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Governing from the Centre: the 1977 French Local Elections

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2014

Jack Hayward  and
Vincent Wright
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Extract

FRANCE IS A COUNTRY IN WHICH PAST POLITICAL BATTLES ARE IN the forefront of the minds of those who are engaged in contemporary conflicts. The March 1977 elections in the 36,383 communes of metropolitan France could evoke memories of 1877 and 1947. The thirtieth anniversary of the Gaullist landslide of 1947 was directly concerned with local elections as such, while 1877 recalled the defeat of President MacMahon's attempt to impose his choice of government a century ago, which finally settled the struggle between Left and Right over the regime of the Third Republic. Anticipation that the regime established by General de Gaulle would be put to the searching test of a clash between the President and a Left-wing Assembly majority converted in some people's minds the March 1977 local clections into a prologue to this decisive national confrontation.

Type
Article
Information
Government and Opposition , Volume 12 , Issue 4 , 01 October 1977 , pp. 433 - 454
Copyright
Copyright © Government and Opposition Ltd 1977

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References

1 See Hayward, Jack. and Wright, Vincent., ‘The 37,708 Microcosms of an Indivisible Republic: the French Local Elections of March 1971’, Parliamentary Affairs, XXIV, Autumn 1971, pp. 285–6Google Scholar and Douglas Ashford., The Limits of Consensus: the Reorganization of British Local Government and the French contrast, July 1976, Cornell University Western Societies Program Occasional Paper No. 6, p. 50 ff.

2 V. Giscard d’Estaing, Démocratie Française, 1976, pp. 154–56. See P. Viansson-Ponté’s review in Le Monde, 12 October 1976, entitled ‘Gouverner, est-ce aussi écrire?’.

3 On the application of Stanley Hoffman’s categories to a description of the French style of political leadership, see Jack Hayward., The One and Indivisible Republic, 1973, pp. 11–15.

4 The IFOP - France-Soir opinion poll on public satisfaction with the President recorded scores of 53 per cent in June and July; 47 per cent in September; 43 per cent in October; 42 per cent in November and 39 per cent in December 1976. By May 1977 this had increased to 45 per cent satisfied and 40 per cent dissatisfied, but they were figures far worse than those of his two predecessors.

5 V. Giscard d’Estaing, op. cit., p. 56; cf. p. 57.

6 ‘La République et le fait majoritaire’, Le Monde, 5 March 1977.

7 See Hayward, J. and Wright, V., ‘Presidential Supremacy and the French General Elections of March 1973’. Parliamentary Affairs, XXVI/3, Summer 1973, pp. 277 Google Scholar, 298.

8 For further details, see Irving, R. E. M., ‘The Centre Parties in the Fifth French Republic’, Parliamentary Affairs, XXIX/3, Summer 1976, pp. 264–78Google Scholar and C. Ysmal, ‘Mort ou pérennité du Centrisme’, Projet, February 1977, pp. 141–51.

9 Le Monde, 18 May 1976; cf. Ibid., 26 May 1976.

10 Jean Charlot., ‘La Politisation des Municipales’, Projet, February 1977, p. 139.

11 Although not directly involved in the election, President Giscard d’Estaing felt called upon to publish a list of his specches and achievements between May 1974 and February 1977 in this field, Pour un environnement à la Française, 1977, Service d’information et de diffusion. See Programme Commun de Gouvernement, Pt. I, Ch. 3 for the Left’s views on the subject.

12 J. Hayward and V. Wright, op. cit., p. 311.

13 Nouvel Observateur, May 23 1977.

14 Le Point, 28 March 1977.