Democratic Force (France)

Democratic Force (Force Démocrate, FD) was a centrist political party in France founded in 1995 by the merger between the centrist components of the Union for French Democracy (UDF): the Christian-democratic Centre of Social Democrats and the Social Democratic Party.

The party disappeared in 1998, when the UDF confederation became a unified political party. The former leader of Democratic Force, François Bayrou, became president of this party, and more recently leader of the UDF's successor party, the Democratic Movement. However, a big chunk of FD's former members have later sided with the Union of the Popular Movement and The Republicans, as well as the Democratic European Force, formed by a splinter group from New Centre led by Jean-Christophe Lagarde and later aligned with the Union of Democrats and Independents, of which Lagarde is the current leader.