Debout la France
Debout la France ([dəbu la fʁɑ̃s], lit. 'France Arise'; DLF) is a French political party founded by Nicolas Dupont-Aignan in 1999 under the name Debout la République (Republic Arise, DLR) as the "genuine Gaullist" branch of the Rally for the Republic (RPR). It was relaunched again in 2000 and 2002 and held its inaugural congress as an autonomous party in 2008. At the 2014 congress, its name was changed to Debout la France.
Debout la France | |
|---|---|
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| Leader | Nicolas Dupont-Aignan |
| Vice President | Cécile Bayle de Jessé |
| Vice President | José Evrard |
| Vice President | Gerbert Rambaud |
| Secretary-General | Pierre-Jean Robinot |
| Founder | Nicolas Dupont-Aignan |
| Founded | 23 November 2008 |
| Split from | Union for a Popular Movement |
| Headquarters | 55, rue de Concy 91330 Yerres 93, rue de l'Université 75007 Paris |
| Membership (2018) |  22,000 (claimed)[1] |
| Ideology | |
| Political position | Right-wing[5][9][10][11] to far-right[12][13][14][15] |
| Colours | Blue, White, Red (French Tricolore) Blue (customary) |
| Slogan | "Neither system nor extreme" |
| National Assembly | 1 / 577 |
| Senate | 0 / 348 |
| European Parliament | 0 / 74 |
| Presidency of Regional Councils | 0 / 17 |
| Presidency of Departmental Councils | 0 / 101 |
| Website | |
| www | |
Constitution of France Parliament; government; president | |
It is led by Nicolas Dupont-Aignan, who holds the party's only seat in the French National Assembly. Dupont-Aignan contested the 2012 presidential election and received 644,043 votes in the first ballot, or 1.79% of the votes cast, finishing seventh. In the 2007 presidential election, he had failed to win the required 500 endorsements from elected officials to run. He dropped out without endorsing any candidate. However, he was re-elected by the first round of the 2007 legislative election as a DLF candidate in his home department of Essonne.
The party was a member of EUDemocrats, a Eurosceptic[16] transnational European political party. In 2019, for the European elections, the party joined forces with the CNIP to form an alliance named Les Amoureux de la France ("The Lovers of France"), and announced its alliance with the European Conservatives and Reformists.[17]
Popular support and electoral record
DLF's electoral support is concentrated in Dupont-Aignan's department of Essonne, where the DLF list polled 5.02% in the 2009 European Parliament election[18] and it polled up to 36.14% in his hometown of Yerres.[19] The party also polled well in the Île-de-France region (2.44%), the North-West (2.4%) and the East constituency (2.33%), owing the regions' conservative and Gaullist departments.
In the 2012 presidential election, Dupont-Aignan obtained 1.79% of votes at the first round and did not endorse any candidate in the second. In the following legislative elections, Dupont-Aignan was elected to the National Assembly in Essonne's 8th constituency.
The European election of 2014 saw the party increase its share of the popular vote to 3.82%, although it failed to elect any MEPs.
Dupont-Aignan was again the party's candidate in the 2017 presidential election, obtaining 4.73% of the vote in the first round. He then endorsed the National Front's candidate Marine Le Pen in the second round. In the following legislative elections, Dupont-Aignan was re-elected to the National Assembly.
Ideology and positions
During the 2012 French presidential election, the party defined itself as representing social Gaullism and an alternative to the left-right divide. When founding the party, Dupont-Aignan positioned it to the right of what he calls the "UMPS" (a neologism of the former centre-right Rally for the Republic and the centre-left Socialist Party) but not as hardline as the French National Front, which he summed up with the slogan Neither system nor extreme.[20]
The party has been defined by the media and political analysts as conservative, nationalist, populist[21] and Gaullist. It is generally positioned on the right-wing and sometimes far-right of the political spectrum,[22] although the party and members of the French Council of State have disputed the latter label.[23] On February 14, 2023, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) released a report in which it classified Debout La France as a "conspiracy" and "anti-immigrant" group.[24]
The party has advocated that France should leave the Eurozone and takes a highly critical stance of the European Union, denouncing what it regards as globalism against French identity and argues that France should reclaim sovereignty it regards as lost to the EU.[25] It also calls for strict border controls, regulation of immigration[26] and the reopening of penal colonies for violent criminals and convicted terrorists.[27]
On economic matters, the party takes a largely protectionist attitude (including offering tax incentives for businesses to remain in France) and supports nationalizing the French highway system,[28] which last till 2020.
