Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy, back in politics after a two-year retirement, announced plans on Friday to revamp his centre-right UMP party if named this month as its chairman, reports Yahoo! News.
Sarkozy, beaten by Socialist Francois Hollande in the 2012 presidential election, wants to go on to secure the UMP ticket for the next contest in 2017. But his comeback is being clouded by several legal cases involving him and the party.
Speaking to several thousand supporters at a rally in Paris, Sarkozy said that as chairman he would push for the 12-year-old UMP ("Union for a Popular Movement") to start from scratch and unite people with similar ideas.
"Those parties where everyone thinks the same, hung up on the old divisions of 50 years ago and where the leadership decides and the grass roots follow - that's finished," he said.
The UMP was originally created in 2002 as a merger of several parties with the goal of reuniting the French centre-right. But the party faces policy divisions, notably over whether France should accept a deeper European Union.
Sarkozy is favourite to win a Nov. 29 ballot of the UMP's 268,000 members to chair the party against two less high-profile rivals. But anything short of a landslide victory will mean the race to win the UMP presidential ticket remains wide open.