Republican Federation
공화연맹 (프랑스)
A major party of the liberal and conservative republican right in the French Third Republic, founded in November 1903 and dormant from 1948. Formed by the right wing of the moderate republicans who rejected the Bloc des gauches ministry and alliance with the Radicals, it was a party of the republican bourgeoisie tied to business. Between the wars, under Louis Marin, it moved steadily rightward and closer to the nationalist right.
In depth
The Republican Federation was formed in November 1903 to unite the right wing of the “moderate” or “progressive” republicans who rejected Pierre Waldeck-Rousseau’s Bloc des gauches ministry and the alliance with the Radical-Socialist party. Drawn from the National Republican Association, the Liberal Republican Union and other groups, they were the ideological heirs of Jules Méline, Alexandre Ribot, Jean Casimir-Perier and Charles Dupuy. A party of the republican bourgeoisie linked to business, it strongly opposed social reforms, favoured some decentralisation and supported women’s suffrage from its creation. As a party of notables resting on local electoral committees and parliamentary groups, it never had many members—30,000 in 1926 and 18,000 in 1939.
In the 1919 elections it joined the Bloc national lists and absorbed the Popular Liberal Action of Catholics who had rallied to the Republic. In March 1925 its president Auguste Isaac resigned and Louis Marin succeeded him, seeking to reconcile moderates and Catholics and making the party more hierarchical; François de Wendel was its main financial backer. It won over a hundred deputies in 1928 but was weakened to just over 40 after the 1932 election.
After the riots of 6 February 1934, when calls for the unity of the right prevailed, the party drew closer to the far-right leagues. With about sixty deputies after 1936, it became a meeting place between the parliamentary right and the nationalist, anti-republican right, and its vice-president Xavier Vallat became known for his antisemitic attack on Léon Blum. In 1937 it formed the Front de la liberté with Jacques Doriot’s French Popular Party and others.
In the July 1940 vote of full powers to Pétain, 35 of its deputies voted yes and none against. Under Vichy, 7 of the Federation’s 94 parliamentarians were real collaborators, yet it was also one of the six parties of the National Council of the Resistance. Attempts by Marin and others to revive it after the Liberation failed: when its bureau rejected integration into the Republican Party of Liberty on 25 January 1946, all its parliamentarians except Marin and Joseph Bastide joined the PRL. On 4 February 1948 the party went permanently dormant, its spirit carried on by the National Centre of Independents and Peasants.