Union for French Democracy

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Union pour la démocratie française




Leader	François Bayrou

Founded	1978
Headquarters	UDF 133 bis, rue de l'Université 75007 Paris

Political Ideology	Centrism, Social liberalism
European Affiliation	European Democratic Party
International Affiliation	Alliance of American and European Democrats
Colours	Orange

2007 Presidential candidate	François Bayrou

Website	www.udf.org

See also	Constitution of France France Politics French Parliament French Government French President Political parties Elections

The Union for French Democracy (Union pour la Démocratie Française, UDF) is a French centrist political party. It was founded in 1978 as an electoral alliance to support President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing in order to counterbalance the Gaullist preponderance over the right. This name was chosen due to the title of Giscard d'Estaing's 1976 book, French Democracy.

The founder parties were the Christian-democratic Democratic and Social Centre, the conservative-liberal Republican Party, the liberal Radical Party, the centre-left Social Democratic Party and the centrist Perspectives and Realities Clubs. Now, the UDF is a single entity, due to the defection of Republicans, Radicals and most Christian Democrats to President Jacques Chirac's UMP and the merger of the other centrist components.

Its current leader, as of 2006, is François Bayrou. The UDF has been a junior partner in the coalitions behind Prime Ministers Jean-Pierre Raffarin and Dominique de Villepin, though it has not participated in the cabinets of either, except Gilles de Robien's controversial participation as Education minister.

1 History
- 1.1 New UDF
2 Ideology and political position
3 Factions
4 Presidents
5 External link
6 References

[edit] History

Since its foundation, UDF has been in an uneasy alliance with the bigger right-wing party RPR and its successor UMP. Indeed, the criticism of the RPR leader Jacques Chirac against the liberal and pro-European policy of the executive duo Valéry Giscard d'Estaing/Raymond Barre (in the Call of Cochin, UDF was accused to be "the foreign party") contributed to the defeat of the incumbent president at the 1981 presidential election.

After François Mitterrand's election, the two right-wing parliamentary parties reconciled themselves. RPR abandoned little by little the Gaullist doctrine and joined the liberal and pro-European positions of UDF. Chirac and Barre competed for the right-wing leadership. With winning in mind 1986 legislative election, contrary to Barre, Chirac accepted the principle of the "cohabitation" with President Mitterrand. Futhemore, some UDF politicians (notably from the Republican Party) covertly supported Chirac. Consequently, he became Prime Minister, from 1986 to 1988, and UDF played the supporting role in his cabinet and in the parliementary majority.

Barre was a candidate at the 1988 presidential election, yet, he was not supported by all the UDF personalities and he was eliminated in the first round. After the re-election of François Mitterrand, some UDF members participated as ministers in the left-wing Michel Rocard's cabinets. Others created a new parliementary group, the Centrist Union, which occasionally voted with the Socialist Party or with the RPR.

At the same time, Giscard d'Estaing became leader of UDF, but his authority, and the one of the other right-wing leaders (Chirac, Barre...) was contested by a new generation of politicians called the "renovation men".

In the 1990s, all the UDF came back in opposition and created a new coalition with the RPR, the "Union for France". It comfortably won the 1993 legislative election. In Edouard Balladur's cabinet there were several members of UDF: François Léotard (PR) was minister of Defense, Gerard 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 Transports, Jean Puech (CDS) of Agriculture, André Rossinot (Rad) of Sevil Service and Hervé de Charette (CPR) of Housing. Most UDF ministers and leaders supported the candidacy of Eduard Balladur at the 1995 presidential election. On the contrary, Giscard d'Estaing, Perspectives and Realities clubs, and some personalities as Alain Madelin chose Chirac.

When Chirac was elected President of France, some UDF ministers were dismissed in due to their support to Balladur. In Alain Juppé's cabinet, UDF controlled the most important cabinet posts Foreign Affairs with Hervé de Charette (CPR), Defense with Charles Millon (PR), Economy and Finances with Alain Madelin (PR), Industry Yves Galland (Rad), , Education with François Bayrou (CDS/FD), Commerce with Jean-Pierre Raffarin (PR), Labour with Jacques Barrot (CDS/FD), Agriculture with Philippe Vasseur (CDS/FD), Culture with Philippe Douste-Blazy (CDS/FD), Economic Development with Jean Arthuis (PR) and Reform and Decentralization with Claude Goasguen (PR) In 1996, the leadership of UDF passed from Giscard d'Estaing to François Léotard (PR).

After the right-wing defeat of the 1997 legislative election, the UDF confederation faced a major crisis. While, the centrist components had merged in Democratic Force, led by François Bayrou, the liberal-conservative tried to surmont the chiraquiens/balladuriens fracture. The Republican Party was joined by some politicians of Popular Party for French Democracy, as Jean Pierre Raffarin (a former Republican), and renamed Liberal Democracy (DL). It started to reassert its autonomy and finally broke ranks in 1998 with UDF. The event which triggered off the split was the election of UDF politicians at the head of four regional councils with the votes of National Front elects. DL refused to condemn it, contrary to the centrists.

