Union for French Democracy Union pour la démocratie française | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Abbreviation | UDF |
| Leaders | |
| Founder | Valéry Giscard d'Estaing |
| Founded |
|
| Dissolved | 30 November 2007 (2007-11-30) (de facto)[a] |
| Merger of | |
| Succeeded by | Democratic Movement |
| Headquarters | UDF 133 bis, rue de l'Université75007 Paris |
| Ideology | |
| Political position | Centre-right |
| European affiliation | EPP[1] (1994–2004) EDP[2] (2004–07) |
| European Parliament group | |
| International affiliation | None |
| Colours | |
| Website | |
| www.udf.org (inactive) | |
TheUnion for French Democracy (French:Union pour la démocratie française[ynjɔ̃puʁlademɔkʁasifʁɑ̃sɛːz];UDF) was acentre-rightpolitical party inFrance. The UDF was founded in 1978 as an electoral alliance to support PresidentValéry Giscard d'Estaing in order to counterbalance theGaullist preponderance over the French centre-right. The UDF took its name from Giscard's 1976 book,Démocratie française.
The founding parties of the UDF were Giscard'sRepublican Party (PR), theCentre of Social Democrats (CDS), theRadical Party (Rad), theSocial Democratic Party (PSD) and thePerspectives and Realities Clubs (CPR). The UDF was most frequently a junior partner in coalitions with the neo-GaullistRally for the Republic (RPR). In 1998 the UDF became a single entity, causing the defection ofLiberal Democracy (DL), PR's successor. In 2002 the RPR, DL and most of the remaining UDF members joined theUnion for a Popular Movement (UMP), which aimed to unite the entire centre-right. The UDF effectively ceased to exist by the end of 2007 and its membership and assets were transferred to its successor, theDemocratic Movement (MoDem). The UDF's last president and MoDem's founding leader wasFrançois Bayrou.
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In the1974 presidential election, defying expectations,Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, leader of theIndependent Republicans, was electedPresident of France by overcomingJacques Chaban-Delmas of theUnion of Democrats for the Republic (UDR), the largest centre-right party, in the first round and defeatingFrançois Mitterrand in the run-off. Two years later, Prime MinisterJacques Chirac (UDR) resigned and launched theRally for the Republic (RPR), in order to restore theGaullist domination over the centre-right. The RPR would represent the right-wing of the presidential majority and would criticise with virulence the policies put forward by President Giscard and Prime MinisterRaymond Barre.
In the run-up of the1978 legislative election, during a speech inVerdun-sur-le-Doubs, Giscard noted that the political leanings of the French people were divided among four groups: theCommunist Party (PCF), theSocialist Party (PS), the neo-Gaullist RPR and his own camp, which lacked a cohesive representation. Therefore, he sought to formally organise the centrist side of the presidential majority through the UDF. It consisted of the conservative-liberalRepublican Party (PR) – the evolution of Giscard's Independent Republicans –, the Christian-democraticCentre of Social Democrats (CDS), the liberalRadical Party (Rad), theSocial Democratic Party (PSD) and thePerspectives and Realities Clubs (CPR). Contrary to the RPR, the UDF advocated lessmarket interventionism by the state,decentralisation and support of local authorities, and a strong commitment towards the building of afederal Europe. According to historianRené Rémond, the UDF descended from theOrleanist tradition of the right, whereas the RPR was a reincarnation of theBonapartist tradition, which promoted national independence by virtue of a strong state.
After the centre-right won the1978 legislative election and the subsequent focus of both the RPR and the UDF toward the1981 presidential election, their relations deteriorated. Especially, RPR leader Chirac criticised the market-oriented andpro-European policies of Giscard and Barre. In the run-up of the1979 European Parliament election, Chirac published theCall of Cochin where the UDF was accused of being "the party of foreigners". Since the UDF list, led bySimone Veil, obtained 27.1% of the vote compared with RPR's 16.3%, the quarrels between the two parties and the rivalry between Giscard and Chirac contributed to the defeat of the incumbent president who ran for a second term.
After the election of Mitterrand as president, the two centre-right parties reconciled. Gradually, the RPR abandoned Gaullist doctrine and joined the market-oriented and pro-European positions of the UDF. Although they presented a common list at the1984 European Parliament election, their leaders Chirac and Barre still competed for the leadership of the French centre-right. Focused on winning the1986 legislative election, Chirac, unlike Barre, accepted the principle of "cohabitation" with President Mitterrand. Furthermore, some UDF politicians (notably from the PR) covertly supported Chirac. Consequently, he served as Prime Minister from 1986 to 1988 and the UDF played a supporting role in his government.
