After the Radical Party opened legal proceedings against the PRS, it was forced to change its name to the Radical Party of the Left (, PRG). Between 1997 and 2002, it was a junior partner in Lionel Jospin's Plural Left coalition government. In the 2002 presidential election, the PRG nominated its own candidate, former MEP and French Guiana deputy Christiane Taubira, for the first time since 1981. However, some members of the party including Émile Zuccarelli and PRG senator Nicolas Alfonsi supported Jean-Pierre Chevènement's candidacy. Taubira won 2.32% of the vote. Taubira gave her name to the 2001 law which declared the Atlantic slave trade a crime against humanity.