What is the main conservative party in France?
The Republicans (France)
The Republicans (; LR) is a centre-right, Gaullist and conservative political party in France.
Philippe Cochet
He has been a member of the French National Assembly since 2002, most recently re-elected in 2007 for the Rhône department. He is a member of the mainstream conservative party, the UMP.
Racism in France
National Front is an extreme-right party which openly claims its nationalist and conservative ideals. This party was initially led by Jean Marie Le Pen, who has often been considered to be the spokesperson and face of the party. Le Pen has been reprimanded many times for racist actions and the National Front has been held responsible for a couple of race-based crimes. For example, in 1995, three militants of the National Front party shot at two young boys of African origins who were running to catch their bus. One of the young boys, Ali Ibrahim, a 17-year-old from the Comoros Islands, was fatally wounded. Bruno Megret, who was 2nd in command of the National Front at the time, stated that this event was due to "massive and uncontrollable immigration" in France. He added that he was thankful that his militants had been armed. In 2011, Marine Le Pen, Jean Le Pen’s daughter, took over as President of the National Front party and also expressed her anti-Islamic and anti-immigration views.
List of political parties in France
This was the case until the 2017 legislative election, when Emmanuel Macron's party, La République En Marche!, won a large majority in parliament. This caused a political upset, as it was the first time in French history when one of the two main contemporary parties had not won.
Conservative Party of Quebec
In 2009, former Union Nationale Members of the National Assembly of Quebec (MNAs) Serge Fontaine and Bertrand Goulet announced the formation of a new Conservative Party of Quebec.
History of the French Communist Party
Initially allotted a minor share in Mitterrand's government, the PCF resigned in 1984 as the government turned towards fiscal orthodoxy. Under Marchais the party continued loyal to the Soviet Union up to its fall in 1991, and made little move towards "Eurocommunism". Extensive reform of the party's structure and policies had to wait until 1994, when Robert Hue became leader. The party's renunciation of much traditional communist dogma after this did little to stem its declining popularity, although it entered government again in 1997 as part of the Plural Left coalition. Elections in 2002 gave worse results than ever for the PCF, now led by Marie-George Buffet. Under Buffet, the PCF turned away from parliamentary strategy and sought broader social alliances. It condemned the Nicolas Sarkozy government's response to riots in 2005 and adopted a more militant stance towards the European Union. Buffet's attempt to stand in the 2007 presidential election as a common candidate of the "anti-liberal left" had little success. To maintain a presence in parliament after 2007 the party's few remaining deputies had to group together with those from The Greens and others to create the Democratic and Republican Left group (GDR). Subsequently a broader electoral coalition, the Left Front (FG), was formed including the PCF, Jean-Luc Mélenchon's Left Party (PG), United Left, and others. The FG has continued up to the present and has brought the French communists somewhat better electoral results, at the price of some tension within the party and with other parties in the FG. With Pierre Laurent as leader since 2010, in a symbolic move the party no longer includes the hammer and sickle logo on its membership cards.
Radical centrism
Several observers have identified Emmanuel Macron, elected President of France in 2017, as a radical centrist. Anne Applebaum of "The Washington Post" says Macron "represents the brand-new radical center", as does his political movement, En Marche!, which Applebaum translates as "forward". She notes a number of politically bridging ideas Macron holds – for example, "He embraces markets, but says he believes in 'collective solidarity'". A professor of history, Robert Zaretsky, writing in "Foreign Policy", argues that Macron's radical centrism is "the embodiment of a particularly French kind of center – the extreme center". He points to Macron's declaration that he is "neither left nor right", and to his support for policies, such as public-sector austerity and major environmental investments, that traditional political parties might find contradictory.
La République En Marche!
La République En Marche! is a pro-European movement that accepts globalization and wants to modernize and moralize French politics. The movement generally accepts members from other parties at a higher rate than other political parties in France and does not impose any fees on members who want to join. The party is seen as the most pro-European party in France, but it is not currently part of any European parliamentary group.
Union for a Popular Movement
Critics of Sarkozy claimed it was illegal for him to name the party "Republicans" because every French person is a republican in that 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 bureau on 5 May 2015 and approved by the party membership on 28 May by an online yes vote of 83.28% on a 45.74% participation after a court ruling in favor of Sarkozy. Similarly the new party statutes are adopted by 96.34% of voters and the composition of the new party's political bureau by 94.77%.
The Republicans thus became the legal successor of the UMP as the leading centre-right party in France.
Third party (Canada)
Following the 1993 election, the division between the "main" and the "third" parties started to break down, due to the poor showing by the Progressive Conservative Party and the rise of the Reform Party and the Quebec-based Bloc Québécois. While the Bloc could never form a government because it never contested ridings outside Quebec, the Reform Party and its successor Canadian Alliance had some modest success and eventually merged with the Progressive Conservative Party to form the new Conservative Party which formed the federal government from 2006–15.
2019 European Parliament election in France
The table below shows the composition of the delegation of France to the European Parliament as of 22 January 2019.
The table below summarizes the current positions of parties with regard to the 2019 European elections in France.
The leadership of the New Anticapitalist Party (NPA) initially voted in favor of a common list with Lutte Ouvrière (LO) with its national political council on 6 and 7 October 2018 voting 37–22 (with 5 abstentions and 10 non-participants) in favor of an alliance in the 2019 European elections; however, in November 2018, the parties acknowledged the failure to arrive to an agreement for a common list. The annual party congress of Lutte Ouvrière on 8 and 9 December voted to present an autonomous list, with spokeswoman and former presidential candidate Nathalie Arthaud announcing that she would be its lead candidate. Arthaud said the party refused an alliance with the NPA because the interests of workers were not a priority for the latter, and because she did not want to run a campaign on "all the struggles that can be fought, from ecology to feminism".
2010 French regional elections
Strong from its excellent result in the European elections, the Europe Ecology coalition was renewed around the Greens and associated parties and movements. Europe Ecology will run independently in all regions, with the intention of supporting the left in runoffs. However, the party's ultimate goal would be to wrest control of a major region, such as Île-de-France from the PS. The coalition's candidates include the researcher Philippe Meirieu, magistrate Laurence Vichnievsky, the rural activist François Dufour or Augustin Legrand of the homeless' association "les Enfants de Don Quichotte".
Renew Party
The party has been compared to Emmanuel Macron's "En Marche!" party in France. and has been supported by the French MP Amélie de Montchalin who is also the whip of the majority in the French National Assembly. According to the party's website, its core aim is to renew UK politics, address inequality and division in the country, and stop Brexit. The party has campaigned throughout the UK since its launch and attended the People's Vote march of October 2018, alongside other pro-European individuals and groups.
Protestantism in France
Protestants form a minority of 3% in France. Various churches shaped by Evangelicalism have been the main reason behind the current rise of Protestantism in the country, while Calvinists and Lutherans are declining, and in 2013 large parts of these groups merged into the United Protestant Church of France.
Liberalism and radicalism in France
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 renamed The Republicans in 2015, or the Union of Democrats and Independents, launched in 2012.
The Centrists
It supports a greater role for the French Parliament and some in the party favour the introduction of mixed member proportional (MMP) or a German electoral system for parliamentary elections. Like many French centrist parties descended from the centrist Christian democratic ideals, it is strongly Europhile and supports increased European control over the economy, environment, immigration, energy and research.It is hard to pinpoint the geographic distribution of the NC's vote since most of its candidates run without UMP opposition. The party is strong institutionally in the Loir-et-Cher, where it holds two of the department's three seats and the presidency of the general council.
