new prime minister. On May 29, 2005, French voters in the referendum on the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe turned down the proposed charter by a wide margin. This was generally regarded as a rebuke to Chirac and his government. Two days later, Raffarin resigned and Chirac appointed Dominique de Villepin, formerly Foreign Minister as Prime Minister of France.

A enduring force is Jean-Marie Le Pen's National Front party, whose anti-immigration, isolationist policies have him accused of xenophobia. It managed to face Chirac's UMP in the 2002 presidential election second ballot, which many had thought only Chirac and Jospin would reach.

Souverainisme, i.e political movement opposed to the growing power of all-Europe institutions, is not a major factor in French politics. It is doubtful that the rejection by the French electors of the proposed European constitution was motivated by these concerns.

One of the great questions of current French politics is that of libéralisme — that is, economic liberalism, as opposed to government intervention in the economy. Broadly speaking, supporters of libéralisme want to let the forces of the free market operate. As an example, they want little workforce regulation, since they think that relationships between employees and employers are better settled by direct agreement than by governmental law. Critics on libéralisme, with respect to that example, argue that individual employees are weak compared to market forces and employers, and thus that governmental intervention is necessary for their welfare; they point out that great gains in workers' rights were historically achieved by government intervention (as during the Popular Front). Similarly, proponents of libéralisme favour free markets and the free movement of goods, which critics contend favour the wealthy business classes at the expense of the ordinary worker. While traditionally the "right" is more libérale than the "left", divisions are present in the French Socialist Party as well as the Union for French Democracy and the Union for a Popular Movement. Since the late 1990s, the phrase ultra-libéral has been coined by left-wingers opposed to libéralisme in order to portray their opponents as extremists.

Some, such as Nicolas Sarkozy on the right, favour radical change in the relationship between the government and the economy. They argue that for the last 30 years, under both left-wing and right-wing governments, the French have been misled into believing that things could go on without real reforms. One may say that they favour a Thatcherite approach to change. Others on the right (Dominique de Villepin) as well as some on the left argue for gradual reforms. In comparison, the refusal of the French electorate to vote for the proposed European Constitution was interpreted by some as a popular refusal of libéralisme, which the European Union is perceived to embody. Some such as Laurent Fabius have argued that the Socialist Party should thus have a more "left-wing" line.

The February 23, 2005 law on the alleged "positive values" of colonialism was met by a public uproar in the left-wing. Voted by the UMP majority, it was charged of advocating historical revisionism, and after long debates and international opposition (from Abdelaziz Bouteflika, president of Algeria, or Aimé Césaire, founder of the Négritude anti-colonialist literary movement), was repealed by president Jacques Chirac himself, against his own majority, start of 2006.

In Autumn 2005, unrest erupted in a number of poor neighbourhoods where a high proportion of immigrants and their descendants live. As a result, the government invoked a state of emergency. The profile of Interior Minister Sarkozy was heightened and his political discourse veered in favour of increased repression of young delinquents and illegal immigration.

In 2006, Prime minister Dominique de Villepin enacted amendments that established a "first employment contract", known as CPE, a special kind of employment contract under which workers under the age of 26 can be hired and fired liberally. Proponents of the measure argued that French workforce laws, which put the burden of proof on the employer for dismissing employees, dissuaded employers from hiring new employees; according to them, this is one reason while the unemployment rate of those under 26 is 23% and that of youngsters from some immigrant neighbourhoods as high as 40%. However, the plan backfired, with criticism both on the way the law was passed (using an exceptional legislative procedure) and on the law itself, which was criticized both for weakening workers' rights in general, and for singling out the young disfavourably instead of attempting to cure more general issues. Following from mass street protests, the government had to retract the legislation. Following from these events, it is generally considered that Villepin has lost all hopes of winning the presidency, and that his government will no longer try to enact socially controversial reforms.

