AFP/Paris
Former president Nicolas Sarkozy has waded in to a bitter leadership battle that has left France’s main right-wing opposition party, the UMP, on the verge of collapse.
The UMP, the political heir to the party founded by Charles de Gaulle after World War II, was in turmoil after accusations of vote-rigging tarnished a leadership vote.
Still reeling from its loss of the presidency and parliament this year, the UMP is facing the spectre of an unprecedented split on the right, with rival camps showing no sign of backing down in an increasingly angry dispute.
Sarkozy met one of the rivals for the leadership, his former prime minister Francois Fillon, for lunch after flying in early yesterday from a conference in Shanghai, a source close to Fillon said.
The meeting lasted more than hour in Sarkozy’s office in central Paris, after talks to resolve the damaging dispute collapsed late on Sunday.
Called in to mediate, party heavyweight Alain Juppe threw in the towel on Sunday after failed talks between Fillon and his rival, ambitious party secretary-general Jean-Francois Cope.
Juppe said yesterday that only Sarkozy would be able to resolve the crisis.
“I used to think the former president should protect himself a bit from this partisan bickering,” Juppe told RTL radio. “Clearly he is the only one today to have enough authority to propose a way out.”
A source close to Cope said he had also had a “long and cordial telephone conversation” with Sarkozy yesterday morning.
Fillon, 58, and Cope, 48, have traded accusations of fraud and ballot-rigging since last Sunday’s party election ended with Cope ahead by only 98 votes.
The party electoral commission has since said that ballots cast in France’s overseas territories that were not counted would have reversed the result, while the Cope camp has claimed he would have won by a clear margin but for vote-rigging in the Mediterranean city of Nice.
Fillon said Cope was to blame for the failure of the mediation efforts and announced he would turn to the courts to resolve the dispute – a move UMP vice-president Luc Chatel described as a “nuclear bomb” inside the party.
Yesterday, Fillon stepped up the battle by calling for the “precautionary seizure” of ballots cast in the leadership vote “to protect them from tampering or alteration”.
Fillon’s camp said party members had blocked a bailiff sent to secure the ballots, but Cope’s supporters denied this.
A party appeals commission confirmed yesterday Cope’s win, raising his margin of victory from 98 votes to nearly 1,000 following an examination of complaints over alleged irregularities.
Fillon’s camp has accused the commission of having a pro-Cope bias.
The party has faced ridicule over the debacle at a time it could be taking advantage of Socialist President Francois Hollande’s falling popularity over his handling of France’s struggling economy.
The UMP’s opponents were already writing its obituary, with Marine Le Pen, the leader of the far-right National Front, saying: “The UMP no longer exists. The UMP is dead.”
Fillon supporters have raised the prospect of a split in the UMP’s parliamentary faction – a move that could deprive the party of crucial funding and credibility.
Fillon was to bring together his supporters in parliament early today, with many clamouring to break away from the UMP if Cope remains leader.
Such a move would strip the UMP of the 42,000 euros in annual funding it receives for each of its members in the lower house National Assembly and upper house Senate.
Lawmakers have until Friday to declare their party affiliation for next year’s funds.
The UMP has 183 members in France’s 577-seat National Assembly, the second-largest group after the Socialists.
Polls show the overwhelming majority of French voters and UMP supporters would like to see the party run the election again, but Cope has rejected the idea.
Both men are fiscal conservatives advocating free-market policies and economic reforms, but Cope has carved out a niche on the right flank of the UMP with his tough-talking approach to immigration and Islam.