DBWI: French politics without the Second Popular Front?

Since the end of the war politics in the Fourth French Republic has been dominated by the Popular Front alliance, comprised of the Communists, SFIO, Radicals and other minor parties. There are a number of reasons for this; primarily due the electoral system which greatly benefits parties in an electoral alliance over independent parties and the fact that the French right remains terminally split between rival electoral alliances as well as the Gaullist and Poujadist movements, both of which had significant followings at various times but were too ostracised politically to serve as coalition partners.

The success of the Second Popular Front was not always a certainty, however. In the early years of the Republic the Communists were widely mistrusted by the rest of the French left whilst the Radicals have often been willing to join with the right, if only to keep the more extreme elements of the right out of power. There have certainly been various times over the years when it looked like the Front would collapse.

How would French domestic and foreign policy evolve without this key feature of French politics?
 
yeah, they'd have much better relation between them and the rest of Europe. Not to mention Algeria who have Pied-Noirs and the Arabs mutually detest the French for what they did in the 50s and 60s

That's true, not to mention the all the times the army tried to overthrow the government. The French Army is one of the worst in Europe because of its conflict with the Government. A right-wing French Government would probably have handled Algeria as Portugal did Angola and Mozambique, or at least tried to. The Ultramarine provinces are a TBH the best post-colonial model which is ironic as they're still Portugese colonies. What the Popular Front did in Algeria pissed off literally everyone, it helped damage relations with the Soviets and later the Chinese, it pissed off the Army, the pied-noirs, and the Arabs. Their relations with that whole region are a mess. France, even today, is relativly diplomatically isolated. Poor relations with all her neighbours, the U.S, and the U.K. We can debate about how much French heads of state have been succesfull domestically, but their foreign policy was always inconsistent and poorly thought out. Getting out of Indochina really early was the safe bet, but the Republic of South Vietnam is likely going to be joining the ranks of Taiwan, Singapore, and South Korea soon and their trade links with America are sure beneficial.
 
It takes effort to alienate yourself from NATO, both Communist Blocs, the Non-Aligned movement and both Israel and the Arab League. I wonder if a NATO-aligned France might turn out to be a poisonous chalice for NATO?
 
It takes effort to alienate yourself from NATO, both Communist Blocs, the Non-Aligned movement and both Israel and the Arab League. I wonder if a NATO-aligned France might turn out to be a poisonous chalice for NATO?

That depends who ends up in charge instead of the popular front. If it's a nationalist or possibly military government I think it would be very pro-NATO, or at least anti communist enough to get along with Britain and the U.S. If it is moderates then your probably right, they'd just cause more problems for NATO. Then again personality of a leader is pretty damn important, so unless we get into specific figures points in time it's hard to be sure.

Interestingly enough the Parti Sociale Française is ahead in the polls and might actually upset the Popular Front this time. They do support NATO and want to join it so who knows. They almost upset the PF in the 60s and in the early 90s a few times iirc. Maybe that'd be a good POD to get rid of the Popular Front. De la Rocque wasn't a collaborator but the PSF did have that reputation after the war maybe, if something shakes that off that reputation in the 40s or 50s, or if the Soviets seem more threatening maybe the PSF can win an election while the Second Popular Front is still in its infancy and working out the ideological kinks.
 
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