Popular Republican Union (2007)

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Popular Republican Union (French: Union Populaire Républicaine), is a French political party, founded in 2007 by François Asselineau. The ideology of the party is eurosceptic, and seeks the withdrawal of France from the European Union, the euro and NATO.

History

After leaving the UMP (2006)[1][2] and the Rally for an Independent and Sovereign France (RIF)[3] where Asselineau was a member of the steering committee for 3 months, in 2007, for the 50th anniversary of the Rome Treaty signature, he created the Popular Republican Union (UPR).

Ideology

UPR runs on an anti-EU platform stating that all French policy decisions are made by an "unelected oligarchy, not French," leading to the political disaffection of the French public, and that the continued rule of the EU over European affairs will lead to a "global apartheid".[4] UPR promotes that withdrawal from the European Union and the euro by the usage of TEU Article 50[5] as a first step to get France out of its current crisis by regaining capital, goods and person flow regulation control.[4] For military sovereignty, UPR advocates France withdrawal from the NATO.[6]

UPR also favors nationalisation of entities such as TF1, La Poste, Gaz de France,[7] highways, water management and troubled banks.[4]

Relationship with the media and Internet activism

In February 2012, François Asselineau and his party, UPR, claimed they were "barred from the major media" ("barrés des grands médias") and "banned from going on the air" ("interdits d'antenne") as "[their] ideas are upsetting" ("[leur] discours dérange").[7] In 2014, UPR described itself as being "the most censored party in France".[8]

On 23 April 2014, François Asselineau's party sent a registered letter to Conseil supérieur de l'audiovisuel (Audiovisual Superior Council) to demand "urgent action regarding the mainstream broadcasting media to have them accept UPR at last in their broadcasts".

The "news blackout" that Asselineau allegedly had to deal with was criticized again after the 2014 European elections, as his party obtained slightly more votes than Nouveau Parti anticapitaliste (0.41% vs 0.39%) without further attracting attention from the mainstream media.[9]

In March 2012, Asselineau complained about the "censorship" he faced on French Wikipedia from which his article had been deleted several times for lack of renown.[9][10][11] In February 2013, UPR complained about what it called "the ill treatment of François Asselineau and UPR on Wikipedia", with an extended report on the subject established by the "Groupe Wiki de l’UPR – Cybermilitantisme" (the "UPR Wiki Group- Internet activism").

Asselineau and his team are very active on the Internet:[12] UPR claim to have developed "solely on the Internet" ("exclusivement en ligne")[13] and bank above all on this activism to try to become notable.[10] Rudy Reichstadt characterizes UPR as "a real phenomenon on the Internet", noting that it is "difficult to miss it when one is interested in the conspiracist circles" ("difficile de passer à côté lorsqu’on s’intéresse à la mouvance complotiste").[12] In 2012, UPR created the position of "national manager for Internet activism" ("responsable national au cybermilitantisme"), whose responsibility is to develop and coordinate the various people conducting such activism ("actions cybermilitantes").

However, there has been some backlash to this activism. fr (Laurent de Boissieu) mentions the harassment that "every journalist has had to deal with, one day or another, at the hands of some UPR activists".[14] Laurent Ruquier likewise noted that he invited François Asselineau to fr (On n'est pas couché) because of incessant Twitter pressure.[15] After the broadcast of this program, an article on the collaborative website of L'Obs (Le Plus) expressed doubts about the granting of speaking time to "this kind of conspiracist",[16] while fr (Causeur) suggested that Laurent Ruquier had in fact invited Asselineau in order to ridicule his anti-European ideas.[17]

Popular support and electoral record

UPR claim to be a growing party despite what they deem to be "a blacklisting from the national media".[7] The party has thus developed exclusively online strategies; Asselineau's conferences, for instance, have gathered more than two million views.[18] UPR states theirs is the most visited French political party website as evidenced by their Alexa rank.[19]

In 2013, the university researcher, Jean-Yves Camus doubts the reality of membership figures[20]

Date Membership Source
25 February 2015 >7000 [21]
21 May 2014 5000 [8]
3 March 2014 4200 [18]
24 September 2013 3300 [22]
10 June 2013 ≤3000 [23]
29 May 2013 2960 [24]
29 February 2012 ≈1000 [4]

2012 Presidential

Asselineau confirmed his candidacy for the 2012 French presidential election in December 2011 during the national congress of the party.[25] Asselineau was finally not among the ten candidates officially endorsed by the Constitutional council as he could muster only 17 signatures from elected officials out of the necessary 500[24]

2013 Legislative

Asselineau and Régis Chamagne ran for the legislative election in the Lot-et-Garonne's 3rd constituency[6][26] UPR failed to reach the second round, receiving less than one half of one percent of the vote.[27]

2014 European Parliament

The party participated in the 2014 European Parliament election.[28] However, a limited budget restricted active campaign mailings to only thirty departments.[29] UPR scored 0.41% of votes cast for France and Asselineau scored 0.56% of votes cast in the Île-de-France constituency.[30]

2015 Departmental

UPR ran in the 2015 departmental elections with 14 lists out of the 2,054 cantons.[31] They intended to alert electors notably on UPR's program and that the local situation is the consequence of national and international circumstances.[clarification needed] They were hoping to score honorably.[21][32]

See also

References

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External links

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