The Alsatian Progress Party () was a

political party A political party is an organization that coordinates candidates to compete in a particular area's elections. It is common for the members of a party to hold similar ideas about politics, and parties may promote specific political ideology, ...

Alsace Alsace (, ; ) is a cultural region and a territorial collectivity in the Grand Est administrative region of northeastern France, on the west bank of the upper Rhine, next to Germany and Switzerland. In January 2021, it had a population of 1,9 ...

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

. The party was founded in October 1926 by Georges Wolf and Camille Dahlet as a regionalist,

secular Secularity, also the secular or secularness (from Latin , or or ), is the state of being unrelated or neutral in regards to religion. The origins of secularity can be traced to the Bible itself. The concept was fleshed out through Christian hi ...

and

Radical Radical (from Latin: ', root) may refer to: Politics and ideology Politics *Classical radicalism, the Radical Movement that began in late 18th century Britain and spread to continental Europe and Latin America in the 19th century *Radical politics ...

party, roughly corresponding to Germany's Radical People's Party and France's Radical-Socialist Party.Fischer, Christopher J.
Alsace to the Alsatians?: Visions and Divisions of Alsatian Regionalism, 1870-1939
'. New York: Berghahn Books, 2010. pp. 190-191Hülsen, Bernhard von.
Szenenwechsel im Elsass: Theater und Gesellschaft in Straßburg zwischen Deutschland und Frankreich : 1890 - 1944
'. Leipzig: Leipziger Univ.-Verl, 2003. p. 165 Dahlet and Wolf had belonged to the

Bas-Rhin Bas-Rhin () is a department in Alsace which is a part of the Grand Est region of France. The name means 'Lower Rhine', referring to its lower altitude among the two French Rhine departments: it is downstream of the Haut-Rhin (Upper Rhine) de ...

branch of the Radical Party, but had quit in disagreement with its policies of centralism and anticlericalism, instead establishing the Progress Party as a party for a more decentralised and moderately secular variant of Radicalism. Wolf had been the chairman of a party with the same name and similar goals in the years prior to

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

. In cultural terms the Progress Party sought to protect Alsatian culture and the status and use of the German and Alsatian languages in Alsace. Institutionally, it demanded the return of the

local autonomy Local may refer to: Geography and transportation * Local (train), a train serving local traffic demand * Local, Missouri, a community in the United States Arts, entertainment, and media * ''Local'' (comics), a limited series comic book by Bria ...

of the region, as had been recognized by the German Constitution in 1911. In April 1927 a party newspaper, ''Das Neue Elsass'' ('The New Alsace'), was launched after Wolf had received financial guarantees from it. The Progress Party and ''Das Neue Elsass'' obtained a moderate degree of influence in Bas-Rhin. In 1928 Dahlet became the party leader, after Wolf resigned from the party. Wolf left politics, supposedly for personal reasons, and went back to serve as a pastor of the

EPCAAL The Protestant Church of the Augsburg Confession of Alsace and Lorraine (, EPCAAL; , ''Kirche A.B. von Elsass und Lothringen''; ) is a Lutheranism, Lutheran church of statutory corporation, public-law corporation status (établissement public du ...

. Dahlet was elected to parliament in the same year, and would retain his seat until 1940. With Dahlet as the party leader the Progress Party became more radical in its regionalist demands, albeit never straying over to the separatist camp. The party won two seats in the

1929 Strasbourg municipal election Elections to the municipal council of Strasbourg were held in France in May 1929 for a six-year term. An autonomist coalition, the ''Volksfront'', defeated an anticlerical and assimilationist coalition of the incumbent socialist mayor, Jacques Peir ...

.Hülsen, Bernhard von.
Szenenwechsel im Elsass: Theater und Gesellschaft in Straßburg zwischen Deutschland und Frankreich : 1890 - 1944
'. Leipzig: Leipziger Univ.-Verl, 2003. p. 264 Between 1928 and 1936 Camille Dahlet sat in the

French Chamber of Deputies The Chamber of Deputies (, ) was the lower house of parliament in France at various times in the 19th and 20th centuries: * 1814–1848 during the Bourbon Restoration and the July Monarchy, the Chamber of Deputies was the lower house of the Fr ...

according to Radicalism, with other centre-left republican independents in the Independent Left technical group. In 1936, however, he sat according to regionalism, in the Independents of Popular Action technical group dominated by the Catholic regionalists of the Alsatian Popular Union.

References

{{Reflist Political parties established in 1926 Defunct political parties in France Defunct liberal political parties Radical parties in France Political parties of minorities in France