Elections
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| Conservatism in France |
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Presidency
| Election year | Candidate | First round | Second round | Result | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Votes | % | Rank | Votes | % | Rank | |||
| 2012 | Nicolas Dupont-Aignan | 643,907 | 1.79 | 7th |
— | Lost | ||
| 2017 | 1,695,000 | 4.70 | 6th |
— | Lost | |||
| 2022 | 725,176 | 2.06 |  9th |
— | Lost | |||
European Parliament
| Election year | Number of votes | % of overall vote | # of seats won |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2009 | 304,585 | 1.77% | 0 |
| 2014 | 744,441 | 3.82% | 0 |
| 2019 | 795,508 | 3.51% | 0 |
Regional Parliament
| Election year | Number of votes | % of overall vote | # of seats won |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | 84,886 | 4.78% | 0 |
| Election year | Number of votes | % of overall vote | # of seats won |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | 69,285 | 3.35% | 0 |
| Election year | Number of votes | % of overall vote | # of seats won |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | 71,538 | 2.85% | 0 |
| Election year | Number of votes | % of overall vote | # of seats won |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | 49,774 | 5.17% | 0 |
| Election year | Number of votes | % of overall vote | # of seats won |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | 34,916 | 2.90% | 0 |
| Election year | Number of votes | % of overall vote | # of seats won |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | 39,406 | 4.58% | 0 |
| Election year | Number of votes | % of overall vote | # of seats won |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2010 | 119,835 | 4.15% | 0 |
| 2015 | 207,286 | 6.57% | 0 |
| Election year | Number of votes | % of overall vote | # of seats won |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | 80,375 | 3.91% | 0 |
| Election year | Number of votes | % of overall vote | # of seats won |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | 978 | 0.37% | 0 |
| Election year | Number of votes | % of overall vote | # of seats won |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2010 | 14,880 | 2.25% | 0 |
| Election year | Number of votes | % of overall vote | # of seats won |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | 53,359 | 2.39% | 0 |
| Election year | Number of votes | % of overall vote | # of seats won |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | 47,391 | 4.14% | 0 |
| Election year | Number of votes | % of overall vote | # of seats won |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | 51,873 | 4.09% | 0 |
| Election year | Number of votes | % of overall vote | # of seats won |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | 34,599 | 1.95% | 0 |
| Election year | Number of votes | % of overall vote | # of seats won |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2010 | 10,237 | 1.79% | 0 |
Elected officials
Nicolas Dupont-Aignan (Essonne) is the only DLF member of the National Assembly. The party also claims 3 general councillors, and Mayors in four communes: Yerres, Cambrai, Saint-Prix and Ancinnes.
References
- "Le splendide isolement de Nicolas Dupont-Aignan". Le Point (in French). 25 January 2018. Retrieved 27 January 2018.
- "France election: Marine Le Pen would make Dupont-Aignan PM". BBC News. 29 April 2017.
- Nordsieck, Wolfram (2017). "France". Parties and Elections in Europe.
- "Qui est Nicolas Dupont-Aignan, le candidat du "gaullisme"". 21 April 2017.
- Euroscepticism (PDF). Cardiff EDC. April 2015. p. 18. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2016-04-30.
- "Le Pen, Mélenchon, Dupont-Aignan… A chaque eurosceptique son "Frexit"".
- "Quand le vice-président du parti souverainiste Debout la France semble regretter le temps des colonies - le Lab Europe 1". Archived from the original on 2018-02-07. Retrieved 2018-04-16.
- Ivaldi, Gilles (2018). "Crowding the market: the dynamics of populist and mainstream competition in the 2017 French presidential elections". p. 6.
Right-wing populism is also found in the neo-Gaullist and 'sovereignist' Debout la France (DLF) led by Nicolas Dupont-Aignan
- What Le Pen really wants. POLITICO. Author - Nicholas Vinocur. Published 21 December 2015. Last updated 22 December 2015. Retrieved 4 May 2018.
- Le Pen names former rival as prime minister. The Times. Authors - Duncan Geddes and Adam Sage. Published 29 April 2017. Retrieved 4 May 2018.
- Marine Le Pen Will Name a Former Rival Prime Minister if Elected. The New York Times. Author - Aurelien Breeden. Published 29 April 2017. Retrieved 4 May 2018.
- "Nicolas Dupont-Aignan, de la droite décomplexée à l'extrême-droite". Europe 1 (in French). 20 March 2017.
- Eva Mignot (28 June 2017). "Au moins 82 députés ont un membre de leur famille engagé dans la vie politique". Le Monde.fr (in French). Retrieved 18 July 2017.
- Camille Huppenoire (11 February 2019). "À Bourg sur Gironde, Nicolas Dupont-Aignan pour une union des droites". France Bleu. Retrieved 17 May 2019.
- "Nicolas Dupont-Aignan écarte Emmanuelle Gave de sa liste aux Européennes en raison d'écrits racistes". Libération. 21 February 2019. Retrieved 17 May 2019.
- Article by Géraud de Ville in Politeia (10/2007): Eurosceptics are Eurocritics or Eurorealists;
- Charles Sapin (2 January 2019). "Dupont-Aignan noue ses alliances européennes, à l'écart du RN". Le Figaro. Retrieved 17 May 2019.
- "Interactive map of the 2009 European election results". Libération.fr. Archived from the original on 2011-10-07.
- "Ministry of the Interior results page".
- Gless, Étienne; Moriou, Corinne (2012-01-24). "Abandonner l'euro afin de doper les exportations » : Nicolas Dupont Aignan, Debout la République". L'Express..
- "France election: Marine Le Pen would make Dupont-Aignan PM". BBC News. 29 April 2017.
- "Debout La République, toute l'actualité sur le parti de Nicolas Dupont-Aignan". francetv info. Retrieved 2015-12-11.
- "Circulaire relative à l'attribution des nuances politiques aux candidats aux élections municipales et communautaires des 15 et 22 mars 2020". legifrance.gouv.fr//. 4 February 2020. Retrieved 20 September 2020.
- "GPAHE report: Far-Right Hate and Extremist Groups in Australia". Global Project Against Hate and Extremism. Retrieved 2023-04-07.
- "La seule différence entre Dupont-Aignan et le FN, c'est..." Le Huffington Post. October 4, 2013. Retrieved 2016-03-15.
- "Dupont-Aignan présente son parti renommé comme « seule alternative crédible » pour 2017". LExpress.fr. October 12, 2014. Retrieved 2016-05-06.
- "Dupont-Aignan veut envoyer les djihadistes dans un «bagne» aux Kerguelen". 20minutes.fr. 7 May 2018. Retrieved 2019-10-25.
- "Dupont-Aignan veut nationaliser les autoroutes". Le Figaro. 18 September 2014. Retrieved 2015-05-20..