- Title: FRANCE: Conservatives vote nation-wide to pick a new leader for the UMP party
- Date: 18th November 2012
- Summary: MEAUX, FRANCE (NOVEMBER 18, 2012) (REUTERS) CONSERVATIVE UMP PARTY MEMBERS VOTING FOR NEW LEADER VOTER PICKING BALLOTS VOTING UNDERWAY CANDIDATE TO THE LEADERSHIP OF THE UMP PARTY JEAN-FRANCOIS COPE COMING OUT OF VOTING BOOTH VARIOUS OF COPE VOTING COPE KISSING SUPPORTER (SOUNDBITE) (English) CANDIDATE TO THE LEADERSHIP OF THE UMP PARTY, JEAN-FRANCOIS COPE, SAYING: "It's important because we are worrying about what is going on in our country, because of the decisions of the President Hollande which are all of them very bad and very worrying for our economy, so that's why this election is very important and the man who is going to be elected will have a very very hard task, hard duty, in order to organise the opposition and to call for another policy for France." COPE LEAVING PREMISES BALLOTS WITH NAMES OF TWO CANDIDATES (JEAN-FRANCOIS COPE AND FORMER PRIME MINISTER FRANCOIS FILLON) PARIS, FRANCE (NOVEMBER 18, 2012) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF UMP MEMBERS QUEUING TO VOTE BALLOT WITH FRANCOIS FILLON WRITTEN ON VOTERS QUEUING FORMER PRIME MINISTER FRANCOIS FILLON WAITING TO CAST HIS VOTE VARIOUS OF FILLON VOTING FILLON LEAVING
- Embargoed: 3rd December 2012 12:00
- Keywords:
- Location: France
- Country: France
- Topics: Politics
- Reuters ID: LVAEIZTS2WV0WQGJP8ZWBETBE3I0
- Story Text: France's conservatives voted to elect a new leader on Sunday (November 18) who will determine whether the party ousted in May from a 17-year presidential reign will hold to the centre or move to the right in a quest to regain power in 2017.
Moderate ex-prime minister Francois Fillon, who regularly tops political popularity polls, is tipped to narrowly beat Jean-Francois Cope, a disciple of ex-president Nicolas Sarkozy and his hard stance on issues including immigration.
Yet with two thirds of UMP (Union for a Popular Movement) members wanting Sarkozy to return for the 2017 election, the result will be close and a Fillon victory would not completely bury an existential crisis in the opposition party.
Cope, mayor of Meaux near Paris, who speaks in the same brash way Sarkozy does and can be more provocative, alleged recently that city suburbs brim with "anti-white" racism.
Cope voted early on Sunday and said the new leader would have to mobilise against Socialist President Hollande's government's policies:
"We are worrying about what is going on in our country, because of the decisions of the President Hollande which are all of them very bad and very worrying for our economy, so that's why this election is very important and the man who is going to be elected will have a very very hard task, hard duty, in order to organise the opposition and to call for another policy for France," he told Reuters Television.
Socialist President Francois Hollande has a clear majority in parliament and controls most French regions, but a slump in his ratings is giving the right an audience.
Cope, who is a more polarising figure than his opponent Francois Fillon, is playing to the nearly one in five people who voted for the far-right National Front in the first election round in May, betting that rampant unemployment will keep tensions high over immigration.
He irked many inside his party by making much of a one-off incident where a boy had his pain au chocolat pastry snatched from him by Muslim youths during the Ramadan fasting period.
Cope played a central role in Sarkozy's banning of the full-face Islamic veil and aims to appease those who find Muslim customs invasive in secular and traditionally Catholic France.
Unlike Fillon, a motor-racing fan who is ready to run for the 2017 presidency, the younger Cope, 48, has said he would stand aside if Sarkozy decides to make a comeback.
Fillon, an urbane 58-year-old, appeals more to centre-ground voters disillusioned with Hollande's left-wing policies, such as tax hikes on high-earners.
The gulf between them reflects a split in a party founded by former President Jacques Chirac in 2002 to group several centre-right parties and carry on the legacy of post-war leader Charles de Gaulle, who sought to transcend the left-right rift.
The UMP is still smarting from losing the Senate, the presidency and the lower house within months of each other.
Whichever direction the party takes will be tested a year from now in municipal and communal elections where Hollande risks losing ground, barring an economic rebound.
Right-wing ideology aside, Cope and the bushy-browed Fillon have similar views on economic policy and Europe, and have been critical of Hollande's challenge to Berlin's focus on austerity. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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