1956 French legislative election
The far-right, led by Pierre Poujade, re-appeared at about the same time. He was a critic of "fiscalism", and leader of a shopkeepers and craftsmen's movement. Many voters seemed tired of the political system's numerous ministerial crises, and he had much support in the rural areas, which were in decline.
The anticipated legislative elections took place when Faure was defeated by the National Assembly. Even though the French Communist Party re-emerged as the country's most popular party (for the last time in its history), it did not join the government. A coalition was formed behind Mendès-France and advocated a peaceful resolution of the Algerian conflict. This Republican Front was composed of the French Section of the Workers' International (SFIO, socialist party) of Guy Mollet, the Radical Party of Pierre Mendès-France, the Democratic and Socialist Union of the Resistance of François Mitterrand and the National Centre of Social Republicans of Jacques Chaban-Delmas. Faure was excluded from the Radical Party – in response he transformed the Rally of the Republican Lefts (which had been abandoned by those groups which had now joined the Republican Front) into a party that he led, and he campaigned with the center-right parties. 
The French Communist Party remained the largest party and the Republican Front obtained a relative majority in order to end the Algerian War.
List of conservative parties in Canada
In Quebec, the "Union Nationale" was an important conservative party that formed the government for twenty-five of the thirty-four years between 1936 when it first formed government to 1970 when the last UN government was defeated. It was founded by a merger of the Quebec Conservative with a small faction that had split from the Quebec Liberal Party. There have been two attempts to revive the Conservative banner in Quebec, the Progressive Conservative Party of Quebec in the 1980s and the modern Quebec Conservative Party founded in 2009. The Action démocratique du Québec was a conservative split from the Quebec Liberal Party and existed from 1994 until 2012 when it merged with the Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ). At its peak in the 2007 Quebec election, the ADQ won over 30% of the vote and formed the official opposition. Équipe Autonomiste was formed by former ADQ supporters after its merger with the CAQ.
2017 French legislative election
In the aftermath of the legislative elections, the split between Macron-compatible "constructives" within the Republicans (LR) and the rest of the party re-emerged. On 21 June, Thierry Solère announced the creation of a new common group in the National Assembly with the Union of Democrats and Independents (UDI) likely to contain the 18 UDI deputies and about 15 LR. The formation of two parliamentary groups on the right represented a symbolic divorce to the two threads on the right (the moderates and the hardliners) and the end of the old Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) which had been created in 2002 to unite the right and centre. The French Communist Party (PCF), la France Insoumise (FI), Socialist Party (PS), La République En Marche! (REM), and Democratic Movement (MoDem) also sought to form separate parliamentary groups.
Ecologist Party
The Ecologist Party (founded as écologistes !) is a centre-left French political party created in September 2015 by François de Rugy, the president of the Ecologist group in the National Assembly and Jean-Vincent Placé, the president of the Ecologist group in the Senate.
French Communist Party
Currently, the PCF retains some strength in suburban Paris, in the Nord section of the old coal mining area in the Nord-Pas-de-Calais, the industrial harbours of Le Havre and Dieppe, in some departments of central France, such as Allier and Cher (where a form of sharecropping existed, in addition to mining and small industrial-mining centres such as Commentry and Montceau-les-Mines), the industrial mining region of northern Meurthe-et-Moselle (Longwy) and in some cities of the south, such as the industrial areas of Marseille and nearby towns, as well as the working-class suburbs surrounding Paris (the "ceinture rouge"), Lyon, Saint-Étienne, Alès and Grenoble. The PCF is also strong in the Cévennes mountains, a left-wing rural anti-clerical stronghold with a strong Protestant minority.
National Centre of Independents and Peasants
The National Centre of Independents and Peasants ("Centre National des Indépendants et Paysans", CNIP or CNI) is a liberal-conservative and conservative-liberal political party in France, founded in 1951 by the merger of the National Centre of Independents (the heir of the French Republican conservative-liberal tradition, many party members came from the Democratic Republican Alliance) with the Peasant Party and the Republican Party of Liberty.
The Patriots (France)
The Patriots (; LP) is a nationalist and hard Eurosceptic political party in France. It was founded by former Vice President of the Front National, Florian Philippot and registered on 29 September 2017.
Conservative Order
The Congress of Vienna was only the beginning of a conservative reaction bent on containing the liberal and nationalist forces unleashed by the French revolution. Metternich and most of the other participants at the Congress of Vienna were representatives of the ideology known as conservatism. Conservatism generally dates back to 1790 when the best-known figure of conservatism, Edmund Burke, wrote "Reflections on the Revolution in France". Burke, however, was not the only kind of conservative; Joseph de Maistre was a very influential spokesperson for a counterrevolutionary and authoritarian conservatism. De Maistre believed in hereditary monarchies because they would bring "order to society," a commodity in short supply in his eyes after the chaos of the French Revolution. Despite differences, most conservatives held to some general principles and beliefs, those being:Many conservatives, such as Metternich, were not opposed to reforming governments, but said that such changes must be taken gradually, and that radical revolutions are not aimed at benefiting the masses, but rather are simply a power grab by the new middle-class.
Christian Democratic Party (France)
The PCD is a Christian democratic social conservative party, opposed to gay marriage, abortion and euthanasia.
2019 European Parliament election in France
On 31 May, the three figures of the "The Lovers of France" presented a "common program" with president of the European Conservatives and Reformists group Ryszard Legutko in attendance, coinciding with the departure the same day of FN MEP Bernard Monot to join the party and the publication of an open letter by Le Pen inviting Dupont-Aignan to form a common list, an invitation that was apparently already privately declined, and that Dupont-Aignan publicly rejected on 3 June. However, the two agreed to review the situation again in October. The alliance between DLF and the ECR group for the European elections was made official on 21 December. On 23 September, Dupont-Aignan officially announced that he intended to lead a "union list" of the right in the 2019 European elections, a proposal which Wauquiez struck down on 11 October. Questioned by "Le Parisien" on 27 September, Dupont-Aignan confirmed that he would continue to reside within his constituency if elected as an MEP, with his alternate Lisa Haddad taking his place in the National Assembly. In an open letter obtained by Agence France-Presse on 5 October, 19 regional councillors elected under the label of the National Front in the 2015 regional elections announced their support for Dupont-Aignan's initiative for a union list. RN MEP Sylvie Goddyn, who was expelled from the party on 19 October 2018 after indicating her support for Dupont-Aignan's initiative, will be on the party's list, as will Poisson. Dupont-Aignan also secured the support of former MEP and LR member Hervé Fabre-Aubrespy and Véronique Besse, member of the Movement for France (MPF) and mayor of Les Herbiers. According to a report in "Le Figaro" published on 23 November, Dupont-Aignan also sought to invite Jean Lassalle to lead his list, though the latter declined. In November, former minister and LR member Thierry Mariani confirmed that he had received offers to join the DLF and RN lists, and would make his decision in early January. Jeannette Bougrab was also considering joining the DLF list as of January 2019.
