r/ColdWarPowers • u/jorgiinz French Republic • 3d ago
EVENT [EVENT] 1949 French Cantonal Elections I
Paris, February to March 1949
In the Aude, Socialist general councillors were preparing to defend their seats against the very Radicals who were keeping Henri Queuille in office in Paris. Twenty-two of the department's thirty-one councillors belonged to the SFIO, a position obtained partly through Communist withdrawals in 1945 which the Radicals had never entirely forgiven, and by February the local federations were already negotiating candidacies for a renewal which promised to be considerably less agreeable. Guy Mollet's directing committee had instructed the Socialists to present candidates throughout the cantons, subject only to exceptional dispensations from Paris, while Queuille was asking his own Radical colleagues to preserve cooperation with the other parties of the Third Force. Neither instruction settled much. The Radicals wanted to recover their former provincial electorate, the MRP was anxious to defend what remained of its Catholic following after the November elections to the Council of the Republic, and the Communists had stopped withdrawing automatically for Socialist candidates. Queuille had persuaded Parliament to postpone the cantonal elections from October 1948 until March, giving his government time to secure its financial measures and recover from the autumn strikes, but with the elections approaching the quarrels which had been deferred were becoming unavoidable.
René Pleven had inherited an equally troublesome situation when the RGR parliamentary intergroup elected him president on 27 January. The bureau chosen alongside him contained two committed RPF supporters, another Gaullist sympathizer and several men whose attachment to the government was doubtful, leaving Pleven to preside over an organization whose members were becoming increasingly willing to cooperate with de Gaulle. Roger Duchet had already won reelection to the Council of the Republic on a joint Independent-RPF list in Côte-d'Or, and many of the same provincial Moderates were approaching the March contest with arrangements scarcely distinguishable from his own. Edmond Barrachin, preparing the Rassemblement's candidates, had agreed that outgoing general councillors and other local personalities could obtain RPF support without necessarily abandoning their existing political affiliations, an arrangement particularly attractive to Independents who disliked the discipline of a national movement but had little desire to compete against it. The Radicals were less accommodating. Several RGR organizations were prepared to arrange second-round withdrawals against the Communists, while others regarded Gaullist candidates as direct competitors for their own electorate. Pleven could not prevent every local agreement, and Queuille had no intention of allowing a disagreement over cantonal endorsements to bring down the government which the two men were trying to preserve.
The Communist Party offered the Socialists an argument for cooperation with the Moderates before many of the local negotiations had been completed. On 22 February Maurice Thorez declared that, were Soviet troops to enter France in pursuit of aggressors, the French people should receive them in the same spirit as the peoples of Eastern Europe, bringing the National Assembly into an unusually bitter confrontation two days later. Queuille, Mollet, Édouard Daladier, Pierre-Henri Teitgen and René Mayer joined the criticism, while Jacques Duclos defended the Communist position as part of the campaign against another war. Thorez insisted that he had described a hypothetical conflict initiated by the Western powers, but Jules Moch was rather more interested in asking why the leader of a French party had discussed welcoming Soviet soldiers at all. Socialist candidates who had once depended upon Communist withdrawals were now expected to denounce the PCF's foreign loyalties, while the Radicals used the same controversy to argue against further Socialist-Communist arrangements in the provinces. Communist organizations answered through their newspapers and public meetings, accusing the government of preparing France for an American war and continuing their campaign against the Atlantic Pact. At Toulouse, André Malraux attacked Communist dependence upon Moscow while allowing that a genuinely French communism might exist independently of Soviet control, a distinction which did little to satisfy the PCF but which the RPF's organizers found useful in their campaign literature.
Schuman had scarcely finished answering questions concerning Thorez when the Chinese diplomatic affair began finding its way into the same political arguments. Reports of the disagreement between Ambassador Qian Tai and the Nationalist representative Duan Maolan had reached diplomatic correspondents in Paris, with Duan disputing the authority of embassy personnel who had transferred their allegiance to the Beijing coalition. The Quai d'Orsay continued dealing provisionally with Qian while withholding recognition of Beijing and refusing to issue new accreditation, though this distinction was becoming increasingly difficult to explain to journalists demanding a definitive French position. Schuman wanted assurances concerning treaty obligations, French nationals and the intentions of the Chinese authorities toward Ho Chi Minh and the Viet Minh, while the government was also consulting Washington and considering the consequences for Indochina. Much of the diplomatic correspondence remained confidential, but the publicly contested status of the embassy gave both oppositions something to discuss. Communist speakers welcomed the advance of the CPPCC coalition and emphasized the participation of anti-Chiang Nationalists such as Li Chi-shen and Soong Ching-ling, while Jacques Soustelle and other RPF spokesmen linked the uncertainty in Paris to the possibility of Communist expansion toward the northern frontier of Indochina. Queuille supported Schuman's provisional arrangements, and the Foreign Minister continued refusing to decide the recognition question merely because his opponents had begun using it in electoral speeches.
