La République En Marche!

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La République En Marche !
Abbreviation LREM
LaREM
REM
Founder Emmanuel Macron
Executive Officer Stanislas Guerini
President in the National Assembly Christophe Castaner
President in the Senate François Patriat
Founded 6 April 2016; 8 years ago (2016-04-06)
Headquarters 63, rue Sainte-Anne 75002 Paris
Youth wing Les Jeunes avec Macron
Membership  (2021) 422,329 claimed adherents[1][non-primary source needed]
Ideology
Political position Centre
National affiliation Ensemble
European Parliament group Renew Europe[2]
Colours           Black and white (logo)
     Yellow
National Assembly
280 / 577
Senate
23 / 348
European Parliament
11 / 79
Presidency of departmental councils
2 / 95
Presidency of regional councils
1 / 17
Website
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Politics of France
Political parties
Elections

La République en marche ![lower-alpha 1] (frequently abbreviated LREM, LaREM or REM; translatable as The Republic On The Move, Republic Forward, or The Working Republic),[3][4][5] sometimes called simply En Marche ! (French: [ɑ̃ maʁʃ])[6] as its original name, is a liberal[7][8] political party in France. On 5 May 2022 the party changed its name to Renaissance ahead of the 2022 legislative election.[9][10]

The party was founded on 6 April 2016 by Emmanuel Macron, a former Minister of the Economy, Industry and Digital Affairs, who was later elected President of the French Republic in the 2017 presidential election with 66.1% of the second-round vote. Presented as a pro-European party,[11][12][13] Macron considers LREM to be a progressive movement, uniting both the left and the right.[12] Following that year's presidential election, the party ran candidates in the 2017 legislative election,[14] including dissidents from the Socialist Party (PS) and the Republicans (LR) as well as minor parties. It won an absolute majority in the National Assembly, securing 308 seats (or 53% of the seats) while collecting only 28.21% of the vote on the first round, and 43.06% on the second round. Its ally, the Democratic Movement (MoDem), secured 42.

LREM accepts globalisation and wants to "modernise and moralise" French politics,[15] combining social[16] and economic liberalism.[17] The movement generally accepts members from other parties at a higher rate than other political parties in France,[11][18][19] and does not impose any fees on members who want to join.[20] The party, which is seen as a pro-European party in France,[21][22][23] has been a member of the European parliamentary group Renew Europe since June 2019.[2]

History

Foundation

La Gauche Libre, the think tank for the movement, was declared as an organization on 1 March 2015.[24] Afterwards, lesjeunesavecmacron.fr was registered as a domain on 23 June 2015.[25] Eventually, two Facebook pages[26][non-primary source needed][27][non-primary source needed] were created and an extra domain registered.[28] Another organization was eventually created by Macron, declared as L'Association pour le renouvellement de la vie politique[29] and registered as a micro-party in January 2016.[30] This was following en-marche.fr being claimed as a domain.[31] L'Association pour le renouvellement de la vie politique was then registered as EMA EN MARCHE in March 2016.[15]

En Marche! was founded on 6 April 2016 in Amiens by Emmanuel Macron, then aged 38,[18] with the help of political advisor Ismaël Emelien.[32] The initials of the name of the party are the same as the initials of Macron's name.[33][20]

The announcement of En Marche! was the first indication by Macron that he was planning to run for President,[34] with Macron using En Marche! to fundraise for the potential presidential run.[35] The launch of the party was widely covered throughout the media[36] and media coverage continued to peak as tensions rose among Macron and other government ministers as his loyalty was questioned.[37] In the weeks following the creation of En Marche!, Macron soared in the opinion polls, coming to be seen as the main competitor on the left.[38][39]

The creation of En Marche! was welcomed by several political figures including Najat Vallaud-Belkacem,[40] Jean-Pierre Raffarin[41] and Pierre Gattaz,[42] although it was also criticised by Jean-Luc Mélenchon[43] and Christian Estrosi.

