The party was formed in 1972 by a split from the
Republican, Radical, and Radical-Socialist Party, once the dominant party of the
French Left. It was founded by Radicals who opposed
Jean-Jacques Servan-Schreiber's
centrist direction. They chose to join the
Union of the Left and agreed to the
Common Programme signed by the
Socialist Party (PS) and the
French Communist Party (PCF). At that time, the party was known as the
Movement of the Radical Socialist Left (, MGRS), then as the
Movement of Radicals of the Left (, MRG) after 1973. Led by
Robert Fabre during the 1970s, the party was the third partner of the Union of the Left. Nevertheless, its electoral influence did not compare with those of its two allies, which competed for the leadership over the left.
Robert Fabre sought to attract
left-wing Gaullists to the party and gradually became close to President
Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, who nominated him as Mediator of the Republic in 1978. He and his followers were excluded from the party by those who strongly supported the alliance with the PS.
Michel Crépeau was nominated by the party for the
1981 presidential election and obtained a disappointing 2.09% in the first round. He and his party in the runoff endorsed PS candidate
François Mitterrand, who eventually won. The MRG won 14 seats in the subsequent
1981 legislative election and participated in PS-led governments between 1981 and 1986 and again between 1988 and 1993. In the
1984 European elections, the MRG formed a common list with
Brice Lalonde's environmentalists and
Olivier Stirn, a
centre-right deputy. The list styled as the Radical and Ecologist Agreement won 3.32%, but no seats. The party resumed its customary alliance with the PS in the
1986 legislative election and supported President Mitterrand's 1988 reelection bid by the first round. At the beginning of the 1990s, under the leadership of the popular businessman
Bernard Tapie the party benefited from an ephemeral upswing in its popularity while the governing SP was in disarray. The list led by Tapie won 12.03% and 13 seats of the votes in the
1994 European Parliament election. However, Tapie retired from politics due to his legal problems and the party, renamed the
Radical Socialist Party (, PRS), returned to its lowest ebb. After the
Radical Party opened legal proceedings against the PRS, it was forced to change its name to the
Radical Party of the Left (, PRG). Between 1997 and 2002, it was a junior partner in
Lionel Jospin's
Plural Left coalition government. In the
2002 presidential election, the PRG nominated its own candidate, former MEP and
French Guiana deputy
Christiane Taubira, for the first time since 1981. However, some members of the party including
Émile Zuccarelli and PRG senator
Nicolas Alfonsi supported
Jean-Pierre Chevènement's candidacy. Taubira won 2.32% of the vote. Taubira gave her name to the 2001 law which declared the
Atlantic slave trade a
crime against humanity. In the
2007 presidential election, while the party supported the PS candidate
Ségolène Royal, Bernard Tapie, who had been a leading figure in the PRG, supported
Nicolas Sarkozy. In the
2007 legislative election, the party won eight seats, including a seat in
French Guiana (Taubira) and
Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon. The party split on
Nicolas Sarkozy's constitutional reforms in 2008. Six deputies (
Gérard Charasse,
Paul Giacobbi,
Annick Girardin,
Joël Giraud,
Dominique Orliac and
Sylvia Pinel) and three senators (
Jean-Michel Baylet,
André Boyer and
François Vendasi) opted to vote in favour, hence allowing for its passage. The PRG's then-president
Jean-Michel Baylet ran in the
2011 SP presidential primaries, the only non-PS candidate in the field, but was placed last with only 0.64% of the vote in the primary. The PRG supported
François Hollande, the eventual winner of the primaries and the
2012 presidential election. In the
2012 legislative election, the PRG won 12 seats. With four additional members, it formed its own parliamentary group in the
National Assembly, the
Radical, Republican, Democratic and Progressive group. Although the PRG remained a close and loyal ally of the PS, it has also cooperated with the small
Ecology Generation (GE) party since December 2011. In the
2014 European elections, the party received 13.98% of the vote on a joint list with the PS, electing one MEP
Virginie Rozière, who joined the
Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats (S&D) group with PS MEPs. In the
2017 SP presidential primary, PRG candidate
Sylvia Pinel received 2% of the vote in the first round election held on 22 January 2017. In the
2017 French legislative election, the party only re-elected three
MPs;
Annick Girardin,
Jeanine Dubié and
Sylvia Pinel. In 2019, the party was relaunched. The party supported
Christiane Taubira in the
2022 French presidential election. Following the
2022 French legislative election, the party's only deputy is
Olivier Falorni representing
Charente-Maritime's 1st constituency. He was elected in 2022 with 66.11% of the (second-round) vote in that constituency, and re-elected in 2024 with 74.71%. The PRG was the only
centre-left party on the French mainland with representation in the
National Assembly to refuse to join the
leftist electoral coalition
NUPES, headed by
Jean-Luc Mélenchon, and in 2024 it formed part of
Emmanuel Macron's
Ensemble coalition. == Ideology ==