The Fifth Republic & Polorization of French Politics

The increased presidentialism inherent in the structures of the Fifth Republic has led to increasing polarization of French politics, and no party better exemplifies this trend than the Union pour la dTmocratie frantaise (UDF). Rather than a party in a traditional sense, the UDF is a coalition of small parties whose principal shared characteristic is membership in the non-Gaullist Right. The party was formed in 1978 around then-president Valery Giscard d'Estaing as a means of generating parliamentary support and a base for reelection independent of the Gaullist majority. From the beginning the UDF coalition lacked a uniform set of principles and goals, and throughout its history it has often been difficult to distinguish its positions from those of the Gaullist Rassemblement pour la rTpublique (RPR). Despite some electoral successes the UDF remained the junior partner in the coalition with the RPR that governed France for over 20 years. Throughout its life the party was, largely, a forum for Giscard. With his withdrawal from the presidential race in 1995, it became clear that unless the party could move beyond its identification with the former president's career, ideas, and goals, its survival might be in jeopardy. After the failure of the UDF in the 1988 presidential elections and the decision not to put forward a candidate in 1995, after Giscard withdrew, the party seemed in danger of becoming irrelevant. Chirac's 1995 election seemed to confirm this. But, with t

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ection, as he clearly sought to change the government "from a Gaullist one to one more amenable to his ideas." Giscard wanted to split the Gaullists into pro- and anti-Giscard factions. This notion led him to reward Chirac's assistance in the election with the post of prime minister. He had also hoped to incorporate Chirac's group into the RI, or at least consolidate it's allegiance to him in some definite manner. But Chirac had his own ambitions--beginning with the leadership of the Gaullist party. Chirac, therefore, resigned as prime minister in 1976 and embarked on "a profound remodeling" of the party; renaming it the Rassemblement pour la rTpublique (RPR), initiating a huge membership drive, and consolidating his leadership position with his election as mayor of Paris in 1977. From 1976 to the early 1980s Chirac and the RPR altered the face of Gaullism. The mystique of de Gaulle had faded and the public seemed to be moving away from his rigid statist positions. This, combined with Chirac's need to counteract Giscard's appeal to the Center, led him to change positions on both domestic and foreign policies. Gaullist statism in domestic matters was replaced with "neoliberalism" which featured "deregulation, tax conce

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