TheReformist Movement[2][3] (French:Mouvement réformateur[muvmɑ̃ʁefɔʁmatœʁ],MR) is aliberal[4][5][6]French-speakingpolitical party in Belgium, which includessocial-liberal[7][8][9] andconservative-liberal factions.[10][11] Stemming from theBelgian Liberal Party founded in 1846, the MR is one of the oldest parties on the European continent.[12]
Since October 2014, the party has provided two prime ministers:Charles Michel andSophie Wilmès. It has been a member of every federal government since the 2000s. At the federated entities level, the MR was in charge ofWallonia from 2017 to 2019 withWilly Borsus asMinister-President of Wallonia. It is currently in charge of theFrench community with Pierre-Yves Jeholet asMinister-President of the French community.
The MR emerged victorious from the 2024 elections, becoming the leading French-speaking party.In Wallonia, the party came out on top with 29.6% of the vote.In Brussels, the MR also placed first, with 25.9% of the vote. Just a few days after the elections, the MR announced it would work closely withLes Engagés to quickly form governments in the Walloon Region and the French community.[13] Having a majority on the French-speaking side of theFederal parliament, they joined forces to work on the formation of a new Belgian government.[14]
The MR is an alliance between four liberal parties, three French-speaking and one German-speaking. TheLiberal Reformist Party (PRL) and theFrancophone Democratic Federalists (FDF) started the alliance in 1993, and were joined in 1998 by theCitizens' Movement for Change (MCC). The alliance was then known as the PRL-FDF-MCC federation. The alliance became the MR during a congress in 2002, where the German-speaking liberal party, theParty for Freedom and Progress joined as well.[15] The label PRL is no longer used, and the three other parties still use their own names. The MR is a member ofLiberal International and theAlliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE) Party. However, on 25 September 2011, the FDF decided to leave the coalition. They did not agree with the manner in which presidentCharles Michel defended the rights of the French-speaking people in the agreement concerning the splitting of theBrussels-Halle-Vilvoorde district, during the2010–11 Belgian government formation.[16]
Over the years, the MR has always oscillated between ideological markers closer toconservative liberalism orsocial liberalism. Its fundamental principles remain however the same through time, such as defendingcivil liberties,free market, entrepreneurial freedom, andequal opportunities. The MR is generally positioned in thecentre-right orright of the political spectrum.[17][18]
DuringGeorges-Louis Bouchez's tenure as party president, the party is said to have shifted further to the right,[19][20] with critics of the party even going so far as to say that the positions of some of its members were increasingly moving towards thefar-right.[21][22][23] Bouchez has for example often publicly pointed out some excesses of thewoke movement[24] and he welcomed former members of the far-rightChez Nous party to the MR.[25]
On its current platform, the party advocates higher revenues through lower taxes; time-limited unemployment benefits; life extension of the most recent nuclear reactors; greater investment in police, justice and defense; less government andstate neutrality.[26] MR is "belgicain", in favor of Belgian unity and a strong federal state.[27]
The MR is also a strong supporter of theEuropean Union andNATO.[28] It has always defended support, including military aid, forUkraine since theRussian invasion in 2022. In 2024, the MR was the only party fromDe Croo Government to be opposed to Belgiumrecognizing the State of Palestine.[29]
During the2019 election campaign, the RePresent research centre — composed of political scientists from five universities (UAntwerpen,KU Leuven,VUB,UCLouvain andULB)[30][31] — studied the electoral programmes of Belgium's thirteen main political parties. This study classified the parties on two "left-right" axes, from "-5" (extreme left) to "5" (extreme right): a "classic" socio-economic axis, which refers to state intervention in the economic process and the degree to which the state should ensure social equality, and a socio-cultural axis, which refers to a divide articulated around an identity-based opposition on themes such as immigration, Europe, crime, the environment, emancipation, etc.[31]
The MR then presented a centre-right programme (0.85) on the socio-economic level, and the most centrist (0.4) of the Belgian political spectrum on the socio-cultural level.[31][32]
The RePresent centre repeated the exercise during the2024 election campaign for the twelve main parties. The MR's positioning shifted towards the right on the socio-cultural axis (1.35) and especially on the socio-economic axis (3.57), where it became the most right-wing Belgian political party.[33]
In theEuropean Parliament, Mouvement Réformateur sits in theRenew Europe group with three MEPs:Sophie Wilmès,Olivier Chastel and Benoit Cassart.
