Political party in France
Nous Citoyens is a political party in France founded in July 2013 by entrepreneur Denis Payre. The name of the party was chosen a reference to the phrase "Moi président de la République...",[2] repeated by François Hollande against Nicolas Sarkozy in the debate between the two rounds of the 2012 presidential election.[3] The party aims to elect figures from civil society and with business experience in place of the professional political class,[4] supporting liberal and social liberal policies and presenting an "alternative offer to the FN" (Front National). It claims to go beyond the left-right divide with a program created through "participatory democracy" supportive of globalization and critical of the French labor code.[1] In the 2014 municipal elections, Nous Citoyens offered its support to any candidates committed to "good governance, transparency, and the non-accumulation of mandates",[5] and won a total of 58 seats across 18 communes.[6] In the subsequent European elections, the party solicited applications from its members to join its electoral lists, hoping to be present in all 8 European Parliament constituencies in France.[7] Nous Citoyens ultimately presented lists in 7 constituencies, winning 1.41% of the vote nationally.[8]
On 8 September 2013, Payre was replaced as president of Nous Citoyens by centrist Member of the European Parliament Jean-Marie Cavada, who consequently stepped down as vice-president of the New Centre and Union of Democrats and Independents. Payre, wishing to focus on social entrepreneurship projects over his political commitments, became vice-president of the party, which claimed 12,000 members at the time of Cavada's accession.[9] Cavada quit the party on 29 June 2015 over the lack of internal democracy,[10] forcing Payre to return to the presidency of Nous Citoyens, and on 17 July, Cavada founded the movement Génération Citoyens with several dissidents of his former party.[11] On 25 January 2016, Nicolas Doucerain was elected to succeed Payre with 59.5% of votes in the first round, with a turnout of about 1,800 votes out of 4,700 activists up-to-date on membership fees.[12] Nous Citoyens did not support any candidate in the 2017 presidential election,[13] and none of the candidates it presented in the 2017 legislative elections under the banner of "577 – The Independents" alongside the party Territories in Movement of Jean-Christophe Fromantin advanced to the second round.[14][15]
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