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Centrism in France (French: Centrisme politique) has played a major role in French politics over many decades. This page presents the parties, political movements and personalities linked to Centrism in France according to their political traditions or their background. The different families of centrism are presented in the different sections.
The MRP, was founded as a party in 1944 by former resistance fighters, quickly became one of the three major parties (with the PCF and the SFIO) which dominated the national political life of the Fourth Republic. The MRP was the second largest party in the Constituent Assembly of 1945 and to the National Assembly elected in November 1946. The MRP was the largest party during the election of the second Constituent Assembly in June 1946 and was part of the two main coalitions of the Fourth Republic: Tripartisme (1946–47) and the Third Force (1947–51). The MRP then became a central political force of the new regime and counted among its ranks three Prime Ministers: Robert Schuman, Georges Bidault et Pierre Pflimlin. The Christian Democrats participated in all the governments of the Fourth Republic and, despite the political instability of their party, their ministers remained in place for many years with Schuman at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (1948–1953), Jean-Marie Louvel at the Ministry of Industry and Commerce (1950–1954). However, the MRP fell back electorally: its vote share was halved during the legislative elections of 1951 and 1956. After the founding of the RPF, the MRP no longer appeared as the party of loyalty to Charles de Gaulle, while the traditional moderate right regrouped around the National Centre of Independents and Peasants (CNI). The MRP supported the return of De Gaulle and the establishment of the Fifth Republic and participated in the beginning of his presidency but disagreements over European politics pushed the MPR into opposition before dissolving in 1965. Jean Lecanuet was inspired to found a new party, the Democratic Centre. The Union for French democracy (UDF) was established in 1978 as a union between a number of centrist parties including the Democratic Centre (from the MRP), Republican Party (formerly FNRI) and the Radical Party. Other Centrist factions like the Social Democratic Party (PSD) and Democratic Convention (PSD) succeeded in establishing itself as a political force of government thanks to the legitimacy of its founder, Valéry Giscard d'Estaing who was elected President of France in 1974 the first time that the role hadn't been held by a Gaullist or a left winger. However, after the failure of Giscard to be re-elected in the 1981 presidential election the UDF could only maintain its political influence by allying with right-wing forces, disputing the neo-GaullistRally for the Republic for leadership over the conservative electorate. Despite this conflict part of the UDF, mainly members of the Centre of Social Democrats (formerly the Democratic Centre of Jean Lecanuet) nevertheless took part in the government of openness led by Michel Rocard from 1988 to 1991 forming a distinct group (Union of the Centre [fr]) of the UDF in the National Assembly. From the mid-1990s onwards, the UDF experienced several splits, seeing the Liberals leave it in 1998 (including the Republican Party which later became Liberal Democracy), then a majority of its executives and many activists in favour of the Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) in 2002 (including the Radical Party). At the same time, the "New-UDF" was created through the merging of most of the remaining components apart from the PPDF.
In 2007, François Bayrou , president of the UDF, reached 18.57% of the votes in the first round of the presidential election. The UDF finally disappeared through its integration into the new party founded by François Bayrou, the Democratic Movement (MoDem), which adopted a position independent of the right and left forces. Party members that refused to abandon the alliance with the right created The Centrists at the same time. In June 2008, Jean Arthuis, who left the MoDem, created a national association, the Centrist Alliance,which brought together elected officials and activists attached to the political heritage of the UDF.
The Perspectives and Realities Clubs brought together moderate liberals supporting Valéry Giscard d'Estaing. In 1978, they participated in the founding of the Union for French Democracy. In 1995, they took the form of the Popular Party for French Democracy under the leadership of Hervé de Charette, a party which joined the UMP in 2002. The Democratic Convention took the form of a political party to integrate the Republican Alliance, ecological and social in May 2011. After being put on hold, it was relaunched in 2014 by Yves Jégo in the form of a political club associated with the Union of Democrats and Independents.
Founded in June 2011 with the aim of supporting a common candidacy for the 2012 French presidential election, this structure brings together the Radical Party, the New Center, the Democratic Convention and the Modern Left. It has been without public activity since Jean-Louis Borloo renounced his candidacy in November 2011.
Liberalism in France can be considered a right-wing ideology but many centrist movements have claimed to be liberal or have had liberal wings like the UDF.
