French Fourth Republic

The French Fourth Republic developed in France between 1946 and 1958. In many ways it was a remake of the Third Republic, which existed before World War II and suffered from many of the same problems, such as the short duration of governments, which complicated the development of public policies. France adopted the Constitution of the Fourth Republic on October 13, 1946, repeating the scheme inherited from the Third Republic: a president with little political power and a prime minister in whom direct command was concentrated, along with a parliament capable of withdrawing the confidence in the prime minister in a very simple way, in order to control his functions.

Some attempts were made to strengthen the Executive and avoid the situation of instability that occurred before the war, but instability continued precisely because of the French parliamentarians' fear of a too strong presidency, and the Fourth Republic saw frequent changes of government between 1946 and 1958, almost having a different prime minister each year.

Robert Schuman was President of the Council in 1947 as a member of the Mouvement Républicain Populaire (MRP), later Minister of Finance, Minister of Justice and Minister of Foreign Affairs (1948-1952), a position that led him to be the greatest French negotiator of the treaties signed between the end of the Second World War and the beginning of the Cold War, (Council of Europe, NATO, ECSC, etc.).

On May 9, 1950, Schuman addressed more than two hundred journalists to present a statement prepared together with Jean Monnet, which is considered the first official proposal for the construction of an integrated Europe and which is known from that date as the Schuman Declaration.

Although the Fourth Republic was marked by great economic growth and a substantial improvement in the population's standard of living, the regime is remembered above all for the failed defense of two of the French colonies: Indochina and Algeria. The alternation of prime ministers also occurred between leaders of very different parties, from the radical heirs of the Third Republic, to the former resistance fighters of the MRP, even socialists from the SFIO and the UDSR entered the Government, these groups dedicating themselves to broadcasting alternately. votes of no confidence to eliminate each other from the government. The ineffective system continued from 1946 but without much conviction during the first Indochina war until its decisive defeat at Dien Bien Phu in 1954, which brought an armistice signed by the government of Pierre Mendès-France in which total independence was de facto recognized. from Vietnam. The French failure in Indochina generated another immediate change of government when the French parliament issued a vote of no confidence against Mendès-France, increasing instability.

The rebellion in Algeria began shortly after Indochinese independence. The French Government had initial success and managed to control it, but the torture methods used by the French military and security forces caused a tremendous scandal when they became public in the metropolis. The problems of instability and ineffectiveness of the Fourth Republic reached their peak in 1958, when the government in Paris suddenly suggested that it wanted to negotiate with the Algerian nationalists to reach an agreement that would end the rebellion, an alternative that deeply displeased the pieds-noirs(French residents in Algeria) and the French Army itself.

In the so-called May Crisis, some right-wing elements of the army, led by General Jacques Massu, took power in Algiers and threatened an attack by parachute troops on Paris unless Charles de Gaulle, the hero of the Second World War, World War, he took charge of the Republic.

Popular opinion did not show massive sympathy towards De Gaulle, but neither did it want to prolong an inefficient "republican legality"; The political class categorically rejected the demands of the Algerian coup plotters, but they soon bowed to their wishes given the support of the metropolitan army for De Gaulle and the majority indifference of the civilian population towards the fate of the Fourth Republic. De Gaulle accepted the investiture as head of Government but on the condition that a new constitution be approved that would create a powerful presidency. Once again, the French parliament had to give in to this pressure, faced with the threat of a massive military rebellion, and when these changes were made the Fifth Republic was born.

Postwar: end of the Third Republic

Initial political situation

The post-war period began with a majority desire for political renewal, favored by the political and legal vacuum left by the war, which, however, ended up giving rise in 1947 to a political system very similar to that of the French Third Republic. The vote of the National Assembly on July 10, 1940 had effectively suspended the Constitution by granting Marshal Philippe Pétain full powers and commissioning him to draft a new one, which was never promulgated. The instability and impotence of France during the Third Republic and the military defeat that was attributed to it and the subsequent dictatorship had discredited both systems, although the rejection was greater due to the more recent authoritarianism.

