The UDI and Independent Deputies () was a parliamentary group in the National Assembly of France including members of the Union of Democrats and Independents (UDI), Agir (2017–2020), and some dissidents of The Republicans (LR) after the 2017 legislative elections.
History
On 26 June 2012, the UDI group was founded in the aftermath of the 2012 legislative elections.
In the aftermath of the legislative elections on 11 and 18 June 2017, the split between Macron-compatible "constructives" within the Republicans (LR) and the rest of the party re-emerged. On 21 June, Thierry Solère announced the creation of a new common group in the National Assembly with the Union of Democrats and Independents (UDI) likely to contain 18 UDI and about 15 LR deputies. The formation of two parliamentary groups on the right represented a symbolic divorce to the two threads on the right (the moderates and the hardliners) and the end of the old Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) which had been created in 2002 to unite the right and centre.
On 27 June, the group announced that Franck Riester (LR) and Stéphane Demilly (UDI) would preside as co-presidents. At the time of its formation on 27 June, the parliamentary group included 35 deputies, including 1 associated member.
On 28 November, following the establishment of the political party Agir by LR members, the group was renamed to the UDI, Agir and Independents group (groupe UDI, Agir et indépendants), with Jean-Christophe Lagarde replacing Demilly as part of the rotating co-presidency of the group. Simultaneously, Thierry Solère, after his exclusion from the Republicans as a result of his role in the constructives and subsequent adhesion with La République En Marche!, voluntarily left for the La République En Marche group.
Marine Brenier left the group to rejoin The Republicans group on 23 January 2018, and the invalidation of the election of Napole Polutele on 2 February reduced the group by one more and triggered a by-election.
Exclusion from The Republicans
Following the election of Emmanuel Macron as president under the banner of En Marche! and the subsequent appointment of three right-wing personalities in prominent posts in the newly formed government – Édouard Philippe as Prime Minister, Bruno Le Maire as French Ministry for the Economy and Finance, and Gérald Darmanin as Minister of Public Action and Accounts – a parliamentary group including LR dissidents supportive of the government, "The Constructives", was formed in the National Assembly, separate from the existing LR group. After the election of Thierry Solère, one of the founding LR members of the group, as a quaestor on 28 June – a post traditionally reserved for the opposition, with the group having declared itself as an opposition group regardless of its line towards the government – many party figures added to calls for the exclusion of LR "constructive" deputies and ministers, including Philippe, Le Maire, Darmanin, Sébastien Lecornu, Thierry Solère, and Franck Riester, from the party. The issue was to be raised at the meeting of political bureau of the party on 11 July, with the "constructive" deputies publicly declaring that to be excluded would be of "no importance", and tentative proposals for the creation of "a new political force" consisting of the "constructive" LR deputies and members of the Union of Democrats and Independents (UDI), who formed the backbone of the group.