Centrism in France
The MRP was the largest party during the election of the second Constituent Assembly in June 1946 and was part of the two main coalitions of the Fourth Republic: Tripartisme (1946–47) and the Third Force (1947–51).
The MRP then became a central political force of the new regime and counted among its ranks three Prime Ministers: Robert Schuman, Georges Bidault et Pierre Pflimlin.
After the founding of the RPF, the MRP no longer appeared as the party of loyalty to Charles de Gaulle, while the traditional moderate right regrouped around the National Centre of Independents and Peasants (CNI).
The MRP supported the return of De Gaulle and the establishment of the Fifth Republic and participated in the beginning of his presidency but disagreements over European politics pushed the MPR into opposition before dissolving in 1965.
However, after the failure of Giscard to be re-elected in the 1981 presidential election the UDF could only maintain its political influence by allying with right-wing forces, disputing the neo-Gaullist Rally for the Republic for leadership over the conservative electorate.
The UDF finally disappeared through its integration into the new party founded by François Bayrou, the Democratic Movement (MoDem), which adopted a position independent of the right and left forces.
In June 2008, Jean Arthuis, who left the MoDem, created a national association, the Centrist Alliance, which brought together elected officials and activists attached to the political heritage of the UDF.
Suffering from opposition from the Gaullists after the resignation of Jacques Chirac from his post as Prime Minister in 1976, Valéry Giscard d'Estaing quickly allied himself with the centrist parties, resulting from the breakup of the MRP, which it brought together during the 1978 French legislative election within of the UDF whose two main components become the Republican Party (PR – heir to the Independent Republicans) and the Centre of Social Democrats (CDS heir to the MPR).
The PR would become a strong political force and be an important component of all right-wing majorities until 1997, but its liberal identity became somewhat blurred due to the essentially democratic image of the UDF.
En 2019, le PLD est dissous à l'occasion de sa fusion avec Objectif France.
Finally, in 2002, the party left the UDF to join forces with the UMP, which it left in 2011 when its president, Jean-Louis Borloo, formed the Republican, Ecologist and Social Alliance (ARES) which aims to bring together the centrist groups that are members of Nicolas Sarkozy's presidential majority, with the prospect of a joint candidacy for the 2012 presidential election.
Jean-Jacques Servan-Schreiber (1971) De 2017 à 2019, le PRG fait partie du Mouvement radical, qu’il quitte avant d’être dissout en son sein.
However, they did not claim a centrist position on the political spectrum, but on the contrary an anchoring on the left which remained very majority and embodied in particular by politicians like Dominique Strauss-Kahn.
They gradually structured themselves within the Socialist Party (while remaining an extremely minority) claiming a political line inspired by social democracy and the New Labour project embodied by British prime Minister Tony Blair.
As the party founded by Emmanuel Macron, a former minister of the socialist government under François Hollande he has support from figures from the center, right and left.
Even more than the homonymous party of Éric Besson, Renaissance claims a progressive identity which is focused on ecology, social liberalism and Pro-Europeanism which goes beyond any economic considerations.
Progressivism is also defended in France by parties or personalities with various economic positions, ranging from the former liberal minister Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet to the social-democratic movement Place Publique.
From this turning point, they rallied either to the neo-Gaullism of the RPR, or to the traditional left by rapprochement with the PS during the alternation of 1981, joining the presidential majority without however organizing themselves in a common structure.
It was succeeded, after the failure of its founder in the 2002 presidential election, by the Deuxième gauche [fr], which still brings together a part of the Republicans, Gaullists and left-wing sovereigntists but whose political audience is more confidential.
Subsequently, the Solidarity Republic party, founded by former Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin in 2010, wants to embody a social Gaullism anchored to the center-right.
