French Section of the Workers' International
노동자 인터내셔널 프랑스 지부
French social-democratic party formed in 1905 when Jules Guesde's Socialist Party of France (PSdF) and Jean Jaurès's French Socialist Party (PSF) merged under pressure from the Second International. It survived the departure of its majority to the Communists at the Tours Congress of 1920 and led the Popular Front government of 1936. In 1969 it was refounded as the present Socialist Party.
In depth
The merger took place at the Globe Congress in Paris in 1905. Unlike other European socialist parties the SFIO was decentralised, and it could not rely on the trade unions because the CGT insisted on its independence from parties. Secretary-general Louis Dubreuilh had an essentially administrative role; the real leader was Jaurès, head of the parliamentary group and director of L'Humanité. Its vote rose from 10 per cent in 1906 to 17 per cent in 1914, and according to the French-language source membership grew from 34,688 at the unity congress to 93,218 in 1914.
On 28 July 1914 the party issued a manifesto against the war, but after Jaurès was assassinated on 31 July it voted for war credits on 4 August, and Guesdists and Blanquists entered the government of the Union sacrée. At the Tours Congress in December 1920 affiliation to the Communist International was carried by 3,028 votes to 1,022 with 327 abstentions; the majority founded the French Section of the Communist International (the later French Communist Party), while the minority led by Léon Blum 'kept the old house' as the SFIO. L'Humanité passed to the Communists.
After the far-right riots of 6 February 1934 the party joined the Communists and Radicals in the Popular Front, and in the 1936 election it won more votes and seats than the Radicals for the first time, making Blum the first Socialist prime minister. His government's Matignon Accords brought collective bargaining, wage rises, two weeks' paid holiday and the 40-hour week. After the defeat of 1940 some members refused full powers to Pétain and many joined the Resistance, but others, such as former secretary-general Paul Faure, collaborated, and 14 of the 17 pre-war SFIO ministers were expelled when the party was reconstituted in 1944.
After the Liberation the party joined the Communists and the MRP in the tripartite coalition that extended social security and nationalisation, but it consistently trailed the Communists at the polls. Guy Mollet became secretary-general in 1946 and, as prime minister in 1956–1957, pursued a repressive policy in Algeria. After Gaston Defferre won only 5% in the 1969 presidential election, the party merged with other groups at the Issy-les-Moulineaux congress that July and was refounded as the Socialist Party.