French centre-right in revolt over Nicolas Sarkozy's plan to rename UMP as Les Republicains

Alain Juppé is concerned the name change would help his political rival (AFP/Getty)

Former president Nicolas Sarkozy faces a new obstacle to his return to power: growing opposition to his attempt to rename his centre-right party “Les Républicains”.

Senior figures within the Union pour un Mouvement Populaire (UMP), including Mr Sarkozy’s great rival Alain Juppé, are mounting a rearguard action against his plans to bulldoze the new title through a party conference at the end of next month. They object to Les Républicains for several reasons.

Some say it sounds “too American”. Others complain that it is presumptuous – and dangerous – for one party to claim sole ownership of France’s “republican values” of liberty, equality and fraternity. Edouard Phillipe, the mayor of Le Havre and a leading Juppé supporter, says that associating the word republic with the main centre-right party will empty the word “of all meaning”.

Mr Juppé’s opposition is also tactical. He suspects the rebranding is part of a Sarkozy strategy to hijack the party as a personal bandwagon for the 2017 presidential elections.

If the UMP acquires a new Sarkozy-ordained name, Mr Juppé fears, the former president will seem the natural choice for centre-right supporters when they select their presidential candidate in a primary election in November next year. Mr Juppé, 69, a former prime minister and foreign minister and now the mayor of Bordeaux, is Mr Sarkozy’s principal rival for the centre-right nomination. The battle over the party’s name is, therefore, more than a question of semantics or taste, or unwillingness to be associated with the party of George W Bush. It is a first round in a struggle within the centre-right to thwart Mr Sarkozy’s ambitions to become the first defeated French president of recent times to run for a new term of office.

The two men are reported to have had a frosty telephone conversation about the name change over the weekend. Mr Juppé and several of his high-profile supports are pushing Mr Sarkozy, 60, to put the new title to a party-wide vote. As things stand, Mr Sarkozy expects the name change to be rubber-stamped by a national committee meeting on 5 May and a national conference on 30 May. Party leaflets are already being printed with the new name and internet addresses have been reserved.

Mr Juppé is reported to have pointed out that, when Mr Sarkozy was elected party president last September, he promised that all important decisions would be put to a vote of the membership. Opinion polls suggest that almost six in 10 UMP supporters oppose the change of name. The UMP name has existed for only 13 years.

Why abandon the title UMP? Officially, Mr Sarkozy wants to deprive the far right Front National of one of its favourite jibes – lumping together the UMP with the ruling Parti Socialuste (PS) as the UMPS. Less officially, Sarkozy supporters say the UMP “brand” has been tarnished by a series of schisms and financial scandals.