Background Since the 1980s, the political groups of the parliamentary right have joined forces around the values of
economic liberalism and the
building of Europe (European integration). Their rivalries had contributed to their defeat in the
1981 and
1988 legislative elections. Before the
1993 legislative election, the
Gaullist Rally for the Republic (RPR) and the centrist
Union for French Democracy (UDF) formed an electoral alliance, the
Union for France (UPF). However, in the
1995 presidential campaign, they were both divided between followers of
Jacques Chirac, who was eventually elected, and supporters of Prime Minister
Edouard Balladur. After their defeat in the
1997 legislative election, the RPR and UDF created the
Alliance for France in order to coordinate the actions of their parliamentary groups.
Foundation and early years Before the
2002 presidential campaign, the supporters of President
Jacques Chirac, divided in three centre-right parliamentary parties, founded an association named
Union on the Move (
Union en mouvement). After Chirac's re-election, in order to contest the
legislative election jointly, the
Union for the Presidential Majority (
Union pour la majorité présidentielle) was created. It was renamed "Union for a Popular Movement" and as such established as a permanent organisation. merged their parties into the new party over the course of the first year. The UDF's Christian Democrats (such as
Philippe Douste-Blazy and
Jacques Barrot), the
Radical Party and the centrist
Popular Party for French Democracy (both associate parties of the UDF until 2002), aligned themselves with the party for the
2002 French legislative election. In the UMP four major French political families were thus represented:
Gaullism,
republicanism (the kind of liberalism put forward by parties like the
Democratic Republican Alliance or the
PR, heir of DL),
Christian democracy (
Popularism) and
radicalism. Chirac's close ally
Alain Juppé became the party's first president at the party's founding congress at the
Bourget in November 2002. Juppé won 79.42% of the vote, defeating
Nicolas Dupont-Aignan, the leader of the party's Eurosceptic
Arise the Republic faction, and three other candidates.
Nicolas Sarkozy (2004–2012) Juppé resigned the party's presidency on 15 July 2004 after being found guilty in a
corruption scandal in January of the same year. Nicolas Sarkozy rapidly announced that he would take over the presidency of the UMP and resign his position as
finance minister, ending months of speculation. On 28 November 2004, Sarkozy was elected to the party's presidency with 85.09% of the votes against 9.1% for Dupont-Aignan and 5.82% for
Christine Boutin, the leader of the
UMP's social conservatives. Having gained control of what had been Chirac's party, Sarkozy focused the party machinery and his energies on the
2007 presidential election. The failure of the
referendum on the European Constitution on 25 May 2005 led to the fall of the
government of Jean-Pierre Raffarin and to the formation of a new cabinet, presided by another UMP politician,
Dominique de Villepin. However, during this time, the UMP under Sarkozy gained a record number of new members and rejuvenated itself in preparation of the 2007 election. On 14 January 2007, Sarkozy was nominated unopposed as the UMP's presidential candidate for the 2007 election. On the issues, the party under Sarkozy publicly disapproved of
Turkey's proposed membership in the European Union, which Chirac had previously endorsed several times publicly, and generally took a more right-wing position. On 22 April 2007,
Nicolas Sarkozy won the plurality of votes in the first round of the
2007 presidential election. On 6 May he faced the Socialist Party candidate
Ségolène Royal in the second round and won, taking 53.06% of the vote. As a consequence, he resigned from the presidency of the UMP on 14 May 2007, two days before becoming President of the French Republic.
François Fillon was appointed prime minister. On 17 June 2007, at a
2007 legislative election, the UMP gained a majority in the National Assembly with 313 out of 577 seats. Following Sarkozy's election to the presidency, interim leader
Jean-Claude Gaudin prevented a leadership struggle between
Patrick Devedjian and
Jean-Pierre Raffarin by announcing that the UMP should have a collegial leadership while Sarkozy was President of the Republic. In July, the UMP's national council approved an amendment to the party's statute allowing for a collegial leadership around three vice-presidents (Jean-Pierre Raffarin, Jean-Claude Gaudin and
Pierre Méhaignerie) and a secretary-general (
Patrick Devedjian) and two associate secretaries-general. On 9 March 2008,
municipal and
cantonal elections, the party performed quite poorly, losing numerous cities, such as
Toulouse and
Strasbourg, as well as eight departmental presidencies to the left.
Xavier Bertrand was selected as secretary-general of the party in late 2008 to replace
Patrick Devedjian, who resigned to take up a cabinet position. In the
2009 European Parliament election on 7 June 2009, the UMP ran common lists with its junior allies including
Jean-Louis Borloo's
Radical Party, the
New Centre and
Modern Left. The UMP list won 27.9%, a remarkably good result for a governing party in off-year "mid-term" elections, and elected 29 MEPs, significantly improving on the UMP's poor result in the 2004 European election – also an off-year election. However, in the
2010 regional elections on 14 and 21 March 2010, the UMP obtained a very poor result with only 26%. While it lost Corsica, it retained Alsace but also defeated the left in
La Réunion and
French Guiana. In a cabinet reshuffle in November 2010, which disappointed centrists within and outside the UMP, François Fillon was confirmed prime minister and
Alain Juppé re-joined the government. Among those who resigned from the cabinet were
Bernard Kouchner,
Hervé Morin and, above all,
Jean-Louis Borloo. Xavier Bertrand, who re-joined the government, was replaced as general-secretary of the UMP by
Jean-François Copé on 17 November 2010. The party suffered another major electoral defeat in the
2011 cantonal elections held on 20 and 27 March 2011, and in September, the centre-right lost control of the
French Senate for the first time in the history of the Fifth Republic. In May 2011, during a party congress, the Radical Party, led by Borloo, decided to leave the UMP and launch
The Alliance, a new
centrist coalition. The party opted not to organise primaries ahead of the
2012 presidential election and endorsed
Nicolas Sarkozy's bid for second term. Sarkozy lost reelection to the Socialist Party candidate
François Hollande on 6 May 2012, winning 48.36% in the runoff. The party was defeated by the new president's left-wing majority in the subsequent
legislative election.
