GIUSEPPE ARE e STEFANO CECCANTI

La Francia degli anni '80: un partito dominante in un sistema frammentato

N. 158

Summary — The authors start from realizing, on the basis of the consolidated politological literature, that the best time of French politics is constituted since 1962 by the direct election of the President of the Republic at universal suffrage and, therefore, that the life of the political parties is dominated by such occurrence. However, if originally between the presidential election and the political parties there was a connection of mutual exclusion, little by little these become more important in as much as they are organizing machines for the candidates. The crisis of the "bipolar quadrille" of this original bipolarism of French type, however, is now running the risk of making their political life to depend exclusively on the strategies of the President and of the potential candidates. After describing the situation of the four traditional parties (UDF, RPR, PSF, PCF) the authors examine the phenomena of penetration of the political parties in the State, which might lead to a real "spoil system" also in France: the consolidated parties remain weak as adhesion and as social rooting, but they acquire strength in their capacity of establishing relations of "complicity" and interference in the Administration.

The new protagonists of the system are then examined: the Front National, the abstension and the Greens. This new fragmentation does not hit, at least for the present. the advantages from the position which the PSF has in respect of the presidential competition. But the unknown problems for the future, mainly those of international kind which reflect on the home situation, make the scenery extremely uncertain: open therefore to a recomposition of the political parties’ system, as well as to a new decomposition. The constitutional system which represents the decisive variable, in fact does not act in a deterministic way: it constitutes a very strong bond, aware however of the various choices of the political actors.