Talk:The Republicans (France)

Right-wing?

Could this party be only right-wing because of immigration and economic policies. 2A02:587:B35:700:44D4:1DD4:1478:90DD (talk) 16:55, 22 September 2024 (UTC)

A little late to the discussion but actually the french wikipedia page goes as far as labelling the party "right-wing to far-right", even if we shouldn't just mimmick other wikis, that is very much something to have in account. Plus their campaign on the last legislative election shown they are very much not a centre-right party. Upoorde (talk) 23:35, 30 April 2025 (UTC)

Rethinking the ideology parameters

I think we should shake up the ideology parameter in the infobox a little bit. I don't believe there is actual consensus to only have "liberal conservatism". I would propose mirroring the French article to instead have the ideologies of Conservatism and Gaullism. Opposition to immigration is on there too, but I think that this one is very specific, and can be generally grouped under conservatism.
My reasons for supporting this change are that this is how the party is generally described in France, and that I believe this to be supported by sources. I'll do the digging later. Paul Vaurie (talk) 07:03, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

Honestly, I don't think that we should ever "mirror" any foreign language wiki purely for the sake if it. This is en.wiki, and its content is original. So I do not support your proposal at all, and prefer to stick to the current consensus.-- Autospark (talk) 19:57, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

Agreeing with User:Autospark, I confirm my previous point of view: liberal conservatism is the perfect synthesis of the party's ideology. --Checco (talk) 08:10, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

@Autospark: There is no consensus, in my view. Someone just put that and that was that. Paul Vaurie (talk) 17:22, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

Also, what the French article says is very pertinent. It doesn't say "conservatisme libéral", but "conservatisme". This is not a mistake, it has about 8 sources on the end of that. The French article is also probably more correct than we are: French-language editors and readers are more aware about and reading sources on this party than us here. Paul Vaurie (talk) 17:24, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

I am not convinced by that, as in different national contexts words have different meanings: just think of "liberal" having a right-wing connotation in France and left-wing one in the United States, "socialist" having a moderate, centrist connotation in Italy when it has more radical usage almost everywhere else, "right-wing" and "left-wing" having a mainstream connotation in France and a more radical one in Italy and other countries (where "centre-right" and "centre-left" are more commonly used) and so on. As Michael Novak once said political terms are like wines: they should always acccompanied by year and country of origin. "Conservatism" and, even more so, "progressivism", as well as "right-wing" and "left-wing", are broad-church terms, but, for the sake of precision, we have also "Christian democracy", "liberal conservatism", "conservative liberalism", etc. on one side and "social democracy", "green politics", "social liberalism", etc. on the other side. Moreover, we should international or, at least, European standards for ideologies in political party infoboxes. Generally speaking, The Republicans are surely a conservative party, but it is more specifically liberal-conservative. Especially after the split of Ciotti's UDR, The Republicans are a quintessentially liberal-conservative party and, among EPP member parties, is quite a liberal one, especially on social issues. --Checco (talk) 07:00, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

Political ideology

The infobox currently describes the LR as a "liberal conservative" party, but this label is increasingly misleading. Recent LR leaders have embraced rhetoric and policy proposals commonly associated with the far-right. For example, Laurent Wauquiez proposed transferring migrants awaiting deportation to remote French islands such as Saint Pierre and Miquelon. Likewise, party president Bruno Retailleau’s stance on immigration has been described by the RN's spokesman himself as "a clear-cut theft of the National Rally’s agenda", and he publicly urged voters to cast "not a single vote for the left," implicitly backing RN candidates, a break from the front républicain the LR used to adhere to. These are developments that point to a more right-wing and nationalist orientation that sits uneasily with the traditionally moderate connotations of "liberal conservatism".

Yes, the LR historically combined market-oriented economics with Gaullist conservatism. However, this trajectory has changed over time. When Laurent Wauquiez became party leader in 2017, multiple observers noted that LR had moved to the right (he was the furthest right of the candidates in the running). More recently, major French press commentary has confirmed this drift: Le Monde reports that LR is increasingly "embracing far-right themes" and warns that the party risks being politically "absorbed" by Marine Le Pen’s National Rally. In other words, LR is progressively aligning with RN positions on immigration, identity, and law-and-order issues.

Some LR figures have gone further by openly calling for cooperation with far-right actors. On RTL, Wauquiez advocated a "rassemblement de la droite" extending "from Darmanin to Sarah Knafo", explicitly Knafo, a prominent MEP from Éric Zemmour’s far-right Reconquête party. Other senior LR figures, such as David Lisnard and Philippe Juvin, have similarly expressed support for a primary that would include Knafo. As L’Express itself notes, proposing a primary with an extreme-right candidate necessarily entails accepting the possibility of supporting that candidate. This willingness among influential LR factions to cooperate with the far right is fundamentally at odds with the idea of LR as a merely "liberal conservative" party.

