National Republican Movement Mouvement national républicain | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Leader | Hubert Savon |
| Founded | 2 October 1999 |
| Split from | National Front |
| Headquarters | 15 rue de Cronstadt 75015 Paris |
| Ideology | French nationalism National conservatism Social conservatism Anti-immigration Right-wing populism Nouvelle Droite |
| Political position | Far-right[1] |
| Colours | Blue,White andRed |
| Seats in theNational Assembly | 0 / 577 |
| Seats in theSenate | 0 / 343 |
| Seats in theEuropean Parliament | 0 / 72 |
| Website | |
| www.m-n-r.net | |
TheNational Republican Movement (Mouvement national républicain orMNR) is a Frenchnationalistpolitical party, created byBruno Mégret with formerClub de l'Horloge membersYvan Blot (also a member ofGRECE) andJean-Yves Le Gallou, as a split fromJean-Marie Le Pen'sNational Front on 24 January 1999.
Mégret has tried in the past to distance himself from Le Pen's provocative statements, in particular concerningHolocaust denial. In 2001, a call for reconciliation between the two parties was endorsed byRoland Gaucher.
Initially, Bruno Mégret was the chairman, withSerge Martinez vice-chairman, Jean-Yves Le Gallou, executive director andFranck Timmermans secretary-general. Other notable members of the party includedJean Haudry, Pierre Vial,Jean-Claude Bardet,Xavier Guillemot,Christian Bouchet andMaxime Brunerie. In 2000, the party had fewer than 5000 members, while its youth movement, the Movement National de la Jeunesse, headed by Philippe Schleiter, nephew ofRobert Faurisson, had 1500 members.[2] The student unionRenouveau Etudiant had close ties with the MNR thanks to Pierre Vial. The party was initially known as the Front National-Mouvement National, but was forced to change its name to Mouvement National Républicain on 2 October 1999 after being sued by Le Pen for trademark infringement.[3]
In 2000, via the organisationPromouvoir, the MNR sued successfully for the ban of the filmBaise-moi to minors. Pierre Vial left the MNR in October 2001, Bruno Mégret having expressed solidarity with the US[4] after the11 September 2001 attack on the World Trade Center. During the 2004 campaign for theregional elections, the MNR campaigned under the "No toIslamisation" slogan. In 2005, it campaigned against the proposedEuropean Constitution and the possibleaccession of Turkey to the European Union; Bruno Mégret said that the Europeans, including France, were lying to the Turks by having them believe they could integrate within the EU, whereas public opinion would surely reject Turkey's membership in areferendum. As a result of MNR's poor electoral results, Franck Timmermans and a few other former MNR members formed a new party in 2005, called theParti populiste (Populist Party, PP) which gravitated back towards theFront national (Timmermans will later joinFront national's cantonal campaign by representing it in Saint-Nazaire, as other candidates in Northern France in March 2008).
As theFront national organised its traditional 1 May rally in Paris, to honour the memory ofJoan of Arc, its president Jean-Marie Le Pen explicitly called for a union of all patriots, in the context of the approaching French presidential election of 2007. MNR,via Bruno Mégret, responded positively to this proposition, as did theParti populiste. TheUnion des patriotes (Union of Patriots) was officially launched on 20 December 2006 by a symbolic reconciliation in Le Pen Montretout's mansion in Saint-Cloud, where both Le Pen and Mégret presented the initiative to the press, alongside their respective wives. The fundamental target for the MNR was to secure the support of some 140 signatures from great electors for Jean-Marie Le Pen's presidential candidacy, of the total of 500 required. In the end, the MNR could only collect 45 signatures.
Front national andMouvement national républicain organised separate campaigns with their respective activists in favour of Jean-Marie Le Pen's candidacy, with the exception of a majorFront national rally in Lyon on 11 March 2007 where Mégret made an appearance among the guests, although he did not speak from the platform). As a result, Mégret regularly criticised this situation, like during appearances on French television channelsLCI andI>télé, where he criticises what he considered to be a strategy pursued byFront national general secretaryLouis Aliot, and especially Marine Le Pen, intended to downplay the contribution and the efficiency of theUnion des patriotes.
On 6 March 2008, Jean-Marie Le Pen claimed that the MNR was funded illegally by the UIMM, the steel industry branch of theMedef. Bruno Mégret denied these accusations, and counter-claimed that it was foolish for Jean Marie Le Pen to make such claims, as he has been already alleged to be funded bySaddam Hussein and theUnification Church ofSun Myung Moon. In an interview toFrance 2 on the same day, Le Pen clarified that he had not claimed Bruno Mégret was personally receiving funds from UIMM.[5][6]
Later in 2008, Bruno Mégret stepped down from party leadership and retired from political life.
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