Democratic Republican Alliance
Encyclopedia
The Democratic Republican Alliance (Alliance démocratique, AD, or Alliance républicaine démocratique, ARD) was a French political party
(1901–1978) created in 1901 by followers of Léon Gambetta
, such as Raymond Poincaré
who would be president of the Council in the 1920s. The party was at first conceived by members of the Radical-Socialist Party
tied to the business world who united themselves in May 1901, along with many moderates, as gathering center-left liberals
and Republicans "opportunists
" (Gambetta, etc.). However, after World War I and the parliamentary disappearance of monarchists
and Bonapartists
, it quickly became the main center-right party of the Third Republic
. It was part of the National Bloc
right-wing coalition which won the elections after the end of the war. The ARD successively took the name Parti Républicain Démocratique (Democratic Republican Party, PRD) then Parti Républicain Démocratique et Social ("Social and Republican Democratic Party"), before becoming again the AD.
The ARD was completely discredited after Vichy
's collaborationist
regime, an option strongly supported by its major leader Pierre-Étienne Flandin and other members such as Joseph Barthélémy
. The center-right party tried to reform itself under the direction of Joseph Laniel
, who had taken part in the Resistance
. It temporarily joined the RGR (Rassemblement des gauches républicaines), before merging into the Centre national des indépendants et paysans (CNIP, National Center of Independents and Peasants). The AD, which in contrast to the French Section of the Workers' International (SFIO) or the French Communist Party
(PCF) never became a mass political party founded on voting discipline (in these left-wing parties, deputies usually vote in agreement with the party's consensus), turned at that time in little more than an intellectual circle, whose members met during suppers. However, it was dissolved in only 1978, long after its effective disappearance from the political scene.
Under the Third Republic, the majority of the AD's deputies sat in the "Left Republicans" (Républicain de Gauche) group, the main center-right parliamentary formation (due to a particularity called "sinistrisme
", French right-wing politicians have for a very long time refused to admit belonging to the right-wing, as the Republic was traditionally associated with the left-wing and the right-wing with monarchists such as the Legitimists or the Orleanists).
and impose a three-party system leading to the "Republic of the just-middle" theorized by François Guizot
.
The ARD was created by the progressives who supported Captain Alfred Dreyfus
and opposed those who followed Jules Méline
in opposition to the President of the Council
Pierre Waldeck-Rousseau. At the instigation of the latter, the Democratic Republican Alliance was founded on October 23, 1901 by engineer Adolphe Carnot (brother of former French President Sadi Carnot
), the deputies Henry Blanc, Edmond Halphen and publicist Charles Pallu de la Barrière. The Alliance built strong support networks, with the Ligue des droits de l'homme (including Paul Stapfer
), the League of Education and former political networks around Jules Ferry
, Léon Gambetta
and Léon Say
.
Its initial recruitment is that of the Parisian elite (including scientists) and the provincial notables. Even if the party's principal leaders were often related to business, the majority of its elected officials opposed the wishes of businessmen, in particular on social policies.
and this despite the iron rule of French politics developed by René Rémond
which said that each party would evolve further to the left or right due to the development of new political movements. Thus, even if the leaders of the Alliance saw the party as the incarnation of the center-left in the wake of the parliamentary group formed by Léon Say (1871–1896), the party shifted to the right in Parliament due to two factors: the downfall of the monarchist and Bonapartist
right and the rise of the new left (socialism
and later communism
) as well as new centrist parties (League of the Young Republic and Popular Democratic Party
).
By its values and behaviors, the AD opposed the socialist left but also the right (Popular Liberal Action
[ALP] and later the Republican Federation
). Like the Radical-Socialist Party the Alliance adhered to the Republic and what constituted the Republic, that is the law of separation of church and state in 1905 or the quest of truth in the Dreyfus affair. But unlike the Rad-Soc doctrine, it aspired to unite all Republicans, and to impose the right and left a 'third way
', that of the combination of centers around the phrase "no reaction nor revolution."
Its political culture was resolutely centrist, incorporating values of both left (the reference to 1789, the defense of freedom, and a reformist agenda) and right (law and order, the defense of liberalism
, opposition to statism
and collectivism
). The theme of gradual reform was seen by the Alliance as the antidote to the opponents - according to the party - of the Republic, that is the collectivists (the SFIO, and in 1920 the Section Française de l'Internationale Communiste
)
around Waldeck-Rousseau, even if it tried to stand out by 1902. However it supported the policy of the bloc until 1907, when the presidency was entrusted to Émile Combes
(1902–1905) who imposed, for the first time, the left-right divide. The Alliance demonstrated its difference from the right (the Republican Federation
and the ALP) by supporting the 1905 law. Above all, the ARD encouraged political circles including Alliancists and Radicals.
