Rally of Republican Lefts

The Rally of Republican Lefts (French: Rassemblement des gauches républicaines, RGR) was an electoral alliance during the French Fourth Republic which contested elections from June 1946 to the 1956 French legislative election.[1] It was composed of the Radical Party, the Independent Radicals, the Democratic and Socialist Union of the Resistance (UDSR) and several conservative groups.[2] Headed by Jean-Paul David, founder of the anti-Communist movement Paix et Liberté (Peace and Freedom), it was in fact a right-of-center conservative coalition, which presented candidates to the June 1946, November 1946, and 1951 legislative elections.

Despite its name, the coalition was on the right wing of French politics; for a long time, the French republican right has refused to call itself "right" since the right-wing in France has historically been associated with monarchism (this practice is known as sinistrisme). It was subsidised by French employers, who saw in it the best defense against Communism and the defender of economic liberalism, in a context marked by various nationalizations supported by the French Communist Party (PCF), the French Section of the Workers' International (SFIO) and the Gaullist movement. Employers conceived the RGR as such until at least the 1951 creation of the National Centre of Independents and Peasants (CNIP) gathering independent conservative deputies. During the 1956 legislative campaign, it became a political party led by Edgar Faure and Radicals who refused to join the Republican Front coalition.

  1. ^ Caramani, D. (2017). Elections in Western Europe 1815-1996. Societies of Europe. Palgrave Macmillan UK. p. 327. ISBN 978-1-349-65508-3. Retrieved 2024-02-11.
  2. ^ Mackie, T.T.; Rose, R. (2016). The International Almanac of Electoral History. Palgrave Macmillan UK. p. 142. ISBN 978-1-349-09851-4. Retrieved 2024-02-11.