Conservatism in the early Fourth Republic was rarely explicit. In his history of the extreme right, François Duprat described the post-war period as that of ‘the right that dare not speak its name’. The Parti Républicain de la Liberté (PRL) was an exception to this general rule. On its foundation in December 1945, the PRL was the only significant party to describe itself as right-wing. Yet the attitudes that it represented were not so unusual. The political make up of France before 1944, and after 1951, showed that conservatism had considerable support. Furthermore, the policies advocated by the PRL – namely the exclusion of the Communist party from power, close relations with America and amnesty for former Pétainists – were all to be enacted between 1947 and 1953. Under these circumstances it seems reasonable to assume that the PRL was the dorsal fin of French conservatism, revealing tendencies that remained discreetly submerged in other parties.

The PRL was unusual in the means by which it sought to attain its ends as well as the frankness with which it admitted those ends. The party's formation was an attempt to break from the loose coalitions grouped around prominent individuals that had usually characterized the French right. The founders of the PRL wanted to create a single, disciplined and well-organized movement that would match the English Conservative party and challenge the ‘big three’ of post-war French politics.