French Left

The French Left () refers to communist, socialist, social democratic, democratic socialist, and anarchist political forces in France. The term originates from the National Assembly of 1789, where supporters of the revolution were seated on the left of the assembly. During the 1800s, left largely meant support for the republic, whereas right largely meant support for the monarchy.

The left in France was represented at the beginning of the 20th century by two main political parties, namely the Republican, Radical and Radical-Socialist Party and the French Section of the Workers' International (SFIO), created in 1905 as a merger of various Marxist parties.

In the aftermaths of the Russian Revolution and the Spartacist uprising in Germany, the French Left divided itself in reformists and revolutionaries during the 1920 Tours Congress.

Left and Right in France

The distinction between left and right wings in politics derives from the seating arrangements which began during the 1789 National Assembly, in which the more radical ''Jacobin'' deputies sat on the benches to the left of the hall. Throughout the 19th century, the main line dividing Left and Right in France was between supporters of the Republic and those of the Monarchy. On the right, the Legitimists held counter-revolutionary views and rejected any compromise with modern ideologies while the Orléanists hoped to create a constitutional monarchy, under their preferred branch of the royal family, a brief reality after the 1830 July Revolution. The Republic itself, or, as it was called by Radical Republicans, the Democratic and Social Republic (''la République démocratique et sociale''), was the objective of the French workers' movement, and the lowest common denominator of the French Left. The June Days uprising during the Second Republic was the attempt by the left to assert itself after the 1848 Revolution, that foundered on its own divided radicalism which too few of the (still predominantly rural) population shared.

Following Napoleon III's 1851 coup and the subsequent establishment of the Second Empire, the Left was excluded from the political arena and focused on organising the workers. The growing French workers movement consisted of diverse strands; Marxism began to rival Radical Republicanism and the "utopian socialism" of Auguste Comte and Charles Fourier with whom Karl Marx had become disillusioned. Socialism fused with the Jacobin ideals of Radical Republicanism leading to a unique political posture embracing nationalism, socialist measures, democracy and anti-clericalism (opposition to the role of the church in controlling French social and cultural life) all of which remain distinctive features of the French Left. Most practicing Catholics continue to vote conservative while areas which were receptive to the revolution in 1789 continue to vote socialist.

History

19th century

Bourbon Restoration and the July Revolution

Paris was throughout the 19th century the permanent theater of insurrectionary movements and headquarters of European revolutionaries. Following the French Revolution of 1789 and the First French Empire of Napoleon I, the former royal family returned to power in the Bourbon Restoration. The Restoration was dominated by the Counter-revolutionaries who refused all inheritance of the Revolution and aimed at re-establishing the divine right of kings. The White Terror struck the Left, while the ultra-royalists tried to bypass their king on his right. This intransigeance of the Legitimists, however, finally led to Charles X's downfall during the Three Glorious Days, or July Revolution of 1830. The House of Orléans, cadet branch of the Bourbon, then came to power with Louis-Philippe, marking the new influence of the second, important right-wing tradition of France (according to the historian René Rémond's famous classification), the Orléanists. More liberal than the aristocratic supporters of the Bourbon, the Orleanists aimed at achieving a form of national reconciliation, symbolized by Louis-Philippe's famous statement in January 1831: "We will attempt to remain in a ' juste milieu' (the middle ground), in an equal distance from the excesses of popular power and the abuses of royal power."

July Monarchy

The July Monarchy was thus divided into the supporters of the "Citizen King", of the constitutional monarchy and of census suffrage, the right-wing opposition to the regime (the Legitimists) and the left-wing opposition (the Republicans and Socialists). The loyalists were divided into two parties, the conservative, center-right, ''Parti de la résistance'' (Party of the Resistance), and the reformist center-left ''Parti du mouvement'' (Party of the Movement). Republicans and Socialists, who requested social and political reforms, including universal suffrage and the "right to work" (''droit du travail''), were then at the far-left of the political board. The ''Parti du mouvement'' supported the " nationalities" in Europe, which were trying, all over of Europe, to shake the grip of the various Empires in order to create nation states. Its mouthpiece was '' Le National''. The center-right was conservative and supported peace with European monarchs, and had as mouthpiece '' Le Journal des débats''.

The only social law of the bourgeois July Monarchy was to outlaw, in 1841, labor to children under eight years of age, and night labor for those of less than 13 years. The law, however, was almost never implemented. Christians imagined a "charitable economy", while the ideas of Socialism, in particular utopian socialism ( Saint-Simon, Charles Fourier, etc.) diffused themselves. Louis Auguste Blanqui theorized Socialist coup d'états, the socialist and anarchist thinker Pierre-Joseph Proudhon theorized mutualism, while Karl Marx arrived in Paris in 1843, and met there Friedrich Engels

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