In general, the political parties had been greatly weakened after the military defeat, but they reconstituted themselves throughout the war, fundamentally frustrating the emergence of a new large party linked to the resistance. However, the parties that seemed linked to this, they benefited at first from the rejection of the past and the search for a model, moving away from the values on which both the Third Republic and the Vichy Government had been based. Both the United States and the Soviet Union — the first considered a model of freedom, democracy and economic prosperity after five years of hardship, the second as the great victor of Nazism and champion of social justice—were the new ideals of renewal for the country.

The main interwar parties, the Radical Socialist Party, the Democratic Alliance and the Republican Federation—these last representatives of the parliamentary right—were resurrected with great effort in the final years of the war, fundamentally to include them in the National Council. of the Resistance and thus reinforce the legitimacy of Free France before the Anglo-Saxon allies. The resisters were fundamentally part of the French Communist Party, the French Section of the Workers' International - the socialist party -, the new Popular Republican Movement and, in to a lesser extent and as a consequence of the failure of the attempt to transform the socialist party into one close to British Labor, the Democratic and Socialist Union of Resistance (UDSR). These parties received the majority support of the population in the postwar period, as was evident already from the first elections, the municipal elections of April and May 1945. The Popular Republican Movement (MRP) originated in November 1944 also due to the majority refusal of the socialist party to abandon its traditional anticlericalism and to merge with the Christian element of the Resistance. Its strength was due to a series of factors: its connection with the Resistance - which cornered the UDSR -, its supposed closeness to General De Gaulle and, paradoxically for a party that presented itself as left-wing Christian despite its image Christian Democrat, the support of right-wing voters, frightened by communism and who saw in it a defense against it. The classical right had been greatly discredited by its support for the Vichy regime; Part of the traditional right-wing parties disappeared and the new ones failed to rally the majority of voters in principle. The radicals suffered the same discredit, identified with the parliamentary impotence of the Third Republic, symbols of the past, with part of their press gone and with numerous disqualified leaders.

First elections and political rivalry

The first elections were the referendum of October 21, 1945, in which the French chose whether or not to maintain the Third Republic and, if not, decide the powers of the Constituent Assembly that would found the new republic. The French finally obtained the right to vote precisely in them. The option to draft a new Constitution obtained overwhelming support: 96% of favorable votes, which led to the abandonment of the institutions of the Third Republic. The limitation of The powers of the Assembly, defended by de Gaulle, the MRP and the socialists mainly out of fear of the imposition of a communist regime, also passed, albeit with lower support (66%). The first parliamentary elections since 1936 were held. They celebrated on the same day and resulted in a great change with respect to the pre-war situation: the three parties with an image of close ties to the Resistance (MRP, SFIO and PCF) achieved a large majority (73.5 of the votes). The Marxist left, communists and socialists, grew notably, from 35% of the votes in 1936 to 49.6% in 1945, almost reaching an absolute majority. It had an absolute majority of seats in the Assembly, mainly due to the great increase in support to the PCF, which doubled its support and became the first party in the country. This growth coincided with a noticeable decrease in support for the center left (radicals and other related groups) and a smaller decrease in support for the right, many of whose votes went to the MRP instead of to the traditional parties. Another important change with respect to the situation in the Third Republic was the concentration of the vote in three parties, much better structured and disciplined in the parliamentary vote than the old ones, given to internal struggles between clans.

Soon, however, a conflict arose between the three winning parties in the elections and General De Gaulle, although the clash fundamentally pitted him against the PCF. The dissension originated in the different conceptions of political power: the Parties preferred that this reside in the National Assembly - a parliamentary model - while De Gaulle advocated the creation of a Government endowed with great executive power and an Assembly limited to its legislative and supervisory role of the cabinet. The struggle between both models It lasted from November 1945 to January 1946 and ended with the resignation of the general.

The first Government was a coalition of the three big winners of the votes, given the refusal of the socialists to form a league exclusively with the communists, whom they feared would try to implement a system of "popular democracy" as already was happening in some countries of Eastern Europe. The Assembly unanimously appointed General De Gaulle president of the new Government on November 13. Tensions appeared immediately: the communists demanded, by virtue of their electoral victory, a third of the positions in the Council of Ministers and one of the three key ministries (Interior, Defense and Foreign Affairs). They did not succeed due to the general's refusal and had to be content with five portfolios (none of the three desired), although with important economic and social powers (ministries of National Economy and Labor).

