The name is absent

the Gaullist party would face hard times indeed. It is likelier that leadership
will fall to more pragmatic, more deeply political men like Georges Pompi-
dou, Jacques Chaban-Delmas, and Roger Frey.¹⁹²

Gaullism’s suspicion of political parties and distaste for democratic poli-
tics also pose certain problems for the UDR when it envisions its role in
the French party system — even were the opposition parties to accept the
institutional framework of the Fifth Republic. If Gaullism incarnates the
national interest, can there be such a thing as a loyal opposition? Indeed,
both Roger Frey and Michel Debre often praise the two-party system, yet,
like Georges Pompidou, and, in May, 1968, de Gaulle himself, they seek
short term political gain by arguing that at present Frenchmen have a choice
only between Gaullism and communism, thereby ignoring or implicating
the UNR’s numerous non-Communist rivals.¹” ’' Or, alternatively, questioning
the national loyalty of all rivals, Gaullist leaders tend to denounce “the
old parties of the Left and of the Right,” who are in “collusion with certain
foreign forces desirous of bringing France back to that satellite status to
which the regime which collapsed in 1958 had reduced it.”'⁹' Even if the
dream of Frey and Debré of a British-Style two-party system were to ma-
terialize (and Communist strength and rigidity make a dualistic party sys-
tem an unrealistic goal for the present), it is not yet clear that Gaullists
would be prepared to accept a loyal opposition.

The survival of the Gaullist party as one of the major parties of France
should be no difficult feat, given the accomplishments of the Gaullist period
and the party organization already built. To preserve a Gaullist majority,
however, will be more difficult. The gap between the extended and re-
stricted electorates, the instability of party identification even within the
latter, the incompleteness of party organization, the doubts of Gaullist
leaders regarding the legitimacy of party government, their lack of agree-
ment on economic policy, and their frequent bias against a politics of adjust-
ment and compromise — all of these suggest problems that must be re-
solved if the UDR is to continue to realize its stated majoritarian vocation.

NOTES

1. As if to belie the touted stability of de Gaulle’s France, the major Gaullist
party has changed names as often as a pursued criminal. In December. 1962, the
Union pour la Nouvelle République formally became the Union pour la Nouvelle
République-Union Démocratique du Travail (UNR-UDT). In November, 1967, it
changed again, as the result of absorption of new elements, to the Union Démo-
cratique pour la V^e République (UD-V^e). In the June, 1968, elections, Gaullists cam-
paigned under the label Union pour la Défense de la République (UDR). The party’s
group in the newly elected National Assembly rebaptised itself the Union Démo-
cratique pour la République, retaining the campaign initials, UDR. At the time this
paper goes to press, the party outside parliament remains the UD-V<≈. Since past

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