Independent Radicals
At 1902 legislative election, the Radical-Socialists and the Independent Radicals allied themselves with the conservative-liberals of the Democratic Alliance (to their immediate right) and the Socialists (to their left) in the "Bloc des gauches" (Coalition of the Left), with the Radicals emerging the main political force. Émile Combes took the head of the "Bloc des gauches" cabinet and led a resolute anti-clerical policy culminating in the 1905 laic law which along with the earlier Jules Ferry laws removing confessional influence from public education formed the backbone of "laïcité", France's policy of combatting clericalism by actively excluding it from state institutions. From then on, the Radical-Socialist Party's chief aim in domestic policy was to prevent its wide-ranging set of reforms from being overturned by a return to power of the religious right.