In theEuropean Committee of the Regions, Mouvement Réformateur sits in theRenew Europe CoR group, with two full and three alternate members for the 2020-2025 mandate.[34][35] Willy Borsus is second vice-president of the Renew Europe CoR Group.[36]
| Election | Votes | % | Seats | +/- | Government |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1995 | 623,250 | 10.3 | 19 / 150 | Opposition | |
| 1999 | 630,219 | 10.1 | 18 / 150 |  1 | Coalition |
| 2003 | 748,954 | 11.4 | 24 / 150 |  6 | Coalition |
| 2007 | 835,073 | 12.5 | 23 / 150 | 1 | Coalition |
| 2010 | 605,617 | 9.3 | 18 / 150 | 5 | Coalition |
| 2014 | 650,260 | 9.6 | 20 / 150 | 2 | Coalition |
| 2019 | 512,825 | 7.6 | 14 / 150 | 6 | Coalition |
| 2024 | 716,934 | 10.3 | 20 / 150 | 6 | Coalition |
| Election | Votes | % | Seats | +/- |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1995 | 672,798 | 11.2 | 5 / 40 | |
| 1999 | 654,961 | 10.6 | 5 / 40 |  0 |
| 2003 | 795,757 | 12.2 | 5 / 40 | 0 |
| 2007 | 815,755 | 12.3 | 6 / 40 | 1 |
| 2010 | 599,618 | 9.3 | 4 / 40 | 2 |
| Election | Votes | % | Seats | +/- | Government | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| F.E.C. | Overall | |||||
| 1989 | 83,011 | 18.9 (#2) | 15 / 75 | Opposition | ||
| 1995 | 144,478 | 35.0 (#1) | 28 / 75 | 13 | Coalition | |
| 1999 | 146,845 | 40.1 (#1) | 34.4 (#1) | 27 / 75 | 1 | Coalition |
| 2004 | 127,122 | 32.5 (#2) | 28.0 (#2) | 25 / 89 | 2 | Opposition |
| 2009 | 121,905 | 29.8 (#1) | 26.5 (#1) | 24 / 89 | 1 | Opposition |
| 2014 | 94,227 | 23.0 (#2) | 20.4 (#2) | 18 / 89 | 6 | Opposition |
| 2019 | 65,502 | 16.9 (#3) | 14.3 (#3) | 13 / 89 | 5 | Opposition |
| 2024 | 101,157 | 26.0 (#1) | 20 / 89 | 7 | TBA | |
| Election | Votes | % | Seats | +/- | Government |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1995 | 447,542 | 23.7 (#2) | 19 / 75 | Opposition | |
| 1999 | 470,454 | 24.7 (#2) | 21 / 75 | 2 | Coalition |
| 2004 | 478,999 | 24.3 (#2) | 20 / 75 | 1 | Opposition |
| 2009 | 469,792 | 23.1 (#2) | 19 / 75 | 1 | Opposition |
| 2014 | 546,363 | 26.7 (#2) | 25 / 75 | 6 | Opposition |
| 2019 | 435,878 | 21.4 (#2) | 20 / 75 | 5 | Coalition |
| 2024 | 612.010 | 29.1 (#1) | 26 / 75 | 6 | Coalition |
| Election | List leader | Votes | % | Seats | +/- | EP Group | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| F.E.C. | Overall | ||||||
| 1979 | André Damseaux | 372,904 | 17.76 (#4) | 6.85 | 2 / 24 | New | LD |
| 1984 | Daniel Ducarme | 540,610 | 24.14 (#2) | 9.45 | 3 / 24 | 1 | LDR |
| 1989 | François-Xavier de Donnea | 423,479 | 18.90 (#2) | 7.18 | 2 / 24 | 1 | |
| 1994[a] | Jean Gol | 541,724 | 24.25 (#2) | 9.08 | 2 / 25 | 0 | ELDR |
| 1999[a] | Daniel Ducarme | 624,445 | 26.99 (#1) | 10.03 | 2 / 25 | 0 | |
| 2004 | Louis Michel | 671,422 | 27.58 (#2) | 10.35 | 3 / 24 | 1 | ALDE |
| 2009 | 640,092 | 26.05 (#2) | 9.74 | 2 / 22 | 1 | ||
| 2014 | 661,332 | 27.10 (#2) | 9.88 | 3 / 21 | 1 | ||
| 2019 | Olivier Chastel | 470,654 | 19.29 (#3) | 7.06 | 2 / 21 | 1 | RE |
| 2024 | Sophie Wilmès | 900,413 | 34.88 (#1) | 12.62 | 3 / 22 | 1 | |
Media related toMouvement Réformateur at Wikimedia Commons
Member parties of international liberal organisations | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Member parties |
| ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Leadership |
| ||||