Radical Party (France)
Founded in 1901, it was the oldest active political party in France at the time of its dissolution. Coming from the Radical Republican tradition, the Radical Party upheld the principles of private property, social justice and secularism. The Radicals were originally a left-wing group, but with the emergence of the French Section of the Workers' International (SFIO) in 1905 they shifted gradually towards the political centre. In 1926, its right wing split off to form the Unionist (or National) Radicals. In 1972, the left-wing of the party split off to form the centre-left Radical Party of the Left (PRG). The Radical Party then affiliated with the centre-right, becoming one of the founder parties of the Union for French Democracy (UDF) in 1978. In 2002, the party split from the UDF and became an associate party of the Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) and were represented on the Liaison Committee for the Presidential Majority prior to launching The Alliance (ARES) in 2011 and the Union of Democrats and Independents (UDI) in 2012.
Conservative Party (UK)
At a European level, the Conservatives are members of the Alliance of Conservatives and Reformists in Europe (ACRE), which unites centre-right parties in opposition to a federal European Union, through which the Conservatives have ties to the Ulster Unionist Party and the governing parties of Israel and Turkey, Likud and the Justice and Development Party respectively. In the European Parliament, the Conservative Party's MEPs sit in the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group, which is affiliated to the ACRE. Party leader David Cameron pushed the foundation of the ECR, which was launched in 2009, along with the Czech Civic Democratic Party and the Polish Law and Justice, before which the Conservative Party's MEPs sat in the European Democrats, which had become a subgroup of the European People's Party in the 1990s. Since the 2014 European election, the ECR group has been the third-largest group, with the largest members being the Conservatives (nineteen MEPs), Law and Justice (eighteen MEPs), the Liberal Conservative Reformers (five MEPs), and the Danish People's Party and New Flemish Alliance (four MEPs each).
List of conservative parties in Canada
In 1993, the Progressive Conservatives went from majority government to holding only two of 295 seats in the House of Commons of Canada, this was the first time they had done worse than third place in the House, and only the second time they had placed worse than second (the other time being in the 1921 election): they in fact placed fifth and last in terms of parties represented in the commons behind the Liberals, the Reform Party of Canada, the Bloc Québécois and the New Democratic Party.
Conservative Party of Canada (1867–1942)
The principal difference between the Conservatives and the Liberals in this period and well into the twentieth century was that Conservatives were in favour of "imperial preference" (a protectionist system in which tariffs would be levied against imports from outside the British Empire) and strong political and legal links with Britain while Liberals promoted free trade and continentalism (that is closer ties to the United States) and greater independence from Britain.
Macdonald died in 1891 and, without his leadership, the Conservative coalition began to unravel under the pressure of sectarian tensions between Catholic French Canadians and British imperialists who tended to be anti-French and anti-Catholic. The government's mis-handling of the grievances that aroused the Red River Rebellion and the North-West Rebellion, and its hanging of their leader Louis Riel), and the Manitoba Schools Question exacerbated tensions within the Conservative Party and suppressed much of the support among Quebecois for the Conservative party, a problem only smoothed over by the 1980s.
The Republicans (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 used to be one of the two major political parties in the French Fifth Republic along with the centre-left Socialist Party (PS), and, following the 2017 legislative election, it remains the second largest party in the National Assembly (behind President Macron's REM). LR is a member of the European People's Party, the Centrist Democrat International, and the International Democrat Union.
Conservative Party of Canada
The Conservative Party of Canada (), colloquially known as the Tories, is a federal political party in Canada. Formed in 2003 from the multiple right-wing parties which have existed in Canada for over a century, who historical grouped core membership into two camps, "Red Tories" and "Blue Tories". The party sits at the centre-right to the right-wing of the Canadian political spectrum, with the Liberal Party of Canada positioned to the center-left. Like their federal Liberal rivals, the party is defined as a "big tent", welcoming a broad variety of members. The party's leader is Andrew Scheer, who serves as Leader of the Official Opposition.
1945 French legislative election
Unsurprisingly, the "Three-parties alliance" won a large majority in the National Assembly. The Radical Party, which had been the leading party of the left in the Third Republic, suffered a catastrophic result, and the right was equally destroyed (because of its support of Marshal Philippe Pétain). They appeared as being the forces of the past, as symbols of capitulation to Nazi Germany and the regime which collapsed in 1940. The French Communist Party, which had already doubled its score in the previous 1936 elections, came out on top with around 26% of votes and 159 seats. While the PCF and SFIO favored a unicameral parliamentary regime, the MRP favored a bicameral legislature. De Gaulle advocated a presidential government. He resigned in January 1946. The PCF and SFIO proposals were rejected in the 5 May 1946 referendum. This assembly was dissolved.
! style="background-color:#E9E9E9;text-align:left;vertical-align:top;" colspan=2 |Parties and coalitions
! style="background-color:#E9E9E9;text-align:right;" | Abbr.
! style="background-color:#E9E9E9;text-align:right;" | Votes
! style="background-color:#E9E9E9;text-align:right;" | %
! style="background-color:#E9E9E9;text-align:right;" | Seats
Europe Ecology
Strong from its excellent result in the European elections, the Europe Écologie coalition was renewed around The Greens and associated parties and movements. Europe Écologie decided to run independently in all regions, with the intention of supporting the Left in runoffs. However, the party's ultimate goal was said to be to wrest control of a major region, such as Ile-de-France from the PS. The coalition's candidates included the researcher Philippe Meirieu, magistrate Laurence Vichnievsky, the rural activist François Dufour or Augustin Legrand of the homeless' association "Les Enfants de Don Quichotte".Europe Écologie received 12.19% of the national vote, or 2,373,922 votes, in the first round. The party came third overall behind the Socialist Party and conservative Union for a Popular Movement. It recorded good results in Rhônes-Alpes (17.82%), Île-de-France (16.58%) and Alsace (15.60%). In the second ballot, Europe Écologie entered joint lists with the Socialist Party, except in Brittany.
Sénat conservateur
The Sénat conservateur ("Conservative Senate") was an advisory body established in France during the Consulate following the French Revolution. It was established in 1799 under the Constitution of the Year VIII following the Napoleon Bonaparte-led Coup of 18 Brumaire. It lasted until 1814 when Napoleon Bonaparte was overthrown and the Bourbon monarchy was restored. The Sénat was a key element in Napoleon's regime.
2019 European Parliament election in France
With the political landscape on the left divided between numerous political parties and movements, several will be at risk of failing to arrive above the electoral threshold of 5% of votes needed to secure seats in the European Parliament. While the Socialist Party (PS), French Communist Party (PCF), and Génération.s – the movement of former PS presidential candidate Benoît Hamon – threatened by their electoral weakness, have called for unity on the left, their calls for unity have come into conflict with the desire of other parties to lead independent electoral lists, with Jean-Luc Mélenchon ruling out alliances with the other main parties on the left and Yannick Jadot, lead candidate for Europe Ecology – The Greens, categorically ruling out the party's participation in any common list. While the PS continued to wait for clarity regarding the potential return of Ségolène Royal to politics, her candidacy has was rejected by other parties on the left and she ultimately decided against running, while an initiative by Raphaël Glucksmann to bring together the various strands of the left has so far proven futile.
