Rally for the Republic
The Rassemblement pour la République (RPR ) (literally: Alliance for the Republic, better translated as Rally for the Republic) was a bourgeois French political party that has its roots in the continuation of the policy of de Gaulle and the myth of the Resistance during the Second world War II saw. Its foundation owes an initiative of the later French President Jacques Chirac in 1976, due to a conflict with the party Républicains Independants of then President Valéry Giscard d' Estaing.
The party went on 21 September 2002, by a majority vote (82 %) of the special party in Villepinte, as well as the smaller party Démocratie Libérale (DL ) in the bourgeois right Union pour un mouvement populaire (UMP ). The UMP was founded during the 2002 presidential election on the occasion of the second round of Chirac 's supporters in the RPR as the majority buyer with the original name Union pour la majorité présidentielle.
Party chairman
- Jacques Chirac - 1976-1994
- Alain Juppé - 1994-1997
- Philippe Séguin - 1997-1999
- Nicolas Sarkozy - Interim Chairman 1999
- Michèle Alliot -Marie - 1999-2002
History
On 5 December 1976, the RPR was founded by its first president Jacques Chirac. Jacques Chirac was elected mayor of Paris in 1977. In the French parliamentary elections in 1978 the RPR received 22.62% of the vote and 150 out of 490 seats. In the elections to the European Parliament in 1979 the RPR reached 16.31 % of the vote (15 of 81 seats).
On April 26, 1981 Chirac received 18 % of votes in the first round of the presidential election. The socialist François Mitterrand became president of the Fifth French Republic on the second ballot. For shortly after the general elections of the RPR received 20.81 % of the vote (85 of 491 seats).
In a joint list with the UDF in 1984 reached the RPR in the 1984 European elections 43 % of the vote (41 of 81 seats). The next year RPR and UDF agree on a common appearance for the coming parliamentary elections. In 1986, the RPR to the French parliamentary elections with the lists " UDF / RPR" and " RPR". The list UDF / RPR received 21.4 % of the vote (147 of 573 seats ) and the list RPR 11.2% (76 seats). Together with the UDF, which had again reached 53 mandates for their own list and smaller right-wing parties could form a coalition government of the RPR. Jacques Chirac was prime minister under President François Mitterrand, bringing the first cohabitation began.
In 1986, the RPR won in the regional elections 6 of 22 regions.
On April 25, 1988 Jacques Chirac received on the first ballot for the presidential election 19.95% of the votes and reached the second round. In this he was defeated with 45.98 % of the vote the incumbent president François Mitterrand. As usual, the run from the RPR government resigned after the presidential election. Mitterrand named the Socialist Michel Rocard as prime minister and dissolved the National Assembly early on. In the subsequent parliamentary elections of RPR generated 19.18 % of the votes in the first ballot and 127 of the 575 seats, so he returned permanently in the opposition back.
With the election defeats in 1988 began towards disputes in the hitherto dominated by Chirac party. On 21 June 1988, the Chirac confidant Bernard Pons was elected with only one vote against Philippe Séguin for group leaders in the National Assembly. A group about the age of forty, called " Quadras ", denounced the alleged slipping of the RPR to right, seen among others in election arrangements with the National Front in the parliamentary elections of 1988. On January 11, 1990 Charles Pasqua and Philippe Séguin published under the title Rassemblement pour la France a program text for the upcoming election of party leadership, in which they represented a position of Souveränismus. The counter position within the meaning Chirac was designed by Alain Juppe, at the party of Le Bourget received the majority whose text a few weeks later. Chirac thus remained Chairman of the RPR. At the end of 1990, Michel Noir, Carignan and Alain Michèle Barzach left the party.
1989 won the alliance with the UDF, RPR in elections to the European Parliament 28,90 % of the vote and 26 of 81 seats.
In 1990, RPR and UDF founded the joint alliance Union pour la France (German Union for France; UPF). In regional elections in 1992 UPF won 32.90 % of the votes and the Presidency in 19 of 22 regions. In the same year Jacques Chirac defended the " Yes" in the referendum on the Maastricht Treaty; Charles Pasqua and Philippe Séguin defended their "No". A year later (1993 ) considered the UPF to let the UDF and the RPR regain their independence.
In the elections to the National Assembly in 1993 the RPR scored 19.83 % of the votes in the first ballot and 242 of 577 seats. Together with the UDF (213 seats), the Union pour la France reached an overwhelming majority in the National Assembly of more than 80 percent of the seats. As a result, Édouard Balladur (RPR ) was appointed Prime Minister, who started second cohabitation. The appointment Balladur was an agreement between it and Chirac preceded what Chirac gave up the position of prime minister, Balladur it should refrain from standing in the next presidential elections.
1994 Alain Juppe was elected chairman of the party. Also in 1994 achieved the alliance with the UDF, RPR in elections to the European Parliament 25.70% of the vote and 28 of 81 seats.
