After weeks of divisions in the wake of a disastrous leadership election, the right-wing UMP appears to be edging slowly towards resolving its internal conflict. On the surface the party's main problem has been the fallout from a bitterly-contested battle for the opposition party's presidency between former prime minister François Fillon and Jean-François Copé, the man who eventually took over the UMP's disputed presidency.
But the reality is that the party is threatened by an ideological split, or at least a major division on its future strategy, that runs much deeper than the current controversy. During the UMP's last five years as the ruling party – until June's Parliamentary elections saw the Socialist Party take control of the National Assembly - its leaders often used to claim: “What binds us together is infinitely superior to that which divides us.” Such talk now has a very hollow ring to it. Former minister François Baroin admits the UMP is “cut in two” while Fillon has referred to the “political” and “moral” splits inside the party. Since 2007 the UMP has lost every major election it has been involved in, including now its own leadership contest. Yet during that time it has never worked to refine and decide its ideological line, not even during the contest between Fillon and Copé.
Enlargement : Illustration 1
Speaking off the record, a Fillon supporter told Mediapart: “The political direction of the party was not remotely addressed during the leadership campaign. It's a real problem. For years we've criticised a Socialist Party that was never able to sort out its ideological struggles, and today we not only don't have a leader, we don't have a political line!” He adds: “Before, the line was simple – it was [former president] Nicolas Sarkozy. Today...”
Another Fillon supporter, Thierry Lazaro, also speaks of a “philosophical breakdown” at the heart of the party. And Henri Guaino, former special advisor to President Sarkozy and who was himself an initial candidate for the UMP leadership, said back in September that the contest was a “democratic failure” even before it had begun. He called for a full debate on what the party stood for and the way in which different strands of it could work together.
But instead of a campaign of ideology and ideas, the Fillon-Copé contest simply became one of warring clan chiefs squabbling over their ambitions. “There are no ideological differences between them,” says historian Gilles Richard of the Sciences-Po Rennes university and an expert on right-wing political parties in France. “Today they are both neo-liberals and pro-European.”
It is true that Jean-François Copé conducted a more overtly right-wing campaign, for example attacking what he called “anti-white racism”, even claiming that “thugs” were stealing the pastries known as pain au chocolat from children outside their schools during Ramadan, when Muslims fast. However others claim that Fillon, too, veered to the right in his campaign, even if he avoided using the language of the far-right Front National (FN) . In any case the former junior minister Benoist Apparu, who is close to former prime minister Alain Juppé the UMP's first president in 2002, says Copé's posture was simply an election gambit. “He campaigned very much to the right to win over the party, planning to move back to the centre once elected.”
Academic researcher Anne-Sophie Petitfils, a specialist in right-wing activist networks, agrees that the ideological splits within the party were not reflected in the Copé-Fillon battle. She argues that their main difference is that Copé, the party's general secretary for three years, has the support of many grass-roots activists and local party leaders as well as control of the party's finances and logistics, while Fillon has the backing of many party grandees. “They also differ in their positioning vis-a-vis Nicolas Sarkozy. The former [Copé] tried to portray himself as the inheritor of Sarkozy's mantle, the latter [Fillon] as somewhat against [Sarkozy].”
Divided over how to tackle the Far Right
Enlargement : Illustration 2
A look at the supporters of the two candidates also shows that while there was some ideological positioning, support often depended on more personal and individual factors. “The big supporters are absolutely not based on ideology,” insists one leading Fillon supporter. “They can be understood by personal enmities and by local and generational issues.” Researcher Anne-Sophie Petitfils notes: “They are divided up according to local factors, ahead of the [local] elections in 2014.”
So for example two centrist figures Jean-Pierre Raffarin, a former prime minister, and Gérard Larcher supported rival candidates, the former backing Copé and the latter Fillon. The pair had fought a battle to become president of the Senate in 2008, a contest won by Larcher. While François Baroin, a long-time ally of Copé, eventually backed Fillon at a time when the latter was far ahead in the opinion polls in the contest for the UMP presidency.
