La droite francaise

René Rémond’s classic study of the French right, Les droites en France (1954), turns sixty this year. It is a testament to the strength of the Rémond’s thesis that it remains the point of departure for historians of the right to this day. Rémond argued that the history of the French right must be understood as the ongoing competition between three distinct tendencies or mentalités that took shape during the early nineteenth century, labelled Legitimist, Orleanist and Bonapartist. While many historians have since rejected the validity of these categories to explain the right in later periods, this thesis continues to be influential and has left an indelible mark on French political vocabulary. In this excellent new book, Olivier Tort sets out to re-examine the history of the French right during the Bourbon restoration, where Rémond’s book begins. Tort argues that while there was indeed a tripartite struggle within the right during these tumultuous years, it bore little resemblance to Rémond’s schema. Bonapartists and Orleanists sat on the left, so the right was monopolised by Legitimists. The Legitimist camp was bitterly divided over a complex range of issues, but tended to group into one of three factions: the ‘moderate right’, which defended the values of the right through pragmatic or opportunist means, the ‘centre right’, which would ally with the moderates on most issues but could been drawn to the left, and the ‘extreme right’, the ‘guardians of the temple’ which refused to compromise on its vision for France. Tort thus presents a more flexible framework for analysing the relationship between right-wing factions within a parliamentary system, without reducing each faction to any one idea (in Rémond’s case, the question of dynastic succession). In this sense, the author suggests we may draw parallels between the right under the restoration and other periods, including the present day.

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