Emmanuel Macron’s centrist party, La République en Marche, is changing its name to Renaissance as the French president attempts to win a ruling majority in parliament for his second term in office.
The party’s rebranding was announced just as campaigning was due to begin for June’s parliamentary elections. Macron is hoping to secure a parliamentary majority against competition from a new alliance of leftwing parties led by Jean-Luc Mélenchon, and Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally, which is seeking to increase its small number of seats.
The name Renaissance meant “always choosing enlightenment over obscurantism”, its secretary general, Stanislas Guérini, told a press conference in Paris. Macron’s grouping had previously used the name Renaissance during its European election campaign in 2019.
“Political parties have to reinvent themselves in order to continue to exist,” Guérini said, in a barbed reference to the poor presidential showing of the two former parties of government, the Socialists and Les Républicains, whose candidates Anne Hidalgo and Valérie Pécresse had a combined score of less than 7% in the presidential election last month, in which Macron beat the far-right Le Pen in the final.
The name change was also intended to help Macron’s party gain ground in local government, which it has failed to do over the past five years. “It will be a party of the people, open to citizens,” Guérini said, saying all expertise was welcome, particularly from local elected officials who could join.
Macron had created the political movement En Marche! (On the Move) in 2016 when he was economy minister, as a vehicle for his presidential bid in 2017. It was classed as “neither left nor right” and was presented at the time as deliberately unconventional. It used Macron’s own initials, EM, and had a handwritten logo that was Macron’s own writing, with no specific colour, unlike the rigid colours of the old party system.
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 parliament elections, the new Renaissance party will team up with two other centrist parties: its traditional allies in the MoDem party, which supported Macron in the presidential election, as well as the new Horizons party, set up by Macron’s former prime minister, Édouard Philippe. They will form a coalition under the banner Ensemble (Together).
François Bayrou, head of the MoDem party, told the Paris press conference that the coalition of centrists shared a sense of the “seriousness” of the current mood of political “divisions” in France. He said that opposition parties’ ideas were “more radical” and “more risky” for France and Europe.