Resignation of De Gaulle and new Constitution

The differences between De Gaulle and the Constituent Assembly were evident with the first legislative projects, which clearly showed the different conceptions of the political structure. De Gaulle, increasingly dissatisfied with what he considered parliamentary interference in the work of the Government and with the direction that the drafting of the new Constitution was taking, which seemed to be going to enshrine the preponderance of the Cortes, he resigned on January 20, 1946, in the vain hope that the threat of withdrawal would allow him to impose his points of view. sight. It was not like that, neither public opinion nor the parties demanded its return and the writing of the Constitution was therefore in the hands of the political parties, which dominated the politics of the new republic.

The departure of De Gaulle and the new socialist refusal to form a new Government only with the communists gave rise to a new league cabinet between the three major parties of the moment: PCF, SFIO and MRP. The latter remained in the Government as a kind of internal opposition to the two Marxist parties, whose activity he wanted to control and limit. The new Government thus emerged as a conflictive alliance, with a president chosen mainly for his proven ability to mediate - the socialist Félix Gouin, until then president of the Constituent Assembly― given the forecast of disagreements within the Council of Ministers. The strength of the parties and the weakness of the position of president of the Government was reflected again in the way in which the cabinet was formed: Gouin did not choose to the ministers, but limited itself to assigning the ministries to the three associated parties, so that they could choose those who would make up the Council of Ministers. Power remained in practice in the hands of the party leaders, that dominated the parliamentary groups - mere representatives of their respective political organizations.

The draft of the new Constitution almost broke the new alliance due to the differences between the three government partners. Socialists and communists advocated the creation of a unicameral Parliament that would elect both the president of the republic and the Government, while the MRP that such parliamentary preponderance, together with a possible majority of Marxist parties, would allow the establishment of a "popular democracy" legally. The radical party also opposed the draft and formed a new center-left group, the Group of Republican Left (RGR). The Assembly finally approved the drafting of the Constitution (by 309 votes to 249), but the result of the subsequent referendum was negative: 53% of voters rejected it. The campaign of fear of The eventual establishment of a communist regime was effective and added to the apathy of the SFIO, which made a half-hearted defense of the constitutional project.

The elections of June 1946 brought a decline on the left due to the loss of votes of the socialists (2%): both parties no longer had the majority of seats in the Constituent Assembly. For its part, the MRP grew and became the first party in the country. The growth of the right allowed Georges Bidault, of the MRP, to preside over the new Government that was formed after the elections, but not to put an end to the tripartite alliance, due to the refusal of the radicals to enter the Council of Ministers. The MRP was able to impose on socialists and communists some changes in the draft Constitution, fundamentally the acceptance of a second chamber and granting certain powers to the president of the republic. De Gaulle undertook a determined campaign against this second constitutional project, advocating a fundamentally presidential model. This opposition led to the break between the general and the MRP, which until then had presented itself as the party that most faithfully reflected the former's opinions, and which was limited From then on to defend essentially Christian Democratic positions.

