Sarkozy’s UMP split over refusal to back Socialists against Front National in by-election

France’s main right-wing opposition party, the UMP, was split on Wednesday after its executive committee refused to take sides in a by-election that could see the far-right Front National (FN) beat the ruling Socialist Party. Party leader and former president Nicolas Sarkozy had called for voters to stop the FN, warning of a possible “explosion” of the party.

Election posters in Herimoncourt in the Doubs constituency AFP

The leader of the UMP’s group in the Senate, Gérard Larcher, on Wednesday defied the party’s political bureau on Wednesday, declaring that he would vote Socialist in the election’s second round next Sunday.

Former prime minister Alain Juppé, who, like Sarkozy, hopes to be the party’s candidate in the 2017 presidential election, called for a vote for the Socialists to block the FN on his blog on Tuesday, pointing out that the FN candidate, Sophie Montel, has in the past declared that the “inequality of the races” is “obvious”.

In last Sunday’s first round of the by-election, caused by former finance minister Pierre Moscovici becoming a European commissioner, UMP candidate Charles Demouge, failed to win enough votes to make it to the deciding round.

That left Socialist Frédéric Barbier (28.85 per cent) facing the FN’s Sophie Montel (32.6 per cent) with the UMP’s voters (26.54 per cent) holding the deciding hand in the eastern French Doubs constituency.

French political parties traditionally back one of the remaining candidates when they are forced to drop out of a race, although the voters do not always heed their advice.

UMP number two, Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet, joined Juppé’s block-the-FN to call and Sarkozy, in a change of line from when he was president, called for a “No to the FN” vote, while not specifically calling for a vote for the Socialist.

The UMP’s ruling body on Tuesday rejected Sarkozy’s call by 22 votes to 19, with former party leader Jean-François Copé, former labour minister Xavier Bertrand and former prime minister François Fillion – both presidential hopefuls – voting for the “neither-nor” option.

The leader of the centre-right UDI, Jean-Christophe Lagarde, slammed the decision on Wednesday François Bayrou, of the liberal Modem, has said he would have “no hesitation” in voting Socialist.

The UMP has had a variable position on the question, as Le Monde newspaper points out:

• Between 1998 and 2011 the UMP declared the FN beyond the republican pale and called for support for the Socialists, or any other party, to prevent its members being elected, although Juppé opposed the party line in 1990;
• In 2011 Sarkozy advocated the neither-nor position; In 2012 Copé was for neither-nor;
• In the 2012 general election UMP candidate Roland Chassain disobeyed national party instructions and dropped out of the second round, allowing the FN to win in the southern city of Arles.

Meeting party MPs ahead of the political bureau meeting, Sarkozy justified his change of position on the grounds that a victory for FN leader Marine Le Pen in the 2017 presidential poll is “not longer hypothetical” and warned that the UMP could be heading for “explosion”.