What's left of the French right? The RPR and the UDF from conquest to humiliation, 1993-1998

West European Politics

Volumn 22, Issue 3, 1999, Pages 109-138

  Knapp, Andrew ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF READING   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

NATIONAL POLITICS; PARTY POLITICS;

FRANCE;

EID: 0032750982     PISSN: 01402382     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/01402389908425318     Document Type: Article

References (48)

1. Le Canard Enchaîné (18 Nov. 1998) calculates that privatisation receipts for the Jospin government will have reached some FF210 billion over two years, compared with FF226 billion in six years (1986-88 and 1993-97) for Jospin's right-wing predecessors.
2. Cf. C. Patriat, '1995, L'année totale: mise en perspective de l'exceptionnelle hégémonie des droites', in P. Perrineau and C. Ysmal (eds.) Le Vote de crise (Paris: Presses de la FNSP 1995) pp. 283-312; J. Jaffré and A. Muxel, 'Les répères politiques', in D. Boy and N. Mayer (eds.) L'Électeur a ses raisons (Paris: Presses de la FNSP 1997) p.89.
3. Cf. C. Patriat, '1995, L'année totale: mise en perspective de l'exceptionnelle hégémonie des droites', in P. Perrineau and C. Ysmal (eds.) Le Vote de crise (Paris: Presses de la FNSP 1995) pp. 283-312; J. Jaffré and A. Muxel, 'Les répères politiques', in D. Boy and N. Mayer (eds.) L'Électeur a ses raisons (Paris: Presses de la FNSP 1997) p.89.
4. The monthly SOFRES poll in the Figaro-Magazine (7 Nov. 1998) showed that a mere 27 per cent of respondents had a 'good opinion' of the UDF and 31 per cent for the RPR, compared with 37 per cent for the PCF. Poor opinions ran at 60 per cent (UDF), 58 per cent (RPR), against 50 per cent (PCF).
5. Y. Mény and A. Knapp, Government and Politics in Western Europe, 3rd edn (Oxford: UP 1998) p.55. Cf. also C. Ysmal, 'Transformations du militantisme et déclin des partis', in P. Perrineau (ed.) L'engagement politique: déclin ou mutation? (Paris: Presses de la FNSP 1994 )pp.41-66.
6. Y. Mény and A. Knapp, Government and Politics in Western Europe, 3rd edn (Oxford: UP 1998) p.55. Cf. also C. Ysmal, 'Transformations du militantisme et déclin des partis', in P. Perrineau (ed.) L'engagement politique: déclin ou mutation? (Paris: Presses de la FNSP 1994 )pp.41-66.
7. R.S. Katz and P. Mair Party Organizations: A Data Handbook on Party Organizations in Western Democracies, 1960-1990 (London: Sage 1992).
8. A. Knapp, 'The Cumul des mandats, Local Power and Political Parties in France', West European Politics 14/1 (Jan. 1991) pp.18-40.
9. Cf. M. Anderson Conservative Politics in France (London: Allen and Unwin 1974) pp.234-5.
10. W. Schonfeld, 'The RPR: From a Rassemblement to a Gaullist Movement', in W. Andrews and S. Hoffmann (eds.) The Fifth Republic at Twenty (Albany, NY: State U. of New York P 1981) pp.91-111.
11. A. Cole, 'The Presidential Party and the Fifth Republic', West European Politics 16/2 (April 1993) p.49.
12. H. Machin, 'Stages and Dynamics in the Evolution of the French Party System', West European Politics 12/4 (Oct. 1989) p.78.
13. Cole (note 9) pp.63-5.
14. Both Chirac and Mitterrand won the presidency in their early 60s, at the third attempt. Giscard, by contrast, lost the presidency at 55 and went on to haunt his party for another 15 years. Long-running feuds have included those between Mitterrand and Michel Rocard (in the PS), Giscard and François Leotard (in the UDF), and Philippe Séguin and Alain Juppé (in the RPR).
15. J. Frears, Parties and Voters in France (London: Hurst 1990) p.18.
16. Cf. Machin (note 10) pp.59-81.
17. D. Boy and N. Mayer, 'Que reste-t-il des variables lourdes?', in Boy and Mayer (note 2) pp.108-11.
18. Machin (note 10) pp.76-8.
19. J.-L. Parodi, 'La double consultation de mars 1992. A la recherche d'un modèle', in P. Habert, P. Perrineau, and C. Ysmal (eds.) Le Vote éclaté. Les élections régionales et cantonales des 22 et 29 mars 1992 (Paris: Presses de la FNSP, 1992) pp.269-85.
20. All the more so as public financing of parties and elections has multiplied the number of candidacies, which reached 6,300 for 555 metropolitan seats in 1997, an increase of 45 per cent in just nine years. Cf. D.B. Goldey, 'The French General Election of 25 May-1 June 1997', Electoral Studies 18/3 (Oct. 1998) p.541.
