Union for a Popular Movement

…Presidential Majority (later renamed the Union for a Popular Movement; UMP). In the spring of the same year—despite criticism for various ethical lapses and accusations of illegal fund-raising levied against the RPR—Chirac won the first round of France’s presidential balloting over right-wing nationalist Jean-Marie Le Pen and Jospin, whose third-place…

…Presidential Majority (later renamed the Union for a Popular Movement [Union pour un Mouvement Populaire; UMP]). Chirac, following his resounding victory in the presidential runoff, named Raffarin prime minister on May 6, 2002.

…becoming president of the centre-right Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) party, the neo-Gaullist successor party to the Rally for the Republic that Chirac had founded. Sarkozy chose the UMP job and quit the government in November 2004. In the wake of the May 2005 referendum in which French voters…