Parties and the Party System in France

by Andrew Knapp

"The French readily take their politics onto the streets. But France's political parties have traditionally been weak and prone to splits. The elections of 2002, which broke all records for fragmentation, abstention and far-right protest voting, were merely the most recent and extreme expression of this. However, they also returned the incumbent President Chirac in triumph to the Elysee and gave him a basis of parliamentary support which was likely to ensure stable government for five years. Why has the basis of party support been so uncertain? And is France's continuing stable government achieved only at the cost of public alienation from the political system as a whole? Parties and the Party System in France seeks to explain the paradoxes of France's current relationship to politics through a comprehensive analysis of French political parties and their interaction over the past half-century, set in the twin contexts of French history and contemporary theories of parties and party sys