History
Liberalism has never been a very popular political movement in France since the 20th century. This was partly due to the fact that liberals took quite a long time to organize themselves in the aftermath of the Second World War
During the 1960s, the CNIP experienced a split led by Valéry Giscard d'Estaing bringing together supporters of support for Charles de Gaulle within the Independent Republicans. This parliamentary group would quickly transform into a Giscardian political party which embodied the liberal movement until the creation of the UMP. However, this party would never be able to win the elections (legislative or presidential) alone. Suffering from opposition from the Gaullists after the resignation of Jacques Chirac from his post as Prime Minister in 1976, Valéry Giscard d'Estaing quickly allied himself with the centrist parties, resulting from the breakup of the MRP, which it brought together during the 1978 French legislative election within of the UDF whose two main components become the Republican Party (PR – heir to the Independent Republicans) and the Centre of Social Democrats (CDS heir to the MPR). The PR would become a strong political force and be an important component of all right-wing majorities until 1997, but its liberal identity became somewhat blurred due to the essentially democratic image of the UDF. In 1997, it changed its name to Liberal Democracy after Alain Madelin became its president. More than symbolic, this new name embodies a change in attitude among liberals who assume for the first time the ideological identity of their political family. In 1998, the UDF broke up and DL became independent, and became an ally of the RPR with which it merged into the UMP in 2002. This anchored the liberals definitively on the right wing, a position widely accepted by most of them since the 1980s–1990s. However, other political parties continue to want to structure an independent liberal political family, beyond the right-left divide, such as Liberal Alternative or the Liberal Democratic Party (former member of the UDI).
In 2017, some of the members of The Republicans (successor party to the UMP), considered the party line as too right-wing and created the Agir party stating to defend "liberal, social, European, humanist and reformist" ideas. Along the same lines, the Horizons party was created in 2021 .
Dans une attitude d’abord « constructive » avec la majorité présidentielle d’Emmanuel Macron, il l’a rejoint de en 2018 avec l’entrée de Riester au gouvernement. Fait partie du collectif Ensemble citoyens.
Parti s’inscrivant au sein de la majorité présidentielle d’Emmanuel Macron, rassemblant l’aile droite de celle-ci, autour de l’ancien Premier ministre Édouard Philippe. Fait partie du collectif Ensemble citoyens.
Radicalism is one of the oldest political families that has been structured in France. As supporters of a secular and social republic, they come from the extreme left of the 19th century.
The Radical Party was founded in 1901, even before the law authorizing the creation of associations and political parties existeed. The Republican Party containing radical and radical-socialists gradually evolved towards a central positioning on the political scene. This is most certainly due to its role as a pivotal party under the French Third Republic, and to the structuring of two competing families on the left: the socialists and the communists. Under the French Fifth Republic, the party lost most of its electoral influence and brought together politicians attached to radical values, but for some advocating an alliance with other left-wing forces and for others who wanted an alliance with centrists from the MRP and the Independent Republicans of Giscard d'Estaing.
Finally, in 1971, the party experienced a split, seeing the creation by the minority tendency of the Radical Party of the Left. In 1978, the so-called "Valoisien" Radical Party joined the Union for French Democracy within which it nevertheless retained a strong degree of autonomy. Finally, in 2002, the party left the UDF to join forces with the UMP, which it left in 2011 when its president, Jean-Louis Borloo, formed the Republican, Ecologist and Social Alliance (ARES) which aims to bring together the centrist groups that are members of Nicolas Sarkozy's presidential majority, with the prospect of a joint candidacy for the 2012 presidential election. Finally Jean-Louis Borloo formed the Union of Democrats and Independents (UDI) in 2012 with the same ambition of bringing together the centrists. The MRG, which became the Radical Left Party, concluded from its creation a lasting programmatic, electoral and financial alliance with the Socialist Party while retaining its legal independence.
Parti fondateur et membre de l'UDF (1978–2002) puis parti associé à l'UMP de 2002 à 2011, membre de l'UDI entre 2012 et 2017. Il fonde le Mouvement radical en 2017 avec le PRG et est mis en sommeil. Le parti est réactivé en 2021 et devient membre du collectif Ensemble citoyens soutenant l’action d’Emmanuel Macron.
Scission du Parti radical (aile gauche), Mouvement des radicaux de gauche (MRG) de 1973 à 1994, il devient allié du Parti socialiste.
De 2017 à 2019, le PRG fait partie du Mouvement radical, qu’il quitte avant d’être dissout en son sein. Redevenu indépendant, il n’envisage des alliances qu’avec des partis de gauche.