It made for some curious alignments. What for example do the liberal Luc Chatel, a former education minister, and the humanist Raffarin have in common? The answer is simply that they both supported Copé for the leadership. “The party's made up of human beings who have both personal and electoral interests, their calculations are both local and national,” explains Gilles Richard. He adds: “The crisis in the UMP has created problems and changed people's career paths.”
These individual “calculations” mask the real chasm at the heart of the party created in 2002 – the huge gap between the centrist fringe of the part and its right wing. “There's always been a neo-liberal pro-European Right and an anti-liberal, anti-capitalist and nationalist Right, in the tradition of [early 20th century nationalist Charles] Maurras,” says Richard. “In 2002 [when it was founded] the UMP succeeded in uniting these two Rights. Today the party is facing a deep and insurmountable division.”
Anne-Sophie Petitfils believes the divisions within the UMP have redeveloped since 2005. “The reconstruction of the various Rights in 2002 changed the situation and brought in at a local level activists coming from the extreme right – the Front National, [followers of] Charles Pasqua. Sarkozy had acted as a siren call [for the Right].” The result was that different strands and points of view emerged inside the party. “It ended up with the different movements within the UMP being institutionalised, with the creation of the reform group, the Social Right, the Popular Right, the humanists and so on,” she says.
For Gilles Richard the split is not so much an “ideological” one as a “strategic” one. “The UMP is faced with a problem of political strategy in relation to the Front National (FN). Fillon and Copé are both neo-liberals but they don't have the same strategy towards the FN,” he says. “The entire problem for the Right today is, how do you bring about a union of the [different] Rights? What strategy for an alliance with the FN for [the presidential and legislative elections in] 2017? Should they go all the way?” The historian says that such an alliance with the FN would “call into question the very essence of the UMP as it was constructed”. For from the start it included figures from the centre of French politics – the old Union for French Democracy (UDF), which was both neo-liberal and pro-European.
Officially the question does not even arise. “No electoral alliance with the FN” is the official mantra of all the UMP leaders. At the same time they continue to defend the official line of “neither the FN or the Socialist Party” - shortened to simply 'ni-ni' in French - meaning that when it comes to head to head contests in local elections between the FN and the Left, the UMP supports neither. Yet even here the language is different between the UMP factions. The right-leaning leader of UMP Members of Parliament Christian Jacob said recently: “The Left or the Front national, they're exactly the same.” However others, such as former ministers Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet or Roselyne Bachelot, would vote PS in the case of a head-to-head duel with the FN. Another former minister Bruno Le Maire admitted earlier this year that the party needed to come up with a new approach. “The 'ni-ni' won't be enough in the long term,” he said.
During local elections in 2011 François Fillon, who was then prime minister, went against the party line and that of the Elysée by calling for a “vote against the Front National” in the event of run-off elections between the FN and PS. Yet even he has not completely clarified his position. Fillon said he “didn't like the 'ni-ni' [approach] because it is the absence of a position”. He also said: “I will never vote for a FN candidate and so far I have never voted for a PS candidate.” Just to complicate it further, when questioned on this issue in October he said he could not ask party supporters to vote for a “Socialist Party that is in the process of steering the country into a wall”. A Fillon supporter reveals that the former premier admits in private he would vote PS against the FN if he had to, because that's “in his political DNA”, but that he cannot say so publicly for fear of angering some UMP activists.
Anne-Sophie Petitfils says that at a local level the question of having an alliance with the FN often crops up and causes real divisions. “Their position depends on the presence of the FN geographically and of the social approach of the local [UMP] leaders,” says the researcher.
“Those who on the ground are competing against a strong FN are favourable to alliance strategies, those who are in much more moderate areas are much less so.”
