History
The party was formed in 1972 by a split from the Republican, Radical, and Radical-Socialist Party, once the dominant party of the French left. It was founded by the Radicals who chose to join the "Union of the Left" and to agree its Common Programme signed by the Socialist Party and the French Communist Party. At that time the party was known as the Movement of the Radical-Socialist Left (Mouvement de la Gauche Radicale-Socialiste, MGRS), then as the Movement of Radicals of the Left (Mouvement des Radicaux de Gauche, MRG).
Led by Robert Fabre in the 1970s, the party was the third partner of the Union of the Left. Nevertheless, its electoral influence did not compare with those of its two allies, which competed for the leadership over the left. It went through its first major crisis when Robert Fabre became close to President Giscard d'Estaing and was excluded.
Michel Crépeau was nominated by the party for the presidential candidacy in 1981. It obtained 2% in the first round and called to vote for the winning candidate François Mitterrand in the second. The Radicals of the Left played a supporting role in governmental coalition dominated by the Socialists from 1981 to 1986, and again from 1988 to 1993.
At the beginning of the 1990s, under the leadership of the popular businessman Bernard Tapie, they hoped to benefit from the crisis of the Socialist Party. The list led by Tapie obtained just 11,98% and 13 seats of the votes in the 1994 European Parliament election. However Tapie retired from politics due to his legal problems and the party, renamed the Radical-Socialist Party (Parti Radical-Socialiste, PRS), returned to its lowest ebb.
After the Radical Party opened legal proceedings against the PRS, it was forced to change its name to Radical Party of the Left (Parti Radical de Gauche, PRG). From 1997 to 2002 it came back in government as junior component of the Plural Left coalition. In the 2002 presidential election, the PRG decided to nominate its own candidate for the first time since 1981. It chose Christiane Taubira who got 2.32% of the vote. Taubira gave her name to the 2001 law which declared the Atlantic slave trade a crime against humanity.
In the 2007 presidential election, while the party supported the Socialist candidate Ségolène Royal, Bernard Tapie, who had been a leading figure in the PRG, supported Nicolas Sarkozy.
In the 2007 legislative election the party won seven out of 577 seats, in addition to two overseas seats in Guyane (Taubira) and Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon.
In the 2009 European Parliament election, the party did not run or support any electoral list, not even the Socialist Party lists.
Read more about this topic: Radical Party Of The Left
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