ABSTRACT
The two elections of 1973 and 1974 thus not only extended the frontiers of the right-wing coalition; they also ended the Gaullists’ dominance of it by depriving them of the presidency and by diluting them further in a broader majority. At the same time the Gaullists still had much the biggest parliamentary group in the National Assembly. Rivalry within the Right during the period from 1974 to 1983 was thus more balanced than hitherto; it was also, perhaps for that reason, more intense. The Giscard presidency also saw the non-Gaullist moderate Right federate its various forces to compete with its big ally. The two Centre groups were reunited in May 1976, with discreet encouragement from Giscard, as the Centre des Démocrates Sociaux (CDS). A year later, Giscard’s own Républicains Indépendants were relaunched as the Parti Républicain (PR). And just weeks before the 1978 elections, almost the whole of the non-Gaullist Right – CDS, PR, Radicals and several small groupings – was federated under the banner of the Union pour la Démocratie Française (UDF).
