Rally of the Republican Lefts
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 |
Please help improve this article or section by expanding it. Further information might be found on the talk page or at requests for expansion. |
The Rally of the Republican Lefts (Rassemblement des gauches républicaines or RGR) was an electoral entity under the French Fourth Republic composed of the Radical Party, the Democratic and Socialist Union of the Resistance (UDSR) and several conservative groups.
After World War II, France was governed by the Three-parties alliance composed of the Communists (PCF), the Socialists (SFIO) and the Christian-Democrats (MRP). They were the more active groups in the Resistance during the war.
The Radical Party and the pre-war right-wing groups were considered jointly responsible for the 1940 collapse of the Third Republic. In the same time, the attempt to gather the non-Communist Resistance in a new party, the UDSR, failed. In 1946, they formed a coalition to resist to the Three-parties alliance in the legislative elections.
They defined themselves as "left-wing republicans" whereas they opposed left-wing policies. Indeed, until the end of the 19th century, the French left was defined as republican and the right as pro-monarchy. Then, when the republic was no longer questionned, the conservative republican groups, who had sat at the center-left of the assemblies, moved to the right-wing seats, but they continued to consider themselves as left-wingers. That is why some right-wing groups called themselves "left-wing republicans".
When the Communists were ejected from the government, the RGR joined the government of the Third force with the SFIO, the MRP, then the National Center of Independents and Peasants.
In 1955, under the leaderships of Pierre Mendès-France and François Mitterrand, the Radical Party and the UDSR advocated left-wing policies and left the RGR. Their internal opponents pursued the RGR, which became a small center-right party led by Prime Minister Edgar Faure. It disappeared in 1958.
