En Attendant Sarko ? France's Mainstream Right and Centre, 2012–14.

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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]