- published: 10 Jul 2016
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Democratic Federalist Independent (French: Démocrate Fédéraliste Indépendant, DéFI) is a regionalist and liberalpolitical party in Belgium whose aim is expansion of the linguistic rights of French-speakers in the Brussels region. "DéFI" is a homophone of the French word défi or "challenge".
The party is led by Olivier Maingain, a member of the Chamber of Representatives.
The party was founded as the Democratic Front of Francophones (Front Démocratique des Francophones, FDF) on 11 May 1964 and dominated Brussels' municipal politics until 1982. In January 2010 the party name was amended to Francophone Democratic Federalists (Fédéralistes Démocrates Francophones). The party adopted its current title in November 2015.
At the national level, the FDF was a member of the Reformist Movement (MR), the alliance of Francophone liberal parties, from 2002 until 2011, when it decided to leave the coalition over disagreements with MR president Charles Michel on the agreement concerning the splitting of the Brussels-Halle-Vilvoorde district during the 2010–2011 Belgian government formation.