Parti démocrate français
1982–1988
(1978 pour FDR)
Guy Gennesseaux
Scission de l'aile libérale du MRG opérée par des proches de Robert Fabre en 1978 sous la forme de la Fédération pour une démocratie radicale (FDR), qui intégrera le Parti radical (1979) avant de le quitter (1981) pour fonder en 1982 un parti indépendant (PDF). Le parti s'alliera avec le Parti libéral (1985) puis deviendra un mouvement associé au Parti républicain, puis du RPR avant d'être mis en sommeil à partir de 1988.[3]
French social democracy was mainly expressed within the Socialist Party, of which several members claimed to be such during the 2000s. However, they did not claim a centrist position on the political spectrum, but on the contrary an anchoring on the left which remained very majority and embodied in particular by politicians like Dominique Strauss-Kahn. Christian socialists, who were first structured in the trade union sector (French Confederation of Christian Workers) and youth organizations (Jeunesse Étudiante Chrétienne), some participated in the MRP, then in the Socialist Party, like Jacques Delors. Many Protestant socialist figures (or those from Protestant families), such as Michel Rocard, embodied within the "Deuxième gauche [fr]" a socialism closer to the forces of the center than to the communist left. In 2020, Territoires of Progress was created, a party claiming to be social democratic and part of Emmanuel Macron's presidential majority .
Social liberals
A more recent trend, the social liberals come from the social democratic tardition. They gradually structured themselves within the Socialist Party (while remaining an extremely minority) claiming a political line inspired by social democracy and the New Labour project embodied by British prime Minister Tony Blair. Gérard Collomb was a figure of this movement in France. Some took the chance and backed liberal candidate Nicolas Sarkozy in 2007 like Jean-Marie Bockel or Éric Besson. Today, social liberalism is mainly expressed within Renaissance (formerly En Marche) although the movement does not claim to be one and prefers to use the term progressive. As the party founded by Emmanuel Macron , a former minister of the socialist government under François Hollande he has support from figures from the center, right and left.
Progressives
Even more than the homonymous party of Éric Besson, Renaissance claims a progressive identity which is focused on ecology, social liberalism and Pro-Europeanism which goes beyond any economic considerations. The "progressive" terminology does not refer to this movement, unlike social-liberalism. Progressivism is also defended in France by parties or personalities with various economic positions, ranging from the former liberal minister Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet to the social-democratic movement Place Publique.
List of social democrats, social liberals and progressives movements
Issus notamment du MRP, ses membres intègrent le Parti socialiste au congrès d'Épinay de 1971. La motion qu'ils y présenteront recueillera 0.5% des suffrages.
Fondateur de l'UDF en 1978 et de Force démocrate en 1995.
Initiative européenne et sociale
2006–?
Marc d'Héré
Fondée par d'anciens membres du PS, IES s'est alliée au Nouveau Centre aux élections législatives de 2007. Son président est devenu secrétaire général des Progressistes en septembre 2007.
Scission du Parti communiste français, il s’oriente progressivement vers le centre jusqu’à soutenir et intégrer la majorité présidentielle d’Emmanuel Macron de 2017 à 2018. Il se réoriente néanmoins à gauche à partir de 2018 et fait partie du pôle écologiste depuis 2021.
Fondé en mai 2016 dans le but d'appuyer la candidature d'Emmanuel Macron pour l'élection présidentielle de 2017. Devenu le parti présidentiel et majoritaire à l'Assemblée nationale depuis l'élection de son fondateur en mai 2017, il s'appuie sur des personnalités venant de la gauche et de la droite. Fait partie du collectif Ensemble citoyens.
Le parti se projette résolument vers les autres composantes de gauche, plutôt que vers La République en marche, malgré un positionnement au centre-gauche.
Bonapartism, as identified by René Rémond, was one of the three rights existing in France (Les Droites en France, 1954) and of which Gaullism is a direct heir, has also largely inspired the center and the center-left, by its transpartisan aspect and its social doctrine. A part of the social Gaullists and the left Gaullists thus embody, under the French Fifth Republic, the centrist and center-left branch of French Caesarism.
Unlike the social Gaullists, who have always been members of the right-wing Gaullist parties, the left-wing Gaullists were structured independently, notably within the UDT, until the 1980s. From this turning point, they rallied either to the neo-Gaullism of the RPR, or to the traditional left by rapprochement with the PS during the alternation of 1981, joining the presidential majority without however organizing themselves in a common structure.
The Republican Pole of Jean-Pierre Chevènement can nevertheless be considered as a partisan survival of left-wing Gaullism, at the turn of the 2000s. It was succeeded, after the failure of its founder in the 2002 presidential election, by the Deuxième gauche [fr], which still brings together a part of the Republicans, Gaullists and left-wing sovereigntists but whose political audience is more confidential.
