THE OPPOSITION IN FRANCE SINCE THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP79-00927A005200020002-3
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 10
• Document Creation Date: December 19, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 15, 2006
• Sequence Number: 2
• Publication Date: February 18, 1966
• Content Type: REPORT

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THE OPPO aITIO T IN 'V Ai'CE SIf4C TAE - 0811-ELVT AAL EL CTI'(O
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THE OPPOSITION IN FRANCE SINCE THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION
Opposition political parties in France were
given a psychological boost by their relative suc-
cess against De Gaulle in the presidential election,
last December. Political figures such as Francois
Mitterrand and Jean Lecanuet who gained national
prominence at that time have since concentrated
their efforts on the formation of new political
groupings. The opposition faces severe problems,
however, in trying to create a meaningful political
alternative to Gaullism. The democratic opposi-
tion parties are split both internally and among
themselves. They differ on such matters as whether
to confine the search for allies to the right or
the left, whether to cooperate with the Communist
Party, what organizational form to give to the new
political groups, and whether to emphasize electoral
victory over long-range program formulation. The
Communist Party, meanwhile, is seeking to take
advantage of this disarray and trying to extend the
cooperation it enjoyed with the left during the
election.
Effect of the Election
The presidential election,
the first conducted by direct
popular vote since 1848, revived
opposition to De Gaulle and stim-
ulated the activity of parties
dormant under the Gaullist dom-
ination of the political scene.
It gave impetus to a fundamental
debate among the opposition par-
ties as to the most effective
means for challenging Gaullism
in the immediate future and for
developing a viable political
grouping in a post - De Gaulle
era. Politicians were encouraged
by the unprecedented turnout of
approximately 85 percent of the
registered electorate and by the
intensity of public interest in
the campaigns waged by the op-
position candidates.
Two of the candidates,
Francois Mitterrand of the Demo-
cratic and Socialist Resistance
Union (UDSR) and Jean Lecanuet
of the Catholic-oriented Popular
Republican Movement (MRP), were
launched on careers as national
personalities of presidential
caliber. De Gaulle himself had
to back off from his opening cam-
paign statement that the choice
was between him and chaos.
The election results have
also caused leaders of the Gaul-
list Union for the New Republic
(UNR)?to rethink their relation-
ship with De Gaulle. Having
ridden into power on his coat-
tails in the 1962 National As-
sembly elections, but having
generally failed to establish
grass-roots support among the
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PARTY STRENGTHS IN THE FRENCH NATIONAL ASSEMBLY
(Elected November 1962)
POPULAR REPUBLICANS (MRP
39
RADICALS AND CENTER LEFT
38
SOCIALISTS
66
COMMUNISTS
41
UNION FOR THE NEW REPUBLIC
AND DEMOCRATIC UNION OF LABOR
231
(These Gaullist parties command a majority because of regular
support from Independent Republicans and occasional backing
from Radicals and Popular Republicans.)
482
DEPUTI ES
INDEPENDENT REPUBLICANS
35
INDEPENDENTS (CNIP 16
DEPUTIES BELONGING TO SPLINTER
PARTIES OR UNAFFILIATED
16
MAJOR NEW OPPOSITION POLITICAL GROUPS IN FRANCE
Federation of Democratic and Socialist Left
December 1965
Francois Mitterrand, leader of the Democratic
and Socialist Resistance Union (UDSR)
Socialist Party
Radical Party
UDSR
Political clubs
To seek a common program and electoral strategy,
while allowing participating parries to preserve
separate identities.
Hopes to attract Communist votes and minor
support from the MRP.
GROUP
DATE OF FORMATION
PRESIDENT
Democratic Center
February 1966
Jean Lecanuet, former president of Popular Re-
publican Movement (MRP)
MRP
Independent Party
Political clubs
Hopes to attract Gaullist votes on the right and
Radical and some Socialist votes on the left.
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electorate, the UNR now faces
the real prospect of losing its
parliamentary majority in 1967.
A recently published study of
districts where assembly deputies
were elected by a small majority
concludes that Gaullists are in
danger of defeat in 77 of the
231 electoral districts they now
hold.
New Political Groupings
Seeking to capitalize on
the public exposure provided by
the campaign and to exploit the
momentum gathered during that
period, both Mitterrand and Le-
canuet have formed new political
groups.
Lecanuet launched his Demo-
cratic Center on 2 February and
has tentatively scheduled a con-
vention for 22-23 April to for-
malize its establishment. This
group, which claims it has al-
ready received 40,000 membership
applications, embraces all of
Lecanuet's MRP and the Independ-
ent Party as well as some in-
dividual members of the Radical
Party. Lecanuet's ultimate aim
is to dissolve the old parties
altogether and merge them under
a program which will appeal from
center-left to center-right. For
the present, however, the idea of
formal fusion has been abandoned,
because adherents of all but the
MRP have refused to give up their
party ties until they can be
more certain of the future of
the new grouping.
