The Republican Federation (FR) was a conservative political party in France which existed from 1903 to 1945. It was founded by the remnants of the anti-Dreyfusard National Republican Association, the right-wing of the Liberal Republican Union, and by liberal Orleanists rallied to the French Third Republic. The party was rivals with the more secular and centrist Democratic Republican Alliance (a fellow Opportunist party), which consisted of the Dreyfusard factions of both the ARN and ULR. The party represented the republican bourgeoisie and anti-reform business circles, and it also supported a relative decentralization. In 1919, the Catholic Popular Liberal Action party merged into the FR to complete the union of the republican right, which was now an alliance of laissez-faire capitalists, conservatives, and traditionalist Catholics. The party shifted further to the right during the Interwar period, developing significant Christian right and ultranationalist wings after the 1924 elections. During the leadership of Louis Marin from 1925 onward, the FR created youth sections and gave ordinary members more power, becoming a more streamlined political party rather than the political machine they had been under Auguste Isaac. During the 1930s, the party was conflicted as to whether to form a centrist alliance with the ARD, and, in 1937, it formed a Popular Front with the fascist French Popular Party to combat the rise of the French Social Party and oppose the centrist parties such as the ARD. During World War II, the majority of FR members passively supported the National Revolution of Vichy France due to their support for traditionalist Catholicism, anti-communism, and national conservatism, although a few collaborated with the regime. The party was discredited due to its acceptance of Vichy rule, and attempts to refound it during the postwar French Fourth Republic failed. Instead, the CNIP party - founded in 1945 - inherited the FR's legacy.
Gallery[]
