Early years In 1901, it supported the
Bloc des gauches 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 Radical-Socialists 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 and 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 and
Raymond Poincaré as Presidents of the Republic and
Louis Barthou and
Raymond Poincaré as Presidents of the council as well as many ministries).
Government partner At the end of the war, the Alliance promoted new goals developed during its creation, namely that of creating a concentration of the centers. With its 140 MPs, it organized and led in this direction the
National Bloc (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 and 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).
Decline 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 Federation. Until then a grouping more than a party, the Alliance became a party which established a hierarchy and became more centralized. The party expanded its regional structures and increased its membership 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 basis of the defense of institutions, the middle class, and the rejection of the extremes disintegrated due to divergent views adopted by factions of the Alliance: Republicans of the Left (Flandin),
Independents of the Left (
René Besse), and
Republican Centre (
Paul Reynaud and
André Tardieu). These divergences were apparent during the left-wing
Popular Front government under
Léon Blum. Some Alliance members moderately supported the measures of the government, while others were vehemently opposed. The party divided severely in 1938, with a pacifist majority (Flandin) supporting the
Munich Agreement and a hawkish minority (Reynaud) opposed. More profoundly, this division also reflected the significant disputes within the party concerning the reform of the state and institutions between 1933 and 1934. After that, 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. == Doctrine ==