The UMP’s Hesitant Conversion to Primary Elections: The Consequences of Imitation, Endogenous Rationales, and Statutory Uncertainty

Importing a primary system into France, associated as it was with the repellant process of “the Americanization of political life,” was long thought to be unthinkable. Until quite recently this procedure was considered not only contrary to French political culture and the “spirit” of the institutions of the Fifth Republic, but also an attack on the prerogatives of political parties. The adoption of the principle of an open primary by the Socialist Party in 2009 and its 2011 implementation to nominate a candidate for the presidential election mark a pivotal historical moment in this regard. The process of adopting primaries, thought to be a double conundrum, was the subject of a previous publication (Lefebvre (R.), Les primaires socialistes, la fin du parti militant, Paris, Raisons d'agir, 2011). The goal here is to pursue this analysis by focusing on the dynamic of the diffusion of the open primary in the political system starting in 2011. It was propagated in two ways: inter-party (from the PS to the Union pour un Movement Populaire (Union for a Popular Movement; UMP), which adopted the open primary into its statutes in 2013) and intra-party (the PS and UMP organized nine open primaries in the 2014 municipal elections). We will concentrate on the former process, with particular attention to the UMP’s conversion to a primary for selecting its presidential candidate. It appears that it spread from the verdict of “success” crowning the Socialist primary of 2011 and François Hollande’s election as president. Its adoption was nevertheless also consistent with the UMP’s own structural rationale and logics at the time. This article is thus concerned with untangling the knot of multiple logics by making allowances for the apprenticeship of the 2011 primary as well as endogenous and contextual impulses.