Faced with the disintegration of the bloc and the emergence of socialism, the Alliance sought to establish in 1907 a "democratic bloc" with the right which demonstrated its willingness to reinstate the discredited right to power in France. Between 1912 and 1914, the ARD supported the right-wing governments which included Raymond Poincaré
, Aristide Briand
and Louis Barthou
. During the same period, the Alliance operated a shift to the right on the political spectrum and ended the policy of mutual withdrawals with the Rad-Socs in electoral runoffs.
Meanwhile, the Alliance was transformed into a real party in 1911 by becoming the Republican Democratic Party (PRD), this strengthening of its structures was accompanied by an increase in its number of parliamentarians (from 39 MPs in 1902 to 125 1910; fifty senators in 1910) and that of its supporters (around 30,000 at the beginning of the 1910s). Several leaders of the ARD in 1914 tried to form, with Aristide Briand and the moderate left a Federation of the Lefts
.
Undoubtedly, the Alliance weighed heavily on national policy as shown by the presence of its members in high cabinet positions (Émile Loubet
, Armand Fallières
, Raymond Poincaré
as President of the Republic, Louis Barthou
and Raymond Poincaré
as President of Council, as well as many ministries).
(1919–1924). The experience was not successful, because the Alliance became a prisoner of the right which constituted the bulk of the parliamentary majority. Thus, the failure of Aristide Briand cabinet (1921–1922) convinced its leaders to find practical ways to realize the doctrine of the just-middle, despite the fact that one of its members, Raymond Poincaré, occupied the post of President of the Council between 1922 to 1924.
The Alliance focused its political doctrine in line with that which prevailed when it was created, even though the generation of pre-war faded (Adolphe Carnot, Charles Pallu de la Barrière and so forth) and that a new generation took over, such as Charles Jonnart
its new president in 1920. Known as the PRDS, the Alliance professed its willingness to co-operate with the Radical-Socialist Party.
The party became the backbone of government including the Radical-Socialist Party following the fall of the Cartel des Gauches
. Nevertheless, the Alliance could not get the Radicals to rally around a centrist party, the opposition crystallizing around the issue of secularism, the intervention of the state or in terms of foreign policy (contrast between Aristide Briand and Raymond Poincaré).
. Until then a grouping more than a party, the Alliance became a party which established a hierarchy and became more centralized. The party is expanded its regional structures and increased the number of member to about 20,000 in 1936.
Flandin's leadership marked the end of the Alliance's overtures to the Radicals. However, the Alliance was torn on the doctrinal front. Common ground on the base of the defense of institutions, the middle class and the rejection of the extremes disintegrated due to divergent views adopted by the personalities of the Alliance: those of Pierre-Étienne Flandin around the group of Republicans of the Left, those of René Besse
around the Independents of the Left
, those of Paul Reynaud
, and André Tardieu
around the Republican Centre
. These divergences were apparent during the Léon Blum
government where Alliance members ranged from moderate support of the laws of the left-wing Popular Front
, the division of the party was sensitive by 1938 between a pacifist majority (Flandin) supporting the Munich Agreement
and the hawkish minority (Reynaud) opposing the Agreement. More profoundly, this division also reflected the significant oppositions within the party concerning the reform of the state and institutions between 1933 and 1934.
Since then, the Alliance struggled to maintain a centrist position in a republic no longer managed by the centre. It became, on the contrary, a party which showed the different opinions chosen by the men from the Republican and parliamentary rights to address the social and political crises of the thirties.
History of France
The history of France goes back to the arrival of the earliest human being in what is now France. Members of the genus Homo entered the area hundreds of thousands years ago, while the first modern Homo sapiens, the Cro-Magnons, arrived around 40,000 years ago...
(1901–1978) created in 1901 by followers of Léon Gambetta
Léon Gambetta
Léon Gambetta was a French statesman prominent after the Franco-Prussian War.-Youth and education:He is said to have inherited his vigour and eloquence from his father, a Genovese grocer who had married a Frenchwoman named Massabie. At the age of fifteen, Gambetta lost the sight of his right eye...