It is a sensitive issue for the party, and UMP leaders do not like to discuss it. “We've been pestered with this question for thirty years,” says former housing minister Benoist Apparu. “There is no FN question!” He adds: “Do we ask the same question of the Left, which has had alliances with the extreme left?” When it is pointed out that according to polls two thirds of UMP sympathisers want such local alliances, the MP replies: “Well, we wouldn't agree with them.”
'The UMP is in denial'
Gilles Richard thinks that “the UMP is in denial” over the issue of the FN. “Marine Le Pen achieved such a vote in 2012 that the UMP can't dodge the question. They're trapped, they can't say that such alliances can be envisaged given their neo-liberal platform.” Richard says that such alliances would also jeopardise their links with the Christian-Democrat strand of the UMP. He believes that the only outcome will be a “trial of strength between the UMP and the FM. Where will the electors go? Jean-François Copé is trying to be like Sarkozy in 2007 [editor's note, who succeeded in attracting many FN supporters to vote UMP in the presidential election]. But the FN electorate votes on the basis of being against the system, anti-liberal. The working class FN voters will stay with the FN.” Anne-Sophie Petitfils says that Sarkozy “maintained a line of opposition to the FN while legitimising some of its formula and themes during the presidency”.
Here once again there are divisions within the UMP. Former agriculture minister Bruno Le Maire has told Mediapart that “the values and the language of the UMP are not those of the Front National” and that “if the UMP loses itself in the mire of a discussion with the FN, it will lose everything”. Yet others on the right of the party believe, on the contrary, that “there can be discussions”, that there are “some common subjects” and that the party needs to toughen its stance on immigration and law and order.
If the UMP today finds itself trapped by this issue, it is because its former leader did not want to come down on one side or the other. “In 2007 Nicolas Sarkozy only solved this problem to a limited extent,” says Gilles Richard. “He only siphoned off the FN support in a temporary manner, faced with an ageing [Jean-Marie] Le Pen [editor's note, then president of the FN]. This was thanks to a “melting pot” of an agenda that contained support for positive discrimination and inclusiveness on the one hand, with a tough message on law and order, immigration and the benefits culture on the other.
Anne-Sophie Petitfils says that in 2007 'Sarkozysme' was appropriated by a number of very different groups. For example, those French with links to the former French colony Algeria appreciated his refusal to apologise for France's past colonial acts. “At the same time centrists or figures from the modern Left such as Martin Hirsch, Jean-Marie Bockel and Rama Yade backed him.” However, says Gilles Richard, Sarkozy was unable to continue this balancing act until the end of his presidency as the world financial and economic crisis intervened and the complex structure fell apart. “In [the] 2012 [election] he did not keep to the compromise position of 2007 and the lid came off,” says Richard.
Today, says the historian “Copé is being like Sarkozy in 2012 and Fillon like Sarkozy in 2007 except that he lacks the charisma”. The former prime minister focussed on a campaign of bringing people together while Copé gambled on the rightwards leaning of the party faithful. In fact membership of the three right-wing factions, the Droite fort ('Strong Right'), the Droite populaire ('Popular Right') and the Droite sociale ('Social Right') made up more than 60% of those who voted in the UMP leadership election on November 18th.
“The rise of Guillaume Peltier, who comes from the extreme right, shows very well which way the party leans now,” says Richard, referring to the 36-year-old businessman who was a member of the Front National and later the ultra-nationalist Mouvement pour la France before joining the UMP in 2009. In early 2012 Peltier was named national secretary of the party in charge of opinion polls, later became a junior spokesman for Sarkozy's failed election campaign and co-founded the Droite forte in July.
Richard also cites the example of Michèle Tabarot, a loyal supporter of Copé and currently secretary general of the UMP. She is the daughter of a former leader of the paramilitary Organisation de l'armée secrète (OAS) which was against Algeria gaining independence from France and thus bitterly opposed to French president Charles De Gaulle's decision to hold a referendum in January 1961 on self-determination for Algeria. She apparently still regards De Gaulle with horror and according to Le Monde a local councillor in the Alpes-Maritimes département or county where she is a Member of Parliament reveals that “even today when her gaze alights on a portrait of the general she turns her head away”.
