The name is absent

or more occasions. Another fifteen UNR deputies (out of a total of 215
full members) dissented or abstained three times.”⁷ Apart from a meat
marketing bill, on which thirty-two UNR deputies voted against the majority
position and three more abstained (many apparently in defense of local
interests),^ns the largest number of dissenters came on a bill requiring cor-
porations to inform stockholders of directors’ salaries (eighteen against and
three abstaining), one allowing certain stockholders a plural vote in speci-
fied circumstances (twenty-three against and one abstaining), and another —
again on the question of the stockholders’ right to information — requiring
corporation executives to provide detailed accounts of salaries and expenses
(twenty-one for and four abstaining, with most UNR deputies now op-
posed)."⁹ Although one might have expected the first of these roll calls
(threatening corporation secrecy) to bring out a “Right wing” opposition,
and the last two to reveal a “Left wing” opposition on economic policy,
in fact, the “Right wingers” were mostly obedient on other votes, and, of
the supposed “Left wingers,” only Louis Vallon, René Capitant, and Fran-
çois Le Douarec show up as dissenters or abstainers on both of the last-
mentioned roll calls. Though there may have been a more or less cohesive
Left wing at work behind the scenes, when the final votes were called, UNR
deputies tended to close ranks. Those who did dissent or abstain from the
group position varied greatly from question to question.¹²⁰

Unlike the UDT, those thirty-five Independents who were elected under
the Gaullist label in 1962 established a separate parliamentary group, the
Independent Republicans, which remained outside the UNR. While rather
faithfully delivering their votes to give the government an absolute majority
after the 1962 election, the Independent Republicans distinguished them-
selves from many of their UNR partners by their attachment to European
political integration, to economic liberalism, and to a revival of parliamen-
tary powers.¹²’ Again in contrast to the UDT, until 1967, when they elected
several young men, almost all Independent Republican deputies were ex-
perienced politicians who had built local political bases and who had been
elected to the National Assembly in 1958 or earlier without the Gaullist
label.¹²² Far from seeking admission to the UNR, the Independent Repub-
lican leader (and former Finance Minister) Valéry Giscard d’Estaing insists
that his is a “reflective,” not an unconditional Gaullism;¹²² he and his col-
leagues declare themselves “loyal but not servile partners of the UNR.”¹²'
Their announced goal is “to become the majority of the majority.”¹²’’ In
pursuit of high ambitions for himself and the Giscardiens, during the year
following his replacement as Finance Minister in January, 1966, Giscard
d’Estaing made extensive political tours of France, established a national
“Federation of Independent Republicans,” created a scries of clubs entitled

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