User:Slanog/The Republicans (France)

UMP name change
The UMP’s (Union for a Popular Movement) change of party name and of party structure was one of the promises made by Nicolas Sarkozy during his campaign for the UMP Presidency in 2014. After his election in November 2014, Nicolas Sarkozy, the President of France from 2007 to 2012, put forward the request to the party's general committee to change its name to Les Républicains ("The Republicans") and alter the statutes of the party. The proposed statutes provided for, among other provisions, the election of the presidents of the departmental federations by direct democracy and consulting members on election nominations. Nicolas Sarkozy wanted to change the name of the party in order to showcase the reunification of the different political views, from the social Gaullism of Henri Guaino to the right line of Patrick Buisson, into “one family”. As declared in an interview for the Journal Du Dimanche, Sarkozy also wished to change the name in order to be ahead of his adversaries Alain Juppé et François Fillon (also belonging to the UMP) for the 2017 presidential elections. This desire for changing the name was not received well by all members of the party. In an interview for BFMTV, Alain Juppé mocked the ex-French President for wanting to change the name of the UMP. Additionally, Gilles Boyer, support of Francois Fillon, showed his reluctance regarding the change of name by Tweeting: “We are republicans. We are not THE republicans”. This change of name was perceived by some journalists as an attempt to make the public forget the judicial problems linked to the UMP, especially the Bygmalion case, case in which some members of the UMP are suspected to have forged documents over the expenses of Nicolas Sarkozy’s 2012 presidential campaign.

Critics of the name change claimed it was "illegal" for Sarkozy to name the party "Republicans", because every French person is a republican if 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. Left-wing associations and parties and 140 individuals, including 5 having ‘Républicain’ as their last name, sued the UMP. The court was in favour of the UMPs change in name, stating that the "manifestly unlawful disturbance" and the "imminent damage" alleged by the complainants have not been demonstrated. The new name was adopted by the party bureau on 5 May 2015 and approved by the party membership on 28 May by an online "yes" vote of 83.3% on a 45.7% turnout after a court ruling in favour of Sarkozy.

Since 2016
In order to decide which candidate will represent The Republicans for the 2017 presidential elections, a party’s primary was organised in November 2016. The activists of the movement could choose between 7 candidates: François Fillion, Alain Juppé, Nicolas Sarkozy, Jean-Françoic Copé, Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet, Bruno Le Maire and Jean-Frédéric Poisson. François Fillon, with 44,1% of the votes, and Alain Juppé, with 28,6%, were the two candidates qualified for the second round of the election. François Fillon won the second turn of the election with 66,5% of the votes, and was, therefore, appointed as the The Republicans' candidate for the presidential election in 2017.

François Fillon suffered a historic defeat in the first round of the presidential election, as he was the first right wing candidate in the history of the Fifth Republic who failed to continue to the second round. This led to the victory of Emmanuel Macron, leader of his newly created party called: La République en marche!. François Fillon finished third in the first round of the presidential election with 20,01% of the vote, behind Emmanuel Macron (24,01%) and Marine le Pen (21,30%). This defeat is mainly due to the Penelopegate, as François Fillon was considered the favourite candidate by the polls before these revelations.

The Penelopegate is the name given to the judicial affair regarding François Fillon and his wife. In this judicial affair, François Fillon is first accused of using parliamentary funds to hire his wife as his personal assistant, even though no proof of this job has been retrieved by the investigators. Therefore, this led to the public speculating that the job was fake. Penelope Fillon would have earned 613 000 euros with this speculated fake job between 1998 and 2013 .The couple claims that Penelope Fillon’s job was mainly made of "oral and intellectual performances", of which there is "no written record". Whilst François Fillon was working as a senator, there are further speculations that he hired two of his children, who also show no clear evidence retrieved by investigators that this was a legitimate job. Therefore, Fillon has further been accused of misuse of public funds regarding his children and wife. The trial for this case, accusing both Fillon and his wife started in February 2020. On the 10th of March 2020, the national financial prosecutor's office demanded that Fillon will undergo five years of imprisonment (including a three-year suspended prison sentence), 10 years of ineligibility and a 375 000 euro fine against François Fillon. Whereas, the prosecutor demanded that Penelope Fillon should undergo a three-year suspended prison sentence and a 375 000 euro fine. The final result of this trial will be given on the 29th of June 2020.

The victory election of Emmanuel Macron in 2017 altered the French political landscape .After Emmanuel Macron was elected as president, he appointed three right-wing politicians in his government from The Republicans, namely Édouard Philippe as Prime Minister, Bruno Le Maire as French Minister of the Economy and Finance, and Gérald Darmanin as Minister of Public Action and Accounts. The fact that three ex-members from The Republicans are now part of the government, has divided the political party based on views of whether or not the republicans should support the incumbent government. Some members of The Republican, such as Thierry Solère or Sébastien Lecornu, therefore decided to leave the party in order to join La République en Marche!, the new political party created by Emmanuel Macron. Other members, like Franck Riester or Fabienne Keller, decided to create a new political party: ‘Agir’. Additionally, a parliamentary group including LR dissidents supportive of the government line, "The Constructives", was formed in the National Assembly, separate from the existing group.

A month after the Presidential elections, the legislative elections took place in France. In the second round of the legislative elections in June, The Republicans won 112 seats in parliament, which is 82 less than the number of seats won by the UMP in 2012. This resluts is the worst performance of the the right-wing political party.

On 11 July, the political bureau of The Republicans agreed to hold a leadership election for president of the party on 10 and 17 December; Laurent Wauquiez was elected in a single round on the 10th of December, winning 74,64 % of the votes. Laurent Wauquiez’s election for the head of the Party continued to divide The Republicans as 26 elected officials left the party between his election on the 10th of December and the 21st of February 2018.