Barre was a candidate in the1988 presidential election, yet, despite his popularity, he was not supported by all UDF leaders. Giscard himself refused to choose clearly and publicly between his two former Prime Ministers. Eliminated in the first round, Barre called on his supporters to vote for Chirac in the second round, but despite this, Chirac was defeated by Mitterrand. After the re-election of Mitterrand, some UDF members participated as ministers in the centre-left governments led by Prime MinisterMichel Rocard.
Also in 1988 Giscard retook the leadership of the UDF. However, his authority and that of the other centre-right leaders (Chirac, Barre etc.) were contested by a new generation of politicians called the "renovation men", who accused the old guard leadership of bearing responsibility for the successive electoral defeats. However, Giscard would give the party a more consistent centre-right approach, that would culminate in the entire UDF joining theEuropean People's Party (EPP),[1] which had been previously home only of the Christian-democratic CDS, in 1994.
With the dismissal of Rocard in 1991 there were no longer UDF ministers from the government, thus RPR and the UDF were allied in opposition to the subsequent Socialist governments which were weakened by economic crisis, scandals and internal quarrels. The RPR–UDF coalition named "Union for France" comfortably won the1993 legislative election and obtained a massive majority in the National Assembly. The new Prime MinisterÉdouard Balladur, who hailed from the RPR, nominated a large number of UDF members to his cabinet:François Léotard (PR) became minister of Defense,Gérard Longuet (PR) of Industry,Pierre Méhaignerie (CDS) of Justice,François Bayrou (CDS) of Education, Simone Veil (PR) of Health and Social Affairs,Alain Madelin (PR) of Commerce,Bernard Bosson (CDS) of Transport,Jean Puech (CDS) of Agriculture,André Rossinot (Rad) of Civil Service andHervé de Charette (CPR) of Housing.
In the run-up of the1995 presidential election the different components of the UDF were unable to agree on a common candidacy and consequently they divided between the two RPR candidates. Most UDF members supported Balladur, whereas a minority endorsed Chirac, as Giscard had proposed. In the aftermath, the CDS merged with the PSD intoDemocratic Force (FD), while CPR members and other supporters of Giscard within the PR formed thePopular Party for French Democracy (PPDF).
After Chirac's election as president of France, some UDF ministers were dismissed as a result of their support for Balladur. Nevertheless, inAlain Juppé's cabinet, the UDF was given several ministries including Foreign Affairs withHervé de Charette (PPDF), Defense withCharles Millon (PR), Economy and Finances with Alain Madelin (PR), Industry withYves Galland (Rad), Education with François Bayrou (CDS/FD), Commerce withJean-Pierre Raffarin (PR), Labour withJacques Barrot (CDS/FD), Agriculture withPhilippe Vasseur (CDS/FD), Culture withPhilippe Douste-Blazy (CDS/FD), Economic Development withJean Arthuis (PR) and Reform and Decentralization withClaude Goasguen (PR).
In 1996 François Léotard, a Republican and a formerballadurien, was elected president of the UDF by defeating Alain Madelin, who was also a Republican, but had supported Chirac. After the defeat of the RPR–UDF front in the1997 legislative election, the UDF faced a major crisis. While the centrist components had merged into FD, the conservative liberals tried to overcome the fracture betweenchiraquiens andballaduriens. The PR was joined by some politicians from the PPDF, such as Jean-Pierre Raffarin (a former Republican), and was renamedLiberal Democracy (DL), under Madelin's leadership. DL soon began to reassert its autonomy within the alliance and finally broke ranks with the UDF in 1998. The split was triggered by the1998 regional elections, during which some UDF politicians were elected regional presidents with the support of theNational Front: DL refused to condemn the arrangement, whilst the UDF leadership did.
This split of DL led to a re-organisation of the UDF. Thenouvelle UDF (new UDF) was transformed into a single party through the merger of FD and theIndependent Republican and Liberal Pole (PRIL), formed by those DL members who refused to leave UDF. The Radicals and the PPDF remained as autonomous entities within the new party.