Le parti réunit les soutiens de gauche du Général de Gaulle, plus progressistes sur les questions économiques et sociales que la frange majoritaire du gaullisme.
Héritier du MDC, il voit le départ en la frange modérée, sociale-démocrate et centre-gauche lors de son union avec l’APRÉS au sein de la Gauche républicaine et socialiste.
Union gaulliste pour une France républicaine (UGFR)
From the beginnings of environmental movements, political ecology has been divided into two currents of thought, the first claiming to be left-wing, the second claiming to be independent of the right/left divide or even like centrist movements: this is ecology centrist. The main French environmentalist political party, the Greens, initially adhered to this second school of thought until 1994 when they chose to break with "neither right nor left" to ally themselves with the Socialist Party and then to enter the government of Plural left in 1997. This change of political line caused the departure of Antoine Waechter in 1994 who left to found the Independent Ecological Movement: it was then the beginning of the division between the centrist ecologists and the left ecologists who would impose themselves with The Greens then with The Ecologists as the first political ecological force in France.
In 2015, a new split tore the ecologists of EELV between supporters of a return to the government of Manuel Valls, they were rather center-left ecologists led by Jean-Vincent Placé and François de Rugy, and ecologists favorable to alliances electoral with the Left Front, they are rather left-wing or even radical left ecologists, led by Cécile Duflot.
Dans la foulée du mandat ministériel de Brice Lalonde, le mouvement Génération écologie se constitue avec les militants écologistes Il est créé à l'initiative de François Mitterrand pour concurrencer Les Verts avant les élections régionales.
Le conseil national de Génération écologie appelle à voter pour Jacques Chirac à l’élection présidentielle de 1995, avant de signer un accord avec Démocratie libérale en 1998. Le mouvement glisse alors vers la droite. À partir de 2011, il s'ancre de nouveau davantage au centre gauche en se rapprochant notamment du PRG puis d’EELV, en rejoignant le pôle écologiste en 2021.
Scission des Verts créé à l'initiative d'Antoine Waechter (également cofondateur des Verts), qui considère l'écologisme comme un projet politique distinct de la droite et de la gauche, mais pouvant s'allier aussi bien avec l'une qu'avec l'autre, à l'opposé des Verts qui considèrent l'écologisme comme un courant de la gauche.
Scission d'EELV qui dénonce la "dérive gauchiste" du parti. D'abord proche du Parti socialiste et membre de l'UDE (qu'il quitte en 2016), le PE s’affilie à La République en Marche ! en 2017 et est inactif depuis.
Fondée par trois partis écologistes, Écologistes !, le Front démocrate et Génération écologie qui envisageaient de s'allier au sein d'une fédération nommée l'Union des démocrates et des écologistes. Finalement Génération écologie annonce qu'il ne rejoint pas l'UDE. Ce départ est suivi par le départ d'Écologistes ! en 2016. Le parti est placé sous administration judiciaire en 2020.
Parti s’inscrivant au sein de la majorité présidentielle d’Emmanuel Macron, mais voulant porter une ligne plus à gauche et écologiste que LREM. Fait partie du collectif Ensemble citoyens.
Union des centristes et des écologistes
2021
Christophe Madrolle
Parti créé au départ en soutien à Emmanuel Macron. Parti politique désormais indépendant.
It is also possible to place at the centre of the political spectrum certain "thematic" movements and parties such as the Federalist Party or regionalist-nationalist parties such as the Breton Party.
In the royalist movement, the Democratic Rally (RD) is a small centrist group bringing together the center left and the center right as well as the royalist Gaullists.
Sylvie Guillaume (dir.), Le centrisme en France aux XIXe et XXe siècles : un échec ?, Bordeaux, MSH, 181p, 2005.
François Roth, Les modérés dans la vie politique française 1870–1965, Nancy, PUN, 585p, 2000.
Aurelian Craiutu, Le Centre introuvable. La pensée politique des doctrinaires sous la Restauration, Paris, Plon, 2006.
Jean-Pierre Rioux, Les Centristes: de Mirabeau à Bayrou, Fayard, Paris, 320p, 2011.
Alexandre Vatimbella, Le Centre et le Centrisme: De la Révolution à Macron, CREC Editions, 170p, 2017.
Jean-Claude Delbreil, Centrisme et démocratie chrétienne. Le Parti Démocrate Populaire des origines au MRP 1919–1944, Paris, Publications de la Sorbonne, 485p, 1990.
Rosemonde Sanson, L'Alliance républicaine et démocratique. Une formation du centre (1901–1920), Rennes, PUR, 562p, 2003.