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Chirac's new party banishes Gaullism from political stage

John Lichfield
Monday 23 September 2002 00:00 BST
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For the first time in more than half a century, France has no political party claiming to be "Gaullist". Jacques Chirac's neo-Gaullist party, the RPR, declared itself defunct at the weekend and ready to merge into the President's new centre-right grouping, the UMP.

RPR leaders told the party's farewell conference that the "values" handed down by Charles de Gaulle – a strong state but a free market, liberty with a social conscience, a "certain idea of France" – would survive within the new party.

What is generally accepted, though, is that Gaullism, as an organised force in French politics, is dead. Some say it was killed years ago by Mr Chirac's many career-building U-turns and zig-zags and especially his decision to drop the Euroscepticism of "le Général".

At its grass roots, the RPR (Rassemblement pour la République) remained attached to the contradictory legacy of General de Gaulle: part-interventionist, part free-market, strongly nationalist and occasionally European. The new party, the UMP (Union pour la Majorité Presidentielle – union for the presidential majority), to be created formally in November, is likely to emerge as a more orthodox force of the centre right. It was bolted together by Mr Chirac between the two rounds of the presidential election in April and May, when the success of the far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen had thrown the country into crisis.

It was presented as a way of keeping the far right at bay and reconciling "La France d'en bas" (grassroots France) with mainstream politics. In truth, the UMP, like most French political parties, has been built from the top down. The idea came from centre-right leaders close to Mr Chirac, who wanted to create a political vehicle capable of sustaining their careers when the President's second term ends in 2007.

The grass roots of the constituent parties, and especially the RPR, hated the idea at first. More than 86 per cent of delegates to the RPR party conference in Paris at the weekend voted for the merger but obedience to orders is another Gaullist "value". Some delegates wore black ties.

President Chirac created the neo-Gaullist RPR as a vehicle for his ambitions in 1976 (having previously helped to explode the party created by De Gaulle).

Another strand in the new party, the pro-European, pro-market Démocratie Libérale, also declared itself ready to join the UMP at the weekend. The other principal force on the centre-right, the centrist, pro-European UDF, has split. A sizeable rump, under the UDF leader, François Bayrou, has refused to join what it sees as an exercise in career building and empire building by Mr Chirac's RPR lieutenants.

The former prime minister Alain Juppé, now the mayor of Bordeaux, is expected to be the first president of the new party. He sees himself as the natural successor to Mr Chirac, though others are waiting patiently for a chance to trip him up.

In the meantime, the UMP must find a permanent name to replace its working title. The meaningless L'Union seems to be gaining ground.

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