In 1887, the parliamentary opposition (socialists, radicals and monarchists) to the republican majority rallied around the figure of General Georges Ernest Boulanger, former War Minister excluded by the government for his radical nationalism. Facing the threat from the popular Boulanger, the republican group became divided into two opposing factions, namely on one side the old republican guard led by Jules Ferry founded in 1888 the self-declared leftist National Republican Association and on the other side the conservative republicans led by launched the Liberal Republic Union in 1889.
