En attendant Sarko? France’s mainstream Right and Centre, 2012-2014

Knapp, A. (2014) En attendant Sarko? France’s mainstream Right and Centre, 2012-2014. Modern and Contemporary France, 22 (4). pp. 473-489. ISSN 0963-9489 doi: 10.1080/09639489.2014.957963

Abstract/Summary

In winning the municipal elections of March 2014, France’s mainstream opposition – the Centrists and the Union pour un Mouvement Populaire (UMP) – benefited not only from the unpopularity of the Left in power, but also from its own (partial) reconstruction. The Centrists had reorganised; the UMP had reaffirmed its right-wing programme and drawn strength from the opposition social movements launched in 2013. The European elections of 2014, however, demonstrated the limitations of this reconstruction. Their weak institutionalisation – the original sin of France’s Right and centre-Right – left internal ideological differences and (above all) personal rivalries unchecked within both forces. These tensions were compounded, in the UMP, by a series of financial scandals. At their heart was former president Nicolas Sarkozy, still the activists’ darling, ever more clearly a candidate for 2017, but also more hobbled by judicial investigations.

Item Type	Article
URI	https://reading-clone.eprints-hosting.org/id/eprint/38079
Identification Number/DOI	10.1080/09639489.2014.957963
Refereed	Yes
Divisions	Arts, Humanities and Social Science > School of Literature and Languages > Languages and Cultures > French
Publisher	Routledge
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