In the streets, the center of public manifestations was the Stephen the Great Monument in Chișinău, and the adjacent park harboring Aleea Clasicilor (The Aley of the Classics [of the Literature]).

In the public discourse, the movement called for national awakening, freedom of speech, revival of Moldavian traditions, and for attainment of official status for the Moldovan language and return of it to the Latin script.

The Front's founding congress took place on 20 May 1989 amidst the backdrop of a ferment that had gripped the republic since late 1988,[2] spurred by the reforms of Mikhail Gorbachev.

The movement initially consisted of a broad multi-ethnic coalition of independent cultural and political groups[5] that pressed for reform within the Soviet system and for the national emancipation of ethnic Moldovans.

[10] Its militancy grew: at a March 1990 rally, the Front adopted a resolution calling the 1918 Union of Bessarabia with Romania "natural and legitimate"; for pan-Romanians such as Iurie Roșca, unification was the proper outcome of democratisation.

[17] The nationalists argued that the Popular Front should immediately use its majority in the Supreme Soviet to attain independence from Russian domination, end migration into the republic, and improve the status of ethnic Romanians.

[1] At the Front's second congress in June 1990, it declared itself in opposition to the leadership of Mircea Snegur (president of the republic's Supreme Soviet), which it claimed was failing to maintain order in restive regions and was too slow in pulling Moldova out of the USSR.

[18] However, this strident line, coupled with receptiveness to union in Romania (led by Ion Iliescu after the December 1989 Revolution), caused other Moldovan politicians to become more public in their desire for the continued existence of a separate state.

[19] Also, in protest and fear of the events of 1990, the now-alienated regions of Gagauzia and Transnistria moved to break away from Moldova,[10] declaring their own separate republics on 19 August and 2 September, respectively.

Faced with what they considered a concerted effort by ethnic Romanian nationalists to dominate the republic, hardliners and minority activists banded together and began to resist majority initiatives.

Its legacy was further undermined three days later, when language testing for state employment, due to begin that April, was canceled; and the following month, when a referendum overwhelmingly affirmed Moldova's sovereignty.

[26] No Frontist has held a major ministerial portfolio since the Druc period; moderate pan-Romanists, though they came to eclipse the FPCD in the mid-1990s, had completely disappeared as an organised political force by the February 2001 election.

[27] Still, Roșca's PPCD, successor to the Front, continues to be represented by a small parliamentary contingent, and informal but powerful cultural links ensure that the pan-Romanist trend has retained some influence in Moldova.