[edit] New UDF

This led to a re-organization of UDF into the New UDF (Nouvelle UDF). Indeed it was launched as a single party with the merger of Democratic Force (born after the union of the Democratic and Social Centre and of the Social Democratic Party in 1995) and the Republican Independent and Liberal Pole (formed in 1998 by those Liberals who refused to leave UDF), in the New UDF, organized as a single party. The Radical Party and the Popular Party for French Democracy (successor of the Perspectives and Realities Clubs in 1995) remained as autonomous entities within the new party.

Former leader of Democratic Force, François Bayrou became the natural leader of the New UDF. He conceived it like the embryo of a future centrist party which would include politicians from both left and right. Bayrou ran for president at the 2002 presidential election, but some UDF personalities supported Chirac's candidacy. Then, Bayrou refused Chirac's project of integration in a big right-wing party. Other UDF members, led by Philippe Douste-Blazy, Jacques Barrot and Pierre Méhaignerie, joined Chirac's Union for a Popular Movement (UMP), leaving UDF leader Bayrou somewhat isolated.

While a partner in the Jean-Pierre Raffarin cabinet, the UDF sometimes criticized the policies of the French government, yet did not wish to quit the majority coalition and enter the opposition, which is mostly left-wing. As a result, UDF, save for Gilles de Robien, quit the cabinet in the 31 March 2004 cabinet reshuffling, while still remaining in the parliamentary majority.

In 2004, the party, along with Italy's Democracy is Freedom – Daisy, was one of the founding members of the European Democratic Party, intended to be home to all those Christian-democrats and centrists were disillusioned with the new course of the European People's Party, which had welcomed the Rally for the Republic and, then, the UMP. It is also true that, after the exit of the most conservative, Christian-democratic and conservative-liberal components in 1998 and 2002, UDF is more and more a centrist party with social liberal tendencies.

Today, there is a split among UDF elected officials, between those such as Gilles de Robien and Pierre-Christophe Baguet, who favor closer ties with UMP, and those such as François Bayrou who advocate independent centrist policies, with some such as Jean Dionis du Séjour trying a middle ground^[1]. One reason may be that UDF's elected positions are often obtained through alliances with UMP. However, the party base overwhelmingly favor independence. At the congress of Lyon, January 28-29th 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 new orientation means the UDF will be a social liberal party aiming for a balance between social-democratic and conservative policies.

On 16 May 2006, François Bayrou and 10 other UDF deputies voted the motion of censure brought in by the Socialist deputies for the resignation of Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin's government, following the Clearstream affair ^[2]. This motion had no chance to be accepted, given that UMP had an absolute majority in the Assembly. Following this event, France's television authority then classified Bayrou and the other UDF deputies who voted the motion in the opposition for timing purposes; however, after Bayrou protested, he was classified as neither majority nor opposition.

[edit] Ideology and political position

UDF's most marked political trait is that it is in favor of European federalism, up to the point of turning the European Union into United States of Europe. In that respect, UDF was the likely target of Chirac's Call of Cochin (1978), in which he denounced pro-European policies of "the party of the foreigners".

Until 2002, the UDF spanned a somewhat wide ideological spectrum on the center-right. A tongue-in-cheek characterization of UDF's membership is that it was the union of everybody on the right that was neither far-right nor a Chirac supporter. However, the UDF suffered for its lack of cohesion, in contrast to the RPR. The economic policies proposed by UDF's leaders ranged from left-leaning, in favor of social justice, to strongly laissez-faire economics. Such divergences led the laissez-faire advocates of Liberal Democracy, such as Alain Madelin, to split out of UDF on 16 May 1998. This departure followed the elections of UDF politicians for the presidents of 4 regional councils with the votes of FN elects. Indeed, the Liberals refused to condemn these alliances.

Similarly, the social policies ranged from the conservatism of the likes of Christine Boutin, famously opposed to civil unions for homosexuals, to more socially liberal policies. Boutin would be excluded from the UDF because of her strong social conservatism; in March 2001 she formed the Forum of Social Republicans, now affiliated to the UMP.

During 2007 presidential electoral campaign, François Bayrou presents himself as a centrist and a social liberal^[3] (he even opened the door to gay adoptions^[4]) and says that, if elected, he will "govern beyond the left-right divide"^[5].

[edit] Factions

Bayrouistes, those who want UDF to be independent from UMP: Marielle De Sarnez, Jean-Louis Bourlanges, Thierry Cornillet, Gilles Artigues, Bernard Bosson, Anne-Marie Comparini, Charles de Courson, Jean-Christophe Lagarde, Jean Lassalle, Maurice Leroy, Hervé Morin, Rudy Salles, Gérard Vignoble, Nicolas Perruchot, Jean-Luc Préel, François Rochebloine, François Sauvadet
Society in Movement, those who want close ties with UMP: Gilles de Robien, Olivier Jardé, Jean-Pierre Abelin, Pierre-Christophe Baguet, Jean Dionis du Séjour, Francis Hillmeyer, Michel Hunault, Stéphane Demilly, Yvan Lachaud, André Santini, Francis Vercamer, Claude Leteurtre, Rodolphe Thomas