The new draft Constitution obtained broad parliamentary support (443 favorable votes compared to 106 negative), but a small majority in the subsequent referendum: 53% of the votes, with a significantly higher abstention than in the previous vote (one third of the census). The new Constitution gave the National Assembly - the Lower House - the central role in French politics: elected by universal suffrage, with a mandate of five years, it had absolute legislative power - the Government It could not promulgate decree laws - and it elected and dismissed the Government. The Upper House, the Council of the Republic, was a mere consultative institution, without the power to limit the decisions of the Lower House and whose members were elected through a complex method, without direct participation of the voters. The president of the republic had somewhat greater powers, fundamentally that of electing the president of the Government and with it, guiding government policy to a certain extent; His mandate was also somewhat longer than that of the deputies - seven years and not five - which granted him a certain independence with respect to the National Assembly, which, however, elected him jointly with the Council of the Republic. The Constitution did not deprive him of prerogatives to the president of the Government, who held the direction of the executive power, but custom made them inoperative. The Constitution provided that the president of the republic appointed the one of the Government and that he obtained the majority endorsement of the Lower House for himself and his program, without having yet formed a cabinet, but the first president of the Government of the new republic established the custom of once again requesting parliamentary support for the Government as a whole, once the ministers had been chosen. It was implemented in this way. fact, and not by legal requirement, the "double investiture", which lasted until 1954 when the system of the Third Republic was adopted again: the approval of the entire Government and not only of its president. Another procedure that was established by practice and not due to constitutional requirements was that of the dismissal of the Governments: the possibility of the motion of censure was not used and the question of confidence was used in a different way from what was provided in the law: if this required a majority absolute number of unfavorable votes for the dismissal to be approved, a relative vote was often enough for the cabinets to resign. In practice, the Council of Ministers remained subject to the National Assembly, despite the theoretical possibility that it would dissolve it, which remained very limited by the conditions that were required for it. Although the Fourth Republic finally ended up resembling the Third in terms of the weakness of the executive power and the instability of the successive Governments, this was not essentially due to the new Constitution, but rather at the end of the tripartism for which it was adapted and by the actions of political leaders, who tended to reproduce the behaviors of the previous republic.

Domestic policy

Challenges of the new republic

The republic had to face a complicated situation, inherited from the military defeat, the occupation and the liberation battles. It had to try to repair the ravages of the conflict, resolve the serious social crisis, undertake economic recovery and adopt a new foreign policy. Its main challenges, however, were those of the time: the beginning of the Cold War and decolonization, which affected it intensely, unlike what happened with other neighboring countries, as a consequence of the power of the French Communist Party and the possession of colonies. The popular division, the weakness of the institutions and the accumulation of problems, especially the successive colonial conflicts, ended up exhausting the resistance of the fourth republic, which gave way to the fifth.

Political structure

The political system of the Fourth French Republic was parliamentary and the center of power was held by the National Assembly of France, the Lower House of a bicameral system in which the Upper House was the Council of the Republic. The Assembly had the legislative power and dominated the executive, since the appointment of the president of the Government depended on its approval by an absolute majority, although the candidate who presented himself before it was chosen by the president of the republic, almost devoid of other powers. The actions This had to have the signature of both the President of the Government and the minister of the corresponding branch. He was elected by the two parliamentary chambers jointly, for a term of seven years. Parliamentary commissions that monitored ministerial activity were also common. The president of the Council of Ministers elected his ministers, whom he could change at will.

Political situation

Almost half of the population voted for parties hostile to the fourth republic: communists (the French Communist Party was the main one in the country) and Gaullists. Disenchantment with the political situation was widespread and the fourth republic did not have the determined support from any social class. The Constitution had not aroused great popular support and had been approved by a slim majority, with abundant abstention. Almost the entire population criticized the continued government instability, which was reflected in the short average duration of the the cabinets: seven months. The Constitution had been tailored to a temporary phenomenon: the dominance of the league between communists, socialists and popular republicans that ended when the former left the Council of Ministers in May 1947. To this Added to this was the weakness of the numerous political parties, with few members compared to those of other neighboring nations such as the United Kingdom or West Germany, and the quasi-proportional seat allocation system.

Political evolution

Beginning of the new republic and end of tripartism

The provisions of the new Constitution of 1946 were implemented between November of that year and January of the following. The first National Assembly of the new republic was elected in the elections of November 10, 1946, which confirmed the parliamentary preponderance of the PCF and the MRP. The former once again led the results, in part due to the division of the MRP vote. The SFIO continued to lose votes, a consequence of the internal dissensions evident in the summer congress, and its weakening and certain recovery of the traditional parties of the Third Republic, radical and moderate, less structured, allowed them to regain importance.

