The Popular Republican Movement (Mouvement Républicain Populaire or MRP) was a French Christian democratic party of the Fourth Republic. Its leaders included Georges Bidault, Robert Schuman, Paul Coste-Floret, Pierre-Henri Teitgen and Pierre Pflimlin. Christian Democracy is a political ideology, born at the end of the 19th century, largely as a result of the papal encyclical Rerum Novarum of Pope Leo XIII, in which the Vatican recognizes workers misery and agrees that something should be done about it, in reaction to the rise of... A political party is a political organization that subscribes to a certain ideology and seeks to attain political power within a government. ... The Fourth Republic existed in France between 1946 and 1958. ... Georges Bidault, French statesman Georges-Augustin Bidault (October 5, 1899 – January 27, 1983) was a French politician and active in the French Resistance and Organisation de lArmée Secrète (OAS). ... Robert Schuman in 1958, receiving Karlspreis in the city of Aachen Robert Schuman (29 June 1886 – 4 September 1963) was a noted French politician of German origin who is regarded as one of the founders of the European Union. ... Pierre Pflimlin, French prime minister Pierre Pflimlin (February 5, 1907 - June 27, 2000) was a French Christian Democratic politician who served as the last Prime Minister of the Fourth Republic for a few weeks in 1958, before the return of Charles de Gaulle. ...

The M.R.P. was the most successful party of European Christian Democracy in France. Founded in 1944 by Bidault and other Catholic activists who participated in the anti-Nazi underground Resistance during World War II, the party was initially quite successful, and participated in most of the governments of France's Fourth Republic (1944-1958). Unlike its Christian Democratic counterparts in Germany and Italy, however, the M.R.P.'s vote totals precipitously declined in later elections. The revival of pre-World War II conservative leaders and parties, and the emergence of Gaullism in 1947 as an alternative to the center-left governments that dominated France immediately after the war deprived the M.R.P. of many of it early voters, who were conservatives that reluctantly tolerated the party's domestic program of social welfare legislation and state-directed economic planning only because it was the most powerful counter-weight immediately after the war to France's then powerful Communist Party. The M.R.P. also dominated French foreign and colony policies during most of the later 1940s and 1950s. Along with the French Socialist Party, it was the most energetic supporter in the country of European integration. It was also a strong backer of NATO and close ties to the United States, making it the most "Atlantique" of French political parties. Its leaders, especially Georges Bidault and Paul Coste-Floret, Foreign and Colonial Ministers respectively in several French coalition governments, were primary architects of France's hard-line colonial policies that culminated in long wars of independence in Vietnam (1946-1954) and Algeria (1954-1962), as well as a series of smaller insurrections and political crises elsewhere in the French Empire. The M.R.P eventually divided over the Algerian question in the late 1950s, (with Bidault being an avid supporter of the Organisation de l'Armée Secrète). During the 1960s, the party generally supported President Charles de Gaulle, but broke with him in 1962 over his opposition to extending European economic integration toward political integration. What was left of the party joined the UDF in 1978. 1944 was a leap year starting on Saturday (link will take you to calendar). ... The Organisation de larmée secrète (OAS; Secret Army Organization) was a short-lived French right-wing terrorist group formed in January 1961 to resist the granting of independence to the French colony of Algeria (Algérie française). ... The Union for French Democracy, also known by its French acronym UDF (Union pour la Démocratie Française), is a French center-right political party. ... 1978 (MCMLXXVIII) was a common year starting on Sunday (the link is to a full 1978 calendar). ...