The Les Républicains party, unable to choose between the centre and the Right, is effectively defunct and must make way for a new political project.
Acknowledging the splintering of his political family following his controversial decision to form an alliance with Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement National in June, Les Républicains (LR) party chairman Éric Ciotti announced the birth of a new right-wing political party, the UDR, or Union des Droites pour la République.
On Saturday, August 31st, Ciotti announced in a rally the creation of a new party, born from the rubble of Les Républicains.
The acronym was not chosen by chance. For Ciotti, the UDR stands for ‘Union des Droites pour la République’ (Union of the Rights for the Republic) and embodies his programme initially sketched in June—a right-wing political party willing to work hand in hand with the Rassemblement National—but above all, it stands as a historical reference for the French.
The UDR refers to the Union pour la Défense de la République, a right-wing political party launched by General de Gaulle in response to the May 1968 movement in France. Ciotti thus joins the long line of so-called Gaullist-inspired parties that have succeeded one another on the Right for several decades, with numerous and regular name changes (UDR, RPR, UMP, LR, and so on).
The birth of Ciotti’s version of the UDR can be explained by the break-up of his party at the time of the European and legislative elections in June 2024. Officially president of the Les Républicains, Ciotti opted for an electoral alliance with the Rassemblement National and was therefore disowned by a large part of his party’s leading team—although he claimed to be able to count on the support of its activists. A legal battle ensued, with the party’s leaders making three unsuccessful attempts to have him expelled.
Today, the Les Républicains party no longer really exists, even though Ciotti is still formally its chairman. Ciotti now sees himself as part of the UDR, and his former party colleagues—elected to the National Assembly by refusing any alliance with the RN and united behind Laurent Wauquiez—have formed a new parliamentary group called La Droite Républicaine.
Ciotti explained his strategy as follows on Saturday, August 31st, in front of his audience and then the press:
The Les Républicains brand is now outdated, discredited by its defeats, its contradictions, its lack of courage. The Union des Droites pour la République will be the great party of the right. The Republicans are changing. The spirit of the Republicans, or at least the spirit that I carried, is not dead. It is being transformed, rebuilt and reinvented. It’s a form of rebirth today.
The ideological line claimed by Ciotti is that of a union of the Rights that embraces its identity and rejects the pretences of Macronism and the centre-right—for now, paralysed by its proximity to the presidential camp. He denounces “the ten plagues of the ‘en même temps’ (at the same time).” Its programme includes measures such as strengthening direct democracy with regular recourse to referendums modelled on the Swiss system, ending jus soli, and introducing national preference.
The movement was launched with a view to breaking the cultural straitjacket of political correctness. “Here, we sing Sardou and we love Delon. Here France is at home,” Ciotti joked from the podium, announcing “our victory or chaos.”
It remains to be seen in the coming months whether the political niche of an assertive Right, left vacant for quite a long time in France, will be effectively occupied by Ciotti and his supporters.
