New Deal Coalition Retained: A Sixth Party System Wikibox Timeline
(In the honor of yesterday's election in France)
Vive la Republique
"Our Republic is strong. It has never been stronger."
-Jacques Massu-
The second Mitterrand Ministry found France recovering from the doldrums of the Stagflation of the mid-70s. The massive spurt of growth from before didn't return, but the Socialist President of the Council saw his popularity remain high for the return of modest prosperity. Social reform was the primary goal of the Four-Party Coalition, Mitterrand instituting the French version of the American GMI and passing a strong hate-speech law to protect Jews and other religious minorities. He made fighting income inequality one of his signature goals, cutting back on foreign interventionism by promoting soft power and economic aid to help French Community allies develop themselves. Initially favored to win reelection, the passage of an act allowing for Algeria-Littoral to be a trilingual province (French, Arabic, and Berber) caused a great stir among voters in Metropolitan France (Pied-Noirs being nearly 80% National Front to begin with) and contributed to the Four-Party coalition's defeat in 1980.
Once again, the jostling of the parties had produced the third election in a row where the government had changed. Increasing it's plurality position, Massu's National Front shared a bare majority with it's coalition partners, the center-right UDF. Under a new leader since D'Estaing retired after the defeat in 1975, Jacques Chirac nonetheless presided over yet another loss of seats as right-wing voters tactically voted for the popular Massu (the UDF's biggest vote share was in metropolitan Paris, where the rural communonationalism of the FN wasn't as popular among the upscale conservatives). Mitterrand's socialists suffered the largest drop in seats, left-wing voters cannibalized by the resurgent communists, who ran a strong campaign focusing on arms reduction and increased worker's rights.
Despite a robust schedule as leader of the opposition in the Assemblee Nationale, Massu was in failing health and merely wanted to retire in 1981. However, the former paratrooper wished to force through the final piece of his legacy in running the National Front, which under his tenure had gone from a minor party in the shadow of De Gaulle to the largest party on the French right. Namely, his goal was to solidify France's honor as a military power (it couldn't claim superpower status, but the Fourth Republic boasted the third largest military among the NATO powers). A massive naval expansion was passed through the Assembly - putting the Marine Nationale to be larger than the Soviet Navy by 1992 - while the army and air force had their equipment modernized the same way the US and Britain were pursuing. Further mutual defense treaties were signed between France and Spain, Belgium, and the Netherlands, creating a suborganization within NATO (some say Massu was thinking far beyond his time when he sent Foreign Minister Chirac to Madrid for the negotiations). And in his proudest moment, Massu presided over the recreating of the Colonial Paratroopers, tasked with defending France's Community allies from insurgencies.
Tired and with his legacy in check, Massu announced his retirement in February 1982. The announcement sent shockwaves through France. The general had been one of the three titans of the new era in the Fourth Republic, along with Charles De Gaulle and Francois Mitterrand. He would leave a large void in the consciousness of the Republic. One at least a dozen different leaders of the National Front scrambled to fill. The result of the leadership race was... surprising to say the least. After a jockeying process that was far more acrimonious than leadership elections or presidential primaries in other western nations, the winner was a compromise choice. Science and Technology Minister Jacques Cousteau.
Already world famous as an oceanographer - pioneering underwater color filming, a revolutionary concept in teaching the world about the sea - Cousteau was an unlikely choice for Prime Minister of the French Fourth Republic. A former naval diver and a strong defender of de Gaulle's stabilizing reforms following the Constitutional Crisis of the late 1950s, the political bug had gotten to Cousteau following a move by the First Mitterrand Ministry to cute scientific research grants to bolster spending on other areas of the budget. Speaking out against it and in favor of strong governmental funding of scientific discovery (while still preserving scientific autonomy), Cousteau took the plunge and stood as a candidate in a by-election for an Assembly seat in the conservative 16th Arrondissement. Normally a UDF stronghold in an area the National Front didn't fare well in, Cousteau wished to be in the larger party, and won the election by a large margin. Massu quickly put him in the cabinet as Minister of Science and Technology, owing his public profile. His press conferences calling attention to important scientific research being conducted in the Community were quite popular with the French people, given the simple and endearing manner of speaking in which he was famous for.
