Union pour la Nouvelle République

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The Union pour la Nouvelle République ( UNR ) was a French party from 1958 to 1967 . In her and her successor parties Union des Démocrates pour la V e République ( UD-V e ; 1967–1968) and Union des démocrates pour la République ( UDR ; 1968–1976), the political Gaullism of the Fifth French Republic was organized from its foundation to 1976. She was in government throughout her existence. Important representatives were the Presidents Charles de Gaulle and Georges Pompidou as well as the Prime Ministers Michel Debré , Jacques Chaban-Delmas , Pierre Messmer and Jacques Chirac .

Party of the Gaullists

Charles de Gaulle (1958)

The party was formed on May 13, 1958 to support Charles de Gaulle's return to government functions. She represented his position in the creation of a new constitution with a powerful president . In the dispute over the decolonization of Algeria , its members mostly advocated an Algerian state under French direction. De Gaulle was elected Prime Minister in June 1958 and, after a successful constitutional referendum , elected the first President of the Fifth Republic in December 1958 .

The UNR was a political party that was committed to social and cultural traditions , but at the same time advocated modernization , especially economic and industrial . Its most important members included Michel Debré , Jacques Soustelle and Jacques Chaban-Delmas .

The left wing of political Gaullism was organized from 1958 in the Union Démocratique du Travail ( UDT , German Democratic Union of Labor). Both movements joined forces in 1962 on the occasion of the presidential campaign under the name UNR-UDT. The leadership of the party was incumbent on the respective general secretary ; from 1962 to 1967 this was Jacques Baumel .

Renaming to UDR

Logo of the UDR

The Union pour la Nouvelle République (UNR) entered the 1967 elections as the Union des Démocrates pour la V e République ( UD-V e , German Union of Democrats for the Fifth Republic ). Its candidates won 200 of the 486 seats in the National Assembly . Together with Independent Republicans and independent MPs, they formed a parliamentary majority that supported the government of Georges Pompidou .

As a consequence of the May 1968 riots in Paris , President de Gaulle ordered the dissolution of the National Assembly elected in 1967. For the new parliamentary elections on June 23 and 30, 1968, the candidates for the Gaullist party ran together with candidates from the Independent Republicans (FNRI, Fédération nationale des républicains et indépendants ). They formed a list connection under the name Union pour la defense de la République ( UDR , German Union for the Defense of the Republic). Its candidates achieved an absolute majority of the parliamentary seats with 293 of 487 seats.

Georges Pompidou (1969)

The part of the name “Fifth” in the party name lost its importance after de Gaulle's party had averted the danger of overthrowing the Fifth Republic with its election victory . Its founder de Gaulle resigned from the office of president in 1969 , retired from politics and died in 1970. Former Prime Minister Georges Pompidou succeeded his mentor de Gaulle in the office of head of state.

The Gaullist party officially changed its name in 1971 to Union des démocrates pour la République (German: Union of Democrats for the Republic). Your best-known general secretaries from this period in the German-speaking countries are Alain Peyrefitte (1972–1973) and Jacques Chirac (1974–1975). At the age of 19, Nicolas Sarkozy joined the party in 1974 and, after Pompidou's sudden death, took part in the presidential campaign for Jacques Chaban-Delmas , who was defeated by the Independent Republicans (FNRI) in the 1974 presidential election against Valéry Giscard d'Estaing . Many Gaullists, above all Jacques Chirac, did not support the candidate of their own party, but Giscard d'Estaing. In return, he named Chirac Prime Minister.

Successor parties

In August 1976 the president and prime minister fell out and Chirac stepped down from office. In December of the same year, he founded the Rassemblement pour la République (RPR), which replaced the frozen UDR as a neo-Gaullist party. Shortly thereafter, Chirac ran successfully for the newly created office of Mayor of Paris. The RPR was the determining force of the center-right spectrum in the 1980s and 1990s, with Chirac again becoming Prime Minister in 1986 and President in 1995. The RPR existed until 2002, when it became part of the center-right rallying party Union pour un mouvement populaire (UMP), which has been called Les Républicains (The Republicans) since 2015 .