France's Orphaned Conservatives Seek a New Course

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/12/world/europe/12iht-right12.html

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PARIS — Six months after Nicolas Sarkozy became France’s first one-term president in three decades, his bruised center-right party is badly split and, much like the Republican Party in the United States, must now decide whether to move to the right or cleave to the center as it tries to recover and set a clear ideological course.

The one advantage for the party, the Union for a Popular Movement, is that the Socialist government is already declining in popularity as it struggles to rein in the budget deficit and avert a recession. But Mr. Sarkozy’s stinging defeat, which was quickly followed by a Socialist victory in legislative elections in June, has left the U.M.P. in an existential crisis that will now play out in a leadership election Nov. 18.

The party faces a choice between two men of very different styles — François Fillon, Mr. Sarkozy’s elegant prime minister, and Jean-François Copé, a firebrand who is acting party leader. The result will likely determine whether it remains the political heir of the party founded by Charles de Gaulle after the Second World War, or moves farther to the right in the face of a challenge from the far-right National Front.

Mr. Fillon, 58, is a traditional conservative who, as prime minister, managed to remain personally popular even as his hyperactive boss sank in opinion polls. Quiet and urbane, a touch dull, he has aimed to steer the party toward the center, hoping to attract voters who narrowly supported Mr. Hollande but are already growing disillusioned with his performance.

Mr. Copé generally shares Mr. Fillon’s views on economic policy and Europe. But the 48-year-old legislator and mayor of Meaux, northeast of Paris, is decidedly more provocative in his rhetoric and unabashed in his efforts to woo voters from the National Front, whose historic strong showing at the polls this year split the conservative vote, sealing Mr. Sarkozy’s fate.

Mr. Copé, short and fiery, describes himself as a “non-practicing Jew” and comes from immigrant stock. Combined with some of his strong stands on immigration and Islam, he is seen as made in the Sarkozy mold. But critics call him “Sarkozy light.”

With Mr. Fillon appearing to be in the lead, Mr. Copé — a driving force behind a 2011 law that banned the public wearing of the burqa , or full veil — has seemed to adopt a more divisive tone, focusing on themes like immigration and religion that have long resonated with the far right.

Last month, in “A Manifesto for an Uninhibited Right,” he said that the suburbs of France’s biggest cities had become bastions of “anti-white racism,” a term much discussed and mocked in the French press. He later used his Twitter account to relay an anecdote about a child who had been robbed of a chocolate pastry by “thugs” allegedly enforcing the Ramadan fast.

The remarks sparked outrage on the left and produced cringing among some U.M.P. members.

“All these little phrases are toxic and dangerous,” said François Baroin, a former Sarkozy finance minister and supporter of Mr. Fillon. Benoist Apparu, a former junior minister, concurred. “Such positions weaken our political family,” he said.

Others disagree.

“He speaks the truth about these things that others are afraid to say,” said Nadine Morano, a former minister close to Mr. Sarkozy who is backing Mr. Copé as party leader. His frankness is especially appealing to “exasperated” young conservatives, she said. “They are very attached to the language of the truth.”

For Marine Le Pen, the leader of National Front, Mr. Copé’s strategy is an admission that party leaders are out of touch. “The U.M.P. rank and file feels much closer to our positions than to those of the U.M.P. leadership,” she said in a radio interview. “Mr. Copé is chasing after his base.”

Turnout at this month’s U.M.P. election — which is open to about 300,000 members — will give some indication of whether, and by how much, the party’s center of gravity has shifted. Even an expected victory for Mr. Fillon, if coupled with a low turnout, could signal support for a more moderate party line but less enthusiasm for him as a potential presidential candidate.

“We will have a sense of the balance of power,” said Bruno Cautrès, a public opinion specialist at the Center for Political Research at the Institut d’Études Politiques, or Sciences Po. “It will determine their electoral strategy — not only for 2017, but for interim elections in 2014.”

After losing the presidency and both houses of the legislature, the U.M.P. is focusing on the more than 300 municipal and communal elections — local government is currently dominated by the left — in just over a year’s time. With Mr. Hollande’s government struggling, analysts suggested that the right could make real gains.

Regardless of who becomes party leader, the U.M.P. will likely continue its delicate tactical dance with far-right voters while avoiding any outright alliance with the National Front. “Marine Le Pen is young; she’s only 43 years old,” Mr. Cautrès said. “The French right will have to deal with her for some time.”

Both Mr. Fillon and Mr. Copé reject any partnership with the National Front, a scenario that is considered politically suicidal.

The U.M.P. is already displaying some nostalgia for Mr. Sarkozy, 57. After a summer spent and on the beaches of Morocco and southern France, he began a series of public appearances that seemed choreographed to keep him in the picture for the presidential race in 2017.

The French press has seemed only happy to oblige him: “Yoo-hoo! I’m back!”’ read a recent cover of Le Point magazine atop a photo of Mr. Sarkozy, tanned and unshaven.

Bruno Le Maire, a former agriculture minister, has quoted Mr. Sarkozy as saying he might feel obligated to run again. “The question is not whether I come back, but if I have the choice, morally speaking, of not coming back,” Mr. Le Maire quoted Mr. Sarkozy as saying.

Analysts said that if Mr. Fillon were to win the U.M.P. leadership vote, he would probably seek to become the party’s presidential nominee. But Mr. Copé has made it plain that he would step aside for Mr. Sarkozy — positioning himself as a proxy for a former president who many believe has no intention of fading away.

“Like any president who has been beaten — especially after only one term, and so narrowly — he dreams of revenge,” said Mr. Cautrès of Sciences Po. “Officially he makes it seem like he has turned the page, that he lives another life. But that is a complete fantasy.”

<em>Steven Erlanger contributed reporting.</em>