, such as Raymond Poincaré
Raymond Poincaré
Raymond Poincaré was a French statesman who served as Prime Minister of France on five separate occasions and as President of France from 1913 to 1920. Poincaré was a conservative leader primarily committed to political and social stability...
who would be president of the Council in the 1920s. The party was at first conceived by members of the Radical-Socialist Party
Radical-Socialist Party (France)
The Radical Party , is a liberal and centrist political party in France. The Radicals are currently the fourth-largest party in the National Assembly, with 21 seats...
tied to the business world who united themselves in May 1901, along with many moderates, as gathering center-left liberals
Liberalism and radicalism in France
Liberalism and radicalism in France do not form the same type of ideology. In fact, the main line of conflict in France during the 19th century was between monarchist opponents of the Republic and supporters of the Republic...
and Republicans "opportunists
Opportunism
-General definition:Opportunism is the conscious policy and practice of taking selfish advantage of circumstances, with little regard for principles. Opportunist actions are expedient actions guided primarily by self-interested motives. The term can be applied to individuals, groups,...
" (Gambetta, etc.). However, after World War I and the parliamentary disappearance of monarchists
Monarchism
Monarchism is the advocacy of the establishment, preservation, or restoration of a monarchy as a form of government in a nation. A monarchist is an individual who supports this form of government out of principle, independent from the person, the Monarch.In this system, the Monarch may be the...
and Bonapartists
Bonapartism
Bonapartism is often defined as a political expression in the vocabulary of Marxism and Leninism, deriving from the career of Napoleon Bonaparte. Karl Marx was a student of Jacobinism and the French Revolution as well as a contemporary critic of the Second Republic and Second Empire...
, it quickly became the main center-right party of the Third Republic
French Third Republic
The French Third Republic was the republican government of France from 1870, when the Second French Empire collapsed due to the French defeat in the Franco-Prussian War, to 1940, when France was overrun by Nazi Germany during World War II, resulting in the German and Italian occupations of France...
. It was part of the National Bloc
National Bloc (France)
The National Bloc was a center-right coalition in France which was in power from 1919 to 1924.- Elections of 1919 :Made up primarily of conservative right wing parties, such as the Fédération républicaine, Alliance démocratique, and Action libérale, the coalition had the support of various radical...
right-wing coalition which won the elections after the end of the war. The ARD successively took the name Parti Républicain Démocratique (Democratic Republican Party, PRD) then Parti Républicain Démocratique et Social ("Social and Republican Democratic Party"), before becoming again the AD.
The ARD was completely discredited after Vichy
Vichy France
Vichy France, Vichy Regime, or Vichy Government, are common terms used to describe the government of France that collaborated with the Axis powers from July 1940 to August 1944. This government succeeded the Third Republic and preceded the Provisional Government of the French Republic...
's collaborationist
Collaborationism
Collaborationism is cooperation with enemy forces against one's country. Legally, it may be considered as a form of treason. Collaborationism may be associated with criminal deeds in the service of the occupying power, which may include complicity with the occupying power in murder, persecutions,...
regime, an option strongly supported by its major leader Pierre-Étienne Flandin and other members such as Joseph Barthélémy
Joseph Barthélemy
Joseph Barthélemy was a French jurist, politician and journalist. Initially a critic of Nazi Germany, he would go on to serve as a minister in the collaborationist Vichy regime.-Early years:...
. The center-right party tried to reform itself under the direction of Joseph Laniel
Joseph Laniel
Joseph Laniel was a French conservative politician of the Fourth Republic, who served as Prime Minister for a year from 1953 to 1954. During the middle of his tenure as Prime Minister Laniel was an unsuccessful candidate for the French Presidency, a post won by René Coty...
, who had taken part in the Resistance
French Resistance
The French Resistance is the name used to denote the collection of French resistance movements that fought against the Nazi German occupation of France and against the collaborationist Vichy régime during World War II...
. It temporarily joined the RGR (Rassemblement des gauches républicaines), before merging into the Centre national des indépendants et paysans (CNIP, National Center of Independents and Peasants). The AD, which in contrast to the French Section of the Workers' International (SFIO) or the French Communist Party
French Communist Party
The French Communist Party is a political party in France which advocates the principles of communism.Although its electoral support has declined in recent decades, the PCF retains a large membership, behind only that of the Union for a Popular Movement , and considerable influence in French...
