Origins Until the 1880s, the
French political landscape consisted of two main groups, namely the
left-wing republicans, initially divided into the
Republican Left of
Jules Grévy and the
Republican Union of
Léon Gambetta; and the
right-wing monarchists, separated into
Orléanists,
Legitimists and
Bonapartists. In 1885, the two republican groups merged to form the
Democratic Union to prevent a return of the
monarchy. However, the Democratic Union was unable to effectively change the political system, characterised by its instability. In 1887, the parliamentary opposition (
socialists,
radicals and
monarchists) to the republican majority rallied around the figure of General
Georges Ernest Boulanger, former
War Minister excluded by the government for his radical
nationalism. Facing the threat from the popular Boulanger, the republican group became divided into two opposing factions, namely on one side the old republican guard led by
Jules Ferry founded in 1888 the self-declared leftist
National Republican Association and on the other side the
conservative republicans led by launched the Liberal Republic Union in 1889.
Liberal Republican Union The Liberal Union claimed the heritage of
Adolphe Thiers'
liberalism, but while strong in the
Senate it was a minority in the
Chamber of Deputies, where it had only eight deputies. However, the Liberal Union was supported by Patinot's
Journal des débats. Depicting Boulanger as "a new
Napoleon", the party claimed an agreement between moderate republicans and anti-Bonapartist monarchists reminiscent of the
1863 legislative election. The Liberal Union started to depict itself as "liberal and unswervingly conservative", opposing the imposition of an
income tax and
separation of church and state and after fractures inside the Boulangist movement became the party of farmers, Catholics, bankers, industrialists, lawyers and journalists. The chair committee of the Liberal Union was headed by
Henri Barboux and composed of prominent personalities including
Léon Say,
Émile de Marcère,
Georges Picot and
Anatole Leroy-Beaulieu. The party was also financed by the
Duke of Aumale, the Orléanist pretender to the throne. Thanks to the downfall of General Boulanger, accused of conspiracy against the Republic, the moderate republicans won the
1889 legislative election by a landslide and the Liberal Union gained six seats in the Chamber of Deputies. The members of the Liberal Union in the
Parliament called themselves Progressives, joining the Moderates in the
Republican Concentration. However, in the
legislative elections of 1893 many Catholics left the Liberal Union for the new Rallies movement characterized by its
political Catholicism and allied with the monarchists. Rejecting monarchism, the Liberal Union added the appeal Republican to its name in opposition to the
Liberal Union of the Rights of the conservative monarchists.
Divisions and dissolution However, the presence of Progressives caused the Republican Concentration to move toward the parliamentary
centre. In the late 1890s, the Liberal Republican Union also lost its
free market tradition of
protectionism, supported by prominent politician
Jules Méline. This change led to the departure of Léon Say from the party in 1896. Theparty remained united until the
Dreyfus affair in 1894, when it opposed both radical socialists and rebel nationalists, condemning the rampant
antisemitism in public life and supporting in 1889 along with the socialists
Prime Minister Pierre Waldeck-Rousseau, a moderate republican. Two factions developed in the Liberal Republican Union, namely Méline's supporters who were generally anti-Dreyfusard and anti-socialist and Barboux's liberals who supported the government. However, after the fall of Waldeck-Rousseau Cabinet in 1902 the party returned to opposing both socialists and nationalists. With the formation of the first political parties in France in the early 1900s, the
Radical-Socialist Party (PRRRS) and the
Democratic Republican Alliance (ARD), the Liberal Republican Union tried to create a Progressive Party which would have personified the conservative spirit of the Republic, along with the liberal ARD and the radical PRRRS.
Jacques Piou, member of the Rallies, supported the idea of a
Tory party in France, born by the fusion of conservative republicans and the Rallies. Journalist
Ernest Daudet also supported this idea and in 1902 many progressives joined the new
Liberal Action of Piou. In 1903, the Liberal Republican Union merged with the
National Republican Association to form the
liberal-conservative Republican Federation led by
Auguste Isaac. With the creation of the
National Bloc in 1919, Liberal Action merged into the Republican Federation, completing the union of the republican right. == Prominent members ==