Managing the Plural Left: Implications for the Party System David Hanley
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5 Managing the plural left: implications for the party system David Hanley The left Managing the plural left Introduction The plural left marks a new type of alignment within the French party system. Left parties had cooperated previously according to varying formulae. The type of majority known as concentration républicaine (Goguel, 1946) is arguably the first manifestation, followed by the hegemony of the délégation des gauches in the 1900s, which put through anti-clerical measures of ‘republican defence’. The interwar period witnessed the cartel des gauches – tactical electoral alliances of Radicals, SFIO and selected ‘left republicans’ – invariably unstable and short-lived. Famously, the 1936 Popular Front, a formal alliance of the three main left parties plus smaller allies, managed to campaign on an agreed programme but, although a government was formed and enjoyed some success, this too fell apart under various pressures. After the Second World War, formulae for broad left cooperation ran from tripartism (SFIO and PCF without any Radicals, but including the new force of Christian Democracy) to the more restricted and temporary defensive arrangement of SFIO, Radicals and centre oddments in ‘Republican Front’ alliances excluding the by-now pariah PCF. Under the Fifth Republic, the growing reality of bipolarisation drove the left’s leaders to the inevitable – a pact between the PS (as it now was) and the PCF, resting on a detailed and ambitious programme to which the incoming coalition government would be committed. The break-up of the Common Programme alliance generated sufficient move- ment to bring about Mitterrand’s 1981 win and, significantly, for him to feel obliged to involve the PCF in government for the first time in thirty-four years. PCF failure to use this opportunity intelligently soon led to further marginalisation, and by the mid-1980s the left-wing alliance consisted of a large PS with an undisputed leader of high status capable of winning a second presidency (and thus itself capable of winning a majority or nearly), trailing in its wake a small ally (the left Radicals), 76 David Hanley - 9781526137746 Downloaded from manchesterhive.com at 09/30/2021 06:30:57PM via free access Managing the plural left 77 and a shrinking PCF, not in total opposition to the PS and usually forced at election time to agree a deal. This unbalanced left duly won the presidency and a working majority in 1988. During this period a sizeable Green vote emerged in France. Yet this new but unfocused challenge was mostly ignored by the left parties (Boy, 1993). All these cooperative attempts recall two underlying tendencies. First, the left parties have usually been involved in some kind of alliance. The winning of an outright majority by any one party has remained mostly an impossible dream, even after the PS flash in the pan of 1981, though this does not mean that rapports de force in a left alliance are necessarily equal. Second, these alliances have usually been fragile, tactical and short term. The object has been to win an election and govern as best one could, basing government on the rapports de force within the winning coalition. There has been nothing permanent about the pact; sometimes there has been no agreed programme or even clear understanding beyond discipline républicaine. Partners have felt free to drop out (PCF refusal to join government in 1936) or change partners in mid-term (the Radicals on numerous occasions between the wars, the SFIO after 1947) or even to vote with the right (the PCF against Rocard after 1988). No party leaders thought in terms of developing an ongoing alliance which respects the different identities and contributions of partners while demanding agreement and discipline on a number of policies and procedures. As a result, little long-term commitment could be given; partners might have to be changed. Hence it always suited the PS to keep alive the (increasingly unlikely) threat that it could revive the old type of Third Force deal with the Christian Democrats; or the PCF could threaten to withdraw into total opposition, e.g., by leaving candidates in at the second ballot (again an increasingly incredible scenario). The seismic shock of the 1993 defeat shattered PS dreams of being a natural party of government. Rocard, now party leader – in itself a symbol of how low it had sunk – described the left as ‘a field of ruins’ and called for a ‘big bang’ to revive the PS, hinting that it might even have to merge with other left forces. Jospin’s emergence as a credible leader after the European defeat of 1994 and Rocard’s departure stemmed the decline and gave hope that the left could return to office. But Jospin had realised that this could only happen if a new type of relationship were established among its components. Thus was born a new concept of left unity in the shape of the plural left. Negotiations between the parties were direct and clearly focused, and carried out by a small team from each – the PCF, MdC, PRG, and, perhaps most significant of all, the Greens under Dominique Voynet (Amar and Chemin, 2002: 13–74). Each party retained its own electoral programme, but it was understood that all components would be in government if the plural left won.1 Such a strategy clearly has implications for the party system, both in David Hanley - 9781526137746 Downloaded from manchesterhive.com at 09/30/2021 06:30:57PM via free access 78 The left terms of its individual components and of the dynamics between these which constitute the party system per se. First, we need to examine the motivations of the PS, principal mover in this strategy, but also to a lesser extent, those of its partners. We need then to examine what the plural left implies in terms of day-to-day relations between its components, especially in the light of recent government experience. These analyses may enable us to see how far the new experiment has actually transformed the party system, not just in terms of relationships within the left, but between the plural left and the rest of the system. The PS and the plural left: strategy and motivation As the motor force behind and principal beneficiary of the plural-left strategy was the PS, we need to understand its analysis of the party system and its motivations in pushing the plural left. Jospin’s team began with the idea that the left–right polarity remains fundamental in French partisan life (Duhamel, 1997, Mossuz-Lavau, 1998, Cambadélis, 1999: 71–83). This is not just due to electoral bipolarisation, which may be as much a reflection as a cause; voters do still tend to split broadly along the left–right axis, as they have done since republican democracy became the norm (Charlot, 1993, Boy and Mayer, 2000). Obviously the values that underpin left and right identities evolve, as do the partisan forces that express them. But on election day, left-wing voters expect to find an adequate supply in party terms for their aspirations. This supply should normally confront a similar supply on the right in what was a moderately polarised system. The state of this supply in 1993 was problematic, however. Previously, the PS thought of itself as embodying the only serious left. The PCF was shrinking; allies like the PRG had long been vassalised. Even the newly created MdC might not prove much of a nuisance, as Chevènement’s followers might be more easily bought off from outside the party rather than cause trouble from within. From this viewpoint, then, the PS bossed the left and others fell in behind, with little input into policy and having to bargain for what they could in terms of seats, patronage, etc. All this changed with the scale of the 1993 defeat, when the PS lost 217 deputies (282 to 65) and only took half of its 1988 vote, sliding back to the levels of the mid-1960s. Its allies, being smaller anyway, suffered proportionately less. The left faced a long haul to reconquer voters, but even if voters were to come back, there was no guarantee that they would all go to the PS, especially as the sour end of the Mitterrand presidency had degraded yet further the image of socialism. An alternative strategy therefore seemed attractive: why not build on the very diversity of the left, encouraging each of its components to draw in voters as widely as possible? David Hanley - 9781526137746 Downloaded from manchesterhive.com at 09/30/2021 06:30:57PM via free access Managing the plural left 79 Clearly, this meant a downplaying of the hegemonic role which the PS had exercised since the late 1970s and a hard-headed assessment that it could probably never again achieve the scores of 1981 or 1988 nor hope to dominate in the same way. Obviously in any new left alliance the PS would be the biggest player and expect to lead in government; pluralism is a ‘réalité hiérarchisée’ (Cambadélis, 1999: 136). But this position differs from the previous winner-take-all arrogance. The PS would have a more consultative, less domineering profile; it would also have to be more generous in sharing seats, posts and resources. This was a bold step, and Jospin was the right man to take it. Inclined by temperament to a less personal style of leadership, he was also favoured by the institutional context; a plural-left win in 1997 would not be a presidential one (with all its implied legitimacy for one man and his programme). Rather it would be a parliamentary win, a win for parties; any government would have to be based on those parties, even if it was then to govern under cohabitation.