In 1958, the coalition of Gaullists and spokesmen for Algérie française routed the French labour movement without serious effort. This defeat, which has strongly stepped up what political scientists call ‘depoliticization’, gave free scope to Gaullist initiatives for quite some time. The elimination of the Algerian problem, which might have shaken up French social structures, led in fact to a strengthening of the Fifth Republic. Since then, the Gaullists in power have gone as far as to cut back the right to strike, to refuse the workers in the public services many more-than-justified pay-rises and then, since the end of 1963, they have put into operation a programme of economic and financial ‘stabilization’, whose declared aim is to halt wage-rises. Prime Minister Georges Pompidou—unlike any leader under the Fourth Republic—can now permit himself to say that his government is against reducing the profits of the large capitalist concerns. Politically, the authoritarian character of the régime has grown more acute, without the anti-Gaullist parties being willing or able to offer any serious resistance. Reform of the administration and of the system of municipal elections has been pushed through Parliament with almost no blockage: reforms meant to reinforce, if not actually fix for eternity, the domination of Gaullist organizations.

The various attempts to re-invigorate the left opposition to the régime must be seen in this light. Among these attempts, Gaston Defferre’s decision to run for President has certainly aroused the most interest. Launched by left-wing circles outside the labour movement (L’Express), his candidacy has shown itself from the start to be swimming with the tide, to accept a whole gamut of political forms grown up during the Gaullist period. As his ‘brains-trust’ counsels, Defferre sees himself not so much as the spokesman of the socialist opposition as the incarnation of a French Kennedyism: concerned by the most crucial problems of French society but without any real will to reform. He has declared that he will maintain the constitution of the Fifth Republic—i.e. a presidential régime with authoritarian tendencies—subject only to a few minor changes and, from the start of his campaign, he has been mainly preoccupied with voters to the right and in the centre. As a result, it was quite natural that Defferre should make concessions to anti-communism and refuse to discuss his political programme with the communists. In his view, the communists were in a weak position at a presidential election and would have to be content with the role of last-minute hangers-on.