New Parties in a Changing Party System: La République En Marche and La France Insoumise

This paper compares the organisation of two new French political parties and assesses the extent to which their form of organisation match current party types or if, following a French pattern of unusual partisan organisations, they represent distinct forms of party organisation. To do this, it will assess the balance of power between membership and leadership over a number of party processes: leadership selection, candidate selection, and policymaking, along with forms of affiliation. The aim is to determine whether new parties that have recently contributed to the transformation of the French party system have followed trends in party organisation, followed French organisational traditions, or represent new forms of party organisation. Using mainly party statutes, information available through party websites, and data collected for the Political Parties Database, this paper will assess the extent to which these parties try to answer some of the challenges contemporary parties face: low levels of party membership, limited links with society, and debates over who holds the power inside political parties.