Founded 1832 (1832) | Dissolved 1848 (1848) | |
Leader Jacques LaffitteAdolphe ThiersOdilon Barrot Ideology NationalismLiberalismOrléanism | ||
The Movement Party or Party of Movement (French: Parti du Mouvement) was a political group during the July Monarchy. It sat on the centre-left of the Chamber of Deputies, between the small republican opposition and the centrist Third Party.
History
The founder of the Movement Party was Jacques Laffitte, a Orléanist banker who supported the July Revolution of 1830. For his role in the King Louis Philippe I's coronation, Lafitte was charged to form a government, last only 6 months, like the King became more conservative over time. The party members were Orléanists who believed that the Charter of 1830 was a step toward a more democratic regime, and they actively supported progressive policies such as a strong parliamentary system, expanded suffrage and self-determination against foreign interests. After fall of Lafitte, Adolphe Thiers became the party leader. Thiers was well linked with the King, and was Minister of the Interior in the Édouard Mortier's cabinet. As Minister, Thiers was charged to repress the Canut revolts of 1834 and also supported repressive laws after the Fieschi assassination attempt against Louis Philippe. Thiers was also appointed as Prime Minister briefly in 1836 and 1840, but his political fortune lost when his support to Muhammad Ali's independence claim from the Ottoman Empire caused tensions with United Kingdom and Prussia.
Definitively confinated to the opposition, the Movement Party unified the other group hostile toward the conservative governments of Louis Philippe. The party launched several Campagne des banquets to support a expanded suffrage. The party definitively dissolved when the tensions of 1847-1848 exploded in the February Revolution, that brought to Louis Philippe's fall and birth of the Second French Republic. Many members of the Movement Party became moderate Republicans or merged in the Party of Order.