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Special Chapter: The Ruins of a French Party System
Special Chapter
The Ruins of a French Party System
France entered and left the German Revolutionary Wars as a two-party republic, dominated by the aristocratic and protectionist Reds and the capitalist Blues, with any and all third parties beautifully silenced with the so-called "Spoiler Effect" and the trappings of an unreformed electoral system. All representatives to the Estates-General, the governing body of the nation, were elected from their constituency in a "winner takes all" format, which basically meant that, unless you were a regional party with strong support in one or two constituencies, you had no chance of winning a reasonable number of seats in the Estates-General without somehow gathering a landslide equivalent of the electoral vote. Both the Reds and the Blues actively fought against any potential third party, and Arthur Bachelot, the former Director of France, even called this "a political machine more invincible than Schwarzburg's army".
One of the events that began to show cracks in this political machine was the Rhineland Referendum, which took place in 1790. It was no mystery that the French government wished to see the Rhineland as a new province in France, and it's politicians hoped that the referendum would just be a "pretty show to fool the Germans" into making them join the Republic. The Director of the Estates-General at the time, Cedric de Calais, hoped to use the French military and administrative presence in the region to pull the referendum in his favor, smuggling in Frenchmen from Wallonia and other regions to vote for annexation, sometimes even destroying ballot boxes and harassing the locals in order to make them vote for the right choice. And yet, despite all the actions taken, over 64% of the voters voted in favor of unification with one of the German states, with only 19% voting for joining France and 17% for independence, and after a second round, the people narrowly voted in favor of uniting with South Germania - a surprising choice, considering that a portion of the region used to belong to the North German Communion before the Revolution. People cited the main reason for their choice - they perceived North Germania to be a French puppet state, unlike the somewhat more independent South, and many thus voted for the sake of getting away from France as much as possible.
News about French interference in the referendum, leaked by a number of Rhenish politicians, spread across the Republic like wildfire, and the public opinion was extremely negative. Proud of their ancient freedoms and often calling their country "the Bastion of Liberty", the French were staunch supporters of democracy, and the idea that their government was trying to undemocratically influence foreign referendums came as a huge shock to many. At least the German Revolutionary Wars were somewhat justified due to Schwarzburg's invasion of France, but this - this is just unjustifiable! Public support in the government was at an all-time low, but while the Estates-General had to endure public opinion fallouts many times before, this time the population was not just angry at the current cabinet - it was angry at the system itself. The people were starting to realize that the system under which they live is imperfect, corrupt and favors only two very similar bickering parties.
And around this time, the man who would do the most to destroy this party system, Constantin Gounelle, rose to light.
Constantin Gounelle
Gounelle was a noted lawyer and statesman, a member of the Blue Party and a respected person across the Republic, although he did not hold any government position. Hoping to calm the situation down and defend his party from the backlash, Director de Calais requested the lawyer to take a look into the case of the Rhineland referendum and produce enough evidence against any sort of interference in the process. This gave Gounelle access to many of the government's libraries and records, and not only did he confirm to himself the existence of widespread fraud in the Rhineland, but also many similar instances in France itself - corruption, bribery, redrawing constituency lines to guarantee seats in the Estates-General, harassing opposition parties, and all of this happening for decades, often even violating the laws of the Republic on the way. Despite his job being to "disprove" the interference in the Rhineland, Gounelle left his job and almost instantly "secretly" leaked the information to the public through a number of nationwide newspapers.
The hammer fell on the French party system, in what is known as the Black Weekend. Hundreds of politicians resigned their posts in light of the drama and leaked information about their misdeeds, both the Reds and the Blues were collapsing and splintering, both being compromised. Goumelle formed the first powerful third party movement in decades - En Avant (Forward), composed of many political outsiders, anti-corruption and anti-establishment activists and untouched politicians from both parties who were disgusted with the revealed information about their movements. The "Forwardists" campaigned for an end to political corruption, electoral reform, fighting political establishment and a renewal in French politics, and the movement managed to mobilize vast reaches of the French society. With both of the establishment parties only managing to launch a weak campaign in the upcoming 1792 election, the result did not surprise anyone.
As the new Director of the Estates-General with a friendly majority parliament, Constantin Gounelle pushed through a majority of his proposed reforms, including reforming the electoral system of the country under the rules of proportional representation, introducing the Department of Anti-Corruption, fighting against fraud, bribery and other types of corruption in the government, granting numerous freedoms to the media of the country over releasing information about the government and it's procedures. During his first term, the Red and Blue parties attempted to impeach him twice and even once called him to court, citing that the Black Weekend and leaking information about the government's processes is breaking the law and should be charged. Both times the impeachment failed, however, and the court ruled that Gounelle's actions were acceptable and applicable to the code of law and his duties as a citizen.