Former FD leader Bayrou became the natural leader of the new UDF. He conceived it as the embryo of a future centrist party which would include politicians from both the left and right. Bayrou ran for president in the2002 presidential election, but some UDF leaders supported Chirac. The latter won re-election comfortably, with Bayrou being eliminated after the first round, having gained only 6.8% of the vote. Bayrou subsequently refused Chirac's invitation to join the newly-formed centre-right, big-tentUnion for a Popular Movement (UMP) for the upcoming2002 legislative election. Other UDF members, led by Giscard, Barrot, Douste-Blazy, Méhaignerie and Raffarin, as well as the entire PPDF and DL, joined the UMP, leaving Bayrou somewhat isolated.
After the election, the UDF, whose parliamentary seats were quite reduced, joined the victorious UMP as a partner in the government of Prime Minister Raffarin. Despite this, the UDF sometimes criticised its policies, without initially quitting the majority coalition and entering the opposition, which was made up mostly of centre-left and left-wing parties. The UDF eft the government, except forGilles de Robien, only after a cabinet reshuffle in March 2004, but still decided to remain in the parliamentary majority coalition.
At the European level, the UDF left the EPP and formed theEuropean Democratic Party (EDP), along with Italy'sDemocracy is Freedom – The Daisy. The EDP was intended to be the home to all the Christian democrats and centrists who were disillusioned by the new course of the EPP, which had welcomed the RPR and, later, the UMP. With the exit of most of its conservative, Christian-democratic and conservative-liberal components in 1998 and 2002, the UDF was thus a centrist party with socially liberal tendencies, in Bayrou's mould.
There developed a split among UDF elected officials, between those such as de Robien andPierre-Christophe Baguet, who favored closer ties with the UMP, and those such as Bayrou who advocate independent centrist policies, while others such asJean Dionis du Séjour tried steering for a middle course.[3] The most likely reason for many of the UDF's elected officials favouring close ties with the UMP was that most of the UDF's elected positions were obtained through cooperative alliances with the UMP. However, the party's base overwhelmingly favored independence. At the congress of Lyon, in January 2006, 91% of the members voted to retain the independence of the UDF from the UMP and transform it into an independent centrist party. This outcome meant that the orientation of the evolving UDF would be that of asocial-liberal party aiming for a balance betweensocial-democratic andconservative policies.
In May 2006 Bayrou and other ten UDF deputies, a minority within the parliamentary party, voted for the motion of no-confidence brought forward by the Socialist-led opposition calling for the resignation of Prime MinisterDominique de Villepin's government, embroiled in theClearstream affair.[4] This motion had no chance of being passed, given that the UMP had an absolute majority in the National Assembly. Following this event, France's television authority started to classify Bayrou and the other UDF deputies who had voted for the motion as being in the opposition for time allocation purposes; however, after Bayrou protested, they were classified as neither majority nor opposition.
In April 2007 Bayrou announced that he would be submitting a plan to a vote by UDF members to create a newDemocratic Movement (MoDem), which was finally launched in May. However, most of the UDF's deputies protested and formed theNew Centre (NC) – later The Centrists –, in order to support newly-elected PresidentNicolas Sarkozy of the UMP. In the subsequent2007 legislative election held in June, the MoDem won 7.6% of the vote and three seats, while the NC stopped at 2.4%, but, thanks to its alliance with the UMP, obtained 22 seats.
In November 2007 the UDF effectively ceased to exist and was fully integrated within the MoDem, headed by Bayrou.[5]
The UDF was acentre-right party,[6][7][8] although it considered itselfcentrist.[9] Broadly, the UDF was abig tent,[10] bringing togetherChristian democrats,liberals,radicals,social democrats and non-Gaullist conservatives.[11][12] The main ideological trends in the party wereChristian democracy,[13][14][15]liberalism,[10][16][17]conservative liberalism[18] andliberal conservatism.[19][20]
The UDF's most marked political trait waspro-Europeanism and support forEuropean integration, up to the point of turning theEuropean Union into a federalUnited States of Europe.[16] In that respect, UDF was the likely target of Chirac'sCall of Cochin (1978), in which he denounced the pro-European policies of "the party of the foreigners".
