Tripartisme

The reasons for this perceived lack of legitimacy included in the first instance the Collaborationism of several of these actors, as well as the failure in the 1930s to put an end to the economic crisis that had characterized the years of the Great Depression.

Thus the Democratic Republican Alliance, the main center-right party after the First World War, had opted for Collaborationism, an option endorsed by its leader Pierre-Étienne Flandin plus other members like Joseph Barthélémy.

The political class was considered jointly responsible for the collapse in 1940 of the Third Republic following the disastrous Battle of France, which the historian Marc Bloch later described as the "strange defeat" (l'étrange défaite).

Afterwards, the PCF and de Gaulle's Rally of the French People (RPF) became France's main parties; however, both remained in opposition, because on their own they could not muster the absolute majority needed to form a government, and an alliance between them was inconceivable.

The Three-Parties Alliance was succeeded in government by the Third Force, which comprised the Democratic and Socialist Union of the Resistance (UDSR), the SFIO and the MRP, with the Gaullists and the Communists forming the opposition.

The March 1944 Charter of the Conseil National de la Résistance (CNR), the umbrella organization of the Resistance which was dominated by the Communist Francs-Tireurs et Partisans (FTP), envisioned the establishment of a social democracy, including a planned economy.

Despite de Gaulle's so-called discourse of Bayeux of 16 June 1946, in which he denounced the new institutions,[8] the new draft was approved by the French people, with 53% of voters voting in favor (with 31% in abstention) in the 13 October 1946 referendum.

Accordingly, the composition of the government was determined by the make-up of the Parliament, and heavily relied on the formation of alliances between the most popular parties, which in practice meant the MRP, the SFIO and the PCF.

[10] The May 1947 crisis could be described as the result of the Communists' refusal to continue support for the French colonial reconquest of Vietnam on the one hand plus a wage freeze during a period of hyperinflation on the other, which were the immediate causes of Maurice Thorez and his colleagues being dismissed from the ruling coalition in May 1947.