Alain Juppé still not finished in politics as presidency beckons

France’s main opposition party, the conservative UMP, is €74 million in debt. Investigating magistrates searched its offices on October 29th for evidence in an ongoing scandal over the financing of former president Nicolas Sarkozy’s failed 2012 election campaign.

Contenders for the party’s presidency, to be decided in a vote by 268,341 card-carrying members on November 29th, so distrust Sarkozy that they’ve demanded an independent audit of the vote, which Sarkozy is nonetheless expected to win.

Separate from the party leadership contest, a battle has already started between Sarkozy and two former conservative prime ministers, Alain Juppé and François Fillon, for the 2017 presidential nomination.

In another country, the UMP might be doomed to extinction. In France Charles de Gaulle's political descendants are more or less certain to retake the Élysée Palace in May 2017.

François Hollande remains the most unpopular president of the Fifth Republic. "Next year [2015] will be a horrible year for the left," says Pascal Perrineau, one of France's leading political scientists. "They'll lose many departments in March elections, and the regional elections in December will be a massacre for them."

Marine Le Pen, the leader of the National Front (FN), may lead the first round of the presidential election, but will be thwarted in the run-off by the absence of allies and a deeply entrenched aversion to the extreme right in much of the French electorate.

Sarkozy’s failings

It is with the old that one makes new, says a French maxim. Sarkozy (59), Juppé (69) and Fillon (60) have held high government office almost continuously for the past 20 years. “One is never finished in politics. Look at me!” Juppé boasted to

Lib

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newspaper, a remark that won him this year’s prize for political humour.

Less than 2½ years after he promised to leave French politics, Sarkozy announced last month: “I have returned, with my ideas, to speak to all of France, to give hope back to her.”

In campaign rallies, Sarkozy has reverted to the strategy that failed him in 2012, attempting to lure voters from the FN with rants against immigrants and radical Islam. “Immigration must not be a taboo subject, but a major subject, for it threatens our way of life,” Sarkozy told a rally in Nice. “Our values must be defended against fanatical Islam that dreams of sowing terror in the West.”

Sarkozy lost in 2012 more because of his personality than his policies. He never shed the “bling-bling” image created by his 2007 election night celebration at Fouquet’s and subsequent holiday on a billionaire’s yacht.

Asked what he would do on leaving office, Sarkozy replied: "J'irai faire du fric" – I'll go make money. He has continued on the international lecture circuit, where he charges some €100,000 per speech, since his return to politics. Asked why he went ahead with a lecture in Seoul in mid-October, Sarkozy's staff said it was scheduled three months earlier and he saw no reason to change it.

“I deliver lectures without asking for money,” Juppé said, alluding to Sarkozy. “It’s a question of personal ethics.”

Since Sarkozy earns so much money, he could start reimbursing the UMP for the € 11 million it paid in penalties on his campaign overspending, UMP deputy Bernard Debré suggested. Or he might compensate the party for the €380,000 fine it paid – illegally – on his behalf.

It is a sign of the depth of political crisis in France that moves are under way in the three leading parties – the Socialist Party (PS), UMP and National Front – to change names.

Nadine Morano, a conservative MEP who was a cabinet minister under Sarkozy and remains one of his most loyal acolytes, initially opposed changing the UMP's name. "It takes time to impose a party name on the political landscape," she said. "Except that in this instance, the brand is so damaged that we have no choice."

The 2012 war between Jean-François Copé and François Fillon for leadership of the UMP “made militants flee”, Morano says. Copé eventually won, only to be forced to resign earlier this year by the Bygmalion scandal, in which an events company run by close associates of Copé billed the party €18.5 million in fake invoices to cover illegal expenditure from Sarkozy’s campaign.

Sarkozy should have listened to advisers who counselled him against returning. In the BVA monthly barometer published on October 30th, only 26 per cent of French voters approve of Sarkozy, putting him behind Marine Le Pen – who scored 29 per cent positive opinions – for the first time. Fifty-five per cent of those surveyed like Juppé. Barring dramatic changes, Juppé is likely to be France’s next president.

Political scandals Jupp

é has served as prime minister as well as minister for foreign affairs (twice), defence and ecology. His widely praised performance as mayor of Bordeaux has given him the aura of a provincial notable.

None of the arguments used by sarkozystes against Juppé is insuperable. He took the fall for a 1990s scandal involving party jobs paid from Paris town hall coffers, receiving an 18-month suspended prison sentence and one year's ineligibility for public office. More than a half dozen ongoing scandals involving Sarkozy are likely to weigh more in the minds of voters.

As Jacques Chirac’s prime minister, Juppé attempted a reform of the pension system that provoked strikes and brought the country to a halt in late 1995. Public opinion has evolved since towards greater acceptance of reform.

Even Juppé’s age – he will be 71 at the time of the next presidential election – could work to his advantage.

“The French are looking for someone who’ll do the job, who’ll confer some dignity on France on the European and international stage,” says Perrineau. “Juppé’s promise to serve only one term indicates he’ll be courageous about carrying out reform.”

Juppé seems to embody a new idea that is taking hold in France: that left and right must bridge the ideological divide to save the country. He has already enlisted the support of centrist leader François Bayrou and could work with economic liberals from the Socialists.

Juppé’s strongest argument in the contest for the presidential nomination is that he is best placed to defeat Marine Le Pen in the run-off. Le Pen scornfully lumps the UMP and Socialist Party together in the term “UMPS”. If Juppé faces Le Pen in May 2017, many on the left will vote for him.

Marine Le Pen will have been defeated, literally, by the “UMPS”. But she could win some 40 per cent of the vote, making her a stronger force than ever to contend with.