Liberalism and radicalism in France

Liberalism and radicalism in France refer to different movements and ideologies.

The main line of conflict in France during the 19th century was between monarchists (mainly Legitimists and Orléanists, but also Bonapartists) and republicans (Radical-Socialists, Opportunist Republicans, and later socialists). The Orléanists, which favoured constitutional monarchy and economic liberalism, were opposed to Republican Radicals.

The Republican, Radical and Radical-Socialist Party (now divided into the center-right Radical Party and the center-left Radical Party of the Left), and especially the Republican parties (Democratic Republican Alliance, Republican Federation, National Centre of Independents and Peasants, Independent Republicans, Republican Party, Liberal Democracy) have since embraced liberalism, including its economic version, and have mostly joined either the Union for a Popular Movement in 2002, later re-named The Republicans in 2015, or the Union of Democrats and Independents, launched in 2012.

In 2016 Emmanuel Macron, a former Socialist, launched En Marche! and in 2017 was elected President of France.

Background and history

The early high points of liberalism in France were:

In France, as in much of Southern Europe, the term liberal was used during the 19th century either to refer to the traditional liberal anti-clericalism or economic liberalism. Economic liberalism in France was long associated more with the Orléanists and with Opportunist Republicans (whose heir was the Democratic Republican Alliance), rather than the Radical Party, leading to the use of the term radical to refer to political liberalism. The Radicals tended to be more statist than most European liberals, but shared liberal values on other issues, especially support for individual liberty and secularism, while the Republicans were keener on economic liberalism than secularism.

After World War II, the Republicans gathered in the liberal-conservative National Centre of Independents and Peasants, from which the conservative-liberal Independent Republicans was formed in 1962. The originally centre-left Radical Party was a declining force and joined the centre-right in 1972, causing the split of the left-wing faction and the foundation of the Radical Party of the Left, closely associated to the Socialist Party. The former was later associated with the Union for a Popular Movement.

In 1978 both the Republican Party (successor of the Independent Republicans) and the Radical Party were founding components, along with the Christian-democratic Centre of Social Democrats, of the Union for French Democracy, an alliance of non-Gaullist centre-right forces. The Republican Party, re-founded as Liberal Democracy and re-shaped as a free-market libertarian party, left the federation in 1998 and was later merged, along with the Radical Party, into the liberal-conservative Union for a Popular Movement (later The Republians) in 2002. The Radicals and several former Republicans launched the Union of Democrats and Independents in 2012.

In 2016 Emmanuel Macron, a former Socialist, launched the liberal En Marche! and was elected President of France in the 2017 presidential election. En Marche! formed an alliance with the Democratic Movement, established in 2017 as a successor of the Union for French Democracy, stripped of most former Republicans.

Timeline of parties

19th Century

The Republican tradition

The Radical tradition

The Libertarian tradition

Democratic Movement

En Marche!

Liberal leaders

Liberal thinkers

See also

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