It was the successor to Charles de Gaulle's earlier party, Rassemblement du Peuple Français, and was organised in 1958, along with the founding of the French Fifth Republic.
It was founded in 1958 as the Union for the New Republic, and in 1962 merged with the Democratic Union of Labour, a left-Gaullist group, to become the Union for the French Republic-Democratic Union of Labour. In 1967 it became the Union of Democrats for the Fifth Republic, later dropping the 'Fifth'.
It only survived de Gaulle's death by six years. It dissolved in 1976, and its succesor was Rassemblement pour la République.