SWO SIGNIFICANT FACTORS characterized the French parliamentary elections of January, 1956. The elections followed the first dissolution of a French Assembly since 1877. Equally important in terms of French political development was the fact that, for the first time in postwar France, the voter was able to choose between a future moderate right government and a reformist left coalition. This choice was made possible by the formation of an electoral alliance between the Socialist and Radical Socialist parties, which its principal architect, Pierre Mendes-France, named the Republican Front. In an electoral system characterized by its complexity and lack of clear choice for the voter, the Republican Front represented a serious attempt to link the individual's vote to a specific future government combination. While opposition to the Communists and Poujadists was taken for granted, the major opponent of the Republican Front alliance was the outgoing government coalition led by Edgar Faure and Antoine Pinay. This coalition was pictured as symbolic of the center governments which had ruled France during the Fourth Republic, largely by inaction. As an alternative, the Radicals and Socialists offered the voter a future moderate left ministry. Such a ministry would at long last enact fundamental social and economic reforms, conduct a realistic foreign policy, and liquidate French liabilities in North Africa. Thus, the stalemate from which recent French politics has suffered would be broken within the existing parliamentary framework. The key group in the formation of the Republican Front was the Radical Socialist party, if not from the point of view of electoral and parliamentary strength, at least for strategic purposes. The SFIO went into opposition in the National Assembly shortly after the elections of 1951. By themselves, however, the Socialists offered no realistic alternative to the center party governments which continued to rule France. On the other hand, the Radical Socialist party had been an integral part of the center party governing coalition. No government since 1947 has been without a Radical minister, and for more than a third of the time since 1945 a Radical has been premier. Therefore, the important fact of the 1956 elections was not that the SFIO had joined in an electoral alliance opposed to the exist-