Page 315 - DPOL202_COMPARATIVE_POLITICS_AND_GOVERNMENT_ENGLISH

Comparative Politics and Government

Notes 1. France is notoriously known for having a multiplicity of political parties. In a general election
more than a dozen ‘national’ parties and, in addition to that, a varying number of less important
formations take part with the result that quite a large number of organisations secure
representation in the national legislature. The point of peculiarity, however, lies in the fact that
this multiplicity is always in a fluid position. So loosely organised and so indisciplined are the
political parties of France and, at the same time, they are so extremely volatile and so excessively
resilient that they split and break with considerable ease and eagerness showing that the trends
of complications and simplification run together. As a result, the drama of re-unions and
rearrangements has become a normal feature of the stasiological politics of France.
2. There is a lot of diversity in the organisation and attitudes of French political parties. They
cover a range extending from communism on the extreme left to mild fascism (Gaullism) on the
extreme right, while some attach great importance to political principles and doctrines and
would expel members who stray openly or continuously from the orthodox path. Some parties
appear to have no general principles at all, while others lack even a coherent policy. For instance,
‘radicalism’ has been described as a state of mind, while ‘conservatism’ as a collection of interests
often in conflict with each other.
3. The element of ideological make-up is virtually missing in all parties excluding the communists.
There is no party in France that may be treated like the Conservative or Labour parties of
England in respect of its political commitment to the ‘right’ or to the ‘left’. Likewise, there is no
party that may be identified with the Republican or Democratic parties of the United States that
are like ‘vote mobilisation’ machines. Even now the Central national des Independents is not a
party as such as it is a loose federation of different units despite the fact that most of the members
of this organisation profess the creed of conservatism. Nearly all parties, excluding the
communists, advocate the elements of radicalism, individualism, conservatism, free trade,
protestantism, and social reformism in varying degrees.
4. Apart from diversity in respect of organisation and attitude, the political parties of France make
confusion still worse confounded by using terminologies that mean something to one and
something else to another. The national mind of France is largely theoretical, not practical in
politics. An average Frenchman is inclined to pursue an ideal striving to realise his conception
of a perfect form of society and feels reluctant to give up any part of it for the sake of attaining
so much as lies within his reach. The French people want to follow their own bent of mind than
to imitate others. Thus, they do not appreciate the idea of subordinating their views in the
name of party discipline.
5. The multiplicity of party system coupled with the diversity of organisation, and attitude draws
sustenance not only from the factors of sociology and economics, it also derives its source from
the geographical composition of the country. It is pointed out that both history and geography
have to be linked, if one is to account for the permanence of certain traditions in some areas
more than in the others. Right and Left, the anti-revolutionary right and the revolutionary left
as well as other forms of right and left, are written in the countryside, as are geographically
located, the areas of the deep religious areas of practice and the areas of de-Christianisation’.
It is owing to these reasons that the political atmosphere of France always remains at the fever pitch,
being a characteristic of ever-growing number of interpellations, personal bickerings and perpetual
strifes. Naturally this country is bedevilled by a multiplicity of political parties, passionate and
internally fissiparous. The party members live in a state of constant flux often shifting their loyalty
from one group to another and success comes to those who are adept in the art of manipulation
rather than being consistent supporters of a certain policy. From the above account, it is obvious that
political parties in France are weak in their structure, loose in organisation, lacking in definite
commitments and followed by heterogeneous and rather fickle clienteles.
Leading Political Parties: As pointed out above, France under the Fifth Republic has a controlled
multi-party system in which the tendencies of the ‘right’, the ‘left’ and the ‘centre’ may be visualised,
though one may also notice the phenomenon of cross-infiltration of the three trends in different
political organisations leaving aside the case of the Communist Party. Let us examine the cases of the
following major political parties:

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