Paradoxically, the new Government that emerged from the elections was exclusively socialist and was chaired by Léon Blum, due to the failure of other candidates. The first president of the republic was elected on January 16, 1947 and was the socialist Vincent Auriol, which obtained a large majority thanks to the support of the communists. Blum's government barely survived the presidential election and resigned at the end of the month. Auriol appointed the socialist and veteran parliamentarian of the previous republic Paul Ramadier to preside over the next cabinet. His Government, very subject to the parties, marked the later ones in this, as well as in demonstrating that there was an alternative majority to that of the three parties that had dominated the post-war period: he managed to include in the Council of Ministers seven officials outside of these - two from the UDSR, three radicals and two independents -. Once again, the ministers were chosen by the parties that formed the government coalition and not by the president, who submitted to the "double investiture."

On the other hand, the cohesion of the tripartite league began to crack at the beginning of 1947, distancing the PCF from its other partners, mainly due to disagreements in economic and colonial matters. The PCF had agreed with the SFIO and the MRP the containment of wages to avoid promoting inflation, despite the continuous increase in prices, the shortage of coal and raw materials and rationing, which fueled public discontent. However, the MRP accepted by surprise during the summer a 25% increase in salaries, a gesture that encouraged the PCF to support the protests so as not to appear less empathetic with the working world than its government partner. The strikes of the first in 1947 thus had the support of the PCF and of the CGT and the communist parliamentarians not only questioned the Government's opposition to the wage demands of the strikers, but ended up voting against it in the motion of confidence on May 4, despite being part of it. This vote marked the rupture of the tripartite league and, with it, the weakening of the institutions that had been created on the basis that it would last. Added to these disagreements was dissension over the colonial situation in which the colonialism of the MRP prevailed over the will to negotiate. with the various nationalist groups of the PCF, a minority given the support that the SFIO gave to the MRP in these matters. The typical features of the colonial wars that occurred during the Fourth Republic were already established at the beginning of 1947, for Indochina: refusal to parley with the enemy until achieving military victory and rejection of its representativeness. The repression of the nationalists that had already begun in Indochina at the end of 1946 was repeated in March 1947 in Madagascar; The communists, except the ministers, voted against the war credits requested by the Government. If differences in economic policy led to the dismissal of the communist ministers on May 5, it was the Cold War that fundamentally prevented them from returning to the Government. until 1981. At that time, the dismissal seemed like a passing mishap and both communists and socialists thought that the PCF would soon re-enter the Council of Ministers; The event marked, however, the moment in which the Cold War began to influence French politics and which led to the removal of power from the communists for a quarter of a century. In addition, the conciliatory attitude of the PCF, which came Even though Maurice Thorez saw the Marshall Plan as a positive measure for French economic development, it did not survive the worsening of the Cold War in September 1947. At the founding congress of Cominform, the PCF was sharply reproached for its moderation and there were to assume the new line put forward by Andréi Zhdanov. The PCF assumed an attitude of intense opposition: rejection of the Marshall plan, branded an instrument of American imperialism, criticism of foreign policy and French participation in the American "containment" of the communist expansion in Indochina and use of the economic and social discontent of the population to harass the Government.

René Coty succeeded Vincent Auriol as president of the republic after a complicated election that required thirteen votes in January 1954.

The French defeat in the Battle of Dien Bien Phu preceded by one month the resignation of the Government of Joseph Laniel on June 12, 1954, after almost twelve months of administration. The defeat weakened the influence of the metropolis in the colonies. and unleashed criticism of the post-war colonial policy in Indochina. Peace negotiations with the Vietminh continued in Geneva while France was looking for a new prime minister and the military leadership feared the annihilation of the French expeditionary force in Indochina if it did not conclude. soon the war.

«Third force»

The political dominance of the tripartite alliance formed by the MRP, the SFIO and the PCF was followed by that of another political league: the so-called "third force", which reigned from 1947 to 1952 and which opposed the other two « forces", the PCF and the new Gaullist party, the Rally of the French People (RPF).

In 1947 and 1948, the Government had to face a series of spontaneous strikes caused by the high cost of living and the refusal of the employers' association and the cabinet to accept salary demands. The PCF and the CGT—dominated since 1945 by the communists - had tried to channel the protests until then, but they began to fuel them, adding other political demands to the economic demands. The great wave of strikes took place in an atmosphere of great violence, almost civil war at the end of 1947. Serious sabotage - shutdown of some blast furnaces, flooding of mines and cuts to railway lines - accompanied the strikes, but the Government accentuated the tension due to the actions of the Minister of the Interior and the threat of use of the army. Part of the opinion The public mistakenly believed that the PCF was trying to use popular discontent to carry out a revolution. The energetic government action managed to fracture the strike movement and then dismantle it in early 1948, although there was a minor upsurge in the autumn of that year.

