The Union for French Democracy was a centre-right political party in France. The UDF was founded in 1978 as an electoral alliance to support President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing in order to counterbalance the Gaullist preponderance over the political right in France. This name was chosen due to the title of Giscard d'Estaing's 1976 book, Démocratie française.
The Radical Party, officially the Republican, Radical and Radical-Socialist Party, is a liberal and social-liberal political party in France. Since 1971, to prevent confusion with the Radical Party of the Left (PRG), it has also been referred to as Parti radical valoisien, after its headquarters on the rue de Valois. The party's name has been variously abbreviated to PRRRS, Rad, PR and PRV. Founded in 1901, the PR is the oldest active political party in France.
The Radical Party of the Left is a social-liberal political party in France. A party in the Radical tradition, since 1972 the PRG was a close ally of the major party of the centre-left in France, the Socialist Party. After the 2017 presidential and legislative elections, negotiations to merge the PRG with the Radical Party began and the refounding congress to reunite the parties into the Radical Movement was held on 9 and 10 December 2017. However, a faction of ex-PRG members, including its last president Sylvia Pinel, split from the Radical Movement in February 2019 due to its expected alliance with La République En Marche in the European elections and resurrected the PRG.
Liberalism and radicalism have played a role in the political history of France. The main line of conflict in France in the long nineteenth century was between monarchists and republicans. The Orléanists, who favoured constitutional monarchy and economic liberalism, were opposed to the Republican Radicals.
Radicalism was a political movement representing the leftward flank of liberalism during the late 18th and early 19th centuries and a precursor to social liberalism, social democracy, civil libertarianism, and modern progressivism. This ideology is commonly referred to as "radicalism" but is sometimes referred to as radical liberalism, or classical radicalism, to distinguish it from radical politics. Its earliest beginnings are to be found during the English Civil War with the Levellers and later the Radical Whigs.
Sinistrisme is a neologism invented by political scientist Albert Thibaudet in Les idées politiques de la France (1932) to explain the evolution and recombination of party systems, particularly in France, without substantial changes occurring to party ideology.
The Democratic Alliance, originally called Democratic Republican Alliance, was a French political party created in 1901 by followers of Léon Gambetta such as Raymond Poincaré, who would be president of the Council in the 1920s. The party was originally formed as a centre-left gathering of moderate liberals, independent Radicals who rejected the new left-leaning Radical-Socialist Party, and Opportunist Republicans, situated at the political centre and to the right of the newly formed Radical-Socialist Party. However, after World War I and the parliamentary disappearance of monarchists and Bonapartists it quickly became the main centre-right party of the Third Republic. It was part of the National Bloc right-wing coalition which won the elections after the end of the war. The ARD successively took the name "Democratic Republican Party", and then "Social and Republican Democratic Party", before becoming again the AD.
The Third Force was a political alliance during the Fourth Republic (1947–1958) which gathered the French Section of the Workers' International (SFIO) party, the Democratic and Socialist Union of the Resistance (UDSR), the Radicals, the Popular Republican Movement (MRP) and other centrist politicians who were opposed to both the French Communist Party (PCF) and the Gaullist movement. The Third Force governed France from 1947 to 1951, succeeding the tripartisme alliance between the SFIO, the MRP and the PCF. The Third Force was also supported by the National Centre of Independents and Peasants (CNIP), which succeeded in having its most popular figure, Antoine Pinay, named Prime Minister in 1952, a year after the dissolving of the Third Force coalition.
The National Centre of Independents and Peasants is a right-wing agrarian political party in France, founded in 1951 by the merger of the National Centre of Independents (CNI), the heir of the French Republican conservative-liberal tradition, with the Peasant Party and the Republican Party of Liberty.
The Union of Democrats and Independents is a centre to centre-right political party in France and former electoral alliance founded on 18 September 2012 on the basis of the parliamentary group of the same name in the National Assembly. The party was composed of separate political parties who retained their independence, but always in coalition with the biggest right wing party The Republicans. As most of them have been expelled or have left, the Democratic European Force is the last founding party to participate in the UDI.
The Socialist Party is a French centre-left and social-democratic political party. It holds pro-European views. The PS was for decades the largest party of the "French Left" and used to be one of the two major political parties in the French Fifth Republic, along with the Union for a Popular Movement. It replaced the earlier French Section of the Workers' International in 1969 and is currently led by First Secretary Olivier Faure. The PS is a member of the Party of European Socialists, Progressive Alliance and Socialist International.
The Republicans is a liberal-conservative political party in France, largely inspired by the tradition of Gaullism. The party was formed on 30 May 2015 as the re-incorporation of the Union for a Popular Movement (UMP), which had been established in 2002 under the leadership of then President of France Jacques Chirac.
Renaissance (RE) is a liberal and centrist political party in France. The party was originally known as En Marche ! and later La République En Marche !, before adopting its current name in September 2022.
Presidential elections were held in France on 10 and 24 April 2022. As no candidate won a majority in the first round, a runoff was held, in which Emmanuel Macron defeated Marine Le Pen and was re-elected as President of France. Macron, from La République En Marche! (LREM), had defeated Le Pen, leader of the National Rally, once already in the 2017 French presidential election, for the term which expired on 13 May 2022. Macron became the first president of France to win a re-election bid since Jacques Chirac won in 2002.
The Radical Movement, officially the Radical, Social and Liberal Movement, was a liberal, radical and social-liberal political party in France.
In politics, cordon sanitaire is the refusal of one or more political parties to cooperate with certain other political parties. Often this is because the targeted party has strategies or an ideology perceived as unacceptable or radical and extremist.
Legislative elections were held in France on 12 and 19 June 2022 to elect the 577 members of the 16th National Assembly of the Fifth Republic. The elections took place following the 2022 French presidential election, which was held in April 2022. They have been described as the most indecisive legislative elections since the establishment of the five-year presidential term in 2000 and subsequent change of the electoral calendar in 2002. The governing Ensemble coalition remained the largest bloc in the National Assembly but substantially lost its ruling majority, resulting in the formation of France's first minority government since 1993.
The New Ecological and Social People's Union is a left-wing electoral alliance of political parties in France. Formed on May Day 2022, the alliance includes La France Insoumise (LFI), the Socialist Party (PS), the French Communist Party (PCF), Europe Ecology – The Greens (EELV), Ensemble! (E!), and Génération.s (G.s), and their respective smaller partners. It was the first wide left-wing political alliance since the Plural Left in the 1997 French legislative election. Over 70 dissident candidates who refused the accord still ran.
The Federation of the Republican Left is a French political coalition of several small centre-left to left-wing parties.
Centrism in France 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.
