Republican Federation
 | This article needs additional citations for verification. (November 2014) |
Republican Federation Fédération républicaine | |
|---|---|
| President | Republicanism |
| Political position | Centre-right to right-wing |
| National affiliation | National Bloc (1919–1924) Freedom Front (1937–1940) |
| Colours | Blue |
The Republican Federation (
progressive Orléanists
rallied to the Republic.
Founded in November 1903, the party competed with the more secular and centrist Action libérale (which included Catholics rallied to the Republic) joined the Entente républicaine démocratique right-wing parliamentary group.[1]
From 1903 to World War I
The Republican Federation was founded in November 1903 to gather the
decentralisation, thus enrolling themselves in the legacy of the Girondins of the French Revolution. Just as the Democratic Republican Alliance
, it was a party composed of notables, which rested upon local electoral committee, which merged in the National Assembly in one or several parliamentary groups. It never had many members (30,000 in 1926 and 18,000 in 1939).
Interwar period
After
Action libérale populaire
(Popular Liberal Action), an alliance of Catholics who had accepted the legality of the Republican regime, entered the Republican Federation by sitting within parliamentary grouping of the Entente républicaine démocratique (Arago group).
The Republican Federation shifted more and more to the right during the
left-wing received a boost from the arrival of the parliamentary Catholics of the Popular Liberal Action. However, the rift in political ethos was shown by the fact that these preferred to sit in a separate parliamentary grouping from the main party (such as the Popular Democratic group, the Alsatian Popular Action group, or Pernot
's Social Action group).
These changes were reflected in the handover of power from the
Republican Left
at the turn of the century, becoming more hierarchisesd with the creation of youth sections while ordinary members were given more weight.
Although several members participated to the
centrist strategy. After the 6 February 1934 riots
which toppled the second Cartel des gauches, the majority of the party chose this right-wing strategy, taking the side of the opponents to the Republic accused of being anti-patriotic.
The Republican Federation thus formed in 1937 during the
Parti populaire français (French Popular Party) and the small Parti républicain national et social and French Agrarian and Peasant Party (Fleurant Agricola). Although this Freedom Front was theorized by Louis Marin and the other leaders of the party as a tactic against the growing influence of Colonel François de La Rocque's French Social Party—one of the first right-wing French mass party—this union also corresponded with the ideology of the leading classes outside Paris (such as Victor Perret in the Rhône
region) and of the activists opposed both to the lefts and to the centre-right parties such as the Democratic Alliance or the Popular Democrats.
This shift to the right of the party during the 1930s explain how several important pre-war figures of the party (such as
collaborationists
) thus served as intermediaries between the leaders of the Republican Federation and the extra-parliamentary right.
After 1940
| This article is part of Conservatism in France |
 |
Although few important members of the Republican Federation actively engaged in
Liberation, but the party remained discredited by the passive attitude of most of its members. After 1949, the National Center of the Independents was the main political structure pursuing the Republican Federation's legacy after the failure of several structures, including the Republican Party of Liberty
.
In Parliament
In the Chamber of Deputies
The Republican Federation deputies sat in the following parliamentary groups in the Chamber of Deputies:
- 1903: Progressive Republicans (Républicain progressiste)
- 1914: The party called its group the Republican Federation (Fédération républicaine) as in 1932 and 1936
- 1919: Democratic Republican Entente (Entente républicain démocratique)
- 1930: Democratic and Republican Union (Union républicaine et démocratique)
- 1932: Republican Federation group
- 1936: Republican Federation and Independent Republicans of Social Action (Républicain indépendant d'action sociale)
Furthermore, the Republican Independents group of Georges Mandel was also close to the Republican Federation.
In the Senate
The Republican Federation senators sieged in the ANRS group (Action nationale républicaine et sociale, National Republican and Social Action) at least until 1936.
