Introduction

In 2003, it appeared that the conservative right in the largest Mediterranean democracies—France, Italy and Spain—had consolidated their hold on power. The Gaullists’ 2002 legislative election obliteration of the Socialist incumbents after Jacques Chirac’s landslide victory in the presidential election of the same year apparently placed the French left in a position from which it would not be able to recover for years, if not decades. In Italy, similar disarray on the left a year earlier had allowed Silvio Berlusconi, a politician hounded by civil and criminal actions for illegal financial activities, and his personalized party Forza Italia to trounce the Democratic Left. In Spain, the occupation of government by the Partído Popular (PP) and Jose-Maria Aznar since 1996 had strengthened the Spanish economy sufficiently to allow Spain into the EU’s Single Currency, and reduced unemployment to around 11 percent.