After May 2012 Prior to Sarkozy's defeat on 6 May, the UMP's secretary-general Jean-François Copé announced that he supported the creation of internal "movements" within the party and the organisation of primaries for the next presidential election.
Campaign for the November 2012 congress The UMP's political bureau announced the organisation of a party congress on 18 and 25 November 2012, leading prominent party leaders to organise factions and "movements" to influence the party's new direction. Ultimately, two candidates amassed the required endorsements to run for the party's presidency: former prime minister
François Fillon and incumbent party secretary-general
Jean-François Copé.
Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet,
Bruno Le Maire,
Xavier Bertrand,
Henri Guaino, and
Dominique Dord had also announced their candidacies but did not meet tough candidacy requirements. The campaign between Fillon and Copé lasted two months. Fillon had a strong lead in polls of UMP 'sympathizers' (as opposed to actual members, who would be the only eligible voters) and was backed by most UMP parliamentarians while Copé claimed he was the candidate of party activists rather than party 'barons'. However, Copé remained as secretary-general and retained control of the party machinery. While Fillon's campaign was regarded as more consensual, moderate and centre-right; Copé campaigned as the candidate of the
droite décomplexée ('uninhibited right') and introduced issues such as
anti-white racism. However, both candidates received support from moderate and conservative members of the party and their main differences were in rhetoric, style and temperament. Copé, again, appeared more militant and activist, saying that he would support and participate in street demonstrations while Fillon disagreed with his rival. Six 'motions' (declarations of principles) were submitted to party voters; under the new statutes, motions which won over 10% of the vote at the congress would be recognised as "movements" by the UMP leadership, granted financial autonomy and receive positions in the party structures.
Results and subsequent crisis The vote on 18 November saw high turnout but was quickly marred by allegations of irregularities and potential fraud on both sides. Both candidates proclaimed victory within 20 minutes of each other on the night of the vote. Twenty four hours later, the control commission in charge of the vote (COCOE) announced Copé's victory by only 98 votes. While Fillon initially conceded defeat, by 21 November, his campaign claimed victory anew, with a 26-vote advantage over Copé. Fillon's campaign argued that the COCOE had failed to take into account votes cast in three
overseas federations. Party elder Alain Juppé accepted to lead a mediation between both candidates on 23 November, but it failed within two days. Fillon's announced "precautionary seizure" of ballots cast "to protect them from tampering or alteration" and threatened to take the matter to court. On 26 November, the party appeals commission – led by a close supporter of Copé – decided in Copé's favour and rejected Fillon's arguments. On 27 November, 72
filloniste parliamentarians in the
National Assembly announced the creation of a new parliamentary group, the
Rassemblement-UMP, led by Fillon. Copé took up former president Nicolas Sarkozy's proposal of organising a
referendum on a revote, but he saw the creation of the dissident
filloniste group as a
casus belli and took back his proposal.
Luc Chatel, the new vice-president and a Copé supporter, later announced that he supported a new presidential vote and a modification of party statutes. The next day, Copé announced that he favoured organising a referendum the modification of party statutes and a reduction of his own term as president to two years (until November 2014); while Fillon welcomed the "consensus on the organisation of a new election" he rejected his rival's timeline and called for a new election before 2014. 'Unaligned' members of the UMP led by
Bruno Le Maire and
Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet appealed for the organisation of a new election in the spring of 2013 and a reform of the party statutes.
Resolution Both rivals reached an agreement at the end of December 2012, with Copé agreeing to the organisation of a new election and a modification of party statutes while Fillon agreed to dissolve his parliamentary group. The party's leadership was reorganized in January 2013 to accommodate Copé and Fillon's supporters:
Laurent Wauquiez and
Valérie Pécresse joined
Luc Chatel and
Michèle Tabarot as vice-president and secretary-general respectively.
Christian Estrosi,
Gérard Longuet,
Henri de Raincourt (pro-Fillon),
Jean-Claude Gaudin,
Brice Hortefeux and
Roger Karoutchi (pro-Copé) also became vice-presidents. Other positions in the party hierarchy were divided between supporters of both candidates. New leaders were also nominated in February 2013.
Bygmalion scandal Several spending scandals appeared in 2014. In early 2014, the Bygmalion scandal (
fr) pushed the party's leader
Jean-François Copé to resign. In early July,
Sarkozy got held in custody due to possible spying and active corruption of the judiciary system. On 8 July 2014, the UMP was discovered to have a hidden debt of €79.1 million for the year 2013. On 20 May 2021, the criminal trial began for Sarkozy and 13 other defendants who were said to have been involved in the Bygmalion scandal. The scandal allegations that Sarkozy diverting tens of millions of euros which was intended to be spent on his failed 2012 re-election campaign and then hiring a PR firm to cover it up. For this conviction, Sarkozy was given a 1-year prison sentence, though he was also given the option to instead serve this sentence at home with an electronic bracelet. Critics of Sarkozy claimed it was illegal for him to name the party "Republicans" because every French person is a republican in that they support the values and ideals of the
French Republic that emanated from the
French Revolution, and as such the term is above party politics. The new name was adopted by the bureau on 5 May 2015 and approved by the party membership on 28 May by an online yes vote of 83.28% on a 45.74% participation after a court ruling in favor of Sarkozy. Similarly the new party statutes are adopted by 96.34% of voters and the composition of the new party's political bureau by 94.77%.
The Republicans thus became the legal successor of the UMP as the leading centre-right party in France. ==Ideology and platform==