Democratic Movement Mouvement démocrate | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Abbreviation | MoDem |
| President | François Bayrou |
| Founder | François Bayrou |
| Founded | 1 December 2007; 17 years ago (2007-12-01) |
| Preceded by | Union for French Democracy |
| Headquarters | 133bis Rue de l'Université 75007 Paris |
| Membership(2017) |  13,000[1] |
| Ideology | |
| Political position | Centre tocentre-right |
| National affiliation | Ensemble (since the 2022 election) Centre for France (2012 election) |
| European affiliation | European Democratic Party |
| European Parliament group | Renew Europe |
| Colours | Orange |
| National Assembly | 36 / 577 |
| Senate | 4 / 348 |
| European Parliament | 2 / 81 |
| Presidency of Regional Councils | 0 / 17 |
| Presidency of Departmental Councils | 1 / 95 |
| Website | |
| mouvementdemocrate.fr | |
TheDemocratic Movement (French:Mouvement démocrate,pronounced[muvmɑ̃demɔkʁat];MoDem[mɔdɛm]) is acentre[2][3][4][5] tocentre-right[6][7]political party inFrance, whose main ideological trends areliberalism[8] andChristian democracy,[8] and that is characterised by a strongpro-Europeanist stance.[8] MoDem was established byFrançois Bayrou to succeed theUnion for French Democracy (UDF) and contest the2007 legislative election, after his strong showing in the2007 presidential election.[9] Initially named the Democratic Party (Parti démocrate), the party was renamed "Democratic Movement",[10] because there was already a small Democratic Party in France.[11]
MoDem secured an agreement withLa République En Marche! (LRM) — later Renaissance (RE) — in the2017 legislative election after Bayrou had endorsed the candidacy ofEmmanuel Macron in February. The two parties have since been in alliance, as of late namedEnsemble.
The party's founder and leader Bayrou served asPrime Minister of France from December 2024 to September 2025.
MoDem traces its roots to theUnion for French Democracy (UDF), a centrist coalition/party active from 1978 to 2007. The UDF had always supported centre-right governments since its creation byValéry Giscard d'Estaing, who waspresident of France from 1974 to 1981.
In the2002 presidential election the centre-right was so fractured that each of its constituent parties, theRally for the Republic, the UDF andLiberal Democracy, ran a candidate:Jacques Chirac (19.9%),François Bayrou (6.8%) andAlain Madelin (3.9%), respectively. Following Chirac's landslide re-election overJean-Marie Le Pen, the UDF aligned with the newly-formedUnion for a Popular Movement (UMP), but chose not to be part of it and, while most of its members directly joined the UMP, the rump of the UDF became increasingly independent. During Chirac's second term, it did not participate in the governments led byJean-Pierre Raffarin andFrançois Fillon (except forGilles de Robien), but took part in the government coalition in theSenate until 2007. However, on the initiative of its leader Bayrou, it eventually supported a censure motion along with theSocialist Party (PS).
During the campaign for the2007 presidential election, candidate Bayrou advocated a national unity government. He presented himself as acentrist and asocial-liberal,[12] proclaiming that, if elected, he would "govern beyond theleft–right divide".[13] Although eliminated in the first round, he was able to garner 18.6% of the vote, with voters supporting him partly because of his independence from major parties. Following the election, he launched the Democratic Movement (MoDem) on 29 May to reinforce his strategy of political autonomy from the centre-right. MoDem was also supported by theUnion of Radical Republicans. Some members of the UDF did not agree with this new strategy because the weighted French balloting system would hinder the party from obtaining seats in the upcoming legislative election. These members created theNew Centre (NC) — later The Centrists —, continuing their support for the newly elected presidentNicolas Sarkozy.
In the first round of the2007 legislative election MoDem won 7.6% of the vote. Candidates ran under the UDF-MoDem banner, since the party had not yet been created officially. The party gained only three seats in theNational Assembly (not includingAbdoulatifou Aly, who was elected inMayotte for a party affiliated to MoDem, sat with the NC for a while and later sat with MoDem deputies).[14] Additionally, one of its MPs,Thierry Benoit, was vocally critical of the party and its strategy, indicating that he was elected as a UDF, rather than a MoDem, representative, while defending the party's third-way policies,[15] and soon left forRally the Centrists, later incorporated in theCentrist Alliance.
MoDem became an official political party in December 2007 following its founding assembly inVillepinte, Seine-Saint-Denis, in the suburbs of Paris. The assembly elected Bayrou, who ran uncontested, as party president, as well its provisional executive board. In November, the UDF effectively ceased to exist, and was fully integrated into MoDem.[16]
In the2009 European Parliament election MoDem won 8.5% of the vote and six seats.
In the2012 presidential election Bayrou ran for the third time, winning 9.3% of the vote, half of what he had obtained five years before. In the subsequentlegislative election the party was reduced to 1.8% and two seats. Also Bayrou lost his seat in the National Assembly, a seat he had held for most of his political career.