After Goumelle was reelected with a safe margin in 1796, he finished an even more ambitious project - the Constitution of the Republic of France. Before the approval of the Constitution, France worked under unwritten law, a sum of principles, decrees and codes of law that made up the rights and duties of a citizen and the government - and many more Protectionist members of the government fought against a Constitution, seeing it as "something un-French" and deeply connected with the Great German Revolution. The Constitution of 1798 was the first universal code of law in the Republic of France, and despite a number of amendments and changes, it remains in place to this day.
Despite the successes in the elections, En Avant collapsed as quickly as it arose, soon after Goumelle retired from politics in 1800, but it's impact remains visible. It marked the end of the First Electoral System and the start of the Second, and no longer did the same two-party system arise as it used to before Goumelle's service to the country.
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The next chapter will be about a country in North Vespucia.
Special Chapter
The Ruins of a French Party System
One of the events that began to show cracks in this political machine was the Rhineland Referendum, which took place in 1790. It was no mystery that the French government wished to see the Rhineland as a new province in France, and it's politicians hoped that the referendum would just be a "pretty show to fool the Germans" into making them join the Republic. The Director of the Estates-General at the time, Cedric de Calais, hoped to use the French military and administrative presence in the region to pull the referendum in his favor, smuggling in Frenchmen from Wallonia and other regions to vote for annexation, sometimes even destroying ballot boxes and harassing the locals in order to make them vote for the right choice. And yet, despite all the actions taken, over 64% of the voters voted in favor of unification with one of the German states, with only 19% voting for joining France and 17% for independence, and after a second round, the people narrowly voted in favor of uniting with South Germania - a surprising choice, considering that a portion of the region used to belong to the North German Communion before the Revolution. People cited the main reason for their choice - they perceived North Germania to be a French puppet state, unlike the somewhat more independent South, and many thus voted for the sake of getting away from France as much as possible.
News about French interference in the referendum, leaked by a number of Rhenish politicians, spread across the Republic like wildfire, and the public opinion was extremely negative. Proud of their ancient freedoms and often calling their country "the Bastion of Liberty", the French were staunch supporters of democracy, and the idea that their government was trying to undemocratically influence foreign referendums came as a huge shock to many. At least the German Revolutionary Wars were somewhat justified due to Schwarzburg's invasion of France, but this - this is just unjustifiable! Public support in the government was at an all-time low, but while the Estates-General had to endure public opinion fallouts many times before, this time the population was not just angry at the current cabinet - it was angry at the system itself. The people were starting to realize that the system under which they live is imperfect, corrupt and favors only two very similar bickering parties.
And around this time, the man who would do the most to destroy this party system, Constantin Gounelle, rose to light.
Constantin Gounelle
The hammer fell on the French party system, in what is known as the Black Weekend. Hundreds of politicians resigned their posts in light of the drama and leaked information about their misdeeds, both the Reds and the Blues were collapsing and splintering, both being compromised. Goumelle formed the first powerful third party movement in decades - En Avant (Forward), composed of many political outsiders, anti-corruption and anti-establishment activists and untouched politicians from both parties who were disgusted with the revealed information about their movements. The "Forwardists" campaigned for an end to political corruption, electoral reform, fighting political establishment and a renewal in French politics, and the movement managed to mobilize vast reaches of the French society. With both of the establishment parties only managing to launch a weak campaign in the upcoming 1792 election, the result did not surprise anyone.
As the new Director of the Estates-General with a friendly majority parliament, Constantin Gounelle pushed through a majority of his proposed reforms, including reforming the electoral system of the country under the rules of proportional representation, introducing the Department of Anti-Corruption, fighting against fraud, bribery and other types of corruption in the government, granting numerous freedoms to the media of the country over releasing information about the government and it's procedures. During his first term, the Red and Blue parties attempted to impeach him twice and even once called him to court, citing that the Black Weekend and leaking information about the government's processes is breaking the law and should be charged. Both times the impeachment failed, however, and the court ruled that Gounelle's actions were acceptable and applicable to the code of law and his duties as a citizen.
After Goumelle was reelected with a safe margin in 1796, he finished an even more ambitious project - the Constitution of the Republic of France. Before the approval of the Constitution, France worked under unwritten law, a sum of principles, decrees and codes of law that made up the rights and duties of a citizen and the government - and many more Protectionist members of the government fought against a Constitution, seeing it as "something un-French" and deeply connected with the Great German Revolution. The Constitution of 1798 was the first universal code of law in the Republic of France, and despite a number of amendments and changes, it remains in place to this day.
Despite the successes in the elections, En Avant collapsed as quickly as it arose, soon after Goumelle retired from politics in 1800, but it's impact remains visible. It marked the end of the First Electoral System and the start of the Second, and no longer did the same two-party system arise as it used to before Goumelle's service to the country.
---
The next chapter will be about a country in North Vespucia.
- Augenis
- Word Count: 1.2k