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The National Republican Movement (''Mouvement National Républicain'' or MNR) is a French nationalist political party, created by Bruno Mégret with former Club de l'Horloge alumni, Yvan Blot (also a member of GRECE) and Jean-Yves Le Gallou, as a split from Jean-Marie Le Pen's National Front on January 24, 1999. Although political observers have considered the MNR to be a far-right party, the MNR presents itself as classical liberal and nationalist. It opposes immigration, Islamisation, and the European Union, but, unlike the National Front, supports free markets and neoliberalism. Mégret has tried in the past to distance himself from Le Pen's provocative statements, in particular concerning Holocaust denial. In 2001, a call for reconciliation between the two parties was endorsed by Roland Gaucher. Pierre Vial left the MNR in October 2001, Bruno Mégret having expressed solidarity with the US〔Searchlight Magazine ''(France - The end in sight for Mégret? )'' January 2003〕 after the September 11, 2001 attack on the World Trade Center. ==History== Initially, Bruno Mégret was the chairman, with Serge Martinez vice-chairman, Jean-Yves Le Gallou, executive director and Franck Timmermans secretary-general. Other notable members of the party included Jean Haudry, Pierre Vial, Jean-Claude Bardet, Xavier Guillemot, Christian Bouchet and Maxime Brunerie. In 2000, the party had less than 5000 members, while its youth movement, the Movement National de la Jeunesse, headed by Philippe Schleiter, nephew of Robert Faurisson, had 1500 members.〔(Stephen Roth Institute Report ) (Tel Aviv University, 2000)〕 The student union Renouveau Etudiant had close ties with the MNR thanks to Pierre Vial. The party was initially known as the Front National-Mouvement National, but was forced to change its name to Mouvement National Républicain on October 2, 1999 after being sued by Le Pen for trademark infringement.〔Paul Webster, "(Le Pen win cuts far right's lifeline )", ''The Guardian'', May 12, 1999〕 In 2000, via the organisation ''Promouvoir'', the MNR sued successfully for the ban of the film Baise-moi to minors. During the 2004 campaign for the regional elections, the MNR campaigned under the "No to Islamization" slogan. In 2005, it campaigned against the proposed European Constitution and the possible integration of Turkey in the European Union; Bruno Mégret said that the Europeans, including France, were lying to the Turks by having them believe they could integrate within the EU, whereas public opinion would surely reject Turkey's membership in a referendum. As a result of MNR's low electoral results, Franck Timmermans and a few other former MNR members formed a new party in 2005, called the Parti populiste (Populist Party, PP) which tends to get closer of original ''Front national'' (Timmermans will later join ''Front national's'' cantonal campaign by representing it in Saint-Nazaire, as other candidates in Northern France on March 2008). As the ''Front national'' organized its traditional May 1 rally in Paris, to honor the memory of Joan of Arc, his president Jean-Marie Le Pen explicitly called to a union of all patriots, in the context of the near to come French presidential election of 2007. MNR, ''via'' Bruno Mégret, asked positively to this proposition, as the scissionists of the ''Parti populiste''. The ''Union des patriotes'' (Patriots union) get official on December 20, 2006 by a symbolic reconciliation in Le Pen Montretout's castle in Saint-Cloud, where both Le Pen and Mégret presented the initiative to the press ; gathered with their respective wives. The basic project was, for the MNR, to give a support of some 140 signatures of great electors to Jean-Marie Le Pen's presidential candidature - he needs 500. Finally MNR only succeeded to give 45. ''Front national'' and ''Mouvement national républicain'' made parallel campaigns with their respective militants for Jean-Marie Le Pen's candidature, excepted for a major ''Front national's'' rally in Lyon on March 11, 2007 where Mégret made an apparition within the guest (however, he didn't speak at the tribune). As a result, Mégret regularly criticizes this situation, like during interventions en French television channels ''LCI'' and ''I>télé'', where he exposes what he thinks to be Louis Aliot's (''Front national'' general secretary), and, mostly Marine Le Pen's strategy to minimize the contribution and the efficiency of the ''Union des patriotes''. On March 6, 2008, Jean-Marie Le Pen claimed that the MNR was funded illegally by the UIMM, the steel industry branch of the Medef. Bruno Mégret denied these accusations, and counter-claimed that it was foolish for Jean Marie Le Pen to make such claims, as he has been already alleged to be funded by Saddam Hussein and the Unification Church of Sun Myung Moon. In an interview to France 2 on the same day, Le Pen precised that he had not claimed Bruno Mégret was personally receiving funds from UIMM.〔(Le Pen et Mégret échangent des noms d'oiseaux ) Libération, 6 March 2008. (source: Agence France-Presse)〕〔(Mégret:"doutes sur la lucidité" de Le Pen ) Le Figaro, 6 March 2008 (source: Agence France-Presse)〕 Later in 2008, Bruno Mégret stepped down from party leadership and retired from political life. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「National Republican Movement」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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