Alliance Démocratique (France)
|
Democratic Alliance
Alliance démocratique |
|
|---|---|
| Leader |
Pierre Waldeck-Rousseau Alexandre Ribot Raymond Poincaré André Tardieu Pierre-Étienne Flandin |
| Founded | 21 October 1901 |
| Dissolved | 6 January 1949 |
| Merger of | Progressive Republicans |
| Merged into | National Centre of Independents |
| Ideology |
Liberalism Laicism Laissez-faire Conservatism |
| Political position | Centre-right |
| National affiliation |
National Bloc (1919–24) RGR (1946–49) |
| International affiliation | None |
| Colours | Gold |
The Democratic Alliance (French: Alliance démocratique, AD), originally called Democratic Republican Alliance (French: Alliance républicaine démocratique, ARD), was a French political party (1901–1978) created in 1901 by followers of Léon Gambetta, such as Raymond Poincaré who would be president of the Council in the 1920s. The party was at first conceived by members of the Radical-Socialist Party tied to the business world who united themselves in May 1901, along with many moderates, as gathering center-left liberals and "Opportunist" Republicans (Gambetta, etc.). However, after World War I and the parliamentary disappearance of monarchists and Bonapartists, it quickly became the main center-right party of the Third Republic. It was part of the National Bloc right-wing coalition which won the elections after the end of the war. The ARD successively took the name Parti Républicain Démocratique (Democratic Republican Party, PRD) then Parti Républicain Démocratique et Social ("Social and Republican Democratic Party"), before becoming again the AD.
The ARD was largely discredited after supporting the Vichy regime during World War II, an option strongly supported by its major leader Pierre-Étienne Flandin and other members such as Joseph Barthélémy. The center-right party tried to reform itself under the direction of Joseph Laniel, who had taken part in the Resistance. It temporarily joined the RGR (Rassemblement des gauches républicaines), before merging into the Centre national des indépendants et paysans (CNIP, National Center of Independents and Peasants). The AD, which in contrast to the French Section of the Workers' International (SFIO) or the French Communist Party (PCF) never became a mass political party founded on voting discipline (in these left-wing parties, deputies usually vote in agreement with the party's consensus), turned at that time in little more than an intellectual circle, whose members met during suppers. However, it was dissolved in only 1978, long after its effective disappearance from the political scene.
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