(PCF) never became a mass political party founded on voting discipline (in these left-wing parties, deputies usually vote in agreement with the party's consensus), turned at that time in little more than an intellectual circle, whose members met during suppers. However, it was dissolved in only 1978, long after its effective disappearance from the political scene.
Under the Third Republic, the majority of the AD's deputies sat in the "Left Republicans" (Républicain de Gauche) group, the main center-right parliamentary formation (due to a particularity called "sinistrisme
Sinistrisme
Sinistrisme is a neologism invented by Albert Thibaudet in Les idées politiques de la France . He referred to the progressive substitution of left wing parties by new, more radical parties, which in turn pushed each party towards the center Sinistrisme is a neologism invented by Albert Thibaudet in...
", French right-wing politicians have for a very long time refused to admit belonging to the right-wing, as the Republic was traditionally associated with the left-wing and the right-wing with monarchists such as the Legitimists or the Orleanists).
Origins
Its creation reflects the will to oppose the polarization due to the progressive division during the Dreyfus AffairDreyfus Affair
The Dreyfus affair was a political scandal that divided France in the 1890s and the early 1900s. It involved the conviction for treason in November 1894 of Captain Alfred Dreyfus, a young French artillery officer of Alsatian Jewish descent...
and impose a three-party system leading to the "Republic of the just-middle" theorized by François Guizot
François Guizot
François Pierre Guillaume Guizot was a French historian, orator, and statesman. Guizot was a dominant figure in French politics prior to the Revolution of 1848, a conservative liberal who opposed the attempt by King Charles X to usurp legislative power, and worked to sustain a constitutional...
.
The ARD was created by the progressives who supported Captain Alfred Dreyfus
Alfred Dreyfus
Alfred Dreyfus was a French artillery officer of Jewish background whose trial and conviction in 1894 on charges of treason became one of the most tense political dramas in modern French and European history...
and opposed those who followed Jules Méline
Jules Méline
Félix Jules Méline was a French statesman, prime minister from 1896 to 1898.-Biography:Méline was born at Remiremont. Having taken up law as his profession, he was chosen a deputy in 1872, and in 1879 he was for a short time under-secretary to the minister of the interior...
in opposition to the President of the Council
Prime Minister of France
The Prime Minister of France in the Fifth Republic is the head of government and of the Council of Ministers of France. The head of state is the President of the French Republic...
Pierre Waldeck-Rousseau. At the instigation of the latter, the Democratic Republican Alliance was founded on October 23, 1901 by engineer Adolphe Carnot (brother of former French President Sadi Carnot
Sadi Carnot
Sadi Carnot may refer to:*Nicolas Léonard Sadi Carnot , French physicist*Marie François Sadi Carnot , president of the third French Republic, and nephew of Nicolas Léonard Sadi Carnot...
), the deputies Henry Blanc, Edmond Halphen and publicist Charles Pallu de la Barrière. The Alliance built strong support networks, with the Ligue des droits de l'homme (including Paul Stapfer
Paul Stapfer
Paul Stapfer was a French essayist, born in Paris, and educated at the Bonaparte Lyceum. After serving as tutor in the family of François Guizot, he became a professor at Grenoble. In 1883, he accepted a similar professorship at Bordeaux. Stapfer's essays are remarkable for their clarity of...
), the League of Education and former political networks around Jules Ferry
Jules Ferry
Jules François Camille Ferry was a French statesman and republican. He was a promoter of laicism and colonial expansion.- Early life :Born in Saint-Dié, in the Vosges département, France, he studied law, and was called to the bar at Paris in 1854, but soon went into politics, contributing to...
, Léon Gambetta
Léon Gambetta
Léon Gambetta was a French statesman prominent after the Franco-Prussian War.-Youth and education:He is said to have inherited his vigour and eloquence from his father, a Genovese grocer who had married a Frenchwoman named Massabie. At the age of fifteen, Gambetta lost the sight of his right eye...
and Léon Say
Léon Say
Jean-Baptiste Léon Say , French statesman and economist, was born in Paris.-Biography:The family was a most remarkable one. His grandfather Jean-Baptiste Say was a well-known economist. His brother Louis Auguste Say , director of a sugar refinery at Nantes, wrote several books against his theories...
.