In advance of the presidential election in 1995, Balladur decided against the closed consultation with Chirac, but to run as presidential candidate, supported by the UDF. This meant that in the first ballot two RPR members competed against each other, with Jacques Chirac with 20.84 % reached the ballot, while Édouard Balladur only reached the third place with 18.58 %. In the second ballot Chirac was 52.64 % against 47.36 % for Lionel Jospin (PS ) was elected President of the Republic. After the presidential election, the Balladur government resigned as usual, Chirac appointed Alain Juppe as Prime Minister.
The dual candidacy in 1995 caused a deep and long-lasting rift within the Gaullist camp, in which Chirac himself and his followers (including Dominique de Villepin and long Alain Juppé ) against the followers Balladur were ( among others Nicolas Sarkozy and François Fillon ). This conflict shaped the Chirac's presidency, especially in his second term and also the presidency of Nicolas Sarkozy.
In the early elections to the National Assembly in 1997 RPR and UDF suffered an unexpected defeat by the united An incoming left the gauche plurielle. The RPR himself received 15.70% of votes in the first ballot and won 139 of 577 seats. Alain Juppe had the premiership of Lionel Jospin (PS ) Place, where the third cohabitation of the Fifth Republic began.
In the wake of the election defeat Philippe Séguin was supported by the environment Balladur, 1997 New Party Leader of the RPR and succeeds Alain Juppe. In September 1998, he was confirmed in a primary election. Just a few months later, he gave the official starting again after the conflict with Jacques Chirac had escalated to the price of the RPR. Nicolas Sarkozy, by then Secretary-General, took over the interim presidency of the RPR.
In the regional elections of 1998 the alliance with the UDF, RPR received 28.23 % of the votes and the presidency in 3 out of 22 regions, he lost significantly on the regional elections of 1992.
In the European elections in 1999, the alliance with the Démocratie Libérale (DL ) RPR suffered a stunning defeat: It reached only 12.82 % of the vote and 12 out of 81 seats. In the bourgeois camp, it was so only the second strongest force behind that of Philippe de Villiers and the RPR member Charles Pasqua worn, Eurosceptic list Rassemblement pour la France.
As a result of the defeat Sarkozy was replaced as party leaders by Michèle Alliot -Marie. In 2000, it was considered in the RPR, to send forth out of the various parties in parliamentary rights a Unity Party ( UEM - Union en mouvement ), to prepare for the parliamentary and presidential elections of 2002 and thus to unite the Gaullist, liberal and Christian democratic currents.
2001, the RPR lost the town hall of Paris Bertrand Delanoë (PS). He had held that post since the reintroduction of the office of mayor of Paris in 1977, first with Jacques Chirac (up to his election as president in 1995 ), then with Jean Tiberi. This the RPR had not re-erected as a candidate for mayor because of various affairs, his shows, with its own list against the RPR candidate Philippe Séguin brought about the defeat.
In the presidential election on April 21, 2002 Jacques Chirac achieved on the first ballot, only 19.88 % of the vote, but remains at yet as Leading the ballot, in the surprisingly nationally moved as runner Jean -Marie Le Pen of the Front, just ahead of Lionel Jospin was. The shock in France over the election result also meant that the RPR three days later the establishment of a union Union pour la majorité présidentielle (UMP ) among others, RPR, Démocratie Libérale and large parts of the UDF agreed, the immediate goal was to lead, Chirac to support a candidate in the runoff for the presidency. This won Chirac in the second round with 82.21 % against 17.79% for Jean -Marie Le Pen In the immediately following election of the RPR went to no longer independent, but in the alliance of the UMP. This reached 33.30 % of the votes in the first ballot, and 365 of 577 seats.
On an extraordinary party congress on 21 September 2002 in Villepinte party members decided with 86 % of the vote, the resolution of the RPR and its integration into the UMP, which was converted to the party from the Party Alliance. The UMP named shortly afterwards to pour un mouvement populaire in Union.
Election results
Parliamentary elections
European Parliament
Presidential elections
Regional elections
Anecdotes
- The Chansionniers 1970s often ironic mockery of the constant change of party name of RPF to UNR, then UDT, finally UNR - UDT, but ultimately UDR ... then again UDF, but finally RPR (by now to be back to UMP).
- Amazingly, to the artist Sempé have been the first who called the Rassemblement pour la République a party and indeed already in 1960. Indeed, the name appears at this time on one of his drawings, which he represents a demonstration. He is said to have the appropriate time want to select a name that is as neutral as possible and should act was to bring neither with the right, still with his left hand in context. The story does not mention was how to deal with the author's rights.
- Note: The abbreviation RPR was used on cover seals of notaries already during the 16th and 17th centuries to ( prétendue religion Réformée ) the members of the Reformed faith community, ie to identify the Protestants.