The new electoral campaign for the second constituent marked two important facts: the fall back on a bitter anti-communism of the SFIO and the campaign launched on May 29 by the CGT and the communists for wages, without prejudice to the price freeze, to be increased by 25%. This request affected Gouin’s leadership experience and found the MRP hostile, in addition to the SFIO. The latter party, in turn, emerged victorious in the elections of June 2, 1946, without however marking a significant shift in the parliamentary chessboard. In fact, the government political axis remained essentially tripartite, despite the opposition’s attempt to regroup for the Right in the Parti républicain de la liberté and for the center left in the Rassemblement des gauches républicaines: the function of hinge still belonged to the socialists apart from the losses incurred. The Marxist left, with the concurrence of the seven black deputies, constituted the majority and more than once, in the course of the legislature, put the opposition in check; but the sudden return of General De Gaulle to the political argument with the Bayeux speech of June 16 and with the subsequent campaign, not only for a presidential-type executive power, but also directed against the very existence of parties, strengthened on the parliamentary level, the MRP, whose leader assumed the burden of the government.
According to TOPB2BWEBSITES, the Bidault government was established on June 23, 1946 on a somewhat enlarged tripartite basis and on the 26th it obtained the confidence with 516 votes and 57 abstentions (previously, in Bidault’s designation, the communists had also abstained). It marks a notable activity within the conference of the Four and that of Paris, with the full triumph of the claims towards Italy but with little success as regards the German problem, finding the territorial detachment of the Ruhr the concordant opposition of the three great and, that of the Saar, the Soviet opposition. This impasse of the German problem contributed to the decisive turning point in French politics, which – reluctant under Gouin to enter only one of the two blocs – now increasingly inclines towards the Western Duc on July 28), and induces the Bidault cabinet to take unilateral measures, such as the administrative meeting of the two Rhenish districts in the Saar (July 22) and the creation in the French area of a Land with the capital Mainz (August 30). As far as the Fontainebleau conference in the Far East is concerned, it fails to achieve with Viet-nam more than a simple modus vivendi (September 14), which will soon be swept away by the insurrection of December 19.
Meanwhile, on 29 September, the constituent party adopted, with 440 votes against 106, the new constitutional project, which is a reworking of the previous one as it recognizes the bicameral system and the separation of powers; the point where he deviates most is that of the French Union, regarding which Bidault himself, making himself strong of the Indochinese and Algerian tensions and of the declaration made by De Gaulle to the press on 19 September, forced the hand of the constituent in a field of exclusive competence of the latter and made substitute federal centralization for the primitive decentralized federalism proposed by the commission.
Supported by the tripartite, violently criticized by De Gaulle, the project was accepted on October 13 by the electoral body but the results of the referendum (9,263,416 yes, 8,143,981 no and 8,467,537 abstentions) show what a vast breach the criticism of this’ lastly they operated in the nation, authorizing many doubts about the vitality of the new constitutional organism of the Fourth Republic. However, the subsequent elections of 10 November for the national assembly did not change the parliamentary situation (adding also the allies, the tripartite has 182 seats for the communists, 164 for the MRP and 104 for the SFIO respectively out of a total of 614 deputies.).
