Liberal Democracy (France)

Liberal Democracy Démocratie libérale
President	Alain Madelin
Founded	1998
Dissolved	2002
Preceded by	Republican Party
Merged into	Union for a Popular Movement
Ideology	Liberal conservatism, Economic liberalism
Political position	Centre-right
European Parliament Group	European People's Party
Official colours	Blue
Politics of France Political parties Elections

Liberal Democracy (Démocratie Libérale, DL) was a French political party that advocated conservative liberalism and liberal conservatism, headed by Alain Madelin. The party replaced in 1997 the Republican Party, which was the classical liberal component of the Union for French Democracy (UDF).

It became independent in 1998, after a split from the UDF. The cause of this departure was the election of four UDF president of regional councils with the votes of the National Front elects, which the Liberals refused to condemn. Those who refused to break ranks with UDF launched the Republican Independent and Liberal Pole, which later merged with Democratic Force and the so-called "Direct Adherents", in the New UDF.

In the 1999 EU elections DL ran with the RPR list led by Nicolas Sarkozy. However, the pro-European tone of the RPR-DL campaign deceived and the list was placed in third, behind the eurosceptic RPF list led by Charles Pasqua and Philippe de Villiers. DL obtained 4 MEPs: Alain Madelin, Françoise Grossetête, Thierry Jean-Pierre and Hervé Novelli.

In the 2002 presidential election, Alain Madelin obtained only 3.91% of the votes. On September 21, 2002, DL merged with the RPR and a majority of UDF members to form the Union for the Presidential Majority (UMP), which was renamed Union for a Popular Movement (Union pour un mouvement populaire or UMP).

See also

• Politics of France

External links

• Liberaux2007 website