In an attempt to create the party's first campaign platform, Macron and head of operations Ludovic Chaker[44] recruited 4,000 volunteers[45] to conduct door-to-door surveys of 100,000 people, using the information gained to create a programme closer to the French electorate.[46]

Later that year,[47] Chaker structured the movement and became the first general secretary of Emmanuel Macron's party En Marche! and its first official employee.[47] He was then appointed as deputy general secretary and coordinator of Macron's campaign operations for the 2017 French presidential election.[48]

2017 legislative election

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La République En Marche! ran candidates in most constituencies. At least half its candidates came from civil society,[49] the other half having previously held political office and half were women. Candidates could not be selected for more than one constituency.[50] In addition to those parameters, Macron specified in his initial press conference on 19 January that he would require that candidates demonstrate probity (disqualifying any prospective candidates with a criminal record), political plurality (representing the threads of the movement) and efficacy. Those wishing to seek the endorsement of République En Marche! had to sign up online[51] and the movement received nearly 15,000 applications.

When dealing with nominations sought by those in the political world, the party considered the popularity, establishment and media skills of applicants, with the most difficult cases adjudicated by Macron himself. To present themselves under the label of La République En Marche!, outgoing deputies had to leave the Socialist Party (PS) or the Republicans (LR).[52] Macron previously said the legislative candidates would have to leave the PS before they could join République En Marche!, though on 5 May 2017 Macron waived this requirement.[50][53] However, then La République En Marche! spokesperson Christophe Castaner later said they could stay in the PS as long as they supported Macron.[53] Moreover, spokesperson Jean-Paul Delevoye said the members of civil society could be mayors or members of regional councils and departmental councils.[53]

After François Bayrou endorsed Macron in February, the Democratic Movement (MoDem), which he leads, reserved 90 constituencies for MoDem candidates (running under the label of La République En Marche!), of which 50 were considered[by whom?] winnable.[54]

On 15 May 2017, the secretary general of the presidency announced the appointment of Édouard Philippe, a member of LR, as Prime Minister.[55]

On 18 June 2017 La République En Marche! became France's party of power, in support of the President, winning an absolute majority in the National Assembly in the second round of the elections.

2017 Senate election and first party congress

In the 2017 Senate election, La République En Marche! lost seats, ending up with 21, seven fewer than before.[56] While hoping to double its representatives in the senate,[57] party officials have noted that due to the elections electoral system of indirect universal suffrage, where deputies, senators and regional councilors elect senators, the party had a disadvantage due to being new.[58]

In the same month, the first party congress was announced to be held in Lyon. The first gathering of party adherents and representatives, party spokesman, Christophe Castaner announced his candidacy on 25 October 2017 with the endorsement of President Macron, allowing him to run unopposed.[59] The congress took place on the 19 November 2017 and Castaner was elected the Executive Officer and leader[60] of the party by a council of 800 people, with a quarter being adherents of the party.[61][62] Castaner's term will last three years.[63] The congress generated media attention for criticism surrounding it, including a walk-out done by attendees of the congress where hundred attendants unanimously resigned from the party due to accusations of a lack of internal democracy and corruption.[64]

The first by-election of 15th National Assembly of France in Val-d'Oise's 1st constituency's, which was a La République En Marche! seat, was up for contention after it was ruled that deputy Isabelle Muller-Quoy's replacement Michel Alexeef was ineligible under electoral code.[65] Muller-Quoy won the first round by 18 percentage points in 2017 and won the first round by only 5 percentage points in the by-election, going onto lose the seat to the LR candidate Antoine Savignat.[66] The race was the first loss the party had endured in the National Assembly.[67] Several subsequent by-elections following showed a 10% overall swing against La République En Marche! since the June 2017 legislative elections.

2019 European Parliament election

LREM was expected to sign a cooperation agreement with the ALDE group for the 2019 European Parliament election.[68] However, owing to the Gilets Jaunes protests and the rise of national populism within France, Macron opted to run a campaign focusing more on electing representatives of his party to the European Parliament, than campaigning for ALDE. Macron styled his campaign as "Renaissance", calling for a renaissance across Europe.[69] Following the election, the ALDE parliamentary group reformed into Renew Europe, incorporating Macron's Renaissance, along with others.