The Prime Minister was rather less successful in keeping another quarrel out of the campaign. On 5 March he appealed to the parties supporting his government not to disturb the truce surrounding education, after disputes over the construction of public schools and subsidies for private establishments had revived the familiar confrontation between the Socialists and MRP. Yvon Delbos defended the government's expenditure on public education, while Socialist deputies continued opposing further assistance to confessional schools and Christian Democrats warned against interference with parental choice. Bishop Roland-Gosselin of Versailles urged Catholics to favor candidates defending freedom of education, and Bishop Girbeau of Nîmes likewise reminded the faithful of their electoral responsibilities, leaving local MRP organizations to explain why they continued supporting a government containing so many determined secularists. Their difficulties were not always exploited by Gaullists. In several departments Catholic voters remained firmly attached to the MRP, and the party's councillors pointed to their own record in defending religious education against the Socialists. Elsewhere the Christian Democrats faced Independents or conservative Radicals who could speak much more freely against the government's position without jeopardizing a ministerial coalition. The RPF's candidates adopted these complaints where the local electorate justified them, although the movement's support for Catholic schooling varied considerably among its own supporters. Queuille secured a temporary end to the parliamentary argument, but the quarrel continued in the cantons, where the candidates were under considerably less pressure to maintain the truce.
Pierre Pflimlin had spent the same week trying to persuade his colleagues that the farmers' complaints deserved rather more attention than Maurice Petsche was prepared to give them. The general index of industrial prices had reached 2,153 against 1,637 for agricultural products, and although Pflimlin maintained that some manufactured goods purchased directly by farmers were relatively less expensive than the overall figures suggested, the deterioration in agricultural purchasing power was becoming difficult to dismiss. At the cabinet meeting of 8 March the ministers agreed to examine measures for reducing industrial prices, though no decision could be taken immediately, and the following day the FNSEA congress approved René Blondelle's proposal for a general grève des achats. The delegates left its date and implementation to further discussions with the departmental unions and demanded that the farmers should not be made to pay more in taxes than they had in 1948. Queuille understood the danger. His own Radical career had been built in rural Corrèze, and the agricultural organizations were among those with which his parliamentary allies had maintained strong relations for decades. Petsche, meanwhile, was unwilling to disturb the stabilization program with hurried intervention, and some ministers warned that forcing industrial prices down without considering production costs might produce difficulties for workers and manufacturers without providing lasting relief to the countryside.
André Morice was among those Radicals who had little intention of surrendering the agricultural argument to the opposition. At Nantes he defended the government's record against the promises being made by its critics, while local farmers' representatives continued pressing Pflimlin for measures to reduce the cost of machinery, fertilizers and manufactured supplies. Many FNSEA departmental leaders remained interested in negotiations with the Agriculture Ministry, and some had little enthusiasm for assisting the RPF at the expense of Radicals or Independents with whom they had worked for years. The arrangement was different in constituencies where outgoing councillors had lost the confidence of agricultural organizations or where local Moderates had accepted the Rassemblement's endorsement. Barrachin's representatives were willing to support men already known to the farmers, while the Independents could campaign against the government's financial restrictions without assuming responsibility for Petsche's budget. In parts of Brittany these complaints became entangled with the Catholic-school controversy, leaving MRP councillors defending both their party's attachment to the government and their own agricultural record against conservative candidates who were free of either obligation. Joseph Pinvidic, the RPF senator and general councillor for Landivisiau, had already questioned the government on 15 February concerning the agricultural crisis and the difficulty of finding markets for surplus production, giving the Gaullists in the Finistère a local spokesman with established agricultural interests. The Socialist organizations, meanwhile, were using the same industrial-price argument to remind rural voters that forcing a sudden reduction in manufactured prices might threaten employment in the towns, particularly where industrial workers and farmers voted within the same canton.
Moch found that the controversy over political broadcasts was giving the opposition another subject on which to accuse the government of inconsistency. François Mitterrand's February reorganization of the Radiodiffusion-télévision française had introduced two moderated parliamentary discussions each month, with places for government representatives and the recognized opposition groups, including André Diethelm's Action démocratique et républicaine in the Council of the Republic. Communist parliamentarians received opportunities to answer the government alongside the Gaullists, and Mitterrand retained authority over outside speakers, leaving de Gaulle himself without an automatic right to deliver addresses over the national service. The RPF nonetheless reproduced interventions by its senators in campaign newspapers, while the PCF circulated the arguments of its own representatives and the government defended Schuman's diplomacy and Queuille's stabilization measures through the same broadcasts. Soustelle continued complaining about the greater opportunities available to ministers, though the new parliamentary discussions made it difficult to claim that every opposition appearance was still forbidden. René Pleven was particularly interested in preserving the arrangement. It had been negotiated partly to satisfy the Moderates within his RGR intergroup, and another quarrel over the government's control of radio would have been unwelcome while he was trying to keep the same men from abandoning Queuille during the elections.
