France’s fight on the right

A year has passed since Nicolas Sarkozy announced his return to frontline politics, and the political landscape in France is still recovering from the shock. His rivals for the leadership of the French right have watched while their cordially disliked ex-leader consistently outmanoeuvred them. They had made the mistake of believing in the sincerity of Sarko’s farewell speech in May 2012 when, following his defeat in the presidential election by François Hollande, he said: ‘From now on I will seek to serve my country in other spheres.’

Delighted by his departure, his colleagues seized the opportunity to reform the UMP, a coalition of the Gaullist and the anti-Gaullist right devised to ensure that Jean-Marie Le Pen, then leader of the Front National, never came to power. Two ex-prime ministers, Alain Juppé and François Fillon, rewrote the party’s constitution and instituted an American-style primary election to be held in November 2016, six months before the end of President Hollande’s term. It was hoped that this would be a means of reconnecting the leadership with its grass roots and would end the chronic cronyism and corruption of the past. It was agreed that there should be an election for a new UMP president, who would organise the primary but could not be a candidate in it.

All these good intentions came to nothing with the return of Sarkozy, trailing his involvement in a total of six criminal investigations, and ignoring the fact that 66 per cent of the electorate hoped that he would not make a comeback. During his five years in office he had conspicuously failed to implement his election programme — the limitation of trade-union power and the modernisation of the national economy. Despite all this, Sarko was ready for more. First he managed to get himself elected as UMP president, which enabled him to cancel the regulation that the party president could not stand as a candidate in the national elections.