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National Centre of Independents and Peasants Centre national des indépendants et paysans | |
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| President | Bruno North |
| Founder | René Coty |
| Founded | 6 January 1949; 76 years ago (1949-01-06) (as CNI) |
| Merger of | Democratic Alliance,Republican Party of Liberty, Peasant Party |
| Headquarters | 6, Rue Quentin Bauchart 75008 Paris |
| Youth wing | Youngs Independents and Peasants |
| Ideology | French nationalism Conservatism Agrarianism Euroscepticism[1] Before 1962: Conservative liberalism[2] Economic liberalism[2] Pro-Europeanism |
| Political position | Right-wing[2] Before 1962: Centre-right |
| Colours | Blue,white,red (French Tricolour) |
| National Assembly | 0 / 577 |
| Senate | 0 / 348 |
| European Parliament | 0 / 74 |
| Regional Councils | 0 / 17 |
| Departmental Councils | 0 / 101 |
| Website | |
| www | |
TheNational Centre of Independents and Peasants (French:Centre national des indépendants et paysans,[sɑ̃tʁnɑsjɔnaldez‿ɛ̃depɑ̃dɑ̃epe.izɑ̃];CNIP) is aright-wingagrarianpolitical party inFrance, founded in 1951 by the merger of the National Centre of Independents (CNI), the heir of the French Republicanconservative-liberal tradition[2] (many party members came from theDemocratic Republican Alliance), with the Peasant Party and theRepublican Party of Liberty.
It played a major role during theFourth Republic (prior to 1958), but since creation of theFifth Republic, its importance has decreased significantly. The party has mostly run as a minor ally of larger centre-right parties. The CNI and its predecessors have beenclassical liberal andeconomically liberal parties largely opposed to thedirigisme of the left, centre andGaullist right.
The Centre National des Indépendants was founded in January 1949 with the aim of uniting centre-right and right-wing parliamentarians, dispersed between a plethora of parties such as theRepublican Party of Liberty and othermodérés (moderates). It adopted its current name in 1951 after it merged with a split[3] fromPaul Antier's smallPeasant Party (the successor of the pre-warFrench Agrarian and Peasant Party - a party that had acorporatist tradition unlike other classically liberal elements in the party).
As the leading right-wing force during theFourth Republic, it won around 14% of the vote in1951 and1956 and participated inThird Force government coalitions, taking a major role in governments at the beginning of the 1950s.Antoine Pinay, its most popular figure, wasPrime Minister in 1952, followed byJoseph Laniel from 1953 to 1954.René Coty, a CNIP parliamentarian, was electedPresident of France in 1953. The party's power declined after theDien Bien Phu military disaster inIndochina in 1954, and it remained in opposition for most of the last two years of the Fourth Republic after the 1956 elections.
During the Cold War the CNIP was a strongly anti-communist party, strongly supported and financed byemployers, colonial and agricultural lobbies.[4] While the CNIP was moreeconomically liberal than the Christian democraticPopular Republican Movement (MRP), like the MRP it supportedEuropean integration andNATO. It was a militant defender ofFrench Algeria throughout theAlgerian War.
In 1958, it supportedCharles de Gaulle's comeback and approved the constitution of theFifth Republic. Having won over 130 seats in the1958 election, it was a member of theGaullist governing coalition until 1962.Antoine Pinay, the Minister of the Economy until 1960, spearheaded a successful monetary reform in 1959 (the introduction of thenouveau franc). However, the party quickly clashed with the Gaullists. It opposed Charles de Gaulle's policy ofself-determination in Algeria, disliked his interventionist economic policies, criticized the euroscepticism of De Gaulle and opposed the growing "presidentialisation" of the regime. On October 5, 1962, 107 CNIP deputiesvoted no-confidence inGeorges Pompidou's government,[5] opposing de Gaulle'sconstitutional reform on the election of the president by universal suffrage. However, the CNIP cabinet ministers, led by future presidentValéry Giscard d'Estaing, continued to support de Gaulle. With the support of 24 deputies, they founded their own party, theIndependent Republicans (RI).
Severely weakened by the split and its opposition to the October 1962 referendum, it suffered a major defeat in the1962, left with only a handful of seats. It allied itself with thePopular Republican Movement (MRP) to form theDemocratic Centre, later known asProgress and Modern Democracy, in which the CNIP was only a small component.
The party has never regained its former strength and became a marginal conservative group. In the 1980s, it attempted to serve as a 'bridge' between the parliamentary right (RPR andUDF) and the far-right (FN).[2] In the1986 election, CNIP members appeared on RPR-UDF lists but it won three seats through local alliances with the FN in some departments. In1997, it formed an ephemeral alliance withPhilippe de Villiers'Movement for France.
