France's main conservative party changes its name to - the Republicans.

[pampango]

In France, a Party’s Name Change Tracks a Drift to the Right in Europe

In one sense, it was just an effort at rebranding a party that has suffered electoral defeat, scandal and internal divisions in the past few years. This weekend, France’s main conservative party, under the leadership of former President Nicolas Sarkozy, voted to rename itself the Republicans, dropping its rather unwieldy identity as the Union for a Popular Movement.

But in adopting a name that plays much more directly to French nationalism and French history — allusions to the Republic date to the French Revolution — the party was also offering the latest evidence of the ways in which the far-right National Front is reshaping politics in France two years before the next presidential election.

The Republicans’ tone on limiting immigration and especially on benefits for those who come to France, and on banning the wearing of religious symbols in universities, including the head scarves worn by Muslim women, are clear responses to the success of the National Front’s anti-immigration positions. Since the term immigrant is often code here for “Muslim,” it also plays to the National Front’s view that there is a frightening “Islamization” happening in the country.

“Something is changing on social issues,” Mr. Guenolé said. “It is not droitizaition,” he said, using the French word for the turn to the right. “It is Le Penization. Becoming closer and closer to Le Penisme, the thinking of Jean Marie Le Pen, which is an ideology of hatred against Jews, Arabs, and foreigners,” he said, referring to Ms. Le Pen’s father, the National Front’s founder, whose views on foreigners continue to dominate the party despite efforts by his daughter to push him to the margins.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/31/world/europe/in-france-a-partys-name-change-tracks-a-drift-to-the-right-in-europe.html