Radical Party (France)
The Radical Party, officially the Republican, Radical and Radical-Socialist Party, is a liberal and social-liberal political party in France. Since 1971, to prevent confusion with the Radical Party of the Left, it has also been referred to as Parti radical valoisien, after its headquarters on the rue de Valois. The party's name has been variously abbreviated to PRRRS, Rad, PR and PRV. Founded in 1901, the PR is the oldest active political party in France.
Coming from the Radical Republican tradition, the PR upheld the principles of private property, social justice and secularism. The Radicals were originally a left-wing group, but, starting with the emergence of the French Section of the Workers' International in 1905, they shifted gradually towards the centre. In 1926, its right-wing split off to form the Unionist Radicals. In 1971 the party's left-wing split off to form the PRG. The PR then affiliated with the centre-right, becoming one of the founder parties of the Union for French Democracy in 1978. The party split from the UDF in 2002 in order to become an associate party of the Union for a Popular Movement. It was later represented on the Liaison Committee for the Presidential Majority prior to launching The Alliance in 2011 and the Union of Democrats and Independents in 2012. After the 2017 presidential and legislative elections, negotiations to merge the PR and the PRG began. The refounding congress to reunite the parties into the Radical Movement was held in December 2017. However, the union proved short-lived and, by 2021, both the PR and PRG returned to be independent parties. The PR has then been part of the Ensemble coalition.
History
Radicals before the party (1830–1901)
After the collapse of Napoleon's empire in 1815, a reactionary Bourbon Restoration took place. The left-wing opposition was constituted by the broad family of Republicans, but these differed over whether and how far to cooperate with liberal-constitutional monarchists in pursuit of their common adversary. In contrast to the Republicans' right wing, who were more inclined to accept a socially conservative constitutional monarchy as the first stage to a republic, the Republicans' left wing took a hard line in advocating progressive reforms such as universal manhood suffrage, civil liberties, and the immediate installation of a republican constitution. They came to be termed Radical Republicans by opposition to the Moderate Republicans.After the installation of the constitutional July Monarchy, the term Republican was outlawed and the regime's remaining Republican opponents adopted the term Radical for themselves. Following the monarchy's conservative turn, Alexandre Ledru-Rollin and Louis Blanc formulated a Radical doctrine. At this time, radicalism was distinct from and to the left of the July Monarchy's doctrinal liberalism. Radicals defended traditional peasant farmers and small craftsmen against the new rival economic projects of the 19th century, socialist collectivism and capitalist big business alike.
The Radicals took a major part in the 1848 Revolution and the foundation of the Second Republic, sitting in parliament as the Montagne legislative group. Fifty years later, the Radical-Socialist Party would consider this group its direct forefather. For a few months, Alexandre Auguste Ledru-Rollin was Interior Minister in the provisional government. However, the conservatives won the 1848 legislative election, the first election by universal suffrage. The repression of the June 1848 workers' demonstrations disappointed the left-wing supporters of the new regime. Ledru-Rollin obtained only 5% of votes at the December 1848 presidential election, which was won by Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte, who launched a coup, ending parliamentary democracy in favour of a Second Empire.
From opposition, Radicals criticized Bonaparte's autocratic rule and attacks on civil liberties. At the end of the 1860s, they advocated with the Belleville Programme the election of civil servants and mayors, the proclamation of the so-called "great liberties", free public teaching and the separation of church and state.
After the collapse of the Second French Empire following the 1870 Franco-Prussian War, the Third Republic was proclaimed in September 1870. The first elections in February 1871 returned a majority of monarchists belonging to two distinct factions, conservative-liberal Orléanists and Catholic-traditionalist Legitimists, but these were too divided to reach an agreement over the type of monarchy they wanted to restore. Their division allowed time for the Republicans to win the 1876 elections, leading to the firm establishment of a Republican republic. Like the monarchists, the Republicans were divided into two main factions, namely a centre-left formed of socially-conservative yet liberal and secular Moderate Republicans and a far-left of uncompromising anticlerical Radicals. Georges Clemenceau was the leader of the Radical parliamentary group, who criticized colonial policy as a form of diversion from "revenge" against Prussia and due to his ability was a protagonist of the collapse of many governments.
