French right on the march as Sarkozy and Le Pen elected to lead their parties

Two leading contenders for the presidency of France have been elected to head their respective political parties.

Former president Nicolas Sarkozy won 64.5 per cent of votes cast by 155,851 members of the conservative Union for a Popular Movement (UMP). And Marine Le Pen was re-elected leader of the far-right National Front, receiving 100 per cent of votes at the party's congress.

Though Mr Sarkozy (59) had hoped to win at least 70 per cent of vote, his supporters put a brave face on the score, saying the 58.1 per cent participation was as the highest ever in a UMP poll. It was an indisputable first-round victory, they argued, and the party is again firmly in his hands.

These arguments could not mask disappointment that the man who was president of France from 2007 until 2012 garnered less than two-thirds of the vote. Sarkozy was up against two little-known parliamentarians in an election where only the faithful of the faithful – dues-paying party members – were allowed to participate.

When he was first elected president of the UMP 10 years ago, Sarkozy won 85 per cent of the vote.

Open primary promise A landslide would have strengthened Sarkozy’s claim to be the UMP’s natural candidate for the 2017 presidential election. He will now have difficulty wriggling out of his commitment to hold an open primary in 2016, which the former prime minister Alain Jupp

é (69) is favoured to win.

Sarkozy must now campaign for both elections: primary and presidential, right-wing and national, at the same time.

Juppé commented sardonically on Sarkozy's election, saying habemus papum, the phrase used by the Vatican to indicate the advent of a new pope.

A poll published by the Journal du dimanche showed that 53 per cent of French voters believe Juppé is more serious than Sarkozy. Only 16 per cent thought Sarkozy was more serious. When the survey was limited to right-wing voters, Juppé scored 50 per cent, compared with 30 per cent for Sarkozy.

Rassemblement, which means pulling together or unifying, was Sarkozy's watchword throughout the party campaign. He has promised to change the name of the UMP within three months, and "Rassemblement" is said to be one of his favourite alternatives.

Sarkozy wants unity, on condition that he is the boss. He promises more “participative democracy” within the party, which he intends to hone as his war machine for the recapture of the Élysée Palace.

Opponent’s renewal

Although he won slightly under 30 per cent of the vote in the UMP election,

Bruno Le Maire

was arguably the real winner. Le Maire (45), Sarkozy’s former agriculture minister, had hoped to win at best 20 per cent. He made “renewal” his slogan, and has surged past other conservative politicians of his generation.

Le grand basculement démocratique ("the big democratic swing") was the slogan at the National Front (FN) congress in Lyon. The FN has been run like a family oligarchy by the Le Pens for 42 years now. President emeritus Jean-Marie Le Pen (86) was on hand to lecture supporters about the "veritable substitution of population under way for the last 40 years" through immigration.

His daughter Marine (46) took over the party three years ago and has succeeded beyond her father’s wildest dreams. The FN took 11 towns in March municipal elections, won European parliamentary elections in May, and two French senate seats in September.

For all the talk of democracy, the FN congress brought to mind the old Soviet Union. Two Russian dignitaries travelled to Lyon to witness the proceedings, in which Marine Le Pen, the sole candidate, won 100 per cent of the vote. The FN recently borrowed €9 million from a Russian bank, saying French banks refused to lend it money.

Third generation

Marion Maréchal-Le Pen (24), granddaughter of Jean-Marie and niece of Marine, is the youngest deputy, and the only FN deputy, in the French National Assembly. She came in first among newly elected members to the FN’s central committee, winning 80 per cent of votes.

“She’s called Le Pen,” Marine said of Marion. “Yes, at the National Front that counts . . . We’ve shown the name has merit.”

Sarkozy's takeover of the UMP should liven up French politics. Journalists from Le Parisien newspaper published a book of his off-the-record comments in November, in which Sarkozy said Marine Le Pen had the physique of a removals man. "She's massive, mannish, thick-set," Sarkozy said.

FN vice-president (and Marine's partner) Louis Aliot promised that Marine "will remove Nicolas Sarkozy". Le Pen herself responded to Sarkozy with humour. "As for analyses about people's physique . . . I won't answer, for coming from such an Apollo."

Deploring Sarkozy’s “absence of human qualities”, Le Pen said he “urgently needs to look in the mirror ... He will see the only person responsible for his failure, past and probably future.”