Union of Democrats for the Republic

The Union of Democrats for the Republic, abbreviated UDR, was a Gaullist political party in France that existed from 1967 to 1976. It began as the Union for the Defence of the Republic and was renamed Union of Democrats for the Republic after 1968. It was the successor to Charles de Gaulle's earlier party, the Rally of the French People, and was organised in 1958, along with the founding of the Fifth Republic, as the Union for the New Republic. In 1962 it merged with the Democratic Union of Labour, a left-wing Gaullist group, and in 1967 it was joined by some Christian Democrats to form the Union of Democrats for the Fifth Republic, later dropping the word Fifth. After the May 1968 crisis it formed a right-wing coalition named Union for the Defense of the Republic, and it was renamed Union of Democrats for the Republic in October 1968 while keeping the abbreviation UDR. Under de Gaulle's successor Georges Pompidou it promoted the Gaullist movement. It dissolved in 1976, and its successor was the Rally for the Republic, founded by Jacques Chirac.