French centre-right Republican Party holds key primary

People in France will today take part in a US-style primary to select a centre-right candidate who will run in next year’s presidential election.

Seven candidates are competing to represent the Republican Party, with the forerunners including ex-President Nicolas Sarkozy and ex-Prime Ministers Alain Jupper and Francois Fillon.

The centre-right primary will be held in two rounds, and the top two candidates in Sunday’s vote will face each other in a second ballot next week.

Voting is not restricted to party members, but those taking part must sign a declaration saying that they "share the Republican values of the right and the centre"

The winner of the conservative primary appears to be assured to make it to the presidential run-off, where he or she is likely to face far-right leader Marine Le Pen. With the governing socialist party unpopular and divided, it is unlikely that any left-wing candidate will survive the first round.

Polls currently suggest that the Republican candidate would win in an election against Le Pen’s National Front.

The frontrunners are Sarkozy, who has focused on immigration and social security issues during his campaign, and Juppe, who has posed himself as a unifying candidate. Francois Fillon, a centrist who had served as Sarkozy’s PM between 2007 and 2012 has also enjoyed a late surge in the polls.

The outsider candidates are Bruno Le Maire, a former agriculture minister who has offered a ‘1000-page contract with the French’, Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet, a former environment minister who has called for the decriminalisation of marijuana, Jean-Francois-Cope, a former party chief seen as the standard bearer of an “uninhibited right”, and Jean-Frederic Poisson, a conservative who stresses Christian values.