Its initial recruitment is that of the Parisian elite (including scientists) and the provincial notables. Even if the party's principal leaders were often related to business, the majority of its elected officials opposed the wishes of businessmen, in particular on social policies.
Doctrine
The Democratic Alliance was a center-right party which occupied, between 1901 and 1940, a central position on the political spectrumPolitical spectrum
A political spectrum is a way of modeling different political positions by placing them upon one or more geometric axes symbolizing independent political dimensions....
and this despite the iron rule of French politics developed by René Rémond
René Rémond
-Biography:Born in Lons-le-Saunier, Rémond was the Secretary General of Jeunesses étudiantes Catholiques and a member of the International YCS Center of Documentation and Information in Paris, presently the International Secretariat of International Young Catholic Students The author of books on...
which said that each party would evolve further to the left or right due to the development of new political movements. Thus, even if the leaders of the Alliance saw the party as the incarnation of the center-left in the wake of the parliamentary group formed by Léon Say (1871–1896), the party shifted to the right in Parliament due to two factors: the downfall of the monarchist and Bonapartist
Bonapartist
In French political history, Bonapartism has two meanings. In a strict sense, this term refers to people who aimed to restore the French Empire under the House of Bonaparte, the Corsican family of Napoleon Bonaparte and his nephew Louis...
right and the rise of the new left (socialism
Socialism
Socialism is an economic system characterized by social ownership of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy; or a political philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to any one of, or a combination of, the following: cooperative enterprises,...
and later communism
Communism
Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...
) as well as new centrist parties (League of the Young Republic and Popular Democratic Party
Popular Democratic Party (France)
The Popular Democratic Party was a non-confessional Christian democratic party in France during the Third Republic. Founded in 1924, it represented the trend of advanced French social Catholicism, while remaining a party embodying the ideology of centrism....
).
By its values and behaviors, the AD opposed the socialist left but also the right (Popular Liberal Action
Popular Liberal Action
The People's Liberal Action was a French political party during the French Third Republic that represented Catholic supporters of the Republic....
[ALP] and later the Republican Federation
Republican Federation
The Republican Federation was the largest conservative party during the French Third Republic, gathering together the liberal Orleanists rallied to the Republic. Founded in November 1903, it rivalized with the more secular and centrist Alliance démocratique...
). Like the Radical-Socialist Party the Alliance adhered to the Republic and what constituted the Republic, that is the law of separation of church and state in 1905 or the quest of truth in the Dreyfus affair. But unlike the Rad-Soc doctrine, it aspired to unite all Republicans, and to impose the right and left a 'third way
Third way (centrism)
The Third Way refers to various political positions which try to reconcile right-wing and left-wing politics by advocating a varying synthesis of right-wing economic and left-wing social policies. Third Way approaches are commonly viewed from within the first- and second-way perspectives as...
', that of the combination of centers around the phrase "no reaction nor revolution."
Its political culture was resolutely centrist, incorporating values of both left (the reference to 1789, the defense of freedom, and a reformist agenda) and right (law and order, the defense of liberalism
Liberalism
Liberalism is the belief in the importance of liberty and equal rights. Liberals espouse a wide array of views depending on their understanding of these principles, but generally, liberals support ideas such as constitutionalism, liberal democracy, free and fair elections, human rights,...
, opposition to statism
Statism
Statism is a term usually describing a political philosophy, whether of the right or the left, that emphasises the role of the state in politics or supports the use of the state to achieve economic, military or social goals...
and collectivism
Collectivism
Collectivism is any philosophic, political, economic, mystical or social outlook that emphasizes the interdependence of every human in some collective group and the priority of group goals over individual goals. Collectivists usually focus on community, society, or nation...
). The theme of gradual reform was seen by the Alliance as the antidote to the opponents - according to the party - of the Republic, that is the collectivists (the SFIO, and in 1920 the Section Française de l'Internationale Communiste
French Communist Party
The French Communist Party is a political party in France which advocates the principles of communism.Although its electoral support has declined in recent decades, the PCF retains a large membership, behind only that of the Union for a Popular Movement , and considerable influence in French...
)
1901-1920
In 1901, it supported the Bloc des gauchesBloc des gauches
The Bloc des gauches , aka Bloc républicain was a coalition of Republican political forces created during the French Third Republic in 1899 to contest the 1902 legislative elections...
around Waldeck-Rousseau, even if it tried to stand out by 1902. However it supported the policy of the bloc until 1907, when the presidency was entrusted to Émile Combes
Émile Combes
Émile Combes was a French statesman who led the Bloc des gauches's cabinet from June 1902 – January 1905.-Biography:Émile Combes was born in Roquecourbe, Tarn. He studied for the priesthood, but abandoned the idea before ordination. His anti-clericalism would later lead him into becoming a...