Mitterrand's group, the Fed-
eration of the Democratic and
Socialist Left, has the formal
allegiance of the Radical Party,
the Socialist Party (SFIO), Mit-
terrand's UDSR, and a number of
political clubs, all of which
backed him in the presidential
election. Although the federa-
tion carefully excludes the Com-
munist Party, which also sup-
ported Mitterrand's candidacy
last December, it still makes
allies of parties and organiza-
tions whose basic objectives
vary considerably. Furthermore,
its policy of extending full mem-
bership only to members of one
of the component parties or clubs
will limit its appeal.
The candidate of the far
right in the presidential elec-
tion, Jean-Louis Tixier-Vignan-
cour, created still another new
formation in mid-January--the Re-
publican Alliance for Progress
and Liberty. Some of Tixier's
more militant election backers
have already indicated their dis-
pleasure with the alliance's
"moderate" program, however, and
refused to support the new group.
The December election and its
aftermath have emphasized the
divisions within the traditional
parties.
In the Socialist Party the
election strengthened the hand of
long-time secretary general Guy
Mollet but fanned again his smol-
dering controversy with Marseille
Mayor Gaston Defferre. Defferre,
the major leftist opposition
candidate for the presidency un-
til his withdrawal last summer,
crossed swords with Mollet at
that time over the question of
whether to form a purely left-
ist grouping or one embracing the
center as well. Defferre's
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attempt to form a "big federa-
tion" including both left and
center parties foundered because
none of the parties was willing
to subordinate its own ideology
and orientation to a grouping
representing all the parties.
Now both sides have taken their
arguments into the press, with
Mollet's supporters continuing
to defend the Socialist strategy
of forming only transitory and
tactical alliances with parties
both to the left and right.
Mitterrand's surprisingly
strong showing against De Gaulle,
traceable in part to his use of
the Mollet tactic, has put Mol-
let in a sufficiently strong po-
sition to reject the Defferrists'
call for an extraordinary So-
cialist Party congress to dis-
cuss future orientation and
tactics. Defferre and a half
dozen of his supporters have re-
signed from the party director-
ate, although not from the party,
but they have no realistic hope
of wresting control from Mollet
in the near future. Mollet, for
his part, must calculate the ef-
fects of continued dissidence on
the party's hopes for electoral
gains in 1967.
Prior to the presidential
election, a number of leaders
of the center-left Radical Party
had indicated willingness to as-
sociate themselves with a center
grouping, but the election re-
sults qualified this sentiment.
In the Radical strongholds, the
appeal of political cooperation
with the French Communist Party
(PCF) has greatly increased as
a result of the leftist collabo-
ration in the past election. More-
over, a majority of the conglom-
erate Radical Party is much
further to the left in political
orientation than Lecanuet, a
strong anti-Communist whose iden-
tification with the Catholics is
also unacceptable to many. Look-
ing toward the 1967 election,
the Radicals see that they will
be far more dependent on PCF votes
than on assistance from the cen-
ter. Radical president Maurice
Faure reportedly believes a com-
mitment to Lecanuet would auto-
matically cut the Radicals off
from PCF support, leaving them
to be crushed between the Commu-
nists and the Gaullists. Never-
theless, Faure and a few other
party members have accepted of-
fices in Lecanuet's Democratic
Center even though the Radical
Party itself is committed to Mit-
terrand's federation.
The Independent Party (NID)
is supporting the Democratic Cen-
ter, but many members doubt the
wisdom of this move. The reluc-
tance of the CNIP to merge itself
into Lecanuet's group was one of
the reasons he was forced to de-
lay his plans for a total fusion
of the constituent parties. Some
Independent leaders fear that,
if they move into a larger center
formation, they run the risk of
creating a vacuum into which the
Gaullists could move. CNIP presi-
dent Camille Laurens has indicated
that a significant number of his
party's deputies and senators
might balk at formal alliance
with the MRP, and join instead the
Gaullist-allied Independent
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Republican Party. The omission
of that party's leader, former
finance minister Giscard d'Es-
taing, from De Gaulle's post-
election government has led the
party to adopt a less Gaullist
stance, making the defection of
some CNIP members a real possi-
bility.
Given the uneasy relation-
ship which exists within each of
the new groupings, prospects for
cooperation between them remain
poor. Their mutual interest in
opposing De Gaulle, however, has
resulted in some tentative feel-
ers. Lecanuet has indicated
that his grouping would be amen-
able to contacts with the Mit-
terrand-led federation, but has
posed the condition that the
federation have nothing to do
with the Communists. Mollet ex-
pects to talk with Lecanuet about
the possibility of developing a
"majority contract," which would
require all participating parties
to agree in advance on a common
program of government which they
would pledge themselves to adopt
in the event they obtained a ma-
jority in next year's parlia-
mentary election and were called
on to form a new government.