MoDem made a comeback in the2014 European Parliament election: along with the newly-formedUnion of Democrats and Independents (UDI), also a successor of the UDF formed by UMP splinters, the party obtained 9.9% of the vote and seven seats. Before that, in the2014 municipal elections, MoDem scored an average of 15% in cities with more than 10,000 inhabitants, won over 50 cities,[17] includingPau (with Bayrou),Biarritz,Saint-Brieuc,Mont-de-Marsan andTalence, and joined ruling coalitions inBordeaux,Dijon,Saint-Étienne andAuxerre, among others.[citation needed]
In the2017 presidential election Bayour did not stand as candidate for the first time in 15 years, but endorsedEmmanuel Macron, who was elected by a landslide in second round overMarine Le Pen. Macron's strategy was to govern beyond the left–right divide, similarly to Bayrou's in 2007 and 2012, and bring about a political realignment. Consequently, in thefollowing legislative election MoDem joined forces with Macron'sLa République En Marche! (LRM) — later Renaissance (RE) — and largely increased its seats in the National Assembly. Bayrou briefly served as minister of Justice in the first government under president Macron,[18] before resigning as MoDem and its MEPs were accused of potentially fictitious employment practices within the European Parliament.[19] However, MoDem continued to be an active part of the presidential majority and governments for the entire presidential term, as well as in the2019 European Parliament election.
Macron was then re-elected in the2022 presidential election, again with MoDem's support. Ahead of the2022 legislative election, MoDem joined theEnsemble coalition with other centrist parties, notably including RE,Horizons and UDI,[20] but the coalition lost the majority it previously held in the National Assembly. MoDem was part of the coalition also in the2024 European Parliament election (obtaining three seats, down from five in 2019) and the subsequent, snap2024 legislative election (obtaining 33 seats, down from 48 in 2022), during which the centrist camp was further reduced in its parliamentary seats. After the enlargement of the government coalition toThe Republicans, the centre-right successor of the UMP, withMichel Barnier's minoritygovernment and the latter's fall due to a vote of no-confidence, in December 2024 Macron appointed Bayrou as prime minister,[21] at the head of another minoritygovernment which would last until September 2025.
| Part ofa series on |
| Liberalism in France |
|---|
 |
People |
![[icon]](/mt/?noimg=&dark=on&url=http%3a%2f%2fen.wikipedia.org%2fwiki%2fFile%3aWiki_letter_w_cropped.svg) | This sectionneeds expansion. You can help byadding to it.(June 2024) |
During the2007 presidential election, Bayrou stressed three points: the public debt, the need for change andouverture to the right/left political system, and the need of constitutional reforms in that direction.
In 2004, Bayrou launched theEuropean Democratic Party (EDP) along with his Italian allyFrancesco Rutelli, whoseDemocracy is Freedom – The Daisy party was later incorporated in the social-democraticDemocratic Party (PD) and replaced by minor groups in the EDP, as the PD had joined theParty of European Socialists instead. In 2005, the EDP created, along with theNew Democrat Coalition of theDemocratic Party of the United States, theAlliance of Democrats, a worldwide network ofcentrist andsocial-liberal parties.
In theEuropean Parliament, MoDem has been part of theAlliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe group and, since 2019, the largerRenew Europe. In theEuropean Committee of the Regions, MoDem sits in theRenew Europe CoR group.
This table includes the 2002 and 2007 elections in which Bayrou presented himself as a candidate of theUnion for French Democracy (UDF).
| Election year | Candidate | 1st round | 2nd round | Result | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Votes | % | Rank | Votes | % | Rank | |||
| 2002 | François Bayrou | 1,949,170 | 6.84 | 4th | — | Lost | ||
| 2007 | 6,820,119 | 18.57 | 3rd | — | Lost | |||
| 2012 | 3,275,122 | 9.13 | 5th | — | Lost | |||
| 2017 | SupportedEmmanuel Macron | Won | ||||||
| 2022 | SupportedEmmanuel Macron | Won | ||||||
| Election year | Leader | 1st round | 2nd round | Seats | +/− | Rank (seats) | Government | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Votes | % | Votes | % | ||||||
| 2007 | François Bayrou | 1,981,107 | 7.61 | 100,115 | 0.49 | 3 / 577 | 24 | 9th | Opposition |
| 2012 | 458,098 | 1.77 | 113,196 | 0.49 | 2 / 577 | 1 | 10th | Opposition | |
| 2017 | 932,227 | 4.12 | 1,100,656 | 6.06 | 42 / 577 |  40 | 3rd | Presidential majority (underREM) | |
| 2022 | 1,044,807[a] | 4.59 | 1,441,218 | 6.95 | 48 / 577 | 6 | 5th | Presidential minority (underEnsemble) | |
| 2024 | 1,205,976[b] | 3.76 | 1,363,656 | 5.00 | 33 / 577 | 15 | 6th | Presidential minority (underEnsemble) | |
The 2014 elections involved an alliance with the forces of theUnion of Democrats and Independents (UDI); this joint list,The Alternative (L'Alternative), saw four MoDem MEPs out of seven elected from the list.
| Election | Leader | Votes | % | Seats | +/− | EP Group |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2009 | François Bayrou | 1,455,841 | 8.46 (#4) | 6 / 72 | 5 | ALDE |
| 2014[a] | 1,884,565 | 9.94 (#4) | 4 / 74 | 2 | ||
| 2019[b] | 5,079,015 | 22.42 (#2) | 5 / 79 | 1 | RE | |
| 2024[b] | 3,589,114 | 14.56 (#2) | 3 / 81 | 2 |
Je n'oublie pas que j'ai été élu par des électeurs de droite et par des électeurs de gauche. En m'abstenant, je ne heurte pas ceux de droite et j'envoie un signe à ceux de gauche
| Member parties |
| ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Leadership |
| ||||
European Parliament group:Renew Europe | |||||
| Parties |
| ||||
| Presidents | |||||
| Secretary General | |||||
| European Parliament Group Presidents | |||||
| |||||
| |
