EUROPP Blog
On the European Politics and Policy blog, Dr Boucek writes about this week’s UMP Party leadership contest in France. With the result of the poll decided by just 98 votes, Dr Boucek suggests that “controversy threatens to factionalise the UMP, which in turn may reduce its ability to check the dominance of the French Socialist Party”. She explains that “the bitterness between the Copé and Fillon camps during the UMP leadership campaign, and the renewed hostilities over the fractious result, make a split in the French right more likely given the conservatives’ poor ideological cohesion since de Gaulle’s departure in 1969”.