The French Communist Party (Parti Communiste Français or PCF) was founded in 1920.

They have a weekly newspaper called L'Humanité, which was started in 1904. Their manifesto has great emphasis on the worker, and their party policies derive from Karl Marx. Robert Hue is the current leader of the party and received only 3.37% of the votes in the 2002 presidential elections, placing 11th in a field of 15 candidates, while the party received an only slightly better 4.8% in the 2002 parliamentary elections. Each September, the party holds the "Fête de l'Humanité", a large party.

Beginning in the 1930s, the French Communist Party became a mass party, their success fueled by the popularity of the Comintern's new Popular Front strategy, which advocated alliances with other socialist and progressive bourgeois parties to fight against fascism. Although, following the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of 1939, the Communists pursued an anti-war course during the early part of the Second World War, following the invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, the party took an active part in the resistance, once again gaining credibility with many Frenchmen as an anti-fascist force. Many well-known figures joined the party at this time, including Pablo Picasso, who joined the PCF in 1944, and remained an active member until his death, and the future Cambodian dictator Pol Pot. With the liberation of France in 1944, the Communists, along with other resistance groups, entered the government of Charles de Gaulle, but were forced to quit the government within a few years. During the Fourth Republic, the Communist Party consistently received more votes than any other party, although they were not allowed to enter the government.