2017 French legislative election
Though the French Communist Party (PCF) formally supported the candidacy of Jean-Luc Mélenchon in the presidential election, it still ran its own candidates in the legislative elections. After Mélenchon's defeat in the first round of the presidential election, Pierre Laurent once again called for an alliance with la France Insoumise. Negotiations between the two failed to produce an agreement, and on 9 May la France Insoumise announced that it would continue on in the legislative elections without allying with the PCF. PCF candidates who sponsored the candidacy of Mélenchon in the presidential election did not face any opposing candidate from la France Insoumise. The PCF and FI were face-to-face in almost all constituencies, with the PCF planning to invest 535 candidates and FI almost as many, though the possibility of a withdrawal from 20 or so constituencies remained. On 16 May, the PCF published a list of 484 candidates invested in the legislative elections, refraining from appearing in a number of constituencies in favor of candidates from la France Insoumise, EELV, PS, or Ensemble! (Clémentine Autain). According to the PCF, 40% of its candidates are younger than 50, and 20% younger than 40, with an average age of 51; a quarter are retired, 26% employees, 20% civil servants, and 7% manual workers. PCF candidates are campaigning under the label of "PCF–Front de Gauche".
United Kingdom
The Conservative Party, the Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats (formerly as the Liberal Party) have, in modern times, been considered the UK's three major political parties, representing the British traditions of conservatism, socialism and liberalism, respectively. However, in both the 2015 and 2017 general elections, the Scottish National Party was the third-largest party by number of seats won, ahead of the Liberal Democrats. Most of the remaining seats were won by parties that contest elections only in one part of the UK: Plaid Cymru (Wales only); and the Democratic Unionist Party and Sinn Féin (Northern Ireland only). In accordance with party policy, no elected Sinn Féin members of parliament have ever attended the House of Commons to speak on behalf of their constituents because of the requirement to take an oath of allegiance to the monarch.
Conservatism in Canada
Though for most of the 1990s, the Tories enjoyed roughly the same electoral support as the Reform Party due to Canada's first-past-the-post system of elected representatives to the House of Commons, Reform dominated the position of Official Opposition. In 1999, the Reform Party was dissolved and joined by some right-wing members of the PC Party to create the Canadian Alliance, formally known as the Canadian Reform Conservative Alliance; however, this new enlarged party was unable to attract any real support east of Manitoba and was dissolved in 2003, merging with the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada to create the contemporary Conservative Party of Canada. This party, led by former Canadian Alliance leader Stephen Harper, won a minority government in the 2006 federal election, with 36% of the vote and 124 seats in the House of Commons out of 308.
2007 French legislative election
Between the two rounds of the presidential election, the UDF leader François Bayrou had announced the creation of a new political party, the Democratic Movement (MoDem), and refused to continue the alliance between centrists and the UMP. This strategy was dangerous for the centrist MPs, one month before the legislative election. Indeed, the ballot system for the election of the deputies favoured the coalitions to the detriment of the isolated parties. In this, contrary to Bayrou, the most part of the UDF deputies and senators called to vote for Nicolas Sarkozy in the second round of the presidential election, then joined the "Presidential Majority" and founded the New Centre. Incumbent president of the UDF group in the National Assembly, Hervé Morin, led this new political formation and was nominated Defense Minister. For the first time, François Bayrou was challenged by a right-wing candidate in his constituency.
Conservatism
Having its roots in the conservative Catholic Party, the Christian People's Party retained a conservative edge through the twentieth century, supporting the king in the Royal Question, supporting nuclear family as the cornerstone of society, defending Christian education and opposing euthanasia. The Christian People's Party dominated politics in post-war Belgium. In 1999, the party's support collapsed and it became the country's fifth largest party. Currently, the N-VA (nieuw-vlaamse alliantie/New Flemish Alliance) is the largest party in Belgium.
Conservatism
According to Alan Ware, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Greece, Iceland, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom retained viable conservative parties into the 1980s. Ware said that Australia, Germany, Israel, Italy, Japan, Malta, New Zealand, Spain and the United States had no conservative parties, although they had either Christian democrats or liberals as major right-wing parties. Canada, Ireland and Portugal had right-wing political parties that defied categorization: the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada; Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and Progressive Democrats in Ireland; and the Social Democratic Party of Portugal. Since then, the Swiss People's Party has moved to the extreme right and is no longer considered to be conservative.
Radical Party (France)
The Radical-Socialist and Radical Republican Party () was a liberal and social-liberal political party in France. It was also often referred to simply as the Radical Party () or, to prevent confusion with other French Radical parties, as the "Parti radical valoisien" (after its headquarters on the ), abbreviated to Rad, PR or PRV.
Christian Democratic Party (France)
The Christian Democratic Party (, PCD) is a conservative Christian-democratic party in France. The party was known as the Forum of Social Republicans (FRS) between 2001 and June 2009 before being adopting its current name. The party was founded by Christine Boutin.
2017 French presidential election
Duflot was considered the early favorite, though she initially opposed holding a primary, aware of the risk that she might lose it; and highlighted her experience in government. Her main proposal was to incorporate the fight against climate change into the Constitution. Jadot was perceived as her main challenger; elected as an MEP in 2009, he worked with Greenpeace France from 2002 to 2008, specializing in transatlantic trade and climate issues. With Thomas Piketty and Daniel Cohn-Bendit, he sought a "primary of all the left", which failed to materialize. He rejected the "candidacy awaited by the political-media world" – that of Duflot, among others – and represented an anti-Duflot force from the party's right wing. Rivasi only barely managed to qualify for the primary, earlier lacking the necessary sponsorships. Like Jadot, she represented the radical wing of the party – albeit on its left flank – and served as deputy for Drôme from 1997 to 2002 and led Greenpeace France from 2003 to 2004. Delli, the daughter of Algerian immigrants, first became involved in politics as part of collective movements, and sought to become an MEP in 2009 after a stint as parliamentary assistant to Marie-Christine Blandin. Also of the party's left-wing, she declared that she would defend a "popular ecology".
Conservatism
The first established use of the term in a political context originated in 1818 with François-René de Chateaubriand during the period of Bourbon Restoration that sought to roll back the policies of the French Revolution. Historically associated with right-wing politics, the term has since been used to describe a wide range of views. There is no single set of policies regarded as conservative because the meaning of conservatism depends on what is considered traditional in a given place and time. Thus conservatives from different parts of the world—each upholding their respective traditions—may disagree on a wide range of issues. Edmund Burke, an 18th-century politician who opposed the French Revolution but supported the American Revolution, is credited as one of the main theorists of conservatism in Great Britain in the 1790s.
2012 French presidential election
Jean-Luc Mélenchon is the candidate of the Left Front, which includes in particular the French Communist Party and the Left Party. (He is a member of the latter.) He has been described as the surprise or revelation of the campaign, with his level of support in opinion polls rising from 5% in October 2011 to around 15% (and sometimes up to 17%) by the end of the campaign. He finished in the first round of balloting with 11.10% of the national electorate, placing him fourth in the field of 10 ♠s. He inaugurated the practice of giant open-air meetings, which the two leading candidates then adopted in turn. A former French teacher, he was noted for his eloquent style and oratory, but also for his argumentative relationship with journalists, and occasional insults; he notably described Marine Le Pen as "half-demented". He proposed raising the minimum wage to €1,700; setting a maximum wage differential of 1 to 20 in all businesses, so that employers wishing to increase their own salaries would also have to increase those of their employees; setting social and environmental norms which businesses would have to respect in order to receive public subsidies; supporting social enterprises through government procurement; taxing imports which do not meet certain social and environmental norms; and reestablishing 60 as the legal retirement age with a full pension. There would be an "ecological planification" towards a green, sustainable economy, backed by a "green rule" ("règle verte") to be inscribed in the Constitution. On tax, he has proposed a progressive taxation, with higher taxes on the wealthy and a 100% tax rate beyond an income of €360,000 (thereby creating a maximum wage); expatriate French nationals established in a country with a lower tax rate than in France would pay the difference in tax in France. Businesses creating jobs, paying higher wages and/or providing training would receive tax cuts. Healthcare costs would be fully reimbursed by the state, and the right to die would be recognised. The right to abortion would be secured through inclusion in the Constitution. Homosexual couples would have the right to marry and adopt. Naturalisation of foreign residents would be facilitated, and foreign residents would have the right to vote in local elections. A constitutional convention would be assembled, with an aim in particular to increase the prerogatives of Parliament and diminish the powers of the President; all elections would be based on proportional representation, with gender parity.
