After the November 2012 party congress, the UMP experienced internal fractioning and was plagued by monetary scandals which forced its president Jean-François Copé to resign.

After Sarkozy's re-election as UMP president in November 2014, he put forward an amendment to change the name of the party to The Republicans, which was approved and came into effect on 30 May 2015.

After their defeat in the 1997 legislative election, the RPR and UDF created the Alliance for France in order to coordinate the actions of their parliamentary groups.

In the 2004 European Parliament election on 13 June 2004, the UMP also suffered another heavy blow, winning 16.6% of the vote, far behind the Socialist Party (PS), and only 16 seats.

Nicolas Sarkozy rapidly announced that he would take over the presidency of the UMP and resign his position as finance minister, ending months of speculation.

The failure of the referendum on the European Constitution on 25 May 2005 led to the fall of the government of Jean-Pierre Raffarin and to the formation of a new cabinet, presided by another UMP politician, Dominique de Villepin.

[9] In July, the UMP's national council approved an amendment to the party's statute allowing for a collegial leadership around three vice-presidents (Jean-Pierre Raffarin, Jean-Claude Gaudin and Pierre Méhaignerie) and a secretary-general (Patrick Devedjian) and two associate secretaries-general.

On 9 March 2008, municipal and cantonal elections, the party performed quite poorly, losing numerous cities, such as Toulouse and Strasbourg, as well as eight departmental presidencies to the left.

Xavier Bertrand was selected as secretary-general of the party in late 2008 to replace Patrick Devedjian, who resigned to take up a cabinet position.

[10] In the 2009 European Parliament election on 7 June 2009, the UMP ran common lists with its junior allies including Jean-Louis Borloo's Radical Party, the New Centre and Modern Left.

In a cabinet reshuffle in November 2010, which disappointed centrists within and outside the UMP, François Fillon was confirmed prime minister and Alain Juppé re-joined the government.

[11][12] The party suffered another major electoral defeat in the 2011 cantonal elections held on 20 and 27 March 2011, and in September, the centre-right lost control of the French Senate for the first time in the history of the Fifth Republic.

Prior to Sarkozy's defeat on 6 May, the UMP's secretary-general Jean-François Copé announced that he supported the creation of internal "movements" within the party[17] and the organisation of primaries for the next presidential election.

[citation needed] The vote on 18 November saw high turnout but was quickly marred by allegations of irregularities and potential fraud on both sides.

Fillon's announced "precautionary seizure" of ballots cast "to protect them from tampering or alteration"[41] and threatened to take the matter to court.

[46] 'Unaligned' members of the UMP led by Bruno Le Maire and Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet appealed for the organisation of a new election in the spring of 2013 and a reform of the party statutes.

The party's leadership was reorganized in January 2013 to accommodate Copé and Fillon's supporters: Laurent Wauquiez and Valérie Pécresse joined Luc Chatel and Michèle Tabarot as vice-president and secretary-general respectively.

Christian Estrosi, Gérard Longuet, Henri de Raincourt (pro-Fillon), Jean-Claude Gaudin, Brice Hortefeux and Roger Karoutchi (pro-Copé) also became vice-presidents.

[51] The scandal allegations that Sarkozy diverting tens of millions of euros which was intended to be spent on his failed 2012 re-election campaign and then hiring a PR firm to cover it up.

With the name already chosen Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet, vice president of the UMP, presented Nicolas Sarkozy and the party's political bureau a project of new statutes.

[54] The new name was adopted by the bureau on 5 May 2015 and approved by the party membership on 28 May by an online yes vote of 83.28% on a 45.74% participation after a court ruling in favor of Sarkozy.

It said that work, merit, innovation and personal initiative must be encouraged to reduce unemployment and boost economic growth; but at the same time, it maintained that adherence to the rule of law and the authority of the state is necessary.

He developed the idea of "working more to earn more", promising that overtime hours would not be taxed and employers exonerated from non-wage labour costs.

[62] Under his presidency, the government's short-lived tax cap for high-income earners was denounced by the left but also several centrist and centre-right politicians within or outside the UMP.

[63][64] The UMP's original statutes in 2002 allowed for the organisation of formal factions or movements within the party, to represent the various political families of which it was made up.

According to the party's statutes, motions backed by at least 10 parliamentarians from 10 departmental federations and which obtain at least 10% support from members at a congress are recognised as movements.

[65] Six motions representing various ideological tendencies within the party ran to be recognised as official movements following the November 2012 congress.

[70] The party is also strong in every election in very wealthy suburban or coastal (and, in some cases, urban) areas such as Neuilly-sur-Seine (72.6% for Sarkozy in the first round),[71] Saint-Tropez (54.79%),[72] Cannes (48.19%)[73] or Marcq-en-Barœul (47.35%).