General Secretary Bernard Accoyer Spokesperson in the Senate Bruno Retailleau | Spokesperson in the Assembly Christian Jacob Preceded by UMP | |
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Vice Presidents Laurent Wauquiez
Isabelle Le Callennec Founded May 30, 2015 (2015-05-30) | ||
The Republicans (French: Les Républicains; LR) is a centre-right political party in France. The party was formed on 30 May 2015 by renaming the Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) party, which had been founded in 2002 under the leadership of former President of France Jacques Chirac. The party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in France along with the centre-left Socialist Party (PS). The Republicans are a member of the European People's Party, Centrist Democrat International, and International Democrat Union.
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UMP name change
After the election in November 2014 of Nicolas Sarkozy, the President of France from 2007 to 2012, as president of the Union for a Popular Movement (UMP), Sarkozy put forward a request to the party's general committee to change its name to "The Republicans" (Les Républicains) and alter the statutes of the party. With the name already chosen, vice-president of the UMP Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet presented Sarkozy and the party's political bureau the proposed new statutes. The proposed statutes provided for, among others, the election of the presidents of the departmental federations by direct democracy, the end of the political currents and consulting members on election nominations.
Critics of Sarkozy claimed it was "illegal" for him to name the party "Republicans" because every French person is a republican if they support the values and ideals of the French Republic that emanated from the French Revolution, and as such the term is above party politics. The new name was adopted by the party bureau on 5 May 2015 and approved by the party membership on 28 May by an online "yes" vote of 83.3% on a 45.7% turnout after a court ruling in favour of Sarkozy. The new party statutes were adopted by 96.3% of voters and the composition of the new political bureau by 94.8%.
Founding congress
The change to the name "The Republicans" was confirmed at the party's founding congress on 30 May 2015 at the Paris Event Centre in Paris, attended by 10,000 activists. Angela Merkel, chairwoman of the conservative CDU, sent a congratulatory message to the congress. The Republicans thus became the legal successor of the UMP and the leading centre-right party in France.
The organisation has been declared in the préfecture de Saône-et-Loire on 9 April 2015. According to the statement of this declaration, its aim is to "promote ideas of the right and centre, open to every people who wish to be member and debate in the spirit of a political party with republican ideas in France or outside France". This party foundation was published in the Journal officiel de la République française on 25 April 2015.
On 3 July 2016, Sarkozy announced that he would resign as leader that year in order to compete to be the right-wing candidate in the 2017 presidential election.
On 27 November 2016, Francois Fillon, the former Prime Minister of France, became the presidential nominee of the party in 2017 presidential election.