(1902–1905) who imposed, for the first time, the left-right divide. The Alliance demonstrated its difference from the right (the Republican Federation
Republican Federation
The Republican Federation was the largest conservative party during the French Third Republic, gathering together the liberal Orleanists rallied to the Republic. Founded in November 1903, it rivalized with the more secular and centrist Alliance démocratique...
and the ALP) by supporting the 1905 law. Above all, the ARD encouraged political circles including Alliancists and Radicals.
Faced with the disintegration of the bloc and the emergence of socialism, the Alliance sought to establish in 1907 a "democratic bloc" with the right which demonstrated its willingness to reinstate the discredited right to power in France. Between 1912 and 1914, the ARD supported the right-wing governments which included Raymond Poincaré
Raymond Poincaré
Raymond Poincaré was a French statesman who served as Prime Minister of France on five separate occasions and as President of France from 1913 to 1920. Poincaré was a conservative leader primarily committed to political and social stability...
, Aristide Briand
Aristide Briand
Aristide Briand was a French statesman who served eleven terms as Prime Minister of France during the French Third Republic and received the 1926 Nobel Peace Prize.- Early life :...
and Louis Barthou
Louis Barthou
Jean Louis Barthou was a French politician of the Third Republic.-Early years:He was born in Oloron-Sainte-Marie, Pyrénées-Atlantiques, and served as Deputy from that constituency. He was an authority on trade union history and law. Barthou was Prime Minister in 1913, and held ministerial office...
. During the same period, the Alliance operated a shift to the right on the political spectrum and ended the policy of mutual withdrawals with the Rad-Socs in electoral runoffs.
Meanwhile, the Alliance was transformed into a real party in 1911 by becoming the Republican Democratic Party (PRD), this strengthening of its structures was accompanied by an increase in its number of parliamentarians (from 39 MPs in 1902 to 125 1910; fifty senators in 1910) and that of its supporters (around 30,000 at the beginning of the 1910s). Several leaders of the ARD in 1914 tried to form, with Aristide Briand and the moderate left a Federation of the Lefts
Federation of the Lefts
The Federation of the Lefts was a French electoral coalition during the French Third Republic founded in January 1914 by members of the Democratic Republican Alliance such Aristide Briand, Alexandre Millerand and Louis Barthou to provide a centrist alternative to the left's coalition, led by the...
.
Undoubtedly, the Alliance weighed heavily on national policy as shown by the presence of its members in high cabinet positions (Émile Loubet
Émile Loubet
Émile François Loubet was a French politician and the 8th President of France.-Early life:He was born the son of a peasant proprietor and mayor of Marsanne . Admitted to the Parisian bar in 1862, he took his doctorate in law the next year...
, Armand Fallières
Armand Fallières
Clément Armand Fallières was a French politician, president of the French republic from 1906 to 1913.He was born at Mézin in the département of Lot-et-Garonne, France, where his father was clerk of the peace...
, Raymond Poincaré
Raymond Poincaré
Raymond Poincaré was a French statesman who served as Prime Minister of France on five separate occasions and as President of France from 1913 to 1920. Poincaré was a conservative leader primarily committed to political and social stability...
as President of the Republic, Louis Barthou
Louis Barthou
Jean Louis Barthou was a French politician of the Third Republic.-Early years:He was born in Oloron-Sainte-Marie, Pyrénées-Atlantiques, and served as Deputy from that constituency. He was an authority on trade union history and law. Barthou was Prime Minister in 1913, and held ministerial office...
and Raymond Poincaré
Raymond Poincaré
Raymond Poincaré was a French statesman who served as Prime Minister of France on five separate occasions and as President of France from 1913 to 1920. Poincaré was a conservative leader primarily committed to political and social stability...
as President of Council, as well as many ministries).
1920s
At the end of the war, the Alliance promoted new goals developed during its creation, that of creating a concentration of the centers. With its 140 MPs, it organized and led in this direction the National BlocNational Bloc (France)
The National Bloc was a center-right coalition in France which was in power from 1919 to 1924.- Elections of 1919 :Made up primarily of conservative right wing parties, such as the Fédération républicaine, Alliance démocratique, and Action libérale, the coalition had the support of various radical...