Until 2002, the UDF spanned a somewhat wide ideological spectrum on the centre-right. A tongue-in-cheek characterisation of UDF's membership is that it was the union of everybody on the right that was neitherfar-right nor aJacques Chirac supporter. However, the UDF suffered for its lack of cohesion, in contrast to Chirac'sRally for the Republic. Its economic policies ranged from favouring left-leaningsocial justice to favouringlaissez-faire liberalism. Such divergences led the laissez-faire advocates, such asAlain Madelin, to formLiberal Democracy in 1997 and split from the UDF in 1998. Similarly, social policies ranged from thesocial conservatism of the likes ofChristine Boutin, famously opposed tocivil unions forhomosexuals,same-sex marriage,abortion andeuthanasia, to moresocially progressive policies. Boutin was eventually excluded from the UDF and in 2001 she formed theForum of Social Republicans.
During the2007 presidential electoral campaign,François Bayrou presented himself as a centrist and a social-liberal[21] (he even opened the door to gay adoptions),[22] proclaiming that if elected, he would "govern beyond the left-right divide".[23] He won 18.6% of the vote, but this was not enough for him to reach the second round.
When Bayrou launched his newDemocratic Movement in 2007, only five deputies (Gilles Artigues, Anne-Marie Comparini, Jean-Christophe Lagarde, Jean Lassalle and Gérard Vignoble) out of 29, not counting Bayrou himself, joined.[25] The others, comprising members of Society in Movement and some Bayrouistes, as Hervé Morin and Jean-Louis Bourlanges, joined the presidential majority in support of the new PresidentNicolas Sarkozy and formed a new "centrist pole" within it, theNew Centre.
| Election | Candidate | First round | Second round | Result | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Votes | % | Votes | % | |||
| 1981 | Valéry Giscard d'Estaing | 8,222,432 | 28.32% | 14,642,306 | 48.24% | Lost |
| 1988 | Raymond Barre | 5,031,849 | 16.55% | - | - | Lost |
| 1995 | endorsedÉdouard Balladur | 5,658,796 | 18.58% | - | - | Lost |
| 2002 | François Bayrou | 1,949,170 | 6.84% | - | - | Lost |
| Year | Leader | First round | Second round | Seats in the National Assembly | Notes | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Number of votes | Percentage of votes | Number of votes | Percentage of votes | ||||
| 1978 | Jean Lecanuet (CDS) | 6,128,849 | 21.45 | 5,907,603 | 23.18 | 121 / 488 | Part of "Presidential Majority" (withRPR) |
| 1981 | Jean-Claude Gaudin (PR) | 4,827,437 | 19.20 | 3,489,363 | 18.68 | 62 / 491 | Part of "Union for a New Majority" (withRPR) |
| 1986 | Jean-Claude Gaudin (PR) | 6,008,612 (RPR-UDF joint lists) 2,330,167 (separate UDF lists) | 21.44 8.31 | — | 127 / 573 | Part of "RPR-UDF Union" | |
| 1988 | Jean-Claude Gaudin (PR) | 4,519,459 | 18.50 | 4,299,370 | 21.18 | 129 / 575 | Part of "Union of Rally and Centre" (withRPR) |
| 1993 | Valéry Giscard d'Estaing (PR) | 4,731,013 | 18.71 | 5,178,039 | 26.14 | 207 / 577 | Part of "Union for France" (withRPR) |
| 1997 | François Léotard (PR) | 3,617,440 | 14.22 | 5,284,203 | 20.07 | 112 / 577 | Part of "Presidential Majority" (withRPR) |
| 2002 | François Bayrou | 1,226,462 | 4.86 | 832,785 | 3.92 | 29 / 577 | Part of "Presidential Majority" (withUMP) |
| Election year | Leader | # of overall votes | % of overall vote | # of overall seats won | Group |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1979 | Simone Veil | 5,588,851 | 27.61 (#1) | 25 / 81 | LD (17);EPP (8) |
| 1984 | Simone Veil | 8,683,596 (UDF-RPR joint lists) | 43.03 (#1; UDF+RPR) | 22 / 81 | LDR (12);EPP (9);EDA (1) |
| 1989 | Valéry Giscard d'Estaing (PR) | 5,242,038 (UDF-RPR joint lists) | 28.88 (#1; UDF+RPR) | 12 / 81 | LDR (11);EPP (1) |
| 1994 | Dominique Baudis (CDS) | 4,985,574 (UDF-RPR joint lists) | 25.58 (#1; UDF+RPR) | 14 / 87 | EPP (13);ELDR (1) |
| 1999 | François Bayrou | 1,638,680 | 9.28 (#5) | 9 / 87 | EPP-ED |
| 2004 | François Bayrou | 2,053,446 | 11.96 (#3) | 11 / 78 | ALDE |
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