Third Republichad not entirely accepted Roman Catholics as having a
legitimate place in politics, and it was in part the Resistance activity of Catholic
groups that made them legitimate, just as happened to the communist parties in
France and Italy. The MRP represented a moderate social democratic position
which at the same time tried to deny the significance of class factors, and
stressed Christian duty to others and traditional moral values, as in protection
of family life. As France modernized and urbanized its social structure during
the 1950s this position became less attractive, and oncede Gaulletook power
and created theFifth Republicthe party all but vanished, though it had been
a major coalition partner during most of the Fourth Republic. MRP voters
moved, on the whole, to the Gaullist parties, the chief representative of which
is now the Rassemblement pour la Re ́publique, and what religious voting still
exists in France has continued to benefit either these parties or the Indepen-
dent Republicans, now part of the Union pour la De ́mocratie Franc ̧aise (see
French party system).
Multinationals
Since the 1970s national boundaries have come to be increasingly unimportant
in the structure of large industrial and financial corporations. A multinational is
such a corporation where the head office of the overall holding company,
which probably produces nothing at all itself, is in one country, but the
producing companies may be scattered over literally dozens of other countries.
Where any particular branch of a multinational is located will depend on
matters such as tax policy, governmental regulations on registering a company,
laws on shareholder rights and so on. For example a large number of multi-
national companies are registered in the state of Delaware in the USA because
its laws make it particularly easy to register a corporation, and tend to give
boards of directors much more authority, and shareholders much less power,
than other jurisdictions.
The problem multinationals present to political systems is that no govern-
ment can really control them, and by shifting their reserves around they can
seriously destabilize weak economies. For example, it is difficult to enforce
labour-relations laws when a corporation can shift production from a factory in
a country about to introduce a minimum wage standard to other factories it
owns elsewhere. Similarly a successful branch of a multinational may be of little
benefit to the economy where it is situated if its profits are mainly transmitted
for investment elsewhere. The problem has grown worse as the general
movement towards international free markets, especially financial markets,
has grown stronger. Controls on the repatriation of profits, or on capital
movements, have become increasingly less popular with economists and
business professionals, yet some sort of controlisneeded when the interests
Multinationals