week in our series on social democracy, Chris Bertram looks at one disaster to anther. He then looks at how Mitterand revived its-fortunes and 1981. surged to the Bastille, the city was deafened by the sound of car horns, Francois Mitterand had won.
Today there is little notion that by cause for celebration. The together a mishmash government elected in the aHu COHHIULISE. a.ILwake of Mitterand's vic- gaullist parties an elec:ory has not brought with torally effective coalition t the promised change. could be built.
Instead, the workers of Renault and Citroen find Unfortunately for :hemselves fighting Mollet, his party was comgovernment that heir real standard of liv- has ing apart at the seams, with the Fourth Women find that, out The SFIO gave of deference to 'religious its wholehearted support families", the cost LO IG colontanst wars In abortion is not met by the Indochina and Algeria.
Opposition within the parSocial Security.
Conscripts find they was repeatedly crush nust spend a year in d the SFIO found itse uniform, as opposed to the promised months. unstable France is developing coalitions. own neutron bomb in the The war in Algeria imace of the 'Russian plicated Mollet and his hreat cabinet torture and Many have been hocked by this apparent tere Sino, ras Moleos urn-around. The leftist Mollet's hetoric of the mid-1970s Justice Minister vas deceptive, with its talk 1958 General de 'workers self- Gaulle seized power in a nanagement" and 'break- semi-legal coup d'etat. ng the powe of big The weak and inadequte Government of the Fourth pital h we scratcn tnt underneath ale urface find, ICOUDI had been the ver- dispensed by the viage, a old social- trench ruling class. lemocratic party. Gaulle, who had been expected ULOSCCULC the Mess disengaged Algeria. The majority of SFIO deputies voted sup.French Socialism port for de Gaulle and for finished the Second World constitution that War in a mess. The Com- looked like an elective dicnunist Party, because of tatorship. The handful of active Resistance record, had become the HUH LOUIS who voted gainst the new najor party of the French regime, such as Francois Socialist Party (SFIO) was working class. The Mitterand, amount of political credit won no small weak and internally divid- for themselves in the long with the ageing Leon term round run-off. It seemed only a matter of However in 1968 Mitterand: his government is fast moving to the right.
POUR LE policies of Socialist against them.
Using the language of class struggle, the Union of the Left came within a hair's breadth of victory ir the 1974 Presidential elec tions. The narrowness of Leit cons vent y mad e the confident that they would win in 1978. Fearful Then months before the elections the CP caucas teariu that they were losing support to the Socialist Party, launched a series of violent attacks on the democrats. Although the allegations that the Socialists were seeking to water down their commitments as their chance of forming a government closer WCHI without truth, the attacks of the CP led to electoral defeat. concerned to maintain onciners confidence' This has meant a policy of price and wage restraint that constrains wages Tamel more unan prices .Working class resistance is contained by the union leaderships; th CGT Force Ouvriere. When the SP leadership realised that EReTE anaerc CGT policy over Poland could шластие шле авіту о the Stalinist leadership to hold back struggle, they toned their criticisms. Unemploymen and rising price are the order of the day for th French working class.
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French social democracy in the post war period. He shows how after taking over from Leon Blum, Guy Mollet led it from
shows what has happened since the election of the Mitterand government in
MAY 10 1981 was a day of celebration for millions of French workers. In Paris crowds
before the reformist left wo However to power