French legislative election, 1956
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French legislative elections to elect the 3rd National Assembly of the Fourth Republic took place on 2 January 1956 using party-list proportional representation.
The previous legislative elections in 1951 had been won by the Third Force, a coalition of center-left and center-right parties, but it was divided about denominational schools question and, when faced with the colonial problem, the governments had gradually moved towards the right. A part of the Rally of the French People, the Gaullist party, joined the majority in opposing the leadership of Charles De Gaulle, who then retired.
The defeat in the Battle of Dien Bien Phu in May 1954 caused a political crisis. The Radical Pierre Mendès-France became leader of the cabinet and ended the First Indochina War. He also began the process of independence for Morocco and Tunisia, but from November 1954 on, France was confronted by the Algerian War. In February 1955, Mendès-France was replaced, at the head of the cabinet, by his rival in the Radical Party, Edgar Faure. This one led a more repressive policy in Algeria.
The far-right, led by Pierre Poujade, re-appeared at about the same time. He was a critic of "fiscalism", and leader of a shopkeepers and craftsmen's movement. Many voters seemed tired of the political system's numerous ministerial crises, and he had much support in the rural areas, which were in decline.
The anticipated legislative elections took place when Faure was defeated by the National Assembly. A coalition was formed behind Mendès-France and advocated a peaceful resolution of the Algerian conflict. This Republican Front was composed of the SFIO Socialist Party of Guy Mollet, the Radical Party of Pierre Mendès-France, the Democratic and Socialist Union of the Resistance of François Mitterrand and the National Centre of Social Republicans of Jacques Chaban-Delmas. Faure was excluded from the Radical Party - in response he transfomed the Rally of the Republican Lefts (which had been abandoned by those groups which had now joined the Republican Front) into a party that he led, and he campaigned with the center-right parties. The Poujadists won representation in Parliament, the French Communist Party remained the largest party and the Republican Front obtained a relative majority in order to end the Algerian War.
The coalition cabinet was led by the Socialist leader Guy Mollet. At the beginning he was also supported by the Communists, but pressure from the pieds-noir in Algeria incited him into leading a very repressive policy against the Algerian nationalists. This policy was criticized by Vice-Prime Minister Mendès-France and other members of the cabinet, who resigned, thus splitting the Republican Front. Mollet and his successors floundered in the conflict until May 1958.
[edit] Results
| Parties and coalitions | Abbr. | Votes | % | Seats | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| French Section of the Workers International
(Section française de l'Internationale ouvrière) |
SFIO | 3 247 431 | 15.1 | 94 | |
| Radical Party (Parti radical)/
Democratic and Socialist Union of the Resistance (Union démocratique et socialiste de la Résistance) |
PR/UDSR | 2 389 163 | 11.3 | 77 | |
| National Center of Social Republicans
(Centre national des républicains sociaux) |
CNRS | 585 764 | 2.7 | 21 | |
| Total "Republican Front" | 6 222 358 | 28.9 | 192 | ||
| French Communist Party
(Parti communiste français) |
PCF | 5 514 403 | 25.6 | 150 | |
| National Center of Independents and Peasants
(Centre national des indépendants et paysans) |
CNIP | 3 259 782 | 15.2 | 95 | |
| Union and French Fraternity
(Union et fraternité française) |
UFF | 2 483 813 | 11.6 | 52 | |
| Popular Republican Movement
(Mouvement républicain populaire) |
MRP | 2 366 321 | 11.0 | 83 | |
| Miscellaneous | 993 773 | 4.6 | 9 | ||
| Rally of the Republican Lefts
(Rassemblement des gauches républicaines) |
RGR | 660 340 | 3.1 | 14 | |
| Total | 21 500 790 | 100 | 595 | ||
| Abstention: 17.2% | |||||
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