Provisional Government of the French Republic

The Provisional Government of the French Republic (gouvernement provisoire de la République française or GPRF) was an interim government which governed France from 1944 to 1946, following the fall of Vichy France and prior to the Fourth French Republic.

Following the Battle of France in 1940, the state of Vichy France was established under the rule of Philippe Pétain. However, after Operation Overlord, the liberation of Paris and the fall of the Falaise pocket, the Vichy regime dissolved. Then, as the Allied front lines moved through France, jurisdiction was seized by the Provisional Government under the leadership of Charles de Gaulle.

Politics

The GPRF was dominated by the tripartisme alliance between the French Communist Party (PCF), claiming itself by exaggeration to be the parti des 85,000 fusillés ("party of the 85,000 shot") because of its leading role in the Resistance, the French Section of the Workers' International (SFIO, socialist party) and the Christian democratic Popular Republican Movement (MRP), led by Georges Bidault. This alliance between the three most important political parties after the war – the Radical-Socialists and the conservative, right-wing parties, such as the Democratic Republican Alliance (ARD), had lost their legitimacy due to their collaboration during Vichy and to their attitude before the war – lasted until the May 1947 crisis during which Maurice Thorez, vice-premier, and four other Communist ministers were expelled...
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