Rally of Republican Lefts

The Rally of Republican Lefts (

right-of-center conservative coalition, which presented candidates to the June 1946, November 1946, and 1951 legislative elections

.

Despite its name, the coalition was on the

Gaullist movement. Employers conceived the RGR as such until at least the 1951 creation of the National Centre of Independents and Peasants (CNIP) gathering independent conservative deputies. During the 1956 legislative campaign, it became a political party led by Edgar Faure and Radicals who refused to join the Republican Front

coalition.

Composition of the coalition

The RGR was largely composed of the Radical-Socialist Party, which had governed France during most of the Third Republic, and of the Democratic and Socialist Union of the Resistance (Union démocratique et socialiste de la Résistance), which included René Pleven and François Mitterrand. The UDSR was a founding member of the Liberal International in 1947. Others parties included:

Parti Social Français
(PSF)
Democratic Republican Alliance (Alliance Démocratique), main right-wing party during the interwar period
Collaborationism
Cartel des gauches, issued from a scission in 1928; the group is reconstituted at the Liberation by the mayor of Nice, Jacques Médecin

Republican-Socialist Party (Parti républicain-socialiste) created by independent socialists who had refused the unification of the socialist movement in 1905 under the SFIO, which was, like the Independent Radicals, almost an empty shell by then.

Foundation

After World War II, France was governed by the

Three-parties alliance composed of the Communists, the Socialists and the Christian democratic Popular Republican Movement

(MRP).

The Radical Party and the pre-war

right-wing groups were considered jointly responsible for the 1940 collapse of the Third Republic

. In the same time, the attempt to gather the non-Communist Resistance in a new party, the UDSR, failed. In 1946, they formed a coalition to resist to the Three-parties alliance in the legislative elections.

They defined themselves as "

left-wing republicans" whilst they opposed left-wing policies. Indeed, until the end of the 19th century, the French left was defined as republican and the right as pro-monarchy. Then, when the republic was no longer questioned, the conservative republican groups, who had sat at the center-left of the assemblies, moved to the right-wing seats, but they continued to consider themselves as left-wingers: this is known as sinistrisme

.

When the Communists were ejected from the government during the

National Center of Independents and Peasants

.

The RGR obtained 11.6% of the votes in 1946, 11,1% in 1951 and 3.9% of 1956 (most of the Radicals had decided to present themselves as members of the Republican Front of Pierre Mendès France.)

In 1955, under the leaderships of

Parti Radical Valoisien

.