21. G. Grunberg and E. Schweisguth, 'Vers une tripartition de l'espace politique', in Boy and Mayer (note 2) pp.179-218.
22. Cf. O. Duhamel, La Gauche et la Ve République (Pans: PUF 1980) pp.37-193.
23. As he also delegated relations with francophone African leaders. For Foccart's account of both, cf. J. Foccart, Journal de l'Élysée Vols. I and II (Paris: Fayard/Jeune Afrique 1997 and 1998).
24. R. Rémond, 'La droite décomposée', Études 3895 (Nov. 1998) pp.461-9.
25. Cf. J. Chariot, 'L'opposition à la veille des élections législatives' in SOFRES, L'état de l'opinion 1993 (Paris: Seuil 1993) pp.35-48.
26. A claim made by the right-wing journalist E. Zemmour, in his Le Livre noir de la droite (Paris: Grasset 1998) pp.151-78. Curiously, Zemmour is echoed by the Socialist Deputy Jean-Christophe Cambadélis. Cf. J.-C. Cambadélis and E. Osmond, La France blafarde. Une histoire politique de l'extrême droite (Paris: Plon 1998) pp.230-37.
27. A claim made by the right-wing journalist E. Zemmour, in his Le Livre noir de la droite (Paris: Grasset 1998) pp.151-78. Curiously, Zemmour is echoed by the Socialist Deputy Jean-Christophe Cambadélis. Cf. J.-C. Cambadélis and E. Osmond, La France blafarde. Une histoire politique de l'extrême droite (Paris: Plon 1998) pp.230-37.
28. SOFRES, L'état de l'opinion 1998 (Paris: Seuil 1998) p.69.
29. Cf. Olivier Duhamel, 'La disgrâce de la gauche', in SOFRES, L'état de l'opinion 1994 (Paris: Seuil 1994) pp.77-94.
30. Cf. O. Biffaud and L. Mauduit, La grande Méprise (Paris: Grasset 1996).
31. Even among the 260 RPR deputies, over 90 had supported Balladur.
32. Olivier Duhamel and Philippe Méchet, 'Une grève d'opinion', in SOFRES, L'état de l'opinion 1996 (Paris: Seuil 1996) pp.33-47.
33. Cf. E. Dupoirier, 'Popularités', in ibid, pp.49-76.
34. Le Monde, 13 Nov. 1998.
35. Goldey (note 18) pp.546-7.
36. O. Duhamel, 'Dissolution ratée dans une démocratie déréglée', in P. Perrineau and C. Ysmal (eds.) Le Vote surprise: les élections législatives des 25 mai et ler juin 1997 (Paris: Presses de la FNSP, 1998) pp.18-19. The only precedent for defeat after dissolution was that of Marshal MacMahon, who resigned less than two years after his unsuccessful dissolution of May 1877.
37. This hurdle had been raised at Giscard's initiative precisely to encourage such a regrouping.
38. The 1995 election gave the UDF a new giscardo-chiraquien mini-component in the Parti Populaire pour la Démocratie Française (PPDF), led by Chirac's Foreign Minister, the loyal giscardien Hervé de Charette.
39. CPNT councillors and voters are chiefly concerned to secure the right to shoot songbirds in all seasons.
40. The figure was nearer a quarter both earlier and later. Cf. SOFRES, L'état de l'opinion 1998 (Paris: Seuil 1998) p.81.
41. Madelin's background is more colourful than the bourgeoisie-plus-ÉNA mould of most leading right-wing politicians. His father, a Renault worker, was expelled from the PCF for Trotskyist deviationism.
42. For the organigramme of the Right's transformations as at mid-1998, cf. Le Monde, 21 Aug. 1998.
43. Pompidou had said that a party president would resemble 'a Brezhnev beside me'. On Mitterrand, cf. S. and C. Gras, Histoire de la Première République Mitterrandienne (Paris: Robert Laffont 1991) pp.42-3.
44. For accounts of morale within the RPR between 1995 and 1997, cf. E. Hecht and E. Mandonnet, Au Cœur du RPR (Paris: Flammarion 1998) pp.21-31; E. Branca, Le Roman de la droite (Paris: Lattès 1998) pp.356-66.
45. For accounts of morale within the RPR between 1995 and 1997, cf. E. Hecht and E. Mandonnet, Au Cœur du RPR (Paris: Flammarion 1998) pp.21-31; E. Branca, Le Roman de la droite (Paris: Lattès 1998) pp.356-66.
46. Goldey (note 18) p.540.
47. Séguin was confirmed in his presidency of the RPR under the new statutes on 13 Dec. 1998, by a Soviet-style 95 per cent of the vote. Over 81 per cent of the RPR's 85,000 paid-up members cast personal or postal ballots.
48. P. Perrineau, Le Symptôme Le Pen: Radiographie des électeurs du Front National (Paris: Fayard 1997) p.99.