Union for a Popular Movement follows Rally for the Republic
Foundation and early years
Before the 2002 presidential campaign, the supporters of President Jacques Chirac, divided in three centre-right parliamentary parties, founded an association named Union on the Move (Union en mouvement). After Chirac's re-election, in order to contest the legislative election jointly, the Union for the Presidential Majority (Union pour la majorité présidentielle) was created. It was renamed "Union for a Popular Movement" and as such established as a permanent organisation.The UMP was the merger of the Gaullist-conservative Rally for the Republic (RPR), the conservative-liberal party Liberal Democracy (DL), a sizeable portion of the Union for French Democracy (UDF), more precisely the UDF's Christian Democrats (such as Philippe Douste-Blazy and Jacques Barrot), the Radical Party and the centrist Popular Party for French Democracy (both associate parties of the UDF until 2002). In the UMP four major French political families were thus represented: Gaullism, republicanism (the kind of liberalism put forward by parties like the Democratic Republican Alliance or the PR, heir of DL), Christian democracy (Popularism) and radicalism.
Chirac's close ally Alain Juppé became the party's first president at the party's founding congress at the Bourget in November 2002. Juppé won 79.42% of the vote, defeating Nicolas Dupont-Aignan, the leader of the party's Eurosceptic Arise the Republic faction, and three other candidates. During the party's earlier years, it was marked by tensions and rivalries between Juppé and other chiraquiens and supporters of Nicolas Sarkozy, the then-Minister of the Interior.
In the 2004 regional elections the UMP suffered a heavy blow, winning the presidencies of only 2 out of 22 regions in metropolitan France (Alsace and Corsica) and only half of the departments (the right had previously won numerous departmental presidencies) in the simultaneous 2004 cantonal elections. In the 2004 European Parliament election on 13 June 2004, the UMP also suffered another heavy blow, winning 16.6% of the vote, far behind the Socialist Party (PS), and only 16 seats.
comes after comes next ensues