{{Use dmy dates, date=April 2020
The Lorrain Republican Union (french: Union républicaine lorraine, URL) was a
Christian democratic
Christian democracy (sometimes named Centrist democracy) is a political ideology that emerged in 19th-century Europe under the influence of Catholic social teaching and neo-Calvinism.
It was conceived as a combination of modern democratic ...
party in
Moselle
The Moselle ( , ; german: Mosel ; lb, Musel ) is a river that rises in the Vosges mountains and flows through north-eastern France and Luxembourg to western Germany. It is a bank (geography), left bank tributary of the Rhine, which it jo ...
,
France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan ar ...
during the Third Republic. Founded in 1919, the URL became the dominant party in Moselle during the
Interwar era
In the history of the 20th century, the interwar period lasted from 11 November 1918 to 1 September 1939 (20 years, 9 months, 21 days), the end of the First World War to the beginning of the Second World War. The interwar period was relative ...
. In
Alsace
Alsace (, ; ; Low Alemannic German/ gsw-FR, Elsàss ; german: Elsass ; la, Alsatia) is a cultural region and a territorial collectivity in eastern France, on the west bank of the upper Rhine next to Germany and Switzerland. In 2020, it ha ...
, the Popular Republican Union (UPR) was considered the URL's sister party. The URL was much more conservative than the Popular Democratic Party (PDP), the main Christian democratic party in the rest of France at the time.
The URL was founded in 1919 by former Lorrain members of the Catholic
Zentrum
Zentrum is German for centre. Zentrum is also a brand name for the amino acid Arginine 1200 mg.
Zentrum may also refer to:
* BMW Zentrum, a BMW museum in Spartanburg, South Carolina
* Center (group theory), the centre of a group, denoted Z(G ...
in Alsace-Lorraine, formed since the mid-1890s and being with 31% of the seats the strongest party in the
Landtag
A Landtag (State Diet) is generally the legislative assembly or parliament of a federated state or other subnational self-governing entity in German-speaking nations. It is usually a unicameral assembly exercising legislative competence in non- ...
of the former Alsace-Lorraine, in order to defend Moselle's judicial specificity. In the
1919 French legislative election
The 1919 legislative election, the first election held after World War I, was held on 16 and 30 November 1919.
It resulted in a decisive victory for the right-wing ''Bloc National''.
Proportional representation by department replaced the two-r ...
the URL won 65% of the votes and all its candidates were elected, including a young
Robert Schuman
Jean-Baptiste Nicolas Robert Schuman (; 29 June 18864 September 1963) was a Luxembourg-born French statesman. Schuman was a Christian Democrat (Popular Republican Movement) political thinker and activist. Twice Prime Minister of France, a ref ...
. In 1923, the URL loosely allied itself to the conservative
Republican Federation
The Republican Federation (french: Fédération républicaine, FR) was the largest conservative party during the French Third Republic, gathering together the progressive Orléanists rallied to the Republic.
Founded in November 1903, the party ...
became known as the Republican Democratic Union (URD) in 1929. The URL-URD evolved to become more of an electoral coalition rather than an organized political party, an evolution all too common in France at the time. Despite the independence of its members, the URL maintained a strong base due to the support of the clergy, mayors, industrialists, and the media.
Despite support for the Catholic Church and Lorrain specificity, the URL was not an autonomist party and in fact the URL fought Moselle's Catholic autonomists.
The UPL, UPR, and PDP merged in 1946 to the create the
Popular Republican Movement
The Popular Republican Movement (french: Mouvement Républicain Populaire, MRP) was a Christian-democratic political party in France during the Fourth Republic. Its base was the Catholic vote and its leaders included Georges Bidault, Robert ...
(MRP).
Elections
The URL won all seats in Moselle in 1919 and 1924, and won 5 out of 9 seats in 1928. The party also had 5 Senators and controlled Moselle's general council.
In the
Chamber of Deputies
The chamber of deputies is the lower house in many bicameral legislatures and the sole house in some unicameral legislatures.
Description
Historically, French Chamber of Deputies was the lower house of the French Parliament during the Bourbon ...
, the URL's parliamentarians sat with various groups from the centre-right and the right before forming, with the Alsatian UPR, the
Republicans of the Centre
The Republicans of the Centre and the Independents of Popular Action were the names given to a parliamentary group in the French Chamber of Deputies of the French Third Republic, composed mainly of Catholic regionalists from Alsace and Lorrai ...
in 1932 and the
Independents of Popular Action
Independent or Independents may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Artist groups
* Independents (artist group), a group of modernist painters based in the New Hope, Pennsylvania, area of the United States during the early 1930s
* Independen ...