2020 municipal elections

For the 2020 municipal elections, LREM set itself the objective of obtaining 10,000 municipal councilors (out of a total of 500,000 elected). The party invested 592 heads of the list in towns with more than 9,000 inhabitants, including 289 belonging to members.

Between the two rounds, the party formed 76 alliances with the right and 33 with the left in towns with more than 9,000 inhabitants; alliances are notably formed with right-wing lists against Europe Ecology – The Greens or union lists on the left, in large cities such as Bordeaux, Strasbourg and Tours. LREM leaders justify this imbalance by the fact that the outgoing right-wing mayors are more numerous given the success of the right in the 2014 elections; Marie Guévenoux, co-president of the national investiture commission of LREM, affirms to have “even rather want to forge alliances on the left, but that was not possible” because the majority on the left didn't want.

Confident after the electoral results of the legislative and European elections, the party did not conquer any large city at the end of the poll and only had 146 mayors supported or invested in municipalities with more than 9,000 inhabitants and 4 in municipalities with more than 30,000 inhabitants.

In many cities, the ruling party was relegated to third or even fourth place. As expected, in Paris as in Lyon, important place for the movement, the LREM candidates suffered serious setbacks. The defeat is all the stronger where the candidates had allied themselves with right-wing mayors, as in Bordeaux. The French ecologists won the majority of the metropolitan cities that the party wanted to win.[70] "It is no longer a green wave, it is a tsunami," said an employee of the party after the election. "The danger for 2022 is the rise of the Europe Ecology – The Greens," said a local official.[71]

A combination of circumstances symbolic of the difficulties encountered by La République en Marche during this campaign, marked in particular by a certain embarrassment to display the LREM logo on posters in the midst of the yellow vests movement, social conflict on pensions, climate strikes, as well as the management of the COVID-19 crisis did not calm the rejection of the party.[72]

Ideology

Although Macron was a member of the PS from 2006 to 2009 and an independent from 2009 to 2016,[73][74] La République En Marche! seeks to transcend traditional political boundaries to be a transpartisan organisation.[18]

Various sources have described the party as being centrist,[75][76][77][78][79] centre-right,[80][81][82][83][84][85][86] or big tent.[87][88] Macron has described it as being a progressive party of both the left and the right.[89] Observers and political commentators have described the party as being both socially[90][91] and economically liberal in ideology.[77][92][93][94] The party has also been described as using anti-establishment, populist strategies and rhetoric, with discourse comparable to the Third Way as adopted by the British Labour Party during its New Labour phase.[95]

According to an Ipsos survey conducted in March 2018, some public perception[81][80] of the party has moved to the right since March 2017,[96] with 45% of respondents classifying the party as being centre-right (25%) to right (20%). 21% of respondents place it in the centre, compared to 33% in March 2017.[97][98][99]

Organisation

Membership

La République En Marche! considers every person who submits identification information (date of birth, email, full address and telephone number) and adheres to the party's charter to be an adherent.[100] Unlike other political parties, it does not require adherents to make a monetary donation.[101] Macron has indicated that it is possible to adhere to La République En Marche! while remaining a member of another republican party.[18][102]

On 10 April 2016, a few days after the movement's launch, Macron claimed 13,000 adherents.[103] Le Canard enchaîné accused him of inflating the figure and claimed that 13,000 was in reality the number of clicks that Macron had received on his website.[104] Ismaël Emelien, Macron's advisor, clarified that "each adherent signs a charter of values and has a voice in the movement's general assembly" and that "that has nothing to do with those who sign up for the newsletter, who are much greater in number".[105] Sylvain Fort, another of Macron's advisors, affirmed that the movement verifies the email addresses of adherents but conceded that "the system relies on the honesty of each adherent".[101]

In October 2016, Macron affirmed that En Marche! was "neck and neck with the Socialist Party" in terms of membership after only seven months of existence.[106] According to Mediapart, this included many independents and executives, but few functionaries, farmers and unemployed people. Many of its members had never been engaged in politics. However, the majority had only shown interest by leaving their information on the party website.[107]