Liberal conservatism
In this context, some traditionally Christian-democratic parties (such as Christian-Democratic and Flemish in Belgium, the Christian Democratic Appeal in the Netherlands, the Christian Democratic Union in Germany and the People's Party in Austria) have become almost undistinguishable from other liberal-conservative parties. On the other hand, newer liberal-conservative parties (such as New Democracy in Greece, the Social Democratic Party in Portugal, People's Party in Spain, Forza Italia / The People of Freedom / Forza Italia in Italy, the Union for a Popular Movement / The Republicans in France and most centre-right parties from countries once belonging to the Eastern Bloc and Yugoslavia) have not adopted traditional labels, but their ideologies are also a mixture of conservatism, Christian democracy and liberalism.
1945 French legislative election
Symbol of the French Resistance to the German occupation and founder of the Free French Forces General Charles de Gaulle led a provisional government composed of the three main political forces of the Resistance: the French Communist Party (PCF), the French Section of the Workers' International (socialists, SFIO) and the Christian democratic Popular Republican Movement (MRP). It advocated an economic policy inspired by the programme of the National Council of Resistance: the creation of a Welfare State, and the nationalization of banks and major industrial companies (such as Renault). The opposition was composed of the parties which had dominated the pre-war governments of the Third Republic: the Radical Party and the classical Right.
Euroscepticism
Right-wing Eurosceptic parties include the Gaullist "Debout la République", and "Mouvement pour la France", which was part of Libertas, a pan-European Eurosceptic party. In the 2009 European Parliament elections, Debout la République received 1.77% of the national vote, and Libertas 4.8%. In a similar way to some moderate parties, the French right and far-right in general are naturally opposed to the EU, as they criticise France's loss of political and economic sovereignty to a supranational entity. Some of these hard Eurosceptic parties include the Popular Republican Union and the Front National (FN). Front National and Popular Republican Union both seek France's withdrawal from the EU and the euro, although Popular Republican Union also seeks France's withdrawal from NATO. The FN received 33.9% of the votes in the French presidential election, 2017, making it the largest Eurosceptic party in France.
History of conservatism in the United States
Except briefly in the 1860s-1870s, in the United States there has never been a national political party called the Conservative Party. All major American political parties support republicanism and the basic classical liberal ideals on which the country was founded in 1776, emphasizing liberty, the pursuit of happiness, the rule of law, the consent of the governed, opposition to aristocracy, and fear of corruption, coupled with equal rights. Political divisions inside the United States often seemed minor or trivial to Europeans, where the divide between the Left and the Right led to violent polarization, starting with the French Revolution.
Radical Party (France)
At 1902 legislative election, the Radical-Socialists and the Independent Radicals allied themselves with, to their immediate right, the conservative-liberals of the Democratic Alliance, and to their left the Socialists in the "Bloc des gauches" (Coalition of the Left), with the Radicals emerging the main political force. Émile Combes took the head of the "Bloc des gauches" cabinet and led a resolute anti-clerical policy culminating in the 1905 laic law which, along with the earlier Jules Ferry laws removing confessional influence from public education, formed the backbone of "laïcité", France's policy of combatting clericalism by actively excluding it from state institutions. From then on, the Radical-Socialist Party's chief aim in domestic policy was to prevent its wide-ranging set of reforms from being overturned by a return to power of the religious right.
List of conservative parties in Canada
The Progressive Conservative Party of Canada was the primary conservative party in Canada from 1942 to, at least, 1993. It was the descendant of Sir John A. Macdonald's Liberal-Conservative Party. The party had its roots in the Great Coalition of 1864 that paved the way for Canadian confederation and was known under various names but was generally referred to unofficially as the Tories or "Conservative Party". In 1942, it became "Progressive Conservative" upon the election of Liberal-Progressive Premier of Manitoba John Bracken as leader in that year.
2009 European Parliament election in France
The Europe Ecology was the surprise of these elections, with a remarkable 16.28% and the same number of MEPs as the Socialist Party. The green coalition's result was the best result ever for any French Green party, beating out the previous record set by Antoine Waechter in the 1989 European elections – 10.59%. The gains made by the Greens also came from the centrist MoDem led by François Bayrou. The MoDem won only 8.45%, a surprisingly low result for the centrist party, thought to be France's third party.
Alliance of Conservatives and Reformists in Europe
The "Alliance of Conservatives and Reformists in Europe" was founded as the "Alliance of European Conservatives and Reformists" on 1 October 2009, after the ECR political group was founded in the wake of the 2009 European Parliament election, and was officially recognised by the European Parliament in January 2010. Amongst ACRE's eight founding members the largest were the UK Conservative Party, the Polish PiS and the Czech ODS.
Republican Federation
The Republican Federation (, FR) was the largest conservative party during the French Third Republic, gathering together the liberal Orléanists rallied to the Republic.
Judaism and politics
In the 21st century, shifts are occurring. The Jewish community in Great Britain, one of the largest in the diaspora, is leaning conservative, as a poll published by the Jewish Chronicle in early 2015 shows. Of British Jews polled, 69% would vote for the Conservative Party, while 22% would vote for the Labour Party. This is in stark contrast to the rest of the voter population, which, according to a BBC poll, had Conservatives and Labor almost tied at about a third each. Jews have typically been a part of the British middle class, traditional home of the Conservative Party, though the number of Jews in working-class communities of London is in decline. The main voting bloc of poorer Jews in Britain now, made up primarily of ultra-Orthodox, votes "en masse" for the Conservatives. Attitudes toward Israel influence the vote of three out of four of British Jews. A shift toward conservatism has also been exhibited in France, where about half of the Jewish population is Sephardic. Jérôme Fourquet, director of the IFOP, the French polling organization, notes that there is a "pronounced preference" for right-wing politics among French Jews. During the 2007 election, Jews (Orthodox or not) represent the strongest pillar of support for Sarkozy after observant Catholics.
Conservative Party (Czech Republic)
The Conservative Party (), abbreviated to KONS, is a small centre-right political party in the Czech Republic. The party opposes socialism, and advocates economic liberalism and reduction of taxes and public spending.
Union for a Popular Movement
The Union for a Popular Movement ( ; UMP ) was a centre-right political party in France that was one of the two major contemporary political parties in France along with the centre-left Socialist Party (PS). The UMP was formed in 2002 as a merger of several centre-right parties under the leadership of President Jacques Chirac. In May 2015, the party was renamed and succeeded by The Republicans ("").
