| Description | The Democratic Movement (Mouvement démocrate, MoDem) is a centrist and pro-European French political party that was founded by centrist politician François Bayrou to succeed his Union for French Democracy and to contest the 2007 parliamentary election, after his strong showing in the 2007 presidential election.
During the 2007 presidential campaign, François Bayrou advocated a national unity government. Although eliminated in the first round, an especially high number of voters (over 18%) supported Bayrou as a non-major party candidate. Following the election, he founded the Democratic Movement on May 29th to reinforce his strategy of political independence.
Some members of the UDF did not agree with this new strategy because the weighted French balloting system would hinder the Democratic Movement from obtaining seats in the legislative elections. These members created the New Centre, continuing their support for the newly elected president Nicolas Sarkozy.
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