French opposition leader raises tensions

A vote to choose the next leader of France’s center-right opposition party was considered too close to call early Monday morning, and there were angry charges of electoral fraud.

The party, the Union for a Popular Movement, faced a choice between two men of very different styles: François Fillon, the elegant prime minister under President Nicolas Sarkozy, who was defeated for re-election six months ago, and Jean-François Copé, a firebrand 10 years younger than Mr. Fillon who is the acting party leader. Some 300,000 party members were entitled to vote in 650 different polling places, and partial results late on Sunday showed Mr. Copé with a narrow lead.

Both men claimed victory, and the closeness of the result will not help the party find a clear direction.

Mr. Sarkozy’s defeat badly bruised the party, known as the U.M.P. for its initials in French, and it was followed by defeat in legislative elections in June. Now, much like the Republican Party in the United States, the U.M.P. faces difficult choices as it tries to redefine itself and work through a crisis of identity.

Its one advantage now is that the Socialist government of François Hollande, who replaced Mr. Sarkozy, is already declining in popularity as it struggles to rein in the nation’s budget deficit and avert a recession.

In essence, the U.M.P. must decide whether it will remain the political heir to the party founded by Charles de Gaulle after World War II, or will move to the right in the face of a challenge from the far-right National Front.

Mr. Fillon, 58, is a traditional conservative who, as prime minister, managed to remain personally popular even as his hyperactive boss sank in opinion polls. Quiet and urbane, and a touch dull, he has tried to steer the party toward the center, hoping to attract voters who opted to support Mr. Hollande for president but who are already growing disillusioned with his performance.

Mr. Copé, 48, generally shares Mr. Fillon’s views on economic policy and Europe. But as a legislator and mayor of Meaux, northeast of Paris, he has been decidedly more provocative in his statements. He has also been unabashed in his efforts to woo voters from the National Front, whose strong showing at the polls this year split the conservative vote, sealing Mr. Sarkozy’s fate as the country’s first one-term president in three decades.

Mr. Copé describes himself as a “nonpracticing Jew” whose mother was born in Algeria and whose paternal grandfather immigrated from Romania. Some see him as a man in the Sarkozy mold, supporting the former president’s tough policies on immigration and the role of Islam in French society. But critics call him “Sarkozy lite.”

During the campaign, Mr. Copé — a driving force behind a 2011 law that banned the wearing of the burqa, or full veil, in public — adopted a more divisive tone, focusing on themes like stricter immigration laws and the reinforcement of France’s secularism, as a not-so-subtle response to fears of radical Islam.