'We've always had a right-wing fringe'
However, many in the UMP challenge the idea that the party has moved to the right. “The UMP is no more to the right than it was,” insists Benoist Apparu. “There's always been a very right-wing fringe in the UMP, and in the RPR before [editor's note, the RPR was founded by Jacques Chirac in 1976 and merged to become the UMP in 2002]. In 1990 [Charles] Pasqua already had 35% support. Copé is addressing that constituency.”
Anne-Sophie Petitfils also warns about assuming that the UMP has veered to the right. “Yes, the law and order rhetoric and the willingness of Sarkozy to tackle the question of immigration has, from 2002, freed up the debate. But the activists have always been more to the right than the supporters,” she says.
But what of the leading position in the party now occupied by the Droite forte led by Guillaume Peltier? It came top in an internal vote on the popularity of the various political groupings in the UMP , held at the same time as the leadership contest. Benoist Apparu points the finger at the media. “Just one group was invited onto TV shows, the Droite forte,” he says. “The media oversold it.” He insists that if one adds up the votes for the humanist, liberal, Gaullist and modernising groups they make up 40% of the support from party members.
The Fillon camp has a similar view. “The only ticket that was spoken of was the Droite forte. They launched their campaign [ editor's note, for the internal vote ] at the UMP headquarters, something that none of the other groups did, giving the impression that it represents the official line,” says one Fillon supporter. He adds: “For many of us it is out of the question that the centre of gravity of the party should be the Droite forte. Peltier is plundering the Sarkozy heritage and reducing it to the final quarter of the [former president’s] 2012 election campaign [editor's note, meaning a focus on law and order and immigration]. He has nothing to offer on the economy and Europe, he only speaks on social issues and on secularism. I feel I'm more of a Sarkozyist than him!”
But the Fillon supporter admits the UMP does have a double problem. On the one hand there is “real trouble with the radicalisation of a part of the activist base”. On the other there is the fact that the movement “has lost the FN electors”, disenchanted with the UMP after the last five years of President Sarkozy. “They say 'We won't be had twice',” says the Fillon supporter. “In fact during the five-year presidency the policies carried out, notably on law and order and immigration were not – fortunately – as violent as they wanted.” Yet he says they still need to address this part of the electorate. “Not by stroking the activists with a populist approach like Copé but by educating them, reminding them why the UMP was created. There is the moral approach (we are a barrier against the FN) and the cynical approach ([FN leader]Marine Le Pen wants our political death).”
Gilles Richard says the problem is even more “insoluble” for the Right now that the FN is in the hands of Marine Le Pen – who took over as president in January 2011 - whom he says is now thinking about getting her hands on power and who at the age of 44 has “40 years of political life before her”. Richard says: “The UMP leadership is in denial. They can't admit that their problem is the FN, in which case they would no longer be the great party of opposition. Marine Le Pen doesn't need to do anything, she can sit back and count her [opinion poll] ratings and wait for the local elections [in 2014]. She is conquering from the rank and file.”
So can the UMP still maintain unity locally? “The activists are in constant ideological opposition,” says Richard. “But the party stays together thanks to the local leader who promotes activists who fit in with their [political] line. This carving up of territory is itself the object of internal struggles and is split between Fillon supporters and Cope supporters. But when these camps have to work together, as in the regional elections, it becomes a problem.”
In the medium term, says Gilles Richard, the UMP is facing the major risk of losing party members - something which occurs each time a party is hit by a crisis. “The activists leave, often going to no other party,” he says. The UMP will find it harder than its rival the PS to stop this haemorrhaging of members, says Richard. This is because unlike the PS the UMP has very few elected activists, so they cannot tempt members to stay through offering them political positions.
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English version: Michael Streeter