The strikes had, however, certain important consequences: the fragmentation of the CGT due to the split of those who had opposed the political demands defended fundamentally by the communists, who founded the General Confederation of Labor - Fuerza Obrera (CGT-FO), whose main supports were part of the officials; the social and political isolation of the PCF, seen by part of the population as a "foreign" party, a feeling that was accentuated after the "Prague coup" of February 1948; the weakening of republican political institutions due to the departure of the PCF from power, which required new majorities and led to a right-wing government. Moderates and radicals recovered part of their old influence and the SFIO became the central axis of the coalitions to be formed. its most leftist faction.

The Gaullist hostility was added to the new communist hostility: after the poor result of the Gaullist Union, which did not have the explicit support of the general in the November 1946 elections (3% of the votes), De Gaulle decided to intervene and create the French People's Rally (RPF, April 14, 1947) with a fundamentally anti-communist program and a change towards an authoritarian model of the institutions of the republic. The new party, which attracted numerous members - at least four hundred thousand, one million according to the RPF itself—was presented as open to all citizens and allowed membership in other political formations. The strength of the new party was reflected in the results of the 1947 municipal elections, in which it obtained a large majority in municipalities with more than nine thousand inhabitants: 28% on their own lists and 40% in coalition. The thirteen main cities of the country and fifty-two prefectures were left in their hands. However, the RPF still had few support in the National Assembly and had to wait until 1951 to measure his strength in the legislative elections, given the refusal of the Lower House to dissolve. For his part, De Gaulle denied his supporters the possibility of participating in what he considered " the system». The consequence was the slow weakening of the party from 1949 onwards.

All in all, the two opposition forces together had a majority of the votes – around 28% each – and left the republic in a precarious situation. The MRP and the SFIO had to count on substitutes from then on for the lost votes of the PCF: they did so by integrating the radicals into the Government, who had seventy deputies. This new centrist governmental league was called the "third force" and the moderates also sometimes participated in it, given the fragility of radical support. It was an alliance of circumstances between the political forces in favor of the Fourth Republic, which ranged from the socialists to the moderates, who barely shared more than the defense of the institutions and those who separated numerous social and economic issues. These caused the fall of almost all the cabinets of the first legislature (1946-1951) and government instability. The SFIO bore the brunt of the political conflict and successive governments showed a clear economic and social evolution towards the right and progressive dismantling of post-war dirigiste measures. The desire to avoid a regime crisis meant that the socialists ended up supporting governments whose economic policies they censored. The instability of the government coalition meant that the cabinets survived fundamentally through inaction—so as not to trigger internal disagreements given the differences in economic and social policy between the allies—and the adoption of an anti-communist attitude. Paradoxically, inaction, especially notable during the Government of the radical Henri Queuille, favored the survival of the Fourth Republic, by avoiding internal conflicts and delaying the elections of the Council of the Republic and cantonal elections to encourage the weakening of the RPF.

Second legislature

The desire to avoid a communist and Gaullist majority that could endanger the Fourth Republic and the internal balances of the "third force" promoted the reform of the electoral law that was to be applied for the new legislative elections of 1951. The The new law mixed the proportional system (preferred by the MRP) and the majority system (with the aim of undermining the PCF). The new law granted the total number of seats in a constituency to the league of parties that presented themselves separately, but officially confederated and that they jointly obtained the absolute majority of the votes. He intended to take advantage of the possibility of the "third force" parties to ally themselves and the difficulty of the PCF to do so and force the RPF to agree to join forces with other parties to avoid electoral defeat. This eventual alliance of the RPF should allow it to eventually be included in the government league and thus be able to do without the SFIO. Finally, De Gaulle's refusal to agree with the other parties and the lack of total union among those of the "third force" it limited the damage that the new law intended to inflict on the PCF and the RPF, without ceasing to benefit the parties favorable to the Fourth Republic. The main beneficiaries were the RGR and the moderates, with many more seats than votes and, to a lesser extent, the SFIO, which lost votes but essentially retained its representation in the Assembly. The MRP was greatly weakened by the rise of the RPF. In practice, the refusal of the Communists entered the Government and the RPF's refusal to do so once again promoted the formation of a new league of the "third force" formations, the only combination that allowed it to secure a majority in the Assembly, despite the opposition of its components. eager to abandon the formula of a broad coalition of very disparate parties.