(1919–1924). The experience was not successful, because the Alliance became a prisoner of the right which constituted the bulk of the parliamentary majority. Thus, the failure of Aristide Briand cabinet (1921–1922) convinced its leaders to find practical ways to realize the doctrine of the just-middle, despite the fact that one of its members, Raymond Poincaré, occupied the post of President of the Council between 1922 to 1924.
The Alliance focused its political doctrine in line with that which prevailed when it was created, even though the generation of pre-war faded (Adolphe Carnot, Charles Pallu de la Barrière and so forth) and that a new generation took over, such as Charles Jonnart
Charles Jonnart
Charles Célestin Auguste Jonnart was a French politician.Born into a bourgeois family in Fléchin, Pas-de-Calais, Charles Jonnart was educated at Saint-Omer, then in Paris. Interested in the Algeria that he had visited as a young man, he was appointed in 1881 by Léon Gambetta to the office of...
its new president in 1920. Known as the PRDS, the Alliance professed its willingness to co-operate with the Radical-Socialist Party.
The party became the backbone of government including the Radical-Socialist Party following the fall of the Cartel des Gauches
Cartel des Gauches
The Cartel des gauches was the name of the governmental alliance between the Radical-Socialist Party and the socialist French Section of the Workers' International after World War I , which lasted until the end of the Popular Front . The Cartel des gauches twice won general elections, in 1924 and...
. Nevertheless, the Alliance could not get the Radicals to rally around a centrist party, the opposition crystallizing around the issue of secularism, the intervention of the state or in terms of foreign policy (contrast between Aristide Briand and Raymond Poincaré).
1930s
Pierre-Étienne Flandin took the chair of the Alliance in 1933 with the aim to reorganize the party in a way which Louis Marin had done ten years earlier, with the Republican FederationRepublican Federation
The Republican Federation was the largest conservative party during the French Third Republic, gathering together the liberal Orleanists rallied to the Republic. Founded in November 1903, it rivalized with the more secular and centrist Alliance démocratique...
. Until then a grouping more than a party, the Alliance became a party which established a hierarchy and became more centralized. The party is expanded its regional structures and increased the number of member to about 20,000 in 1936.
Flandin's leadership marked the end of the Alliance's overtures to the Radicals. However, the Alliance was torn on the doctrinal front. Common ground on the base of the defense of institutions, the middle class and the rejection of the extremes disintegrated due to divergent views adopted by the personalities of the Alliance: those of Pierre-Étienne Flandin around the group of Republicans of the Left, those of René Besse
René Besse
René Besse was a French politician.Besse was Minister of Pensions for a few months in the second government of Albert Sarraut and Minister of Veterans and Pensioners from 18 September 1938 to 21 March 1940 in the third government of Édouard Daladier....
around the Independents of the Left
Independents of the Left
The Independents of the Left was a French parliamentary group in the Chamber of Deputies of France during the French Third Republic. The group was one of the many groups which claimed membership in the Democratic Republican Alliance, later Democratic Alliance, or the Independent Radicals...
, those of Paul Reynaud
Paul Reynaud
Paul Reynaud was a French politician and lawyer prominent in the interwar period, noted for his stances on economic liberalism and militant opposition to Germany. He was the penultimate Prime Minister of the Third Republic and vice-president of the Democratic Republican Alliance center-right...
, and André Tardieu
André Tardieu
André Pierre Gabriel Amédée Tardieu was three times Prime Minister of France and a dominant figure of French political life in 1929-1932.-Biography:...
around the Republican Centre
Republican Centre
The Republican Centre was a French parliamentary group in the Chamber of Deputies of France during the French Third Republic founded in 1932 by André Tardieu following his failure at transforming the Democratic Alliance into a large liberal-conservative party....
. These divergences were apparent during the Léon Blum
Léon Blum
André Léon Blum was a French politician, usually identified with the moderate left, and three times the Prime Minister of France.-First political experiences:...
government where Alliance members ranged from moderate support of the laws of the left-wing Popular Front
Popular Front (France)
The Popular Front was an alliance of left-wing movements, including the French Communist Party , the French Section of the Workers' International and the Radical and Socialist Party, during the interwar period...
