Abstract
During the first half of the French Third Republic, before 1914, certain regions of France established themselves as ‘red’, areas where the extreme left of the political spectrum could rely on strong and regular popular support. One of the outstanding features of this geographical ‘partition’ of French politics was the extent to which the ‘red’ areas were located in the countryside, notably in the departments of small peasant property in the south. Radicals, socialists and latterly communists have all benefited from this fact of French political life, consistently carrying at elections departments such as the Creuse, the Haute Vienne, the Allier, Gard, etc. Contemporaries and historians alike have observed this phenomenon with some surprise, and we are now witnessing a concerted effort by French historians and political scientists to find convincing explanations for it. This article is intended as a contribution to the continuing debate.
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