List of presidents
- Eugène Motte (1903–1906)
- Joseph Thierry (1906–1911)
- Charles Prévet (1911–1914)
- Charles Benoist (1914–1919)
- Victor Milliard (1919–1921)
- Auguste Isaac (1921–1925)
- Louis Marin (1925–1946)
Electoral results
| Chamber of Deputies | |||||
| Election year | No. of overall votes |
% of overall vote |
No. of overall seats won |
+/– | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1906 | 1,864,557 (2nd) | 21.16 | 78 / 585
|
–
|
|
| 1910 | 1,565,698 (2nd) | 19.08 | 119 / 595
|
 41 |
|
| 1914 | 397,547 (5th) | 4.72 | 37 / 601
|
 82 |
|
| 1919 | 1,819,691 (1st) | 22.23 | 183 / 613
|
146 |
|
| 1924 | 3,190,831 (1st) | 35.35 | 102 / 581
|
81 |
|
| 1928 | 2,082,041 (2nd) | 21.99 | 102 / 604
|
 |
|
| 1932 | 1,233,360 (4th) | 12.88 | 59 / 607
|
43 |
|
| 1936 | 1,666,004 (3rd) | 16.92 | 60 / 610
|
1 |
|
Notable members
- Édouard Aynard, Lyonnese banker and deputy (1889–1913)
- Maurice Barrès, nationalist writer
- Paul Beauregard[2]
- Charles Benoist (1861–1936)
- Joseph Boissin, deputy of Ardèche
- Jacques Debû-Bridel
- Paul Duquaire, senator and former member of the Popular Liberal Action
- Édouard Frédéric-Dupont
- Alphonse Gourd
- collaborationist under Vichy
- Auguste Isaac, Lyonnesse industrialist, deputy of the Rhône department (1919–1924), Minister of Trade and Industry (1920–1921) and president of the Republican Federation until 1924[3]
- Henri de Kerillis(very close, if not officially a member, of the Republican Federation)
- Louis Loucheur, industrialist
- Louis Marin (1871–1960), deputy of Nancy (1905–1951) and president of the Republican Federation (1925–1940)
- Eugène Motte, industrialist from Roubaix, founder and first president of the Republican Federation
- Georges Pernot
- Victor Perret, president of the Republican Federation of the Rhône, located at the right-wing of the party
- Jacques Piou, former president of the Popular Liberal Action who joined the Republican Federation in 1919
- Emmanuel Temple
- Joseph Thierry (1857–1918), lawyer, deputy of the Bouches-du-Rhône (1898–1918), Minister of Public Works (1913), Deputy-State secretary to War (1915–1916), ambassador of France to the King of Spain (1915–1918) and second President of the Republican Federation[4]
- Pierre Vallette-Viallard, industrialist and deputy of Ardèche (1919–1924; 1928–1940)
- Banque de France, deputy, senator and vice president of the Republican Federation in the 1920s[6]
- Action française in his youth, joined Colonel François de La Rocque's Croix-de-Feuin 1928, head of the General Commission to Jewish Affairs under Vichy and condemned in 1947 for collaborationism
References
- ^ René Rémond, Les Droites en France, Aubier, 1982.
- ^ "Paul Beauregard".
- ^ "Auguste Isaac".
- ^ "Joseph Thierry".
- ^ "François Valentin".
- ^ "François de Wendel".
Further reading
- William D. Irvine, French conservatism in the crisis : The Republican Federation of France in the 1930s, Bâton Rouge, 256p, 1975.
- Jean Vavasseur-Desperriers, Culture, structures, stratégie d'une organisation de la droite parlementaire entre les deux guerre : la Fédération Républicaine de 1919 à 1940, University Lille 3, state thesis under the dir. of Yves-Marie Hilaire, 914p, 1999.
- Jean Vavasseur-Desperriers, « Mise en sommeil et disparition : la Fédération républicaine de 1940 à 1946 », in Gilles Richard & Jacqueline Saincliver (dir.), La recomposition des droites à la Libération 1944-1948, 2004.
- Laurent Bigorgne, « Le parcours d'une génération de ‘modérés’ : les jeunes de la Fédération Républicaine », in François Roth (dir.), Les modérés dans la vie politique française (1880-1965), 2000.
- Jean Vavasseur-Desperriers, « La Fédération républicaine, Louis Marin et l'idée de paix pendant l'entre-deux-guerres », in Robert Vandenbussche a Michel (dir.), L’idée de paix en France et ses représentations au XXe siècle, 2001.
- Jean Vavasseur-Desperriers, « De la présence à la distance: les milieux d'affaires et la Fédération républicaine », in Hervé Joly (dir.), Patronat, bourgeoisie, catholicisme et libéralisme. Autour du Journal d'Auguste Isaac, Larhra, 2004
- Mathias Bernard, La dérive des modérés. La Fédération Républicaine du Rhône sous la Troisième République, Editions l'Harmattan, 432p, 1998.
- Malcolm Anderson, Conservative politics in France, Allen and Unwen, 1974.
- Jean-Noël Jeanneney, « La Fédération Républicaine », in Rémond & Bourdin (dir), La France et les francais 1938-1939, 1979.
- Philippe Machefer, « L’union des droites, le PSF et le Front de la liberté, 1936–1937, RHMC, 1970.
- Kevin Passmore, The Right in France from the Third Republic to Vichy., Oxford University Press, 2013.
- René Rémond – Janine Bourdin, « Les forces adverses », in Renovin & Rémond (dir.), Léon Blum, chef de gouvernement 1936-1937, 1981.
- René Rémond, Les droites en France, Aubier, 544p, 1982 (réed. De 1954).
- Jean Vavasseur-Desperriers, « Les tentatives de regroupement des droites dans les années trente », Annales de Bretagne et des pays de l'ouest, 2002.
- Bruno Béguet, Comportements politiques et structures sociales : le Parti Social Français et la Fédération Républicaine à Lyon (1936–1939), Université Lyon 2, mémoire de maîtrise sous la direction de Yves Lequin, 2 volumes, 252p, 1982.
- Kevin Passmore, From liberalism to fascism. The Right in a French Province, 1928-1939, (study on the Rhône department) Cambridge university press, 333p, 1997.
External links
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| National | |
