France’s bitterly divided conservative opposition party elected a new hardline leader on Sunday marking a move away from centre ground toward the territory of the far right, reports The Guardian.
Laurent Wauquiez will take control of the Les Républicains (LR) party after its disastrous performance in the presidential election earlier this year when its candidate, François Fillon, failed to make it into the second-round vote.
Wauquiez was elected president of LR on Sunday with 74.6% of the votes. However, less than half of the 235,000 paid-up party members bothered to cast a ballot. In total, just under 99,600 voted.
Wauquiez has run a hawkish leadership campaign, running on an anti-immigration and anti-welfare programme, and has worried some party heavyweights with his possible “porosity” to far-right Front National ideas. He refused to call on LR supporters to back Emmanuel Macron against the FN’s leader, Marine Le Pen, in the second round of the presidential vote in May.
There were two other, largely unknown, candidates but members gave Wauquiez, 42, a clear victory, making a second-round vote unnecessary.
Wauquiez is expected to consolidate his victory by appointing a youthful shadow cabinet to challenge Macron and raise the party from what he described as the ruins of its presidential catastrophe.
His hard-right line does not, however, have unanimous support. Franck Riester, a former LR member of parliament, has left the party, accusing Wauquiez of playing into the FN’s hands.
“By running after the Front National, we will end up by giving the far right power,” Riester said recently.