Communist Postelection Position
The PCF delivered what has
been reliably estimated as 90 per-
cent of its vote to leftist candi-
date Mitterrand in the presiden-
tial election, and party members
gave him strong and effective
campaign support. Armed with
this record, the PCF is attempt-
ing to parlay a temporary elec-
toral alliance with the non-Com-
munist left into a more lasting
relationship which could effec-
tively end its political isola-
tion.
Statements by PCF leaders
since the election indicate that,
for the time being, the party
will avoid making demands which
could break up the "partnership."
Rather, the PCF is pressing for
the adoption of a common program
by all of the parties and or-
ganizations comprising the left,
a step which it repeatedly but
unsuccessfully urged prior to
the campaign. In mid-January,
party secretary general Waldeck-
Rochet sent a letter to all left-
ist groups proposing discussions
with a view to formulating a
joint minimum political program.
With their hopes fastened
on ending the Gaullist majority
in 1967, the leftist parties
will be strongly tempted to seek
some alliance with the Commu-
nists. To make an alliance more
palatable, the PCF has repeated
its campaign statements that it
no longer opposes French member-
ship in the EEC or insists on ad-
vance agreement about France's
withdrawal from NATO as a price
for PCF electoral cooperation.
The party has also given assur-
ances that it rejects the idea
that one party alone will have
to bring about the socialist
transformation of France.
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Thus far the left has re-
sponded cautiously. Only the
far left Unified Socialist Party
and the Communist-dominated la-
bor union have responded affirma-
tively to the call for joint
discussion. The Socialist Party
has stalled, indicating that any
definition of a joint program
is in the hands of Mitterrand's
federation, which presumably will
at some point enter into such
discussions.
Some major leftist leaders
have expressed serious reserva-
tions about extensive coopera-
tive efforts. Defferre maintains
that a fruitful dialogue with
the PCF is possible only if the
left first creates a large polit-
ical formation that is more
powerful and more attractive
than the Communist Party. Mollet
and Mitterrand, while not ruling
out temporary cooperation with
limited aims, stress that, until
the PCF is "sanitized" and "de-
internationalized," basic polit-
ical discussions are meaningless.
The PCF itself has not al-
lowed its drive for admission to
the respectable left to overcome
its efforts to gain ground alone
where it can. In several local
elections it has run candidates
against non-Communist leftists
and has announced that it will
enter its own candidates in each
electoral district for the first
round of the National Assembly
elections. As elections draw
nearer, the pressures on both the
PCF and the non-Communist left
to cooperate will grow stronger.
Current Strategy
With all the problems they
face in trying to put together
a positive program and a more
unified political force, the
opposition parties at least are
agreed in seeking to put De
Gaulle's government on the de-
fensive whenever possible. The
Ben Barka affair--the abduction
and presumed murder in Paris of
the Moroccan leftist leader, al-
legedly with the complicity of
French and Moroccan officials--
has provided the opposition with
the newsworthy and exploitable
issue of high-level official cor-
ruption. The opposition has also
sought to exploit public discon-
tent with government policies in
the economic field, where the
government is especially vulner-
able. De Gaulle has tacitly rec-
ognized the potency of this
criticism of his domestic policy
by seeking to improve the govern-
ment's image in this area.'
The essentials of De Gaulle's
foreign policy, especially con-
cerning East-West issues, have not
been effectively challenged since
the election. His decision to
resume French participation in
EEC activity without achieving
his political demands would ap-
pear at least in part to be an
attempt to recoup the electoral
losses suffered at the hands of
the pro-European Lecanuet. It
is likely, however, that Gaullist
leaders attribute voter defection
to their concern for French agri-
cultural production rather than
support for political supranation-
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alism. Hence De Gaulle may in-
tend to disarm the opposition
by negotiating the EEC agricul-
tural agreement while still at-
tempting to block supranational
growth within the community.
The major push will come in
the campaign for the National
Assembly elections in March 1967.
Until then, the opposition par-
ties will be able to attack gov-
ernment policy in the parliament,
which reconvenes in April, and
the government will learn whether
it can still count on the un-
swerving allegiance of the Inde-
pendent Republicans and even some
UNR deputies. There is little
prospect that a united, demo-
cratic opposition embracing both
the center and left will emerge,
but all factions hope that con-
tinuing attacks on such issues
as the Ben Barka affair will 25X1
weaken the Gaullists sufficiently
to open the way to their defeat
in 1967. F_ -1
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