The vice-president of France’s opposition UMP party, Guillaume Peltier, announced on Tuesday that he planned to hold a string of demonstrations dubbed the “La Fête de la Violette” (the Violet Rally, in response to the Socialist Party's Rose symbol) to demand the return of party darling and former president Nicolas Sarkozy, reports France 24.
“Nicolas Sarkozy is the right’s natural leader,” Peltier told French radio RMC. “We need his charisma, his energy, his authority and experience.”
Following Sarkozy’s failed re-election bid against then-Socialist Party candidate François Hollande last year, the UMP party has struggled to find a viable candidate to fill the former president’s shoes.
Although the next presidential election isn’t until 2017, the UMP found itself in splinters after a disastrous leadership vote last November left the party divided between Sarkozy’s former prime minister François Fillon and ex-minister Jean-François Copé.
Read more of this report from France 24.