Taking office as President of the Council largely as a compromise between the different factions of the party, he was advised by Personal Council Nicholas Sarkozy (a young lawyer whom Cousteau had taken a liking to for representing a business suing his Ministry a year earlier) to take charge quickly or be eaten alive by the more bombastic personalities in the National front such as Defense Minister Helie de Saint Marc and Interior Minister Jean Royer. This Cousteau did, announcing a massive cabinet reshuffle that placed the more moderate wing of the National Front - politicians that weren't part of Massu's clique during the Algerian War - in the dominant position. Some complained to the retired Massu to speak out, but the content man resting under the trees of his countryside villa actually seemed impressed by the oceanographer's fortitude. New leadership had come to the right, and it was just as decisive as the old.
The Cousteau agenda was a striking contrast to the previous policies of the National Front. Of course the primary pillars of nationalism, high defense spending, infrastructure funding, social conservatism. and increased French involvement in the world was kept - doing away with those would mean the extinction of the party. However, Cousteau was far more moderate and fiscally-minded than the "Algiers Clique" which had controlled the party since its inception in the early 1960s, and he charted such a course as President of the Council. In addition to his pet project of broad funding to research and development in the sciences (Cousteau dreamed of France being the leading innovator in this regard), he cut back on several big infrastructure projects he deemed not necessary and passed a modest tax cut. Several state owned businesses were privatized, which he managed to get the public to accept with his friendly and simple speaking style but causing great uproar among the far-right of the National Front.
Knowing his programs would be divisive in the party, Cousteau had set his sights on an ambitions project, to merge the right-wing parties under the National Front banner. doing so would give him a lot more breathing room and moderate the party, drowning out the fringe voices with more metropolitan voters. In a smart move, Cousteau got the blessing of Massu first, basically forcing the Algiers Clique to accede to the merger and giving Chirac cover to do so as well. The UDF was formally absorbed into the National Front in June 1984, giving the sole right-wing party an absolute majority in the National Assembly. However, this had been too much for a few on the right of the party. A group of breakaway local officials led by a Paris Councillor named Jean-Marie Le Pen - and outspoken rightist who often was a thorn in Cousteau and even Massu's side, made famous by a failed hate-speech indictment for a public rant that many said was Holocaust Denial - formed their own party, the Movement for France, to challenge Cousteau in the next elections. Once thought unassailable due to their leader's popularity, the National Front faced it's first ever base problem and the SFIO smelled blood.
The lofty projections for Le Pen's new party did not come to fruition, but many on the right felt that if not for the distraction then Cousteau would have led a united right-wing to victory. The National Front held up well, all things considered. They held onto the vast majority of the former UDF vote under Cousteau's more moderate profile, while only bleeding a small amount of the rural nationalists to Le Pen, who barely cracked .5% in metropolitan Paris. The party merger was one of Cousteau's lasting legacies, cementing the National Front as France's main center-right party and one of the most prominent ones that did not end up adopting Liberty Conservatism as their premier ideology.
Mitterrand had defied the political odds and would take his third non-consecutive term as President of the Council. The Four-party coalition was swept into office, the only party among them to lose seats being the Communists. They had taken a far-left turn due to their opposition to the new government in the USSR, and had been hurt greatly by that stance. Marchais resigned as leader and was replaced by a more Eurocommunist leadership, making Mitterrand's governance far easier as he prepared his cabinet and his agenda for the second half of the decade.
What would be one of the most consequential times in the history of modern France.
Vive la Republique
"Our Republic is strong. It has never been stronger."
-Jacques Massu-
The second Mitterrand Ministry found France recovering from the doldrums of the Stagflation of the mid-70s. The massive spurt of growth from before didn't return, but the Socialist President of the Council saw his popularity remain high for the return of modest prosperity. Social reform was the primary goal of the Four-Party Coalition, Mitterrand instituting the French version of the American GMI and passing a strong hate-speech law to protect Jews and other religious minorities. He made fighting income inequality one of his signature goals, cutting back on foreign interventionism by promoting soft power and economic aid to help French Community allies develop themselves. Initially favored to win reelection, the passage of an act allowing for Algeria-Littoral to be a trilingual province (French, Arabic, and Berber) caused a great stir among voters in Metropolitan France (Pied-Noirs being nearly 80% National Front to begin with) and contributed to the Four-Party coalition's defeat in 1980.
Once again, the jostling of the parties had produced the third election in a row where the government had changed. Increasing it's plurality position, Massu's National Front shared a bare majority with it's coalition partners, the center-right UDF. Under a new leader since D'Estaing retired after the defeat in 1975, Jacques Chirac nonetheless presided over yet another loss of seats as right-wing voters tactically voted for the popular Massu (the UDF's biggest vote share was in metropolitan Paris, where the rural communonationalism of the FN wasn't as popular among the upscale conservatives). Mitterrand's socialists suffered the largest drop in seats, left-wing voters cannibalized by the resurgent communists, who ran a strong campaign focusing on arms reduction and increased worker's rights.
