LEFT RADICAL PARTY

The 'Left Radical Party' ( or PRG) is a minor French centre-left, social-liberal party with moderate views, formed in 1972 by a split from the Radical, Republican and Radical-Socialists Party, once the dominant party of the French left.

Contents

History

The Fifth Republic (1958)

Presidents

See also

External link

History

''See also: Republican, Radical and Radical-Socialist Party for the pre-1972 Radical united party''

The Fifth Republic (1958)

Popular figure Pierre Mendès-France (or PMF as he was familiarly called) thus quit the Radical-Socialist Party, which had crossed the threshold to the center-right, as had the early moderate Republicans at the beginning of the Third Republic, when the Radical-Socialist Party appearing to their left pushed them over the border between the left-wing and the right-wing, a process dubbed "sinistrisme". Mendès-France then founded the ''Centre d'Action Démocratique'' (CAD), which would later join the ''Parti socialiste autonome'' (PSA, which had split from the SFIO socialist party), which in turn would fuse into the ''Parti socialiste unifié'' (PSU) on 3 April 1960. This new socialist party thus gathered all the dissidents from the Radical-Socialist Party and the SFIO whom were opposed both to the Algerian War and to the proclamation of the new presidential regime. Mendès-France would become officially member of the PSU in 1961, a year before the 18 March 1962 Evian Accords which put an end to the Algerian War.
The Radical-Socialist Party supported the 1958 come back of Charles de Gaulle, then returned in opposition in 1959. It declined in the 1960s. Allied with the SFIO in the Federation of the Democratic and Socialist Left, it supported François Mitterrand at the 1965 presidential election. This federation split in 1968.
Under the leadership of Jean-Jacques Servan-Schreiber, the party again made tentative moves to the left in the 1970s, but stopped short of an alliance with Socialist François Mitterrand and his Communist allies, leading to a final split in 1972, when the remaining left-wing Radicals left the party, becoming eventually the Movement of the Radical-Socialist Left
The PRG, originally known as the 'Movement of the Radical-Socialist Left' (''Mouvement de la Gauche Radicale-Socialiste'') then as the 'Movement of Left Radicals' (''Mouvement des Radicaux de Gauche''), retains some support among middle-class voters and in traditional Radical areas in the south-west, but it only gains parliamentary representation by courtesy of the Socialist Party, with which it has been in close alliance since 1982, often running joint lists. Its President is Jean-Michel Baylet and its Secretary-General is Elisabeth Boyer. Christiane Taubira was the PRG candidate during the 2002 presidential election, and she gained 2.32% of the voices. Taubira gave her name to the 2001 law which declared the Atlantic slave trade a crime against humanity.
In 2007 the former minister Bernard Tapie, who had been a leading figure in the PRG, supported the Gaullist Nicolas Sarkozy in the Presidential elections.

Presidents

★ Robert Fabre (1972-1978)

★ Michel Crépeau (1978-1981)

★ Roger-Gérard Schwartzenberg (1981-1983)

★ Jean-Michel Baylet (1983-1985)

★ François Doubin (1985-1988)

★ Yvon Collin (1988-1989)

★ Émile Zuccarelli (1989-1992)

★ Jean-François Hory (1992-1996)

★ Jean-Michel Baylet (1996-...)

See also

★ Radicalism (historical)

★ Contributions to liberal theory

★ Liberalism worldwide

★ List of liberal parties

★ Liberal democracy

★ Liberalism and radicalism in France

★ Bernard Tapie

External link

★ Left Radical Party official site