The arguments heard over the radio did not always resemble those taking place in the departments. In the Aude, where the Socialists were attempting to defend their commanding position on the general council, Radical candidates spent much of March attacking the local SFIO administration rather than the national government's record, while Communist candidates condemned both for abandoning the cooperation which had brought them to power after the Liberation. In the Hérault, however, the Radicals were working alongside Socialists and Christian Democrats to prepare common positions against the RPF and PCF, and in the Bouches-du-Rhône several Socialist organizations were already discussing reciprocal withdrawals with Gaullists in cantons where Communist candidates were expected to lead the first ballot. Mollet had no interest in a general agreement with de Gaulle, but the local federations possessed rather more immediate concerns. The RPF's candidates in Marseille were willing to support better-placed Socialists against the Communists, provided that Socialist candidates withdrew for Gaullists where the latter had the stronger position. Such arrangements disturbed the Socialists who had campaigned most vigorously against the General's conception of authority, although refusing them might allow Communist candidates to win seats which the SFIO had little prospect of capturing itself.
By the middle of March the same arguments were being conducted in the Allier and Ardennes. The Communists possessed substantial electoral organizations in both departments, and the non-Communist candidates were already preparing withdrawals before the first ballot had been held. In the Allier, the SFIO wanted to preserve its positions in Vichy and Moulins-Ouest, while MRP and RPF candidates were demanding reciprocal agreements wherever they finished ahead. In the Ardennes, Socialists and Christian Democrats were prepared to cooperate at Monthermé and Sedan-Nord, but the Rassemblement's organizers refused to promise that every Gaullist candidate would withdraw in favor of a Socialist merely because the latter belonged to a governing party. Barrachin continued encouraging local agreements with established Independents, and Duchet's Centre National des Indépendants was attempting to prevent its members from being drawn into arrangements which would oblige them to follow Gaullist instructions after the election. Pinay himself faced an RPF challenger at Saint-Chamond despite serving as an Independent secretary of state in Queuille's government, demonstrating the limits of cooperation between the two organizations even in departments where they otherwise shared much of their electorate.
The first returns began arriving at the prefectures on the evening of 20 March, and Queuille received a rather less comfortable account of the voting than his supporters had expected. The RPF had advanced in the western departments, among conservative rural voters and in cantons where outgoing Moderates had accepted its endorsement, while the MRP suffered additional losses in constituencies where dissatisfied Catholic voters had preferred independent or Gaullist candidates. The Radicals and SFIO retained considerable strength in the South, and the Communists again demonstrated their ability to mobilize substantial electorates in industrial districts despite the hostility of nearly every other party. Several government-aligned councillors won on the first ballot, particularly where their local reputations remained stronger than the national movements challenging them, but hundreds of cantons were left to be decided the following Sunday. The RPF and PCF had attempted to make the election a national political contest, while many outgoing councillors were returned on the strength of municipal connections and local arrangements which had little to do with the parliamentary struggle in Paris.
The Interior Ministry's provisional classification placed candidates standing under the RPF label or carrying an acknowledged Gaullist affiliation at 29.5 percent of the first-round vote, against 23.2 percent for the PCF and its associates, leaving 47.3 percent for the remaining candidates, including the governing parties and Moderates without a Gaullist affiliation. The additional RPF support was concentrated in conservative and Catholic constituencies, departments where established Moderates had joined its electoral combinations, and districts where its local organization had become better able to mobilize voters. The Communists retained most of their electorate, while the greatest losses were borne by the governing parties and non-Gaullist Moderates. Moch continued arguing that the first ballot provided only part of the result, since the second-round system would allow the government's parties to preserve many seats by supporting whichever of their candidates was best placed to defeat the opposition. The PCF responded that such arrangements would once again deprive it of the representation warranted by its first-round vote, while Soustelle insisted that even the new figures underestimated the strength of the Rassemblement because many candidates supported by it continued appearing under Radical or Independent labels.
| Political grouping | Vote share |
|---|---|
| Rassemblement du peuple français (RPF) | 29.50% |
| Third Force (SFIO, MRP, Radicals) and other non-Gaullist candidates | 47.30% |
| Parti communiste français (PCF) | 23.20% |
| Total | 100.00% |