FRANCE-POLITICS/SARKOZY France's conservative UMP to become "Les republicains" on Saturday

Record ID: 135859

  • Title: FRANCE-POLITICS/SARKOZY France's conservative UMP to become "Les republicains" on Saturday
  • Date: 29th May 2015
  • Summary: PARIS, FRANCE (FILE - NOVEMBER 18, 2012) (REUTERS) ***WARNING CONTAINS FLASH PHOTOGRAPHY*** FORMER PRIME MINISTER AND THEN PARTY LEADER CANDIDATE FRANCOIS FILLON AT NEWS CONFERENCE PARIS, FRANCE (FILE - NOVEMBER 19, 2012) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF UMP LEADER JEAN-FRANCOIS COPE ARRIVING AT UMP PARTY HEADQUARTERS PARIS, FRANCE (FILE - NOVEMBER 7, 2014) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF SUPPOR
  • Embargoed: 13th June 2015 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: France
  • Country: France
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVACSIDR4MNINBH0C91IBNRZWLF
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: PLEASE NOTE: THIS EDIT CONTAINS MATERIAL WHICH WAS ORIGINALLY 4:3
    French conservative UMP party will turn a page on Saturday (May 30) at a party congress to become "Les Republicains" after judges cleared the way on Tuesday (May 26) for its leader Nicolas Sarkozy to rename the right-wing party.
    The name "Les Republicains" was put to an electronic vote of party members on Thursday and Friday (May 29) and the leader will now try to turn the party into a personal war machine in a bid to recapture the Elysee in 2017.
    Sarkozy came back from retirement last fall and won the party leadership after losing the presidency to French president Francois Hollande in 2012.
    The step was seen as a personal victory followed by a win in local elections last March where UMP and its allies took over two thirds of the 102 local departments.
    While the change of name has sparked critics from the left which accused Sarkozy to take-over the national heritage with a name such as "Les Republicains", the goal of the right is to turn the page for a party which has known two years of internal quarrels and political divisions.
    The UMP has long been riven by leadership squabbles, and both it and its new leader are mired in a legal inquiry into alleged funding irregularities.
    UMP party Member of Parliament Patrick Ollier said that changing the name of the party would contribute to change the image in the public opinion.
    "There was a time for the foundation of this movement and create a new impetus and after there will be a time to build the project so that French people know that they can trust us once the presidential term has arrived, to create the real change of power. That's why we have done "Les Republicains". It turns the page to wrong impressions remained from previous fights inside the UMP party. So it's a new look, a new face and a new attitude too," Patrick Ollier said.
    Member of UMP party Pierre Lellouche said that beyond changing name, what was important for the party was to reaffirms it values.
    "If one is not able to reinvent the republican pact in terms of what we call our economic and social model on the one hand, in terms of our identity, in terms of where the Republic stands in Europe and in the World -- here are the key aspects we need to work on -- if we are not able to do that, you can change the name as often as you like, nothing will change," Pierre Lellouche said.
    215 000 supporters were invited to cast an electronic vote to ratify the change of name of the party, confirm the political line and approve the new political bureau.
    The salesperson of the boutique at the UMP headquarters, Micheline Duval, said that dozens of militants had come in the past few days to purchase souvenirs of the UMP before the party definitively changes name on Saturday.
    French General Charles de Gaulle, who founded in 1958 the largest political force called the Union for the New Republic (UNR) -- the ancestor of conservative party RPR then UMP -- is considered as the main political source of inspiration for the leaders of the different conservative parties which were created from 1958 to now.
    UNR was replaced by the UDR (Union for the Defence of the Republic) in 1967, itself replaced In December 1976 by a new Gaullist party, the Rally for the Republic (RPR) founded by Jacques Chirac which then became the Union for a Popular Majority (UMP) in 2002 and consisted in a merger of several centre-right parties.
    Following in the footsteps of de Gaulle, Chirac devoted much of his presidency to defending France's role as a great nation on the world stage -- a worldview he consecrated by opposing the invasion of Iraq at the U.N. Security Council in 2003.
    Alain Juppe, a close ally of Chirac, became the party's first president at the party's founding congress at Le Bourget in November 2002, right after the election.
    The first years of the party were marked by tensions between Juppe and other allies of Chirac or then-Minister of Interior Nicolas Sarkozy.
    Juppe was forced to resign from the party's presidency in 2004 after being found guilty in a corruption scandal and Sarkozy rapidly announced that he would take over the presidency of the UMP.
    He was elected on November 28 2004 with 85.09% of the votes.
    In the 2004 regional elections, the UMP suffered a heavy blow in regional elections far behind the socialist party, and Sarkozy spent a lot of energy trying then to rejuvenate the UMP under his presidency in preparation of the 2007 election.
    After winning the presidency in May 2007, Sarkozy as a consequence resigned from the presidency of the UMP.
    In 2012, UMP opposition party was embroiled in a leadership battle, with UMP senior member Jean-Francois Cope saying he had won a contested election and his contender, former prime minister Francois Fillon, forming a breakaway wing in parliament.
    After losing the presidency to Socialist Francois Hollande in 2012, Sarkozy made a storming comeback in politics in September, and won the UMP party presidency in November 2014.
    Sarkozy's 2014 platform has been aimed at winning voters back from Le Pen and refunding the 12-year-old UMP.
    He has sought to appeal to voters worried about multi-culturalism in France, and has urged the European Union to hand back all but its core powers to national governments.
    Sarkozy faces several hurdles in his run for the presidency, including the opposition from former Prime Minister, Alain Juppe, who plans to compete with Sarkozy in the party's primary election in 2016.
    Although results of the vote will only be unveiled on Saturday, voters are expected to widely approve the changes initiated by Sarkozy.
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