The Changes Of Left-wing Political Forces In France In The Post-Mitterand Era

Political parties play a central role in Western political life.Both the parliament and the government revolve around political parties.The development and changes of political parties will also affect a country's domestic and foreign policies.After World War II,social democratic parties have played a pivotal role in European politics for a long time.However,for a period of time,compared with the center-right parties,social democratic parties' influence in Europe has generally declined.Among them,the French Socialist Party's The decline is particularly pronounced.But is the decline of the French Socialist Party relative or absolute? Are there other left-wing forces in France-such as the radical left party of Melenchon and the Greens-that can replace the French Socialist Party? Is there any chance of a resurgence of the French left as a whole? In order to answer these questions,this dissertation will analyze three aspects: changes in the organization of political parties,changes in the representative function of political parties,and changes in the procedural function of political parties.The size and form of political parties are not decisive for the development of political parties,as long as they do not affect the election results of political parties,but the social groups represented by political parties are more critical to the development of political parties.The representative function is the primary function of political parties.The decline of the representative function indicates the degradation of political parties,while the opposite indicates the potential of political parties to rise.The procedural function,i.e.the link between political parties and the state apparatus,is most visibly reflected in the local power of each party.In France,strong local power is an essential condition for any political party to grow into a national force.During the Fourth Republic,the Communist Party was the largest party in France,when it has a strong organization,powerfully responded to the issues of the times and had a strong local presence.However,with the reorganization of the Socialist Party in 1969,these advantages were lost,and by the end of the 1970 s,the Socialist Party had overtaken the Communist Party as the largest party on the left,most directly in terms of the party's representational power: the French Socialist Party at the time firmly grasped changing situation of the times,responded to popular demands,and brought together different left-wing interests.However,after the Mitterrand era,the French Socialist Party deteriorated: its organizational capacity weakened,the masses gradually moved away from it,its representative function declined,and there were fewer and fewer groups that could be united;only its procedural function was maintained,which to some extent compensated for the decline in its representative function and prevented the Socialist Party from completely declining.The situation of the Socialist Party at this time is similar to that of the Communist Party in the late 1970 s,when the local power of the Communist Party still existed,but multiple external factors combined with the Communist Party's own failure to seize the moment led to the inevitable decline of the Communist Party,so it remains to be seen whether the Socialist Party can seize its last chance.However,it is worth affirming that after the 2017 election,the Socialist Party has begun to reflect on its ideology,hoping to solve the plight of its mass base and ideology through eco-socialism.Although the Socialist Party has once again set a new all-time worst result in the 2022 presidential election,ideological renewal is a long and difficult process,and before solving this problem,the Socialist Party is bound to experience a slump.With the decline of the Socialist Party,the Unbowed France and the Greens have gradually risen,the former attracts the masses through populist tactics,while the latter has developed due to the increasing attention paid to ecological issues under the COVID-19 pandemic.It seems that the two have the potential to surpass the Socialist Party.The most immediate reason for this is that,while the Socialist Party's ability to represent voters has declined significantly,the issues proposed by the Unbowed France and the Greens are indeed more relevant to the current situation,but they also face many shortcomings.In terms of organization,the Unbowed France's membership is unstable,while the Green's membership has been small and its voter base is narrower.In terms of the issues they focus on,the Unbowed France lacks the ideology behind the populist strategy,and the Greens is still in the process of transformation from radical attitudes to pragmatism,its ideological construction has not yet been completed.When it comes to local forces,the Unbowed France lacks local power due to its distance from the Communist Party and its indifference to intermediate elections,whereas the local power of the Greens can grow steadily.Thus,despite the recent good performance of these two parties,they cannot replace the Socialist Party in the longer term,although Les Verts have more potential than the Unbowed France,but this will take time to see.The change in the power of the French left is the result of a combination of internal and external factors such as political and cultural identity,political system,social structural changes,issues of the times,transformation of democracy,and different types of political parties.Under the influence of these factors,the structure of left-wing politics has changed: the Socialist Party has declined,the Unbowed France and the Green Party have risen,and the development of the left as a whole has been affected as a result.Under Mitterrand,the strong left was based on the unity of the left as a whole,at that time the Socialist Party formed a coalition with the Communist Party and the Greens were absorbed into it.While the Socialist Party and the Greens have similars positions on many issues,the Unbowed France holds on to populism,and this,combined with differences on issues such as Europe,makes it difficult to form a grand left-wing coalition.Nonetheless,the left-wing parties forced by the situation continued to compromise and gradually move towards coalition.In its 2022 election platform,Unbowed France put forward a more moderate European position,and the left-wing parties also held a joint primary election in January 2022,which provides an opportunity for dialogue between left-wing parties and laid the groundwork for a coalition in the parliamentary elections that followed the general election.Currently,the left is indeed facing a serious crisis,but it will not disappear.