Movement of Progressives
The Movement of Progressives (, MDP; formerly known as the Progressive Unitary Movement) is a minor democratic-socialist political party in France. Their sole MP and their sole Senator are sitting along both Radical Party of the Left's parliamentary groups.
Political history of France
According to historian René Rémond's famous classification of the right-wings in France, this "libérale" tradition belongs to the Orleanist inheritance, while Gaullists inherited from Bonapartism and a tradition of state intervention issued from the National Council of Resistance (CNR)'s welfare state program after the war. However, neo-Gaullists have since rallied economic liberalism, with the result that modern French conservatives – such as the UMP, or before that the RPR, the UDF or the Independent Republicans – all supported economic liberalism. The so-called right-wing of the Socialist Party: François Hollande, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, Ségolène Royal have done likewise.
Conservative Party of Canada
The Conservative Party, while having no provincial wings, largely works with the former federal Progressive Conservative Party's provincial affiliates. There have been calls to change the names of the provincial parties from "Progressive Conservative" to "Conservative". However, there are other small "c" conservative parties with which the federal Conservative Party has close ties, such as the Saskatchewan Party and the British Columbia Liberal Party (not associated with the federal Liberal Party of Canada despite its name). The federal Conservative Party has the support of many of the provincial Conservative leaders. In Ontario, successive provincial PC Party leaders John Tory, Bob Runciman and Tim Hudak have expressed open support for Stephen Harper and the Conservative Party of Canada, while former Mike Harris cabinet members Tony Clement, and John Baird were ministers in Harper's government. In Quebec, businessman Adrien D. Pouliot leads a new Conservative Party of Québec which was formed in 2009 in the wake of the decline of the Action démocratique du Québec (ADQ) which had carried the support of many provincial conservatives.
Union for a Popular Movement
The UMP was the merger of the Gaullist-conservative Rally for the Republic (RPR), the conservative-liberal party Liberal Democracy (DL), a sizeable portion of the Union for French Democracy (UDF), more precisely the UDF's Christian Democrats (such as Philippe Douste-Blazy and Jacques Barrot), the Radical Party and the centrist Popular Party for French Democracy (both associate parties of the UDF until 2002). In the UMP four major French political families were thus represented: Gaullism, republicanism (the kind of liberalism put forward by parties like the Democratic Republican Alliance or the PR, heir of DL), Christian democracy ("Popularism") and radicalism.
Conservatism
In India, Narendra Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) represent conservative politics. The BJP is the largest right-wing conservative party. It promotes Hindu nationalism.
Alliance of Conservatives and Reformists in Europe
The Alliance of Conservatives and Reformists in Europe (ACRE), formerly known as the Alliance of European Conservatives and Reformists (AECR), is a conservative and eurosceptic European political party with a main focus on reforming the European Union (EU) on the basis of Eurorealism, as opposed to total rejection of the EU (anti-EU-ism). It currently has twenty-four member parties and three further independent members from twenty-one countries, in addition to seven regional partners worldwide.
List of conservative parties in Canada
The Reform Party was a populist conservative party based in Western Canada which cut into traditional PC support while the Bloc was a Quebec separatist party which cut into the support of the PCs in Quebec where they traditionally won support for their decentralization stance. Reform and the PCs finished with similar popular vote totals in the 1993 and subsequent elections but, under the first past the post electoral system the Reformers won many more seats due to their strong regional support in the West versus the thin national support for the PCs across Canada.
Centrist Alliance
The Centrist Alliance () (AC) is a centrist political party in France.
Protestantism in France
The Huguenots of the Reformed Church of France were followers of John Calvin, and became the major Protestant sect in France. A large portion of the population died in massacres or were deported from French territory following the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685. Today, the Huguenots number about one million, or about two percent of the population; They are most concentrated in southeastern France and the Cévennes region in the south. The Calvinist congregations in Alsace and Moselle are organised as the Protestant Reformed Church of Alsace and Lorraine (EPRAL).
Conservatism in Canada
In the latter half of the 20th-century, Canadian conservatism embraced neoliberal economic policies including free trade, seeking balanced budgets, and support of privatizations of Crown Corporations claimed to be better provided by the private sector. In this time division arose between the conservatives in Eastern and Western Canada as Western conservatives perceived Canada's federal parliament as being dominated by Eastern interests. This schism led to the creation of the Reform Party of Canada as a Western-based populist protest party promoting constitutional reform to balance the regions' interests and sought to expand into the East - especially Ontario - to displace the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada. While the PCs and Reform had some similar economic policies, Reformers wanted deeper cuts to government services than the PCs and Reformers had strong social conservative stances whereas the PCs were more neutral on controversial social issues. The PCs faced an unprecedented collapse in the 1993 Federal Election and Reform surpassed the PCs as the largest conservative party in Canada's parliament, after several elections of neither party making significant gains the two parties agreed to merge into the new Conservative Party of Canada in 2003.
Realigning election
1993 saw not only the sweeping success of the Liberals under Jean Chrétien, but also the fracturing the Progressive Conservatives' support base to regional parties in Quebec and the western provinces; resulting in a five party political system with the Liberals as the dominant party. Throughout Canadian history two parties had taken turns in government and opposition: the Liberals and the Progressive Conservatives (sometimes known as Liberal-Conservatives, Conservatives, Union and National Government). The Conservative majority election victories in 1984 and 1988 were based on a "Grand Coalition" between socially conservative populists from the West, Quebec nationalists, and fiscal conservatives from Ontario and the Maritimes, making it difficult for the Mulroney government to balance these diverse interests. During his second term, Mulroney's policies were unpopular, while the failure of the Meech Lake and Charlottetown Accords frustrated Quebec and stirred up Western alienation. New regional parties which formed in protest to Mulroney's government, the Bloc Québécois in Quebec and the Reform Party in the west won many seats formerly held by the PCs despite a lack of national support. The New Democratic Party, the longtime third party in parliament, fell from 43 seats to nine. The unpopularity of the provincial NDP governments in Ontario and BC reflected badly on the federal NDP, also their endorsement of the Charlottetown Accord and Quebec nationalism cost them support among organized labour and rural voters in the West, which switched their support to Reform. Meanwhile, the Progressive Conservatives were nearly wiped out, falling from 151 seats to only two—the worst defeat of a sitting government at the federal level.
Left Front (France)
The Left Front (, FG or FDG) was a French electoral alliance and a political movement created for the 2009 European elections by the French Communist Party and the Left Party when a left-wing minority faction decided to leave the Socialist Party, and the Unitarian Left (Gauche Unitaire), a group which left the New Anticapitalist Party. The alliance was subsequently extended for the 2010 regional elections and the 2012 presidential election and the subsequent parliamentary election.
Animalist Party
The Animalist Party () is a French political party focused on animal rights and against cruelty to animals, similar to other European animalist parties like PACMA (Spain) or Partij voor de Dieren (Nederlands).
French Communist Party
The French Communist Party inherited from the Jacobins the concept of France as a centralised, French-speaking, unitary state, with a unitary culture and it is opposed to the separatism and regional identity of other European minority groups native to the area of what consists the French Republic. For instance in 1984, the Soviet ethnographer Solomon Bruk (who had worked under Sergey Tolstov) published a study on France and mentioned the existence of other ethnic groups in the state such as Bretons, Corsicans, Alsatians, Basques, Catalans, Flemish and others. In response to this work, General Secretary Georges Marchais wrote a letter of protest in February 1984, complaining bitterly to the Secretariat of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.The PCF has two Presidents of the General Council – in the Val-de-Marne and Allier. It lost Seine-Saint-Denis, which it had held since the 1960s, to the PS in 2008.
