Opportunist Republicans in the context of René Waldeck-Rousseau, father

Orléanist (French: Orléaniste) was a 19th-century French political label originally used by those who supported a constitutional monarchy expressed by the House of Orléans. Due to the radical political changes that occurred during that century in France, four different phases of Orléanism can be identified:

• The "pure" Orléanism: constituted by those who supported the constitutional reign of Louis Philippe I (1830–1848) after the 1830 July Revolution, and who showed liberal and moderate ideas.
• The "fusionist" (or "unionist") Orléanism: the movement formed by pure Orléanists and by those Legitimists who after the childless death of Henri, Count of Chambord in 1883 endorsed Philippe, Count of Paris, grandson of Louis Philippe, as his successor. The fusion drove the Orleanist movement to more conservative stances, emphasising French nationality (rejecting claims to France of the Spanish Bourbons on account of their "foreignness") and Catholicism.
• The "progressive" Orléanism: the majority of "fusionists" who, after the decline of monarchist sentiment in the 1890s, joined into moderate republicans, who showed progressive and secular-minded goals, or into Catholic rally, like the Liberal Action.
• Contemporary Orléanism. The party Action Française embraced and still does advocate for its own variant of Orléanism which rejects the economic liberal policies of "pure" Orléanism and supports Integralism.

Orleanism was opposed by the two other monarchist trends: the more conservative Legitimism that was loyal to the eldest branch of the House of Bourbon after 1830, and the Bonapartism that supported Napoleon's legacy and heirs.

The Republican Federation (French: Fédération républicaine, FR) was the largest conservative party during the French Third Republic, gathering together the Progressive Republicans and the Orléanists rallied to the Republic.

Founded in November 1903, the party competed with the more secular and centrist Alliance démocratique (Democratic Alliance). Later, most deputies of the Fédération républicaine and of Action libérale (which included Catholics rallied to the Republic) joined the Entente républicaine démocratique right-wing parliamentary group.

Georges Ernest Jean-Marie Boulanger (29 April 1837 – 30 September 1891), nicknamed Général Revanche ("General Revenge"), was a French Army officer and politician. An enormously popular public figure during the second decade of the Third Republic, he won multiple elections. At the zenith of his popularity in January 1889, he was feared to be powerful enough to establish himself as dictator. His base of support was the working-class districts of Paris and other cities, plus rural traditionalist Catholics and royalists. He introduced an obsessive and almost pathological anti-German sentiment, known as revanchism, which demanded the complete destruction of Imperial Germany as vengeance for the defeat and fall of the Second French Empire during the Franco-Prussian War (1870–71), into French culture and accordingly laid the foundations for the outbreak of the First World War.

The elections of September 1889 marked a decisive defeat for the Boulangists. Changes in the electoral laws prevented Boulanger from running in multiple constituencies and the aggressive opposition of the established government, combined with Boulanger's self-imposed exile, contributed to a rapid decline of the movement. The decline of Boulanger severely undermined the political strength of the conservative and royalist elements of French political life; they would not recover strength until the establishment of the Vichy regime in 1940. The defeat of the Boulangists ushered in a period of political dominance by the Opportunist Republicans.

Jules François Camille Ferry (French: [ʒyl fɛʁi]; 5 April 1832 – 17 March 1893) was a French statesman and republican philosopher. He was one of the leaders of the Moderate Republicans and served as Prime Minister of France from 1880 to 1881 and 1883 to 1885. He was a promoter of laicism and colonial expansion. Under the Third Republic, Ferry made primary education free and compulsory through several new laws. However, he was forced to resign following the Sino-French War in 1885 due to his unpopularity and public opinion against the war.

François Judith Paul Grévy (15 August 1807 – 9 September 1891), known as Jules Grévy (French: [ʒyl ɡʁevi]), was a French lawyer and politician who served as President of France from 1879 to 1887. He was a leader of the Moderate Republicans, and given that his predecessors were monarchists who tried without success to restore the French monarchy, Grévy is considered the first real republican president of France. During Grévy's presidency from 1879 to 1887, according to David Bell, there was a disunity among his cabinets. Only one survived more than a year. Grévy paid attention chiefly to defense, internal order, and foreign relations. Critics argue that Grévy's confusing approach to appointments set a bad precedent for handling crises.

Born in a small town in the Jura department, Grévy moved to Paris where he initially followed a career in law before becoming a republican activist. He began his political career after the French Revolution of 1848, as a member of the National Assembly of the French Second Republic, where he became known for his opposition to Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte and as a supporter of lesser authority for the executive branch. During the 1851 coup d'état by Louis-Napoléon he was briefly imprisoned, and afterwards retired from political life.