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The CNIP became an associate party of theUnion for a Popular Movement in 2002, before it decided to dissociate itself from the party in June 2008. Following the2007 legislative election it had two seats in theFrench National Assembly.François Lebel, mayor of the8th arrondissement of Paris joined the party in April 2008.
Since 2008, it hesitated between pursuing an alliance with PresidentNicolas Sarkozy'sUMP or allying itself with the centrist allies of the presidential majority, most notablyJean-Louis Borloo'sRadical Party. It joined theLiaison Committee for the Presidential Majority, a short-lived structuring committee composed of the UMP and its close allies.Gilles Bourdouleix, who took the reins of the party in 2009, announced in 2011 that his party was negotiating an alliance with Borloo's centristAlliance républicaine, écologiste et sociale.[6] Although these negotiations were unsuccessful, they provoked a major feud with the party's former leader,Annick du Roscoät,[7] who wanted the party to keep its conservative orientation while Bourdouleix has sought to reposition the CNIP towards the centre-right.
In the2009 European Parliament election, the party ran autonomous lists in three constituencies. However, the party was only able to print ballots inGuyane (2.65%) andÎle-de-France (0.42%). In the2010 regional elections, the CNIP supported some lists led byNicolas Dupont-Aignan'sArise the Republic while it backed the UMP or dissident right-wing lists in other regions.
On September 19, 2012, Bourdouleix - the party's only remaining deputy - announced that the CNIP was joining Borloo's centre-rightUnion of Democrats and Independents (UDI).[8] He had already joined the UDI group in the National Assembly in June 2012. But on 10 September, the CNIP was expelled from the UDI after Gilles Bourdouleix had declared the "Maybe Hitler hadn't killed enoughRomas".[9]
CNIP joined theLes Amoureux de la France coalition led by Nicolas Dupont-Aignan during the2019 European Parliament election and was part of the group of parties supportingEric Zemmour's political party,Reconquête during the2022 presidential election.
| President of France | ||||||
| Election year | # of overall votes | % of overall vote | Candidate president | Result | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1965 | 13,083,699 (#1) | 55.20 | Won | |||
| 1969 | 7,943,118 (#2) | 41.79 | Lost | |||
| 1974 | 13,396,203 (#1) | 50.81 | Won | |||
| 1981 | 14,642,306 (#2) | 48.24 | Lost | |||
| 1988 | 5,031,849 (#3) | 16.55 | Lost | |||
| 1995 | 1,443,186 (#7) | 4.74 | Lost | |||
| 2002 | 25,537,956 (#1) | 82.21 | Won | |||
| 2007 | 18,983,138 (#1) | 53.06 | Won | |||
| 2012 | 16,860,685 (#2) | 48.36 | Lost | |||
| 2022 | 2,485,226 (#4) | 7.07 | Lost | |||
| National Assembly | ||||||
| Election year | # of overall votes | % of overall vote | # of overall seats won | +/– | Leader | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1951 | 2,563,782 (#4) | 13.64 | 96 / 625 | – | ||
| 1956 | 3,259,782 (#2) | 14.99 | 95 / 595 |  1 | ||
| 1958 | 4,092,600 (#2) | 19.9 | 132 / 546 |  37 | ||
| 1962 | 1,404,177 (#6) | 7.66 | 28 / 491 | 104 | ||
| 1967 | Ran together withUD-Ve | 0 / 491 | 28 | |||
| 1968 | Ran together withUDR | 0 / 491 | - | |||
| 1973 | Ran together withUDR | 0 / 491 | - | |||
| 1978 | Ran together withRPR | 8 / 491 [a] | 8 | |||
| 1981 | Ran together withRPR | 5 / 491 [b] | 3 | |||
| 1986 | Ran together withRPR | 5 / 573 [c] | - | |||
| 1988 | Ran together withRPR | 5 / 577 | - | |||
| 1993 | 122,194 (#13)[10] | 0.5 | 2 / 577 | 3 | ||
| 1997 | 132,814 (#13)[11] | 0.52 | 0 / 577 | 2 | ||
| 2002 | 14,403 (#19)[12] | 0.06 | 2 / 577 | 2 | ||
| 2007 | Ran together withUMP | 2 / 577 | - | |||
| 2012 | Ran together withUMP | 1 / 577 | 1 | |||
| European Parliament | ||||||
| Election year | # of overall votes | % of overall vote | # of overall seats won | +/– | Leader | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1979* | 5,588,851 (#1) | 27.61 | 0 / 81 | – | ||
| 1984** | 8,683,596 (#1) | 43.03 | 2 / 81 | 2 | ||
| 1989** | 5,242,038 (#1) | 28.88 | 2 / 81 | - | ||
| 1994** | 4,985,574 (#1) | 25.58 | 0 / 87 | 2 | ||
| 2009 | 8,656 (#12) | 0.05 | 0 / 72 | - | ||
Until 1973, the party was led by a secretary-general
Since 1973, the party has been led by a president
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