Europe Ecology – The Greens
Europe Ecology – The Greens ( , EELV) is a green and centre-left political party in France. The party was formed on 13 November 2010 from the merger of The Greens and Europe Ecology.
List of Canadian federal general elections
Since 1980, the NDP has remained a presence in the Canadian parliament, but the situation amongst other non-government parties has been more complex. The Progressive Conservative Party never recovered from its spectacular defeat in the 1993 election (when it went from being the majority government with 169 seats, to just two seats and the loss of official party status). Right-wing politics has since seen the rise and fall of the Reform Party and the Canadian Alliance, followed by the rise to government of the new Conservative Party. Further, in 1993 the separatist Bloc Québécois won seats for the first time. It has been a constant presence in parliament since then.
History of French foreign relations
The Popular Republican Movement (MRP), a large moderate party based on the Catholic vote, dominated French foreign and colonial policies during most of the later 1940s and 1950s. Along with the French Socialist Party, it was the most energetic supporter in the country of European integration. It was also a strong backer of NATO and of close alliance with the United States, making it the most "Atlanticist" of French political parties. Its leaders, especially Georges Bidault and Paul Coste-Floret (foreign and colonial ministers respectively in several French coalition governments) were primary architects of France's hard-line colonial policies that culminated in long insurgencies in Vietnam (1946–1954) and Algeria (1954–1962), as well as a series of smaller insurrections and political crises elsewhere in the French Empire. The MRP eventually divided over the Algerian question in the late 1950s (with Bidault being an avid supporter of the OAS).
La République En Marche!
La République En Marche ! (frequently abbreviated REM, LRM or LREM, officially LaREM; possible translation: "The Republic on the move!"), sometimes called En Marche ! (; English translation: "Forward!", "Onward!", "Working!" or "On The Move!"), is a centrist, liberal and social-liberal political party in France. It was founded on 6 April 2016 by Emmanuel Macron, a former Minister of Economy, Industry and Digital Affairs, who was later elected President of France in the 2017 presidential election with 66.1% of the second-round vote. Macron considers La République En Marche! to be a progressive movement, uniting both the left and the right.
Agrarianism
In France, the Hunting, Fishing, Nature, Tradition party is a moderate conservative, agrarianist party, reaching a peak of 4.23% in the French presidential election, 2002. It would later on become affiliated to France's main conservative party, Union for a Popular Movement.
Tripartisme
However, Charles de Gaulle, who favored a presidential system, quit the government in 1946 and henceforth remained in the opposition until his triumphal return during the May 1958 crisis. For their part, the MRP, SFIO and PCF each achieved somewhere between 20% and 30% of the votes, with approximately 150 deputies each between September 1944 and May 1947. Afterwards, the PCF and de Gaulle's Rally of the French People (RPF) became France's main parties; however, both remained in opposition, because on their own they could not muster the absolute majority needed to form a government, and an alliance between them was inconceivable. The Three-Parties Alliance was succeeded in government by the Third Force, which comprised the Democratic and Socialist Union of the Resistance (UDSR), the SFIO and the MRP, with the Gaullists and the Communists forming the opposition.
Emmanuel Macron
Macron created the centrist political party En marche with the attempt to create a party that can cross partisan lines. Speaking on why he formed En marche, he said there is a real divide in France between "conservatives and progressives" His political platform during the 2017 French Presidential Election contained stances from both the right wing and the left wing which led to him being positioned as a "radical centrist" by Le Figaro. Macron has rejected the term "centrist" though political scientist Luc Rouban has compared his platform to former centrist president Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, who is the only other French president to have been elected on a centrist platform.
French Third Republic
Historians have turned their attention to the right in the interwar period, looking at various categories of conservatives and Catholic groups as well as the far right fascist movement. Conservative supporters of the old order were linked with the "haute bourgeoisie" (upper middle class), as well as nationalism, military power, the maintenance of the empire, and national security. The favorite enemy was the left, especially as represented by socialists. The conservatives were divided on foreign affairs. Several important conservative politicians sustained the journal "Gringoire," foremost among them André Tardieu. The "Revue des deux Mondes," with its prestigious past and sharp articles, was a major conservative organ.
French Communist Party
Although its electoral support has declined in recent decades, the PCF retains a strong influence in French politics, especially at the local level. In 2012, the PCF claimed 138,000 members including 70,000 who have paid their membership fees. This would make it the third largest party in France in terms of membership after the Republicans (LR) and the Socialist Party (PS).
Right-wing populism
In France, the main right-wing populist party is the National Front. Since Marine Le Pen's election at the head of the party in 2011, the National Front has established itself as one of the main political parties in France and also as the strongest and most successful populist party of Europe as of 2015.
French Popular Party
"In the name of the people and of the fatherland, I swear fidelity and devotion to the Parti Populaire Français, its ideals, and its leader. I swear to serve until the supreme sacrifice the cause of national and popular revolution which will leave a new, free and independent France." 
The PPF is generally regarded to be a fascist party in its ideological, as well as its practical, orientation. The party denounced parliamentarianism and sought to limit French democracy and remake French society according to its own, authoritarian beliefs. It was vehemently opposed to both Marxism and liberalism and also wished to rid France of Freemasonry, about which it was greatly concerned. The PPF were critical of the supremacy of rationalism in politics and desired a move towards politics dictated by emotion and will rather than reason. Intellectuals who are often viewed as fascists, notably Pierre Drieu La Rochelle, Ramón Fernandez, Alexis Carrel, Paul Chack, and Bertrand de Jouvenel, were members of the PPF at various times. Moreover, the PPF was anti-semitic. They had initially been ambiguous towards anti-Semitism, expressing a negative view of Jews in their literature (associating Jews with banking interests) but allowing a Jew, Alexandre Abremski, to sit on their Politburo until his death in 1938. In 1936, Doriot stated: "Our party [the PPF] is not anti-Semitic. It is a great national party that has better things to do than fight Jews." By 1938, PPF literature was filled with references to the "Judeo-masonic-bolshevik" conspiracy. As the PPF tended more towards fascism, and especially after the French defeat and the establishment of Vichy France, anti-Semitism became much more a central feature of party policy. In 1941, Doriot, writing in the journal "Au Pilori", would write: (t)he Jew is not a man. He's a stinking beast." This overt anti-semitic ideology was manifested by the paramilitary "Gardes Françaises" (formerly the "Service d'Ordre"), in which many PPF members operated and which participated in wide-scale violence against Jews in France and North Africa and in the mass-deportation of Jews to concentration camps.[NTD: cite needed]
Centrism
Currently the most notable centrist party is La République en marche !, founded by Emmanuel Macron; who was elected as President of France in May 2017.
Citizen and Republican Movement
The Citizen and Republican Movement ("Mouvement républicain et citoyen") is a political party in France. The party replaced, in 2002, the Citizens' Movement ("Mouvement des citoyens", MDC) founded by Jean-Pierre Chevènement, who left the Socialist Party (PS) in 1993 due to his opposition to the Persian Gulf War and to the Maastricht Treaty. It is a Eurosceptic party with leftist aspirations.