In the 1890s, competition from the growing labour movement and concern for the plight of industrial workers prompted Léon Bourgeois to update the fifty-year-old Radical doctrine to encompass social reforms such as the progressive income tax and social insurance schemes, hence the term Radical-Socialist, a social-democratic synthesis of reformist socialism with traditional radicalism. After the Dreyfus Affair, Radicals joined forces with conservative Republicans and some Socialists in Pierre Waldeck-Rousseau's cabinet. In 1901, an Act on the right of association was voted and the various individual Radicals organised themselves into a political party in order to defend their governmental achievements from the Catholic Church's influence and the traditionalist opposition. However, not all Radicals accepted the change in doctrine and alliance. While retaining their doctrines, those who rejected the new turn towards social-democracy and partnership with the Socialist Party gradually peeled away, labelling themselves the Independent Radicals and sitting in their own loose-knit parliamentary party to the right of the Radical-Socialists.
The Radical-Socialist and Radical Republican Party was the first large political party established at a national level in France, which contrasted with previous parliamentary groups that were formed spontaneously by likeminded independent lawmakers elected through purely local electoral committees. The first congress of the Radical Party was held in June 1901. Delegates represented 476 election committees, 215 editorial boards of Radical newspapers and 155 Masonic lodges as well as lawmakers, mayors and municipal councillors. However, it was not until 1914 that the Radical-Socialist Party imposed strict discipline on its parliamentary deputies, requiring them to sit exclusively in a single Radical-Socialist legislative caucus.
The existence of a national party immediately changed the political scene. Several Radical independents had already been presidents of the council and the Radicals already benefited from a strong presence across the country. The party was composed of a heterogeneous alliance of personal fiefdoms, informal electoral clubs, masonic lodges and sections of the Ligue des droits de l'homme and the Ligue française de l'enseignement. The secularising cause was championed by Émile Combes' cabinet start of the 20th century. As the political enemy, they identified the Catholic Church, seen as a political campaign entity for ultra-conservatives and monarchists.
Early years: the Radical Republic (1901–1919)
At 1902 legislative election, the Radical-Socialists and the Independent Radicals allied themselves with the conservative-liberals of the Democratic Alliance and the Socialists in the Bloc des gauches, with the Radicals emerging the main political force. Émile Combes took the head of the Bloc des gauches cabinet and led a resolute anti-clerical policy culminating in the 1905 laic law which along with the earlier Jules Ferry laws removing confessional influence from public education formed the backbone of laïcité, France's policy of combatting clericalism by actively excluding it from state institutions. From then on, the Radical-Socialist Party's chief aim in domestic policy was to prevent its wide-ranging set of reforms from being overturned by a return to power of the religious right.After the withdrawal of the Socialist ministers from the government following the International Socialist Congress of Amsterdam in 1904, the coalition dissolved and the Radicals went alone into the 1906 legislative elections. Nevertheless, the Radical-Socialist Party remained the axis of the parliamentary majorities and of the governments. The cabinet led by the Independent Radical Georges Clemenceau introduced income tax and workers' pensions, but is also remembered for its violent repression of industrial strikes.
For the latter part of the Third Republic, the Radical-Socialists, generally representing the anti-clerical segment of peasant and petty-bourgeois voters, were usually the largest single party in parliament, but with their anti-clerical agenda accomplished the party lost their driving force. Its leader before World War I Joseph Caillaux was generally more noted for his advocacy of better relations with Germany than for his reformist agenda.
During World War I, the Radical-Socialist Party was the keystone of the Sacred Union while the most prominent Independent Radical Georges Clemenceau led the cabinet again from 1917 to 1919. He appeared as the "architect of victory", but his relationship with the Radical-Socialist Party deteriorated. The Radical-Socialists and the Independent Radicals entered the 1919 legislative election in opposing coalitions, thus Clemenceau's alliance of the right emerged victorious.