The fun thing about the “socialist party” is it started as the SFIO (the French Section of the Worker’s International, referring here to the Second International). So originally it was supposed to be kinda radical. Now, the second international crumbled after WW1, because one of its lines was being opposed to all war between the nations but almost all of the parties adhering to it (including the SFIO) ended up actively supporting the war efforts of their respective countries. Tho this decision did get some resistance within the SFIO, notably from Jean Jaurès, the creator of the journal l’Humanité, who got assassinated. After 1920, there was a congress in Tours to decide whether or not to adhere to the Third International founded by Lenin. The majority voted to join, including most of those who had been opposed to joining the war effort. The party was renamed SFIC (French Section of the Communist International), tho it would later rename itself simply PCF (French Communist Party). ** But ** critically, much of those that voted against joining the third international didn’t just take the L and accept the result, they scissioned and recycled the now defunct name “SFIO”, tho they would later rename themselves PS (Socialist Party).

So from the get go, you know PS are sore losers and traitors, and they kept moving rightwards to distinguish themselves from the communists. Tho they were a few occasions when the two parties collaborated again, notably in 1936. This followed a fascist march in 1934 trying to emulated that of Mussolini. Both the Socialists and Communists each made a counter-march, and they ended up meeting in the street and merging, since they had a common enemy. Afterwards, they planned an electoral alliance to prevent the fascists from winning the next election. This alliance, the Front Populaire also included the PRC, or so-called Radical Left Party. Or as I like to call it, the left wing of the colonial party. They are bad and if anyone tells you anything good about them, aside from the fact that they weren’t on the good side of history in 1936, you have my permission to spit in their face.

This leeds me to briefly sum up each party’s views on colonization. The Communist Party was officially anti-colonialism, following Lenin’s doctrine. Tho they didn’t shine that brightly when challenged to act upon these views, like supporting the Algerians in their war of independance… The SFIO (soon to be PS), believed in the “civilizing mission” of France and saw colonialism as a way of speading enlightenment. They however recognized the means were bad and condemned the use of violence and force labour. Still, they believed an ethical colonialism was possible. The PRG was fully in favour of colonialism. Officially for the same noble reasons, but really because they were bought by the colonialist lobby from the start.

So the Popular Front didn’t stop colonialism. But it did bring some changes in the colony: The colonized people (or “indigènes” as they were called) could now get unionized, and many of those who would become independance leader, like Ahmed Sékou Touré started getting into politics through unions. That aside, the situations of the colonized didn’t change so much, some other rules changed in theory but the colonizers always found workarounds to do what they’d always done.

Back in the metropole, labour reforms like the 40h weeks made big progress for the workers, but unfortunately, another thing the Front Populaire got remembered for was mistakes in managing the next war, including voting full powers to Philippe Pétain hoping he could save France from the Nazis. Instead, he fully collaborated with them.

The Communist Party was outlawed and became a big part of the resistance, which gave them more power and credibility afrter the liberation. And by power, this included armed power, as the former resistants still had stocks of weapons. The decision surredner the weapons to De Gaulle’s government was in part incited by Stalin (as in these times the PCF still had strong ties to the USSR). He feared that the US could get involved, forcing him to involve the USSR, for which he wasn’t prepared.

In the 80s, the PCF accepted to rally behind the Socialist party, which had superceded it again; and helped get François Mitterand elected. Tho on his second mandate, he took a turn to the right (as the PS does) and lost the Communist Support. The PCF kinda had an existencial crisis at the fall of the USSR. Not only did it lose a foreign ideological support, but a bunch of documents was released telling of some bad stuff that happened under Stalin and of the fact that the PCF was aware of them and received instructions from Moskau. The party became less radical to try and clean its image, and still now it’s oscillating between several lines, including those that still try to make their retoric more right-compatible like Roussel, those that want to ally with France Insoumise, a more recent party that has a complicated history with the PCF and has at times seemed to want to absorb it rather than work with it as allies, and those who want to bring back a more radical line.