Composition
The group is currently a bipartisan outfit. As French politics is becoming increasingly close to a two-party system, this heterogeneous group is a sort of anachronism. Moreover, differently from other political groups, RDSE is characterized by no party discipline as its members are always free to vote as they please.
Since 2008 the group, which has been predominantly Radical and centre-right in 2004–2008, has opened its doors to other parties of the left, has now a centre-left majority and is increasingly similar to other miscellaneous left-wing groups in the National Assembly.
Before joining the group of the Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) in 2002, most senators of the Radical Party were members of RDSE, while a centrist senator of the Union for French Democracy (UDF) joined briefly the group from 2001 to 2002. Since 2008 five Radical senators out of six are members of the UMP group and only one is still a member of RDSE.
Read more about this topic: European Democratic And Social Rally
Famous quotes containing the word composition:
“Since body and soul are radically different from one another and belong to different worlds, the destruction of the body cannot mean the destruction of the soul, any more than a musical composition can be destroyed when the instrument is destroyed.”
—Oscar Cullman. Immortality of the Soul or Resurrection of the Dead? The Witness of the New Testament, ch. 1, Epworth Press (1958)
“Pushkin’s composition is first of all and above all a phenomenon of style, and it is from this flowered rim that I have surveyed its seep of Arcadian country, the serpentine gleam of its imported brooks, the miniature blizzards imprisoned in round crystal, and the many-hued levels of literary parody blending in the melting distance.”
—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)
“Those Dutchmen had hardly any imagination or fantasy, but their good taste and their scientific knowledge of composition were enormous.”
—Vincent Van Gogh (1853–1890)