French Politics

[Michael]

I've been following this French Politics blog for quite a while - very interesting commentary.

Today he has a post speculating about realignments of the French political parties.

In short, the crisis, if it lingers, and particularly if it worsens and brings further disruption and protest, will act as a corrosive on all the existing bonds within the political structure. The Socialist Party seems to me ever less plausible as a political force. It is on the verge of extinction, though it hasn't yet recognized the mortal peril it faces. I agree with Judah that--assuming the center can hold, despite Yeats's doubts*--the ultimately significant action will be in the center, not on the extremes of the political spectrum, though the media, which always prefer the vivid and colorful to the drab but influential, may try to persuade you otherwise. I'm not sure that Morin is the man to articulate a new centrist vision; Bayrou certainly isn't. I look slightly further to the left, to a vacuum that Strauss-Kahn might fill (on DSK has the man calling the shots behind the scenes, see this). Add Moscovici, Valls, and the long list of center-leftists who have signed on with Sarkozy (Bockel, Besson, Hirsch, Lang, Jouyet, Allègre, etc.) and you've got the nucleus of a new party to the left of Modem and the New Center but to the right of the ever more muddled PS. It's a long shot, but I'm sure that some of these ambitious men see the void and wonder if they might fill it.
Source (http://artgoldhammer.blogspot.com/2009/03/french-political-realignment.html)

I'm highlighting this issue because it dovetails with a theory that I've been putting forward that both the political left and the political right are both wandering aimlessly right now - ideologically adrift. It is obvious from US or UK politics - I'm finding it interesting that the same phenomenum is evident in France as well.

This thread is for discussion of potential political realignments in French politics, or for discussions about French politics generally.

[Sucre]

Yes, this is true. However, it is also true to say that the French Socialist party turned right as early as the beginning of the 1980s when Mitterrand became president.

I don't know if this is a theory but there is nothing unusual about the process : all "left" parties turn "right" until they disappear.

This is of course the case for the Socialists, revolutionary in the 1930s, midly in the center at present - be it in France or in Germany, or probably other countries in Europe. But it is true as well for other parties - I am thinking of the Radicaux de Gauche in France, for example, the party which issued such laws as the law of free association in 1901, the separation of the State and the Church in 1905 ... or rehabilitated Alfred Dreyfus in 1906. Quite "left" at the beginning of the 20th century, but by the 1950s this party had become to French politics what the Socialists are now. It disapeared with the end of the Fourth Republic.

There are other examples, not just in France.

This phenomenon is easy to observe in a multiparty system, where parties easily change names with orientation. Not so in two-party systems, where they usually keep the same names so that the internal evolution is difficult to follow.

[Sucre]

... And of course, there are always new parties being born on the left ...

[Michael]

... And of course, there are always new parties being born on the left ...
Sure, that's true, new parties are always being born, that's not news.

But the post specifically points to the 'intellectual decline' of the largest party of the left in France. That's a common trend these days.

[Sucre]

But the post specifically points to the 'intellectual decline' of the largest party of the left in France. That's a common trend these days.
Is the trend the decline of al left parties - socialist - or just the French Socialist party ?

If it is the French Socialist party, I can only second that. The mess in this party is an absolute desaster. Not because it is the Socialists, but because it is the second largest party and a sound democracy needs a sound opposition to the government. There is so to say no "opposition" worth mentioning in France.

About all of them ? Not sure ... Which other one in Europe ?

The Social Democrats in Germany did their right turn in the 1950s already. I wouldn't consider them in decline now and Die Linke on the other hand is becoming more very visible every day.

Sure, that's true, new parties are always being born, that's not news.

New parties are usually always born on the left. This is also an interesting phenomenon that usually parties are born on the left and then slowly swift to the right - rather, I believe, that "leftist" ideas become common place.