The Democratic Movement (French: Mouvement démocrate, pronounced [muvmɑ̃ demɔkʁat]; MoDem [mɔ.dɛm]) is a centre[2][3][4][5] to centre-right[6][7] political party in France, whose main ideological trends are liberalism[8] and Christian democracy,[8] and that is characterised by a strong pro-Europeanist stance.

The UDF had always supported centre-right governments since its creation by Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, who was president of France from 1974 to 1981.

In the 2002 presidential election the centre-right was so fractured that each of its constituent parties, the Rally for the Republic, the UDF and Liberal Democracy, ran a candidate: Jacques Chirac (19.9%), François Bayrou (6.8%) and Alain Madelin (3.9%), respectively.

However, on the initiative of its leader Bayrou, it eventually supported a censure motion along with the Socialist Party (PS).

Following the election, he launched the Democratic Movement (MoDem) on 29 May to reinforce his strategy of political autonomy from the centre-right.

Some members of the UDF did not agree with this new strategy because the weighted French balloting system would hinder the party from obtaining seats in the upcoming legislative election.

These members created the New Centre (NC) — later The Centrists —, continuing their support for the newly elected president Nicolas Sarkozy.

MoDem became an official political party in December 2007 following its founding assembly in Villepinte, Seine-Saint-Denis, in the suburbs of Paris.

MoDem made a comeback in the 2014 European Parliament election: along with the newly-formed Union of Democrats and Independents (UDI), also a successor of the UDF formed by UMP splinters, the party obtained 9.9% of the vote and seven seats.

Bayrou briefly served as minister of Justice in the first government under president Macron,[18] before resigning as MoDem and its MEPs were accused of potentially fictitious employment practices within the European Parliament.