Left, right and centre: the MRP and the post-war moment

摘要

This article takes a fresh look at the Mouvement Républicain Populaire (MRP), the new party founded by social-Catholic leaders of the Resistance at the end of 1944. Melding the progressive spirit of the Resistance prevalent in post-Liberation France with long-held social-Catholic values and admiration for de Gaulle, the MRP achieved striking electoral triumphs in 1945–1946 and anchored successive tripartite governments. As against plausible interpretations that regard the MRP as a bourgeois party of the Centre, I emphasize the MRP's commitment to the social-democratic agenda of the Conseil National de la Résistance Common Programme of 1944. With its precocious success in party building, this progressive party in a new key assured that in its post-war moment France did not simply relapse into the electoral and parliamentary ways of the interwar years or that the field might be left clear for the Communists. Yet, despite its initially apt image as the parti de fidélité to de Gaulle, MRP leaders resisted the appeal of a saviour figure standing above the republicanism they embraced.