FRENCH LEGISLATIVE ELECTION, 1968.

Photographs by Simos Tsapnidis, 1968.
Copyright Manolis Daloukas.
Archive Simos 1968/117,119,120,122,127.
More Photos in our archives, all in High Resolution.

French legislative elections took place on 23 and 30 June 1968 to elect the 4th French National Assembly of the Fifth Republic. They were held in the aftermath of the events of May 1968. On 30 May 1968, in a radio speech, President Charles de Gaulle, who had been out of the public eye for three days (he was in Baden-Baden, Germany), announced the dissolution of the National Assembly, and a new legislative election, by way of restoring order.

While the workers went back to their jobs, Prime Minister Georges Pompidou campaigned for the "defence of the Republic" in the face of the "communist threat" and called for the "silent majority" to make themselves heard. The Left was divided. The Communists reproached the Federation of the Democratic and Socialist Left (FGDS) leader François Mitterrand for not having consulted it before he announced his candidacy in the next presidential election, and for the formation of a provisional government led by Pierre Mendès-France. The Far-Left and the Unified Socialist Party protested against the passivity of the left-wing parties. The Gaullist Union for the Defence of the Republic became the first party in the French Republic's history to obtain an absolute parliamentary majority.