FRENCH PARTIES AND THE LEGISLATIVE ELECTIONS OF 1993 - A RESEARCH NOTE

The dramatic reversal of party fortunes in the French elections of 199 3 prompted us to re-evaluate the scheme we had devised for analyzing F rench parties. The scheme, based on the assumption that electoral rule s have a significant impact on party organization, set out four stable prototypical parties. We felt that parties would organize around the electoral strategies prescribed by the single-member-district, two-bal lot rules used for all but one of the Fifth Republic's legislative ele ctions. We analyzed the 1993 election results to see if the parties we had identified as our prototypical parties still conformed to type. D espite the Socialists' dramatic defeat and the overwhelming victory of the Gaullist-centrist coalition, the Gaullists remained the primary p arty, the Union for French Democracy the dual electoral party, the Soc ialists the secondary party and the Communists the marginal party.