The Opportunists were a liberal republican faction of French politics who, led by Adolphe Thiers, Jules Ferry, Jules Grevy, Henri Wallon, and Rene Waldeck-Rousseau, existed during the French Third Republic from 1871 to 1901. The Opportunists emerged as the successors to the Moderate Republicans of the French Second Republic, and, while they were initially considered the left-wing of French politics due to their opposition to the right-wing monarchist Orleanists and Legitimists, they soon found their way to the center as the middle-ground between the old rights (Bonapartists and united monarchists) and the new lefts (the Radicals and Marxists); they gained their nickname "Opportunists" from their attempts to gain the popular consensus in spite of any ideology. The Opportunists brought together former Radicals and Moderates in opposition to the authoritarian monarchist and socialist forms of government, and, under Prime Minister Jules Ferry, the Opportunists secularized public education, restricted freedom of the press, and supported the colonization of Africa; in doing so, the Opportunists came to show their own authoritarian and conservative tendencies. In 1888, as General Georges Boulanger rose in popularity at the head of a big tent populist coalition, the Opportunists split into the liberal National Republican Association (ANR) and the conservative Liberal Republican Union (ULR). The 1892 elections saw the ANR win a large victory, but the Dreyfus affair caused the Opportunist ANR to split once again. In 1901, the Opportunists were permanently split as the pro-Dreyfus faction formed the liberal Democratic Republican Alliance, while the anti-Dreyfus faction formed the conservative Republican Federation.
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