Socialist Party (France)

The Socialist Party (French: Parti socialiste, PS) is a centre-left to left-wingpolitical party in France. It holds social democratic and pro-European views. The PS was for decades the largest party of the "French Left" and used to be one of the two major political parties under the Fifth Republic, along with the Rally for the Republic in the late 20th century, and with the Union for a Popular Movement in the early 2000s. It is currently led by First Secretary Olivier Faure. The PS is a member of the Party of European Socialists, Progressive Alliance and Socialist International.

The PS was founded in 1969 from a merger of the French Section of the Workers' International (SFIO), the Convention of Republican Institutions led by François Mitterrand, and other groups. In the 1970s, the PS surpassed the Communist Party's share of the left-wing vote. It first won power in 1981, when Mitterrand was elected president. The PS achieved a governing majority in the National Assembly from 1981 to 1986, and again from 1988 to 1993. PS leader Lionel Jospin lost his bid to succeed Mitterrand as president in 1995 to conservative Jacques Chirac, but he served as prime minister in a cohabitation government from 1997 to 2002, when he was again defeated by Chirac in the presidential election.

In the 2007 presidential election, the PS's candidate, Ségolène Royal, was defeated by conservative Nicolas Sarkozy. In 2012, François Hollande, the leader of the party from 1997 to 2008, was elected president, and the party also won a governing majority. During his term, Hollande battled with high unemployment, multiple Jihadi terrorist attacks, poor opinion ratings and a splinter group of Socialist MPs known as frondeurs (rebels). Facing the emergence of centrist Emmanuel Macron and left-winger Jean-Luc Mélenchon, PS candidate Benoît Hamon finished 5th in the 2017 presidential election. The PS also declined to the 4th largest party in the 2017 legislative election, and to the 6th largest in 2022.

Several figures who acted at the international level have also been members of the PS, including Jacques Delors, who was the president of the European Commission from 1985 to 1994 and the first person to serve three terms in that office; Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who was the managing director of the International Monetary Fund from 2007 to 2011; and Pascal Lamy, who was Director-General of the World Trade Organization from 2005 to 2013. Party membership has declined precipitously, to a low of 22,000 members in 2021, down from 173,486 members in 2012, although it claimed 47,000 members in 2024, recovering to its standing around 2016, when it had 42,300 members.