Popular Republican Movement
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The Popular Republican Movement (Mouvement Républicain Populaire or MRP) was a French Christian democratic party of the Fourth Republic. Its leaders included Georges Bidault, Robert Schuman, Paul Coste-Floret, Pierre-Henri Teitgen and Pierre Pflimlin.
The most successful Christian Democratic party in France, the MRP was founded in 1944 by Bidault and other Catholic activists who participated in the anti-Nazi underground Resistance during the Second World War. The party was initially quite successful and participated in most of the governments of France's Fourth Republic (1946-1958). Unlike its Christian Democratic counterparts in Germany and Italy, however, the MRP's vote totals precipitously declined in later elections. The revival of pre-war conservative leaders and parties as well as the emergence of Gaullism in 1947 as an alternative to the center-left governments that dominated France immediately after the war deprived the MRP of many conservative voters who had reluctantly tolerated the party's domestic program of social welfare legislation and state-directed economic planning because it was the most powerful counter-weight immediately after the war to France's then-powerful Communist Party.
Due to its propensity for integrating conservative politicians sometimes compromised by their association with Vichy, it was sardonically nicknamed the "Machine à Ramasser les Pétainistes" ("Machine for collecting Pétainists").
The MRP also dominated French foreign and colony policies during most of the later 1940s and 1950s. Along with the French Socialist Party, it was the most energetic supporter in the country of European integration. It was also a strong backer of NATO and of close alliance with the United States, making it the most "Atlantique" of French political parties.
Its leaders, especially Georges Bidault and Paul Coste-Floret (foreign and colonial ministers respectively in several French coalition governments) were primary architects of France's hard-line colonial policies that culminated in long insurgencies in Vietnam (1946-1954) and Algeria (1954-1962), as well as a series of smaller insurrections and political crises elsewhere in the French Empire. The MRP eventually divided over the Algerian question in the late 1950s, (with Bidault being an avid supporter of the Organisation armée secrète).
During the 1960s, the party generally supported President Charles de Gaulle, but broke with him in 1962 over his opposition to extending European economic integration into the realm of political integration. In 1966, many MRP members merged with the National Center of Independents and Peasants (CNIP) in the Democratic Centre led by Jean Lecanuet, while the MRP itself disbanded in 1967.
Lecanuet obtained 15.6% at the 1965 presidential election. In 1968, the CNIP left the Democratic Centre, which became Progress and Modern Democracy. Its candidate, Alain Poher, is defeated at the second round of the 1969 presidential election.
During the 1970s, the party re-integrated little by little into the Gaullist coalition. In this, a minority supported President Georges Pompidou and founded Centre, Democracy and Progress. The majority created the Reforming Movement with the Radical Party. This group supported winning candidature of Valéry Giscard d'Estaing at the 1974 presidential election.
French Christian Democrats met up in the Democratic and Social Centre, which composed the left of the UDF after 1978.de:Mouvement Républicain Populaire es:Movimiento Republicano Popular fr:Mouvement républicain populaire it:Movimento Repubblicano Popolare nl:Mouvement Républicain Populaire pl:Ludowy Ruch Republikański