Liberal Alternative
The Liberal Alternative ( or AL) is a French political party created on March 1, 2006. It advocates classical liberalism against socialism or conservatism. Therefore their political colour is purple, between the red of the left-wing and the blue of the right-wing.
2019 European Parliament election
The year 2019 will see the debut of new parties such as Kukiz'15 of Poland, Czech Pirate Party of Czech Republic, Alliance of Portugal, USR of Romania, LMŠ of Slovenia, Human Shield and Most of Croatia, L'SNS and Sme Rodina of Slovakia. For the liberals, the biggest hope is that the new La République En Marche! party of French President Emmanuel Macron will choose to join ALDE after the elections. However, En Marche is expected to be more likely to try to form a new parliamentary group of pro-European centrists who support Macron's plans to reform the European institutions, thus drawing away members from ALDE, EPP and S&D. Possible partners for such a project might include Spanish Ciudadanos, Progressive Slovakia and the Hungarian Momentum Movement as well as the Democratic Party of Italy whose former leader Matteo Renzi is a close ally of Macron. While it is likely that En Marche will put together the minimum of 25 MEPs needed to form a group, the requirement to include MEPs from at least seven member states would be more difficult.
List of conservative parties in Canada
This is a list of conservative parties in Canada. There are a number of conservative parties in Canada, a country that has traditionally been dominated by two political parties, one liberal and one conservative. The span between the 2015 Newfoundland and Labrador provincial election and the 2016 Manitoba provincial election was the first time since 1943 when no party with the word "Conservative" in its name formed the government in either a provincial or federal jurisdiction.
Euroscepticism
Eurosceptic parties on the left in France tend to criticise what they see as the neoliberal agenda of the EU, as well as the elements of its structure which are undemocatic and seen as top-down. These parties include the "Parti de Gauche" and the French Communist Party, which formed the "Front de Gauche" for the 2009 European Parliament elections and received 6.3% of the votes. The leader of the Left Front defends a complete reform of the Monetary Union, rather than the withdrawal of France from the Eurozone. Some of the major far-left Eurosceptic parties in France include the New Anticapitalist Party which received 4.8% and Lutte Ouvrière which received 1.2%. The Citizen and Republican Movement, a left-wing Eurosceptic and souverainist party, have not participated in any elections for the European Parliament.
Party of France
The Party of France (, PDF) is a political party in France. The PDF was founded on 23 February 2009 by National Front MEP Carl Lang. Carl Lang was known for his opposition to Marine Le Pen's possible candidacy to the leadership of the FN upon retirement of its long-time leader, Jean-Marie Le Pen. This came in the midst of the early campaign for the 2009 European elections: Carl Lang, elected for the FN in the North-West constituency ran for re-election under the PDF banner, against the FN list led by Marine Le Pen. The PDF supported Jean Verdon in the Massif Central-Centre and the incumbent MEP Jean-Claude Martinez in the South-West constituency. The party ran no lists against Jean-Marie Le Pen and Bruno Gollnisch.
Federalism in Quebec
Most major federal political parties, including the Liberal Party of Canada, the Conservative Party of Canada, the New Democratic Party and the Green Party of Canada support maintaining the status quo with Quebec remaining part of Canada. The Bloc Québécois is the sole sovereigntist federal party with seats in the House of Commons. And two provincial political parties are the Coalition Avenir Québec and the Quebec Liberal Party support two different ideas about Quebec's political status within Canada with former wants make Quebec as Autonomous province while latter like its former national parent party supports maintaining the status quo with Quebec remaining part of Canada.
Gaullist Party
In France, the Gaullist Party is usually used to refer to the largest party professing to be Gaullist. Gaullism claimed to transcend the left/right divide (in a similar way to populist republican parties elsewhere such as Fianna Fáil in Republic of Ireland). The current Gaullist party is the centre-right Republicans.
Union for French Democracy
Similarly, the social policies ranged from the conservatism of the likes of Christine Boutin, famously opposed to civil unions for homosexuals, to more socially progressive policies. Boutin was excluded from the UDF because of her strong social conservatism; in March 2001 she formed the Forum of Social Republicans, which is now affiliated with Les Républicains.
List of political parties in France
Up until recently, the government of France had alternated between two rather stable coalitions:
Conservatism
Eventually, conservatives added Gaullism, patriotism, and nationalism to the list of traditional values they support. Conservatives were the first to embrace nationalism, which was previously associated with liberalism and the Revolution in France.
Conservative Party (UK)
The Conservative Party is affiliated to—and plays a leading part in—a number of international organisations. As a global level, the Conservatives are a member of the International Democrat Union, which unites right-of-centre parties, including the Conservative Party of Canada, the U.S. Republican Party, the Liberal Party of Australia, the Indian Bharatiya Janata Party and the Liberty Korea Party.
Popular Republican Union (2007)
UPR also favors nationalisation of entities such as TF1, La Poste, Gaz de France, highways, water management and troubled banks.In February 2012, François Asselineau and his party, UPR, claimed they were "barred from the major media" (""barrés des grands médias"") and "banned from going on the air" (""interdits d'antenne"") as "[their] ideas are upsetting" (""[leur] discours dérange""). In 2014, UPR described itself as being "the most censored party in France".
Socialist Party (France)
The Socialist Party decided to hold a presidential primary in 2017, against the backdrop of the unprecedented unpopularity of incumbent François Hollande, with a 4 percent approval rating, who announced on 1 December 2016 that he would not seek re-election, making him the first president of the Fifth Republic not to seek a second term. It was also set against the fragmentation of the left between three major candidates, with polls indicating that the party's candidate would come in fifth, behind the National Front's Marine Le Pen, François Fillon of the centre-right Republicans, Emmanuel Macron, former economy minister under Hollande who founded his centrist political movement, "En Marche!", and left-wing ex-Socialist Jean-Luc Mélenchon under the banner of La France insoumise. The primary was won by Socialist rebel Benoît Hamon, who defeated ex-Prime Minister Manuel Valls in the second round of the primary on 29 January 2017. Hamon finished 5th in the subsequent Presidential election, with 6.36% of the vote. In the 2017 legislative election that followed the election of President Emmanuel Macron, the Socialist party dropped from 280 to 30 seats in the National Assembly, leaving it in 4th place in terms of seats, and with 7.44% of the 1st round vote. The Parliamentary left group that it dominated (with 30 out of 45 seats after the election, down from 280 out of 331 seats before) finished as the 3rd largest group in the National Assembly. Following the election, Cambadélis resigned from the post of first secretary and Rachid Temal was appointed as acting secretary. The Socialist group was ultimately refounded as the "New Left" (NG).
Republican Front (France)
The Republican Front was a French center-left coalition which won the 1956 legislative election. In the context of the Algerian War, behind Pierre Mendès-France, it gathered the French Section of the Workers' International (SFIO), the Radical Party, the Democratic and Socialist Union of the Resistance and the National Centre of Social Republicans which came from a split of the Gaullist movement.
French Communist Party
The PCF, in contrast to weaker and more marginal communist parties in Europe, is usually seen as a left-wing rather than far-left party in the French context. While the French far-left (LCR/NPA, LO) has refused to participate in government or engage in electoral alliances with centre-left parties such as the PS, the PCF has participated in governments in the past and still enjoys a "de facto" electoral agreement with the PS (mutual withdrawals, the common practice since 1962 and in 1934–39). Nonetheless, some observers and analysts classify the PCF as a far-left party, noting their political proximity to other far-left parties.