Despite a robust schedule as leader of the opposition in the Assemblee Nationale, Massu was in failing health and merely wanted to retire in 1981. However, the former paratrooper wished to force through the final piece of his legacy in running the National Front, which under his tenure had gone from a minor party in the shadow of De Gaulle to the largest party on the French right. Namely, his goal was to solidify France's honor as a military power (it couldn't claim superpower status, but the Fourth Republic boasted the third largest military among the NATO powers). A massive naval expansion was passed through the Assembly - putting the Marine Nationale to be larger than the Soviet Navy by 1992 - while the army and air force had their equipment modernized the same way the US and Britain were pursuing. Further mutual defense treaties were signed between France and Spain, Belgium, and the Netherlands, creating a suborganization within NATO (some say Massu was thinking far beyond his time when he sent Foreign Minister Chirac to Madrid for the negotiations). And in his proudest moment, Massu presided over the recreating of the Colonial Paratroopers, tasked with defending France's Community allies from insurgencies.
Tired and with his legacy in check, Massu announced his retirement in February 1982. The announcement sent shockwaves through France. The general had been one of the three titans of the new era in the Fourth Republic, along with Charles De Gaulle and Francois Mitterrand. He would leave a large void in the consciousness of the Republic. One at least a dozen different leaders of the National Front scrambled to fill. The result of the leadership race was... surprising to say the least. After a jockeying process that was far more acrimonious than leadership elections or presidential primaries in other western nations, the winner was a compromise choice. Science and Technology Minister Jacques Cousteau.
Already world famous as an oceanographer - pioneering underwater color filming, a revolutionary concept in teaching the world about the sea - Cousteau was an unlikely choice for Prime Minister of the French Fourth Republic. A former naval diver and a strong defender of de Gaulle's stabilizing reforms following the Constitutional Crisis of the late 1950s, the political bug had gotten to Cousteau following a move by the First Mitterrand Ministry to cute scientific research grants to bolster spending on other areas of the budget. Speaking out against it and in favor of strong governmental funding of scientific discovery (while still preserving scientific autonomy), Cousteau took the plunge and stood as a candidate in a by-election for an Assembly seat in the conservative 16th Arrondissement. Normally a UDF stronghold in an area the National Front didn't fare well in, Cousteau wished to be in the larger party, and won the election by a large margin. Massu quickly put him in the cabinet as Minister of Science and Technology, owing his public profile. His press conferences calling attention to important scientific research being conducted in the Community were quite popular with the French people, given the simple and endearing manner of speaking in which he was famous for.
Taking office as President of the Council largely as a compromise between the different factions of the party, he was advised by Personal Council Nicholas Sarkozy (a young lawyer whom Cousteau had taken a liking to for representing a business suing his Ministry a year earlier) to take charge quickly or be eaten alive by the more bombastic personalities in the National front such as Defense Minister Helie de Saint Marc and Interior Minister Jean Royer. This Cousteau did, announcing a massive cabinet reshuffle that placed the more moderate wing of the National Front - politicians that weren't part of Massu's clique during the Algerian War - in the dominant position. Some complained to the retired Massu to speak out, but the content man resting under the trees of his countryside villa actually seemed impressed by the oceanographer's fortitude. New leadership had come to the right, and it was just as decisive as the old.
The Cousteau agenda was a striking contrast to the previous policies of the National Front. Of course the primary pillars of nationalism, high defense spending, infrastructure funding, social conservatism. and increased French involvement in the world was kept - doing away with those would mean the extinction of the party. However, Cousteau was far more moderate and fiscally-minded than the "Algiers Clique" which had controlled the party since its inception in the early 1960s, and he charted such a course as President of the Council. In addition to his pet project of broad funding to research and development in the sciences (Cousteau dreamed of France being the leading innovator in this regard), he cut back on several big infrastructure projects he deemed not necessary and passed a modest tax cut. Several state owned businesses were privatized, which he managed to get the public to accept with his friendly and simple speaking style but causing great uproar among the far-right of the National Front.
