Emmanuel Macron’s centrist party, La République en Marche, changed its name to the Renaissance as the French president tried to win a ruling majority in parliament for his second term.
The party’s rebranding was announced just as the June parliamentary election campaign was due to begin. Macron hopes to secure a parliamentary majority against competition from a new union of left-wing parties led by Jean-Luc Melanchon and the far-right Marine Le Pen National Rally, which seeks to increase its small seats.
The name Renaissance means “to always choose enlightenment over obscurantism,” Secretary-General Stanislas Gerini told a news conference in Paris. Macron’s group previously used the name Renaissance during its 2019 European election campaign.
“Political parties need to be rediscovered in order to continue to exist,” Gerini said, referring to the poor presidential performance of the two former government parties, the Socialists and Les Républicains, whose candidates Anne Hidalgo and Valerie Pecres had less than of 7% in last month’s presidential election, in which Macron defeated far-right Le Pen in the final.
The name change was also intended to help Macron’s party win positions in local government, which it has failed to do for the past five years. “It will be a party of the people, open to the public,” Gerini said, adding that any expertise was welcome, especially from local elected officials who could join.
Macron created the political movement En Marche! (On the move) in 2016, when he was Minister of Economy, as a means of his candidacy for President in 2017. He was classified as “neither left nor right” and was presented at the time as deliberately unconventional. He used Macron’s own initials, EM, and had a handwritten logo, which was Macron’s own letter, with no specific color, unlike the solid colors of the old party system.
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En Marche was then renamed La République En Marche – the Republic on the Move – for the 2017 parliamentary elections, where Macron won a majority.
In next month’s parliamentary elections, the new Renaissance party will merge with two other centrist parties: its traditional allies in the MoDem party, which backed Macron in the presidential election, and the new Horizons party, founded by former Macron prime minister Edward Philip. They will form a coalition under the flags Ensemble (Together).
Francois Bayrou, leader of the MoDem party, told a news conference in Paris that the centrist coalition shared a sense of the “seriousness” of the current mood of political “divisions” in France. He said the ideas of the opposition parties were “more radical” and “riskier” for France and Europe.
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