Given that liberal conservatism is generally understood to emphasize moderation and a degree of distance fromright-wing populist or ethnonationalist politics, editors may wish to reconsider whether this label still accurately reflects LR’s current ideological profile. At minimum, the continued use of “liberal conservatism” in the infobox appears disputed by a substantial body of reliable, recent sources. My proposal would be to change it to simply "Conservatism (French)" w/o the 'liberal' qualifier. Input from other editors on this matter would be much appreciated. Aficionado538 (talk) 20:21, 22 December 2025 (UTC)

Wikipedia reflects what reliable sources say, not what we think of the party. Do modern-day day sources still describe the party as liberal-conservative? We have a low quality source and two sources from 2016 (I haven't check whether they actually back up that label). If the party is not liberal-conservative anymore, what labels are then used nowadays? There has certainly been a right-wing shift and this must be reflected in the article. Vacant0 (talk • contribs) 20:32, 22 December 2025 (UTC)

[1] mentions that under Ciotti and Wuquiez the party took " a sinigifcant radical-right turn, which is taking LR closer than ever to the RN". [2] also goes over their radical right turn. Ideologically, most post-2024 sources I was able to find just refer the party as conservative. Vacant0 (talk • contribs) 20:42, 22 December 2025 (UTC)

Yes, the sources describing liberal conservatism as the party's ideology are quite outdated. LR was indeed a different party at that time compared to what it is today. I have not found any recent reliable sources characterising LR as a liberal-conservative party. By contrast, the body of the article already relies on more recent sources that describe the party simply as "conservative," so there is no dearth of up-to-date sourcing. As such, this appears to be a limited issue of consistency and recency: a small adjustment to the lead and the infobox should suffice. Cheers. Aficionado538 (talk) 20:55, 22 December 2025 (UTC)

LR is a standard liberal-conservative party in the EPP's mould. The problem is that in some language and/or national contexts "conservatism" means basically "liberal conservatism". That is usually the case of Anglo-Saxon countries, where conservatism is so quintessentially liberal that no-one needs to specify it. In France political terms are used somewhat differently than in the rest of continental Europe: just think of the large usage of "right-wing" and "left-wing", where elsewhere people would say "centre-right" and "centre-left", or "liberalism" that has long had a right-wing characterisation or the almost inexistent use of "liberal conservatism". This said, while I also hope that better sources can be found (User:Autospark has a deep knowledge in comparative politics and is quite good in finding sources) and surely the article should track the party's right-wing shift, LR is clearly a liberal-conservative party by European standards. Its immigration policies matter very little in this respect, otherwise Denmark's Social Democrats, whose policies are tougher than those of most right-wing parties in Europe, should be classified as hard-conservative and far-right. Same thing for alliances: even if LR would form a stable alliance with the RN, which by the way has quite moderated its policies lately, that would not change its position and ideology—Italy's FI remains a centre-right liberal-conservative party even if it is in alliance with the right-wing FdI, Greece's Syriza did not stop to be a left-wing party when it formed an alliance with the right-wing ANEL, Germany's CDU is not a social-democratic party only because it is in a coalition government with the SPD and viceversa, and so on. --Checco (talk) 06:54, 24 December 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for your input. The FI/FdI case differs fundamentally because, in LR's case, the party itself has been steering to the right prior to any formal alliance. Unlike in Italy, where it was the FdI that moderated its tone in order to enter government, in France it is the LR that is moving toward the RN. Your Italian analogy is therefore inverted: LR is not a stable centre-right party absorbing far-right partners; rather, LR itself is drifting rightward and aligning with the RN. This dynamic was also highlighted in a Politico article published yesterday, which shows that it is LR attaching itself to the RN for electoral survival, not the other way around.

The Le Monde article I cited earlier makes a similar observation, noting that LR leaders, "in trying to stem their decline by embracing far-right themes, risk being absorbed by the massive party that the RN has become." What meaningfully separates LR from the RN at this stage is primarily economic policy, with the RN remaining more interventionist. Beyond this dimension, however, there is comparatively little substantive disagreement, a point that has been even explicitly acknowledged by both LR and RN leaderships.

Furthermore, LR's membership in the EPP should not be treated as dispositive. European Parliament groups are well known to include parties whose national ideological positioning diverges significantly from the group's nominal orientation. Fidesz sat in the EPP until its eventual expulsion; populist parties such as ANO or Bulgaria's DPS have belonged to the centrist Renew group despite illiberal and right-wing populist platforms; and until recently, both Smer and Hlas were members of S&D and/or the PES. These examples illustrate that European affiliation is a poor proxy for a party's substantive ideology.

In this European context, I think it is also notable to point out that LR Vice-President François-Xavier Bellamy voted in favour of a no-confidence motion against the von der Leyen Commission drafted by the Patriots for Europe, the European Parliament group that includes the RN. Taken together, these developments indicate that LR's continued presence in the EPP is largely historical and institutional in nature. Its recent rhetoric, strategic positioning, and alliances instead point to a convergence with the RN's agenda.

This assessment is consistent with the policy study cited by Vacant0 and published last year, which concludes that LR's recent leadership "has been marked with a significant radical-right turn, which is taking LR closer than ever to the RN." Aficionado538 (talk) 12:35, 24 December 2025 (UTC)

EPP membership is only one factor determining LR's ideology. While I agree with most of the things I read above and I think it is important to reflect the party's right-wing shift in the article body, I hope we can avoid recentism too. LR is an established liberal-conservative party by European standards. Surely, its immigration policies are not particularly extreme in the European context (some centre-left parties are definitely tougher), while its social policies are to the left of those of most centre-right parties. LR might be tilting toward an alliance with the RN (still to be seen!), but it is an independent party, with different history, ideology and set of policies. --Checco (talk) 21:48, 30 December 2025 (UTC)

References

Add some ideologies.

Christian-democratic.

It should be added. ~2026-81618-8 (talk) 02:49, 20 February 2026 (UTC)

Only a tiny minority of the party's members are Christian democrats. I would not add Christian democracy in the infobox. --Checco (talk) 18:48, 20 February 2026 (UTC)