[edit] Political parties and elections

The following election results include names of political parties. See for additional information about parties the List of political parties in France. An overview on elections and election results is included in Elections in France.
[discuss] – [edit]
Summary of the 21 April and 5 May 2002 French presidential election results
Candidates Nominating parties Votes 1st round % Votes 2nd round %
Jacques Chirac Rally for the Republic (Rassemblement pour la République) 5,666,440 19.88% 25,540,873 82.21%
Jean-Marie Le Pen National Front (Front national) 4,805,307 16.86% 5,525,906 17.79%
Lionel Jospin Socialist Party (Parti socialiste) 4,610,749 16.18%
François Bayrou Union for French Democracy (Union pour la démocratie française) 1,949,436 6.84%
Arlette Laguiller Workers' Struggle (Lutte ouvrière) 1,630,244 5.72%
Jean-Pierre Chevènement Citizens' Movement (Mouvement des citoyens) 1,518,901 5.33%
Noël Mamère The Greens (Les verts) 1,495,901 5.25%
Olivier Besancenot Revolutionary Communist League (Ligue communiste révolutionnaire) 1,210,694 4.25%
Jean Saint-Josse Hunt, Fish, Nature, Traditions (Chasse, pêche, nature, traditions) 1,204,863 4.23%
Alain Madelin Liberal Democracy (Démocratie libérale) 1,113,709 3.91%
Robert Hue French Communist Party (Parti communiste français) 960,757 3.37%
Bruno Mégret National Republican Movement (Mouvement national républicain) 667,123 2.34%
Christiane Taubira Left Radical Party (Parti radical de gauche) 660,576 2.32%
Corinne Lepage Citizenship, Action, Participation for the XXIst Century (Citoyenneté action participation pour le XXIe siècle) 535,911 1.88%
Christine Boutin Forum of Social Republicans (Forum des républicains sociaux) 339,142 1.19%
Daniel Gluckstein Party of the Workers (Parti des travailleurs) 132,702 0.47%
Total (turnout 71.6 %) 28,502,455 100.0 31,066,779 100.0
Source: Yahoo France and Rulers.
Main article: French presidential election, 2002
[discuss] – [edit]
Summary of the 9 and 16 June 2002 French National Assembly election results
Parties and coalitions Abbr. Votes (1st round) % (1st round) Seats (2nd round)
Union for the presidential majority (Union pour la majorite presidentielle) UMP 8 408 023 33.3 357
Union for French Democracy (Union pour la démocracie française) UDF 1 226 462 4.9 29
Miscellaneous Right-wing DVD 921 973 3.7 8
Movement for France (Mouvement pour la France) MPF 202 831 0.8 1
Liberal Democracy (Démocratie libérale) DL 104 767 0.4 2
Rally for France (Rassemblement pour la France) RPF 94 222 0.4 2
Total "Presidential Majority" (Right) 10 958 278 43.4 399
Socialist Party (Parti socialiste) PS 6 086 599 24.1 141
French Communist Party (Parti communiste français) PCF 1 216 178 4.8 21
The Greens (Les Verts) 1 138 222 4.5 3
Left Radical Party (Parti radical de gauche) PRG 388 891 1.5 7
Miscellaneous Left-wing DVG 275 533 1.1 6
Total "United Left" 9 105 443 36.1 178
National Front (Front national) FN 2 862 960 11.3 -
Hunting, Fishing, Nature, Traditions (Chasse, pêche, nature, traditions) CPNT 422 448 1.7 -
Revolutionary Communist League (Ligue communiste révolutionnaire) LCR 320 467 1.3 -
Workers' Struggle (Lutte ouvrière) LO 301 984 1.2 -
Republican Pole (Pôle républicain) 299 897 1.2 -
Other Ecologists 295 899 1.2 -
National Republican Movement (Mouvement national républicain) MNR 276 376 1.1 -
Miscellaneous 194 946 0.8 -
Other Far-Left 81 558 0.3 -
Regionalists 66 240 0.3 -
Other Far-right 59 549 0.2 -
Total 25 252 045 100 577
Abstention: 35.6% (1st round), 39.6% (2nd round)
Main article: French legislative election, 2002

[edit] Political pressure groups and leaders

Workers' unions.

Employers' unions.

Students' unions.

Peasants' unions.

  • Fédération Nationale des Syndicats d'Exploitants Agricoles
  • Centre National des Jeunes Agriculteurs
  • Confédération Paysanne

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

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