Foreign and colonial policy

From hostility towards Germany to the anti-communism of the Cold War

The main concern of French foreign policy in the postwar period was to guarantee the weakening of Germany, a position that counted on Soviet collaboration, but not with that of the United Kingdom and the United States. For those responsible for French foreign policy, Germany had to be divided, its industry had to be dismantled, the Rhineland had to form an independent state and the Saarland had to be ceded to France. The announcement of the Truman Doctrine on March 15, 1947 and the worsening of the Cold War disrupted the Franco-Soviet league with respect to Germany, as France sided with the Americans, although hoping that the Soviet-American disagreements would be temporary. Stalin, for his part, proposed German reunification in April, hoping that it would benefit the communists, an attitude contrary to that defended by France.

The Cold War gave rise to governmental anti-communism based both on external events (Prague coup, Berlin blockade and Korean War) and internal events (the great strikes of 1947-1948). This left concern for Germany and gave the defense of the republic against an alleged Soviet threat primacy in the country's foreign policy. In 1948, France began to seek an alliance with the United States, especially military protection against the Soviets. The negotiations gave rise to the North Atlantic Treaty of April 4, 1949, which linked several European countries with the United States and Canada and linked NATO. The need to please the Americans forced the French leaders to reluctantly accept the union of the three western zones of occupation of Germany - the seed of the future Federal Republic of Germany - and the creation of the European Organization for Economic Cooperation (OEEC), in charge of coordinating the distribution of US aid from the Marshall Plan. Paradoxically, American pressure led to the adoption of a position favorable to the European Union, especially the MRP - both to achieve a clear identity for the party after the emergence of the RPF that deprived it of the Gaullist one and to try to lead a process which he considered inevitable -. The British refusal to increase political union between European nations meant, however, that the fruit of Robert Schuman's efforts was limited to the creation of the Council of Europe (May 1949). France also had a primary role in the founding of the European Coal and Steel Community and the failed European Defense Community, which entailed a German industrial and military resurgence, but within a European framework of control.

Colonial politics

French colonial policy had a close link with the anti-communist foreign policy that the country adopted. The breakup of the tripartite league in 1947 eliminated the counterweight to the nationalist colonialist policy of the MRP, which contrasted with its Europeanism and which included with the support of the radicals, defenders of the empire, the moderates and, in practice, the socialists. For the "third force" governments, the concessions to the nationalist movements in the colonies ultimately favored the communists and presented opposition to decolonization as a French contribution to the fight against Soviet expansionism. They therefore adopted a policy of firm opposition to nationalism, which aroused almost no opposition in France.

In Morocco, the governor tried to obtain the condemnation of the Istiqlal, nationalist parties, by Sultan Mohammed V. In Tunisia, the new governor had members of the Tunisian Government arrested in early 1952, which unleashed a crisis between the colony and the metropolis. In Algeria, the new socialist governor general was in charge of rigging the January 1948 elections to the regional assembly so that deputies attached to the colonial administration were elected, ruining the nationalist parties, which had demonstrated to have great popular support in the municipal elections of the previous year. In Indochina, the government's anti-communism led to the refusal to parley with Ho Chi Minh and to search for an alternative interlocutor in the former emperor Bao Dai, who was granted what had been denied to him. in 1946: union of the predominantly Vietnamese territories (Tonkin, Annam and Cochinchina) and independence within the French Union. In theory, from 1949 the French fought in Indochina in the service of Vietnam. The military situation It clearly worsened after the communist victory in the Chinese civil war, which allowed the Viet Minh to obtain military aid and move from guerrilla actions to larger military offensives. At the same time, the Korean War allowed the French to obtain American aid to the Indochina war: in 1951, the United States committed to defraying half of the costs of operations in Indochina, considering the war no longer as a colonial conflict, but as an anti-communist war. The attitude of public opinion towards This war - considered distant and in which professional and volunteer soldiers and non-conscripts fought - changed in 1950, as a consequence of the disaster of Cao Bang.

