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Union for French Democracy
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===New UDF=== This split of DL led to a re-organisation of the UDF. The ''nouvelle UDF'' (new UDF) was transformed into a single party through the merger of FD and the [[Independent Republican and Liberal Pole]] (PRIL), formed by those DL members who refused to leave UDF. The Radicals and the PPDF remained as autonomous entities within the new party. Former FD leader Bayrou became the natural leader of the new UDF. He conceived it as the embryo of a future centrist party which would include politicians from both the left and right. Bayrou ran for president in the [[2002 French presidential election|2002 presidential election]], but some UDF leaders supported Chirac. The latter won re-election comfortably, with Bayrou being eliminated after the first round, having gained only 6.8% of the vote. Bayrou subsequently refused Chirac's invitation to join the newly-formed centre-right, big-tent [[Union for a Popular Movement]] (UMP) for the upcoming [[2002 French legislative election|2002 legislative election]]. Other UDF members, led by Giscard, Barrot, Douste-Blazy, Méhaignerie and Raffarin, as well as the entire PPDF and DL, joined the UMP, leaving Bayrou somewhat isolated. After the election, the UDF, whose parliamentary seats were quite reduced, joined the victorious UMP as a partner in the government of Prime Minister Raffarin. Despite this, the UDF sometimes criticised its policies, without initially quitting the majority coalition and entering the opposition, which was made up mostly of centre-left and left-wing parties. The UDF eft the government, except for [[Gilles de Robien]], only after a cabinet reshuffle in March 2004, but still decided to remain in the parliamentary majority coalition. At the European level, the UDF left the EPP and formed the [[European Democratic Party]] (EDP), along with Italy's [[Democracy is Freedom – The Daisy]]. The EDP was intended to be the home to all the Christian democrats and centrists who were disillusioned by the new course of the EPP, which had welcomed the RPR and, later, the UMP. With the exit of most of its conservative, Christian-democratic and conservative-liberal components in 1998 and 2002, the UDF was thus a centrist party with socially liberal tendencies, in Bayrou's mould. There developed a split among UDF elected officials, between those such as de Robien and [[Pierre-Christophe Baguet]], who favored closer ties with the UMP, and those such as Bayrou who advocate independent centrist policies, while others such as [[Jean Dionis du Séjour]] tried steering for a middle course.<ref>[http://francepolitique.free.fr/PUDF4.htm France politique - courants UDF].</ref> The most likely reason for many of the UDF's elected officials favouring close ties with the UMP was that most of the UDF's elected positions were obtained through cooperative alliances with the UMP. However, the party's base overwhelmingly favored independence. At the congress of Lyon, in January 2006, 91% of the members voted to retain the independence of the UDF from the UMP and transform it into an independent centrist party. This outcome meant that the orientation of the evolving UDF would be that of a [[social liberalism|social-liberal]] party aiming for a balance between [[social democracy|social-democratic]] and [[conservatism|conservative]] policies.
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