Website of Nous France, the new political movement launched by Xavier Bertrand
For a while in 2021, Xavier Bertrand looked like becoming the centre-right challenger in this year’s presidential election.
That dream evaporated when Valérie Pécresse won the party nomination for Les Républicains, before crashing to a disappointing score of 4.8%.
Now Bertrand is back and he’s launching a new party, Nous France. According to Le Figaro, the party will launch officially in October, although it already has a website.
One of the challenges of covering French politics is keeping up with the constantly changing party names. Just as you get used to one, it’s abandoned and relaunched. Back in 2016, Emmanuel Macron launched his political movement under the name En Marche. That was later changed to La République En Marche (or LREM) and then, this year, renamed again to Renaissance.
The right-wing Front National was renamed the Rassemblement National in 2018. The days of the left-wing Front de Gauche were numbered once Jean-Luc Mélenchon launched La France Insoumise in 2016.
The centre-right seems to have had the biggest identity crisis over the years. Its name Les Républicains was adopted in 2015, replacing the previous UMP (Union pour un movement populaire).
The UMP itself was formed in 2002, bringing together the RPR (Rassemblement pour la République), DL (Démocratie libérale) and the MDR (Mouvement des réformateurs). The RPR was created in 1976. You get the idea.
Compare that to the two main centre-right parties in Germany and the UK. The German CDU/CSU was founded in 1945 and the British Conservative party in 1834.
As well as Nous France, there’s also Horizons, created by former centre-right prime minister Edouard Philippe. And therein lies the cause of the endless party creation. As with En Marche, these parties are created to support the presidential ambitions of their founders. Both Xavier Bertrand and Edouard Philippe are expected to run for the presidency in 2027.
Pity the poor voter who goes into the polling booth every few years, only to find a new set of party names to pick.
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