The PPDF was the continuation of the Perspectives and Realities Clubs, a parallel organisation of the Independent Republicans and, later, the Republican Party (PR) within the centre-right Union for French Democracy (UDF),[2] a confederation of parties formed to counterbalance the neo-Gaullist Rally for the Republic (RPR) in 1978.
Indeed, in the first round of the 1995 presidential election, most UDF members had supported incumbent Prime Minister Édouard Balladur, against the instruction of Giscard who had called to vote for the other RPR candidate Jacques Chirac, who went on to win.
De Charette was elected president of the new party, while Albertini, Humbert and Nesme were appointed general secretaries.
In that context, while the Christian democrats of FD aimed at strengthening the centrist nature of the party, the conservative liberals tried to overcome the fracture between chiraquiens and balladuriens.
The PR was thus joined by some politicians from the PPDF, such as Bussereau, Mattei and Raffarin, and was renamed Liberal Democracy (DL), under Madelin's leadership.