Knowing his programs would be divisive in the party, Cousteau had set his sights on an ambitions project, to merge the right-wing parties under the National Front banner. doing so would give him a lot more breathing room and moderate the party, drowning out the fringe voices with more metropolitan voters. In a smart move, Cousteau got the blessing of Massu first, basically forcing the Algiers Clique to accede to the merger and giving Chirac cover to do so as well. The UDF was formally absorbed into the National Front in June 1984, giving the sole right-wing party an absolute majority in the National Assembly. However, this had been too much for a few on the right of the party. A group of breakaway local officials led by a Paris Councillor named Jean-Marie Le Pen - and outspoken rightist who often was a thorn in Cousteau and even Massu's side, made famous by a failed hate-speech indictment for a public rant that many said was Holocaust Denial - formed their own party, the Movement for France, to challenge Cousteau in the next elections. Once thought unassailable due to their leader's popularity, the National Front faced it's first ever base problem and the SFIO smelled blood.
Mitterrand had defied the political odds and would take his third non-consecutive term as President of the Council. The Four-party coalition was swept into office, the only party among them to lose seats being the Communists. They had taken a far-left turn due to their opposition to the new government in the USSR, and had been hurt greatly by that stance. Marchais resigned as leader and was replaced by a more Eurocommunist leadership, making Mitterrand's governance far easier as he prepared his cabinet and his agenda for the second half of the decade.
What would be one of the most consequential times in the history of modern France.
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I'm a little confused because I thought Massu was supposed to be MPF not FN
EDIT: I forgot about this update which seems to indicate FN ITTL has a different history I think
EDIT: I forgot about this update which seems to indicate FN ITTL has a different history I think
Imagine the entire country narrated by the narrator from Spongebob and you're in the ballpark
Deleted member 83898
[REREADS ALL OF NDCR AS THE NARRATOR FROM SPONGEBOB]
A famous oceanographer as French PM.
Also, good to see Le Pen get BTFO.
A famous exchange in Retour vers le futur :
Emmet Brown : So tell me future boy, who is the prime minister in the future ?
Marty Mcfly : Jacques Cousteau
Emmet Brown : Jacques Cousteau ? The oceanographer ?
Always feels weird when stuff like that happens in alt-history. Not because it's implausible, but because imagining some of those guys in alternate jobs is just so.... unusual.
In some alternate reality they find our politicians implausible. "The elected an actor governor of California? Twice? And a Pro Wrestler in Minnesota? And a real estate mogul turned reality TV star President? Isn't this all a little implausible?"
Well, the person who talked about the implausibility of the cartographer as PM did reference that famous scene about Reagan in Back to the Future, after all.
I'm gonna clarify the French political parties at this point:
Front National - Founded as a pro-military, nationalist Party by Jacques Massu to support a powerful France after the Algerian War; morphed into the premier right-wing party after De Gaulle became President; now a more nationalist/populist version of the OTL French Right (imagine Les Republicans combined with the Algiers Putsch members)
SFIO - working-class labor socialists; has a large social conservative faction, but very much to the left on economics.
Communists - Not a Moscow front party like the Italian Communists (ITTL), but a mix between Marxists and Eurocommunists
Radical Party - Minaprogressives and rural liberals; basically like the ITTL British Liberal Party
FLN - the former Algerian liberation front, legitimized as a political party after the Toulon Accords; currently also the ruling political party in Autonomous Algeria, it represents Arab Algerian interests and is generally left-wing
MPF - Le Pen's splinter party of the far-right wing of the FN; Massu disliked them but was a living legend so they stayed on; imagine the OAS combined with the OTL FN
Front National - Founded as a pro-military, nationalist Party by Jacques Massu to support a powerful France after the Algerian War; morphed into the premier right-wing party after De Gaulle became President; now a more nationalist/populist version of the OTL French Right (imagine Les Republicans combined with the Algiers Putsch members)
SFIO - working-class labor socialists; has a large social conservative faction, but very much to the left on economics.
Communists - Not a Moscow front party like the Italian Communists (ITTL), but a mix between Marxists and Eurocommunists
Radical Party - Minaprogressives and rural liberals; basically like the ITTL British Liberal Party
FLN - the former Algerian liberation front, legitimized as a political party after the Toulon Accords; currently also the ruling political party in Autonomous Algeria, it represents Arab Algerian interests and is generally left-wing
MPF - Le Pen's splinter party of the far-right wing of the FN; Massu disliked them but was a living legend so they stayed on; imagine the OAS combined with the OTL FN
Bookmark1995
Banned
How about a black man, or an B-movie actor becoming President? Or imagine telling a Vermonter 50 years ago that an independent hippie from New York would become your most influential politician.
History can throw a lot of curveballs.
Some things from OTL sound like they're from an ATL comic book or action/adventure film.
Bookmark1995
Banned
Stalin, Hitler, and Pol Pot are like comic book villains, which is why no one could believe the crimes they were capable of, at first.
