On 17 December 2017, at the congress of the
Democratic Movement (MoDem),
Christophe Castaner said he supported an "enlarged list" for the European elections based on their alliance, and on 26 September 2018, the movement officially announced the opening of applications for prospective candidates from civil society, receiving 2,673 in total, winnowed by an investiture committee chaired by
Jean-Marc Borello. Former Élysée advisor
Stéphane Séjourné was designated campaign director on 29 October, tasked with creating a list alongside
Agir, and seeking a lead candidate with a "green profile". For the MoDem, Bayrou selected Régis Lefebvre to serve as deputy campaign director. In March 2019,
Les Échos reported that the choice of lead candidate was to be made internally between either health minister
Agnès Buzyn or European affairs minister
Nathalie Loiseau. Loiseau officially announced she would seek the nomination for lead candidate following her debate with
Marine Le Pen on the set of ''
L'Émission politique on 14 March, while Les Échos
and Le Parisien'' later reported that Buzyn withdrew her name from consideration. Loiseau was officially designated as lead candidate on 26 March as the list of the first 30 candidates was unveiled.
Alain Juppé was the subject of early speculation regarding his potential candidacy to lead the list, though confirmed on 19 March 2018 that he would not stand, and his appointment to the
Constitutional Council precluded his participation in the campaign, but he indicated he would have supported
Macron's list. LaREM was expected to sign a cooperation agreement with the
ALDE group for the
2019 European Parliament election. However, owing to the
Gilets Jaunes protests and the rise of national populism within France, Macron opted to run a campaign focusing more on electing representatives of his party to the
European Parliament, than campaigning for
ALDE. Macron styled his campaign as "Renaissance", calling for a renaissance across Europe. The electoral slate which comprised Macron's
LaREM, MoDem and other parties was subsequently named the
Renaissance List. On 15 February,
Challenges revealed that EELV MEP
Pascal Durand would be on the list in an electable position and Séjourné in the top 25 places. The centre-right party Agir proposed several candidates for the list, including two in electable position: Nicolas Barnier (the son of Michel Barnier and a parliamentary assistant), as well as
Fabienne Keller,
Gilles Boyer,
Élisabeth Morin-Chartier, and Xavier Fournier. In an interview published in
Challenges on 6 February,
Radical Movement co-president
Laurent Hénart indicated that the movement would likely vote to join a common list, sparking dissent among some ex-PRG members including co-president
Sylvia Pinel, who announced her departure from the party to resurrect the PRG on two days later. The candidates it proposed included outgoing MEP
Dominique Riquet, Olga Johnson, and Mélanie Fortier. One outgoing MEP,
Jean Arthuis, announced that he would not seek to run again in 2019, and Agir MEP
Tokia Saïfi also retired, as did the party's other MEP Élisabeth Morin-Chartier after learning she would not be in electable position on the list. Foreign nationals were also on the list, including former Italian undersecretary for European affairs
Sandro Gozi. After declining to run as a lead candidate, Canfin ultimately appeared in second on the list. La République En Marche considered alliances with similar European political parties including
Citizens in Spain and the
Democratic Party in Italy, as well as parties outside of the
Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE).
Pieyre-Alexandre Anglade was delegated with the task of forming contacts with potential European partners. On 9 September 2018,
Guy Verhofstadt, leader of the
ALDE group, claimed that La République En Marche would ally with ALDE, which Castaner denied. Reports in October indicated Macron and Dutch prime minister
Mark Rutte reached an agreement in principle for an alliance, though Anglade emphasized that ALDE parties would merely serve as the foundation, with EPP parties on the right such as
Civic Platform in Poland and
New Democracy in Greece as well as PES parties on the left including the Democratic Party in Italy and the
Social Democratic Party of Austria in consideration. The party considered recruiting MEPs to form a group after the election. Following the airing of a report on France 2 on 11 March about ALDE's financial backing from
Monsanto, manufacturer of
glyphosate, the party announced that it would not join the ALDE, leading the latter to announce it would no longer accept corporate donations. Verhofstadt later announced on 2 May that the ALDE group would be dissolved after the elections to ally and create a new group. Following the election, the
ALDE parliamentary group reformed into
Renew Europe, incorporating Macron's Renaissance.
François Bayrou, the leader of the
Democratic Movement (MoDem) has previously proposed the formation of a coalition that would include
centrist and
centre-right parties. In November 2021,
president of the National Assembly,
Richard Ferrand, accepted his proposal and together they had formed Ensemble Citoyens for the upcoming
2022 legislative elections. Besides the Democratic Movement and
Renaissance,
Agir was also its founding member. In the following month, they were joined by the
Radical Party,
Horizons,
Territories of Progress, and
En Commun. From its foundation in November, the coalition has been headed by Ferrand as its leader, Bayrou and
Édouard Philippe as vice-presidents, and
Stanislas Guerini as secretary-general.
Jean Castex has also affiliated himself with the coalition. Philippe suspended its participation in the coalition on 14 January 2022, although, four days later he had announced that his party was reinstated into the coalition. In April, LREM announced that it would change its party name to "Renaissance", and a month later, the name of the coalition was shortened to just Ensemble. The Progressive Federation joined the coalition in May 2022. Just prior
2024 legislative elections,
Union of Democrats and Independents also joined the coalition. == Members ==