Former prime minister Francois Fillon, outraged at losing a chaotic internal leadership vote marred by irregularities, announced Tuesday that he and his followers are splitting off from France’s main conservative party and forming their own parliamentary group, reports The Washington Post.
Fillon said the breakaway faction could return to the mother party, the Union for a Popular Movement (UMP), if a new leadership election were held within three months. But his victorious rival, Jean-Francois Cope, has already rejected that proposal, suggesting that France’s right-wing conservatives are likely to remain in disarray for some time with two hostile political figures each claiming to be in charge.
“We are neither defeated nor are we silent,” Fillon vowed in a televised speech announcing his decision to form the dissident group, which he baptized “UMP Rally.”
The bitter wrangling between Cope and Fillon has been widely criticized by party activists as a ridiculous schoolyard spat that discredits the conservative movement and leaves the field open for President Francois Hollande and his ruling Socialists. Some have called on former president Nicolas Sarkozy to come out of retirement to settle the conflict and put the party back on the rails. But so far, Sarkozy has remained silent.
Despite the mocking tone of many commentators, the leadership struggle has been particularly intense for several very real reasons. For one thing, Cope and Fillon have long disliked each other. Their rivalry was muted during Sarkozy’s presidency, from 2007 until last May, but it broke into the open as they campaigned to become chief of the conservative movement and their party’s likely candidate for the next presidential elections in 2017.
Read more of this report from The Washington Post.