, the division of the party was sensitive by 1938 between a pacifist majority (Flandin) supporting the Munich Agreement
Munich Agreement
The Munich Pact was an agreement permitting the Nazi German annexation of Czechoslovakia's Sudetenland. The Sudetenland were areas along Czech borders, mainly inhabited by ethnic Germans. The agreement was negotiated at a conference held in Munich, Germany, among the major powers of Europe without...
and the hawkish minority (Reynaud) opposing the Agreement. More profoundly, this division also reflected the significant oppositions within the party concerning the reform of the state and institutions between 1933 and 1934.
Since then, the Alliance struggled to maintain a centrist position in a republic no longer managed by the centre. It became, on the contrary, a party which showed the different opinions chosen by the men from the Republican and parliamentary rights to address the social and political crises of the thirties.
Names
- Democratic Republican Alliance (Alliance Républicaine Démocratique, ARD): 1901 - 1911
- Republican Democratic Party (Parti Républicain Démocratique, PRD): 1911 - June 30, 1920
- Democratic, Republican, and Social Party (Parti Républicain Démocratique et Social, PRDS) June 30, 1920–1926
- Democratic Alliance (Alliance Démocratique, AD): 1926 - 1940/1978
Popular vote
- 1902French legislative election, 1902Legislative elections were held in France on 27 April and 11 May 1902.This was a success for the Left Block which was composed by alliance between Socialists, Radicals, and the left-wing of the old Opportunist Republicans which merged after the Affaire Dreyfus crisis, to save the parlementary form...
: 5.96% - 1906French legislative election, 1906The 1906 general election was held on 6 and 20 May 1906.-Popular Vote:-Parliamentary Groups:- Sources :*...
: 7.99% - 1910French legislative election, 1910-Popular Vote:-Parliamentary Groups:- Sources :*...
: 12.13% - 1914French legislative election, 1914The 1914 general elections were held on 26 April and 10 May 1914, months before the outbreak of the First World War. The left won a landslide victory, though the entirety of the chambers, from Catholics to socialists united during World War I to form the Union sacrée.-Popular Vote:-Parliamentary...
: 28.55% - 1919French legislative election, 1919The 1919 legislative election, the first election held after World War I, was held on 16 and 30 November 1919.Proportional representation by department replaced the Two-round system by arrondissements in use since 1889...
: 10.91% (with other centre-right parties) - 1924: 11.72% (with other centre-right parties)
- 1928French legislative election, 1928Legislative elections in France to elect the 14th legislature of the French Third Republic were held on 22 and 29 April 1928.-Popular Vote:-Parliamentary Groups:...
: 23.19% (with other centre-right parties) - 1932: 13.57%
- 1936French legislative election, 1936French legislative elections to elect the 16th legislature of the French Third Republic were held on 26 April and 3 May 1936. This was the last legislature of the Third Republic and the last election before the Second World War. The number of candidates set a record, with 4,807 people vying for 618...
: 25.76% (with other centre-right parties and the PDP)
Seats
The Democratic Alliance never formed a homogeneous parliamentary group, instead splitting into various groups. The following data gives the combined seat numbers for all groups in which Alliance members sat in. It is possible that some of these members were not actually members of the Alliance.| Year | Seats |
|---|---|
| 1902 | 62 |
| 1906 | 90 |
| 1910 | 72 |
| 1914 | 120 |
| 1919 | 200 |
| 1924 | 121 |
| 1928 | 180 |
| 1932 | 147 |
| 1936 | 82 |
See also
- Albert LebrunAlbert LebrunAlbert François Lebrun was a French politician, President of France from 1932 to 1940. He was the last president of the Third Republic. He was a member of the center-right Democratic Republican Alliance .-Biography:...
, member of the AD - Liberalism and radicalism in FranceLiberalism and radicalism in FranceLiberalism and radicalism in France do not form the same type of ideology. In fact, the main line of conflict in France during the 19th century was between monarchist opponents of the Republic and supporters of the Republic...
- France in the twentieth centuryFrance in the twentieth centuryThe History of France from 1914 to the present includes:*the later years of the Third Republic *World War I *World War II *the Fourth Republic *the Fifth Republic -Geography:...
- Paul ReynaudPaul ReynaudPaul Reynaud was a French politician and lawyer prominent in the interwar period, noted for his stances on economic liberalism and militant opposition to Germany. He was the penultimate Prime Minister of the Third Republic and vice-president of the Democratic Republican Alliance center-right...