The first and only parliamentary group of communists in the Senate of the Third Republic was formed following the 1938 senatorial elections, with two members. A communist group existed through the duration of the Fourth Republic in the Council of the Republic, with 74 seats following senatorial elections on 8 December 1946, 17 seats following senatorial elections on 7 November 1948, 16 seats following senatorial elections on 18 May 1952, 14 seats following senatorial elections on 19 June 1955, and 16 seats following senatorial elections on 8 June 1958. In the Fifth Republic, Jacques Duclos served as the first leader of the communist group in the Senate. After the death of Duclos on 25 April 1975, Marie-Thérèse Goutmann took over the presidency of the group on 20 May 1975, becoming the first woman to preside over a parliamentary group. She subsequently sought to become a deputy in the National Assembly in the 1978 legislative elections; due to irregularities which resulted in the invalidation of the original result by the Constitutional Council, however, a by-election was held on 16 and 23 July which ultimately resulted in her election to the assembly and departure from the Senate; as such, though Marcel Rosette became the new president of the group on 6 April, Goutmann was obligated to continue to sit in the Senate until the Constitutional Council later confirmed her election to the National Assembly. She remained president of the group for only a year, and was replaced by Hélène Luc on 19 December 1979. The communist group expanded to include 24 members after the 1983 renewal, the highest number ever attained by the communist group. On 28 September, Hélène Luc announced that the group would be renamed to the Communist, Republican and Citizen group, abbreviated CRC, presenting it as an "opening to the people of progress"; specifically, it allowed Paul Loridant, member of the Movement of Citizens of Jean-Pierre Chevènement, to join the group. Luc's stint as president of the group ended on 3 April 2001; she was succeeded by Nicole Borvo. On 26 November 2008, Jean-Luc Mélenchon and François Autain, who left the Socialist Party to found the Left Party, joined the group, which was then renamed to the Communist, Republican, Citizen and Senators of the Left Party group, abbreviated CRC–SPG. However, after Jean-Luc Mélenchon was elected to the European Parliament after the 2009 elections, he vacated his seat in the Senate on 7 January 2010, and after Autain lost his seat in the Senate in the renewal of seats during the senatorial elections on 25 September 2011, the group reverted to its original name. On 19 September 2012, Nicole Borvo Cohen-Seat resigned from the Senate, and was succeeded by Eliane Assassi, who was elected president of the CRC group the same day. The group was renamed to the Communist, Republican, Citizen and Ecologist group after the 2017 renewal, when it was joined by the ecologist senators Esther Benbassa, Guillaume Gontard, and Pierre-Yves Collombat.
