The Democratic Left group in the
Senate of the
Third Republic was founded on 26 October 1891 in a meeting of some forty senators organized by
Émile Combes during which
Arthur Ranc was elected its first president. It is often considered "the first effort of unification of the radicals which will end in 1901 with the formation of the
Radical Party", which was officially founded as the Republican, Radical and Radical-Socialist Party, the group consisted of 158 members following the
renewal, and was presided over by
Gaston Doumergue. The group remained dominant through the end of the Third Republic, with 164 members under
Jean-Baptiste Bienvenu-Martin following the
1924 renewal, 146 members after the
1927 renewal, 150 members after the
1929 renewal, 167 members after the
1932 renewal, 164 members after the
1935 renewal, and 151 members after the
1938 renewal. The group was highly influential in the politics of the Third Republic, defending the fundamental freedoms – freedom of expression, freedom of the press, and freedom of association – and produced a number of prominent political personalities, including
Georges Clémenceau,
Léon Bourgeois,
Édouard Herriot, Gaston Doumergue,
Joseph Caillaux,
Albert Sarraut, and
Henri Queuille, as well as four of the six senators who went on to become presidents of the Third Republic (
Emile Loubet,
Armand Fallières, Gaston Doumergue, and
Paul Doumer). In the
Council of the Republic of the
Fourth Republic, the group was initially reincarnated as the
Rally of the Republican Lefts group (
groupe du Rassemblement des gauches républicaines), with 42 seats following senatorial elections on 8 December 1946, and 86 seats following senatorial elections on 7 November 1948. The group, which envisaged a new rise of radical thought, was however a victim of the decline of radicalism, far from achieving its former heights, was subsequently renamed to the Rally of Republican Lefts and the Democratic Left group (
groupe du Rassemblement des gauches républicaines et de la gauche démocratique) in 1949 and later the Democratic Left and the Rally of Republican Lefts group (
groupe de la Gauche démocratique et du rassemblement des gauches républicaines) in 1952, and held 73 seats following senatorial elections on 18 May 1952, increasing to 77 seats following senatorial elections on 19 June 1955. The group returned to its original appellation of the Democratic Left group (
groupe de la Gauche démocratique) in 1956, controlling 62 seats following the final senatorial elections of the Fourth Republic on 8 June 1958. Though the group initially controlled 63 seats in the
Senate of the
Fifth Republic following the
1959 senatorial elections, with
Gilbert Barbier, as its president since 23 May 2017. which saw the ranks of the group grow, with the rapprochement between the PRG and the Radicals bringing several members of the latter into the group. == List of presidents ==