This question had again assumed a new character. The International Socialist Congress of Amsterdam (1904) had exhorted and advised the French Socialists to accomplish as soon as possible the unification of their separate parties into one national Socialist Party. In April, 1905, a "Congress of Unification" was held at Paris, at which the _Parti Socialiste de France_ and the _Parti Socialiste Français_ formed the _Parti Socialiste Unifié_. A common program was accepted and a new form of organization elaborated. At its first Congress in Chalons in October, 1905, the Unified Party counted 35,000 paying members distributed in 2,000 groups, 67 federations and 77 departments. In the elections of 1906 the Unified Party obtained an increase of votes and elected 54 members to Parliament.
It now seemed to many that there was no reason for the General Confederation of Labor to keep aloof from the Socialist Party. The reason heretofore given was that the divisions in the Socialist Party disorganized the syndicats, but since the Socialist Party was now unified, the reason lost all significance, and it seemed possible to establish some form of union between the two organizations. The question was taken up soon after the unification of the Socialist Party by the "Federation of Textile Workers" who had it inserted in the program of the coming Congress of Amiens. The question was discussed for some time before the Congress in the socialist and syndicalist press, and the decision that would be taken could have been foreseen from the discussion.
M. Renard, the Secretary of the "Federation of Textile Workers," defended the proposition that permanent relations should be established between the General Confederation and the Unified Socialist Party. His argument was that in the struggle of the working-class for emancipation, various methods must be used, and that various forms of organization were accordingly necessary. The syndicat, in his opinion, could not suffice for all purposes; it was an instrument in economic struggles against employers, but by the side of this economic action, political action must be carried on to obtain protective labor legislation. For this purpose he considered it necessary to maintain relations with the Socialist Party, which had "always proposed and voted laws having for their object the amelioration of the conditions of the working-class as well as their definitive emancipation."[202] Besides, argued M. Renard, "if a revolutionary situation should be created to-day," the syndicats now in existence, with their present organization could not "regulate production and organize exchange," and "would be compelled to make use of the machinery of the government." The co-operation of the Confederation with the Socialist Party, therefore, was useful and necessary from the point of view both of the present and of the future.