The 16th issue of Parlement[s], Revue d'histoire politique , the French academic journal published three times a year by the CHPP, deals with the impact of the 1871 legislative elections in France. It is coordinated by Thierry Truel and supported by the CEMMC (Bordeaux 3).

1871: terrible year according to Victor Hugo! The defeat and the conditions of armistice dictate to organize early legislative elections on the 8th of February. The recently proclaimed Republic (since the 4th of September 1870) needs a constitution. Then begins the shortest electoral campaign of the Republic’s history, while the Government of National Defense fights against the “Red” Socialists threat. This issue reassesses the impact of the 8th of February elections, usually considered as the expression of the rural and bourgeois France, restive to change and mostly monarchist. By comparing it to the 1848 ballot, by questioning the origins of the MPs elected in 1871 and their future political activities, by focusing on the South-West France, historians show that the 1871 elections permitted an acclimatization to the parliamentarism and the emergence of transitional elite.

This issue also contains two essays about Edmond Barrachin, MP (1934-1936, 1946-1958) and Senator (1959-1975) and a study of the European parliamentarians and the federalist action towards the Council of Europe (1949-1951).

The introduction, the commented sources, and the books reviews are freely accessable on internet:

Summary and abstracts (French and English):

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