La République En Marche! takes inspiration from the participatory model of Désirs d'avenir, Ségolène Royal's movement and intends to rely on its member files, according to deputy Pascal Terrasse and former leader of Désirs d'avenir.[108][109][110] According to Libération, the movement relies on a pyramidal enrolment system inspired by Barack Obama's campaigns of 2008 and 2012.[111]

By relying on a participatory political model, each La République En Marche! adherent has the opportunity to freely join or create a local committee. Each of these committees is led by one or more adherents who organize the committee by planning local events, meetings and debates centered around the ideas and values promoted by the movement. La République En Marche! counted more than 2,600 of these committees in December 2016.[112]

Finance

Christian Dargnat, former general director of BNP Paribas Asset Management, leads the La République En Marche! financial association.[113] Since its creation, the association has raised funds for the party. In 2016, Georges Fenech, a deputy of the Republicans, alerted the National Assembly that the association had continued fund raising even during Macron's trip to London. This led Prime Minister Manuel Valls to issue an official denial even though En Marche! had already done so.[114] Macron declared in May 2016 that 2,000 donors had already contributed financially to the party. In December 2016, he spoke of more than 10,000 donors from 1 euro to 7,500 euros.[115] By the end of December 2016, he had collected between 4 and 5 million euros in donations.[116] At the end of March, this figure exceeded 9 million euros from 35,000 donations, averaging 257 euros per donation. 600 donors made up half of the total amount donated, with donations upwards of 5,000 euros.[117]

In the book Dans l'enfer de Bercy: Enquête sur les secrets du ministère des Finances (JC Lattès, 2017) by journalists Frédéric Says and Marion L'Hour, Macron was accused of using 120,000 euros from the state budget from 1 January to 30 August 2016 in order to fund his presidential campaign.[118]

European representation

In the European Parliament, La République En Marche sits in the Renew Europe group with five MEPs.[119][120][121][122][123]

In the European Committee of the Regions, La République En Marche sits in the Renew Europe CoR group, with one full member for the 2020–2025 mandate.[124]

Election results

Presidential elections

Election year Candidate First round Second round
Votes % Rank Votes % Rank
2017 Emmanuel Macron 8,656,346 24.01 1st 20,743,128 66.10 1st
2022 Emmanuel Macron 9,783,058 27.85 1st 18,779,641 58.54 1st

Legislative elections

Election year First round Second round Seats +/− Rank
(seats)
Government
Votes % Votes %
2017 6,391,269 28.21 7,826,245 43.06
308 / 577
Increase 308 1st Presidential majority
2022

European Parliament

Election year Votes % Rank LREM combined list seats +/- LREM Party seats +/−
2019[lower-alpha 2] 5,079,015 22.42 2nd
23 / 79
Increase23
11 / 79
Increase11

Symbols

See also

Footnotes

  1. In French, there is a space in front of the exclamation mark which makes it En marche ! but it is written without the space in English media.
  2. Common list, with 23 seats in total.

References

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  96. "LREM: le parti de Macron est "de droite" selon les Français" (in French). The breakdown in 2018 is as follows: 5% of respondents rated the party on the far right, 20% on the right, 25% on the right centre, 21% on the centre, 9% on the left centre, and 5% on the left or on the far left. In 2017, the distribution was: 5% on the far right, 15% on the right, 13% on the right centre, 33% in the centre, 9% on the left centre, and 12% on the left or far left.
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Further reading

  • Elgie, Robert. "The election of Emmanuel Macron and the new French party system: a return to the éternel marais?." Modern & Contemporary France 26.1 (2018): 15–29.
  • Gil, Cameron Michael. "Spatial analysis of La République En Marche and French Parties, 2002–2017." French Politics (2018): 1-27.
  • Gougou, Florent, and Simon Persico. "A new party system in the making? The 2017 French presidential election." French Politics 15.3 (2017): 303–321.

External links

Media related to Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found. at Wikimedia Commons