Economy and society

The three parties united after the resignation of De Gaulle agreed to apply the economic and social program of the National Council of the Resistance, which involved a series of nationalizations and the implementation of an economy directed in part by the State. Thus, it approved a five-year plan for modernization and equipment and gas, electricity, insurance and coalfields were nationalized, but not business banks, due to the opposition of the MRP.

The main source of energy in France during the Fourth Republic was coal (74% of national energy production in 1950). The increase in energy consumption and the difficulty of increasing coal production led to the promotion of other sources. energy, especially hydraulics and oil. The desire to increase the first led to the construction of new dams on the Rhine, the Rhône, the Duranza and in the Alps. The second grew rapidly: in 1950 it contributed 16% of the energy of the country; in 1960 25%.

Some industries grew notably: the automobile and chemical industries doubled their production between 1952 and 1958. Some sectors of the latter increased even more: the production of phosphate fertilizers tripled, that of synthetic fabrics quintupled, and the production of synthetic fabrics increased sixfold. of plastics. The first went from manufacturing half a million cars in 1952 to a million in 1958.

The new consumer goods and appliances were even more of a novelty than widely used goods: only 7% of homes had a refrigerator, 5% a dishwasher, and 20% a car in 1954. The number of private cars did not reach a million by the same date.

A third of the population still lived in municipalities with less than two thousand inhabitants and a quarter of the population worked in agriculture. The transformation of the country from rural to urban continued; In a century the proportions between the rural and urban population were reversed: in 1872, 68% of French people lived in towns of less than two thousand inhabitants and 32% in larger towns, percentages that were reversed in 1975. The population rural was already a minority in 1954, although still very copious (44% in 1954).

The family structure continued to consist of the marriage of a man and a woman and their children. Life as a couple without going through marriage was not well regarded and divorces were rare (about thirty thousand in 1955). The women who Those who worked outside the home were a shrinking minority: 46% in 1966 and 36% in 1968. The social model for women was that of the housewife without professional activity dedicated to raising children. Contraceptive methods did not They could be advertised due to a 1920 law and abortion was considered a crime, despite the fact that it is estimated that several hundred thousand were performed clandestinely, generally with a total absence of hygiene.

Housing was generally poor and old: 70% of the houses had been built before 1914 and 41% of them lacked running water. 72% lacked their own toilets and 89% did not even have shower or bathtub. 50% of families lived in houses that were too small and 23% lived in overcrowded residences with more than three people per room. The modernization of agriculture, the growth of industry and the tertiary sector encouraged rural exodus and the parallel expansion of the cities. Paris had gone from six million seven hundred thousand inhabitants in 1936 to seven million three hundred thousand in 1954.

French society at the end of the fourth republic was one of incipient consumption, but of products to improve the quality of life: sanitary elements (toilets, showers, heating), textiles (clothes, curtains, sheets), etc. The Consumption grew at an average annual rate of 6%, faster than investment, production or profits, increasingly dependent on credit; bank loans tripled within a few years. Income was generally modest, lower than in other developed Western countries, and 45% of the population had trouble making ends meet. Paid vacations did not exceed two weeks annually and only one in five French people spent them outside the home. Sports equipment was scarce, despite the popularity of sport among the population.

Scientific advances and the implementation of social security improved the general health situation, especially of the disadvantaged, and life expectancy, which had increased from forty-five years at the end of the century XIX at seventy for women and sixty-three for men in 1950.

Unemployment was minimal: 1.6% of the active population (about three hundred and ten thousand French) in 1953. The abundance of employment and the population's rejection of some positions favored immigration, which accounted for 4%. of the population (701,411 people), 80% of which were of European origin (mainly Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Polish and Yugoslavian).

Prime Ministers