farmers who vented their frustrations in support-
ing populist movements.
It was a curious paradox of the Fourth Republic
that so much solid progress in changing the fun-
damental economic and industrial structure of
France could be taking place in parallel with the
political and social strife reminiscent of the 1930s
and the Third Republic. Proportional representa-
tion and the French electoral system permitted a
multiplicity of parties. The so-called ‘Third
Force’, standing between Gaullism and commu-
nism, played musical chairs in successive govern-
ment coalitions, the exclusion of communists and
Gaullists from government being the one point of
agreement among the other parties from left to
right. From 1947 to 1951 coalitions were built
around three parties; the Mouvement Républicain
Populaire (MRP), the Socialists and the Radicals.
At the election of 1951, the Conservatives and
Gaullists increased their strength and the MRP
was weakened, but the Socialists decided to leave
the government and return to opposition in a bid
to rebuild their support. From 1951 to 1954 gov-
ernments were based on centre–right coalitions.
From 1954 to 1958 the Socialists once more
returned to government in coalitions with the
centre. On specific policy issues the coalition
parties held strongly opposing views, and there
were endless rounds of compromise, accommo-
dation, rupture, and back to compromise.
The MRP, that is to say the French Christian
Democrats, managed to remain partners in all
these coalition governments. It was not a narrowly
Catholic party, though it reconciled its majority of
Catholic supporters to the Republic. It inclined to
the Conservatives in believing in a market econ-
omy and private property, but was progressive in
seeking to overcome traditional industrial conflict
by collaboration between employer and employee.
On issues of social and welfare policies it sided
with the Socialists, but differed from them and the
Radicals in seeking to retain independent Catholic
education with state aid. But on policies relating
to Western European cooperation, generally fa-
voured by the MRP and the Socialists, they were
aligned against the conservative right. The parties
in the National Assembly were prepared to make
compromises only on a short-term basis. The
instability that so discredited the Fourth Republic
was an inevitable outcome. Nonetheless, there was
greater continuity than might at first be supposed,
since a number of able ministers, for instance the
Socialist Jules Moch, was appointed to several of
1
THE FRENCH FOURTH REPUBLIC 517
French industrial output
1929 1946 1952 1957
Coal (million tons) 55.0 49.3 57.4 59.1
Crude steel (million tons) 9.7 4.4 10.9 14.1
Cement (million tons) 6.2 3.4 8.6 12.5
Petroleum (million tons) 0.7 (1938) 0.28 0.3 1.4
Electricity (billion kWh) 15.6 23.0 40.8 57.5
Tractors (thousand units) 1.0 1.9 25.3 –
Fertiliser (thousand tons) 73.0 127.0 285.0 –
Meat (thousand tons) – – 2,065.0 2,500.0
Wheat (million quintals) – – 84.2 110.0
Housing (units completed) – – 74,920.0 270,000.0
Growth rates of Gross Domestic Product and labour
productivity (average annual percentages, 1949–59)
Gross Domestic Labour
Product productivity
France 4.5 4.3
Italy 5.9 4.8
West Germany 7.4 5.7
UK 2.4 1.8
US 3.3 2.0
