Republican Federation

The Republican Federation (Fédération républicaine, FR) was the largest conservative party during the French Third Republic, gathering together the progressive Orléanists rallied to the Republic. Founded in November 1903, the party competed with the more secular and centrist Alliance démocratique (Democratic Alliance). Later, most deputies of the Fédération républicaine and of Action libérale (which included Catholics rallied to the Republic) joined the Entente républicaine démocratique right-wing parliamentary group. The Republican Federation was founded in November 1903 to gather the right-wing of the Moderate Republicans (also known as Opportunists) who opposed both Pierre Waldeck Rousseau's Bloc des gauches (Left-wing Block), his alliance with the Radical-Socialist Party and for some of them the defense of the Jewish officer Alfred Dreyfus. These conservative Republicans were ideologically indebted to Jules Méline, Alexandre Ribot, Jean Casimir-Perier or Charles Dupuy. They represented the Republican bourgeoisie, closely connected to business circles and opposed to social reform. Furthermore, they were fond of a relative decentralisation, thus enrolling themselves in the legacy of the Girondins of the French Revolution. Just as the Democratic Republican Alliance, it was a party composed of notables, which rested upon local electoral committee, which merged in the National Assembly in one or several parliamentary groups. It never had many members (30,000 in 1926 and 18,000 in 1939). After World War I, the Republican Federation participated during the 1919 legislative election within the Bloc national (National Block)'s electoral lists. The same year, the Action libérale populaire (Popular Liberal Action), an alliance of Catholics who had accepted the legality of the Republican regime, entered the Republican Federation by sitting within parliamentary grouping of the Entente républicaine démocratique (Arago group).